Tag: bank aggregator

“Bad Banks” for Beginners

For a complete list of Beginners articles, see the Financial Crisis for Beginners page.

What is a bad bank? . . . No, I don’t mean that kind of bad bank, with which we are all much too familiar. I mean the kind of “bad bank” that is being discussed as a possible solution to the problems in our banking sector.

In this sense, a bad bank is a bank that holds bad, or “toxic” assets, allowing some other bank to get rid of these assets and thereby become a “good bank.” Continue reading ““Bad Banks” for Beginners” →

Global Fiscal Stimulus: Should It Be An Obama Administration Priority?

The US has the opportunity – and perhaps the responsibility – to immediately retake a leadership role in global economic policy thinking, with the pressing priority of preventing the world’s recession from becoming something more serious.  But what should be Mr Obama’s priorities in this regard, for example in the run-up to the G20 summit in early April – which, given the timetable for these things, will have an unofficial dry run of sorts at the Davos meetings next week?

The obvious message could be: a large US fiscal stimulus is coming, but the rest of the world needs to do more.  In this option, Mr Obama could devote considerable effort to encouraging others to expand their government spending and/or cut taxes.

While worldwide cooperation of this form may have been a constructive thought last year at Davos, when the idea was first broached publicly by the IMF, a joint global fiscal stimulus is a glorious idea whose time has for now passed. Continue reading “Global Fiscal Stimulus: Should It Be An Obama Administration Priority?” →