Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
In China, the invisible hand of the market sometimes needs help from the iron fist of the state. That’s certainly true after a meltdown vaporized $3.5 trillion in the value of shares traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges. President Xi Jinping’s government isn’t being subtle in its campaign to reflate the bubble it had a big…
Greece requested a new three-year bailout from its skeptical eurozone creditors and pledged some economic overhauls on Wednesday, but the euphoria some Greeks felt after Sunday’s “no” vote on the last deal was fading fast. Whether European leaders accept the Greek government’s application for more emergency loans at a crisis summit Sunday still depends on Prime Minister…
“The lesson of this crisis is more Europe, not less Europe,” Angela Merkel said in 2012 as the integrity of the region’s monetary union was threatened by financial instability, touched off by Greek debt, that was spreading through the euro zone’s weaker economies. By “more Europe,” the German chancellor meant a deepening of the continent’s…
Ladies and gentlemen, behold the first sighting of the new Greek drachma: Between June 28 and July 4 at a Hilton hotel in Athens, transactions on a Bloomberg reporter’s Visa credit card issued by Citigroup Inc. were posted as being carried out in “Drachma EQ.” The inexplicable notation — bear in mind, the euro remains Greece’s…
On Tuesday, Latvia’s central bank chief Ilmars Rimsevics called the introduction of a new currency in Greece the “most realistic scenario.” The country is in its second week of capital controls and banks remain shut in the wake of a referendum which saw some 61% of Greeks vote against the terms of the latest bailout…
The turmoil in China’s stock market is so bad that some companies are calling it quits. Over 700 Chinese companies have halted trading to “self preserve,” according to the state media. That means about a quarter of the companies listed on China’s two big exchanges — the Shanghai and Shenzhen — are no longer trading….
A New York judge on Monday threw out charges accusing a former computer programmer of stealing code from Goldman Sachs, bringing a six-year battle toward a close and highlighting how America’s legal system has failed to keep up with the rapid changes of the digital age. In the end, the protracted trial of Sergey Aleynikov,…
After failing to criminally prosecute any of the financial firms responsible for the market collapse in 2008, former attorney general Eric Holder is returning to Covington & Burling, a corporate law firm known for serving Wall Street clients. The move completes one of the more troubling trips through the revolving door for a cabinet secretary. Holder worked at Covington…
German Chancellor Angela Merkel toasts with beer in Dachau, August 20, 2013. REUTERS/Michael Dalder Stop me if you’ve heard this one. The Greeks, Italians, Spaniards and Irish walk into a bar, where the French and Germans are the bartenders. It’s happy hour, and the Germans and the French are serving half-price drinks. Although everyone quickly…
By heeding their government’s advice and voting “No” in the referendum on Sunday, Greek citizens sent an unambiguous message. Much like the fictional Americans portrayed in the movie “Network” who threw open their windows and shouted out, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore,” the Greeks are demanding that…