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The End Is Kind Of Nigh
Submitted by Bill Bonner via Acting Man blog,
All Good Things Must End
Today, I’m going to tell you about the end of the world. Not the end of the world exactly. But the end of the fiat money system President Nixon gave birth to in 1971… when he cut the dollar loose from gold.
And it may feel like the end of the world, because of the social chaos it will provoke. What follows is taken from a speech I gave at Doug Casey’s La Estancia de Cafayate …
Meet Rorschach, from Alan Moore’s “Watchmen”
Drowning in Credit
I’ve been predicting the end of the world – at least the end of the post-1971 monetary world – for a long time. I hope I’m wrong about it. But sooner or later, I’ll be right. In the meantime, I’m like a surgeon who has just botched an operation. He sees the patient stiff on the table and wonders if he should go back to the textbooks. Maybe the anklebone is not connected to the shin bone after all.
But the textbooks are hopeless. They’re written by modern economists. And they believe an economy is mechanistic, not humanistic. These folks have fixes for every problem and wrenches in both hands. They also run our central banks. And they think they know what is going on… and what they’re going to do about it.
So they give you “forward guidance.” But it is worthless. Worse than worthless, it suggests knowledge and foresight – neither of which the authorities possess. Do you remember the Fed giving us “forward guidance” before the crisis of 2008? I don’t.
Neither Ben Bernanke nor Janet Yellen had any idea what was happening. They couldn’t give any forward guidance about that crisis and can’t give any about the next one. They just react to events. They neither see them coming nor control them. And they have only one major reaction – even more credit.
But you can’t solve a debt problem with more debt. That’s what the Fed is offering. And that is what the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan are offering too. They are committed to this policy of providing more and more credit to a world that is already drowning in it.
Global central bank assets as a percentage of GDP (i.e., a chart that subtly understates by how much they have grown. Source: Financial Times, IMF, Haver Analytics, Fulcrum Asset Management LLP) – click to enlarge.
Ham-Fisted Grease Monkeys
I should stop here and say a few words about how the economy really works. These clumsy mechanics at the Fed, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan think they can turn knobs and adjust levers. But an economy is a complex dynamic system with intricate feedback loops.
It responds to the ham-fisted grease monkeys at central banks, but not necessarily the way the feds want. It is far more complex than they can ever understand, let alone control. Right now, they are getting away with jaw-dropping policies. The markets are not yet punishing them. In fact, investors seem to be rewarding this kind of innovation.
For example, what is 1.1% yield on a Spanish 10-year government note if not an invitation for trouble? Or how about a 10-year German government note with a yield of 0.2%? It’s impossible to know what will happen exactly. But someone is going to lose money. These yields are unnatural. And downright dangerous.
But the risk is not just that the pace of consumer prices will outstrip these puny yields; it is also that bond issuers will default. Europe’s governments are deeply in debt. And the ECB is now making it easier for them to go further into debt. Europe’s bond yields are at their lowest level in 150 years. About one-third of the total new issuance carries a negative nominal yield (that is before you account for inflation).
What sense does it make for the ECB to drive yields lower still … by further pushing up prices? (Bond prices, remember, move in the opposite direction of yields.) None at all – except that many European governments and corporations now get paid to borrow money!
Spain’s 10 year note yield is at a munificent 1.16% – this is actually an all time low (and Spanish government debt has been around for a few centuries) – click to enlarge.
Financial Kamikazes
And the clever Japanese have another trick up their sleeves. Not only is the BoJ directly propping up the market for Japanese government bonds. It’s doing the same with the stock market. Our head spins. But it’s true.
When it comes to overdoing it, nobody overdoes it better than the Japanese. Remember, near the close of World War II, when Japanese pilots strapped themselves to flying bombs? Kamikazes took to the air hoping to die in a fiery explosion on the deck of a US aircraft carrier. Today, it’s Japan’s monetary policies that are kamikaze.
Mr. Kuroda explains his painting of an exponential curve to journalists – no, he’s not a value hunter …
Photo credit: Yuya Shino / Reuters
The Bank of Japan is set to buy $1.4 trillion of government bonds under its current QE program. This allows the Japanese government to continue going deeper and deeper into debt. But the BoJ has more explosives to strap onto its financial kamikazes. Why stop at buying bonds? Why not buy stocks too?
