Tag Archive: US government

What Gives Cryptocurrencies Their Value

2017-12-05

The value of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, just like any other kind of money, comes fundamentally from what you can do with it. As a follow up to What Backs Bitcoin, I want to dig into that value. The idea, which comes from Austrian economist Carl Menger, is that just as a shovel’s value comes from its ability to dig, a currency’s value comes from its ability to help you do two things: transactions and savings.

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SNB: It’s A Bonfire Of The Absurdities

2017-11-21

by John Mauldin

2017-11-21

This week’s letter will take a look at the growing number of ridiculous, inane, and otherwise nonsensical absurdities that fill the daily economic headlines. I have gone from the occasional smile to scratching my head now and then to “WTF” moments several times a week.

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“This Is A Crisis Greater Than Any Government Can Handle”: The $400 Trillion Global Retirement Gap

2017-10-03

by John Mauldin

2017-10-03

Size of the retirement savings gap, 2015 - 2050

Today we’ll continue to size up the bull market in governmental promises. As we do so, keep an old trader’s slogan in mind: “That which cannot go on forever, won’t.” Or we could say it differently: An unsustainable trend must eventually stop. Lately I have focused on the trend in US public pension funds, many of which are woefully underfunded and will never be able to pay workers the promised benefits, at least without dumping a huge and unwelcome...

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“Under Any Analysis, It’s Insanity”: What War With North Korea Could Look Like

2017-08-14

by Tyler Durden

2017-08-14

Now that the possibility of a war between the US and North Korea seems just one harshly worded tweet away, and the window of opportunity for a diplomatic solution, as well as for the US stopping Kim Jong-Un from obtaining a nuclear-armed ICBM closing fast, analysts have started to analyze President Trump’s military options, what a war between the US and North Korea would look like, and what the global economic consequences would be.

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Central Banks Buying Stocks Have Rigged US Stock Market Beyond Recovery

2017-06-27

by David Haggith

2017-06-27

Central banks buying stocks are effectively nationalizing US corporations just to maintain the illusion that their “recovery” plan is working because they have become the banks that are too big to fail. At first, their novel entry into the stock market was only intended to rescue imperiled corporations, such as General Motors during the first plunge into the Great Recession, but recently their efforts have shifted to propping up the entire stock...

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Where There’s Smoke…

2017-04-25

by Tyler Durden

2017-04-25

Evolution of Atlanta Fed GDP, December 2016 - April 2017

Central banks around the world have colluded, if not conspired, to elevate and prop up financial asset prices. Here we'll present the data and evidence that they've not only done so, but gone too far. When we discuss elevated financial asset prices we really are talking about everything; we're talking not just about the sky-high prices of stocks and bonds, but also of the trillions of dollars’ worth of derivatives that are linked to them, as well...

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The US Dollar Is Now Overvalued Against Almost Every Currency In The World

2017-01-24

by Simon Black

2017-01-24

In September 1986, The Economist weekly newspaper published its first-ever “Big Mac Index”. It was a light-hearted way for the paper to gauge whether foreign currencies are over- or under-valued by comparing the prices of Big Macs around the world. In theory, the price of a Big Mac in Rio de Janeiro should be the same as a Big Mac in Cairo or Toronto.

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Trump Is Set To Label China A “Currency Manipulator”: What Happens Then?

2017-01-11

by Tyler Durden

2017-01-11

While China has been banging the nationalist drums in its government-owned tabloids, warning daily of the adverse consequences to the US from either a trade war, or from Trump's violating the "One China" policy, a more tangible concern for deteriorating relations between China and the US is that Trump could, and most likely will, brand China a currency manipulator shortly after taking over the the Oval Office.

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Nomi Prins’ Political-Financial Road Map For 2017

2017-01-05

by Nomi Prins

2017-01-05

As tumultuous as last year was from a global political perspective on the back of a rocky start market-wise, 2017 will be much more so. The central bank subsidization of the financial system (especially in the US and Europe) that began with the Fed invoking zero interest rate policy in 2008, gave way to international distrust of the enabling status quo that unfolded in different ways across the planet.

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