Daily Archives: July 12, 2009

Global Banking Economist Warned of Coming Crisis

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Beat Balzli and Michaela Schiessl:

William White predicted the approaching financial crisis years before 2007’s subprime meltdown. But central bankers preferred to listen to his great rival Alan Greenspan instead, with devastating consequences for the global economy.


William White had a pretty clear idea of what he wanted to do with his life after shedding his pinstriped suit and entering retirement.



White, a Canadian, worked for various central banks for 39 years, most recently serving as chief economist for the central bank for all central bankers, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), headquartered in Basel, Switzerland.



Then, after 15 years in the world’s most secretive gentlemen’s club, White decided it was time to step down. The 66-year-old approached retirement in his adopted country the way a true Swiss national would. He took his money to the local bank, bought a piece of property in the Bernese Highlands and began building a chalet. There, in the mountains between cow pastures and ski resorts, he and his wife planned to relax and enjoy their retirement, and to live a peaceful existence punctuated only by the occasional vacation trip. That was the plan in June 2008.

July 9, 1958: Surf’s Up, as 1,700-Foot Wave Scours Alaskan Bay

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Tony Long:

1958: The tallest wave ever recorded — splashing nearly 500 feet taller than the Empire State Building — explodes down Lituya Bay in the Gulf of Alaska.



Lituya Bay is a T-shaped fjord on the coast of the Alaskan Panhandle, west of Glacier Bay and about 120 miles west-northwest of Juneau. It measures 7 miles long by 2 miles at its widest point and has a narrow mouth (roughly 1,600 feet wide) that makes navigation difficult during high tides. Once inside, however, vessels (mostly fishing boats) find a snug anchorage among the coves lining the shore. Water from three glaciers empties into Lituya Bay, which is over 700 feet deep in places.



This topography was a major ingredient in the formation of the tsunami. (Or, more informally, megatsunami, a word used to describe a wave in excess of 100 meters, or 328 feet).

A New News Media Emerges for Our New World

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Fabius Maximums:

Summary: One indicator of the massive changes sweeping America is the destruction of longtime solid business models. This post discussed colleges; today we look at the news media. Tons of ink have been spilled on this, but IMO ignoring some likely outcomes.


The major news media are on a treadmill. Loss of credibility shrinks their audience, hence less revenue, hence reduced funding. Which reduces the quality of their product, hence even less audience. Worse is the loss of advertisers to new media (e.g., Craigslist and Google), which means less revenue, less funding for news collection, and smaller audiences.


This posts speculates about the future, what new models might emerge from this turmoil. Here are some guesses.