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Desperation is spreading in Venezuela as violent protests continue to paralyze the country, further damaging the country’s shattered economy. Venezuela’s already-decrepit oil industry is deteriorating by the day, and an outright implosion is no longer out of the question.

The inflation rate, according to the IMF, will balloon to 720 percent this year. Food shortages have been common for quite some time, but are deepening and wearing down the population. Three out of four people surveyed by the WSJ reported involuntary weight loss last year. Hospitals have completely broken down.

Venezuela has been crippled by protests since late March, with more than three dozen people having been killed over the past two months, and there is no sign of improvement. This meltdown is taking a toll on Venezuela’s oil production, the last thing keeping the country from becoming a failed state. Venezuela’s oil production has been declining for more than a decade, mainly because oil revenues are used to finance the government, leaving little for state-owned PDVSA to reinvest in its operations.

But things are getting worse. The cash shortage is accelerating the decline. As of April, oil production stood at 1.956 million barrels per day (mb/d), down 10 percent from last year, and down more than 17 percent from 2015 levels – and output continues to trend downward. James Williams, energy economist at WTRG Economics, told Marketwatch in March that he expects Venezuela to lose another 200,000 to 300,000 bpd this year, another 10 to 15 percent decline from 1Q2017 levels.

The problem is downstream as well, as the shortage of refined products worsens. Three out of Venezuela’s four oil refineries are operating significantly below capacity because of the inability to find spare parts for maintenance, according to Reuters.

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

IMF De-Cashing: Soft-Selling Financial Enslavement – Rory Hall

April 7, 2017

IMF De-Cashing: Soft-Selling Financial Enslavement – Rory Hall

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) or as I like to call them – International Mafia Federation – is showing its true colors and proving beyond question this organization is nothing more than street-corner-thugs in high priced suits.

With the release of this latest working paper on how to enslave nations, steal the remaining sovereignty of the people and the nations they have drawn up plans to force a cashless society upon all the people within IMF member nations.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington has published a Working Paper on “de-cashing”. It gives advice to governments who want to abolish cash against the will of their citizenry. Move slowly, start with harmless seeming measures, is part of that advice.

In “The Macroeconomics of De-Cashing”, IMF-Analyst Alexei Kireyev recommends in his conclusions:
Although some countries most likely will de-cash in a few years, going completely cashless should be phased in steps. The de-cashing process could build on the initial and largely uncontested steps, such as the phasing out of large denomination bills, the placement of ceilings on cash transactions, and the reporting of cash moves across the borders. Further steps could include creating economic incentives to reduce the use of cash in transactions, simplifying the opening and use of transferrable deposits, and further computerizing the financial system.

The private sector led de-cashing seems preferable to the public sector led decashing. The former seems almost entirely benign (e.g., more use of mobile phones to pay for coffee), but still needs policy adaptation. The latter seems more questionable, and people may have valid objections to it.

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

NEW UNCOVERED INFORMATION: Why Central Banks Were Forced To Rig The Gold Market

March 4, 2017

NEW UNCOVERED INFORMATION: Why Central Banks Were Forced To Rig The Gold Market

According to newly uncovered information in the gold market, it provides additional evidence of why the Fed, Central Banks and the IMF were forced to RIG the gold market. Not only was the dropping of the Gold-Dollar peg going to release a great deal of pressure on the manipulated gold price, but forecasts of a massive increase in gold demand was going to totally overwhelm supply.

Thus, this new information provides clear evidence that the gold market was being assaulted on “two fronts.” Not only was the gold market suffering from a decades of price suppression schemes via the Fed and Central Banks, but also that surging gold demand in the jewelry and industrial sectors was going to lead to severe shortages in the gold market.

Which means, the gold market was experiencing a great deal more stress than complications stemming from the debasement of the U.S. Dollar due to massive money printing. Actually, looking at this new information, I had no idea of the amount of Fed, Central Bank and IMF gold market intervention until I put all the pieces together.

Now, when I say “new information”, it pertains to new information and data that I dug up from older official documents. While most of the folks in the precious metals community realize that the Fed and Central Banks have sold gold into the market to depress the price, this new evidence puts the gold market it in an entirely DIFFERENT LIGHT.

Furthermore, additional data points to a “Gold Supply & Demand” situation that would have gone completely out of control, if the Fed, Central Banks and IMF did not step in.

