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The End Of The World Of Finance As We Know It
Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
I’ve said before, and quite a while ago too, – more than once-, that the world of investing as we’ve come to know it is over. It’s still as true as it was then, and I can only hope that more people today understand why it is true, and why I said it in the past. The basic underlying argument then and now is that financial markets have been distorted to such an extent by the activities, the interventions, of central banks – and governments -, that they can no longer function, period.
What we’ve seen since 2008 – not that things were fine and rosy before that – is that all ‘private’ losses were taken over by the public sector, just so the private sector didn’t have to fess up to what it lost, and the appearance of a functioning market system could be upheld. And those who organized this charade were dead on in thinking that as long as Dow and S&P numbers would look good, and they said ‘recovery’ in the media often enough, people would believe there still was a functioning financial marketplace. And they did. But those days are over. Or at least, they soon will be.
What I mean by that is that the functioning marketplace is long gone, and only now people’s beliefs, too, about it are changing, being forced to change, and soon quite radically. The entire idea that ruled the world of finance and kept it -seemingly – standing upright is crumbling fast. And we’re going to have to find a way to deal with that. As of today, we have none, we come up zero. The overriding narrative – which overrides every other thought – is that we’re on our way back to recovery. And then we’ll get back to becoming ever richer, live in ever bigger homes and drive ever bigger, smarter and faster cars. Or something in that vein.
The downfall of finance can be traced back to all sorts of points in history. Think Nixon the gold standard in 1971, for example. But the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1998, under Bill Clinton, is undoubtedly one of the major ones. Once deposit-taking banks were -again – allowed to use those deposits to ‘invest’ – read: gamble with -, it was only a matter of time before the train went off the tracks in spectacular fashion.
It now seems to stupid to be true, but Alan Greenspan, Bob Rubin and Larry Summers, the guys who had pushed so hard for the repeal – and got it -, were once featured on the cover of TIME as The Men Who Saved The World. While what they did was the exact opposite: they threw the world into a financial abyss. It took a while, sure, but then, 16-17 years is not all that long. Plus, it took just 2 years for the dotcom bubble to burst, and 6-7 more for Bear Stearns, AIG and Lehman to be whack-a-moled.
The rest would have followed, but then the central banks stepped in. And now, 6 years and $50 trillion later, their omnipotence is being exposed as impotence. Which means there’s nothing left to keep up appearances. We’ll all have to leave the theater of dreams and step out into the blinding cold faint light of another morning. No choice. And we’ll figure out at some point that we’ve paid all we had just to watch the show.
No. 1) The Swiss National Bank this week threw in the towel, bankrupted a lot of foreign exchange brokers and investors and destroyed a few hundred thousand Swiss jobs in the process. And that was not the first sign that the game was up, the oil price collapse started it. Or, to be precise, made the collapse visible for the first time to most – even if they didn’t recognize it for what it was-. Central banks are pushing on a string, a concept long predicted: they have become powerless to stop financial markets events from taking their natural course of boom and bust.
No. 2) The Bank of Japan. From Asian Nikkei:
Japan’s Central Bankers Mull Diminishing Returns From Bond Buying
Some in the Bank of Japan are growing anxious about continuing its massive purchases of government bonds, confronted with the program’s negative side effects. [..] The BOJ’s buying of huge amounts of Japanese government bonds has pushed long-term interest rates to unprecedented lows. This has made it impossible for insurance companies to generate sufficient returns on JGB investments to pay benefits to policyholders.
The longer ultralow interest rates continue, the more likely other insurers are to take similar steps. Household finances would suffer. Money reserve funds, used for parking individual stock investors’ unused funds, are another financial product hit by ultralow interest rates. MRFs put money into short-term government bonds and other safe investments. Generating positive returns on the bonds is becoming nearly a lost cause [..]
The BOJ has discussed these costs at its policy board. When the board took up additional easing measures in a late-October meeting, some members raised the specter of hurting earnings at financial institutions and giving the impression that the bond-purchasing program is actually a scheme to enable deficit spending. The board decided to step up the program anyway, judging the benefits to outweigh the costs.
“Since nominal interest rates are already at historically low levels, the marginal impact of more easing aimed at putting upward pressure on consumer prices is not strong,” policy board member Takehiro Sato said in a speech last month, explaining why he opposed additional easing in October. “We have caused tremendous trouble for the financial industry,” a BOJ official says. “I hope we will be able to scale back monetary easing soon by achieving the price stability target as projected.”
