Showing posts with label global financial crisis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label global financial crisis. Show all posts
October 27, 2018
Debt Bomb: Are We on the Brink of Another Global Financial Crisis?
September 23, 2018
Is a New Global Financial Crisis Imminent?
August 02, 2017
Dr. Richard Wolff - Is the Global Financial Crisis Close?
January 20, 2016
Fears Grow of Repeat of 2008 Financial Crash as Investors Run for Cover
Fears that the global economy could be heading for a repeat of the 2008 financial crash have sent shockwaves through financial markets – prompting a rush to safe havens by investors.
Oil prices fell to a fresh 12-year low on Wednesday and metal prices tumbled in response to warnings that China’s slowdown could derail the global recovery at a time when central banks, which came to the rescue in the credit crunch, have only limited firepower.
As world and business leaders gathered for the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the FTSE 100 was gripped by panic selling, especially of mining and oil companies that have been hit hard by the global slowdown in manufacturing and trade. Earlier this week China recorded the slowest rate of economic growth for 25 years. » | Phillip Inman, economics correspondent | Wednesday, January 20, 2016
June 07, 2013
September 04, 2012
“It just keeps getting worse,” said Alistair Thornton and Xianfang Ren from IHS Global Insight. “The government has underestimated the pace of the slowdown and is behind the curve.”
The HSBC/Markit manufacturing index for China fell to 47.6 in August, the lowest since the onset of Great Recession in late 2008. Inventories are rising. The index for new export orders fell to the lowest since March 2009. “Beijing must step up policy easing to stabilise growth,” said Hongbin Qu from HSBC.
China’s official PMI manufacturing index – weighted to big companies – also fell through the contraction line of 50, though services are holding up better.
Evidence of a hard landing over the summer is becoming clearer. Rail volumes fell 8.2pc in July from a year before. The Japanese group Komatsu said its exports of hydraulic excavators to China – a proxy gauge for Chinese construction – fell 48pc in August from a year before.
The twin effect of China’s downturn and Europe’s double-dip recession has turned into a full-blown shock for much of Asia. Hong Kong and Singapore both contracted in the second quarter and are probably in technical recession. Read on and comment » | Ambrose Evans-Pritchard | Monday, September 03, 2012
March 27, 2011
RUSSIA TODAY: Is capitalism to blame for the rise in unrest and the fall of global markets? One scholar argued yes, saying it is merely how capitalism works. Ha-Joon Chang, a senior research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and author of “23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism” argued the assumptions behind the dogma and hype of capitalism and the free market spun by the neoliberal economists since the era of Reagan are completely false. » | Friday, March 25, 2011
February 24, 2009
GLOBE AND MAIL: Harvard financial guru Niall Ferguson predicts prolonged financial hardship, even civil war, before the ‘Great Recession' ends
Harvard author and financial crisis guru Niall Ferguson has landed with a thud in Ottawa, spreading messages that could make even the most confident policy makers squirm.
The global crisis is far from over, has only just begun, and Canada is no exception, Mr. Ferguson said in an interview before delivering a presentation to public-policy think tank, Canada 2020.
Policy makers and forecasters who see a recovery next year are probably lying to boost public confidence, he said. And the crisis will eventually provoke political conflict, albeit not on the scale of a world war, but violent all the same.
“There will be blood.”
The Buy America penchant pushed by the U.S. Congress in passing the recent stimulus bill was only the tip of the iceberg.
Abu Dhabi buying Nova Chemicals at bargain-basement prices on Monday is a sign of things to come, with financial power quickly being transferred over to the world's creditors – namely sovereign wealth funds – and away from the world's debtors.
And much of today's mess is the fault of central bankers who targeted consumer-price inflation but purposefully turned a blind eye to asset inflation.
The Laurence A. Tisch professor of history at Harvard University, and author of The Ascent of Money, A Financial History of the World, sat down with The Globe and Mail's economics reporter, Heather Scoffield. >>> Heather Scoffield | Monday, February 23, 2009
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November 28, 2008
THE TELEGRAPH: Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has said in a new internet video that the international financial crisis is the result of a US war on Muslims and the Sept 11 attacks.
