Yesterday I pointed out that today’s global banking crisis has some historical precedents worthy of comparison. In particular, I looked at the Japanese bailout schemes from their housing bubble to see if there was anything there to learn. Unfortunately, the Japanese experience leaves doubts as to whether government intervention is helpful or harmful.

There are other examples, however. The Nordic model is a particularly useful one to look at as we move forward. Sweden’s Central Bank Chairman Bäckström shared some of his insights from that experience some eleven years ago in a speech to a Federal Reserve symposium that is available on the Swedish Riksbank website. This is a brilliant piece of work.

For those of you who actually care about anything international, there is an Emerging Markets crisis brewing right now in the Baltics. After reading posts from Alpha Sources, naked capitalism, Market Movers, and Bronte Capital on the subject, I started to think people actually cared about the tiny Baltics. So, let me add [...]

Food Price Inflation Changes How We Shop – Chicago Tribune (3/31/2008)Fed eyes Nordic-style nationalisation of U.S. banks – UK Telegraph (4/1/2008)UBS writes off $19 billion – Yahoo! News (4/1/2008)Deutsche Bank Expects $4B Subprime Hit – Yahoo! News (4/1/2008)WaMu Alt-A Pool Deteriorates Further – Michael Shedlock (4/1/2008)Lehman raises $4 bln of capital to quell critics – [...]