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Gustave Courbet **The village maidens** 1852

I intentionally start writing this mere minutes away from Fed chair Jay Powell’s latest comments. Intentionally, because the importance ascribed to those comments only means we have gotten so far removed from what capitalism and free markets are supposed to be about, that it’s pathetic. The comments mean something for rich socialists, but nothing for the man in the street. Or, rather, they mean that the man in the street will get screwed worse for longer.

And it’s not just the Fed, all central banks have it and do it. They play around with rates and definitions and semantics until the cows can never come home again. And they have such levels of control over their respective societies and economies that the mere use of the word “markets” should result in loud and unending ridicule. There are no markets, because there is no price discovery, the Fed and ECB and BOJ got it all covered. Any downside risks, that is.

But it doesn’t, because the people who pretend they’re in those markets hang on central banks’ every word for their meal tickets. These are the same people we once knew as traders and investors, but who today function only as rich socialists sucking the Fed’s teats for ever more mother’s milk.

Our economic systems have been destroyed by our central bankers. Who pretend they’re saving them. And we all eat it up hook line and sinker. Because the rich bankers and their media have no reasons to counter Fed or ECB actions and word plays, and because anyone who’s not a rich banker or investor is kept by the media from understanding those reasons.

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

2018 Chaos, 2019 Mayhem

December 19, 2018

2018 Chaos, 2019 Mayhem

Titian The rape of Europe 1560-62

It took me a while to decide which word(s) best define the past year and the next one, but I think this is pretty much it. 2018 was chaotic more than anything else, and that chaos will give rise to mayhem in 2019.

What I think is striking is that this is true across the board, in all walks of life so to speak. In finance, in politics, in energy markets, in ecological matters, and perhaps most of all in the ways all these topics are being covered by what once were trusted media.

I’m going to have to come back to all these topics separately, so it’s promising to be a very busy holiday season, but it’s also good to try and put them together in one place, if only to show how interconnected everything is. And how futile it is to look at the economy without seeing its connection to energy flows and ecosystems. And vice versa.

In finance and economics, we’ve seen an avalanche of falling numbers recently, in stock prices, bond prices, housing, across the globe, and obviously that evokes a lot of comments in the financial press. But that press, and bankers investors on their own, still talk about markets.

However, as I wrote in April 2018, if there is no price discovery, and there isn’t, there ARE NO markets, and it would be good and beneficial if many more people absorb that simple reality. Many more so-called traders and investors would be a start, but by no means enough. Lots more people who have nothing to do with the ‘markets’ should understand why there is no such thing anymore.

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

Every Bubble Is In Search Of A Pin

December 8, 2018

Every Bubble Is In Search Of A Pin

The ‘Everything Bubble’ has popped

Now that the world’s central banking cartel is taking a long-overdue pause from printing money and handing it to the wealthy elite, the collection of asset price bubbles nested within the Everything Bubble are starting to burst.

The cartel (especially the ECB and the Fed) is hoping it can gently deflate these bubbles it created, but that’s a fantasy. Bubbles always burst badly; it’s their nature to do so. Economic suffering and misery always accompany their termination.

It’s said that “every bubble is in search of a pin”. History certainly shows they always manage to find one.

History also shows that after the puncturing, pundits obsess over what precise pin triggered it, as if that matters. It doesn’t, because ’cause’ of a bubble’s bursting can be anything. It can be a wayward comment by a finance minister, otherwise innocuous at any other time, that spooks a critical European bond market at exactly the right (wrong?) moment, triggering a runaway cascade.

Or it might be the routine bankruptcy of a small company that unexpectedly exposes an under-hedged counterparty, thereby setting off a chain reaction across the corporate bond market before the contagion quickly spreads into other key elements of the financial system.

Or perhaps it will be the US Justice Department arresting a Chinese technology executive on murky, over-reaching charges to bully an ally into accepting that unilateral US sanctions are to be abided by everyone, regardless of sovereignty.

How was it that the famous Tulip Bulb bubble came to a crashing end back in the 1600’s? No one knows the exact moment or trigger. But we can easily imagine that in some Dutch pub on the fateful night on the Feb 3^rd1637, a bidder on the most-coveted of all bulbs, the Semper Augustus, had an upset stomach and briefly grimaced when hit by a ripping gas pain:

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

Ben Bernanke’s Waffle House

September 16, 2018

Ben Bernanke’s Waffle House

Salvador Dali Spain 1936-38

Yes, it is hard to believe, but still happening: 10 years after Lehman the very same people who either directly caused the financial crisis of 2008 or made things much much worse in its aftermath, are not only ALL walking around freely and enjoying even better paid jobs than 10 years ago, they are even asked by the media to share their wisdom, comment on what they did to prevent much much worse, and advise present day politicians and bankers on what THEY should do.

