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Posts Tagged ‘failing banks’

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The next big wave is breaking

Posted by seumasach on July 16, 2008

By F William Engdahl 

Asia Times

17th July, 2008

The announcement by US Treasury secretary Henry Paulson, together with Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, that the US government will bail out the two largest guarantors of the country’s housing mortgage debt – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – far from calming financial markets has confirmed what we have said repeatedly in this space: the financial tsunami that began in August 2007 in the relatively small “subprime” high-risk mortgage securitization market, far from being over, is only gathering momentum. 

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Anatomy of a bank failure: When the liquidators come calling

Posted by seumasach on July 2, 2008

Damian Paletta
Wall Street Journal
Sunday, June 8, 2008(Charleston.net)

STAPLES, Minn. — At 7 p.m. on Friday, Mayor Chris Etzler walked through the back door of First Integrity Bank. The lobby should have been closed for the weekend, but dozens of strangers in dark suits were bustling about with laptops and file boxes. Someone had just delivered 32 pizzas.

Dan Walker, a top official with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., a Washington, D.C., bank regulator, had summoned Etzler to explain what was going on: The FDIC had just taken over First Integrity.

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Northern Rock, the Pound and the Euro

Posted by seumasach on January 7, 2008

Cailean Bochanan

21st September, 2007

On Monday night the government made the decision to guarantee deposits at northern Rock. This was hailed by some as an act which sacrificed shareholders and management whilst protecting depositors. What the government had really done was was to underwrite the beleaguered bank’s liabilities whilst leaving it to dispose of its assets as it pleases. Actually this is the kind of arrangement financiers have always favoured for quite obvious reasons. Meanwhile, the depositors , if they do take Darling’s word, will end up, at best with a reimbursement deeply eroded by inflation. True to form New Labour stands behind the British oligarchy. To defend his actions Darling, recalling his student days, may have come up with a slogan like this: defend the gains of the thatcherite revolution!

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