In an Irish Times article that must have much of the country talking, Morgan Kelly calls for a Special Resolution authority to force bank creditors to swap € 65 billion of debt for equity (link in Greg’s post below).      The number is €50 billion less than called for in his V0X article earlier in the week, and critically calls for the losses to be imposed after the original guarantee expires in September.    He is thus, as far as I understand, not calling for default on the “quasi-sovereign” guarantee

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The 65 Billion Euro Question

The blog has sometimes despaired of the cheer-leading and wishful thinking of too many leading policy-makers. As I argued in the Financial Times in March 2007 , before the Crisis began, ” they seem to confuse being market-friendly with being friendly to markets “. It therefore welcomes the realism being shown by the UK’s new coalition government

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Preparing for an Age of Austerity in public spending

As I wrote last October: Congressmen Brad Sherman and Paul Kanjorski and Senator James Inhofe all say that the government warned of martial law if Tarp wasn’t passed. And Rahm Emanuel famously said : Never let a serious crisis go to waste.

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The Giant Banks, Federal Reserve and Treasury Have All Blackmailed America

As Robert Redford writes this week: Thursday, May 20, 2010, marks one month since BP’s oil rig exploded in the Gulf Coast …. This is the clearest picture we could have of our failed national energy policy — which extends over many decades and administrations

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Now’s The Time To Switch to Alternative Energy

HBO — Tonight’s guests are Nouriel Roubini, author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author, radio host and professor Michael Eric Dyson, columnist John Fund and actor/comedian Patton Oswalt. Click HERE to submit a question to Bill and his roundtable guests on tonight’s “Overtime” on HBO.com  Opinions and comments on RGE EconoMonitors do not necessarily reflect the views of Roubini Global Economics, LLC, which encourages a free-ranging debate among its own analysts and our EconoMonitor community. RGE takes no responsibility for verifying the accuracy of any opinions expressed by outside contributors

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Roubini Tonight on Real Time with Bill Maher

Here is live round-the-clock streaming video of the underwater oil gusher, which BP is providing in response to Congressman Edward Markey’s demands to BP: Due to high traffic, the video stream may be intermittent at first. This is not due to technical difficulties at my site, but of the main servers hosted by BP. Check back periodically

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Here is 24/7 Live Streaming Video of the Underwater Oil Gusher

Here is a round-up of what is really going on with the Gulf Oil Spill (I will update this page as new stories are posted): Criminal Negligence: Despite Knowing It Had a Damaged Blowout Preventer, BP STILL Cut Corners By Removing the Single Most Important Safety Measure BP Could Have EASILY Contained the Gulf Oil Spill AND the Exxon Valdez Spill … But They Were Too Cheap to Do It Just Like 9/11?

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What’s Really Going On With The BP Gulf Oil Spill?

On 6 May , the blog warned that “it would be very nervous indeed about holding a long position ” in crude oil. And as the chart shows, its fears were well-founded

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Crude oil falls as markets reassess economic outlook

The Gulf oil spill and the financial crisis were both caused by excessive risk-taking by industry giants and the “capture” of politicians and regulators by the corporate behemoths. Moreover, the response to the Gulf oil spill and the financial crisis are remarkably similar.

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The Responses to the Gulf Oil Spill and to the Financial Crisis Are Remarkably Similar … And Have Made Both Crises Much Worse

As I wrote on May 2nd: The Gulf oil spill is much worse than originally believed. As the Christian Science Monitor writes : It’s now likely that the actual amount of the oil spill dwarfs the Coast Guard’s figure of 5,000 barrels , or 210,000 gallons, a day

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Professor of Mechanical Engineering Estimates that 4 Million Gallons of Oil are Leaking Every Day

The largest finance conference in Ireland returns for its eight year; The INFINITI Conference on International Finance will be held at TCD from 14th-15th June. In addition to the keynote and special sessions, there are over 166 papers being presented

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INFINITI 2010 Conference at TCD: International Credit and Finance Markets: After the Storm?

