Recently the issue of saving has become maybe too exciting. Despite a booming economy, household saving rates sank to near-zero levels by 2005. Three years later, the U.S. economy experienced a housing and financial meltdown from which we have yet to recover. Americans now contend with massive credit card debt, declining home prices, and shaky financial institutions. It has become painfully clear that millions lack the savings to protect themselves against foreclosures, unemployment, medical emergencies, and impoverished retirements.
A Comment on “The American Mortgage System: Crisis and Reform”
By Marvin M. Smith, Anthony Orlando, and Susan Wachter
“If price discovery continues to be unattainable in both the subprime, structured CDO and lower quality markets, and if bridges become non-liquefiable, then what we have is a ‘financing’ dilemma. With balance sheets in the dealer communities very heavy and ac-curate pricing a non-starter, the Fed may need to ease to prevent an asset valuation free fall…” – Robert Wolf, Chairman and COO of UBS Americas, July 20071
Emerging Markets are Re-Shaping the Global Economy, But Also Shaking It
From global tourism to manufactured products, and from industrial processes to modern technologies order, the re-convergence of emerging markets and their economic dynamism are re-shaping the world, and they are simultaneously shaking it.
The Causes of the Banking Crises of the 1920’s
The credit crunch of 2007-2008 shares many similarities in terms of causes with the Depression Era and wave of bank failures which took place in the United States in the 1920’s. It would appear that legislative responses made by the government of President F.D. Roosevelt are finding resonance with today’s legis-lators, in particular a reintroduction of an updated form of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. This article suggests that legislative intervention in financial markets may be premature and counterproductive; the state, acting through regulators, has a poor record in matters of supervision and oversight.
Rethinking Global Financial Governance Reform
The limited success over the past few years in reforming global financial governance means that there is a need to reassess the current strategy and tactics for achieving global governance reform.
Time to Win Investors Over
By Baruch Lev
Managers need to be able to respond to investors’ concerns and regain their trust, but their response is seriously hindered by the numerous myths and misconceptions they hold about investors and capital markets. This article explains why.
Putting Mind into Markets
The 2008 financial crisis showed that human emotion has a critical impact on financial markets. The newly established discipline of ’emotional finance’, pioneered by David Tuckett, draws on principles of psychoanalysis to enable financial markets to be understood in a completely new way.
Investing in Liquid Gold
Whisky is rapidly becoming the new wine as people look for different ways of investing and growing their cash. Independent whisky expert Dominic Roskrow looks in to the rise of liquid gold.
How Green is the Cloud?
By Kfir Godrich, VP & Managing Principal for HP Technology Services
While many industry researchers present wildly differing ROI metrics for how a move to cloud computing will result in savings of anywhere from 30 to 50% into the 2020 timeframe, you need to take a closer look under the hood to understand the real total cost of ownership (TCO) picture. A “pareto” approach will start with how much can be attributed to virtualization efforts, how much can be gained through “bursting” techniques, and how much is related to actual changes in utilization and applications behavior?
Elevating board performance: The significance of director mindset, operating context, and other behavioral and functional considerations
The global financial crisis has prompted debate once again on how to improve the effectiveness of the board of directors at listed companies. What went wrong despite the reforms pursued over the past two decades?
EDITOR'S PICK OF THE WEEK
The Performance and Transformation Orchestrator: The CFO’s New Mandate in the Age of AI
By Terence Tse
CFOs are evolving into AI-driven transformation orchestrators, balancing finance, technology, and strategy while upskilling teams, managing risks, and driving measurable business value.
A key insight from this year’s AI for CFOs event, organized...
