"The tension arises from the fact that it is often more profitable to rip a customer’s face off in the short term than to defer potentially larger profit opportunities with the same client in the long term. When bankers whose personal franchises, careers, and compensation depends on the former are evenly balanced with bankers whose interests are aligned with the latter, an investment bank perches profitably if precariously on the knife’s edge of sustainable profitability. Notwithstanding industry critics’ perception that all investment bankers are all looking for a quick and easy score, those of us who actually work in the relationship side of the business know that our best personal outcome depends on a sustained career success lasting over a decade or more. Unlike, perhaps, traders who transact daily with equally ruthless hedge fund counterparties on a no-regrets, no-grudges basis, bankers like me in corporate finance and M&A transact with the same limited universe of clients year-in and year-out. We simply cannot afford to screw them over, because they do hold a grudge."

felix salmon on the new greece plan (21/2)

See also Peter Nunns.

via http://twitter.com/genericpoints/status/146319903140495361 "People say that the EU was created to ensure there were no more wars in Europe but personally I think a West European centered WWIII was never a very likely eventuality. In any event the EU could have been set up with a much more limited objective, namely to end periodic outbreaks of tribalism and jingoisim. This is the real European curse, and this is what we are now facing in one country after another, as – with the local national press in the vanguard – each blames the other for causing the crisis, or for not reaching the much needed agreement to end it. The sad reality is that Europe’s leaders fiddle even as Rome is about to burn."

Are we really going to repeat — on a much larger scale — the very same mistake that Ireland made? Does no one in Europe realize that this is the single worst thing they can do?

Markets reflect underlying realities, and up until n

on what the fed does, or all central banks should do

great summary of the european crisis

excellent analysis of the greek referendum