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

Strange That The Same Point In Time For The Economic Crisis Keeps Coming Up

March 2, 2017

Strange That The Same Point In Time For The Economic Crisis Keeps Coming Up

This video was produced by X22 Report

Netherlands is making a move to leave the EU. Theresa May is worried that a Scottish Referendum vote will happen at the same time as the Article 50 vote. Former IMF chief sentenced to jail in Spain. The EU says no bail-ins at this time because it would hurt the creditors. Maine drops 9,000 from Food Stamp roll says people need to look for jobs. Pending home sales tumble. Durable goods decline. David Stockman says it will begin on March 15 and the economy will really go down hill in the summer and the fall will be a disaster.

Tsipras Warns IMF, Schauble To “Stop Playing With Fire” Over Greek Debt

February 11, 2017

Tsipras Warns IMF, Schauble To “Stop Playing With Fire” Over Greek Debt

One day after Greek 2Y bond yields tumbled following press reports that for the first time in the latest Greek mini-crisis, the IMF and Eurozone creditors finally agreed on a “common stance” regarding what the Greek fiscal surplus and debt profile would look like, despite talks between Greece and its creditors ending in Brussels with no breakthrough, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras on Saturday warned the IMF and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble to “stop playing with fire” in handling his country’s debt.

Nonetheless, striking a positive tone, Tsipras opened a meeting of his Syriza party by saying he was confident a solution would be found, and urged a change of course from the IMF. “We expect as soon as possible that the IMF revise its forecast so that discussions can continue at the technical level”, AFP reported, suggesting that contrary to initial reports, the bid-ask between the Troika and Greece still remains irreconcilable .

Tsipras also attacked Greek nemesis Wolfgang Schauble – who earlier in the week ruled out a Greek debt cut, saying “for that Greece would have to exit the currency area”- and called for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to “encourage her finance minister to end his permanent aggressiveness” towards Greece.

As documented before, ongoing feuding with the IMF has raised fears of a new debt crisis. Greece, whose economic collapse is now worse than the US Great Depression – remains embroiled in a row with its eurozone paymasters and the IMF over debt relief and budget targets that has rattled markets and revived talk of its place in the euro.

A silver lining emerged on Friday, when Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said progress had been made in the Brussels talks with Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and other EU and IMF officials. But he provided few details.

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

Toxic Politics Versus Better Economics

October 16, 2016

Toxic Politics Versus Better Economics

NEW YORK – The relationship between politics and economics is changing. Advanced-country politicians are locked in bizarre, often toxic, conflicts, instead of acting on a growing economic consensus about how to escape a protracted period of low and unequal growth. This trend must be reversed, before it structurally cripples the advanced world and sweeps up the emerging economies, too.

Obviously, political infighting is nothing new. But, until recently, the expectation was that if professional economists achieved a technocratic consensus on a given policy approach, political leaders would listen. Even when more radical political parties attempted to push a different agenda, powerful forces – whether moral suasion from G7 governments, private capital markets, or the conditionality attached to International Monetary Fund and World Bank lending – would almost always ensure that the consensus approach eventually won the day.

In the 1990s and 2000s, for example, the so-called Washington Consensus dominated policymaking in much of the world, with everyone from the United States to a multitude of emerging economies pursuing trade liberalization, privatization, greater use of price mechanisms, financial-sector deregulation, and fiscal and monetary reforms with a heavy supply-side emphasis. The embrace of the Washington Consensus by multilateral institutions amplified its transmission, helping to drive forward the broader process of economic and financial globalization.

Incoming governments – particularly those led by non-traditional movements, which had risen to power on the back of domestic unease and frustration with mainstream parties – sometimes disagreed with the appropriateness and relevance of the Washington Consensus. But, as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva demonstrated with his famous policy pivot in 2002, that consensus tended largely to prevail. And it continued to hold sway as recently as almost two years ago, when Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras executed an equally notable U-turn.

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

Why energy prices are ultimately headed lower; what the IMF missed

October 16, 2016

Why energy prices are ultimately headed lower; what the IMF missed

We have been hearing a great deal about IMF concerns recently, after the release of its October 2016 World Economic Outlook and its Annual Meeting October 7-9. The concerns mentioned include the following:

Too much growth in debt, with China particularly mentioned as a problem
World economic growth seems to have slowed on a long-term basis
Central bank intervention required to produce artificially low interest rates, to produce even this low growth
Global international trade is no longer growing rapidly
Economic stagnation could lead to protectionist calls

These issues are very much related to issues that I have been writing about:

It takes energy to make goods and services.
It takes an increasing amount of energy consumption to create a growing amount of goods and services–in other words, growing GDP.
This energy must be inexpensive, if it is to operate in the historical way: the economy produces good productivity growth; this productivity growth translates to wage growth; and debt levels can stay within reasonable bounds as growth occurs.
We can’t keep producing cheap energy because what “runs out” is cheap-to-extract energy. We extract this cheap-to-extract energy first, forcing us to move on to expensive-to-extract energy.
Eventually, we run into the problem of energy prices falling below the cost of production because of affordability issues. The wages of non-elite workers don’t keep up with the rising cost of extraction.
Governments can try to cover up the problem with more debt at ever-lower interest rates, but eventually this doesn’t work either.
Instead of producing higher commodity prices, the system tends to produce asset bubbles.
Eventually, the system must collapse due to growing inefficiencies of the system. The result is likely to look much like a “Minsky Moment,” with a collapse in asset prices.

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

Someone Is Lying

October 8, 2016

Someone Is Lying

Observant readers may recall the name Vitas Vasiliauskas from our May story in which we quoted the ECB governing council member as defining not only himself, but his central banking peers, as “magic people.” As the portly Lithuanian banker said in a Bloomberg interview then, “markets say the ECB is done, their box is empty, but we are magic people. Each time we take something and give to the markets — a rabbit out of the hat.” What was more disturbing is that he was dead serious when he said it, which is important, because it is finally obvious that central bankers are neither gods, nor magicians, nor even doing “god’s work on earth”, but plain and simple psychopaths.

They could also be pathological liars, as the WSJ revealed today when it published an interview with Vasiliauskas, in which among other things, covered the topic of Deutsche Bank. To wit:

Struggling German lender Deutsche Bank won’t drive the eurozone economy into the ground, a member of the European Central Bank’s governing council said Thursday, adding a fresh dose of calm into a case that has raised concerns about the continent’s ability to confront the struggles of Germany’s largest lender.

“I don’t think that problems related with one of the banks somehow can influence overall financial stability,” said Vitas Vasiliauskas, the head of Lithuania’s central bank, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The small Baltic state has used the euro since last year and therefore has a voice on the 25-member governing council that sets monetary policy in the currency bloc. The ECB also serves as supervisor of the eurozone’s largest banks. “I don’t think that we face something systemic,” he said on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund.

And just in case the punchline is somehow missed, here it is timestamped for posterity.

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

Doomed to Failure

October 8, 2016

Doomed to Failure

Larded Up and Larded Over

We’ve been waiting for the U.S. economy to reach escape velocity for the last six years. What we mean is we’ve been waiting for the economy to finally become self-stimulating and no longer require monetary or fiscal stimulus to keep it from stalling out. Unfortunately, this may not be possible the way things are going.

fischers As Milton Jones once revealed: “A month before he died, my grandfather covered his back in lard. After that, he went downhill quickly” (his other grandfather drowned in a bowl of cheerios). A similar fate may await the larded up US economy.

In short, the U.S. economy may never reach “escape velocity” unless it is first allowed to crash. It has been too larded up and larded over with debt for any real sustainable growth to take root. More evidence, to this effect, was revealed this week.

For example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) anticipates the U.S. economy will expand by just 1.6 percent this year. That’s about one percent less than last year’s estimated growth. In other words, the rate of economic growth in the United States isn’t increasing; rather, it’s decreasing.

According to the IMF, “the slower-than-expected activity comes out of the ongoing oil industry slump, depressed business investment and a persistent surplus in business inventories.” Could this be the twilight of the weakest economic recovery in the post-World War II era? Only time will tell, for sure.

But anyone with an ear to the ground and a nose to the grindstone knows the answer to that question. Business ain’t booming. Moreover, it has become near impossible for corporations to grow their earnings.

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

Stanley Fischer’s Novel Idea: “We’d Be Better Off With A Price For Using Money”

October 1, 2016

Stanley Fischer’s Novel Idea: “We’d Be Better Off With A Price For Using Money”

The end game of central bank lunacy is surely near. Even the Fed heads appear to be mumbling bits and pieces of truth in public.

Former Philly Fed President Charles Plosser, for example, told Bloomberg TV this morning that central bankers “wring their hands all the time,” are very “concerned about credibility,” and are “pretty good at conjuring up reasons not to act.”

Having screwed up his mutinous courage, he then let loose with words that haven’t been heard from a central banker in decades, if ever:

The Fed “shouldn’t be afraid a recession might come,” he exclaimed, “there’s a real problem here”.

Then again, Plosser recently retired and perhaps it wasn’t all that voluntary. By contrast, Stanley Fischer is in line to takeover the joint, and perhaps soon.