You know, what with all the wisdom, knowledge and experience they built up. because that’s the first thing you’ll hear them all spout: Oh YES!, they learned so many lessons after that terrible debacle, and now they’re much better prepared for the next crisis, if it ever might come, which it probably will, but not because of but despite what their wise ass class did back in the day.

Which never fails to bring back up the question about Ben Bernanke, who said right after Lehman that the Fed was entering ‘uncharted territory’ but ever after acted as if the territory had started looking mighty familiar to him, which is the only possible explanation for why he had no qualms about throwing trillion after trillion of someone else’s many at the banks he oversaw.

Somewhere along the line he must have figured it out, right, or he wouldn’t have done that?! He couldn’t still have been grasping in the pitch black dark the way he admitted doing when he made the ‘uncharted territory’ comment?! Thing is, he never returned to that comment, and was never asked about it, and neither were Draghi, Kuroda or Yellen. Did they figure out something they never told us about, or were and are they simple blind mice?

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

Ray Dalio’s Shorting The Entire EU

October 18, 2017

Ray Dalio’s Shorting The Entire EU

Salvator Rosa Heroic battle 1652A point BOE Governor Mark Carney made recently may be the biggest cog in the European Union’s wheel (or is it second biggest? Read on). That is, derivatives clearing. It’s one of the few areas where Brussels stands to lose much more than London, but it’s a big one. And Carney puts a giant question mark behind the EU’s preparedness.

Carney Reveals Europe’s Potential Achilles Heel in Brexit Talks

Carney explained why Europe’s financial sector is more at risk than the UK from a “hard” or “no-deal” Brexit. [..] When asked does the European Council “get it” in terms of potential shocks to financial stability, Carney diplomatically commented that “a learning process is underway.” Having sounded alarm bells about clearing in his last Mansion House speech, he noted “These costs of fragmenting clearing, particularly clearing of interest rate swaps, would be born principally by the European real economy and they are considerable.”

Calling into question the continuity of tens of thousands of derivative contracts , he stated that it was “pretty clear they will no longer be valid”, that this “could only be solved by both sides” and has been “underappreciated” by Europe . Carney had a snipe at Europe for its lack of preparation “We are prepared as we should be for the possibility of a hard exit without any transition…there has been much less of that done in the European Union.”

In Carneys view “It’s in the interest of the EU 27 to have a transition agreement. Also, in my judgement given the scale of the issues as they affect the EU 27, that there will ultimately be a transition agreement. There is a very limited amount of time between now and the end of March 2019 to transition large, complex institutions and activities…

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

Jackson Hole and the Appalachians

August 27, 2017

Jackson Hole and the Appalachians

Henri Cartier-Bresson Trafalgar Square on the Day of the Coronation of George VI 1937

The Jackson Hole gathering of central bankers and other economics big shots is on again. They all still like themselves very much. Apart from a pesky inflation problem that none of them can get a grip on, they publicly maintain that they’re doing great, and they’re saving the planet (doing God’s work is already taken).

But the inflation problem lies in the fact that they don’t know what inflation is, and they’re just as knowledgeable when it comes to all other issues. They get sent tons of numbers and stats, and then compare these to their economic models. They don’t understand economics, and they’re not interested in trying to understand it. All they want is for the numbers to fit the models, and if they don’t, get different numbers.

Meanwhile they continue to make the most outrageous claims. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said in early July that “We have fixed the issues that caused the last crisis.” What do you say to that? Do you take him on a tour of Britain? Or do you just let him rot?

Fed head Janet Yellen a few days earlier had proclaimed that “[US] Banks are ‘very much stronger’, and another financial crisis is not likely ‘in our lifetime’. “ While we wish her a long and healthy life for many years to come, we must realize that we have to pick one: it has to be either a long life, or no crisis in her lifetime.

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

Central Banks ARE The Crisis

July 25, 2017

Central Banks ARE The Crisis

Walter Langley Never morning wore to evening but some heart did break 1894If there’s one myth -and there are many- that we should invalidate in the cross-over world of politics and economics, it‘s that central banks have saved us from a financial crisis. It’s a carefully construed myth, but it’s as false as can be. Our central banks have caused our financial crises, not saved us from them.

