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COMMENT: If the Fed is so smart and understands the problem with low/negative interest rates, then why didn’t it hike rates in September? Better yet, why didn’t they raise rates YEARS ago? The Fed has kept rates near zero for seven years but now suddenly realizes that this is a problem?

I am surprised that you think so highly of them. The Fed consists of a bunch of academics with no real-world experience, no different than the ECB.

REPLY: Your bias and prejudice blind you. The ECB is run by Mario Draghi who is ex-Goldman Sachs. Mario Draghi faces a currency that is collapsing and a power structure that is fundamentally flawed. This is entirely different from the problems facing the Fed. Europe is in deep recession that is intensely deflationary. That is not the case yet in the USA.

Yellen has inherited a nightmare. It was Ben Bernankewho made the mess we are in today. He lowered rates, bought in long-term bonds the Fed cannot now sell and must wait for them to simply mature. Yellen is trapped for she cannot reverse QE and sell the bonds Bernanke bought and she is facing a meltdown in pension funds because rates are too low for too long. Yellen has no escape. You are also blind to how politics functions and all you are doing is listening to the bullshit that is spun by pretend analysts who know nothing about what really goes on behind the curtain.

The mere fact that the IMF came out publicly to ask the Fed not to raise rates in June was a political maneuver to counteract Yellen. Things of this nature are discussed behind the curtain – never in front. The IMF turned to the press to STOP Yellen because she would have raised rates back in June. It was Ben Bernanke who listened to the bankers and created insanity.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Good-Bye To Western Living Standards

December 1, 2015

Good-Bye To Western Living Standards

My column, “Capitalism At Work,” about Greek women being forced into prostitution by banksters and the IMF produced a number of responses from women, who report that austerity is having the same effect all over Europe.

This is from a letter from Portugal:

“Your article ‘Capitalism At Work’ shows absolutely what’s happened here in Portugal. It is common for young women to sell their body to pay the University fees and for food.

“About the submarines, we had also that experience. The person responsible for this purchasing was Dr. Paulo Portas, who, despite that ‘affair’, was nominated Vice Prime Minister until recently. Now they are Socialists at the Government but believe me, they are so corrupt, even more than the previous right-wing government. In fact all left parties are, even the PCP. They are interested only in self benefit and they give some crumbs to the people. We are a banana republic governed by bastards. We deserve this situation as long as we tolerate it.”

The European socialist parties, which over decades of struggle humanized European capitalism and European society, are no more. Europeans are experiencing a modern version of the Enclosures of the past when they were uprooted from the land in which they had use rights in order that land could become private property and be financialized with debt instruments.

This time Europeans are being dispossessed of the social welfare systems that made life under capitalism liveable. Simultaneously, the most heavily indebted countries are being looted. The living standards of the populations are being squeezed to death in order to pay off the fraudulent debts incurred by corrupt governments.

Look around Europe. Where do the people have a leader? Jeremy Corbyn is the only remaining socialist or semi-socialist who heads a traditional party, and the British Labour Party is not firmly behind him.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Right Price for Preserving Our Climate

November 30, 2015

The Right Price for Preserving Our Climate

WASHINGTON, DC – When world leaders convene in Paris this week for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, their task will be to reach a global agreement on curbing greenhouse-gas emissions. A successful outcome, demonstrating that countries can work together for the good of the planet, would send a powerful message of hope to the world – and to the people of Paris, who remain unbowed after the recent terrorist attacks.

Climate pledges will be made on the basis of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), or commitments to the reduction of emissions worldwide. I believe that the price of emissions should be at the center of these pledges.

Achieving a decline in greenhouse-gas emissions at the lowest possible cost requires a revolution in energy use and production. Gradual, predictable, and reliable increases in energy prices would provide strong incentives for consumers to reduce their energy bills. At the same time, the right carbon price would enable a smooth transition away from fossil fuels by encouraging investments in technological innovation.

That is why the International Monetary Fund’s staff have recommended a three-part strategy on carbon fuel: “price it right, tax it smart, and do it now.” Each component is essential.

