Risk - Tricky Stuff - An interesting view of the current crisis

[harnett]

http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2011/11/risk-tricky-stuff/

An interesting take on the current crisis, particularly on the issue of the ECB as a lender of last resort to troubled Eurozone governments.

[harnett]

Whilst talking of risk - here is an interesting documentary about rogue traders including an interview with Nick Leeson and also the whistleblower in Ireland who revealed liquidity breaches at Unicredit Bank (Italy's biggest bank): Jonathan Sugarman: http://whistleblowerirl.blogspot.com/
Together they paint a pretty awful picture of how banks and regulators actually operate as opposed how they assure us they operate.

http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/default.htm

As a coda: this is the news from November 14th 2011 from Unicredit as reported by Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-14/unicredit-rights-issue-to-total-as-much-as-7-5-billion-euros.html

"UniCredit SpA (UCG), Italy’s biggest bank, posted a surprise 10.6 billion-euro ($14.5 billion) third- quarter loss after writing down years of acquisitions and said it will close its western European brokerage to rein in costs.
...
The quarterly loss was the biggest in the bank’s history. UniCredit, which said it’s selling as much as 7.5 billion euros of stock to plug the biggest capital shortfall among Italy’s lenders, also scrapped its dividend and said it will exit non- strategic units. The bank plans 5,200 job cuts through 2015, about five percent of global staff, to bolster its finances as Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis threatens to engulf Italy."