Philippe Herlin

The collapse of four regional Italian banks (Banca Etruria, CariChieti, Banca Marche and Carife) is starting to take on alarming proportions.

Everyone must now be made aware that if a bank goes bankrupt, it will have the legal right to bail itself out by taking money out of your account, whether it’s in France or, very soon, in all European countries.

A crisis is not limited to a stock market decline because in such a case, an evaluation of the absorption capacity can be made and a return to normalcy is possible. It is also caused by a major default of an entity with no hope for recovery that may trigger a destructive domino effect. In short,...

The financial markets are “officially” and “with benevolence” manipulated by the central banks (zero rates, QE...) and illegally, in secret, by the largest banks... How can one trust the prices on those markets?

From now on, when a European bank goes bankrupt, the shareholders shall be the first to foot the bill (makes sense), then the holders of bonds issued by the bank (also makes sense) will be next in line, and if this isn’t enough, the bank will be allowed to use the money in their clients’ accounts...

The veil is being ripped... the Shanghai stock market crash reveals what the global financial markets would not dare admit: Chinese growth has vanished. Everyone was trying to believe that the official rate of 7% was real, that we could pin our hopes on it, that it would be the engine of the glob...

There is not much risk in betting that this number is cooked, largely under-estimated, and that the financial media will be out of superlatives when the next official announcement is closer to reality.

An article in the Swiss newspaper Bilan published last week states that the weight of gold in the global economy amounts to $172 billion. This is a relatively modest number, slightly lower than Apple’s annual turnaround, for example. Is that all that gold weighs?

“Financial repression” destroys the economy from within. When an over-indebted country is unable to reduce its deficit (or refuses to do it in order to continue financing its voting constituency) it exposes itself to market defiance and fleeing investors. In spite of that, in order to avoid this...

The media silence should be noted regarding those bankruptcies in Austria, Germany, Andorra (always coming with the risk of contagion) and maybe Greece...

No, the crisis is not over and, from now on, banks will be bailed out by shareholders, bond holders and savers, and it will all be legal. Be warned.

Let’s follow Alan Greenspan’s advice and be certain that, once the – very abrupt – exit from the QE plans is realised

The massive deluge of liquidity from central banks in Europe, Japan and the United States (more QE, albeit with zero interest rate) is provoking a general crash in the risk premiums, which renders the markets practically blind.

The sudden burst of panic provoked last week by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) reveals that we have all become so addicted to the central banks’ doings that it is turning pathological.

Greece is, once again, shaking the foundations of the Eurozone, and there is, again, talk of a “Grexit”. Stock markets are tumbling and fear the results of the January 25 anticipated elections.

Kudos to Shinzo Abe who just got brilliantly re-elected despite a largely negative balance sheet! His party took two-thirds of the seats of the House of Representatives, a clear victory. The moniker “Abenomics”, a contraction of his name and economics, is known all around the world. Wow, what a t...

This news should have made the front page but it was hardly mentioned at all: Italy’s public debt is just a notch away from the speculative category!

A YES vote would have acted like a thunder strike and brought about a complete turnaround of the lax monetary policies of Switzerland, Europe (ECB), the United States and Japan. But, sadly, this won’t be the case. Let’s try to understand why.

Swiss bank accounts are not absolutely safe anymore, as several clients of the Portuguese group Banco Espirito Santo are finding out at their own expense.

In Luxembourg and Germany, some banks have started to apply negative interest rates on deposits: In other words, they are charging interest on deposits!