Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Central banks respond to solvency crisis with more liquidity

Just like 2008, the global central banks have once again responded to a solvency crisis with massive quantities of liquidity.

In 2008, their response was to the interbank lending market freezing over because banks would not lend to each other because they could not determine if the borrower was solvent or not.

Today, their response was to the interbank lending market freezing over because once again banks are refusing to lend to each other because they cannot tell if the borrower is solvent or not.

I wonder if this time the central bankers will put pressure on the policymakers to require banks to disclose on an on-going basis their current asset, liability and off-balance sheet exposure details so that solvency can be assessed.

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