In China, remember, the the banks are arms of state policy. They loan because the local party official or regional party official tells them we need a new stadium. They are instruments of state policy.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
What people don't realize is that China papered over its last two credit bubbles, those in 1999 and 2004. The banks were never bailed out - they just exchanged their bad loans for questionable bonds from quasi-state organizations.
Increasingly, the real estate developers can't get bank loans for their project financing in China. They're now going into the Hong Kong market to raise money in the bond market at very, very high rates, as high as 15, 20 percent.
When I look at how the banking world has changed and at the role Chinese banks, for example, play today, Germany, as an export-oriented economy, should be pleased to have a major global player in its camp.
Country banks are more flexible in their lending policies than their city brethren are.
The Federal Reserve needs to provide small businesses in America with the same low-interest loans it gave to foreign banks.
Banks hold deposits and savings entrusted to them by individuals, by businesses, by governments and by central banks. They put that money to work, helping people to buy homes, for example, or lending to businesses to invest in expansion.
Banks are there to support businesses that have justifiable needs.
A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.
A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it.
The banks are not lending, at least from what I see. They were so wild and reckless back in the good times that they got burned terribly.