First, setting the right price for fossil fuels means taking into account their true environmental costs. Prices should pass on to end users the full cost not only of production and acquisition, but also of the damage – including air pollution and climate change – caused by intensive reliance on fossil fuels. A fairer carbon price will drive energy savings and boost demand for cleaner fuels and “greener” investments.

Second, the necessary change in prices would be achieved by taxing energy, using tools that are both practical and efficient. The best option is to build a carbon charge into existing fuel taxes and apply similar charges to coal, natural gas, and other petroleum products.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

USA Losing Sovereignty to World Fiscal Mismanagement

November 21, 2015

USA Losing Sovereignty to World Fiscal Mismanagement

The IMF and many economists (domestic and foreign) are now warning that a rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve, no matter when, will spark a major economic crisis in the emerging markets. They see this crisis being ripe for countries with high budget deficits, such as Turkey, as well as commodity-based economies. This includes the oil exporters such as Russia and even Saudi Arabia who has now begun to issue debt.

This is holding the Federal Reserve’s feet to the fire to the point that they are losing control of their own domestic policy objectives as a consequence of the dollar becoming the WORLD’S ONLY RESERVE CURRENCY no matter what the IMF inserts into the SDR. The emerging economies have issued debt worth nearly half that of the USA without the economic strength to back up that debt. True, there is going to be a debt explosion by 2017 and this is not going to look very nice at the end of the day. Clearly, the Fed is being pressured externally to give up its domestic policy objectives to help the debt burden of everyone else. And people keep saying the dollar will go into hyperinflation? Obviously, they do not understand the world economy or that what is taking place is OUTSIDE of the United States. Sorry, the dollar is not quite ready to burn to ashes.

The Federal Reserve has called a meeting on Monday. This issue of sovereignty will come to a head. The Fed has called this emergency meeting to perhaps change interest rates. The question becomes for who? The lobbying against the Fed to raise rates has been intense. My recommendation is to eliminate the 0.25% paid to banks on excess reserves and raise rates.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

50 Ways to Leave the Euro: Greece and the Global Crisis

November 16, 2015

50 Ways to Leave the Euro: Greece and the Global Crisis

A sticker reads “No” on the palm of a protester during a demonstration calling for a ‘No’ vote in the upcoming referendum in Athens on Jul 3, 2015. (Photo: AFP/Aris Messinis)

The problem is all inside your head, I told the Greeks
The answer is easy, you need only stop the leaks
The power is yours to claim the freedom that you seek
There must be fifty ways to leave the Euro
(Apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)

Following the resounding “NO” vote by the Greek people on the bailout conditions in the July referendum, the negotiations between the Greek government and “the institutions” resumed with the expectation that a better deal for Greece would ensue. The outcome was quite the contrary. Greek negotiators ended up agreeing to a bailout deal that was far more onerous than the one the voters had rejected. Why?

The harsh reality is that the Greek government is insolvent. Having been lured into the debt-trap and the shared euro currency by western oligarchs using a combination of measures, including outright fraud, Greece was forced to accept the onerous conditions attached to the first two bailouts. Now it has been bludgeoned into accepting a third. The weapon of choice is the euro currency itself which is being wielded by the European Central Bank (ECB). By throttling the flow of euro currency into the country, the ECB last summer created near chaos in the Greek economy. This, and the threat of even more severe punishment in the future, was enough to bring the Greek government to heel.

With sovereign debt up around 180% of GDP, there is no way that the Greek government will ever be able to grow its way out of the current mess. The draconian measures demanded by the creditor institutions will just make it worse. Even the IMF has acknowledged (with apparent reluctance) that some debt relief is necessary for the Greek economy to recover.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IMF’s Lagarde Anoints Chinese Yuan. Will it Now Demolish the “Dollar Hegemony?”

November 15, 2015

IMF’s Lagarde Anoints Chinese Yuan. Will it Now Demolish the “Dollar Hegemony?”

IMF boss Christine Lagarde is gung-ho about it. IMF staff is too. The Executive Board will consider it on November 30 and in all likelihood approve it. It will take effect in October 2016. Then it’s a done deal: the Chinese yuan will be added to the IMF’s currency basket, the Special Drawing Rights (SDR). A step toward becoming a major global reserve currency.

