Year: 2010
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China’s financial system
A new book, Red Capitalism, takes a critical look at the China’s financial system. In late 70’s China virtually had no banks. For the next 3 decades, the senior leadership in China meticulously built a formal financial system. But concerns still remain. Beyond the facade, the book explains, lies a primitive banking system that deals…
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Graft in India: Rotten to the crore? – The Economist
A scathing article in Economist, Graft in India: Rotten to the crore, sums up the corruption malaise in India. As the economy grows and the income inequalities rise, corruption problem is only getting worse. It is however now new for us except that the issue is grabbing more headlines these days.
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Crisis in India’s Microcredit Sector
India’s Microcredit Sector is facing a collapse with the rural poor-encouraged by local politicians-stopped paying the loans. If the industry indeed collapses, it will be a blow to the mission to alleviate rural poverty. Access to capital is scarce in rural India as banks refuse credit without a steady income or a collateral with cleat…
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Currency warriors should consider India
At a time when all major economies are considering capital controls and protectionist trade practices, India – on the other hand – is surprisingly staying away from such measures.. It is true that India always had pretty much closed capital markets (especially the bond markets). However India’s resolve not to intervene in currency markets, and thus…
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Fool’s Gold (by Gillian Tett)
This book tracks the history of credit derivatives market from their roots in J.P.Morgan to their eventual role in Wall Street collapse in 2008. ABS and MBS have been around for sometime that allowed banks to offload credit risk to other investors. However J.P.Morgan had a peculiar problem with their corporate lending. They needed a…