Daily Archives: June 18, 2012

Greece and the Rest of the Eurozone Remain on the Road to Hell

By Marshall Auerback

So for the short term, it appears we won’t have a “Grexit”, which has led many commentators to suggest (laughably) that a crisis has been averted. Typical of this sentiment is a headline in Bloomberg today  “Greece avoids chaos; Big Hurdles Loom”. To paraphrase Pete Townsend, meet the new chaos, same as the old chaos. It is worth pondering how acceptance of the Troika’s program (even if cosmetic adjustments are made) will help hospitals get access to essential medical supplies (see here), whilst the government persists in enforcing a program which is killing its private sector by cutting spending and not paying legitimate bills, and an unemployment rate creeps towards 25 per cent and 50 per cent for youth.  Continue reading

Dimon’s Dictum: “Poorly underwritten loans represent income today and losses tomorrow.”

By William K. Black

The aphorism is by Jamie Dimon. I took it from his March 30, 2012 Letter to shareholders (p. 8).  The immediately preceding sentence was: “Low-quality revenue is easy to produce, particularly in financial services.” Continue reading