The BoJ has been a buyer of Japanese equity exchange-traded funds (ETFs) since 2010. And in September 2014, it bought a record amount of stock through its ETF-buying program. This makes it the single largest holder of Japanese stocks in the world – with 1.5% of total capitalization. The BoJ chooses to buy the dips too.
I doubt this is because BoJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda is a value hunter. Instead, it is almost certainly because he wants to manipulate stock prices directly, just as he does with the bond market. The BoJ has waded into the stock market one in every three days since 2010, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Where does this lead? To a fiery crash!
Look out for Part II of my speech from Cafayate tomorrow.
Japanese mudjaheddin of yore: Chiran school girls are waving good-bye to a departing Kamikaze pilot with cherry blossoms raised in a taut military salute.
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Tora, Tora, Tora, baby.
I gave up on the whole crash meme.
This will be a long, slow decent to hell where the spending power of benefits to the FSA are slowly but surely eroded to levels low enough to spawn riots, which will just get bigger and cause more chaos. Oh, and the boomers go under the bus at the same time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBYgeUP-3hM
Regards,
Cooter
Or it might just go boom, as they hope it will and the US will know the powers of a third world nation cooking squirrels for lunch. Oh, and they will pay a nice fee for weapons anyone has.
The whole world waits with baited breath as to whether Mr. Yellen does or does not write & utter the word "patient" in FOMC minutes & testimony
tomorrow.
This is what our absolutely batshit insane world has been reduced to by The Tribe(al) Elders.
The greatest wealth transfer from savers & taxpayers writ large, to corporations, banksters, the financial sector in general, governmental non-workers, the MIC, & Fed Racketeering, Inc. cannot be interrupted. It's far too successful.
The analogy of the surgeon and his mechanistic behavior is entirely ass-backwards. His error would be in his application of a technique, not the technique itself.
The analogy should be of a doctor with an incorrect mentalist diagnosis based on belief and guesswork, i.e. emotional thinking. The same type behavior exhibited by the Fed doctors trying to apply a failed cure again and again in hopes of it working if tried often enough.
I have trouble believing that any of you think that the CBs are trying to 'fix' anything. They are simply trying to avoid collapse of sovereign debt. Unfortunately, the only way to accomplish this by the exponential expansion of debt. And we all know that final doubling is a real bitch.
The global currency system is a perpetual interest paying ponzi scheme where money = debt. We probably could have walked away from said scheme in the '40s, the '50s, the '60s or the '70s.
Since then people were encouraged to keep reproducing (in large numbers), by false market signals. As such, today's degree of econonomic growth, and prosperity, is at least in part accounted for by ponzi funded growth.
Keynesians (like Krugman).. mostly understand the system, but believe that the only option is to keep the game going as long as possible.
Austrians.. see the flaws in the system. See the unsustainability, and believe it is better to end the system today, than to exacerbate things even more going forward. Some Austrians (not all) actually do not understand the fundamentals of the monetary system, whereby debt = money and the printing presses are not utilized in the same way that they might be. Austrian models are more level-headed but simply do not apply under this current ponzi scheme.
One thing is for sure.. whatever happens in the future, when the system breaks (and it might exist for another 20-30 years), it is going to be the worst crisis in human history. We're in a position where we either bite the bullet and bleed out now, or limp on for another 20 years, and do the same, but from an even weaker position.
Zhandax - Right, that is called kicking the can and that last until growth stalls for the very top which we are near. It still takes customers at the end of the day and the purchasing power of the majority is very low. Now we see the second part of the bust, deflation.
That will restore some purchasing power over time but in-between the headwinds of asset repricing and further government cuts mean a few more years of stagnation.
Survivable but gloomy and hard to get motivated. Lack of confidence doesn't help. Investors will have to readjust to a Save and Invest economy.
"And we all know that final doubling is a real bitch."
Meet 11 million new illegal immigrants and the amnesty 0 is providing. Bonded at $1 million a piece works out to around $11 trillion in new borrowing? Unless my math is wrong...
Either way most appear to be completely missing the point of the immigrant amnesty discussion. See birth certificates and US Citizen/14th Amendment. (surety for the debt)
ETF -- I have loved following your passion on ZH over the years. You are accurate, and interesting in your post. And I agree with you! The tribe is in full control. Honestly though, what I have discovered is -- fuck it. Nobody cares. I tried, and I still know the truth. But I have but one life to live. It is very emancipating to do this. Good luck bother.
ETF --you rock.
