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The Book Of Delights By Ross Gay, Ada Vilageliu-Diaz

Critical Humanities

The Book of Delights by Ross Gay is a collection of journal entries written in a single year. The book starts with the author’s birthday and ends full circle with his next birthday.

Lessons Learned: Andrew Gray, Mercedes Cardona

Journal of Financial Crises

Andrew Gray joined the FDIC in 2007, after having been majority director of communications for the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and press secretary for US Senator Richard C. Shelby (R–AL). Gray’s initial project was a campaign to mark the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC); his role evolved into running crisis communications as the FDIC stepped in during several bank failures triggered by the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and conducted 489 bank resolutions during 2008–2013. After the crisis, the FDIC also assumed new responsibilities over the winding down of …

Thailand: Reserve Requirements, Afc, Ezekiel Vergara, Corey N. Runkel

Journal of Financial Crises

Following years of growth, the Thai economy began showing confidence-busting signs in 1996, including a liquidity crunch. In May 1997, the Bank of Thailand (BOT) announced that it would expand the list of short-term assets that banks and finance companies could use to satisfy the BOT’s liquidity reserve requirement, including obligations of the Financial Institution Development Fund (FIDF), which provided liquidity support to illiquid financial institutions. In the summer of 1997, the BOT suspended the operations of 58 finance companies and floated the Thai baht (THB), unleashing the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC). Tight liquidity conditions continued and, in September 1997, …

Venezuela: Reserve Requirements, Gfc, Corey N. Runkel

Journal of Financial Crises

Leading up to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV) sought to tamp down inflation by raising its interest rate target and by raising the marginal reserve requirement for banks, which it had introduced in 2006. By late 2008, the GFC began to hit Venezuelan banks and the country’s public oil producer (PDVSA). Widespread deposit withdrawals squeezed banks and pushed the interbank lending rate to 28%. The BCV responded in December 2008 by lowering the marginal reserve requirement, applicable to deposits above 90 billion bolívars (USD 4.2 million), from 30% to 27% of deposits. It held …

Russia: Reserve Requirements, Gfc, Benjamin Hoffner

Journal of Financial Crises

In August 2008, Russian banks and financial markets experienced significant capital outflows after Russia invaded neighboring Georgia. The collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15 led to further outflows and a 25% drop in Russia’s main stock index. On September 17, regulators halted stock-market trading. Later that day, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR) announced cuts to the three required reserve ratios (RRRs) it imposed on commercial banks—based on their ruble liabilities to foreign banks, ruble liabilities to individuals, and other liabilities—by 400 basis points, effective September 18, in an effort to promote banking sector liquidity. The CBR …

Russia: Reserve Requirements, 1998, Benjamin Hoffner

Journal of Financial Crises

During the 1998 ruble crisis, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR) relied on reserve requirements (RR) to bring stability to the ruble’s exchange rate corridor and, over time, to inject liquidity into the frozen domestic banking system. First, in February 1998, the CBR unified the RR ratio on ruble and foreign currency liabilities to facilitate ruble financing. Second, after the devaluation of the ruble in August, the CBR lowered the RR ratio to provide liquidity to the banking system. Third, the CBR revised the computation of the RR ratio to provide relief to banks in an effort to …

Malaysia: Reserve Requirements, Afc, Bailey Decker

Journal of Financial Crises

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) unpegged the ringgit in July 1997, days after Thailand floated the baht. Ringgit depreciation and adverse investor sentiment worsened, contributing to a domestic liquidity shortage and capital flight. Malaysia experienced market instability in the early months of 1998, particularly pressure on its exchange rate, foreign currency reserves, and interest rates. At the same time, disruptions in the domestic money market and loan intermediation process caused an increase in lending rates, which resulted in debt servicing problems and weakened financial stability. To facilitate lending and productive economic activity, BNM twice lowered the statutory reserve requirement (SRR) at …

Jamaica: Reserve Requirements, Gfc, Corey N. Runkel

Journal of Financial Crises

In October 2008, the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and liquidity shortages rocked American and European markets, causing investors to exit liquid Jamaican-dollar assets. The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) feared a “disorderly depreciation” in the Jamaican-dollar (JMD) exchange rate to the US dollar (BOJ 2009, 44). In response, the BOJ raised required reserve ratios for cash and other liquid assets, the first increases since 2002. The BOJ raised reserve ratios three times—in December 2008, January 2009, and February 2009—because the central bank could not change its requirements by more than 200 basis points per month. The BOJ raised the requirement for …

