Category Archives: Banking industry

Target Just Became the Latest US Retailer to Stop Accepting Payment by Checks. Why Have So Many Stores Given Up on Them?

Retailers and banks are discouraging the use of checks. Why?

US Fed-Induced World Stagnation Deepens Debt Distress

US and Fed bad cooking has led to weak growth the world, and by urging poor countries to borrow at once-low rates, debt distress.

How Corporations Are Fueling Geopolitical Tensions and Global Conflicts in the 21st Century

Multinational corporations with global reach are increasingly getting entangled in conflicts and geopolitical rivalries by supporting multiple sides.

Power in Sovereign Debt Markets: Explaining the Uneven Debtor–Creditor Landscape and Its Implications

A long time ago, the US intervened on the side of underwater sovereign borrowers. Private creditors now extract even more than back then.

Insufficient Supervisory Board Competence as a Risk Factor for Banks

Banking and financial market expertise is by no means a given.

Michael Hudson: US Cryptocurrency as an Offshore Banking Center

Yet another cryptocurrency scheme, here for its major use case, tax evasion. But for a good cause, the US dollar!

“Dollar Doomsters Have Got It All Wrong”

Why reports of the [imminent] death of the dollar are greatly exaggerated.

Heatwaves Ripple into the Financial System

Heat stress affects the financial system by increasing defaults and producing tighter lending terms to others in the same area.

Status of Banks’ Unrealized Losses in Q1: Worsened After Brief Rate-Cut-Mania Relief

US banks are still sitting on losses, with Fed relief nowhere in sight.

New Palestine Protest/Free Speech Threat: House Oversight Committee Targets 20 Pro-Palestinian Organizations, Such as Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Demanding Treasury Produce Suspicious Activity Reports, Including on Employeees

A new salvo against designated enemies, aka Palestinian rights advocates, which fortunately is more bark than bite.

Michael Hudson: Parallels Between Archaic Entrepots and Modern Offshore Banking Centers

There is perilous little that is novel in modern finance. Our offshore, as in tax havens, have analogues in the ancient world.

UK Banks Will Go Bust Because of Climate Change

The UK has low-lying terrain that has nevertheless been developed and will go underwater with climate change and take a lot of banks with it.

Are the BRICS and Their New Development Bank Offering Alternatives to the World Bank, the IMF?

An assessment of how far BRICS has gotten in creating new monetary arrangements and institutions. The short version is “not very”.

TaxCast #142: Blockchain Havens

How blockchain/crypto tax havens are displacing traditional tax havens.

How Banks and Investors Are Fueling a Global Biodiversity Crisis

Commercial financial flows to the forest-risk commodity sectors are driving the majority of tropical deforestation and biodiversity loss.