Zawahiri also claimed the recent security gains made by US forces in Iraq were only temporary and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's offers to negotiate with Taliban elements were a sign of his regime's weakness.
The comments in a new internet video come a week after Zawahiri compared US President-Elect Barack Obama to a "house negro" implying he did the bidding of whites.
The video, "Al-Azhar – The Lions' Den", was posted on jihadist websites earlier this week according to the SITE intelligence group, which monitors online Islamist militant propaganda.
Zawahiri said: "This crisis is one of ... the series of American economic haemorrhages after the strikes of September 11... And these ... will continue as long as the foolish American policy of wading in Muslim blood continues."
"The ones shouldering the burden are taxpayers, whose money was spent to rescue senior capitalists and to protect the fraudulent interest-based system from collapse." >>> By Ben Farmer in Kabul | November 28, 2008
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October 23, 2008
ARAB NEWS: JEDDAH: The Islamic finance system, which introduces greater discipline into the economy and links credit expansion to the growth of the real economy, is capable of minimizing the severity and frequency of financial crises, says Umer Chapra, a well-known Saudi economist and winner of the King Faisal International Prize for Islamic Studies.
“Islamic finance can also reduce the problem of subprime borrowers by providing them loans at affordable terms. This will save billions of dollars that are spent to bail out the rich bankers,” said Chapra, who at present works as adviser at the Islamic Research and Training Institute of the Islamic Development Bank.
Chapra estimated the derivatives market at $600 trillion, more than 10 times the size of the world economy.
“No wonder George Soros described derivatives as hydrogen bombs while Warren Buffett called them financial weapons of mass destruction,” he pointed out. The derivatives include credit default swaps (CDS) worth $54.6 trillion.
The Islamic economist described the present global financial crisis as the worst in four decades. “There is a lurking fear that this might be only the tip of the iceberg. A lot more may come if the crisis spreads further and leads to a failure of credit card institutions, corporations, and derivatives dealers,” he warned.
Chapra urged Muslims to establish a genuine Islamic finance system with proper checks and controls, adding that such a move would encourage others to embrace it.
The Islamic system does not allow the creation of debt through direct lending and borrowing. It rather requires the creation of debt through the sale or lease of real assets by means of its sales- and lease-based modes of financing such as murabaha, ijara, salam, istisna and sukuk.
Spelling out the regulatory regimes in the Islamic system, Chapra said: “The asset which is being sold or leased must be real, and not imaginary or notional; the seller must own and possess the goods being sold or leased; the transaction must be genuine with the full intention of giving and taking delivery; and the debt cannot be sold and thus the risk associated with it cannot be transferred to someone else.” >>> P.K. Abdul Ghafour | October 23, 2008
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October 13, 2008
REUTERS: SINGAPORE - Islamic banks have been barely bruised by the global credit crisis so far, but the worst is yet to come as falling property and commodity prices and slowing economies start to hit the sector.
As the global economy buckles, credit lines tighten and consumer confidence crumbles, Islamic institutions -- which manage an estimated $1 trillion worldwide -- will not escape the pain that is plaguing conventional lenders in the West.
Sliding commodity and property prices in predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia are likely to have a particularly strong impact on the sharia market due to the industry's heavy reliance on those assets to support deals.
"Islamic banks are heavily exposed to real estate and private equity in many of these markets," said Abdulkader Thomas, chief executive of Kuwait-based sharia advisory firm Shape Financial.
"If these markets are overpriced -- which some of them are -- then Islamic banks could well be particularly exposed."
Strict lending requirements, insistence on transparency and requirements that physical assets underpin transactions helped the Islamic industry survive the first round of the U.S. subprime mortgage meltdown, which fueled a worldwide credit crunch.
But the global financial crisis has worsened dramatically in recent weeks, sparking heavy selling of stocks, commodities and oil and threatening to plunge developed and emerging economies alike into recession.
