One year ago, when Deutsche Bank was sliding on concerns about its bad loan book, Germany's Bremer Landesbank which at the time had €29 billion in assets, saw its bonds plunge overnight when concerns emerged about an imminent failure by the German lender. Back then the worry was that the bank's extensive portfolio of nonperforming shipping loans would require either a bailout by a bank, with the name of majority owner NordLB cited, or a state rescue. It was a report by Germany's Handelsblatt that unleashed the selling, and fear of another European bank failure, after it said that a bailout may not come: "shipping loans have brought Bremer LB into distress and the bank can not survive without government help, but a direct capital injection from Lower Saxony now looks unlikey." Eventually, the crisis passed after NordLB took full control of Bremer LB last September, with concerns about its viability swept under the rug.
Fast forward to today, when moments ago in a historic development, the German bank again made headlines again after it said it would "strip", or cancel the interest payment, on its most subordinated debt, impacting two Euro AT1 notes, the first such move by a German bank which effectively amounted to a partial "self-bail in."
I want to add my support to Chris’ proposal.
We do our best to catch everything we can, but as Chris points out, it’s not uncommon for a few errata to sneak through.
We used to employ a dedicated copyproofer and found that not only did small typos still get missed, but our time to publish was materially slowed down. That’s not desirable, especially during periods of fast-moving developments. Also, it wasn’t cheap; making it difficult to keep our pricing unchanged (which it has been for the past 9 years).
So we got rid of the copyproofer, invested in spell-check software, and established the 2-review process Chris noted above.
For the small number of typos that still may sneak through, I personally will commit to fixing them swiftly whenever a reader points one out.
cheers,
Adam
Just for the record, my comments on respect for English (American?) language usage were not focused strictly on Chris’ or Adam’s postings. I would ask all posters to conjure up our 8th grade English teacher’s efforts before we hit the “Save” button. Whew! Thanks, I feel better now… Aloha, Steve.
Chris,
Great article. I think you hit the nail on the head with this statement: “And even more egregious than the misinformation is the complete inappropriateness for the media to praise economic ‘strength’ while ignoring the role of debt in bringing about the growth being celebrated. If the ‘prosperity’ is simply due to a drunken debt-binge, it should be criticized, not lauded.”
The average punter can see that the economy is doing better than 2008, but they don’t realise the price that is being paid (i.e. the huge debt increase). The mainstream media is failing miserably in highlighting this key fact.
E.
I also didn’t mean to single out Chris Martenson alone.
And you’re right, Remember your 8th grade English (those few who didn’t have that class - I’m sure - will still try their best).
Are these threads the right place to point out possible typos/misspellings, etc.?
While most asset managers have been growing increasingly skeptical and gloomy in recent weeks (despite a few ideological contrarian holdouts), joining the rising chorus of bank analysts including those of Citi, JPM, BofA and Goldman all urging clients to "go to cash", none have dared to commit the cardinal sin of actually predicting when the next crash will take place.
On Sunday a prominent hedge fund manager, One River Asset Management's CIO Eric Peters broke with that tradition and dared to "pin a tail on the donkey" of when the next market crash - one which he agrees with us will be driven by a collapse in the global credit impulse - will take place. His prediction: Valentine's Day 2018.
Here is what Peters believes will happen over the next 8 months, a period which will begin with an increasingly tighter Fed and conclude with a market avalanche.
...
“[W]hen the global credit impulse reverses, it’ll be a cascade, an avalanche. And I pin the tail on that donkey to be Valentine’s Day 2018.”