All the BOJ can do by now, all that’s left to do, is get out of the way. As it should have done right off the bat, before it started intervening 20 years ago. All central banks should have gotten, and stayed, out of the way. Butt out. They have no role to play in financial markets, and should never have been allowed to assume one. They can only do harm. Free markets may not be ideal, but central bank intervention is a certified lot worse.
No. 3) The Fed:
Yellen Signals She Won’t Babysit Markets in Turmoil
Janet Yellen is leaving the Greenspan “put” behind as she charts the first interest-rate increase since 2006 amid growing financial-market volatility. The Federal Reserve chair has signaled she wants to place the economic outlook at the center of policy making, while looking past short-term market fluctuations. To succeed, she must wean investors from the notion, which gained currency under predecessor Alan Greenspan, that the Fed will bail them out if their bets go bad – just as a put option protects against a drop in stock prices.
“The succession of Fed puts over the years has led to a wide range of distortions in financial markets ,” said Lawrence Goodman, president of the Center for Financial Stability. “There have been swollen asset values followed by sharp declines. This is a very good time for the Fed to move away.”
“Let me be clear, there is no Fed equity market put,” William C. Dudley, president of the New York Fed, the central bank’s watchdog on financial markets, said in a Dec. 1 speech in New York. “Because financial-market conditions affect economic activity only slowly over time, this suggests that we should look through short-term volatility.”
The concept of a Fed put took hold under Greenspan, who in 1998 cut the benchmark federal funds rate three times in response to market stress arising from a Russian bond default and the failure of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management. The economy expanded 5% that year and 4.7% in 1999, and critics say the rate cuts helped extend a bubble in technology stocks. The Nasdaq rose 40% in 1998 and 86% in 1999 before plunging almost 40% in 2000. Greenspan said in an interview that he regarded the notion of a Fed put as a “joke.”
Bernanke told Fed officials in an Aug. 16, 2007, conference call as they prepared to cut the discount rate, according to transcripts. Bernanke recommended resisting a cut in the fed funds rate “until it is really very clear from economic data and other information that it is needed. I’d really prefer to avoid giving any impression of a bailout or a put, if we can.”
“The put is there – it is just further out of the money,” said Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at Barclays. As the central bank raises rates, “there could be more volatility and the Fed could be OK with it.”
No. 4) The ECB. Which is supposed to come with a $1 trillion or so QE package this week. Which has long been priced in by the markets and will have no other effect than to bring down the euro further. QE everywhere is always only a game that shifts wealth from the public to the private sector, which is another way of saying from the poor to the rich. But then you end up with the poor getting so much poorer, you don’t have a functioning real economy anymore, and therefore no functioning financial markets either.
The problem today is not one of lending, but of borrowing. Banks, even if they would want to, cannot lend to people too poor to borrow. Or spend, for that matter. And if people in the real economy, which accounts for 60-70% of GDP in developed nations, don’t spend, because they simply either don’t have the money or have no expectations of getting any, deflation sets in and central bankers are revealed as the impotent old farts they are.
* * *
But that will by no means conclude the story. The effects of the ill-fated megalomaniac central bank policies will reverberate through our societies for decades, if only because $50 trillion is a lot of money. Much of it may have gone somewhere, in some zero sum game, but most of it just went up in the thin air of wagers like the ones the forex trade is made of. People keep asking where did the money go, well, nowhere, or rather it went back to the virtual state it came from.
The difference between the past 6 years and today is that central banks can and will no longer prop up the illusionary world of finance. And that will cause an earthquake, a tsunami and a meteorite hit all in one. If oil can go down the way it has, and copper too, and iron ore, then so can stocks, and your pensions, and everything else.
Perhaps Yellen et al are not all that crazy for cutting QE, and soon raising interest rates. Perhaps that’s the only sane thing left to do, as sane as the Swiss cutting their euro-peg. That doesn’t mean the Fed understands what’s going to happen to the US economy because of it, but it may just mean they have an inkling of the lack of alternatives.
Japan is gone, it’s borrowed itself into oblivion. China’s ‘miracle’ was debt-financed to a much larger degree than anyone wishes to admit. Europe will end up seeing its union falling apart, because it could only ever be held up in times of plenty, and those times are gone. And the US won’t make it too long either on people making a ‘living’ flipping their neighbor’s burgers.
