Word: bankes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There's absolute agreement that banks have to be recapitalized. Britain, for one, has already done so, offering its big banks $692 billion in capital in return for preference shares. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced this evening that the U.S. is working on a plan to go this route, saying that it intends to use some of the $700 billion rescue package passed by Congress to pour money (with some strings attached) into any bank that needs funds. But Japan and E.U. countries like Germany have been reticent...
...credit markets moving again, economists have called for governments to guarantee short-term interbank loans. "Recapitalization by itself won't fix the interbank lending market," says Roger Craine, another Berkeley professor and a former Federal Reserve economist. The big problem now is that banks are unwilling to let go of their money because of counterparty risk - the fear that the borrower may go under, sticking the bank with the loss. "If the bank you lend to has assets in a hedge fund that goes under then they are likely to go under," explains Craine. A coordinated interbank debt guarantee...
Lastly, the G-20 central banks need to unveil another coordinated rate cut to increase liquidity. The European Central Bank, for instance, has been resistant to cuts because it focuses on inflation. Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University and one of the few who predicted the extent of the current crisis, called yesterday for "at least 150 basis points (1.5 percentage points) on average globally." Roubini also backed the idea of deposit guarantees, guaranteeing interbank lending and other measures. "At this point, anything short of these radical and coordinated actions may lead to a market crash...
...incarnation as the mustache-twirling villain of the credit crunch. Britons - from private individuals to local government, charities and public bodies - have deposited some $34 billion in Iceland's financial institutions, among them Landsbanki, which went into receivership this week, and Kaupthing, the country's biggest bank, which was nationalized on Thursday. After the British government used antiterror legislation to freeze Landsbanki assets (these laws were simply "the most efficient mechanism available," a Downing Street spokesman explains), Iceland's Prime Minister Geir Haarde protested. "Not many governments would have taken that very kindly," he said. His counterpart in London appears...
That comes as something of a surprise to some local councils. There have been warnings since the beginning of the year that all was not well with Iceland's banks. As early as Jan. 30, credit-ratings agency Moody's Investors Service said it was placing on review for possible downgrade Landsbanki, Kaupthing and Glitnir, another Icelandic bank. It did indeed downgrade all three a month later. In July, Kitty Ussher, then Economic Secretary to the Treasury and now a minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, was quizzed by an influential House of Commons committee after newspapers reported...