It really should -but doesn’t- make us cringe uncontrollably to see Bank of England governor-for-hire Mark Carney announce -straightfaced- that:

“A decade after the start of the global financial crisis, G20 reforms are building a safer, simpler and fairer financial system. “We have fixed the issues that caused the last crisis. They were fundamental and deep-seated, which is why it was such a major job.”

Or, for that matter, to see Fed chief Janet Yellen declare that there won’t be another financial crisis in her lifetime, while she’s busy-bee busy building that next crisis as we speak. These people are now saying increasingly crazy things, and that should make us pause.

Central banks don’t serve people, or even societies, as that same myth claims. They serve banks. Even if central bankers themselves believe that this is one and the same thing, that doesn’t make it true. And if they don’t understand this, they should never be let anywhere near the positions they hold.

You can pin the moment central banks went awry at any point in time you like. The Bank of England’s foundation in 1694, the Federal Reserve’s in 1913, the ECB much more recently. What’s crucial in the timing is where and when the best interests of the banks split off from those of their societies. Because that is when central banks will stop serving those societies. We are at such a -turning?!- point right now. And it’s been coming for some time, ‘slowly’ working its way towards an inevitable abyss.

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

Gold: Still Misunderstood

April 10, 2016

Gold: Still Misunderstood

Myths That Just Won’t Die

Gold just had its best quarter in 30 years. Not surprisingly, gold bears are coming out of the woodwork en masse in the mainstream media and the analyst community (see e.g. this recent write-up by Mish on the Goldman Sachs analyst who has been screaming “short gold” since right before it started rocketing higher in early February). Below we will discuss a specific assertion that tends to be repeated over and over again.

Gold had a very strong quarter, but skepticism over the durability of the advance remains quite pronounced – click to enlarge.

If there is anything in this world that definitely has more lives than a cat, it is bad economics. Just think about it: Here we are, nearly 300 years after John Law drove France and most of continental Europe into utter ruin, and our central bankers are still doing the exact same things Law did. The only difference between John Law and the trifecta of Draghi, Kuroda and Yellen is really the modern-day level of obfuscation and the fact that there is far more wealth that can be destroyed, so it is taking a lot longer.

In terms of economic principles and the goals allegedly achievable by their policies, the difference between Law and today’s central bankers is precisely zero. It is astonishing that after 300 years of supposed scientific progress, atrociously bad economics has shown such persistence in surviving. We were reminded of this agan when reading a recent comment on gold in the Wall Street Journal. No matter how often and how convincingly they are refuted, unsound economic ideas keep being resurrected with unwavering regularity, as if they were a horde of zombies.

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

Mario Draghi Got Lost In A Rabbit Hole

March 11, 2016

Mario Draghi Got Lost In A Rabbit Hole

Arthur Rackham “Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here?”1907

I’ll try and keep this gracefully short: Mario Draghi ‘unleashed’ a bazooka full of desperate tools on the financial markets yesterday and they blew up in his face faster than you could say blowback or backdraft (and that’s just the start of the alphabet). This must and will mean that Draghi’s stint as ECB head is for all intents and purposes done. But…

But there are two questions: 1) who has the power to fire him (not an easy one), and 2) who can replace him. Difficult issues because the only candidates that would even be considered for the job by the same people who hired -no, not elected- Mario -and who will still be in power after he’s gone-, under present conditions, are carbon copies of Draghi. They all went to the same schools, worked for the same banks etc.

So maybe they’ll let him sit a bit longer. Then again, the damage has been done, and Mario has done a lot of destruction, is what the markets said yesterday. But to replace him with someone who’s also already lost all credibility, because they supported Mario every step of the way, carries a very evident risk: that nobody will believe in the entire ECB itself anymore. If you ask me, it’s crazy that anyone still would, but that’s another chapter altogether.

Not that Janet Yellen and Japan’s Kuroda and China’s Zhou Xiaochuan should not also be put out by the curb. While they may -seem to- vary in approaches today, they all started from the same untested, purely theoretical and entirely clueless origins. Just saying. None of them have any idea what negative rates etc will lead to. They’re all in the same rabbit hole. And that’s not a joke, it’s deeply sad.

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

Are Asian Central Bankers Even Crazier Than Our Own?

February 22, 2016

Are Asian Central Bankers Even Crazier Than Our Own?

That the world’s central bankers get a lot of things wrong, deliberately or not, and have done so for years now, is nothing new. But that they do things that result in the exact opposite of what they ostensibly aim for, and predictably so, perhaps is. And it’s something that seems to be catching on, especially in Asia.

