“Cataclysm” is, like most words of its type, of Greek derivation. A Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, told us nearly 2,500 years ago that one thing above all was certain: “all things change”.
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Do you recognize the name Oswald Grübel? Mr. Grübel was until recently CEO of the Swiss Banking Group UBS.
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I have a friend (let's call him Larry, though that's not his real name) who is a well-known lawyer specialising in ship finance in the States. Of a pronounced gloomy worldview, as befits his Polish heritage, he was one of the few skeptics I know who warned of a gathering economic storm, back before the Lehman Brothers collapse.
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The true state of the world economy was shown on August 1, with the release by JPMorgan of a series of indicators making up the global manufacturing purchasing managers’ indices (PMI).
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A small article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal brings back memories. In the article, John Coustas, CEO of container operator Danaos Corporation, reflects on the things that went wrong.
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There are at least three "received truths", as one of my college professors sarcastically called them, that, in the world of shipping, may be open to challenge. One is that last year's Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion had nothing to do with the rest of the shipping industry, being only about wells and rigs -- and not ships
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I know a shipowner who is fond of observing: "I have never had difficulty making decisions. Or mistakes." As all shipowners know, regulatory requirements change. So does the market.
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A visit to a Greek shipowner's yacht is a characteristic feature of Posidonia, Greece's iconic shipping jamboree, held every two years in what a local banker calls "the cradle of democracy and denial."
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Posidonia is famously a gathering place for those interested in taking the industry's pulse. This year, in the face of the nation's greatest economic crisis since the hungry 1940s, three questions are being asked: 1) will Greek shipowners leave Greece; 2) will Greece eventually default; and 3) will Greece go back to the drachma. The answers so far, based on a highly unscientific poll: 1) most will stay; 2) probably; and 3) no.
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Greek bankers here at Posidonia are so far shtum, silent and otherwise not talking, at least in my hearing, about repayment of the recent euroloan, or bail-out. Will it ever be repaid? Can it be repaid--ever? Should it even be repaid?
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