50
votes
Can Brexit be undone in an emergency?
"Can it happen"? Sure, the laws of the EU are set by the members of the EU, if the members want to change the rules they can. They can re-admit the UK or not. If there is a law against it, the EU can ...
- 115k
35
votes
Has Russia actually defaulted on its foreign debt as of April 11, 2022?
No - Russia has not currently (April 11th 2022) defaulted on its sovereign debt. What the CNN article is referring to is S&P’s downgrading of the country’s credit rating to ‘selective default’. ...
CDJB♦
- 105k
26
votes
Can Brexit be undone in an emergency?
No. But the UK can apply for membership according to Article 49 of the Treaty on the European Union. This normally takes years. The article text:
Any European State which respects the values referred ...
- 3,795
18
votes
Accepted
What got Lebanon into such crisis as of 2023?
In 2014-2017 the Middle East region saw multiple conflicts - some of them spilled over to Lebanon's territory. This hurt Lebanon's investment attractiveness - which was a big problem, because Lebanese ...
- 3,832
15
votes
The US has done lots of Quantitative Easing, so why does it not do the same for its debt?
Inflation
When the Federal Reserve uses quantitative easing, it adds more money to banking ledgers and removes investment opportunities. The amount that they can do is limited by the reality of the ...
- 89.3k
15
votes
What got Lebanon into such crisis as of 2023?
It isn't about the last 5-6 years. It has been a downward spiral for 30-50 years.
The sectarian civil war was 'settled' with a compromise which perpetuated sectarian divisions and gridlocked the ...
- 106k
14
votes
How come no bank chiefs in the US & UK went to prison for the financial crash of 2008?
A person has to be convicted of committing a crime before they can be sent to prison. "Wrongdoing" is not enough, even when combined with arrogance, incompetence and consequences for billions of ...
- 115k
12
votes
Has Russia actually defaulted on its foreign debt as of April 11, 2022?
In international finance, a credit event is a legal and contractual term which means that financial instruments like credit default swaps come due. Such a credit event can happen if the debtor has no ...
- 106k
11
votes
Accepted
Why don't governments follow the "save in good times, spend in bad times" rule?
There is some debate about whether it's a good rule in the first place but there is a number of reasons why governments don't do this:
Because they don't have to.
Governments have in their taxpayers ...
- 280
11
votes
Why is there no rise of extreme-left in present-day Europe?
Apart from the discussions in the comments about what constitutes an extreme-left party and what does not, I think this is a very complex question.
Extreme left?
As usual the right-left separation, ...
- 1,748
11
votes
Can Brexit be undone in an emergency?
The problem with "what if" is that anything goes.
If they find unobtanium under the hills of Wales which clearly would yield trillions of euro of profit every year but requires ten trillion euros to ...
- 315
10
votes
Accepted
Why are politicians and statesmen reticent to challenge the theory behind "Too Big To Fail"?
Testing theories like "Too Big To Fail" is an incredibly high-stakes affair. Voters tend to ignore status quos being maintained, but reward/punish very strongly how leaders perform during ...
- 16.4k
10
votes
Accepted
Did IMF grant a loan with no (reform) conditions to Romania in 2009?
Apparently the answer is "no". There's a database with conditions attached to loans, and the 2009 Standby Agreement (SBA) with Romania had plenty of those, including pension (legislation) reform, ...
- 146k
9
votes
Has the Republic of Ireland repaid the £9 billion provided by the UK after the 2009 financial crisis?
Has the Republic of Ireland repaid the £9 billion provided by the UK
after the 2009 financial crisis?
The word we usually use is "loaned" (provided is quite ambiguous in these circumstances). This ...
- 5,467
8
votes
How come no bank chiefs in the US & UK went to prison for the financial crash of 2008?
Basically the US & UK banks were much bigger than Iceland's... which makes the issue of diffuse responsibility more significant.
It's a matter of diffuse responsibility said James Cox, a ...
