Tag Archive: central-banks
Central Bank Austria Claims To Have Audited Gold at BOE. Refuses To Release Audit Report
After years of gradually securing its official gold reserves (unwinding leases) the central bank of Austria claims to have completed the audits of its 224 tonnes of gold stored at the BOE. However, it refuses to publish the audit reports and the gold bar list. What could possibly be so sensitive to hide from public eyes?
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Donald, the “Maestro” and the Politically Controlled Fed
The Crazies, Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who was once laudably referred to as “Maestro” for his supposed astute stewardship of U.S. monetary policy, commented last week on the nation’s current political and economic climate.
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“Subtle forward guidance”: The marriage between best practice central banking and commodity markets
In the years following the 2008 crash and today, the use of forward guidance from central banking policy makers has become increasingly important. What this nonsense ultimately has translated into is a ridiculous track record in posting upbeat assessments on the economic environment, aimed at trying to fool the marginal investor into believing “there are no need for worry, central bankers have everything under control”.
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USD ready for a second leg higher – then what?
One year ago we showed the following chart to explain the relative strong dollar that was on everyone’s mind at the time. With a second leg higher in the US dollar imminent, this particular chart will be more important than ever. Claims to dollars, such as demand and time deposits, or even more opaque money-like products created by the shadow banking system is just that, a claim or derivative on the final mean of payment, namely base money.
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Do our money managers really believe this will end well?
An economic bubble is essentially an economic activity that cannot sustain itself without a continuous influx of new money and credit to bid away real resources from self-funding endeavors. Financial bubbles are obviously closely related as financial...
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The Dying Middle Class
As expected, Ms. Yellen smiled last week, announcing no change to the Fed’s extraordinary policies. For the last eight years, she has been aiding and abetting the largest theft in history. Thanks to ZIRP (zero-interest-rate policy) and QE (quantitative easing), every year, about $300 billion is transferred from largely middle-class savers to largely better-off speculators, financial asset owners, and the biggest borrowers during that period –...
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Is The US Dollar Set To Soar?
Hating the U.S. dollar offers the same rewards as hating a dominant sports team: it feels righteous to root for the underdogs, but it's generally unwise to let that enthusiasm become the basis of one's bets. Personally, I favor the emergence of non-state reserve currencies, for example, blockchain crypto-currencies or precious-metal-backed private currencies--currencies which can't be devalued by self-serving central banks or the private elites...
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The Fed and the Everything Bubble
John Hussman on Recent Developments We always look forward to John Hussman’s weekly missive on the markets. Some people say that he is a “permabear”, but we don’t think that is a fair characterization. He is rightly wary of the stock market’s historically extremely high valuation and the loose monetary policy driving the surge in asset prices.
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Don’t Bet on Deflation Lasting Forever
Japan’s stock market crashed in 1989. Since then, the no-luck Japanese have had sluggish growth, recession, and on-again/off-again deflation. For more than a quarter-century, the gears of Japan, Inc. have turned slowly. But will it last forever?
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Janet Yellen’s Shame
n honest capitalism, you do what you can to get other people to voluntarily give you money. This usually involves providing goods or services they think are worth the price. You may get a little wild and crazy from time to time, but you are always called to order by your customers.
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Mission Creep – How the Fed will justify maintaining its excessive balance sheet
FOMC have changed their normalizing strategy several times and we now see the contours of yet another shift. The Federal Reserve was supposed to reduce its elevated balance sheet before moving interest higher as it would be impossible to increase the fed funds rate in the old fashioned way when the market was saturated with trillions of dollars in excess reserves.
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Should we Be Concerned About the Fall in Money Velocity?
A fall in the US velocity of money M2 to 1.44 in June from 1.51 in June last year and 2.2 in May 1997 has alarmed many experts. Note that the June figure is the lowest since January 1959.
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Norway: Towards Stagflation
We have all heard the incredible stories of housing riches in commodity producing hotspots such as Western Australia and Canada. People have become millionaires simply by leveraging up and holding on to properties. These are the beneficiaries of a global money-printing spree that pre-dates the financial crisis by decades.
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Stupid is What Stupid Does – Secular Stagnation Redux
Which country, the United States or Japan, have had the fastest GDP growth rate since the financial crisis? Due to Japan’s bad reputation as a stagnant, debt ridden, central bank dependent, demographic basket case the question appears superfluous. The answer seemed so obvious to us that we haven’t really bothered looking into it until one day we started thinking about the demographic situation in the two countries.
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Insanity, Oddities and Dark Clouds in Credit-Land
Insanity Rules Bond markets are certainly displaying a lot of enthusiasm at the moment – and it doesn’t matter which bonds one looks at, as the famous “hunt for yield” continues to obliterate interest returns across the board like a steamroller.
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