Wednesday, March 2, 2011

How To Carve A Pine Wood Derby

Mervyn King (Bank of England) and Charles Ferguson ("Inside Job") surprised

We truly live in exciting times when the boss of a Western central bank to publicly wonder that the anger of people against banks not greater, and a member of life of the CFR and Oscar Prize winner suggests that one should put half of the top management of major U.S. banks in the jail.

Mervyn King (BoE):



Charles Ferguson (damals in Cannes, 2010):

" Where do you see things going? Do you think current regulatory bills will help?

Not much. They don’t address the core problems. However, I think there is an increasingly popular anger and revulsion at this situation, and that will translate into increased political pressure. I think there’s a strong case to be made that if you put half of the top management of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Bros, Merrill Lynch and Bear Sterns in prison, that you would not have to make much regulatory change, at all "

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Flea Bites On Dog Belly

Banca d'Italia and the gold

While the U.S. FED as" conspiracy theory "is to say they would be in private ownership (I myself am in this regard agnostic), it is in Italy officially Sun there is the central bank to the commercial banks. Zero hedge to quotes the Financial Time that says that the " by a quirk of law " is such , that is due to a "mood of the law " (such as laws just as upfront ...). The shareholders are here: http://www.bancaditalia.it/bancaditalia/funzgov/gov/partecipanti/Partecipanti.pdf
The FT now reports that attempt to Italian banks, the move Banca d'Italia to evaluate the held gold reserves so new that the shares of the Central Bank may be rated higher, to turn capital in the context Savings of BaselIII to (quoted by ZH):

" The Bank of Italy currently has a nominal value of just € 156,000 ($ 215,000) divided into 300 000 shares Which are distributed among Italy's retail and savings banks according to their size .

Senior bankers say taking into account the surge in gold prices the Bank of Italy could have a mark-to-market value of about €30bn. Analysts estimate the Italian banking sector has combined recapitalisation needs of much the same amount to comply with new Basel III capital rules.

Any debate over the value of the Bank of Italy has met with opposition from the central bank concerned that it could harm governance. For the same reason, executives at Italy’s banks are not involved in the central bank’s decision-making process.

But several sources familiar with the talks say Italy’s banking lobby is gaining political traction amid opposition from its core shareholders, the local banking foundations, to capital increases as they fear a dilution of their stakes.

Italy’s So government has indicated there is a political will to reduce the need for Italian banks to access the capital markets "