I have blogged before about one of the best yet most under-used economic indicators, the Baltic Dry Index. This charts the movement (or lack of) of the world’s shipping.
To add to what I said, last month refrigerated-shipping operator Eastwind Maritime filed for bankruptcy in New York. Sweden’s Nordea bank seized and sold on 13 of its ships. Don’t hold the front page but I suspect these moves signal a further gloomy and probably prolonged period of global recession to come.
But there may be a glimmer of justice at least.
I note that a banker in Germany may feature in that country’s first trial related to the money meltdown. A Mr Stefan Ortseifen has been charged in Dusseldorf. He was the CEO of the IKB Bank and has been charged with manipulating the share price. A press release was declared by the prosecutor to have been “too positive” and caused investors to buy stock just a week before the bank came close to going bust altogether.
Mr Ortseifen is a rare breed. He’s one of the very, very, very, few bankers charged since the crash. Despite all the hoo-ha about Bernie Madoff’s 150-year sentence and Sir Alan Stanford’s alleged misdoing cloud, the reality is that the long arm of the law remains strangely stilled as this financial crisis continues to unfold.
Oh, and while I’m about it, are we drifting back to our bad old ways? Is it still possible for some rogue trader inside a London brokerage at 2am on a Tuesday morning to cause a spike in the world oil price? It seems so. Plus ça change!
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Baltic Index: Well known in the City but less so by UK persons given lack of shipping manufacturers / distributors. You could do worse than monitor Clarkson plc one of the bigest shipping brokers in the world. Plenty of information there or, at least, in house.
I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that we wasted our money in saving banks and bolstering up the city. They seem to have taken it as their right and while they care keeping a lower profile, I can’t see that much has changed. They are still over paid, still get ridiculous bonuses and traders seem to be still taking enormous punts that end up with ordinary people paying more for petrol.
A few of them need to go to jail to enourage the others.
Hi Saltaire Sam, I think you’ll find that the electorate is way ahead…..you need to keep up…ask Mervyn King…?
Is it just me that remembers Thatcher’s phrase “you can’t buck the market”? Surely that’s what the 2am oil trader actually did. Surely that’s what “City traders” (trading in nothing concrete) do all the time…
A ‘throw away’ statement Zinoviev….move on…the world’s changed….
Allow me…Imagine..just suppose…?
Let’s compare the Drug Trade and International Finance..
Shared Aims –
To maximise Trade and Profit
To meet, maximise and maintain demand
Legal Constraints
To comply with legislation and regulation..and identify all other means to avoid tax or regulation.
Rewards – wealth, status, notoriety, income from books and films, celebrity
Risks – Short term imprisonment, ineffective proceeds of crime laws.
Peter’s comments (that’s me that is)
Money and power are powerful drivers, addictive, and each element generates an increase acquisition of the other.
We must break this comparison and generate responsible Governance that can look across the street and say.
I ain’.t no dealer…
At present it’s Dealer City out there..!
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Jon Snow:
That is good news, that theirs a glimmer of justice following the credit crunch….
=Dennis Junior=
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