Expanding the Legacy
Expanding the Legacy
The US Federal Reserve celebrated the death of inflation with a bold interest rate cut. As the Federal Open Market Committee mulled its next move during a highly-anticipated meeting yesterday, its twelve members just hoped, and perhaps even prayed (this is, after all, America), that the reports of inflation’s death are not ‘greatly exaggerated’. The benchmark federal fund rate receded to five percent.
The withdrawal of banks from the high streets and neighbourhood corners is unsurprising. Today, most banks derive no more than three percent of their turnover from ‘traditional’ business operations such as fees and lending depositors’ cash to companies wishing to expand or families looking to buy a home. In 2022, the total assets of the financial sector in the UK amounted to a truly staggering $16.88 trillion - well over five time the aggregate output of the country’s entire economy. Those assets comprise mostly claims on other banks.
He lapped up life daringly, mastered the art of rebellion, and looked far beyond the horizon to find adventure and clam his restless soul. Just before the implacable woke crowd could ‘cancel’ him, biographer Sue Prideaux snatched Paul Gauguin from its claws. The French postimpressionist painter seemed ripe for the picking: the perfect candidate to be knocked off his pedestal, thrown from his perch, and relegated to the scrapheap of art history. It was not for a lack of trying that the über politically correct posse failed in its pursuit.
To placate its critics, the German government has temporarily reasserted control over the country’s borders. The measure is meant to stem the flow of immigrants entering the country to submit unfounded asylum claims. As of tomorrow, checks will take place on incoming traffic by roving border patrols.
The Republican campaign for the presidency is being shredded by an epic catfight between Trump groupies vying for the love and attention of their idol. Get the popcorn! Also: Kamala Harris Takes Advice from Chinese Sage and American Cheapskates Fail to Pay Up for Defence of Ukraine.
Whichever way US voters decide on election day, it’s the day after that causes most concern. A win by Donald Trump is unlikely to be contested by his opponents but promises to usher in a man who vowed to don the mantle of a dictator on his first day in office. Conversely, it is a foregone conclusion that a loss will be bitterly contested by Mr Trump.
When the going gets tough, Christine Lagarde has often been called upon to broker a deal or find the solution to a conundrum that baffles lesser minds. In a word: she gets going and likens that to being suspended from a ‘glass cliff’ – as opposed to bumping against a glass ceiling – a phenomenon whereby a complex and hazardous job is handed to a woman, making her success improbable, and affording men a measure of plausible deniability.
The Russia of President Vladimir Putin is becoming more isolated by the day as outpourings of indignation reach a fever pitch over the apparently indiscriminate bombing of Ukrainian cities and towns.
In a matter of days, Russia was unceremoniously cut off from the global financial system. Credit and debit cards stopped working, as did Apple Pay and a host of other services. Both Visa and Mastercard blocked Russian financial institutions from accessing their network.
The rouble took a pounding of note, losing almost a third of its value as soon as forex markets opened Monday morning. Equity trading was suspended whilst Russian financial authorities pondered the extent of the sanctions imposed over the weekend.
In the early morning of Thursday, Russian missiles rained down on Ukrainian military installations as markets in the far East opened for business and promptly took a beating in a rolling barrage that soon swept Europe and beyond. Stocks went down across the board whilst bond yields expanded on investor...
Already jittery markets, largely without direction, are braced for a near-perfect storm as central banks taper their bond buying spree and shelling across the ‘line of separation’ in Ukraine intensifies – a possible presage to an all-out war on a scale not fought in Europe since World War II. Meanwhile,...
Before the shooting starts anew, let’s mention the war. Not the war we know, but the one that lives on in the often-indecipherable psyche of Russia, laced as it is with nostalgia and wounded pride. Widely recognised in the West as the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany, Operation...
Central bankers are caught between their natural inclination to get a grip on inflation and a fear of abruptly deflating asset prices. In other words: the temptation to avoid engineering a bust after the post-lockdown boom.
She called it a ‘beautiful sight to behold’ when student protesters stormed the building that houses the Hong Kong Legislative Council. Now Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi is at a loss to explain why the spectacle of a mob assaulting the Capitol did not meet her approval....
Earlier this week, the first lithium-ion battery cell rolled off the assembly line of Europe’s newest so-called gigafactory – a novel phenomenon usually defined as a manufacturing plant capable of churning out at least 15 gigawatt hours of cumulative battery storage. The facility, owned by the Volkswagen-backed startup Northvolt and...