Economics is the art of reading tea leaves while taking refuge behind numbers. This truth appears to be increasingly fashionable in the West as the ‘global’ financial crisis transpires to be a western financial and economic crisis. A recent IMF paper entitled “What Caused the Global Financial Crisis - Evidence on the Drivers of Financial Imbalances 1999 – 2007” is a welcome contribution to the tea leaf reading jamboree.
It has been argued that low interest rates in the US were perhaps the most important root cause for the ensuing financial frenzy. This IMF paper does not deny this theory,...
Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce CEO Martin Naville, Global Financial Integrity Program Legislative Director Heather Lowe and Campaign for Liberty Senior Vice President Jesse Benton on the U.S. striking a deal to get the names of some holders of secret Swiss bank accounts in an effort to get more tax revenue.
GFI's director of Government Affairs and legal counsel, Heather Lowe, appeared on Fox Business Channel this morning to discuss the implications of the UBS settlement. Check it out below:
ZURICH (Dow Jones)--UBS AG's (UBS) high-profile spat with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has made some of Switzerland's other banks wary of looking after U.S.-based clients, prompting some to stop taking money from Americans altogether and menacing the country's image as a private banking center.
