Tag Archives: ECB

Ban this Filth NOW (that’d be €500 notes…)

Posted on April 13, 2013 by

Fighting crime is a tough job. And so, shortcuts are often proposed. The latest is to : ban €500 notes. These dastardly beasts (introduced to not annoy Germans who used DM1000 bills) are it seems uniquely the provenance of criminals. … Continue reading →

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How big is the Cyprus bailout? A slightly tricky questions originally posted at the link above. Most publications talk about the 10B or 17B Cyprus bailout. Let’s take a pop quiz on the right answer: (a) 17 B Euros (89% … Continue reading →

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Cypriot SME Cash Holdings and the “corralito”

Posted on March 28, 2013 by

Data on these are hard to get. The best and its not very good, is the Amadeus Database by Bureau Van Djik.  Looking throught this this AM, I extracted the “cash and cash equivalent” balance sheet item for 2011 (the … Continue reading →

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Cartoons of Cyprus

Posted on March 24, 2013 by
Greece-drag

This gallery contains 16 photos.

    ok So its not really a laughing matter but some rueful chuckles…  

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Some more thoughts on that awful Cypriot Business Model

Posted on March 24, 2013 by

I wrote yesterday on the “dead” cypriot business model. Some more thoughts and data below on this. First Cyprus is not that different to many many other countries in terms of the % of its GDP derived from the financial … Continue reading →

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The Ten Commandments of Eurozone Membership (for small states)

Posted on March 24, 2013 by

The quite wonderful Gavin Kostick of Fishamble Theatre has a comment on Irish Economy which is too good to linger there… It's super.   And Draghi came down from the mountain with two tablets of stone. (1) Thou shall love … Continue reading →

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Just how bad was the Cypriot business model ?

Posted on March 23, 2013 by

One of the more nasty strains of meme going round the Cypriot crisis is this : Cyprus has a business model (Converting russian deposits to lending) which is wrong. Well, its now dead. We know its dead because Angela Merkel … Continue reading →

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Germany’s Dilemma – Sacrifice Cyprus or Make Sacrifices Itself…

Posted on March 23, 2013 by

This is an updated and linked version of a column published in The Irish Examiner Saturday 24 March 2013.The deposit tax debacle in Cyprus is rich in historical resonances as well as showing that frankly as Leigh Phillips suggests in … Continue reading →

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Cyprus, the ECB and Anglo

Posted on March 19, 2013 by

All throughout the mess that was the unhappily drawn out death of Anglo Irish Banks, and indeed before, I and many others had been suggesting that rather than pay 3.1b per annum for many many annums we not….That we walk … Continue reading →

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Hegemonic Germany and the death of trust in banking.

Posted on March 18, 2013 by

This is a revised and extended version of a post in The Irish Examiner newspaper Monday 18 March 2013. At the heart of modern finance is the concept of the Risk Free Rate. That is the rate of return on … Continue reading →

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