Many companies are freezing or slashing spending and cutting jobs, and consumers are reining in spending. Economic Woes, Commodity Slump Could Hit Islamic Banks >>> By Y-Sing Liau – Analysis | Monday, October 13, 2008
REUTERS: Some Gulf Sharia Banks in Peril
SINGAPORE - Some Gulf Islamic banks could fail as frozen credit markets and slumping property prices take a toll, but government aid should save the industry from a prolonged slowdown, a leading sharia lender said on Tuesday.
Islamic banks have hardly felt the chill of the credit crisis so far. But some industry experts warn that the $1 trillion industry will not be spared from the fallout as prices of commodities, property and oil slide. All are core drivers of the Islamic financing sector.
Sharia lenders in the Gulf, unlike their peers in Asia, would be harder hit by the credit rout due to their greater direct exposure to the property market, said Badlisyah Abdul Ghani, chief executive of Malaysia's CIMB Islamic Bank.
"The sovereign-backed Islamic banks are very safe and they will be supported by the sovereign if they have problems in liquidity," Badlisyah told the Reuters Wealth Management Summit in Singapore.
"But for privately owned banks, they would feel some difficulty. Whether or not they're going to fail is anybody's guess but the expectation is that some will." >>> | October 14, 2008
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October 06, 2008
REUTERS: VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict said on Monday that the global financial crisis showed that faith in God trumped a lifetime spent pursuing material wealth.
"We see it now in the collapse of the great banks that money disappears, it's nothing," the Pontiff said.
The global financial turmoil, the worst since the Great Depression, has wiped away hundreds of billions of euros (dollars) in shareholder wealth and felled banking institutions that just months ago seemed untouchable.
The pontiff, using a biblical metaphor, said people who ignored the word of God to pursue wealth had effectively built their homes on sand instead of on a solid foundation of faith.
It was a possible reference to the collapse of the U.S. housing market, which triggered the financial crisis.
"Whoever builds his life on this reality, on material things, on success ... builds (his house) on sand. Only the word of God is the foundation of all reality," he said. [Source: Reuters] Writing by Phil Stewart; Editing by Sami Aboudi | October 6, 2008
ASSOCIATED PRESS:
Pope: Financial Crisis Shows Futility of Money >>> | October 6, 2008
THE ECONOMIC TIMES (INDIA):
Financial Crisis Shows Need for Religion in Politics: Vatican: VATICAN CITY: The financial crisis sweeping the world economy proves the need for religion in politics, Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone said on Tuesday.
"Politics needs religion," Cardinal Bertone said in a speech published by the Vatican mouthpiece L'Osservatore Romano. "When instead God is ignored, the ability to respect rights and recognise the common good begins to disappear."
Bertone, the Vatican's top diplomat and Pope Benedict XVI's right-hand man, told a conference sponsored by the US-based Aspen Institute: "Where people look solely for short-term profit, identifying it with good, they end up erasing the benefit itself."
The prelate said the "current financial crisis" and the "tragic outcomes of all political ideologies" were symptomatic of this lack.
He added: "To manage globalisation, politics not only needs an ethic inspired by religion, but also it needs for this religion to be rational. For that too, politics needs Christianity." >>> IST, Agencies | September 30, 2008
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October 02, 2008
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: The once-regional Spanish bank has shot to the front ranks of Europe's finance industry through traditional lending and savvy acquisitions.
As financial institutions worldwide struggle to stay afloat, Banco Santander -- now the euro zone's largest bank by market value -- is emerging as one of the few winners in the global economic crisis. With no exposure to toxic U.S. subprime assets, a diversified business spread across Europe and the Americas, and an estimated $68 billion in capital reserves, the bank, based in the port of Santander on Spain's northern coast, is sailing past troubled rivals.
Santander's strength has been evident in recent months as it gobbled up distressed assets across Europe. When Britain's government nationalized beleaguered mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley on Sept. 29, the Spanish bank quickly agreed to pay $1.09 billion for its retail branches and -- more important -- for control of its $37.4 billion of customer deposits.
