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 " Process of de-dollarization has begun’ “It’s clear that it (de-dollarization) will not happen at once, but the process has begun,” Mozhin said, anticipating a steady decline in the dominance of dollar. Mozhin also highlighted some US officials sounding the alarm on the risk of the dollar losing its status of the world’s reserve currency. He further associated the US currency’s long-standing dominance in the global economy with a lack of competition since most international settlements and deposits worldwide are in dollars. Recently, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledged that the use of financial sanctions could erode the dominance of the dollar." Source https://www.firstpost.com/world/us-responsible-for-de-dollarization-says-imf-12801912.html

 " We told our friends and allies in Israel that if there’s a fire burning in their backyard, it’s going to be a lot tougher , if not impossible, to actually both deepen the existing agreements, as well as to expand them, to include potentially Saudi Arabia ,” Blinken said at an event at the Council on Foreign Relations." " Israel has already secured diplomatic agreements with several Arab nations, including Morocco, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. After his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, Blinken reaffirmed the Biden administration’s commitment to normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia , saying he discussed the matter in his meetings with Saudi officials" Source https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/28/politics/blinken-israel-saudi-normalization/index.html

  " The bank merger and its implications Although it is too early to judge the full impact of this deal; we can, however, state the following: Credit Suisse is a TBTF bank, the second-largest Swiss bank and employs 50,000 workers around the globe and 17,000 in Switzerland. UBS’s acquisition comes with the aim of shrinking Credit Suisse’s core business (investment banking), or in the words of UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher: “(…)  UBS intends to downsize Credit Suisse’s investment banking business and align it with our conservative risk culture ”. UBS will be able to reinforce its position in investment banking. The takeover will allow UBS to target the Asian and American market while becoming “the  world’s leading wealth manager with $5 trillion of invested  assets”, according to CNN." " Bailouts, mergers, what next? The Credit Suisse collapse occurred because the alarm bells failed to ring properly. There is the feeling that FINMA’s detection of the problem was too little to

  Written by  Dr Giuliano Bianchi  | Jun 13, 2023 4:00:00 PM  What is actually being debated? Dr. Bianchi:  There are several issues currently being mulled over. In the blue corner, there is the question related to the protection of shareholders (both CS and UBS). And in the red corner, there is the question related to the market power that this monster will have.  That’s just it: The combined balance sheet will be bigger than that of the Swiss National Bank. Does this present a systemic risk? What happens when ‘too big to fail’ becomes ‘too big to rescue’ for a national bank? Dr. Bianchi:  The power of the  Swiss National Bank  depends more on the level of confidence that it inspires than its actual financial firepower. If the markets do not believe in the SNB's strength and start speculating against it, the SNB would not be able to carry out its monetary policy. In the past, the SNB was able to rescue UBS and maintain a fixed exchange rate. But, do we really believe that if the i

THE CLOCK IS TICKING. "Avoiding a hard landing would be historically unpredictable." "We expect the grind higher to be choppy,” Deutsche cautioned.  " The German multinational bank's top research team believes Washington has sparked a boom-bust cycle that now is nearing its end stage. In its house view, the recession slated to arrive as soon as October is the inevitable consequence of a series of aggressive rate hikes designed to extinguish the very flames of inflation that policymakers ignited through their own actions during the COVID pandemic." " Avoiding a hard landing would be historically unprecedented,” warned group chief economist David Folkerts-Landau in a research report entitled  The Clock is Ticking  published on Wednesday." SOURCE: https://www.google.com/amp/s/finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/deutsche-bank-top-minds-put-105714771.html

 " New York  CNN Business  —  During a closed-door meeting with business leaders on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stressed that the United States wants to work with China on urgent global challenges, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. The comments by Yellen signal increased efforts by US officials to lower the temperature in the complicated and intertwined relationship between the United States and China, the first- and second-biggest economies in the world, respectively." SOURCE: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/08/business/yellen-china-ceos-cnn-exclusive/index.html