That’s because Janet Yellen is surely finished whether the Donald wins or loses. Her dithering and double-talk have become a laughingstock even in the Wall Street casino.

So you might have thought the good professor from MIT—-by way of the IMF and Bank Of Israel—– would be carefully parsing his words. Instead, he was apparently moved during a speech to economics students to confess that he is more or less flummoxed by his own policies:

WASHINGTON—Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer on Tuesday expressed frustration with ultralow interest rates, saying they should rise over time.

“It bothers me, it really bothers me,” he said when asked about low rates at an event for economics students at Howard University in Washington…….I don’t like it, but I don’t want to raise the interest rate too much. I think we should at some point. I don’t know when,” he said. “The interest rate I believe is not at zero at a normal level and it should be [normal] at some point, not immediately.”

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

Ken Rogoff’s Government Debt Default Plan

September 17, 2016

Ken Rogoff’s Government Debt Default Plan

Ken Rogoff is by all accounts a brilliant man. The Harvard professor and former IMF chief economist is a chess grandmaster. His thesis committee included current Fed vice-chair Stanley Fischer. But like many survivors of Ivy League hoop jumping, the poor fellow appears to have emerged punch drunk.

That’s the only conclusion to be drawn from Rogoff’s new book, The Curse of Cash , which, in effect, proposes a ban on paper currency.

It’s terrifying piece of work, for several reasons.

First, the cashless society, which Rogoff proposes in order to make it easier for the US government to confiscate private wealth, in effect, amounts to an admission that Washington can’t pay back its debts.

Second, the fact that Rogoff uses the fight against “terrorism” and “crime” arguments in selling his proposals to the public – justifications which he as a mathematician should know are farcical – suggest that his arguments hide another agenda.

Third, and most important, is the fact that not only would banning cash not achieve Rogoff’s objectives – it could cause irreparable harm to the dollar’s role in the American economy and as a reserve currency.

Let’s look at these arguments one at a time.

Enforced negative rates ARE debt defaults

Rogoff’s “cashless society” is an elegant solution to a key problem bedeviling the Federal Reserve: with interest rates at the zero bound, the US central bank has no ammunition left to fight the next recession – because if cuts rates below zero, savers will withdraw their cash and put it under their mattresses.

“In principle, cutting interest rates below zero ought to stimulate consumption and investment in the same way as normal monetary policy,” Rogoff writes. “Unfortunately, the existence of cash gums up the works.”

That argument is spurious at best.

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

Who Or What Will Push Italy Over The Cliff This Year?

August 16, 2016

Who Or What Will Push Italy Over The Cliff This Year?

Traditionally, the Eurozone’s GDP numbers of the second quarter of a calendar year are being released in the first few days of August, and this year isn’t any different. And as expected, the updated report contains some not-so-very-optimistic results.

Germany continues to be the main engine of the economy of the Eurozone, as the largest country of the bloc saw its GDP increase by 0.4%which is better than expected as the market was expecting a weaker growth result. Unfortunately Italy is once again stagnating and instead of a small economic growth of 0.2%, the economy’s growth rate fell flat and remained at exactly at the same level, indicating the program of monetary expansion of the ECB isn’t working just yet.

Source: Bloomberg

The lower growth rate (after realizing a GDP increase of 0.3% in the previous quarter) also caused both the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of Italy to revise their growth expectations as both institutions now expect the country’s economy to grow by less than 1% in the current year. That’s a very disappointing result as the quantitative easing program of the European Central Bank was predominantly aimed at reducing the impact of economic contractions in the poorer performing countries. But the situation might actually be even worse than you’d expect.

After all, Italy could be considered to be a semi-failed state, and the current prime minister, Matteo Renzi, was planning to push some reforms through after the summer recess of the country’s parliament. Reforms will definitely be necessary to try to the Italian economy going again, as it’s one of the very few countries remaining short of the pre-crisis levels of the GDP considering Italy’s GDP is still approximately 8% lower compared to the pre-crisis GDP numbers whilst the unemployment numbers are increasing again.

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

“The Resentment Will Explode” – In Dramatic Twist, McKinsey Slams Globalization

July 14, 2016

“The Resentment Will Explode” – In Dramatic Twist, McKinsey Slams Globalization

Moments ago, in a speech in Washington, IMF head Christine Lagarde said that “The greatest challenge we face today is the risk of the world turning its back on global cooperation—the cooperation which has served us all well. We know that globalization – and increased integration – over the past generation has yielded many economic benefits for many people.”

The IMF is not alone: for years, consultancy giant McKinsey towed the party line as well saying in 2010 that “the core drivers of globalization are alive and well” and adding as recently as 2014 that “to be unconnected is to fall behind.”