The move on Bradford & Bingley came only days after Santander sealed a $2.24 billion acquisition of British lender Alliance & Leicester. Combined with its $16.4 billion purchase of Britain's Abbey National in 2004, the two latest acquisitions will give Santander roughly 13 percent share of Britain's home lending market. Its run of buyouts may not be over, either: The bank has made a preliminary offer for Germany's Deutsche Postbank, though it declines to comment on the potential deal. A Spanish Bank Emerges as a Winner in Global Crisis >>> By Mark Scott | October 2, 2008
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October 01, 2008
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: The banking crisis is upending American dominance of the financial markets and world politics. The industrialized countries are sliding into recession, the era of turbo-capitalism is coming to an end and US military might is ebbing. Still, this is no time to gloat.
There are days when all it takes is a single speech to illustrate the decline of a world power. A face can speak volumes, as can the speaker's tone of voice, the speech itself or the audience's reaction. Kings and queens have clung to the past before and humiliated themselves in public, but this time it was merely a United States president.
Or what is left of him.
George W. Bush has grown old, erratic and rosy in the eight years of his presidency. Little remains of his combativeness or his enthusiasm for physical fitness. On this sunny Tuesday morning in New York, even his hair seemed messy and unkempt, his blue suit a little baggy around the shoulders, as Bush stepped onto the stage, for the eighth time, at the United Nations General Assembly.
He talked about terrorism and terrorist regimes, and about governments that allegedly support terror. He failed to notice that the delegates sitting in front of and below him were shaking their heads, smiling and whispering, or if he did notice, he was no longer capable of reacting. The US president gave a speech similar to the ones he gave in 2004 and 2007, mentioning the word "terror" 32 times in 22 minutes. At the 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations, George W. Bush was the only one still talking about terror and not about the topic that currently has the rest of the world's attention.
"Absurd, absurd, absurd," said one German diplomat. A French woman called him "yesterday's man" over coffee on the East River. There is another way to put it, too: Bush was a laughing stock in the gray corridors of the UN.
The American president has always had enemies in these hallways and offices at the UN building on First Avenue in Manhattan. The Iranians and Syrians despise the eternal American-Israeli coalition, while many others are tired of Bush's Americans telling the world about the blessings of deregulated markets and establishing rules "that only apply to others," says the diplomat from Berlin. The End of Arrogance: America Loses Its Dominant Economic Role >>> By SPIEGEL Staff | September 30, 2008
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September 16, 2008
BBC: Losses on stock markets have continued after the collapse of fourth largest US investment bank, Lehman Brothers, which has filed for bankruptcy protection.
European markets opened sharply lower for a second day, with the UK's FTSE 100 and Germany's Dax both down 1.7%.
Shares in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong fell more than 5%, having been shut on Monday for public holidays.
Lehman, which may be about to sell its core assets to Barclays, is the latest victim of the global credit crunch. Global Market Turmoil Continues >>> | September 16, 2008
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April 09, 2008
THE GUARDIAN: America's mortgage crisis has spiralled into "the largest financial shock since the Great Depression" and there is now a one-in-four chance of a full-blown global recession over the next 12 months, the International Monetary Fund warned today.
The US is already sliding into what the IMF predicts will be a "mild recession" but there is mounting pessimism about the ability of the rest of the world to escape unscathed, the IMF said in its twice-yearly World Economic Outlook. Britain is particularly vulnerable, it warned, as it slashed its growth targets for both the US and the UK.
The report made it clear that there will be no early resolution to the global financial crisis.
"The financial shock that erupted in August 2007, as the US sub-prime mortgage market was derailed by the reversal of the housing boom, has spread quickly and unpredictably to inflict extensive damage on markets and institutions at the heart of the financial system," it said. IMF Says US Crisis Is 'Largest Financial Shock Since Great Depression' >>> By Heather Stewart in Washington
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback)
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