 " The Federal Reserve has done enough economic damage already with its interest-rate hikes and, regardless of its next move, the US is facing an imminent 'self-inflicted' recession, according to yield-curve guru Campbell Harvey." " Continuing to raise rates placed the Fed in danger of overshooting - increasing rates well beyond when it should have stopped - and jeopardizing the chance to achieve a soft landing," Harvey wrote. He criticized the central bank's decision to raise its benchmark rate for the 10th consecutive time last month despite inflation cooling." SOURCE: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/hard-landing-us-economy-research-affiliates-campbell-harvey-yeild-curve-2023-6

By Jon Danielsson  Charles Goodhart   "The downfall of Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse has exposed failures in how we regulate the financial system. This column argues that the problems we now see in the system have arisen because the financial authorities have been trying to do the impossible: maintain growth while keeping inflation under control and financial stability high. The best way forward would be to focus on shock absorption and moral hazard, not the current approach of buffers and risk measurements." "Those post-2000 G20 financial reforms are founded on the philosophy of modern regulations. The notion is that all important risk is identified and measured, to be used by banks and the financial authorities to determine the appropriate level of risk. Then it is easy for the banks and regulators to fine-tune risk. If we need more growth, reduce capital requirements, as we did in March 2020, or demand more capital if risk is too high, as we should have done b

 " Andrei Kostin , the CEO of state-controlled VTB , Russia's second largest bank , said the crisis was ushering in sweeping changes to the world economy, undermining globalisation just as China was taking on the mantle of a top global economic power. Asked if he thought the world was in a new Cold War, Kostin said that it was now a " hot war" that was more dangerous than the Cold War. The United States and the European Union, he said, would lose from moves to freeze hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian sovereign assets as many countries were moving to settling payments outside the U.S. currency and the euro while China was moving towards a removal of currency restrictions." ""China understands that they will not become world economic power Number 1 if they keep their yuan as a non-convertible currency ," Kostin said, adding that it was dangerous for China to keep reserves invested in U.S. sovereign bonds." SOURCE: https://www.reuters.

  Banks failing: Lessons learnt from Credit Sussie collapse. Part 2. WRITTEN BY Dr Giuliano Bianchi .  Two bailouts in just 15 years UBS in 2008 and now Credit Sussie. " “Never again” was the mantra and the goal was to bring Swiss laws in line with other frameworks (namely the U.S. and the EU) and to follow international financial recommendations (i.e., the Basel accords). The Swiss regulator sought to shore up the stability of the system and bring it in line with international capital market standards, in hopes of bolstering the attractiveness of the Swiss financial marketplace." The bank takeover and its consequences How did FINMA orchestrate UBS’ absorption of Credit Suisse? FINMA decided to write off Tier 1 capital,  tout simplement . This financial instrument was created by the international regulatory community after the 2008 financial meltdown to guarantee banks would have access to capital in case of distress. The idea is quite simple: Tier 1 works as a bond, but if a

  "In my opinion, ( Mr. Dalio says) we are at the beginning of a very classic late, big cycle debt crisis, when the supply-demand gap, when you are producing too much debt and have a shortage of buyers ," Dalio said during the   Bloomberg Invest conference   on Wednesday.  "What's happening now, as we have to sell all this debt, do you have enough buyers ? " he said. " When I look at the supply-demand issue for that debt, there's a lot of debt, it has to be bought and has to have a high enough interest rate," the Bridgewater founder added." SOURCE: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/ray-dalio-us-debt-crisis-economy-recession-outlook-borrowing-ceiling-2023-6

 " NEW YORK, June 8 (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp   (BAC.N)   promoted the head of its Latin America business , Alex Bettamio , to co-head of global investment banking alongside Thomas Sheehan, according to a memo seen by Reuters on Thursday. The leadership change was one of several announced by the second largest U.S. bank. It also elevated Faiz Ahmad to jointly lead global capital markets with Sarang Gadkari . Ahmad currently runs the Global Transaction Services (GTS) unit." SOURCE: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/bank-america-promotes-bettamio-co-head-investment-banking-ahmad-co-head-capital-2023-06-08/

