tyb(s) and good morning
Pope says emigration, low birth rates have brought 'Ice Curtain' on Europe
SOFIA (Reuters) - Pope Francis urged European leaders on Sunday to address wealth inequality and low birth rates which he said had created an “ice curtain” between Europe’s richer and poorer states and was fuelling emigration.
Francis was speaking during a two-day visit to Bulgaria, his first and the first by a pope in 17 years. He also met with leaders of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He moves to North Macedonia on Tuesday.
Sensitive relations with the Eastern Orthodox Church means Francis will have to tread carefully in both countries, where Catholics are a tiny minority.
Using a play on Winston Churchill’s famous phrase about an “iron curtain” falling over a divided Europe after World War Two, Francis said new divisions were lacerating the face of the continent 30 years after the fall of communism.
“Bulgaria, like so many other countries of Europe – must deal with what can only be called a new winter: the demographic winter that has descended like an ice curtain on a large part of Europe, the consequence of a diminished confidence in the future,” he said in a speech at the presidential palace in Sofia.
Bulgaria, which joined the European Union in 2007, remains its poorest member state. More than two million Bulgarians have left the country since the fall of communism for better jobs and living standards in western Europe, leaving a current population of about seven million.
Francis urged Bulgaria “to strive to create conditions that lead young people to invest their youthful energies and plan their future, as individuals and families, knowing that in their homeland they can have the possibility of leading a dignified life.”
One purpose of the three-day trip is to improve relations with the Orthodox churches as part of the Vatican’s push for eventual unity between the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity that split in 1054.
The Bulgarian Orthodox community is one of the most hardline in relations with the Vatican and the only one to have boycotted the recent meetings of the official Orthodox-Catholic dialogue.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-bulgaria/pope-says-emigration-low-birth-rates-have-brought-ice-curtain-on-europe-idUSKCN1SB08O?il=0
Intercontinental Exchange : This Man Wants to Mend, Not End, Libor
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and after link provided
Intercontinental Exchange or (ICE) bought the exchanges in a large deal, it has produced an iron grip on all aspects of it's mechanic's
Financial regulators around the world agree the London interbank offered rate, a widely used lending benchmark that is prone to manipulation, has to go. But they have struggled to come up with a convenient replacement.
Timothy Bowler, president of ICE Benchmark Administration at Intercontinental Exchange Inc., has an idea to help: Don't ditch Libor altogether; improve it. This year, the exchange rolled out a revamped version, dubbed the U.S. Dollar ICE Bank Yield Index, that Mr. Bowler and its fans say is now more accurate and harder to exploit.
Libor is a crucial part of global financial plumbing. It is an interest rate that underpins $350 trillion of financial contracts world-wide, including U.S. consumer debt such as auto and student loans, and is based on banks' estimates of their short-term borrowing costs.
For years, the rate was seen as a useful yardstick for gauging market risk. Until, that is, banks were found gaming the measure to bolster their own profits. Banks were fined billions of dollars and several traders went to prison as a result.
the basics of LIBOR is that it is the report used to show what bank's charge each other to lend money to themeselves-it is nothing moar than a tarted up survey
Currently, the front-runner to replace Libor when it retires after 2021 is a gauge called the secured overnight financing rate, or SOFR. Unlike Libor, SOFR measures the cost of borrowing money when the borrower pledges U.S. Treasurys as security – making its rates less vulnerable to meddling, proponents say.
But Mr. Bowler, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who has also worked at the U.S. Treasury Department, says some form of Libor is needed alongside SOFR.
he is not wrong here however it needs to include something that is tanglible as LIBOR has noting much in it that is empirical
His argument: The market needs separate benchmarks: one for credit risk, such as his bank yield index, and another for interest-rate risk, such as SOFR.
Transitioning from Libor "is like having to figure out how to re-lay the tracks of the global financial system," and therefore it is the perfect time to roll out a revamped version of Libor and SOFR together, said Mr. Bowler in an interview. The new Libor rate is less easily manipulated because it is based not on estimates, but on specific market trading that set bank bond yields, he said.
if they do this then it is moar transparent-still plenty of room to game this though
So far, the Fed has made it clear it views market acceptance of SOFR as a priority. Fed officials declined to comment on possible use of the bank yield index.
this is where the brakes are applied imo…if they want it then….
While a banker at Goldman, he managed the firm's account with Ford Motor Co. At the time, Ford was trying to survive by drawing on its credit lines as rivals General Motors Co. and Chrysler Corp. sought government bailouts.
Had SOFR been the prevailing benchmark then, Mr. Bowler argues, it would have given Ford access to cash at a nearly risk-free rate while Goldman would have had to raise the funds from other banks at much higher rates that reflected the credit crisis. That mismatch would make banks reluctant to lend during a period of stress, he said.
they would find a way to lend as that is the bread and butter business for them-this new program would not discourage the practice of risky lending-it would just make it moar easily accepted when it turns on them
Some investors remain skeptical.
count pepe as one of them
Mr. Bowler concedes the bank yield index isn't a panacea.
Like Mr. Bowler, economists from the Bank for International Settlements, which acts as a central bank for central banks, also see a need for multiple benchmarks. A March BIS report says it is possible a variety of rates could "coexist, fulfilling a variety of purposes and market needs."
Full stop here
Yet ICE has a history of dusting off faulty benchmarks and making them profitable.
Wall Street Journal via
https://www.marketscreener.com/INTERCONTINENTAL-EXCHANGE-14931198/news/Intercontinental-Exchange-This-Man-Wants-to-Mend-Not-End-Libor-28540724/
this is moar complicated and will require a benchmark where real data and not survey's are used to determine a fair notational value of lending practice's among bank's and institutions. They keep it very well hidden now and for good reason. They do not want most to know how much stress the system is under at any given time. That would be reflected in any bench-marked rate's for inter-bank lending.
taken
not a democracy with regards to how the board is run-and that is not a reason for you to go all 'stalin' on it either. Don't like it? go back to reddit or voat or half. That is the reality of it.
I mean really…it's not like it's an algebra problem or trigonometry. Could have had that.
can see that so don't get me wrong and not being a hard-ass for no reason. They made the choice to do it, we have to adapt. Easier for some, harder for other's. notice a distinct lack of gif's on here since so that is another thing it has affected.
you can't change it. that is the point. nothing moar