Alan Greenspan

"...I don’t think we know enough about how the private financial system works under these conditions... If you are an institution that is doing well within the parameters under which you’re used to functioning, you will fight any change without any notion as to whether that change is good or bad. That’s because there’s a very large uncertainty premium associated with the change... "

Bernanke drove interest down to zero, where it has stayed for over 6 years. In his rationalization, he concedes an importantg point that undermines his argument (and the Fed).

History is on the market’s side, says DoubleLine's Jeff Gundlach, noting the Fed’s forecast for how much benchmark rates will rise is still too high, even after central bankers lowered their estimates last month. BlackRock’s Jeffrey Rosenberg says the bond market’s too complacent and is poised for a correction, claiming The Fed has "a tremendous ability" to send bond yields higher. But as Bloomberg reports, "if the burden of proof is on anybody, it’s on the Fed," and for now, as Gundlach exclaims, The Fed has "been wrong for so long," that their forecasts have been literally of no value, "the market’s pricing has been closer."

Our current faith in central banks' ability to "make the economy all better, all the time" is horrendously misplaced.

The Cop Is On the Take

If you ever doubted that bad news is good news... have faith!

"If the RMB wants to achieve international status, it must have popular acceptance and a stable value. To this end, other than having assurance from the issuing nation, it is very important to have enough gold as the foundation, raising the ‘gold content’ of the RMB. Therefore, to China, the meaning and mission of gold is to support the RMB to become an internationally accepted currency and make China an economic powerhouse. That is why, in order for gold to fulfill its destined mission, we must raise our gold holdings a great deal, and do so with a solid plan. Step one should take us to the 4,000 tonnes mark, more than Germany and become number two in the world, next, we should increase step by step towards 8,500 tonnes, more than the US."

- Song Xin, Party Secretary and President of the China Gold Association

Echoing the grave concerns of no lesser 'maestro' of manipulation than Alan Greenspan, Wells Capital Management's Jim Paulsen notes that while the U.S. stock market has risen by about 3 times from its crisis low in March 2009; much of this advance has been against a backdrop of disappointing productivity gains... should productivity growth remain subpar, stock market risk seems to be rising.

Debt, Distraction, Currency Wars, Itchy Fingers

Having recently explained why the stock market is extremely overvalued (in his own words by Fed-driven multiple expansion alone), Alan Greenspan - seemingly brimming over with the need to remedy his years of lies/mistruths with some uncomfortable truthiness - is now taking on the US Dollar ("it is not from a strong US economy but a weak rest of the world") and oil prices (America has a massive surplus of oil and there may soon be nowhere to store all of it, "we'll be lucky if we can get $40 for it.")

In recent weeks, the Fed and its apologists in Congress and the media have launched numerous attacks on the 'Audit the Fed' legislation. These attacks amount to nothing more than distortions about the effects and intent of the audit bill. For over a century, the Fed has operated in secrecy, to the benefit of the elites and the detriment of the people. It is time to finally bring transparency to monetary policy by auditing the Federal Reserve.

Greenspan believes that in five years gold will be “measurably higher” than current levels because of the excess liquidity that will eventually be released into the open market. Such an event will undoubtedly lead to riots across America as the general public, woefully unprepared for rapidly rising prices when the pin finally pops the dollar bubble, loses access to affordable critical supplies like food, gas and other resources. The collapse of the dollar, an inevitability suggested by Alan Greenspan, will be a game changer that results in the quadrupling of the cost of living for the average American.

Greenspan started the destructive Keynesian tradition of pumping liquidity to stimulate the economy, and this tradition has created significant economic pain for Main Street in the form of long-term unemployment and underemployment, reduced wages, foreclosures, bankruptcies, reduced savings rates, shuttered businesses, and drained savings and retirement accounts. So, “Mr. Bubble” inferring that the Fed creates unsustainable bubbles for the benefit of Main Street is pretty insulting.

In his first TV interview in 20 years, SocGen's Albert Edwards unleashes his brutal honesty on Raoul Pal in this excellent RealVisionTV discussion. From "what Japan is doing is absolutely off the scale," warnings about money-printing to the awkward reality that "policy makers cannot eliminate the business cycle," warnings instead that "they will make the eventual downturn far worse than it otherwise would be..." Edwards' discussion ranges from the UK and US "choosing lunatic policies" to describing Alan Greenspan as "a prospective economic war criminal," the SocGen strategist concludes, rather ominously, if policy-makers keep handing out free money, it will create massive problems, "there is a trigger point where you can create inflation. I don't know where that is. The central banks don't know where that is."

While America 'believes' it is highly productive, former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan instantly dispels that myth in another ominous appearance on CNBC this morning, "American productivity has gone nowhere in the last few years," and that is what is holding back wage growth. Furthermore, reiterating his concerns about the inverse relationship between surging entitlements and weak savings rates, Greenspan noted, "the annual rate of increase in entitlements of 9% per year...and the people that receive it believe they are getting their money back and have a right to it." There simply is no long-term investment as businesses favor short-term actions as the Maestro explains Fed QE lowering the real rate of interest "has been responsible for the rise in P/E multiples... and when rates normalize, that will reverse," adding that "we can't argue that we are extremely overvalued in the marketplace."