Data & financial journalist covering global economics and policy
This article is meant for people who have avoided the topic of Bitcoin for long ‘simply’ because they got too tied up in the complex jargons. Well, since Bitcoin and Ven will be something that could be a threat to traditional money markets, we might as well start understanding and using the terms more often.
The year 2008 marked the advent of a financial crisis that began with a subprime scandal and mistakes made by credit rating agencies followed by the excesses of a financial capitalism that got seriously off track. This included the dissimulation of risks, unverified and highly complicated financial instruments, legal loopholes and the persistence of tax havens attracting a share of world savings that would be more justly used to finance investments and growth.In 2008, IMF had reported that these terrible lapses will cost the international banking system about a trillion dollars in the long-term.
A bank failure leads to an economic failure and in the past many similar failures have been faced all across the world but lessons are yet to be learnt. The recession of 2007-2013 is difference from previous depressions and bank failures simply because we are more globally connected and products like currency derivatives have just made banking across the world globally connected. This article looks at the Central banking system, focuses on shadow banking and breezes through the issue of systemic risk.
The Budget Control Act was a poison-pill deal designed to force them to find a less austere compromise, but political power struggle meant no deal was done, and the deadline arrived. A combination of expiring tax cuts and across-the-board government spending cuts scheduled to become effective December 31, 2012 defines ‘fiscal cliff’.