Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman is troubled by the falling number of financial institutions in the U.S. banking system. In the aftermath of the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failures, there has been more scrutiny surrounding the health and state of the financial sector. At the end of 2021, there were 4,237 banks, down…

In this year’s annual reports to shareholders, America’s largest banks proclaimed their allegiance to climate activism, racial equity, and other progressive causes, spending billions in shareholders’ money to support this agenda. Similar in vein to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s annual letter, which often pushed other CEOs to get in line with initiatives like renewable energy,…

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers believes the probability of the United States entering a recession has spiked, pointing to tightening credit conditions. “Recession probabilities are going up at this point,” Summers said in an interview with Bloomberg. The U.S. economy averaged 345,000 monthly job additions in the first quarter of 2023 while the unemployment rate…

Commentary On Sunday, March 5, 1933, just one day after his inauguration, newly elected U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared a banking “holiday,” closing all U.S. banks for four days. By the time the first banks began to reopen, financial regulators had scoured the banking system to determine which banks would survive and which would…

Commentary The banking crisis is there, but global inflation does not ease quickly. Breaking down the components tells clearly that the non-core components (food and energy) almost vanish while the core ones (mainly services) are still firm. This is true in most of the advanced economies, including Japan. Housing prices are generally coming down (some…

Decades-high persistent inflation combined with increasing risks of an economic recession and an imminent insolvency crisis in the banking sector have resulted in a “trilemma” facing central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, warns top economist Nouriel Roubini. “Unable to fight inflation and provide liquidity support simultaneously, the only solution is a severe recession—and thus…

Commentary Markets have remained relatively stable since the Federal Reserve announced a 25-basis-point hike in March, with no negative surprises jumping out of the U.S. banking sector. But the U.S. economy remains on the verge of trouble. There are landmines on several fronts that could hurt businesses and consumers. And all of this makes the…

Some refer to it as the “Irish slaves myth,” which claims that there weren’t any Irish slaves, but “indentured servants.”  However, according to UCLA history professor Roger McGrath, the Irish slave trade began when 30,000 Irish prisoners were sold as slaves to the New World. In most cases during the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves…

President Joe Biden is urging federal banking agencies to consider a series of reforms that would “reduce the risk of a future banking crisis” and refrain from penalizing community banks, says a White House official. Speaking in a call with reporters on Thursday, the administration official confirmed that the president is recommending reinstating rules and…

News Analysis Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed in spectacular and sudden fashion on March 10, becoming the second largest bank to do so in our nation’s history and triggering panic in our banking system in the process. Although virtually everyone knows of SVB’s failure, not everyone understands exactly why Silicon Valley Bank failed. Many have…