But the central bank bills will still come due all over. That’s the bummer about deflation: your wealth evaporates, but your debt does not.
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and I feel fine
"Save yourself, serve yourself, world serves its own needs"
IT will all end with the Rich Crooks Richer and the Middle Class in the Poor house.
It all ends with ALL of them dead at some point, so who really cares? At least some won't suffer any 'illusions' in the process.
Hey, buy an edge and live the American drean.
Oh bullshit.
Ilargi has been preaching the same flavor of doom for six years non-stop. His partner Stoneleigh predicted we would no longer have dentists by now.
What the doomers don't realize is, when the current light-and-music show no longer works, there is a man behind the curtain, and when he can't keep the crowd convinced, there is another man behind another curtain. There is an infinite regress of men behind curtains. What the doomers don't realize is, all these things we talk about -- fiat currency, debts, bonds, stocks, ownership -- are all just social constructs which can be reconstructed. It will end with an endless series of whimpers, never the bang you all dream about.
Crisis works in favor of the elites, of course, because they get to decide how all the social constructs are reconstructed, and with the general population in panic, they can do nearly what ever they please. It's the "shock doctrine" over and over, which like Orwell and every other dire warning about things work has transformed from warning to instruction manual. The proles can be managed, and wealth transfer to elites maximized, through an endless series of transitory crises, none of which ever brings the system down the way you all dream about.
The paradox is, chronic instability of the system does not increase the chance of fundamental change (even of the uncontrolled variety), because chronic instability leaves the 99% always weak and desperate and easily managed.
suspect you got downvoted because people don't like hearing such dark possibilities.
you were downvoted by people with "hope" :)
"People keep asking where did the money go, well, nowhere, or rather it went back to the virtual state it came from."
Truer words could not be said.
Bottom line is that there are way to many warrants and not nearly enough fungible assets to cover.
PAPER ROTS, COIN DOES NOT
Gold and Silver = insurance
I might tend to agree, but-
The so-called wealth of the men behind the curtain is ALL promises to pay that can't be kept, and-
I can't yet determine what another-man-behind-another-curtain might possibly do (there is no curtain, btw, just as the emperor has no clothes) to propagate a greater delusion once this one fades, and-
Apparently; you don't either, having not elucidated same.
Further, you don't seem to grasp that Raul and his ilk are only predicting doom and gloom for the money-for-nothing class: which you may be part of. He would've already been proven correct if not for the massive intervention of CB's.
You see, if the hot money that chases the S&P and DJIA were redirected to actual productive enterprises, the people would benefit, massively.
This will happen eventually, no?
Check your premise.
edit: I didn't junk you.
Iteresting that the author gives the Bernank a relative pass.
I was happy to see that he really gives the Greenspam his due. Many people have let that bastard off the hook.
they are all equally as bastardish with one common dream.
All for the syndicate and nothing for anyone else.
Heads we win tails you lose.
Their dream is well borne out in the statistics of the enveloping global serfdom.
"It was an accident" - Yellen
I caught that, too, and the other thing that was a glaring error is where he says that Clinton signed the repeal of Glass-Stegall in 1998. He signed it on the way out the door in 1999 as his term was ending. I agree on how disastrous this was, but it only went into effect starting in 2000.....along with the Commodities and Futures Trading Act, another bit of legislation signed in December of 1999 by Clinton that helped speed the fleecing of America, or, as the neo-cons would say, "the homeland".
...'cause I got a stack from the mine.
and it can't come soon enough.
Nah. Everybody's a hero until they panic.
"Everybody got a plan 'til they punched in the mouth." -Mike Tyson.
It's fucked up, but those may turn out to be the truest words uttered in the twentieth century.
From the mouths of babes, and such.
"But the central bank bills will still come due all over. That’s the bummer about deflation: your wealth evaporates, but your debt does not."
Yeah, especially when the wheel of misfortune lands on the U.S., and your ($$$USDenominated) wealth evaporates even quicker.
Yellen has no idea how many dead bodies have piled up, no idea at all. When she starts ringing the bell, "Bring out your dead," she's going to find out that she hasn't brought nearly enough carts.
Somebody invented the truck for a reason.
I can't wait for deflation! I am debt free and I keep my wealth in metallic form!
You are delusional if you think Mr. Yellen will allow someone like you to prosper!