Getting close to knock off ??? .... pay attention
George Carlin was so right in that famous 3 minute rant about the "American Dream"
http://egbertowillies.com/2011/03/27/no-one-can-say-it-like-george-carli...
"That’s what the owners count on; the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white, and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day"
The willfully ignorant sheep won't have a clue until it's too late.
Yup, and everybody just keeps bending over and taking it. Except for the likes of me who invested in the 'noble metals' and their miners and who is really getting fucked for being 'right' because I listened to the reasoning of the likes of Bill Bonner and Mr. Maloney Baloney. So who here is really stupid? If everyone is insane except for us, can we really call ourselves sane, or do we need to suck it up and face the reality 0f this shitball of a world we are forced to to participate in?
I'm so fucking disgusted with the human race and all the scams and lies and greed and 'intelligence' I would really prefer that the sun would just go super-nova already and burn us to a cinder before we have a chance to spread our insanity to the rest of the cosmos.
Unless of course said cosmos is even more fucked up than we are. UGH!!!
I agree completely but don't despair. Grow a plant and look at it every day. Take a dog for a walk to see how much he enjoys just smelling everything, both the plants but better is the shit. Take pleasure in simple things. Don't take the fools to heart. They will still be there long after we are gone.
Only in Washington Disease, everyone else doesn't have that many squirrels.
A buddy from an old job had a bad ass squirrel chilli recipe. That shit was awesome. Somebody, somewhere learned out to do it. But isn't that human nature.
Regards,
Cooter
Cooter,
You might be referring to Brunswick Stew
from the old Virginia Colony around 1670.
It was the forunner to what we call Chilli today.
Main ingredient for Brunswick stew: Fresh Squirrel (Not city dumpster squirrel)
It is AMAZING, when prepared from the old recipe
rats! tree rats... never done it, but have heard tell from some of the elders around... some bacon grease, flour, salt and pepper (gravy), and bisquits out of a cast iron oven sittin' in the fire. round out your culinary adventure with some fresh corn liquor (i prefer a ribeye and a single malt scotch whiskey, but hey..)
cornfritter,
What you're describing is what we call "fricassee". I have made it with squirrels and rabbits. You should serve it over rice, but I like the idea of the biscuits from the cast iron pot; anything cooked in cast iron is good, except fried cat shit. The moonshine in a quart Mason jar is optional, and that's more for the younger fools.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo_aqcub9j4
the end is near
Somebody go shake up Jimmy! He was due on stage 15 minutes ago!
http://www.lyrics007.com/Jim%20Morrison%20Lyrics/The%20End%20Lyrics.html
Cooter,
I've come arouond to your way of thinking over the last few years. While I used to fear the "pop", now I just figure that we'll continue to descend into another third world hell hole....but 20,000 nukes in the hands of psychopaths is always a wild card.
That is the thing that is getting my goat right now; they are outright picking a fight with Russia who is very clearly saying "we will use nukes". For what ends? Ukraine doesn't matter.
I mean, the Russians are blunt. There are military doctrine revisions. Diplomatic statements. If the US pushes shit far enough, it will go tact-nuke or god forbid big-nuke. They flat out said they don't see an army confrontation.
But that is how disconnected our elites are at this point I think. They are desperate for the "rally round the flag" so they don't have to wear their failure and they are just too narcissistic and wrapped in their own "you are god" bubble to see the world as it really is.
Fuck, I always wondered how empires sank but damn I got front row seats.
If things work out for the best (gag) this will be a long slow decent into hell for Americans. It will be a slow debauch of the currency and with it living standards, security, and prosperity for future generations.
Sad indeed.
Regards,
Cooter
Russia isn't w/out fault, but on balance, they're acting more rationally than not by responding to the real, immediate and concrete threat of having NATO (or quasi-NATO) military assets, weapon systems (of permanent kind)
and bases being installed on the edge of their border, given Ukraine's stated intentions (by western backed puppets) and strong western overtures.
The thought and threat of such assets, weapon systems and bases in Ukraine, as part of a NATO or quasi-NATO alliance, is every bit as provocative as what the USSR did in Cuba during JFK's office.
The Cuban Missile Crisis happened because the US put nukes in Turkey.
The US was the aggressor.
This is correct.
In fact, it was resolved when Khrushchev offered to remove Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba & Kennedy secretly agreed to remove those U.S. missiles from Turkey.
