Format: Aside

Sep 02

Bank lending slows in Brazil as loan delinquency climbs

Brazil’s banks abruptly slowed the pace of loan disbursements in July as caution took center stage among private sector lenders seeking to protect earnings from near record delinquencies and a drop in borrowing costs (Reuters).

Sep 01

Next winners in the global economy

Who is going to win the global competition between old and new economies? Dani Rodrik’s insight, professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, provides a three condition scenario for relative growth: “those that do relatively better will share three characteristics. First, they will not be weighed down by high levels of public debt. Second, …

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Sep 01

France shale ban

France isn’t prepared to tap its shale energy resources until “clean technologies” are invented to replace hydraulic fracturing, Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg said as reported by Bloomberg. IEA’s opinion on fracking does not differ much: “Industry must win public confidence by demonstrating exemplary performance; and governments must ensure that appropriate policies and regulatory regimes are …

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Sep 01

Oil prices in the next decade

  An influential working paper was released by IMF on The Future of Oil, and “its point forecast is for a near doubling of the real price of oil over the coming decade”. This is really bad news for the world economy, but the debate on its effects still languishes as economists and policy makers are …

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Aug 29

The ECB’s role against spread

Beyond the debate over the pros and cons of direct ECB’s actions to sustain the price of European bonds under attack, Andrew Bosomworth, managing director of the German office of Pimco, the world’s largest investor in government bonds, fears that the new program will mainly attract speculators rather than long-term lenders. “If interest rates for …

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Aug 29

Peak cheap oil

Although Barclays Capital expects the crude market tightens by 2.4m barrels a day (bpd) this quarter, with little extra supply in sight, and  Goldman Sachs said the industry is chronically incapable of meeting global needs – “It is only a matter of time before inventories and OPEC spare capacity become effectively exhausted, requiring higher oil …

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Aug 28

Italy for sale #3

Bad news or a helping hand for those at work on the big sale of Italian assets? Martti Hetemäki, Vice-Minister of Finance and Kare Halonen, Secretary of the State Council of Finland are today in Rome for confidential meetings with members of the Italian government, to provide the Finnish recipe to drop the debt cake: …

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