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In short, no.
I feel compelled to write this again as the media is full of dark thoughts about the banks and the world as a whole.
I personally blame the constant storms in the real weather as having a zen like influence on the traders of the world markets.
In the UK for example, Barclays, Lloyds and RBS have more or less closed their investment banking groups.
The remainder have Tier One equity of 10%+. They have been lending little real money except on mortgages and credit cards; of this, little has been securitised, let alone put into CDO’s.
The current issue really is that with all the secy stuff gone, the Banks are making no money and the regulators continue to find new crimes for which they get fined. I have little sympathy with the Banks or their shareholders on this.
But we are a long way off 2008. What wold be more troubling at this time would be a huge run on Government bonds, as that is where the real debt expansion has been. However, the threat of QE means that even the top hedge funds of the world are unlikely to try and fight that war in the West.
Instead we have a profit problem – itself predictable in world of a zombie economy and commodity induced deflation.
On the plus side, it means banks look cheap at the moment and he medium term benefits of oil prices are yet to work themselves out (i.e. a boost to the consumer economy) - so the economic future is brighter than it appears right now potentially.
CU