Financial Times (August 19)
Auditors bear some blame for the financial crisis, yet little has been done to improve the quality of their audits. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) has now proposed more detailed disclosure to highlight items of concern, even when a company passes the audit. “The Securities and Exchange Commission, which has the final say, should adopt the PCAOB’s proposal. This would match similar rules passed by the UK’s Financial Reporting Council…. Pass-fail cannot distinguish accounts that pass with flying colours and those that barely scrape by. Investors deserve better – and investors are auditors’ true constituency even if managers are their employers.”
Tags: Auditors, Audits, Disclosure, Financial Crisis, Financial Reporting Council, Investors, Pass-fail, PCAOB, Quality, Rules, SEC, UK
Institutional Investor (August Issue)
“In the wake of the financial crisis a few years ago, it seemed as if the world economic order had been turned upside down” The U.S, Europe and other established markets appeared risky and emerging markets “that once seemed risky began to look like a sure bet…. Today the supposed new world order already seems, well, old. Emerging markets have been among the worst-performing asset classes this year, and capital has been flowing out at a record pace in recent weeks.”
Tags: Asset classes, Economic order, Emerging markets, Established markets, Europe, Financial Crisis, Risk, U.S.
The Economist (July 27)
“After a decade of surging growth, in which they led a global boom and then helped pull the world economy forwards in the face of the financial crisis, the emerging giants have slowed sharply.” This slowdown in emerging markets “is not the beginning of a bust. But it is a turning-point for the world economy.”
Tags: Boom, Bust, Emerging markets, Financial Crisis, Growth, Slowdown, Turning-point, World economy
Washington Post (May 13, 2013)
“It’s been five years since the onset of the financial crisis — the rescue of Bear Stearns in March 2008 — and we still don’t know whether the financial system is safe.” Progress has clearly been made, but whether it’s sufficient or even the right sort remains very much to be seen. “Will Dodd-Frank save capitalism or suffocate it? It may be years before we know.”
The Economist (May 1, 2013)
“Youth unemployment is a big and growing problem.” With a few exceptions, such as Germany, youth unemployment has been grown worse since the 2008 financial crisis. “Globally nearly 290 million young people are neither working nor studying calculates the Economist, almost a quarter of the planet’s youth.”
Tags: Financial Crisis, Germany, Studying, Unemployment, Working, Youth
Washington Post (October 24)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its World Economic Outlook. It predicts that during the next four years, the U.S. “will be the strongest of the world’s rich economies. U.S. growth is forecast to average 3 percent, much stronger than that of Germany or France (1.2 percent) or even Canada (2.3 percent). Increasingly, the evidence suggests that the United States has come out of the financial crisis of 2008 in better shape than its peers — because of the actions of its government.”
Tags: Canada, Financial Crisis, France, Germany, Government, Growth, IMF, U.S., World Economic Outlook
Forbes (March 30)
Derivatives contributed to the last financial crisis and “may still endanger the financial system.” Based on FDIC records, U.S. banks hold derivative instruments with “a nominal value of $250 trillion – or about 150 times the aggregate balance sheet equity of these same banks.”
Tags: Banks, Derivatives, FDIC, Financial Crisis, U.S.
New York Times (March 11, 2012)
The proposed JOBS Act (an acronym for Jumpstart our Business Startups) is “a terrible package of bills that would undo essential investor protections, reduce market transparency and distort the efficient allocation of capital.” Amazed by the utter lack of memory, the New York Times stands opposed. “We know memories are short in Washington. But Enron was just 10 years ago. And the entire system almost imploded in 2008. There is no excuse.”
Tags: Congress, Enron, Financial Crisis, Investors, JOBS Act, Start-ups, Transparency
Los Angeles Times (February 26, 2012)
The Parthenon, Delphi and other heritage sites will generate revenue as sets for ads, films and other promotions. Some modern Greeks find this unsavory. Yet, 2,500 years ago similar measures were taken by Greeks confronting an earlier financial crisis. “Pericles would no doubt admire modern Greeks for using cherished relics to bootstrap themselves out of crisis. So would Thucydides, Pericles’ great fan and chronicler. Both men were modernists and pragmatists, willing to regard even a sacred shrine as a revenue stream. In tough times, they understood, a brave nation does what must be done.”
The Parthenon, Delphi and other heritage sites will generate revenue as sets for ads, films and other promotions. Some modern Greeks find this unsavory. Yet, 2,500 years ago similar measures were taken by Greeks confronting an earlier financial crisis. “Pericles would no doubt admire modern Greeks for using cherished relics to bootstrap themselves out of crisis. So would Thucydides, Pericles’ great fan and chronicler. Both men were modernists and pragmatists, willing to regard even a sacred shrine as a revenue stream. In tough times, they understood, a brave nation does what must be done.”
Tags: Delphi, Financial Crisis, Greece, Parthenon, Pericles, Revenue, Thucydides
The Economist (February 25, 2012)
Advanced economies have gone backwards by a decade as a result of the crisis.” Looking at seven indicators of economic health, The Economist concludes Greece’s economic clock was turned back 12 years, America’s by ten years, and Britain’s by eight years as a result of the 2007 financial crisis.
Tags: Financial Crisis, Greece, U.S., UK, UK Financial Crisis