India: Reserve Requirements, Gfc, Sharon Nunn, Carey K. Mott

Journal of Financial Crises

As international funding sources dried up during the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2009 (GFC), businesses in India sought funds from domestic financial institutions, straining banks and lifting short-term lending rates. The liquidity pressure, coupled with sharp asset price corrections and rupee depreciation, restricted credit expansion in India. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) responded with a suite of liquidity measures, including cuts to its two reserve requirement ratios, the cash reserve ratio (CRR) and the statutory liquidity ratio (SLR). The RBI cut the CRR over the course of four months from October 2008 to January 2009, lowering the ratio from …

Czech Republic: Reserve Requirements, 1997, Benjamin Hoffner

Journal of Financial Crises

In the first quarter of 1997, fiscal and current account deficits in the Czech Republic put pressure on the koruna’s pegged exchange rate as capital flowed out of the domestic economy. Although the Czech National Bank (CNB) committed to tight monetary policy to protect the peg, on April 11, the CNB announced a lowering of the minimum reserve requirement (RR) ratio from 11.5% to 9.5%, effective May 8. The RR ratio (RRR) reduction (RRR) reflected a compromise with the government, which had petitioned the central bank to ease monetary policy. To improve the balance of payments, the government also implemented …

China: Reserve Requirements, 2015–2016, Carey K. Mott

Journal of Financial Crises

After China devalued the renminbi against the US dollar in August 2015, Chinese equity markets experienced a significant drop that spilled into international markets. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) adjusted the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) five times between February 2015 and October 2015: three times before the market turmoil, to allocate credit to preferred sectors, and twice in response to the crisis to release liquidity into the financial system. Throughout this cycle, the central bank applied lower RRRs to rural credit institutions, agricultural lenders, leasing and financing companies, and other sectors in which government policy promoted lending. Although the …

China: Reserve Requirements, Gfc, Carey K. Mott

Journal of Financial Crises

In 2008, China experienced several natural disasters that slowed economic growth, and fearing contagion from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the central bank cut the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) three times for large financial institutions, to 15.5%, and four times for small and medium-size financial institutions, to 13.5%. This monetary easing, combined with a USD 586 billion fiscal stimulus package, caused explosive credit growth in China. One year after these RRR cuts, the central bank hiked the ratio 12 times, to a historically high 21.5% for large banks in June 2011; however, it maintained a different ratio for rural credit …

Argentina: Reserve Requirements, 1994–1995, Natalie Leonard

Journal of Financial Crises

The devaluation of the Mexican peso in December 1994 sparked concerns about the quality and safety of government debt across Latin American countries, including Argentina. In late 1994 and 1995, Banco Central de la Republica Argentina (BCRA) implemented three changes in reserve requirement policy to restore liquidity throughout the financial system and defend the currency peg to the US dollar. First, it lowered the existing minimum reserve requirement, which required banks to hold reserves entirely in cash (pesos or US dollars). This released more than ARS 4 billion (USD 4 billion) in resources into the banking system, according to the …

Brazil: Reserve Requirements, Gfc, Sean Fulmer

Journal of Financial Crises

After the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, deposits began to accumulate at large Brazilian banks, representing a flight to safety away from small and medium-sized banks. While total deposits in the Brazilian financial system grew by 13% from August 2008 to January 2009, the total deposits held by small and medium-sized banks declined by 23% and 11%, respectively. Because of high statutory reserve requirements and legal disincentives to lend directly to financial institutions, the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) used reserve requirements as its primary tool for providing liquidity to incentivize large banks to provide credit to smaller …

Thailand: Fidf Blanket Guarantee, 1997, Ayodeji George

Journal of Financial Crises

The Thai government’s decision to allow the baht to float in July 1997 was the pivotal event of the Asian Financial Crisis. The baht fell 20% by the end of the month, further pressuring Thai financial institutions that had borrowed heavily in US dollars and other foreign currencies. In early August, Thailand’s Finance Minister and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) announced the suspension and restructuring of insolvent finance companies and a blanket guarantee covering depositors and creditors of all domestic banks and the remaining finance companies, administered by the BOT’s Financial Institutions Development Fund (FIDF). However, the blanket guarantee was …

Sweden: Bank Support Authority, Blanket Guarantee, 1992, Anmol Makhija

Journal of Financial Crises

Following a period of rapid financial liberalization and a record credit boom in the 1980s, Sweden’s financial system suffered its worst shock in the post–World War II period. Swedish banks were heavily dependent on foreign credit, which dried up amid signs of instability. The Swedish government announced a blanket guarantee on September 24, 1992, for all banks’ obligations except share capital and perpetual subordinated loans. According to a 1995 IMF Working Paper by Drees and Pazarbasioglu, the purpose of the blanket guarantee was “to guarantee the stability of the payments system and to safeguard the general supply of credit.” The …

