Banks, Brokers, Bonds, and Currencies, 1970–92

2020 ◽  
pp. 36-56
Author(s):  
Ranald C. Michie
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
Exchange Rates ◽  
New World ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Financial Systems ◽  
Financial Activity ◽  
Divide And Rule ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Financial Transactions ◽  
Second World

After the Second World War governments prioritized banks over markets within both national and international financial systems. The result altered the balance between banks and financial markets firmly in the direction of the former. Banks responded by expanding, reaching a size and scale that allowed them to internalize financial transactions within a single organization. That position then changed from 1970 onwards with an end to the era of control and compartmentalization. The process of change involved the gradual removal of the national boundaries and segregated activities that had protected banks from competition. In this new world financial markets began to prosper. These included markets for stocks and bonds as well as the exponential growth of trading in foreign exchange as the regime of fixed exchange rates collapsed. This era saw the emergence of a new breed of megabanks that spanned the globe and engaged in all manner of financial activity. Serving their needs was a group of interdealer brokers who acted as intermediaries between these banks. The combination of the megabanks and the interdealer brokers undermined the ability of regulators to police both banks and financial markets through a policy of divide and rule.

Regulation and Regulators, 1970–92

2020 ◽  
pp. 108-129
Author(s):  
Ranald C. Michie
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Financial Systems ◽  
Financial Flows ◽  
Financial Activity ◽  
Markets And Institutions ◽  
Divide And Rule ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Formal Controls

Before 1970 regulators had relied on the principle of divide and rule as a way of keeping financial systems in order. What this meant in practice was that even in market-based economies authority was exercised behind national boundaries, aided by controls on international financial flows, and by insisting upon a degree of internal compartmentalization not only between banks and markets but also within the banking sector. By the 1970s it was becoming apparent that a growing proportion of financial activity was taking place away from those centres, markets, and institutions over which regulators could exercise some control. The result led governments to abandon formal controls and regulators to search for ways of supervising financial markets. Increasingly the solution was seen to lie with the megabanks as they had the capacity to monitor and police their own behaviour, and were closely supervised by central banks.

Regulation and Regulators, 1993–2006

2020 ◽  
pp. 267-297
Author(s):  
Ranald C. Michie
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Data Handling ◽  
Financial Systems ◽  
Settlement Systems ◽  
The Face ◽  
Implicit Belief ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Financial Transactions

By the 1990s the combination of internal deregulation and globalization led to a spectacular growth in the value of financial transactions both inside countries and across borders. There was a commensurate increase in pressure on payment and settlement systems to cope with the huge volume and variety of transactions. All this was of concern to those who regulated financial systems around the world. The speed and extent of the changes taking place, assisted by the advances made in the technology of communication and data handling, forced regulators to search for new ways of coping with the consequences, as the methods of the past were becoming inadequate. Globalization meant that national boundaries could no longer define the parameters within which financial systems operated, as all became integrated into international flows of short-term money and long-term finance. The complexities arose not only from the process of globalization and technological change but also from the disappearance of the barriers that had long separated different components within national financial systems. Rather than serving separate communities banks and financial markets increasingly competed with each other. In the face of these enormous changes regulators turned to the megabanks as a safe and secure way of monitoring and policing global financial markets. There was an implicit belief that the size and sophistication of these megabanks had made them to big to fail or even require the central banks to play a role as lenders of last resort.

Un: 75 years after the Second world war

2020 ◽  
pp. 6-32
Author(s):  
L. E. Grishaeva
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Security Council ◽  
New World ◽  
International Security ◽  
Second World War ◽  
International Organization ◽  
World War ◽  
Peace And Justice ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

October 24, 1945 as a result of long labors and aspirations, in the first phase of the anti-Hitler coalition countries, began operating international organization designed to end war, promote peace and justice and the coming of a better life for all mankind. The author writes about the history of the creation of the United Nations and contemporary issues facing it. The fact that the UN has universal competence, a wide representative composition, and its Charter is the basis of the legitimacy of decision-making on maintaining peace and strengthening international security. About conceptual approaches to reform of the UN and its main organ — the Security Council. About what allowed the UN to prevent a new world war for 75 years.

Trends, Events, and Centres, 1993–2006

2020 ◽  
pp. 130-150
Author(s):  
Ranald C. Michie
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Second World War ◽  
First Century ◽  
Financial Flows ◽  
The World ◽  
Uncertain Future ◽  
And Control ◽  
Second World

At the beginning of the 1990s banks, exchanges, and regulators were all in a state of flux, facing a very uncertain future. The certainties of the past had been removed as internal and external barriers crumbled, destroying the world within which they had operated since the end of the Second World War. In its place the world was moving towards global 24-hour financial markets and an elite grouping of megabanks. These developments were driven by global economic integration, developments in technology, the retreat of government from policies favouring ownership and control, and the search by regulators for strategies that could cope with the end of compartmentalization. Though these trends continued in the 1990s and into the twenty-first century they faced numerous obstacles and experienced significant twists and turns that were instrumental in shaping the outcome. Even though barriers to international financial flows were reduced or removed the result was not a seamless global market, as major differences in language, cultures, laws, and taxes remained. These all contributed to the segregation of markets. Though many prophesied that the revolution in communications spelt the death of distance or the end of geography, when it came to the location of financial markets that ignored the fact that time was not absolute but relative. The effect was to generate a continued clustering of financial markets

