financial crisis

Financial Crisis in the Making: Rising Oil and the Crashing Pound

Antonio Graceffo

On September 26th, the British pound lost nearly 5% of its value overnight, hitting a 37-year low. After months of continual devaluation, the pound is now worth 21% less than it was at the beginning of the year. The pound’s sharp decline has been blamed on the release of Britain’s new mini-budget, which included major tax cuts, energy price caps, and direct payments to citizens to help them cope with record levels of inflation.

The Economic Forecast After the Coronavirus Pandemic

Richard Smith

Even with widespread testing, until a vaccine is available, there are entire industries that will have less than half the pre-virus business: airlines, hotels, cruise ships, theme parks, and sports, to name a few, as well as myriad other businesses supporting or related to these industries. In addition, more than a few large retail department and specialty store chains will probably not make it. No need to list names, but they are the obvious weak ones prior to COVID-19.

Have We Done Enough to Prevent Another Financial Catastrophe?

Mark Goebel

More than three years after Dodd-Frank financial reform was signed into law by President Barack Obama and five years since Lehman Brothers failed, touching off a global financial crisis, U.S. financial markets remain vulnerable to the kind of meltdown that brought the economy to its knees in 2008. Dodd-Frank –which is supposed to prevent large financial institutions from taking excess risk of the kind that caused JP Morgan to lose more than $6 billion on a series of failed derivatives trades in London—is slowly but surely being watered down. 

Goodbye Fiscal Cliff, Hello Debt Ceiling Crisis

Paul Kleyman

Ah, Washington. The good news is that our national leaders saved our butts (for the moment) from bottoming out off the “fiscal cliff.” The bad news is: Watch your head—it’ll soon come crunching up against another unnecessary “debt ceiling” crisis. The most important Good vs. Bad News about the New Year’s Day cliff dive is that the Ugly—the prospect that Congress’ failure to raise the debt ceiling could actually cause the United States to default on its international debts with genuine economic consequences—is now put off, but only until March.

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