My general contentions above are unaffected by this, however, IMO.
TIS, "Russia isn't w/out fault, but on balance, they're acting more rationally..."
it's easy to write that Russia is acting rationally, on ZH. and it's easy to see the "break the encirclement" strategy of Russia
what is less easy, here, is to agree with you, but then respond with facts that don't fit the narrative dear to many here
fact is that Russia was the only colonial power that did not have to use ships for it's colonies. expansion and colonization could be done by walking, and then by train
fact is that a lot about Russia is given by it's geographical position, which is unique
fact is that even Tsarist Russia had a strategy of suborning allies and vassals and "break out to the South"
fact is that a lot of what the Soviet Union did was a continuation of the Tsarist imperial strategy, countered by the same powers that countered Tsarist Russia
fact is that the "Great Game" played between London and Moscow is still the same "game" played today
fact is that when Germany and Austria joined in this fray, they put themselves smack in the middle of this greater conflict. their biggest move was the Berlin-Baghdad Railroad, the greatest thorn in the eye of both London and Moscow. and this was only a small parenthesis in the broader story (look, two intermissions, WWI and WWII. it would be hilarious if it wasn't sad)
Moscow is still playing the same "game", is still favoured and hobbled by the same geographical constraints, and is still facing roughly the same "players"
and even the tactics are the same. The Tsar used the Cossacks as vanguard of colonization. Behold the modern Cossacks, doing roughly the same... "job" for Moscow
if you really want to understand the whole story, try to put yourself in the point of view of Istanbul. Try to look at it the way the Sultans did, and you'll notice the various imperial expansions way better. and you'll see how one empire was slowly grinded by the others
then you might understand why The West was for a while in Afghanistan... aided by Russia
if it moves like an empire, and quacks like an empire, and floats like an empire... it must be a duck, then, eh?
I remember when in ZH it was impossible to call the US an EMPIRE without getting swamped with downvotes and attacks. it's not that long ago
now, I am calling Russia an empire, behaving like an empire engaged in The Great Game again, using the same Tsarist Imperial tactics of old
empires leverage their power on... allies. hence the propaganda
ghordius,
I don't think your narrative is coherent. You are confusing the legitimate interests of a country with imperial expansion. Yes, the geographical constraints on Russia have led them to consider that they have interests in Ukraine and the Crimea. This is understandable.
What is not understandable is why the USA ginned up trouble in Kiev?
What is not understandable is why the people now in charge of the government entity in Washington have chosen to pick a fight with Russia in Russia's backyard.
I think a lot of thoughtful people sense that Washington has become a place that is strange. The people there are mentally and spiritually sick. They have vast power -- but only to kill and destroy.
Because London does not pick up the ball as it did in the not so old days?
"You are confusing the legitimate interests of a country with imperial expansion"
perhaps there is a grey area between imperial expansion and the legitimate interests of a country
and actually, colonization is smack in the middle this area. first your people enter in a foreign territory, trade there, whatever... and then they might need help or supplies from home
the same, of course, applies to business interests abroad
A punctuated mean-reversion. Long periods of apparent stability or slow "decline" or even some apparent recovery interrupted by short gap-down bursts. The former will be called "new normal" and "transitory" each time, the latter will be called totally unforeseeable, unpredictable every time. New normals could last a few months or a few decades, it doesn't matter.
Most of the people who thought all of the 20th century insanity was "normal" will have had the good sense to have died before they can be disabused of this most ridiculous notion.
"The Crash" is soooo 2012, right up there with the Mayan Doomsday prophecy crap.
Slow boil, slow descent into hell is right. Unfortunately, this is not as dramatic/sexy for headlines or blog site ratings.
Kirk, I am an old history teacher. I think there is a real potential for abrupt change. It is entirely possible that political events may outrun the schemes of the central planners. This may very well be the summer of our discontent. Armed defiance in the West and North West, water wars in the South West, the blatant racism of blacks, the shooting of cops in Ferguson, the sanctioned Central and South American invasion of our homeland, the overt attempts by the multiculturalists to unseat the WASPs from the halls of power, any or all of these trends may upend the country.
The runs on black rifles and ammunition we have seen over the last half dozen years tell me the body politic is covering its options.
The political parties have morphed into an omnipotent crime syndicate. When you have Pelosi rallying her troops to save a Republican speaker, you know there is but one game. The “R” word is in the air. That revolution may be accomplished by the ballot. The Tea Party and the Occupy Movement are the beginnings of the power structure unwind. If the political process fails, then the ballot may give way to the bullet.