Be careful you don't lose it in a boating accident (!)
ECB won't do QE.
They will write off their entire balance sheet, freeing all their borrowers and their borrowers' borrowers from debt.
New currency system will be implemented.
So the Swiss just did the right thing for the wrong reason?
did i need to put up a /sarc tag?
So, we're taking the justification for the existence of the Fed to be unquestionable?
Hopefully the fema camps dont smell too bad.
... the system is deregulated in such a degree that no one is really certain of what could happen under specific events. In this case, we may have to deal with a global system that is driven to an increasing uncertainty, through an increasingly chaotic pattern.
But but but...Leatherface Legarde said they've got it all under control...
Right before she fed herself a live puppy.
If this article is true, which I believe it is, why is there not riots burning down WS? Why is there not a bankster hanging from each lightpost?
Everyone is too busy getting ready, for Obama's speech to the Nation.
1) Panem et Circenses. EBT. Football. Kim Kardashian's butt. People aren't paying attention. In short, "Welcome to Costco, we love you!"
2) Those who are paying attention are either profiting from the system, or they understand that, not only will the Circenses go away, but so will the Panem. The pain will have to be worse than broken supply chains to do it.
Even the ones profiting know that it's going away - they just want to get as much out of the system as possible before it all goes tits up. Anyone using this method should convert any paper they acrue into something tangible, and FAST.
How's the Holmegaard coming along, BTW? No progress on mine recently - weather's been good so I've been out shooting my recurve.
I don't have a bow scale, but I'm guessing it's pulling 70#-75# at my draw length. My Bear Kodiak Hunter feels like a kid's bow next to it, and it's 55# at 32", which is maybe just a tad (1/4"-1/2") longer than my draw length. It's not terribly pretty, but I've probably flung 400 or more arrows from it. I just need to do some touch up sanding and seal it. I made it extra long @79" NTN so that I would have some wiggle room since I'm not exactly experienced at making them. If I can source a hickory stave, I'd like to make selfbow closer to 72"-74". One thing that I can say with the longer limbs is that I don't get the finger pinch at all. The Bear is actually harder on my hands than this one, despite it having a significantly higher draw weight.
Hmmmm, I'll probably be heading up to a friend's in the mountains this weekend and he has a lot of oak trees in his yard. I bet I could get him to let me cut one down for a nice stave...
I'm a small (135lb), oldish guy, so #60 @ 28" is about as much as I can hold long enough to be accurate(ish)
Got out Saturday and Sunday - beat the crap out of the target! Felt good.
As for scale, I use a fishing scale to pull the bow on my tillering tree.
Yeah, I'm 200 or so lbs. What I'm looking for is a bow that can fling a 650-700 gr arrow at well over 200fps. I want to use a bow that I've made for hunting, and I don't want the deer or elk to have as good of a chance at jumping the arrow. On top of that, I paid attention to Ed Ashby's 30 years of research on terminal performance that says that a 650gr+ arrow that is front heavy with a double bladed single beveled broadhead is the way to go. I don't think that this bow will do it, hence my desire to build a shorter and more efficient bow.
I don't do facebook, but.....
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.221613891306211.56242.21463410...
Nice...
https://www.facebook.com/ViewLasVegasRealEstateCom
Oh, I know that low poundage bows will do the trick, but I want the speed too.
Rhetorical, I'm sure. We would miss the superbowl, foo.
I make a point of missing the Superbowl.
Its your expectations that have been dashed. Your belief in Capitalism.
This model is the expression of a perennial problem that is recurrent : using a powerful tool as an "open sesame" to the cave of unending fortune, and finding out that it makes you Midas and worse, you have his touch !
The greatest robbery of physical fortune, as we understand it, occurred under Charles V and his Conquistadors : those who found the New World and then proceeded to rob it. The gold of the Aztecs, the silver of the Incas, ran red with blood of the indigenous and fed the wars of universal empire of the Habsburg. That wealth was dissipated in those wars and drove the Empire bankrupt in 130 years--1520-1650.
Our banksta cabal represents those conquistadors of old who worked for an ideal, an empire based on a belief it represented civilization. There lies the rub.
What more needs to be said. Its a recurrent exercise of empire building; the power meme-- a unilateral oligarchical ideology; manifest destiny of an empire on which the sun never sets-- and the financial tools to achieve that dream, paying for the mercenary big stick; fortune that goes down the drain like for every empire.