Restructuring Reality: Signs of the Times

1972 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-366
Author(s):  
Walter B. Mead
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
World Views ◽  
Secular Humanism ◽  
Eric Voegelin ◽  
Contemporary Writers ◽  
The Times ◽  
Implicit And Explicit ◽  
Second World

It has often been pointed out that the Messianic creeds and extremist ideologies of our century represent the displacement of traditional by radically new world views. Similar and no less dramatic reconstructions of reality, implicit and explicit, are reflected in modern man's movement, evidenced most clearly since the Second World War, toward secular humanism. The purpose of this article is to explore some of the implications, both secular and religious, of this trend, and to delineate what seem to be the most conspicuous characteristics held in common by the new world views that have emerged. In doing so I must acknowledge considerable indebtedness to the preliminary explorations of several contemporary writers, notably Eric Voegelin and J. L. Talmon.

scholarly journals CULTURAL DISTORTION AND HARMONISATION ON INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS: THE PANACEA FOR SUCCESS

2022 ◽  
pp. 15-20
Author(s):  
Dr. Macaulay Enyindah WEGWU
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Local Market ◽  
World War ◽  
Business Operations ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Boundaries ◽  
National Norms ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Diverse Cultures ◽  
Second World

The purpose of this paper was to study and unravel the implications of cultural distortion on businesses, gains and gradual harmonization of culture across national boundaries globally. Despite the national and political boundaries around the world, the activities involving cross-border operations have always persisted, but have had a dramatic growth since the Second World War. Successful business operations globally depend largely on the understanding of the cultural differences of countries which enormously have the tendencies of affecting the degree of business relationship. It is very obvious that every institution across nations of the world is deeply attached to societies with diverse cultures such as language difference, different tradition of trust, individualists and collectivists tendencies which globalization concept intends to harmonise and be accepted by the local market around the world. As a consequence, it is very imperative to strive for gradual harmonization of culture. This however implies making suitable changes on the differences among national norms, traditions, values, beliefs and rituals of different nations in order to achieve uniformity. KEY WORDS: Culture, Cultural Distortion, Cultural Harmonization, Globalization

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON PIUS XII AND VATICAN FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 1029-1048
Author(s):  
PATRICIA M. McGOLDRICK
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
World War ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Vatican City ◽  
Financial Transactions ◽  
Second World ◽  
Day By Day

ABSTRACTThe debate about the political allegiance of Pius XII and the Vatican during the Second World War remains unresolved. As more documents become available, they enable historians, detractors and defenders alike, to develop a more nuanced view on this contentious issue. Files recently released by The National Archives1 come within this category. They reveal that during the Second World War the British government systematically intercepted, monitored, and recorded in detail the financial transactions listed in the bank statements of the main financial agencies of the State of Vatican City from 1941 to 1943. These documents provide a detailed, if occasionally incomplete, day by day and month by month record of the Vatican's sources of income, expenditure priorities, investment strategies, and movements of money throughout its global network under the difficult wartime conditions of foreign exchange controls, blocked sterling and dollar accounts, Freezing Orders, and Trading with the Enemy restrictions imposed by the belligerent parties. This article examines the light they shed on Vatican finances throughout that period and what new insights they provide into the role of Pius XII and the Vatican during the Second World War, and, in particular, into the question of where their sympathies lay throughout the duration of that conflict.

‘You Can't Even Call them Women’: Poles and ‘Others’ in Soviet Exile during the Second World War

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine R. Jolluck
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
New World ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
World War ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
National Group ◽  
Red Army ◽  
Second World

Hundreds of thousands of Poles were forcibly transported to the interior of the USSR after the Red Army invaded eastern Poland in 1939. These individuals, male and female, ended up in Soviet prisons, labour camps or special deportation settlements. This article examines how women interpreted and coped with this traumatic experience of exile, arguing that this entailed the articulation of a traditional, homogenous identity for Polish females. One component of this self-definition was differentiation from ‘others’, isolated on the basis of nationality. On the whole, the exiled Polish women did not feel solidarity with women of other nationalities, regardless of the fact that they too were victims of the Stalinist regime. Polish women continually linked the configuration of gender roles which they regarded as proper, civilised and even natural, to their own national group. In this way, they affirmed that they did not belong in this new world and maintained a connection to home, to what they understood to be Polish, European and civilised.

Trends, Events, and Centres, 1970–92

2020 ◽  
pp. 16-35
Author(s):  
Ranald C. Michie
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Shadow Banks ◽  
The Face ◽  
Long Term Consequences ◽  
Fundamental Forces ◽  
Second World

It is always difficult to disentangle the effects of trends from that of events when making judgements about the causes of long-term development. Evidence drawn from contemporary observers magnifies the significance of events, as they had no means of judging long-term consequences. Reliance on later commentators minimizes the importance of an event leading to a conclusion of inevitability. This can be seen most clearly when examining financial centres with prominence given to the survivors, like London and New York, while others are ignored despite their past importance. Even before the 1970s fundamental forces were driving change in global financial markets, especially globalization and the technology of communications and trading. In the face of these governments struggled to maintain the controls and compartmentalization introduced after the Second World War, faced with the rise of offshore financial centres, alternative financial markets, and shadow banks. In the 1970s it proved impossible to resist these forces leading to the beginning of a transformation of global financial markets in the 1980s, led by developments in New York, Chicago, and London

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