“Everyone is in favor of free speech… but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.” ― Winston Churchill
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.
Iceland’s de facto bankruptcy—its currency (the krona) is kaput, its debt is 850 percent of G.D.P., its people are hoarding food and cash and blowing up their new Range Rovers for the insurance—resulted from a stunning collective madness. What led a tiny fishing nation, population 300,000, to decide, around 2003, to re-invent itself as a global financial power? In Reykjavík, where men are men, and the women seem to have completely given up on them, the author follows the peculiarly Icelandic logic behind the meltdown.
I would suggest reading this one on AIG from the Institutional Risk Analysthttp://us1.institutionalriskanalytics.com/pub/IRAstory.asp?tag=351The writers seem to think that there is a real possibility that a lot of the credit default swaps originated by AIG were fraudulent and were window dressing to goose up capital ratios.
I would suggest reading this one on AIG from the Institutional Risk Analysthttp://us1.institutionalriskanalytics.com/pub/IRAstory.asp?tag=351The writers seem to think that there is a real possibility that a lot of the credit default swaps originated by AIG were fraudulent and were window dressing to goose up capital ratios.