HSBC: Britain's safest bank

... at number 18 in the worldwide list. 4 of the top 10 are German; the safest US bank (Bank of New York Mellon Corp) is at #32.

Meanwhile, the Daily Finance is sanguine about the US banking system, reporting the view of several analysts that the total number of failures will merely be in the hundreds, as opposed to Nouriel Roubini's "much too high" 2008 prediction of 1,200.

Guessing the low points

I looked at trends in the Dow earlier this year and guessed that the Dow's low might be 7,000. Now, Mish reports that Nouriel Roubini is saying the same.

The FTSE is currently hovering around 4,000, which is lower than the line I drew in June. But then, the line passed through, not under, the lowest negative spike in 2003. I seem to recall Wolfie predicting 4,000 in one of his comments here recently; well done, old chap.

Under New Management

If I understand him, Nouriel Roubini (htp: City Unslicker) is saying don't buy the rotten apples, become the greengrocer's senior partner.

Roubini: bailing out government mortgage lenders could downgrade the USA's national credit rating

If we fiscalize all of these losses the U.S. may fast lose its AAA sovereign debt rating and eventually end up like an insolvent banana republic.

Nouriel Roubini, quoted in Mish's.

Emerging markets inflation could break the current system

... says Nouriel Roubini, and there's already a fund to speculate on consequential revaluation of developing world currencies, according to this.

Unreal

Richard Daughty (the Mogambo Guru) refers to articles by Nouriel Roubini and Sharon Kayser, giving us debt -threat vistas of $1 trillion and $1,000 trillion respectively. Then he returns to Terry Pratchett's Discworld dwarves' favourite song ("Gold, gold, gold, gold...").

Two problems: one is, I can't visualise anything with many zeroes, so it's not real for me. More importantly, if there's a major meteor-strike financial bust (i.e. deflation), I'd have thought cash in hand is what everyone will want.

Unless a crazed government opts for hyperinflation. In which case, I'd rather have pallets of canned baked beans, boxes of ammunition and many brave, loyal friends. You can't eat gold.

But as with all truly terrible imaginings, the mind bounces off this like a tennis ball from a granite boulder, and we turn back to normal life with determined optimism.