Revolution requires a narrative. That narrative is beginning to evolve. Part of it is a yearning for simpler times. Many wish to return to a place where they could let their children play down the street and leave their doors unlocked at night. They wish to strip the Gestapo of its hardware and return officer friendly to the streets. They yearn to untie the government’s Gordian knot tied around their lives. They long for an end to the fraud.
Every revolution needs a scape goat. The objects of our common contempt are being fleshed out in the corrupt liaison between Wall Street and Washington. The incessant picking of winners and losers in a rigged game is causing an undercurrent that will force an end to end the game. Generation after generation of the same game has produced legions of losers. They have been bought off by government subsidies. Interrupt those subsidies for just a few days and the whole façade comes down and the national edifice will be on fire once again.
Miscalculations are more than possible. George III thought he was dealing with a local matter in Boston when his troops marched on Concord. Who knows where this may go? Some police shooting or federal raid may be the spark that lights the fuse to this conflagration.
I think it's both, and history supports it.
The descent is exponential.
Early on, it's a long, slow descent, but it's imperceptibly accelerating. Later on, the descent is perceptible -- I think that's where we are now. Right near the end the instantaneous rate of change skyrockets as it does in exponential functions, and boom.
Almost all the hyperinflation charts follow that curve. Since 1/N is the purchasing power, initially the losses are small, and no one notices or they just gripe a bit. In the last months it'll go from survivable benefits to zero. EBT cards will stop working not because they're not funded, but because the payment processing systems literally won't be able to handle the magnitudes of the transactions, and the updated funds are reduced in value to nothing in a couple weeks.
Safe to say SSI and boomer's retirement fund purchasing power will go up in a puff moved decimal points.
And then... they roll out their shiny new ponzi scheme, and a new government with just a few minor edits to the constitution.
Order out of Chaos, baby.
I wish I could believe this is all an "accident" - but if it was, they'd have changed course by now. The PTB are just trying to make sure as many unknowns are covered as possible before pulling the plug - at which point (as you say) they will ride in on a white horse and proclaim themselves saviors with a shiny new plan ....
... and as far as the progression, "How did you go broke?" - "Slowly at first, then all at once..." ;)
The dollar will collapse as soon as we run out of zeros.
A long slow crash is indeed what TPTB are going for...hoping and praying that some event doesn't trigger a nose dive.
I think you're right and that the future looks like what I'm reading in A Tale of Two Cities. We'll slowly descend to the point when the Sec of State's motorcade runs over a kid driving through Dupont Circle and the Sec looks out the window on why it is stopped and a bunch of grubby serfs look at the ground. She'll toss a benjamin out the window and tell them they need to do better looking after their kids. That will be close to when it all boils over and DC is burned to the ground but I think we are a long ways off from that.
We will just follow the Jap model....a slow decent to hell.
This whole thing is a broken record...yawn...wake me when the market makes a 1000 pt move downward. Honestly -- these "avant-garde pundits" have been discussing this on ZH for 7 straight years now. Yep, I read "Currency Wars", and understand the concept of complex systems and a "single snow flake" theory -- but c'mon man, the Keynesians have won. I am taking up tennis. Fuck this.
The Japanese invented the first drone with a pilot. Now they are making robots to wipe their old asses. They will be over run by Asian immigrants as soon as the Anglo-Americans force their boarders open.
"Do farts have lumps or did I just shit myself?"
........Janet Yellen
Probably just dust you old crusty Bitch. Keep stacking your depends for the day you do actually grease your back bone.....
HOPE ! HOPE and CHANGE !!!!!!
Article by Bill BONER....LOL !! That chart in Japanese really look like a boner. Fertility festival in Japan : ) ) !!
oh jeez
another uplifting post
optic nerve connected to anal sphincter?
what would Belushi have to say about all of this???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxZt4Kxj2cE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPnwlNvwBLI
The Japs will do what they are told to do.
Fly to Hawaii and bomb Pearl Harbor....again?
Whatever Floats the Boat.
RS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS21wcdpgUg
If central banks buying debt works - every citizen should max out their credit cards and take on whatever loans they can get their hands on. Prosperity for all!
Debt prisons a'comin' ... best to get 100% out of debt (and save the docs to prove it). It is the only psychopatha-logical conclusion to this shit circus.
