Oct 17, 2012 01:31 UTC

Corporate China beating banks at their own game

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The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

By Wayne Arnold

Corporate China appears to be beating the country’s lenders at their own game. Even as banks heap credit into China’s economy to keep its credit-fuelled growth from crashing, companies are handing out credit to their own customers. That may help keep the economy revving, but the risk is that past-due bills make it harder for companies to service mounting debt.

Jun 13, 2012 01:53 UTC

UK banks’ euro zone firewall needs government help

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By George Hay

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

UK banks’ euro zone firewall needs strengthening. Despite a range of support measures introduced after the 2008 financial crisis, the Bank of England’s arsenal for managing a pan-European liquidity freeze looks underpowered when compared with the European Central Bank’s three-year loans. But if the euro zone cracks, UK lenders would be better off turning to the government for support.

COMMENT

As an econmist I see real simple solutions to the liquidity issues facing the BoE, ECB and others. It is time to start thinking outside of the box and transfer the debt issues away from governments and expand the base and lesson the risk for all borrowers. Very simple. So all of you who are pointing fingures or have buried your collective heads in the sand, just stop!

Monroe, Maine USA has the solutions!

Posted by edward.gre | Report as abusive
Jun 8, 2012 19:56 UTC

California shows way through tricky pension mess

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By Agnes T. Crane

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

San Jose and San Diego want current public workers to make sacrifices for their pensions, like contributing up to 16 percent more of salaries to fund retirement schemes. The proposals, overwhelmingly backed by voters in elections this week, look to be a sensible way forward in the thorny thicket of pension reform.

COMMENT

This lets San Jose City officials off to easy, they claim they need more police on the streets, maybe they do. If the funding tax base is not there the public has to accept reduced services are a fact of life. That is the real issue.

City officials instead are using the ballot box to get popular vote to over turn an legal and binding contract. If the City is that desperate it should file for bankruptcy. As that is the legal way to reorganize city operation. See if the politicians have the intestinal fortitude to do so..

Personally wanting to join a organization that does not respect contracts and negotiated agreements is not one that bright and young people should be interested in.
Slashing pensions to fund operations is being done so at the cost of the pensioners…Ballot box initiative like this usually are rejected by the legal community. This one should be too.

Young talent wanting to join a public agency that does not honor its agreements and looks to make ends meet on the back of pensioners is one that the young and talented will look at in suspicion.

Posted by Yerrep | Report as abusive
Jun 6, 2012 20:05 UTC

BofA reject wins Fannie Mae booby prize

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By Daniel Indiviglio and Agnes T. Crane The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

No good deed goes unpunished. Fannie Mae has chosen Timothy Mayopoulos, its general counsel, as its new chief executive. His promotion won’t improve already tense relations with Bank of America – the mega-bank fired him in 2008 after he questioned mounting losses. But his integrity and background make him a decent fit for the job.

As the top lawyer at BofA during the crisis, he counseled executives they didn’t need to disclose Merrill’s mortgage-related losses if they didn’t creep too high. But as Greg Farrell points out in his book “Crash of the Titans,” new estimates just days after shareholders had approved taking over the Thundering Herd “had busted through the outer limit of what Mayopoulos had been using as his guideline.” A day after trying to raise it with BofA’s finance chief, he was fired.

Apr 30, 2012 21:08 UTC

U.S. mortgage lessons lost in student debt policy

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By Daniel Indiviglio The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

The lessons of the U.S. mortgage crisis seem to be lost on policymakers tackling student debt. A decade ago, government subsidies and guarantees helped expand the “dream” of homeownership to many Americans who would have been better off renting. Today, it’s college education being made more accessible with cheap funding provided by Uncle Sam.

The U.S. Congress, which rarely agrees on anything these days, is achieving quick consensus on the matter. Without action, interest rates on student loans, which are unsecured, are set to double in July. But lawmakers have been scrambling all April to find a way to collect more revenue or cut spending to maintain subsidies and keep the rates down.

Apr 30, 2012 21:02 UTC

The rupee looks vulnerable

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By Jeff Glekin The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. India’s ballooning trade deficit means it has to run just to stand still. Without steady capital inflows, the currency will collapse. But without a steady currency, it is hard to attract foreign capital. The rupee’s 19 percent fall against the dollar over the past year is worrying.