That appears have changing, and cracks are starting to form behind the cohesive push for globalization, at least among those who benefit the most from globalization.

In a stunning study released today, one which effectively refutes all its prior conclusions on the matter, McKinsey slams the establishment’s status quo thinking and admits that the economic gains of changes in the global economy have not been widely shared lately, especially in the developed world. In the report titled “Poorer Than Their Parents? Flat or Falling Incomes in Advanced Economies” it finds that prospects for income growth have deteriorated significantly since the financial crisis, and that the benefits from globalization are now over:

This overwhelmingly positive income trend has ended. A new McKinsey Global Institute report, Poorer than their parents? Flat or falling incomes in advanced economies, finds that between 2005 and 2014, real incomes in those same advanced economies were flat or fell for 65 to 70 percent of households, or more than 540 million people (exhibit). And while government transfers and lower tax rates mitigated some of the impact, up to a quarter of all households still saw disposable income stall or fall in that decade.

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

“Deutsche Bank Poses The Greatest Risk To The Global Financial System”: IMF

June 30, 2016

“Deutsche Bank Poses The Greatest Risk To The Global Financial System”: IMF

Over three years ago we wrote “At $72.8 Trillion, Presenting The Bank With The Biggest Derivative Exposure In The World” in which we introduced a bank few until then had imagined was the riskiest in the world.

As we explained then “the bank with the single largest derivative exposure is not located in the US at all, but in the heart of Europe, and its name, as some may have guessed by now, is Deutsche Bank. The amount in question? €55,605,039,000,000. Which, converted into USD at the current EURUSD exchange rate amounts to $72,842,601,090,000…. Or roughly $2 trillion more than JPMorgan’s.”

So here we are three years later, when not only did Deutsche Bank just flunk the Fed’s stress test for the second year in a row, but moments ago in a far more damning analysis, none other than the IMF disclosed that Deutsche Bank poses the greatest systemic risk to the global financial system, explicitly stating that the German bank “appears to be the most important net contributor to systemic risks.”

Yes, the same bank whose stock price hit a record low just two days ago.

Here is the key section in the report:

Domestically, the largest German banks and insurance companies are highly interconnected. The highest degree of interconnectedness can be found between Allianz, Munich Re, Hannover Re, Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and Aareal bank, with Allianz being the largest contributor to systemic risks among the publicly-traded German financials. Both Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank are the source of outward spillovers to most other publicly-listed banks and insurers. Given the likelihood of distress spillovers between banks and life insurers, close monitoring and continued systemic risk analysis by authorities is warranted.

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

IMF Blames Bad Loans For Mozambique’s Soaring Debt-To-GDP Ratio

June 25, 2016

IMF Blames Bad Loans For Mozambique’s Soaring Debt-To-GDP Ratio

Mozambique has a broad swath of problems within its governing councils. Back in December of 2005, Management Systems International based out of Washington issued a report titled CORRUPTION ASSESSMENT: MOZAMBIQUE which said point blank: “The scale and scope of corruption in Mozambique are cause for alarm”.

Mozambique’s head of state Joaquim Chissano left office in February 2005 after 15 years. His replacement, Armando Guebza, that same year opened Mozambique’s coastline to international companies seeking to search for resources. Between 2005 and 2006 three firms were able to capture rights to explore the coast, Anadarko, Italy’s Eni, and Petronas. Some 75 trillion cubic feet of natural gas was discovered and this set of a a blitz into Mozambique as international banks, corporations, and organizations flooded the area. This opened a breeding ground for corruption and unregulated financing, specifically the controversial Tuna Bond that was supposed to be used to support regional fishing and was instead used for military expenditures and to purchase some 40 boats that remain anchored to this day.

The Collapse Of Mozambique’s FX – Annotated With Key Events

On Friday Reuters said the IMF blamed “undisclosed loans” for Mozambique’s 86% Debt/GDP ratio.

“Mozambique’s economic growth will likely slow to 4.5 percent in 2016 from 6.6 percent the previous year due to rapidly rising inflation and growing government debt, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday. The leader of a Fund team that visited the southern African country, Michel Lazare, said the discovery of more than $1 billion of previously undisclosed government debt would increase pressure on the economy.”

On April 19 2015 the IMF suspended its disbursement of $155M payment as part of a larger $286M emergency loan that was established as a means of stabilizing the nation’s currency after it collapsed. What’s frustrating is that the IMF is blaming the 86% Debt-to-GDP as if they had not planned for it.

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

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