Floyd Norris in the New York Times last weekend put together some interesting comparative charts for twelve countries including Ireland showing trends in their trade up to the beginning of this year. The relatively small dip in Irish exports during the recession comes through clearly. He draws attention to the welcome rebound in trade globally, but classes Ireland among the four Euro laggards including Greece, Portugal and Spain

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Ireland’s trade performance

BP’s new insertion tube inside the leaking oil pipe – unfortunately – isn’t doing very much. Specifically, the Miami Herald points out that – according to the Coast Guard – the spill is getting worse in spite of the insertion tube: The massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill is growing despite British Petroleum’s effort to siphon some of the spewing crude from its ruptured deepwater well, the U.S

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New BP Insertion Tube Isn’t Working

Fortune: Renowned economist Nouriel Roubini talks about how he became a ‘dismal scientist’ and opens up about his guilty pleasure. (Click for video

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Roubini Interview With Fortune: Pasta and Economic Crises

Channel 4 News — Roubini warns of banks “planting seeds” of crisis (Click for Video and Report ) Channel 4 News — Nouriel Roubini, the man whose warnings over the credit crunch were ignored, tells Jon Snow that banks have learned little from the economic crisis and that Europe will probably face a ‘double dip’ recession. Opinions and comments on RGE EconoMonitors do not necessarily reflect the views of Roubini Global Economics, LLC, which encourages a free-ranging debate among its own analysts and our EconoMonitor community.

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Roubini Interview with Jon Snow on the Eurozone and Big Banks

by Edward Hugh: Barcelona German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters in Brussels yesterday (Monday) that getting their deficits down was “the only task that everyone has to fulfill for himself and for the common good.” Meanwhile, over in New York, Paul Krugman was busy writing on his blog that “the most startling and frustrating thing about the debate over the fate of the euro is the way almost everyone avoids confronting the core issue” – which is, according to Krugman, that “wages in Greece/Spain/Portugal/Latvia/Estonia etc. need to fall something like 20-30 percent relative to wages in Germany”.

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Much Ado About (Some Of) The Wrong Things

The global economy and the chemical industry have been boosted, since the Crisis began in 2008, by massive government stimulus programmes in areas such as autos and housing.

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IMF warns on government spending

Today’s Daily Angle comes from  Wikinvest Wire member  Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism. You can read  the full article on NakedCapitalism.com The drama of financial regulatory reform is, to a considerable degree, playing right into the industry’s hands.

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You Say You Are a Market Maker? Great, Act Like One

10 years ago, Dow was in the middle of completing its $12bn Union Carbide acquisition. This made it the world’s second largest chemical company, and a leading player in Basic petchems and polymers

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Dow focuses on Performance, Market-Driven businesses

The blog gained some key insights into the current M&A landscape this week, at the annual Pilko & Associates Round Table, co-organised with Shell Chemicals and leading law firm Allen & Overy: • M&A has become a ‘buyer’s market’, and this is not expected to change in the near future. • Credit markets remain cautious.

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Deepwater Horizon to lead to more regulation

From the ECB: ECB decides on measures to address severe tensions in financial markets The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) decided on several measures to address the severe tensions in certain market segments which are hampering the monetary policy transmission mechanism and thereby the effective conduct of monetary policy oriented towards price stability in the medium term. The measures will not affect the stance of monetary policy. In view of the current exceptional circumstances prevailing in the market, the Governing Council decided: 1.To conduct interventions in the euro area public and private debt securities markets (Securities Markets Programme) to ensure depth and liquidity in those market segments which are dysfunctional

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ECB To Intervene in Euro-Zone Debt Markets, Fed Re-opens Swaps

The Feds are launching criminal and civil investigations into manipulation of the silver market by JP Morgan. As the New York Post points out : Federal agents have launched parallel criminal and civil probes of JPMorgan Chase and its trading activity in the precious metals market, The Post has learned. The probes are centering on whether or not JPMorgan, a top derivatives holder in precious metals, acted improperly to depress the price of silver, sources said.

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Will Silver (And Gold) Prices Rise Now that the Feds Are Launching Criminal and Civil Investigations Into Manipulation of the Silver Market?

by Edward Hugh: Barcelona Well it is now official – or at least as official as it is going to get: the Spanish economy sneaked back into growth by a short head during the first three months of this year.

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Spain Emerges From Recession?

As the Wall Street Journal points out , the Federal Reserve might open up its “swap lines” again to bail out the Europeans: The Fed is considering whether to reopen a lending program put in place during the financial crisis in which it shipped dollars overseas through foreign central banks like the European Central Bank , Swiss National Bank and Bank of England . The central banks, in turn, lent the dollars out to banks in their home countries in need of dollar funding.

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Americans Have Been Bailing Out Foreign Banks for Years … And We’re Getting Ready To Do It Again

In a new expose, award-winning investigative reporter Greg Palast shows that BP was largely responsible for the Exxon Valdez spill: In 1989, I was a fraud investigator hired to dig into the cause of the Exxon Valdez disaster. Despite Exxon’s name on that boat, I found the party most to blame for the destruction was … British Petroleum (BP)

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BP Could Have EASILY Contained the Gulf Oil Spill AND the Exxon Valdez Spill … But They Were Too Cheap to Do It