Financial crisis

According to the Bank of Italy, of the 255 billion euros borrowed from the ECB through the LTRO, italian banks only reimbursed 15%, or 38 billion euros. So, there still remains 217 billion euros to be paid in 2014... and for Spain, the amounts are just about the same.

Only 40 european banks have disappeared since the 2008 financial crisis, compared to almost 500 in the United States. The governments have decided to keep their banks alive, and this has caused the healing process to slow down.

Andrew Huszar: Confessions of a Quantitative Easer. We went on a bond-buying spree that was supposed to help Main Street. Instead, it was a feast for Wall Street.

Even if its goals are laudable, a tough regulation always generates perverse effects. Such is the case with Basel III, and it’s a shame, because it’s the solidity of our banks that is concerned.

With the shutdown absurd showdown – temporarily – over, we are now faced with having to re-evaluate the U.S. debt in depth. Is it still a safe, risk-free asset, with the Fed backing it forever with new money? This is an important question.

As we’ve been saying at the time, the spoliation of bank accounts in Cyprus this last March to save their banks was but a general rehearsal. We’ve also learned that there is a european proposal on the table to have depositors of over 100,000 euros contribute should there be a bank bailout in a Euroz...

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s decision to go ahead with unabated quantitative easing (QE) seems to have taken many by surprise. To such an extent that, from now on, the major market participants are saying they have totally lost faith in Ben Bernanke. True, Ben Bernanke has been saying constantly, fo...

With the upcoming German national elections, the problems in the Eurozone have been left aside. Angela Merkel doesn’t want to lose some voters by talking about it. Her finance minister slipped, during the campaign, saying that Greece will have to be helped again but, not to worry, with only 10 billi...

We are now back to the “green shoots” era of false hope and total misunderstanding of the real state of the world economy. There are minor tidbits of good news that combined with manipulated and seasonally adjusted economic figures are giving politicians worldwide reason for spreading their optimist...

Mish, you write a lot of commentaries about the European economic crisis, going from bad to worse. For instance Portuguese Bond Yield Spiked to 8%, How do you see the European situation evolve in the coming months Do you expect more bail-ins in the Eurozone?