- US, European markets rise as investors weigh rates, earnings
- In Colombia, children trade plastic waste for school supplies
- JPMorgan Chase profits top estimates, bank sees 'resilient' US economy
- Little progress at key meet ahead of COP29 climate summit
- 'Party atmosphere': Skygazers treated to another aurora show
- Kyrgyzstan opens rare probe into glacier destruction
- European Mediterranean states discuss Middle East, migration
- Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian, climate protest in Milan
- Stock markets diverge before China weekend briefing
- EU questions shopping app Temu over illegal products risk
- Han Kang's books sell out in South Korea after Nobel win
- Shanghai markets sink ahead of briefing on mixed day for Asia
- Investors, analysts eye bigger China stimulus at Saturday briefing
- Musk unveils robotaxi, pledges it 'before 2027'
- At least 11 dead in Florida but Hurricane Milton not as bad as feared
- Asian markets mixed after Wall St drop, Shanghai dips before briefing
- Automaker Stellantis says CEO will retire in 2026
- Musk's promised robotaxi unveil delayed
- On US coast, wind power foes embrace 'Save the Whales' argument
- At least 10 dead in Florida after Hurricane Milton spawns tornadoes
- Internet Archive reels from 'catastrophic' cyberattack, data breach
- Wall Street stocks retreat from records on US inflation data
- Israel strikes central Beirut, killing 22
- Solar storm could impact US hurricane recovery efforts: agency
- Delta eyes Election Day travel pullback as profits climb
- Florida battered by hurricane, floods but spared 'worst-case scenario'
- UK's William and Kate in first joint public engagement since cancer treatment
- Over 200 women in legal talks with Harrods over Fayed abuse claims
- A very stiff breeze: BBC says sorry for 20,000 kph wind forecast
- Musk finally unveiling his long-promised robotaxi
- London's Frieze art fair goes potty for ceramics
- US, Europe stocks fall on US inflation data
- US consumer inflation eases to 2.4% in September
- Hurricane Milton tornadoes kill four in Florida amid rescue efforts
- South Korea's Han Kang wins literature Nobel
- Ikea posts fall in annual sales after lowering prices
- Stock markets diverge, oil gains after China rebounds
- World can't 'waste time' trading climate change blame: COP29 hosts
- South Korean same-sex couples make push for marriage equality
- Mumbai declares day of mourning for Indian industrialist Ratan Tata
- 7-Eleven owner restructures to fight takeover
- Sri Lanka recovering faster than expected: World Bank
- Hong Kong, Shanghai rally as most markets track Wall St record
- Uniqlo owner reports record annual earnings
- Hong Kong, Shanghai rally as markets track Wall St record
- Indonesia biomass drive threatens key forests: report
- Mumbai mourns Indian industrialist Ratan Tata
- China opens $71 bn 'swap facility' to boost markets
- Asian markets track Wall St record as Hong Kong, Shanghai stabilise
- 'Denying my potential': women at Japan's top university call out gender imbalance
SVB collapse calls for finance rethink financial: Stiglitz
In the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank that has shaken world markets, Nobel economics prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz told AFP that US authorities "did the right thing" to protect deposits but said the financial system needs a rethink.
- Has the risk of a major financial crisis been averted? -
"That's one of the things that one can't tell. The banks are sounder than they were before, in 2008. There has been progress, not as much as there should be. But the new technologies make runs much easier, which people didn't fully think about.
They used to think that bank accounts were sticky. But if everybody has internet banking, it's much easier to take your money out and put it somewhere else. The question about the stability of the financial system has to be rethought, recognising the new technologies.
And I'm not sure that it has been done. Before the SVB collapse, there had been very little discussion about how technology had changed the probability of bank runs. But now there's a lot of discussion."
- You have said SVB's collapse was foreseeable. Will others fail in the coming days? -
"The banking system is very complex. There are always rumours about particular banks who have vulnerabilities, and unless you know their balance sheets, their exposures and (how they've done) with the stress tests, you can't really know.
There may be rumours. What was interesting about one particular aspect of SVB was that there were no negative discussions about its lending portfolio. In most bank runs in the past, like in 2008, the complaint was 'silly banks have made loans for mortgages that were basically fraudulent'.
We didn't realise in 2008 the magnitude of the fraud that all the major banks had engaged in. Only after the mass of suits that went on, we saw how bad things were, but we knew that the lending was bad.
In this case its not a lending problem, it's a maturity mismatch and that can happen anywhere in our economic system."
- What do you think of the reaction of US authorities? -
"There was an enormous stress from Thursday to Sunday night. In the end they did the right thing I think, but they reacted very slowly. It would have been a lot better if they had acted more quickly, and in particular assuring that the depositors with more than $250,000 were not going to lose their money.
But the most important thing, in terms of the macroeconomics, is they finally assured those with deposits over $250,000 they would be able to get their money back. If they hadn't done that, (there was a) possibility of a massive financial crisis or a massive movement to the too big to fail banks.
One has to understand the amount of stress that that put on all the workers in the whole sector. It's a trauma from which I think they will have longer lasting effects."
X.Wong--CPN