Search results for

Russia's infamous "dark soul" is alive, if not well. In an article in a recent issue of Novaya Gazeta, Sergei Mavrodi, the architect of the MMM pyramid scheme that swindled millions of Russians out of their life savings, says that nothing would have persuaded him to invest in Russian government treasury bills (GKOs), which he calls "a low-tech version" of his own scam.

Making up the rules in Brazil

Different ways to skin a cat

Their mini resolution trust is named after a bottom-dwelling, scum-sucking shellfish and the promoters of the Mytilus fund indeed expect to play a very useful role extracting value from the sunken casualties that lurk in Asia's distressed-debt securities markets.

Must the IMF grow in size just to stomach the next bail-out, or should it reinvent itself as a tougher, global rating agency of countries and their banking systems? Such an IMF would not whisper advice into the ear of crony capitalists and then pay off their creditors - it would be a lean, mean agent of transparency and would deal out pain where pain is due. James Smalhout reports.

Making up the rules in Brazil

Making up the rules in Brazil

Silicon Valley investment bankers have one burning question: What's the next move for the "technology mafia" - the dozen or so influential hedge and mutual funds that turned technology issues into Wall Street's new blue-chip stocks?

Scavengers and scratchers of value

Banking system or welfare state?

Is he Lehman Brothers' most well-born banker? Ajeya Singh will inherit the title 'Raja of Manda' from his father. That will make him quite possibly the world's only investment banking maharajah.

The market, like nature, is red in tooth and claw. It has no concept of ethics, morality or justice. Its agents are predatory and are concerned mainly with their own survival. They have no thought for the good of the system. That doesn't mean the market is bad or that it doesn't work. It means that present prescriptions for emerging economies do not reflect these realities. Nothing highlights more starkly the inappropriateness of the blind application of free market thinking to emerging markets more than the role of hedge funds. By Simon Brady.