IMF staff had determined that the yuan meets the requirements of being a “freely usable” currency, Lagarde said in a statement, so a currency that is “‘widely used’ for international transactions and ‘widely traded’ in the principal foreign exchange markets.”

China also overcame other hurdles the IMF had put before it, after numerous reforms to liberalize its currency and credit markets and offer more transparency. The IMF’s Executive Board has the final say, but Lagarde will chair the meeting. And the rubber stamps are lined up on the conference room table.

Some countries, including France and Britain, have already expressed support for the change. According to Reuters, a Treasury spokesperson said the US government has always backed the yuan’s inclusion if it met the IMF’s criteria, and would “review the IMF’s paper in that light.”

The yuan has arrived – at the elite club for the biggest currency warriors: the dollar, the yen, the euro, and the pound.

China has long sought to give its currency more global weight, both as payments currency and ultimately as reserve currency, given the enormous size of its economy. By being included in the SDR, the yuan moves a big step closer, becoming more palatable for central banks to add to their foreign exchange reserves.

Currency analysts peg central-bank demand for the yuan at over $500 billion, according to Reuters. But global foreign exchange reserves have been shrinking since last year, as this chart by NBF Economics and Strategy shows:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Venezuela Liquidating Assets As Economic Crisis Worsens

November 10, 2015

Venezuela Liquidating Assets As Economic Crisis Worsens

Venezuela is at a political crossroads, with an all-important parliamentary election set to take place in December. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan economy continues to deteriorate as the state seeks to stave off default and a brewing financial crisis.

The state-owned oil company PDVSA is looking to push off debt repayments that are due in 2016 and 2017, hoping to buy two more years of breathing room. Eulogio del Pino, the president of PDVSA, confirmed that the oil company completed debt payments of $4.2 billion that matured last month, and will pay another $1 billion due in the near future. But PDVSA is also seeking to work with bond holders to extend the deadlines for short-term debt until 2018 and 2019.

The comments from del Pino highlight the growing difficulty Venezuela is having in dealing with the collapse of crude prices. For a country that depends on oil exports for 95 percent of its export revenue, the bust in oil prices is hurting the South American OPEC member worse than most.

Bond prices for the government and PDVSA have collapsed, a development that del Pino blames on speculators seeking to drive down their value. Based on market sentiment, there is a strong consensus that Venezuela is facing the likelihood of default within the next year. Still, Venezuela thus far has been careful to meet debt payments, something that del Pino argued should give PDVSA credibility as it seeks to renegotiate maturity terms with bondholders.

But cash is running low. Gold reserves are falling sharply as Venezuela liquidates them to raise funds to meet debt payments. Also, the Wall Street Journal reported that Venezuela withdrew $467 million in cash reserves that it keeps with the International Monetary Fund, a sign that Venezuela is scrambling to raise as much money as it can.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Venezuela Default Countdown Begins: After Selling Billions In Gold, Caracas Raids $467 Million In IMF Reserves

November 9, 2015

Venezuela Default Countdown Begins: After Selling Billions In Gold, Caracas Raids $467 Million In IMF Reserves

In late October, when describing Venezuela’s desperate steps to keep itself afloat for a few more months, we reported that in order to fund $3.5 billion bond payments in early November, Maduro’s government had engaged in something that is the very definition of insanity: selling the country’s sovereign (and pateiently repatriated by his deceased predecessor) gold to repay creditors.

Specifically, in the past several months, Caracas has quietly parted with 19% of its gold holdings: “Central bank financial statements posted this week on its website show monetary gold totaled 91.41 billion bolivars in January and 74.14 billion bolivars in May. At the strongest official exchange rate of 6.3 bolivars per U.S. dollar, which the bank uses for its financial statements, that decline would be equivalent to $2.74 billion.”

But while ridiculous, Venezuela’s decision to liquidate some of its gold is perhaps understandable under the circumstances: Venezulea relies on crude oil for 95% of its export revenue, and with prices refusing to rebound, the only question is when do all those CDS which price in a Venezuela default finally get paid.

What is even more understandable is what Venezuela should have done in the first place before dumping a fifth of its gold, but got to do eventually, namely raiding all of the IMF capital held under its name in a special SDR reserve account.

