Dorothea Lange Resettlement project, Bosque Farms, New Mexico Dec 1935 The EU and ECB claim they conducts their stress tests and Asset Quality Reviews to restore confidence in the banking sector. That is easier said than done. The problem with the confidence boosting game is that if the tests are perceived as not strong enough, nobody knows which banks to trust anymore. And, on the other hand, if the tests are sufficiently stringent, there’s a genuine risk not many banks
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John Vachon Beer signs on truck, Little Falls, Minnesota Oct 1940 • 25 European Banks Fail Stress Test (NY Times) • Testing Europe’s Stress Tests (Bloomberg) • Europe Stess Tests Tests Could Trigger A Near-Term Crisis (MarketWatch) • America Stems Flow Of Funds As China Stalls And Eurozone Retreats (Observer) • Don’t Buy A Home (MarketWatch) • Brazilians Vote for Leader as Polls Show Nation Divided (Bloomberg) • Ukraine Votes in Wartime Ballot Set to Back Pro-EU Forces (Bloomberg) •
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DPC Luna Park, Coney Island 1905 • An Economy Based On Property Has Much To Fear (Independent) • Lenders Facing Soaring Costs Shutting Out U.S. Homebuyers (Bloomberg) • It Shouldn’t Hurt This Much to Get a Mortgage (Ritholtz) • Paying For Bad Habits: Hookers And Drugs Lift UK’s EU Bill (Guardian) • UK Chancellor Osborne’s Choice Of Words Is Sounding Alarm Bells (Guardian) • A Mystery Bidder Offers $3 Million for 6,000 of Detroit’s Worst Homes (BW) • Spanish Accuse
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Russell Lee Sharecropper mother teaching children in home, Transylvania, LA. Jan 1939 Europe is fast turning into a freak comedy show. Very fast. Or maybe we should say it’s always been one, and it’s just that the Larry, Curly and Moe moves are only now coming out in droves. Or maybe, what do I know, we’re just starting to understand how much talent for farce and slapstick the boys from Brussels have always had. Just Wednesday, I wrote in 40%
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Jack Delano Family of Dennis Decosta, Portuguese Farm Security Administration client Dec 1940 • The Zombie System: How Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails (Spiegel) • Fed’s $4 Trillion Holdings Keep Boosting Growth Beyond End of QE (Bloomberg) • EU Tells Britain To Pay Extra €2.1 Billion Because It Does Well (FT) • EU Agrees To Budget Talks After £1.7 Billion Cash Demand On UK (BBC) • Renzi Vs Barroso Over EU’s Budget Letter (FT) • EU Agrees Target To
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Jack Delano. Cars being precooled at the ice plant, San Bernardino, CA Mar 1943 Large and/or institutional investors, your pension funds, your market funds, you name them, have one glaringly obvious and immense Achilles heel that they very much prefer not to talk about. That is, they MUST invest their funds, in something, anything, they can’t NOT invest. They are trapped in the game. They have to roll over debt, investments, all the time. In today’s markets, they can move
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DPC Bromfield Street in Boston 1908 • Bond Funds Stock Up On Treasuries In Prep For Market Shock (Reuters) • Investors Pull Shale Money, Put Brakes on Wall Street-Funded Boom (Bloomberg) • Solid Majority In US Says Country ‘Out Of Control’ (CNBC) • It Will Take 398,879,561 Years To Pay Off The US Government Debt (Black) • Don’t Be Distracted by the Pass Rate in ECB’s Bank Exams (Bloomberg) • Why It’s Now Too Late For Germany To Rescue The
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David Myers Theatre on 9th Street. Washington, DC July 1939 Reuters has had a busy day today reporting on Europe’s banks and the stress tests the European Banking Authority is set to unveil on Sunday. And which put the EU and ECB on a see-saw like balancing act between credibility and panic. The news bureau started off in the early morning citing a report by Spanish news agency Efe, which said 11 banks would fail the tests: 11 Banks To
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Russell Lee Migrant family in trailer home near Edinburg, Texas Feb 1939 • At Least 11 Banks To Fail European Stress Tests (Reuters) • All the Markets Need Is $200 Billion a Quarter From the Central Bankers (BW) • What Would It Take To Trigger The ‘Fed Put’? (MarketWatch) • Currency Wars Evolve With Goal of Avoiding, Exporting Deflation (Bloomberg) • Are Belgium, Finland And France The ‘New Periphery’ In Europe? (CNBC) • EU To Warn France And Italy On
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Dorothea Lange Rear window tenement dwelling, 133 Avenue D, NYC June 1936 I am thinking about the similarities between a financial crisis and for instance a family crisis, the death of a loved one or close friend, a divorce, or a personal bankruptcy. And I wonder why in the case of our recent (aka current) financial crisis, we allow nothing to enter our communications, and our train of thought, but the idea of recovery and a return to growth. Has
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