Remember him?: The risks have not gone away since Hank Paulson was US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Hank. Remember him? Of the crisis in 2008, he said: “Where I come from, if someone takes a risk and they’re going to make the profit from that risk, they shouldn’t have the taxpayer pay for the losses.” […]

Why global central bankers’ great monetary experiment is about to explode. During the past eleven years, we have witnessed unprecedented manipulation of stock, bond, and property prices by global central banks. The inflation of these grotesque asset bubbles will not end well as indicators in the USA point towards an economic recession. For the past […]

  It’s different this time, or is it? The US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank have become gargantuan, out-of-control, rogue hedge funds. Global central banks have magicked-up hundreds of trillions of dollars in debt and guarantees. Global stock market valuations are stratospheric—buoyed by stock buybacks, funded by record corporate […]

As the initial shocks of the financial crisis of 2008-09 began to subside, policy makers – shattered by the scale and velocity of what they had just witnessed – started to think about earthquake prevention measures: how to stop the same thing happening all over again, One of the simplest, and best, such suggestions came […]

At yet another select committee recently – they’ve been doing a good job – Vince Cable was grilled about the huge leap in the Royal Mail’s stock market value. As you’ll remember, the firm was floated at 330p a share and traded as high as 600p in November, a rise of 82% in a few […]

Henry Paulson. “Hank”. Remember him? Lean, balding, the flared nostrils of a man perpetually haunted by the memory of having to clean dog’s mess from the shoes of his neighbour’s children. Of the crisis in 2008, he said, “Where I come from, if someone takes a risk and they’re going to make the profit from […]

On 15 September 2008, Lehman Brothers, a “bulge bracket” investment bank, filed for bankruptcy. That should have been no big deal. The failure of a single, poorly run institution should have had no broader effect on the domestic US economy, let alone the global one. Things didn’t pan out that way. Lehman Brothers was the […]

  The return of the undead Berlusconi to return to Italian politics. Mario Monti to quit (and return to Goldman Sachs for a annual honorarium of $50,000,000). The Italian long bond to go to 600 basis points over bunds. Investors to notice that Italy is still in the position of having massive debts and a […]

Earlier this week, on 21 May, the Financial Times ran a short piece which opened thus: ‘There has been no official announcement. No terms or conditions have been disclosed. But Greece’s banking system is being propped up by an estimated €100bn or so of emergency liquidity provided by the country’s central bank – approved secretly […]