Recall that this is precisely what Greece did in July when everyone was speculating when it would default. Now its Venezuela’s turn.

The details: Reuters reports that Venezuela withdrew some $467 million from an IMF holding account in October, according to information posted on the fund’s web-site, as the OPEC nation seeks to improve the liquidity of its reserves amid low oil prices and a severe recession.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Next Level of John Law Type Central Planning Madness

November 7, 2015

The Next Level of John Law Type Central Planning Madness

Cries for Going Totally Crazy are Intensifying

What are the basic requirements for becoming the chief economist of the IMF? Judging from what we have seen so far, the person concerned has to be a died-in-the-wool statist and fully agree with the (neo-) Keynesian faith, i.e., he or she has to support more of the same hoary inflationism that has never worked in recorded history anywhere. In other words, to qualify for that fat 100% tax-free salary (ironically paid for by assorted tax serfs), one has to be in favor of central economic planning and support policies fully in line with today’s economically illiterate orthodoxy. Meet Maurice Obstfeld, who has just taken the mantle.

For all we know the man is merely misguided and otherwise a nice person (in fact, he’s laughing a lot in photographs and seems a personable enough fellow). But his proposals could eventually affect the lives of countless people in the whole world, so he is fair game for robust criticism. We personally believe that he and other members of our “enlightened” technocratic ruling class should resign without delay and start looking for productive work instead of parasitizing and hampering the ever shrinking class of genuine wealth producers, but it seems unlikely that they will be interested in our opinion.

There once was a time when monetary cranks of the sort in charge nearly everywhere today were laughed out of the room. Today they are perfectly free to drive what is left of the market economy over the cliff. Mr. Obstfeld turns out to be yet another in a long list of luminaries belly-aching about (non-existing) “deflation” – this is to say, the alleged danger that the purchasing power of consumer incomes and savings might increase at some point. Allegedly, this remote eventuality has to be guarded against at all costs.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Thousands reject the extractivist logic at the World Bank-IMF meeting in Peru

October 21, 2015

Thousands reject the extractivist logic at the World Bank-IMF meeting in Peru

The annual governors’ meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank opened on October 5 in Peru’s capital city. In the meeting, an estimated 800 representatives from 188 countries were negotiating the shape of the world’s soon-to-be renovated finance infrastructure.

While the international media focused on the official meetings, no news outlets outside of Latin America have mentioned the Plataforma Alternativa conference — a parallel three-day meeting organized under the theme “Belying the ‘Peruvian Miracle.’”

More than 1,200 people attended Plataforma Alternativa’s conference. Dozens of young volunteers zoomed through the marbled hallways of Lima’s Hotel Bolívar, which hosted the conference. Participants represented dozens of organizations and countries as diverse as the Netherlands, China, the United States, Belgium, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Indonesia, Spain, Mexico, the Philippines, Germany, Palestine and Argentina.

On Friday, an estimated 5,000 people marched across 70 blocks in Lima, from Plaza San Martín to the first of three police perimeters around the official conference. Groups at the protest included indigenous feminist organizations, the Lima-based Comando Feminista, Bloque Hip Hop, worker unions, the Peruvian Campesino Confederation, and dozens of others.

Peru reportedly mobilized 20,000 police for this event, many of whom were safeguarding key areas around the city for the 12,000 visitors: from the airport to hotel areas.

The counter-conference was free, open to the public, and streamed online. It featured U.S. economist Joseph Stiglitz, a former World Bank chief economist and an outspoken critic of its policies, as its keynote speaker.