Don't look at the corruption of the TOOL, the financial market that has morphed to a frankenstein's spider's web, tentacular hydra. Look at the MINDSET of those who want to build that empire at any cost.
"Its them or its us" is the only thing they understand to the bitter end.
When empires crumble, we rumble and grumble about the bonfire of wealth, not the bonfire of mindset.
ETHOS bitchezzz.
Always enjoy what you have to say falak.
Here's a question....
Where did all that stolen metal end up?
On another note - Government is the problem. The last person who should be given power over others is the guy that wants it. (I'm paraphrasing a probably famous quote, but I can't give any attribution from memory)
if you were talking the south Amercian metal, they were looted back to Europe and fed its wealth.
wealth that's still visible if you can picture how Europe looked prior in the middle-ages: bare stone castles, stank hovels, mud-covered peasants and village idiots by the dozens...
and how Europe look after in the victorian age: picturesque cottages and towns, gardens and manors, brass and silverware, opulent palaces, well-mannered peons...
Since wealth for much of human history is based on cold hard precious shinies or hard assets like land and estates, none of which can be created or "made more of" through technology, it is actually pretty easy to compare the wealth level of a civilization with its own history to see where it came from and where it went.
Whether it's silver and gold, or tin foil and sequins, it's all mummery.
Still, given the apparent necessity of self-preservation, I'd prefer the silver and gold.
I know it's not fair, but the banks won't lose. They never lose.
fubar
Agree with all points but not necesarily the conclusion(s). The Fed cannot raise interest rates ... but they may try. They will also print money (maybe not call it QE) but they will print. They will have to just to ensure that the T Bonds and Mortagges outstnading have the liquidity to get paid.
The only reason the Fed will raise interest rates is because they know they cannot sell NIRP to the sheeple for very long. The Fed can sell money printing to the sheeple, but not negative inerest rates. Even the sheep[le will know that NIRP is not "normal".
The higher interest rates go the more money printing will be needed. I know this sounds insane, but we dealing with psychotic people at the Fed.
So the title of article is correct... this is the end of Finance as we know (knew) it....
The world of finance as we know it is based on fraud and theft.
Be good if it ends.
I think it is more likely to be replaced with a slightly harder to spot form of fraud and theft.
But then I'm a realist.
The only way to not lose at the financial game is not to take part.
Raul is not a realist. He still thinks that good news is bad. Bring on the collapse.
While I found this amusing on many level(s),
1) Petraeus being likened to Smedley Bulter "yes" the torturer and butcherer of Baghdad and Kabul as foreign invader who sold his soul to the likes of the "Bush(s)", Dick Cheney and most importantly Bob Kagan with the help of guys like this who were his hand picked partner in crime under Rumsfeld... And 2) Assasinating the "black & white" in chief to pin on Russia in order to promote a war when everything else they have done is so obvious since February 2014 orchestrating the deaths of Russians in Vologograd and the a coup while they were attempting to host an olympics hasn't worked...
Besides. Who the fuck would even bother murdering this when you can have too much fun laughing at him!
I don't know but I found it both "funny" and fun for it's entertainment value so I thought I'd share it. This guy needs to do some writing for Hollywood!
http://www.activistpost.com/2015/01/crisis-point-putin-west-and-game-bei...
Inflation, Deflation, Munchin-nation is what we have become. The ECB will now print or has announced they will print. The markets are again bullish. All of this to save the banks that screwed themselves and billions of people. Our governments are screwing good working people all over the world and they cheer for them. Those same people are fools. I just cannot fathom how governments can state they are helping the people by saving the banks and propping up the markets.
Future generations are basically fucked and I hope they repudiate the debt. Most likely with history repeating itself the majority will not do a thing. They will have newer and better gadgets to play with. History will look back on these last decades and wonder how people could be so gullible to believe bailing out the banks was to help them. How stupid can it get. I hope and pray for them as we move into the future.
Hopefully this will not be ended by the exchange of nukes. I really fear we may be headed to another big war in Europe. Notice how the USA media is on a blackout in the region. Kiev is losing the war and we cannot have this administration looking any more stupid then it already is on foreign relations. I am really bummed right now.
I felt they should have just handed us the money if they were going to print, the banks would have ended up with all the money anyway, and we pleebs would have been better off after all we and many future generations will be paying it back. Of course it will never be paid back!