- 146k
7
votes
Accepted
Why weren't the investment bankers in the mortgage bubble prosecuted?
Banks weren't prosecuted for the financial crisis because there wasn't much they could be prosecuted for that wouldn't result in bigger blow back against the government. The banks were giving ...
- 13.9k
7
votes
Accepted
Has Russia actually defaulted on its foreign debt as of April 11, 2022?
Contra to the black-white answer that the questions asks for (and that one answer provides, contradicting CNN), in international finance, unlike how rating agencies treat your student loan, the grace ...
- 146k
6
votes
What is the necessity of the FDIC in the US banking system?
Some people seem to think that having a private insurance is good enough and the people is to blame, but reality is not that simple.
TL/DR Let's put it this way: if you do not trust your bank to ...
- 31.2k
5
votes
Accepted
Did the government of Greece approve 'haircuts' on citizen's deposits to reduce the damage of the 2008 financial crisis?
The Greek government has not conducted 'haircuts' like those described by Antonopoulous, and certainly not to the extent he suggests, with deposits worth over €50,000 being charged a 20% fee.
The ...
CDJB♦
- 105k
5
votes
Why do house borrowers typically not get as much slack for the credit crisis?
I'm presuming, based on your asking this 10 years later, that you must be young. So allow me to give you two down to earth anecdotes from the hey days that preceded it.
In 2005 a Californian friend ...
- 30.5k
5
votes
Why is there no rise of extreme-left in present-day Europe?
Using of the word "extreme" is inaccurate, firstly because it implies something unnatural and secondly and more importantly as it subconsciously equates the two "extremes", i.e. left & left-ish ...
- 1,044
4
votes
Why do house borrowers typically not get as much slack for the credit crisis?
Note: I will try to provide a more Eastern-European perspective on the matter. It happened that the crisis caught me working on financial service software and I have some first-hand experience on how ...
- 52.6k
4
votes
Who did something wrong in 2007-2008 financial crash?
Entire books have been written on this subject, both about the specific 2008 crash and about financial panics in general, and one SE answer isn't going to cover the full set of categories of ...
- 366
4
votes
Accepted
How did the alleged Chinese debt trap cause the economic crisis in Sri Lanka?
The causes of the current economic crisis in Sri Lanka have more to do with other bad decisions by their government, including:
The government made a slew of policy decisions which resulted in ...
- 146k
3
votes
What was the fate of the executives at the main Icelandic banks after the financial crisis?
I found a partial breakdown of the cases, unfortunately it's in the form of an interview with their prosecutor. I'll also quote his premises:
"In the beginning, we thought we may find something ...
- 146k
3
votes
What political actions (if any) in the US caused this stock market stagnation?
I googled "january 2018 selloff" and got these as the top hits:
Jan 30: Stocks drop the most since August, Dow loses 362 points
"We've had a unilateral move higher [in stocks] to start things off ...
- 23.9k
3
votes
Why do house borrowers typically not get as much slack for the credit crisis?
Mostly for two reasons:
House borrowers were small fry with no resources, in large part.
So blaming them wouldn't be productive, as you can't punish them effectively, either in punitive sense OR in ...
- 91.9k
3
votes
Accepted
Is there a way to measure systemic risk in a country, and if so which countries have the highest level of systemic risk?
If you type "measuring systemic financial risk" into Google Scholar you will unsurprisingly see a rather extensive economic literature on the topic. So regarding the first half of the ...
- 15.1k
2
votes
The US has done lots of Quantitative Easing, so why does it not do the same for its debt?
This is an excellent question and it speaks to the fact our media and our schools teach and speak to this topic as if we did not have the worlds' reserve currency.
Also, we have been living in a time ...
- 225
2
votes
The US has done lots of Quantitative Easing, so why does it not do the same for its debt?
QE was FED buying medium and long-term bonds. The effect of that was to reduce the interest rates of long-term bonds. The question's premise was that this was done to help banks, but it wasn't. It ...
- 6,938
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