“Inequality is a choice — not the result of inevitable economic laws,” Stiglitz said in his speech after reminding the audience that Latin America has the highest rate of wealth disparity among world regions. At the end of September, Oxfam — one of several organizations in charge of the conference — released a report indicating that, at the current pace, one percent of Latin Americans would be wealthier than the remaining 99 percent by 2022.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Pension “Armageddon” Got Closer Today

October 21, 2015

Pension “Armageddon” Got Closer Today

The IMF fears underfunded pension funds could be encouraged to chase returns through riskier investments such as direct credit exposure or by engaging in securities lending in order to improve their funding ratios….The IMF’s comments echoed similar warnings from the OECD in May, when the Paris-based body said pension funds’ move towards riskier asset classes could result in their solvency position being “seriously compromised” in turbulent markets. The Financial Times

Yesterday I published a post in which I outlined the reasons why pension fund underfunding is likely much worse than the level admitted by the funds themselves and industry professionals. The biggest culprit is “mark to market” of illiquid investments into which pension managers have “shoe-horned” themselves in order to give the appearance of rates of return that are higher on paper than in reality. A good friend and colleague of mine, who happens to be very bright, had this comment in response to my post:

Pension funds are collectively insolvent. Basically the asset managers running these funds have refused to MTM them properly, expecting the assumed X% annual return to normalize. Sorry, buddy: this IS the new normal (which is why the unfunded situation gets worse every year… assume 8% and get 0% for enough years and the chasm only widens… in fact, by the rule of 72, your funding gap will double every 9 years if that 8% gap is reality). This is where the rubber hits the road, the issue which is going to punch the middle class in the gut like a steel 2×4.

This is the same dynamic that torpedoed the big bank balance sheets when the housing/subprime credit bubble popped, as big chunks of home equity, mortgage and other credit products were marked close to par when in reality most of it was worth zero. And this is one of the primary reasons that the Fed is devoting significant resources to keeping the stock market propped up: pension fund insolvency is at risk.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Trouble With Financial Bubbles

October 20, 2015

The Trouble With Financial Bubbles

Very soon after the magnitude of the 2008 financial crisis became clear, a lively debate began about whether central banks and regulators could – and should – have done more to head it off. The traditional view, notably shared by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, is that any attempt to prick financial bubbles in advance is doomed to failure. The most central banks can do is to clean up the mess.

Bubble-pricking may indeed choke off growth unnecessarily – and at high social cost. But there is a counter-argument. Economists at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) have maintained that the costs of the crisis were so large, and the cleanup so long, that we should surely now look for ways to act pre-emptively when we again see a dangerous build-up of liquidity and credit.

Hence the fierce (albeit arcane and polite) dispute between the two sides at the International Monetary Fund’s recent meeting in Lima, Peru. For the literary-minded, it was reminiscent of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Gulliver finds himself caught in a war between two tribes, one of which believes that a boiled egg should always be opened at the narrow end, while the other is fervent in its view that a spoon fits better into the bigger, rounded end.

It is fair to say that the debate has moved on a little since 2008. Most important, macroprudential regulation has been added to policymakers’ toolkit: simply put, it makes sense to vary banks’ capital requirements according to the financial cycle. When credit expansion is rapid, it may be appropriate to increase banks’ capital requirements as a hedge against the heightened risk of a subsequent contraction. This increase would be above what microprudential supervision – assessing the risks to individual institutions – might dictate. In this way, the new Basel rules allow for requiring banks to maintain a so-called countercyclical buffer of extra capital.

Read more at https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/central-bankers-financial-stability-debate-by-howard-davies-2015-10#fXsDH7ISW0ku2b5s.99

Saudi Arabia’s fiscal break-even oil price to be around $US 100 mark for the foreseeable future

October 19, 2015

Saudi Arabia’s fiscal break-even oil price to be around $US 100 mark for the foreseeable future

The latest IMF Article IV consultation report on Saudi Arabia was published on 9 September 2015.

http://www.imf.org/external/country/sau/

Extract: Government spending has increased substantially in recent years. Consequently, the breakeven oil price rose to $106 a barrel in 2014 from $69 a barrel in 2010. As a result, with the large decline in oil prices, the fiscal deficit has increased sharply and is likely to remain high over the medium-term. These deficits will rapidly erode the fiscal buffers (in the form of government deposits and low public debt) that have been built over the past decade. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2015/cr15251.pdf

Let’s put this into some graphs. We start with the fiscal deficit first, then look at the external balance.

Expenditure

Fig1: Expenditure, Budgetary Central Government Operations

During the period of high oil prices until 2014, expenditure grew by 9-15% pa. In early 2015, King Salman disbursed a bonus of 50 bn Riyal to government employees, contributing to a 30% increase of the annual wage bill. Capital expenditure (transportation, health and education) includes the expansion works at Medina and Mecca.

