Comment, analysis and other offerings from Friday’s FT,
Editorial comment: Capitol capital
If default rates in this crisis are similar to those of the 1982 recession, US banks will need at least $1,500bn to stay afloat, much more than the Treasury is currently authorised to spend. Once again, the US administration is going to have to go to Congress cap-in-hand.
Lex on ‘bouncing China’
Just as Goldman Sachs was seen as providing a ray of light for Wall Street, optimists are busy touting China as a spot of cheer in a recessionary world and drawing V-shaped graphs. Some hope is justified — but any V-shaped recovery will come with firmly Chinese characteristics.
Samuel Brittan: A long cool look at budget deficits
The year 1992 was the last in which the Conservative party won a British election — to the surprise of most political pundits. It had some superficial similarities to the present. Public sector borrowing was on the rise and at its peak in 1993-94 reached 7.8 per cent of GDP, regarded then as shockingly high
FT video briefing: UK budget 2009
Ahead of next week’s presentation of the 2009 UK budget, see how the economy has fared in a turbulent year of rising public debt and unemployment, declining manufacturing output and interest rates falling to a record low.
Willem Buiter: Ruminations on banking
There is no real money left in the original $700 bn TARP facility – somewhere between $100bn and $150bn – to do more than stabilise a couple of pawn shops. There is just one way to make the US government’s policy towards the banks work and that is for the Congress to vote another $1.5 trillion worth of additional TARP money for the banks.
EnergySource blog: Total
Total, the French oil company, has not shied away from the controversial topic of how much more oil can be extracted from the world’s reserves – at least in a technically and economically feasible way, as it told Der Spiegel magazine.
Letters to the editor:
Government loves to micro-meddle
Original economist of the Gilded Age
Goldman Sachs changed status before Tarp
Concorde an early victim of system