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	<title>Comments on: Capital: how much is enough?</title>
	<link>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/</link>
	<description>FT Alphaville from FT.com</description>
	<copyright>Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2006. "Alphaville", "FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times.</copyright>
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	<pubDate>Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:58:36 +0000</pubDate>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:58:36 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<language>en</language>

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		<title>by: Anonymous</title>
		<link>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20896</link>
		<pubDate>Sun, 18 May 2008 03:35:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20896</guid>
					<description><![CDATA["Raising capital" is a euphemism for "feeding Wall Streets addiction to gamble with other people's money".  Ben Bernanke now is engaged in the kind of reckless financial engineering that created this banking crisis. Rather than being the sober and prudent central banker, Ben has concocted new, more powerful money-laundering schemes (TSLF, TAF, PDCF) to "provide liquidity" a.k.a. bailing out reckless "bankers" (a.k.a. 30:1 leveraged gamblers with other people's money).

Now that the Fed has supplied the Ponzi scheme with a fresh infusion of other people's money (Fed's T-bills), everything is rosy and Wall Street has cherry blossoms in springtime bloom.

Ben is creating Moral Hazard on an unprecedented scale. Volcker is being as polite and circumspect as he can in order not to shout "fire" in the Fed theater. But Volcker's concern is clear. A few weeks ago Volcker said that the Fed was at "the very edge" of its legal authority, "transcending in the process certain long-embedded central banking principles and practices". Volcker's alarm is sufficient cause for Congress and federal prosecutors to investigate Ben and the Fed for breaking the law, that is, criminal violations. Yes, it is that serious.]]></description>
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		<title>by: A DOWNING</title>
		<link>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20890</link>
		<pubDate>Sat, 17 May 2008 06:48:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20890</guid>
					<description><![CDATA[Right issues should be good news for bondholders.]]></description>
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		<title>by: BovBear</title>
		<link>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20880</link>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 May 2008 14:57:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20880</guid>
					<description><![CDATA[Makes no mention of political pressure to recapitalise to allow a slower deleveraging process and therefore less of a shock to the wider economy]]></description>
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		<title>by: S Wathen</title>
		<link>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20873</link>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 May 2008 13:12:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20873</guid>
					<description><![CDATA[No mention in this note of the consequences of the last Barclays rights issue in the late 80s when they took more money than they needed, because it was available, and disaster followed - hats off to the management and board for their current approach.]]></description>
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		<title>by: Monkey</title>
		<link>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20872</link>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 May 2008 12:49:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20872</guid>
					<description><![CDATA[IFRS provisioning makes sense given the propensity of big bath provisions that companies used to make in order to smooth earnings and hide earnings volatility.]]></description>
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		<title>by: D Russell</title>
		<link>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20870</link>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 May 2008 12:19:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20870</guid>
					<description><![CDATA[Whilst formerly good banking practice, unfortunately in the world of IFRS under which all the banks are now reporting, general provisions against loan losses are not permitted.

See:http://www.accaglobal.com/students/publications/student_accountant/archive/2005/57/2408963 for a brief analysis.

"IAS 39 requires an assessment at each balance sheet date as to whether there is any objective evidence that a financial asset is impaired, and whether the impairment has any impact on the estimated future cash flows of the financial asset. The company recognises any impairment loss in profit or loss, and only losses that have been incurred can be reported. Therefore, losses expected from future events are not recognised."]]></description>
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		<title>by: G Cox</title>
		<link>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20783</link>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 May 2008 09:48:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid>http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/05/16/13109/capital-how-much-is-enough/#comment-20783</guid>
					<description><![CDATA[This all makes sense and Barclays appears to  be rational instead of raising capital in anticipation of trouble as some others have done.

 Good banking practice was to put general provision by for  possible losses . Anyone know why this route has not been used ? Rights or write-off  for  covering non-specific anticipated losses seems to be a policy choice of devil or deep blue sea  with nothing in between .]]></description>
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