Korea: Blanket Guarantee, 1997, Bailey Decker

Journal of Financial Crises

Korea entered the Asian Financial Crisis in August 1997 with highly leveraged firms and a banking system inexperienced in managing systemic risk. Korea faced a currency crisis and a banking crisis, as foreign banks froze credit to Korean commercial banks and merchant banks. On August 25, 1997, the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF) announced that it would guarantee all Korean financial institutions’ foreign debt—both existing debt and new borrowings. Nonetheless, foreign lenders continued to withdraw credit from Korean financial institutions. On November 19, 1997, a newly appointed MOEF minister announced a suite of measures to promote foreign creditors’ confidence …

Ireland: Credit Institution (Financial Support) Scheme, 2008, Stella Schaefer-Brown

Journal of Financial Crises

The Global Financial Crisis exposed fragilities in the Irish banking system and led to widespread runs on Irish banks. Irish authorities attempted to address the runs on September 22, 2008, by increasing the country’s deposit guarantee limit from EUR 20,000 to EUR 100,000 (USD 28,800 to USD 140,000) and raising the coverage of deposits from 90% to 100%. When the runs continued, the Irish minister for finance announced a blanket guarantee of bank liabilities on September 30 without consulting European Union authorities. The announcement specified the blanket guarantee would be effective immediately and remain in effect for two years. The …

Jamaica: Finsac Blanket Guarantee, 1997, Ayodeji George

Journal of Financial Crises

After a period of sustained distress in the early 1990s, Jamaican financial institutions faced significant liquidity issues by 1996, evidenced by runs on banks by depositors. The government responded by creating the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC) on January 29, 1997, to rehabilitate weak financial institutions and administer a blanket guarantee on financial sector liabilities. The blanket guarantee covered all deposit-taking financial institutions, life insurance policy providers, and pension funds registered under the Banking Act, Financial Institutions Act, and Insurance Act. Within eligible institutions, the blanket guarantee covered depositors’ funds in licensed deposit-taking institutions, pension funds managed by authorized institutions, …

Indonesia: Blanket Guarantee, 1998, Ayodeji George

Journal of Financial Crises

The Indonesian government closed 16 banks on November 1, 1997. At the time, the government said it would guarantee depositors up to 20 million Indonesian rupiah (IDR; USD 6,000) per account. The lack of immediate full protection for large depositors caused deposit runs throughout the banking sector and undermined foreign confidence in the Indonesian financial system. In response, the Indonesian president on January 26, 1998, announced a blanket guarantee and created the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) to administer the guarantee and other bank rehabilitation efforts. The blanket guarantee covered all depositors and nonsubordinated creditors in locally incorporated commercial banks. …

Ecuador: Blanket Guarantee, 1998, Bailey Decker

Journal of Financial Crises

After a series of exogenous shocks hit the Ecuadorian economy in 1997–1998, foreign creditors reassessed their emerging-market risk and reduced external credit lines to Ecuador, thus draining liquidity. The closure of a small bank called Solbanco in April 1998 triggered deposit runs at other banks. Banks sought assistance from the Central Bank of Ecuador (Banco Central del Ecuador, or BCE). By the end of September 1998, the BCE had issued emergency loans to 11 financial institutions, totaling nearly 30% of the money base. The crisis accelerated in August 1998 when Banco de Prestamos, the sixth-largest bank, was closed; the existing …

Finland: Government Guarantee Fund, Blanket Guarantee, 1992, Anmol Makhija

Journal of Financial Crises

Following a period of rapid financial liberalization and a record credit boom in the 1980s, Finland’s financial system suffered steadily increasing loan losses and falling earnings beginning in 1990. The Finnish Parliament created the Government Guarantee Fund (GGF) in April 1992 to support banks with loans, capital, and guarantees. In a press release issued on August 6, 1992, the government said the GGF would “secure the stable functioning of the banking system under any circumstances [emphasis added]”. Six months later, the Parliament of Finland specifically required the GGF to guarantee that all Finnish banks could meet their commitments. The government …