Budget Balance

Fig 2: Budget revenue vs expenditure

Oil revenue dropped sharply, starting in 2013 and leading to a negative balance by 2014. It will get worse in 2015. It is clear that the pre 2015 trend cannot continue. The IMF proposes a budget adjustment scenario (ii, Fig 7) by initially reducing expenditure in 2016 and then increasing it moderately by 4% and later 1%. Oil revenue is assumed to grow along a recovery of oil prices.

Fig 3: Budget balance as % of GDP

In Fig 3, we take the balance from Fig 2 and add a curve (blue) as percentage of GDP. In 2015, the deficit reaches 20% of GDP. For comparison: commodity dependent Australia had a budget deficit of -2.6% of GDP in 2014/15, the US estimate for 2015 is -2.7%.

Oil price assumptions

The underlying oil prices have been taken from the World Economic Outlook (WEO), assumed as follows:

Fig 4: Oil price assumptions and Saudi budget balance

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Numbers Say That A Major Global Recession Has Already Begun

October 14, 2015

The Numbers Say That A Major Global Recession Has Already Begun

The biggest bank in the western world has just come out and declared that the global economy is “already in a recession”. According to British banking giant HSBC, global trade is down 8.4 percent so far this year, and global GDP expressed in U.S. dollars is down 3.4 percent. So those that are waiting for the next worldwide economic recession to begin can stop waiting. It is officially here. As you will see below, money is fleeing emerging markets at a blistering pace, major global banks are stuck with huge loans that will never be repaid, and it looks like a very significant worldwide credit crunch has begun. Just a few days ago, I explained that the IMF, the UN, the BIS And Citibank were all warning that a major economic crisis could be imminent. They aren’t just making this stuff up out of thin air, but most Americans still seem to believe that everything is going to be just fine. The level of blind faith in the system that most people are demonstrating right now is absolutely astounding.

The numbers say that the global economy has not been in this bad shape since the devastating recession that shook the world in 2008 and 2009. According to HSBC, “we are already in a dollar recession”…

Global trade is also declining at an alarming pace. According to the latest data available in June the year on year change is -8.4%. To find periods of equivalent declines we only really find recessionary periods. This is an interesting point. On one metric we are already in a recession. As can be seen in Chart 3 on the following page, global GDP expressed in US dollars is already negative to the tune of USD 1,37trn or -3.4%. That is, we are already in a dollar recession.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IMF Warns That We Have a New Crisis Coming

October 13, 2015

IMF Warns That We Have a New Crisis Coming

QUESTION: Marty; You mentioned that you met with a board member of the IMF. It certainly seems you are having a much larger impact than you may realize. The IMF is now warning of a crash. Do you think you can help reverse the trend if given the chance?

Thank you for caring

ANSWER: I absolutely could mitigate the crisis. There would be much I could stop in 30 days or less. But the trend is the trend. The system is collapsing. It is not because of some derivatives bubble. It is not because of fiat. This is because of the debt gone wild and governments run by politicians who are clueless and assume that they can bully their way through this by writing laws. LaGarde is now warning that we have not fixed the problems from the last crisis and we have another one brewing.

Yet the IMF is focused on the rising risk of a global financial crash because of a slowdown in China, which undermines the stability of highly indebted emerging economies. The IMF is not saying much other than there are three crisis epic centers within the emerging market crisis including China, Brazil, Turkey, and Malaysia. This could shave 3% off of global GDP, which would devastate Europe in particular. Then there is the chaos of debt in Europe because of the failed euro, but that is a political problem and means politicians need to admit error. The IMF has warned about the battered global markets that have experienced a sharp decline in liquidity since 2007 and are more likely to transmit shocks rather than cushion the blow.

These three areas that the IMF is warning about are the symptoms rather than the causes. The IMF has not identified the root cause of this chaos and that is all emerging from the fact that governments borrow, owe debt, and in turn raise taxes, which lowers growth and reducing living standards. Wait for the pension crisis to hit. A further decline will undermine the European banks and will cause a real meltdown.

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