  "95% of system-generated alerts against money laundering resulted in false positives. Financial institutions have systems to monitor suspicious transactions , such as substantial cash deposits and frequent movement of funds from one bank to another. However, anti-money laundering statistics show that 95% of those system-generated alerts are false positives, costing firms billions of dollars every year in wasted investigation time." SOURCE: https://legaljobs.io/blog/money-laundering-statistics/

 " Criminals, especially drug traffickers, may have laundered around $1.6 trillion, or 2.7 per cent of global GDP, in 2009 , according to a new report by UNODC. This figure is consistent with the 2 to 5 per cent range previously established by the International Monetary Fund to estimate the scale of money-laundering. Less than 1 per cent of global illicit financial flows is currently being seized and frozen, according to the report  Estimating illicit financial flows resulting from drug trafficking and other transnational organized crime ." SOURCE: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2011/October/illicit-money_-how-much-is-out-there.html

From KC Korfmann, Herrliberg, Switzerland. Bank had many problems but three were critical and mentioned in the article. FIRST: CS. suffered from bad management from supervisory board. SECOND: Swiss regulatory authorities ( FINMA, SNB.) were too lax with the bank: they highlighted weakness but followup and eventual penalties for non implementation of remedial action were weak or non existent. THIRD: US policy makers and Regulators had hand in the demise of CS in two ways:  1. In disregarding Swiss neutrality they imposed sanctions on business with Chinese clients, who were main source of deposits withdrawal, initially. 2. By Announcing an investigation in the Bank's  prior year financial year statement a year too late, when the Bank's new management team was already struggling, the announcement served as a dagger to the heart. 

 " Here in New York, the elected student commencement speaker at the City University of New York School of Law is facing death threats after she criticized the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians during her speech. Fatima Mohammed, who is Yemeni American, addressed the   CUNY   Law School’s graduating class in early May after being elected to speak by her classmates. Fatima Mohammed : “Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshipers, murdering the old, the young, attacking even funerals and graveyards, as it encourages lynch mobs to target Palestinian homes and businesses, as it imprisons its children, as it continues its project of settler colonialism, expelling Palestinians from their homes.” Fatima Mohammed also spoke out against white supremacy and the New York Police Department. Mohammed has since faced a torrent of criticism from the New York Post and other right-wing media outlets and Republican politicians, as well as some Democrats, in

"  LONDON, June 5 (Reuters) - Signs of de-dollarisation are unfolding in the global economy, strategists at the biggest U.S. bank JPMorgan said on Monday, although the currency should maintain its long-held dominance for the foreseeable future. The impact of steep U.S. interest rate rises and the use of sanctions that have frozen the likes of Russia out of the global banking system are driving the so-called BRICs nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - to  challenge  the dollar’s hegemony." Source: https://www.reuters.com/markets/signs-de-dollarisation-emerge-dollar-top-currency-jpmorgan-2023-06-05/

Quotes by Billionaire investor, Cliff Asness.   " "If inflation stays sticky, or it comes down because we enter a non-trivial recession, it's equities that I think are a scary place . They're not priced very consistently with bonds, and we're going to find out who's right in the next year." "Commercial real estate, and banks that deal in that, may be a more nerve-wracking place — how that shakes out in cities. I'm worried enough to put it on my worry" list."

