By Bill Blain of Mint Parnters
"The Braavosi have a saying too. The Iron Bank will have its due....”
One of the things that’s been niggling me for years has been the question of just how unfixed the European banking sector is.
This morning I’ve attached a note my associate Ben Stheeman and I have put together on Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) in Second Tier European Banking. It’s a simple look at the publically available numbers.
Picking up where he left off last week, when Bill Gross told Bloomberg that U.S. markets are at their highest risk levels since before the 2008 financial crisis "because investors are paying a high price for the chances they’re taking", in his latest monthly investment outlook, the Janus Henderson bond manager says that investors should be wary as low interest rates, aging populations and global warming which inhibit real economic growth and intensify headwinds facing financial markets:
In an unexpected statement made by the former COO of Goldman Sachs and current director of Trump's National Economic Council, Gary Cohn told a private meeting with lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday evening that he could support legislation breaking up the largest U.S.
Submitted by Thorstein Polleit via The Mises Institute,
The US is by far the biggest economy in the world. Its financial markets — be it equity, bonds or derivatives markets — are the largest and most liquid. The Greenback is the most important transaction currency. Many currencies in the world — be it the euro, the Chinese renminbi, the British pound or the Swiss franc — have actually been built upon the US dollar.
Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
In the late 1400s, the city-states of Italy were among most dominant powers in the world.
Most of the city-states had abandoned the feudal system that persisted across Europe.
So Italy was one of the only places on the continent where anyone, including foreigners, could work hard, take risks, and become wealthy.
People could start businesses and own private property– revolutionary concepts in the 1400s.