Denmark: General Guarantee Scheme, 2008, Benjamin Hoffner

Journal of Financial Crises

As foreign credit in Denmark dried up during the summer of 2008, Danish banks became increasingly reliant on short-term borrowing. The government took over the failing Roskilde Bank, the country’s eighth-largest bank, in late August. On October 5, 2008, the government announced a voluntary General Guarantee Scheme to fully insure deposits and other senior liabilities of participating banks. Banks could participate in the scheme by becoming members of the financial sector’s banking consortium, Det Private Beredskab, or in English, the Private Contingency Association (PCA), before October 13, 2008. The General Guarantee Scheme fully insured all depositors and senior unsecured creditors …

Blanket Guarantees Survey, Christian M. Mcnamara, Carey K. Mott, Greg Feldberg, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

This paper surveys 10 blanket guarantee (BG) programs across 13 Key Design Decisions. The defining characteristics of these programs in terms of their inclusion in our BG series are (a) that they guaranteed a broader range of liabilities beyond deposit accounts and (b) that the guarantees covered existing liabilities in addition to newly issued ones. Each case represents an effort to eliminate creditors’ incentive to withdraw funding from institutions by guaranteeing that the funding will be paid back even if the institutions are unable to do so themselves. The main themes that emerge are: (a) the inability of blanket guarantees …

The Financialization Of Recession Response, Aaron Klein

Journal of Financial Crises

This paper analyzes economic policy responses to the COVID-19-induced recession, focusing on the American policy response. Despite widespread political distrust between the two parties sharing control of the government and the timing of the upcoming presidential election, America’s political system was able to enact a massive policy response that reduced the severity of the recession. This political response happened faster than any automatic policy response would have, based on the delays in data reporting. The economic policies enacted continued America’s trend toward financialization of fiscal policy. The Federal Reserve and America’s private banking and financial systems were heavily relied upon …

The Federal Reserve System: Diversity And Governance, Kaleb Nygaard, Peter Conti-Brown

Journal of Financial Crises

A growing chorus has called on the Federal Reserve System to diversify its ranks at all levels to reflect better the heterogeneity of the United States. So far, most of these efforts speak to the diversity of the Fed’s principals, namely, the members of the Fed’s Board of Governors and the presidents of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks, who together form the Federal Open Market Committee. In this study, we look instead at a vital part of Federal Reserve governance that has so far not received the same sustained attention: the directors of the Federal Reserve Banks, those private citizens …

Deadly Snow: Meditations On Muriel Rukeyser, Andrei Tarkovsky, And The Pandemic Era, Nicole Lawrence

Critical Humanities

The following personal essay meditates on Appalachian fatalism and its relationship to vaccine and mask hesitancy. The analogous relationship between ecological destruction and uncertainty with the exploitation and abuse of the body serves as a waypoint to explore Appalachia’s larger dismissal towards “protection” during the pandemic. Included are original art pieces that serve to intertextually converse with Rukeyser’s activism, West Virginia’s aesthetic schism between industrial catastrophe and symbols of prosperity, and Tarkovsky’s imagery of desolation and hope.

Wagon Tracks Volume 37, Issue 1 (November 2022)

Wagon Tracks

Contents

2 On the Cover: Starvation Peak by Dennis Maloney

4 Insights from your President

6 Joanne’s Jottings

5, 8-9 Trail News

10 The First Printing Press in New Mexico

11 Poetry: "Youth on the Santa Fe Trail," "Rendezvous 2022," by Ron Wilson

12 Ancestors on the Trail: Marion Sloan Russell and Claude Francis LaLoge

13-20 Poetry, Novels, Movies, and Children's Literature of theSanta Fe Trail by Dr. Michael Olsen

20 Letter to the Editor

21-30 A Trail Tale Revisited: The Death of Jedediah Smith on the Cimarron River in 1831 by Craig Crease

31 Chapter Reports

33 Membership Form …

Op Lobe And The Evacuation Of Canadian Personnel From Libya, 2014: An Interview With Major (Retired) Doug Henderson, Andrew Burtch

Canadian Military History

In the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising in Libya and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s intervention that overturned Muammar Gaddafi’s government amid fears of reprisals against civilians, Canada and other countries re-established a diplomatic presence. The region was still unstable with many competing militias in a tentative truce following Gaddafi’s downfall. Canada’s embassy required a military presence to secure the compound and the safety of Canadian VIPs. In July 2014, the men and women of Operation LOBE were forced to evacuate from Libya amid a diplomatic exodus during a resurgence of civil war. This piece, based largely on …

Mystery Rash: Atypical Presentation Of Suspected Cat-Scratch Disease In Primary Care, Nicole Hunter, Rutwik Pradeep Sharma, Omobolanle Adetimehin, Yasir Loai

Advances in Clinical Medical Research and Healthcare Delivery

No abstract provided.