Yellen does not need to do QE the ECB is doing it for her soon. And the Beat Goes On, And the Beat Goes On!
On the bright side gold is still rocking and rolling!!!
Some people just don't get it. Very few do. and even they don't know the extent of the control and manipulation TPTB have and use. Only they know, because it is them that do it. All of it. All the speculating about the financial system blowing up and the end of finance as we know it is all empty talk. It will blow up when they decide to blow it up, when and how they decide. Get it???
“Let me be clear, there is no Fed equity market put,” William C. Dudley, president of the New York Fed, the central bank’s watchdog on financial markets, said in a Dec. 1 speech in New York.
Well, Raul, please explain the Bullard Bounce. Perhaps the Evans Evangelical "Catastrophe" rally? If there is no put then why do they jawbone so furiously every time the "market" is down 5%?
Lighten up Francis. It ain't over yet.
It's getting real sporty out there.
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I seriously doubt anyone at the Fed is ready to start taking a responsible course of action. It's a generation late for anything like that. What we have now is the race to loot the empire completely before it collapses. That means more QE. Whether they admit it or not.
ECB will do QE.
The Greenspan/Bernank/Yellen put is still in effect.
That is all. Class dismissed.
These greedy, manipulative, worthless would-be world finance managers know they are at the end of their rope, and must be about ready to implement plans made to deal with the impending collapse. That's what's scary: their crisis responce will be worse - shock and awe - war, asset seizure, currency-trade contols, martial law. Do they know that when they go for the citizen's gold that lead will be coming with it?
I don't know. By everything I was taught in school 20++ years ago this would all be true, but I think it's different now. Maybe this is all just oldthink. Maybe there is a new role for central banks, and it is to print money, give it to the proles, and let it all trickle up into the black holes of the 0.01%. Though where that leaves the middle class is uncertain - basically nowhere. It's ugly, but it may be the future. Certainly it won't clear up until the current plague of banksters is destroyed. But the "good" news is that the current system may be a lot more stable than you'd think by your college econ textbooks.
Are you saying that you believe that the Central Banks are are going to give trillions of dollars to the troles?
Code Man - "It's ugly but maybe the future" ... It is definitely going to be ugly, but it certainly is NOT the future. The world may blow up via war (which the neo Bolsheviks are trying to push onto Russia), but the Central Banks printing money and handing it out to their friends is not the future.
Why do so many write .01%? Fuck! It's 1% or .01, not 1/100th of one percent.
Fucking LEARN MATH
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/19/inequality-inevitab...
So what. I gave up caring. Joined Janet Napolitano's organization.
NAMBLA?
What evidence is there that wealth is being shifted from the poor to the wealthy? From my point of view the poor don't have much wealth, they do have section 8 housing, food stamps, Obama phones, etc....
The evidence that money the Federal Reserve gave to the banks that is now required to be paid by American citizens impoverishing Americans for the next generations of your great grandchildren. That kind of poverty. Really are you brain dead?
1914: central banker plan: #1: get everyone deep, deep, deep in debt. #2: foreclose on everyone, then evict them all from their bankster planet: earth.
Their plan: 100 years. Results: perhaps 101 to 102 years.
maybe it would be easier all around if you stop calling governemnt liabilities "debt". too many folks think of it the same as they would their personal debt....think of it instead as "deferred revenue".
The central banks are asymtotically approaching a dichotomy between currency collapse and markets collapse (ZH's schroedinger's cat). You can bring markets back by debasing currency, but collapsed fiat currencies never come back. Pull out a "dollar" bill -- does it say "full faith and credit of the U.S. government"? No, it says"federal reserve" and "in god we trust." Remember the quote about "everyone else pays cash"? Now it's "everyone else pays gold." Greenspan recently admitted that gold is the only real currency. When this guy finally decides to say something comprehensible, maybe we should pay attention. When currency collapse happens, there won't be any warning. Currency collapse is not inflation. Inflation is monetary cancer. Currency collapse is monetary cardiac arrest. Oh yeah, there are also tiny words on the "dollar" bill -- "legal tender for all debts." Fiat currencies are just instuments for debt ponzies. When the debt goes away, so does the fiat currency. The intellectual orgasm for monetarists is unlimited debt at zero interest. We are already there. No currency regime has ever survived after reaching this point.
Remember what happened to Old Yellen at the end of the movie