 " As the United States ramps up its attempts to punish countries it does not like through economic sanctions, a number of countries across the world started mulling the possibility of countering this threat by introducing a new currency that might challenge the US dollar’s dominance in global trade. Earlier this year, the international economic bloc BRICS (comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, hence the acronym) announced it may soon start investigating the prospects of introducing  their own currency  to bypass the US dollar , while South Africa's Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said recently that  departure from US dollar  could help empower other nations." SOURCE: https://sputnikglobe.com/20230602/new-brics-currency-may-prevent-imposition-of-us-laws-in-other-countries-1110864073.html

" It’s a slight exaggeration to compare Credit Suisse’s struggles to the collapse of the Byzantine empire, but they certainly have one thing in common: experienced professionals moving to Italy . For the Byzantines, those professionals were the Greek scholars that kickstarted the renaissance. For Credit Suisse, it’s bankers. We’ve spotted two leaving the Swiss bank in London… And heading to Milan. Enrico Mezan is one of them. He spent 22 years at Credit Suisse, most notably with the structuring team for European capital markets transactions. He was in the M&A team before that. Mezan joins White Bridge Investments , an Italian private equity firm, in Milan as an MD and member of the board. The other is Andrea Berti , who joins UniCredit , the traditional big Italian financial institution, in the Technology, Media, and Telecoms (TMT) M&A group. He spent just a year and a half at Credit Suisse, leaving as a senior director, and was with HSBC before that. " SOURCE:  ht

QUEEN OF THE CARIBBEES   Nevis (pronounced ‘knee-vis’) is a forest-covered, cloud-topped nipple protruding from the water where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Caribbean sea. By surface area, it is barely bigger than Manhattan, and its population is just 11,000.When it won independence from Britain in 1983 – as the junior half of the Federation of St Kitts and Nevis – its economic prospects looked grim.Simeon Daniel was head of the Nevis government at the time, and it was his job to provide for his people, but the cupboard was worryingly empty. ‘There were not,’ he reflected years later, ‘many opportunities to earn a decent living.’Yet Daniel did have one good card to play. During the independence negotiations, he had insisted on the fullest possible autonomy. Small his island might have been, but the federal constitution gave it almost complete control over its own affairs. And it so happened that a coup in Liberia had recently created a potentially lucrative gap in the market for a nati

 " Commentators from all sides of politics have expressed concerns about the effect of inequality on the fabric of society in the United States, where the share of wealth held by the richest 1 percent rose from a quarter to two-fifths between 1990 and 2012. But if you think that’s bad, look what’s happened to the world as a whole: in just the decade after 2000, the richest 1 percent of the world’s population increased its wealth from one-third of everything to a half. The top three and a half dozen people now own as much as the bottom three and a half billion. How is democracy possible with that kind of gulf in wealth and power between citizens?" Oliver Bullough,  Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World

  " The media squabble over Shchepotin’s final day at the Cancer Institute, and the doubts it raised over the motivation of all concerned, were appropriate, because the most corrosive aspect of corruption is the way that it undermines trust. When corruption is widespread, it becomes impossible to know whom to believe, since the money infects every aspect of state and society. Every newspaper article can be criticized as paid for, every politician can be called corrupt, every court decision can be called into question. Charities are set up by oligarchs to lobby for their interests, and those then provoke doubts about every other non-governmental organization. If even doctors are on the take, can you trust their diagnoses? Are they claiming a patient needs treatment only because that would be to their profit? If policemen are crooked, and courts are paid for, are criminals really criminals? Or are they honest people who interfered in criminals’ business? Not knowing whom to believe,

Oliver Bullough is the Author of  Moneyland: Why thieves and crooks now rule the world and how to take it back  Bristol Ideas www.bristolideas.co.uk Oliver Bullough In conversation with Andrew Kelly Andrew Kelly: Hello, and welcome to Bristol Ideas. I'm Andrew Kelly and I'm talking to Oliver Bullough about his new book, Butler to the Word: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals. Oliver is a journalist and writer, author of two books about the former Soviet Union, The Last Man in Russia and Let Our Fame Be Great, and Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take it Back. This event is part of our ongoing work on the future of democracy.  Thank you for joining us, Oliver. Oliver Bullough: It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Andrew: It’s said by many reviewers, and as I was reading this it occurred to me as well, that this is an incredibly timely book for reasons we'll be discussing. But you've been purs