Author Archives: Francesc Rodríguez Tous
Mindfulness meditation
It has been several months since I started doing meditating every morning. In the recent weeks, I have discussed my practice with other people who have found it interesting, and hence I thought I could mention it here. There is … Continue reading
Why Orwel Matters, by Christopher Hitchens
Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind (George Orwell in Politics and the English Language). And the more one is conscious of one’s political bias … Continue reading
Youtube channels
I do not remember the last time I used my remote to browse through the different TV channels to find something to watch. That sucked. Luckily we have Youtube and Netflix and Amazon Prime nowadays. And while I barely watch … Continue reading
HATE, by Nadine Strossen
This one is long overdue—I finished it months ago. I bought this book, “Hate: Why we should resist it with free speech, not censorship”, by Nadine Strossen, to talk about free speech with some friends in a podcast. We never … Continue reading
The missionary position, by Christopher Hitchens
I got Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens’ autobiography, a month ago. I was about to start, but then I realised that most of what I knew about Hitch is what I have seen of him on Youtube—any video starting with “Hitchens destroys” … Continue reading
Danske Bank and HSBC
We have learned today that Danske Bank is being charged for its money laundering scandal. It seems that its branch in Estonia (the only one there) handled around €200bn of Russian and other ex-Soviet money—apparently a large part of it … Continue reading
More on central clearing and the leverage ratio
I talked some days ago about client clearing and some research that I have done on whether some new regulations (mainly the leverage ratio—LR) might increase its costs and reduce the willingness of banks to provide such services. I have … Continue reading
Orwell’s Notes on Nationalism
I have recently found myself reading some of the greatest British thinkers and writers of the 20th century. Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy looks at me every time I sit on my desk—I am still in the pre-Socratics. Christopher … Continue reading
Client clearing
When Lehman went bankrupt, it had over 900,000 derivative transactions with other counterparties. While many of these transactions were closed down in the following weeks, a significant number of bilateral over-the-counter derivatives were the object of dispute for months, even … Continue reading
Emerging scholars conference
The programme for the Emerging Scholars in Banking and Finance conference is complete! This conference, organised by the Centre for Banking Research at Cass—of which I am a member—brings together emerging scholars in banking and finance to present their papers. … Continue reading
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