During most of the last decade, the current account deficit has been funded without great difficulty. Foreign direct investment, portfolio investments and about $60 billion a year of remittances have usually exceeded the shortfall in trade. India has accumulated around $300 billion of foreign currency reserves, equivalent to 17 percent of GDP.

But the annual trade gap has widened from $104 billion to $185 billion. At 3.7 percent of GDP, the current account deficit is the highest since 1980, when the International Monetary Fund starting collecting data. High energy prices are the main culprit for the recent deterioration – oil accounts for two-thirds of the country’s import bill. Of course, the blow would have been less painful if India had a stronger export sector.

Apr 10, 2012 17:24 UTC

Wobbly markets face second-quarter correction

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By Ian Campbell

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Markets are wobbling on renewed fears about global growth. Rising yields on Italian and Spanish bonds add to the alarm. And it would be wrong to assume that central bankers will ride to markets’ rescue this time – because oil prices and inflation are part of the global gloom.

Apr 3, 2012 21:10 UTC

Europe unrecognizable from U.S. Republican rhetoric

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By Martin Hutchinson

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Europe is mostly unrecognizable from the U.S. Republican rhetoric. Presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, who face off again in Tuesday’s trio of primaries, often accuse Barack Obama of leading America to “European-style socialism.” The monolithic pejorative works to a point but conveniently overlooks the many economic achievements throughout the continent. On this matter, voters shouldn’t take the candidates seriously, and the candidates might do well to consider Europe more so.

COMMENT

Wasn’t recovery under Reagan, from Carter, over 7%, so why would we be joyous with even 4.3% growth? Our best days are not behind us, but our current leadership seems to think so.

Posted by CArepublican | Report as abusive
Mar 27, 2012 21:01 UTC

Ally’s mortgage misery needs a clean ending

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By Agnes T. Crane and Antony Currie The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions epxressed are their own.

Ally Financial finally seems to have woken up to the need to get rid of ResCap, its ailing mortgage unit. Once the jewel in the former GM finance unit’s crown, the home lending and servicing operation has been a prime candidate for the bankruptcy court for years. ResCap has been on U.S. taxpayer-funded life support since 2008 – sucking up most of the $17.2 billion in aid the U.S. Treasury funneled to Ally. Now a Chapter 11 restructuring may finally be on the cards. But Ally needs to ensure its mortgage misery comes to a clean ending.

Bankruptcy ought to allow that. Back in 2005, Ally – or GMAC, as it was then called – revamped ResCap’s corporate structure so that it became a fully independent subsidiary with its own board and funding strategy. The purpose was to insulate the mortgage lender from any problems at GM and the auto finance arm. At the time, ResCap’s bondholders seemed perfectly satisfied they were protected.

Mar 21, 2012 20:36 UTC

Student debt may land double whammy on US growth

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By Daniel Indiviglio The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. Student loans could be the next asset class to school the United States about poor debt management. Graduates are now forking over more of their disposable income in repayments than 10 years ago, defaults are rising and with Uncle Sam now directly holding $450 billion of student debt, taxpayers are on the hook again. That could put U.S. higher education in the embarrassing position of hindering, rather than helping to fuel, economic growth.

Here’s how: first, the size of the student loan market has mushroomed. Bachelor-degree debt at graduation has grown 250 percent over the past decade, according to finaid.org. At $867 billion, it exceeds both credit-card and auto debt in the United States, according to a study by the New York Federal Reserve. If this trend continues, by 2021 it’ll be equivalent to 1.3 percent of GDP, triple its current level, assuming GDP cleaves to its 4.5 percent 15-year average nominal growth.

Next, average payments have risen by 83 percent over the past decade while median income for those aged 25 to 34 has increased by just a fifth, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That leaves less money for graduates to spend or save. Extrapolate ahead 10 years, and former students will be paying $125 billion extra a year. By then, that would equate to two-thirds of a percentage point of GDP.

COMMENT

You have to have a job to pay off debt!!!STOP supporting red china!!!Made in America is the only answer!!Be American and Buy American goods!!!

Posted by kentonwoods | Report as abusive