Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
It is highly risky to go into debt even with negative interest rates in this economy. Singing how the low rates benefit debtors and discourage creditors is a fallacy. Under deflation, the creditors have the power to squeeze debtors badly while living comfortably. The game now is not financial returns but materializing your financial positions. Asset grab, baby!
by das monde on Wed Mar 16th, 2016 at 12:40:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Which is why countries, companies and individuals are all doing everything they can to reduce their net debt positions even though interests are so low and why the ultra low interest rates and QE are having so little stimulative effect on real economies or on inflation. With everyone repaying their debts, banks and vulture funds have to find somewher else to put their money.

The main reason Ireland's budgetary position has improved so much is that its interest costs are way below budgetary expectations which has in turn helped Ireland to reduce its debt/GDP  ratio from 121% to 95% in just 3 years.

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Wed Mar 16th, 2016 at 07:55:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Elite Bankers LOVE deflation. After the US Civil War Morgan was allied with the Rothschilds of London and had access to vast reserves of gold. They contributed, bribed and agitated to retire the Greenback Dollars, which produced deflation, and then their agents proceeded to foreclose on most of the loans they had made, thereby pocketing the profits already made plus the assets against which the loans had been made. It was the financial basis for the creation of the Southern term "Carpetbagger", and Carpetbaggers were protected by the Union Army and Reconstruction state governments. That is part of the dark side of Reconstruction.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Mar 20th, 2016 at 11:49:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Whatever "Gone with the Wind" might preach, the aristocracy was in serious financial difficulty before the war, but after the war it managed to regain economic control, thanks to large injections of Northern and British capital.  With renewed economic power came a return of political power, even before the end of Reconstruction, which simply finished the job.  I highly recommend a book titled "Ballots and Fencerails", which focuses on Reconstruction in the Lower Cape Fear in North Carolina.
by rifek on Mon Mar 21st, 2016 at 10:41:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:

Occasional Series