8.5%

There is a $100 trillion bond market out there that has been priced by a handful of central bankers, not a planet teeming with exhuberant savers. The mad descent of the former into the whacky world of QE and ZIRP has caused a double whammy distortion in the bond markets of the world. So, no, there isn’t a savings glut in the world; there is an outbreak of destructive central bank bond buying and money market price pegging that is virtually destroying the world’s bond market. What we have is a fraud wrapped in a bogus theory. Only none dare call it that. At least, not on bubblevision.

The following statistics seem impossible to believe. While I wonder how accurately the UK has been tracking these numbers historically, the enormous spread seems much too large to ignore, and is a national embarrassment that should be dealt with immediately.

A  simple discussion of what the ECB is buying and some of the potential implications.

Creating even more money will not help the situation, only exacerbate it. Hyperinflation is a cancer that lurks in our monetary structure. Time to surgically remove it before it metastasizes.

Ahead of The Fed's 'impatience' today, and amid a tumbling EUR, the oldest central bank in the world has decided it is time to go further into the illustrious ranks of NIRP/QE'ers:

*RIKSBANK CUTS KEY RATE TO -0.25%, TO BUY GOVT BONDS FOR SK30 BLN

So as opposed to Denamrk's roundabout QE, Sweden just jumps in and monetizes that debt direct by expanding their QE program and shifts from small NIRP to bigger NIRP. All this while suggesting the labor market is strengthening and inflation has bottomed out. The reaction - SEK is plunging and OMX surges.

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Following the dramatic December surge in Russian interest rates when the Bank of Russia scrambled to preserve confidence in the then-plummeting currency and sent the interest rate to a whopping 17%, now that the oil price crash has stabilized it has been walking down this dramatic move, and after reducing rates by 2% on January 30 to 15%, moments ago the Bank of Russia once again cut rates this time by the expected 100 bps to 14%. The bank also said that more rate cuts are in the pipeline.

The currency war salvos just keep on coming.  Moments ago the BOK unexpectedly (the move was predicted by just 2 of 17 economists polled by Bloomberg) cut its policy rate from 2.00% to a record low 1.75%, in what is clearly a full-blown retaliation against the collapse currency of its biggest export competitor, Japan, whose currency has cratered to a level that many in South Korea believe has become a direct subsidy for its competing exports. As such the only question is why the BOK didn't cut earlier. And following the surprise rate cut by Thailand earlier today, the "surprise" South Korean rate cut means there are now 24 easing policy actions by central banks in 2015 alone.

Whether the world's central banks are 'co-operating' or competing is up for question but the tsunami of policy easings so far this year is making the 'surprise' rate cut, unsurprising. As Bloomberg reports, Thailand today became the latest to execute an unexpected interest-rate cut, bringing the total to 23 in 2015. While only 6 of 22 economists expected it, the Southeast Asian country -- a onetime export powerhouse that’s seen its manufacturing mojo dim somewhat in recent years amid historic flooding and political infighting -- lowered its main rate to 1.75%. "The surprise move suggests the economy is much weaker than expected," noted one analyst, adding that "it is negative for the baht and there’s concern that lower rates may lead to more outflows as the U.S. is expected to raise rates."

Austria’s decision to wind down Heta Asset Resolution AG sent ripples through the financial system, causing credit rating downgrades in Austria and bank losses in Germany: "It’s a mini-Greece going off in the heartlands of Europe." Here are some of the consequences, and delightful ironies, of a completely unexpected black swan landing in the south of Austria.

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Just hours after India's 'surprise' rate cut (which saw the SENSEX surge and then dump to close red), Poland has surprised the market with a bigger-than-expected rate cut. Despite two-thirds of econmomists expecting a mere 25bps cut, the Polish Central Bank slashed its benchmarket 7-day rate to just 1.5% - the lowest on record. Today's cut "makes up for inaction in previous months" after Poland held rate flat in January and February (but echoes Poland's Oct 'surprise' greater-than-expected ease of 50bps. Polish stocks dropped on the news (but recovered), banks are weaker, and the Zloty is selling off on this news (pushing back towards record lows)...

Just like yesterday, it has - so far - been mostly about Asia in the overnight session, where as reported previously, we got the latest central bank engaging in an "unexpected" rate cut, after Reserve Bank of India Governor Rajan cut rates in an unscheduled move days after the government agreed for the first time to give the central bank a legal mandate to target inflation. This was India's second rate cut in 2 months, and yet despite the Sensex surging to a all time high over 30,000, it subsequently ended up closing red on the day, down -0.7%, despite the Indian currency sliding 0.4% to 62.1463 to a dollar. Is the half-life of thany incremental rate cut in an unprecedented barage of global central bank easing now less than a day?

In a surprise move, the RBI just cut its main interest rates for the second time in two months, taking it from 6.75% to 6.50%, in what the central bank calls a “pre-emptive” policy move, but what is in reality merely a confirmation that so far in 2015 at least 20 central banks have lowered their interest rate.

The lines bethween the New Normal and the New Paranormal, between the real and the surreal are increasingly getting blurred when, having nothing else to praise about the US economy, the WSJ focuses on the "wage gains" of burger flippers... meanwhile 75% of Americans are confident they will work until their death.