Now, let’s be clear on one thing first: central bankers have taken on roles and hubris and ‘importance’, that they should never have been allowed to get their fat little greedy fingers on. Central bankers in their 2016 disguise have no place in a functioning economy, let alone society, playing around with trillions of dollars in taxpayer money which they throw around to allegedly save an economy.

They engage solely, since 2008 at the latest, in practices for which there are no historical precedents and for which no empirical research has been done. They literally make it up as they go along. And one might be forgiven for thinking that our societies deserve something better than what amounts to no more than basic crap-shooting by a bunch of economy bookworms. Couldn’t we at least have gotten professional gamblers?

Central bankers who moreover, as I have repeatedly quoted my friend Steve Keen as saying, even have little to no understanding at all of the field they’ve been studying all their adult lives.

They don’t understand their field, plus they have no idea what consequences their next little inventions will have, but they get to execute them anyway and put gargantuan amounts of someone else’s money at risk, money which should really be used to keep economies at least as stable as possible.

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

Is This Debt’s Last Rattle?

February 13, 2016

Is This Debt’s Last Rattle?

Crowd outside Wall Street Stock Exchange on BlackThursday Oct 24 1929

What we see happening today is why we called our news overview the “Debt Rattle” 8 years ago. The last gasps of a broken system ravished by the very much cancer-like progress of debt. Yes, it took longer than it should have, and than we thought. But that’s pretty much irrelevant, unless you were trying to get rich off of the downfall of your own world. Always a noble goal.

There’s one reason for the delay only: central bank hubris. And now the entire shebang is falling to bits. That this would proceed in chaotic ways was always a given. People don’t know where to look first or last, neither central bankers nor investors nor anyone else.

It’s starting to feel like we have functioning markets again. Starting. Central bankers still seek to meddle where and when they can, but their role is largely done. It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly started it, but certainly after Kuroda’s negative rate ‘surprise’ fell as flat on its face as it did, and then fell straight through the floor and subsequently shot up through the midnight skies, a whole lot more ‘omnipotence credibility’ has disappeared.

Kuroda achieved the very opposite of what he wanted, the yen soared up instead of down -big!-, and that will reflect on Yellen, Draghi et al, because they all use the same playbook. And the latter so far still got a little bit of what they were shooting for, not the opposite. Still, one could also make a good case that it was Yellen’s rate hike that was the culprit. Or even Draghi’s ‘whatever it takes’. It doesn’t matter much anymore.

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

War Begets War Refugees: The Moral Bankruptcy of Italy and NATO

August 18, 2015

War Begets War Refugees: The Moral Bankruptcy of Italy and NATO

On April 26, 2011, a meeting that can only be described as sinister took place between the then Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. The most pressing issue discussed at the meeting in Rome was how to deal with African immigrants.

Sarkozy, who was under pressure from his right-wing and far-right constituencies to halt immigration originating from North Africa (resulting from the Tunisian uprising), desired to strike a deal with the opportunistic Italian leader. In exchange for an Italian agreement to join a French initiative aimed at tightening border control (Italy being accused of allowing immigrants to cross through its borders to the rest of Europe), France, in turn, would resolve major disputes involving a series of takeovers, involving French and Italian companies. Moreover, Italy would then secure French support for a bid by Italian Economist and Banker, Mario Draghi, to become the Head of the European Central Bank.

Another point on the French agenda was active Italian participation in the war on Libya, initially spearheaded by France, Britain and the United States, and later championed by NATO.

Initially, Berlusconi hesitated to take part in the war, although certainly not for any moral reasons: for example, because the war was deliberately based on a misconstrued interpretation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 of March 17, 2011. The Resolution called for an ‘immediate ceasefire’, the establishment of a ‘no-fly zone’ and using all means, except foreign occupation, to ‘protect civilians’. The war, however, achieved entirely different objectives from the ones stated in the Resolution. It achieved a regime change, the bloody capture and murder of Libyan leader, Muammar al-Qaddafi, and resulted in a bloodbath in which thousands of civilians were killed, and continue to die, due to the chaos and civil war that has gripped Libya since then.

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

Tsipras Invites Schäuble To Fall Into His Own Sword

July 12, 2015

Tsipras Invites Schäuble To Fall Into His Own Sword

Too many voices the past few days are all pointing the same way, and I’ve always thought that is never good. A guessing-based consensus, jumping to conclusions and all that. Look, it’s fine if you don’t have all the answers, no matter how nervous it makes you.

