Link UK releases final report on ring fencing. This goes back to 2008 and the banking crisis which Iblogged extensively. The government intention was de-risking banks balance sheets from using retail money to support complex and high risk vehicles that initiated that crisis, particularly the US mortgage one. i recall gbp 640 bn off balance sheet products. Ring Fence final Mar 2022 recommends retention of ring fencing for up to gbp 25m. Continue reading Ring Fencing final report

Here is a history leading up to the Feb 28th talks in Belarus, the significant increase in sanctions and removal from SWIFT. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-ukraine-russia-us-nato-conflict/?srnd=premium Courtesy of Bloomberg. Continue reading The Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Mark Carney is a well respected professional who has held positions as Governor of the Bank of Canada, and Bank of England. He was advisor to the UK government for COP26. His opinion counts and article he published in the Globe and Mail is worth reading. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-mark-carney-end-freedom-convoy-ottawa-state-of-emergency/ This opinion piece should be read in context of the comparison between Toronto and Ottawa this past weekend. Toronto – a superb example of professional policing, including crowd management and working with the demonstrators and institution of rules and guidelines. Ottawa – chaos. Trucks honking (100 decibels), blocked roads interference and threatening behaviour … Continue reading The extreme politicisation of vaccines is now pervasive in Canada

The Greensill bank saga has reminiscent Similarities to 2008 crisis The canary in the 2008 crisis coal mine was a little known failure of a French Mutual fund to make payments. This followed failure of US mortgage lenders to pay their bills. Fast forward to February and March 2021 and these snippets of the Greensill Bank timeline. Their failure see Credit Suisse laying off employees, German municipalities unable to payout bond holders, and corporate losses. Greensill is in Supply Side financing business. That’s a fancy name forty old style factoring or receivable financing. It is off balance sheet. This is … Continue reading The Greensill bank saga is reminiscent of the 2008 crisis

We are just beginning to understand and see the impact of a populist government compared to the tried and true democratic parliamentary process. Here are some recent victims which contribute to financial instability in the world.: Mark Esper Defense secretary fired by Donald Trump for challenging Trumps desire to use military against the public. Richard Haas makes the point this morning on CNN that this change is from one unknown to an unknown replacement. This move suggests Trump wants a pliable resource at Defence to facilitate Trumps next move which coulee be anything from troop movement to joint Israel attack … Continue reading Populist goverment quickly becomes authoritarian and unstable

I think this introduction to the Monocle 2021 Forecast represents a healthy dose of reality after the intense Trump days. We’ll start by coming clean on a glaring omission within our pages: you won’t find much in here about US leadership from January 2021 onwards. While some print-media brands have chosen to push their publication dates back to wait for a result, we decided to press on for a variety of reasons. First, because it’s a big, wide world and there’s more to focus on than the US. Second, there are more pressing issues and ideas that need airtime. And … Continue reading The Monocle 2021 Forecast intro represents a healthy dose of reality

The QR code in typical North American style where everything internet is seen as marketing, actually formed the core of Ant’s payment acquiring approach. Courtesy of John Gapper – FT The name Masahiro Hara does not appear with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates on lists of great innovators of the communications age, but perhaps it should, writes John Gapper in the FT. For the Japanese engineer’s humble, unassuming invention, the Quick Response code, has finally found its moment. The square QR code, which Mr Hara developed in 1994 to track components in car factories, is being put to many uses … Continue reading Masahiro Hara Inventor of QR code