欧洲银行大瘦身: implications/further discussion
文章来源: hercules0072011-10-19 19:17:11
Hi murmur, my thoughts:

 

What are the the implications for the US economy and the US financial system, for the global monetary system?  What we can see through these development?

 

Some recent development and a few points to note:
 

1. the Wall Street banks will lose a lot of businesses from the Eurozone, thus help to squeeze the revenue and profits of these Wall Street and City of London banks;

2. the banking and financial sector in the Eurozone economy is far smaller and less important than in the US and UK.

3. The US FED, through their QEs, are efforts to save the banks at the cost of harming the country and the taxpayers; The lates move by the Eurozone is doing exactly the opposite: sacrificing the banks but aim to help the sovereigns with their finances, with ECB taking a neutral position, a true testimony of central bank independence.


 

Following the ban on naked short selling of bank stocks, recently the Eurozone authorities also have put in a ban on naked CDS instruments, that is, unless you are hedging a bona fide credit position, you will be banned from initiating and holding Credit Default Swap Contracts. (CDS).

 

It has become patently clear in the past few years that these derivatives, especially naked CDS instruments, are products designed by Wall Street banks for the benefit of the banks themselves, not the real economy.  The shrinking of the European banking sector will be a process through which the Eurozone banks are finally parting ways with the US/UK banking sector. The Eurozone banking industry will go back to basics, back to traditional plain vanila banking model, leaving the US/UK banks to play the artificial derivatives game, largely detrimental to the real economy.   By shedding their US dollar denominated assets, the Eurozone banks will also become less entangled with the US debt and currency crisis.

 

What the Europeans have done are in stark contrast with what the US has been doing on the policy front. One example is the ongoing saga of CFTC dithering regarding position limits on commodity futures.  The US FED and Treasury are losing control.

 

This is very important, because the US dollar based international monetary system, the US dollar global hegemony needs support from other players, especially support from the Eurozone monetary authorities. The latest develompent is just another blow to the US dollar system which is sliding down a death spiral.  The Europeans are preparing themselves for that eventuality.

 

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