What I’m referring to in this instance is the overwhelming conviction that Greece and Tsipras have conceded, given in to the Troika, flown a white flag, you get the drift. But guys, the battle ain’t over yet.

So here’s an alternative scenario, purely hypothetically (but so in essence is the white flag idea, always got to wait for the fat lady), and for entertainment purposes only. Let ‘er rip:

Tsipras, first through holding a referendum, and then through delivering a proposal that at first sight looked worse than what the Troika provided before the referendum, has managed a number of things.

First, his domestic support base has solidified. That’s what the referendum confirmed once more. Second, he’s given the Troika members, plus the various nations that think they represent them, something that was sure from the moment he sent it to them: a way to divide and rule and conquer the lot.

Tsipras has set the IMF versus the EU versus the ECB. Schäuble snapped at Draghi last night: ”Do you hold me for a fool?” Germany itself is split too, Merkel and Schäuble are at odds. Germany and France don’t see eye to eye anymore. The US doesn’t see eye to eye with any party involved.

Italy is about to tell Germany to stop its shenanigans and get a deal done. The True Finns may get to decide the entire shebang, with less than 1 million rabid voters calling the shots for 320 million eurozone inhabitants.

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

With Yanis Gone, Now Troika Heads Must Roll

July 6, 2015

With Yanis Gone, Now Troika Heads Must Roll

Now that Yanis Varoufakis has resigned, in the kind of unique fashion and timing that shows us who the real men are, it’s time to clear the other side of the table as well. The new finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, should not have to face the same faces that led to Europe’s painful defeat in yesterday’s Greek referendum.

That would be an utter disgrace, and the EU would not survive it. So we now call for Juncker, Lagarde, Schäuble, Dijsselbloem, Draghi, Merkel and Schulz to move over.

It’s time for the Troika to seek out some real men too. It cannot be that the winner leaves and all the losers get to stay.

The attempts to suppress the IMF debt sustainability analysis were a shameful attempt to mislead the people of Greece, and of Europe as a whole. And don’t forget the US: Lagarde operates out of Washington.

It cannot be that after this mockery of democracy, these same people can just remain where they are.

It’s time for Europe to show the same democratic heart that Varoufakis has shown this morning. And if that doesn’t happen, all Europeans should make sure to leave the European Union as quickly as they can.

Because that would prove once and for all that the EU is no more than a cheap facade, a thin veil behind which something pretty awful tries to hide its ugly face.

Here is Yanis’ explanation behind his resignation:

Minister No More! (Yanis Varoufakis)

The referendum of 5th July will stay in history as a unique moment when a small European nation rose up against debt-bondage. Like all struggles for democratic rights, so too this historic rejection of the Eurogroup’s 25th June ultimatum comes with a large price tag attached. It is, therefore, essential that the great capital bestowed upon our government by the splendid NO vote be invested immediately into a YES to a proper resolution – to an agreement that involves debt restructuring, less austerity, redistribution in favour of the needy, and real reforms.

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

Greece Invokes Nuclear Option: Tsipras Calls For Referendum

June 26, 2015

Greece Invokes Nuclear Option: Tsipras Calls For Referendum

Update: Greek PM Alexis Tsipras has announced a referendum in a televised speech to the nation after another day of fractious negotiations with creditors closed without a deal.

The dramatic move comes after Athens rejected a proposal from the troika aimed at delivering some €16 billion in aid to Greece as part of an extension of the country’s second bailout program.

GREECE’S TSIPRAS SAYS CREDITORS POSED ULTIMATUM TO GOVT
GREECE’S TSIPRAS SAYS CREDITORS PROPOSALS ARE AGAINST EU RULES
TSIPRAS SAYS CREDITORS AIM TO HUMILIATE GREEK PEOPLE
TSIPRAS SAYS WILL CALL REFERENDUM ON GREEK DEAL WITH CREDITORS
TSIPRAS GREEK REFERENDUM WILL BE HELD ON JULY 5
TSIPRAS SAYS HE NOTIFIED MERKEL, DRAGHI ON REFERENDUM PLAN
TSIPRAS SAYS GREECE IS, AND WILL STAY PART OF EUROPE
TSIPRAS SAYS GREECE NEEDS TO SEND DEMOCRATIC RESPONSE TO EU

Protothema now says the Greek parliament will meet on Saturday and a referendum will be called as early as next week. Whether this is simply a last minute attempt to put pressure on EU finance ministers ahead of Saturday’s Eurogroup meeting remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure: Tsipras is playing a dangerous game with the ECB ahead of a difficult week that could very well see the imposition of capital controls.

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