Sudip Bandyopadhyay’s Blog

Alan Greenspan, the former US Federal Reserve chairman, confessed that he had failed to anticipate the financial crisis and said “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief.” Mr.Greenspan had faith that banks were prudent enough to make [...]

After the co-ordinated rate cuts by the major economies, in October, the Chinese cut interest rates in a show of solidarity. Now the rest of the world is talking about fiscal stimulus, and China is charging ahead. The State Council has announced a vast fiscal stimulus programme to pull China through the coming grim years. [...]

Financial crisis causes lot of damage, and ill-conceived post-crisis measures, no matter how well-intended, can only magnify their effects. Examples abound.  For instance, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, a US law that erected trade barriers, is widely regarded as having added considerable strain to the world economy after the 1929 stock market crash.  However, [...]

Sherman McCoy, the fictional 1980s “Master of the Universe” Wall Street bond trader, had his sights set on a deal that could earn him $ 1.7m in commission payments, money he needed to pay off the mortgage on a lavish Park Avenue apartment.  “The only real problem was the complexity of the whole thing,” readers [...]

At the recent Asia Europe meeting in Beijing, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stated that “In this age of globalisation, we have a global economy but it is not supported by the global polity to provide effective governance”. In fact he was drawing attention to the fact that unfortunately, the world doesn’t have an International Financial [...]