Regards,
Cooter
Rick Ackerman says gold to $817.
They are hoarding it to give to their annunaki masters.
Yeah, perfect, good old Mr. Deflation Rick Ackerman.
He's still peddling that worthless TA bullshit is he?
TEOTWAWKI is your new beginning. Your masters lied and are still lying.
Not even close just BTFD and dont worry the micro numbers bad to put off the int rate indrease
But have no fear
cause the end is near
for those who hold their PM's most dear.
'The end is nigh' fatigue is setting in.......
But who will build the roads ???
"But who will build the (Prius capable) roads ???"
Suggested fix for ya.
Your welcome.
"These yields are unnatural. And downright dangerous."
Bond yields in Europe, the German bonds for example, are down in the gutter, and ECB QE is buying them up way out on the curve.
But, economies were built on reasonable bond yields! Vast pension systems require the ability to get a return on government bonds. The entire world insurance system is built on getting a decent return on government bonds. Neither Pensions or Insurance can gamble big time, they need stable returns to fund their operations. The Central Banks have FUCKED all that. Think about it. When Pensions and Insurance can't find stable protected earnings. When Central Banks have fucked it all!
Just one example of how infinte ZIRP will destroy the bedrock of long term economic stability.
Central Banks are responding to Bankers who have fucked their institutions, and distorted the whole world bond system in order to save these same Bankers.
Look. The ultimate plan of the banksters is to rob the western world of its inheritance, drive its peoples into extinction and replace them with more compliant races of slaves. They want you and yours so destitute and so hungry you kill each other for meat. You'd better hope their brainiacs never achieve the Singularity, because their first orders to our robot successors will be to exterminate us.
Why would they give two fucks about pension funds and insurance policies?
THIS is exactly why I think debtor prisons (or a modern equivalent) are going to be the next phase in this operation. It will let them strip mine labor for yield.
THEY KNOW this credit expansion can no go on forever and WILL hit a wall at some point. Might as well round up as many debt slaves as possible, pass some new laws, and then you got a captive labor force if the police/military go along.
Can't outright shoot everyone, or occupy all the towns, gotta ease 'em into it over time so they get to like the yoke.
Regards,
Cooter
Your next phase is already taking place. In some states, not showing up in court for a financial examination at the bequest of a creditor can lead to contempt charges and a "writ of body attachment" which may as well be a warrant for arrest.
http://blogs.wsj.com/totalreturn/2012/08/28/are-debtors-prisons-coming-b...
http://preview.tinyurl.com/bodyattachment
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/georgias-debtors-pri...
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/17274-debtors-prisons-again
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/21/313118629/supreme-court-ruling-not-enough-...
Central Banks operate as the back stop for Bankers who have gone off the reservation. Turning banking into giant gambling operations, giant market rigging skimming operations. To enable these banks to continue, the Central Banks are fucking Main Street and workers and savers. It's that simple.
Slow decent into hell is the next phase. Get the seniors to sell off the young to keep their benefit spice flowing.
Voters vs voters.
Regards,
Cooter
As 'ol Sherlock Holmes stated:
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”So Bill Bonner wants us to believe that a person (Janet Yellen) who makes $201,700 a year, is in charge of policy at the worlds most powerful institution. Furthermore, that she, like her predecessors, are clueless about the efficacy of their policies.
That explanation doesn't fly with me. Anyone who proclaims such I tend to view as either ingenuous or clueless.
Bill doesn't strike me as clueless.
The TBTFs own the Fed stock, and as for who (what individuals/families) actually owns/controls the TBTFs ... well we don't have good visibility into that.
There does appear to be a crash coming. Question is, is it by design? (never let a good crisis go to waste and all that).
Most of us long time Zhers know that former Goldmanite, the William Dudley is most likely in charge of the FED. Yellin, like Bernanke, is just the spokesperson reading a script for the sheeple. The NYFRB is where the real power resides and is interconnected with the IMF and BIS, among other institutions and banking centers around the world. He was appointed chairman of the Committee on the Global Financial System of the BIS in 2012 and has enormous influence over FED policy.
http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/orgchart/dudley.html
Yes, the real owners of the FED are the old money and families from Europe...via the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Warburgs, etc...who have their front men like Dimon, Blankfein and the rest of the crooks on Wall Street running their skimming operations/cartel for them these days.
There are only three kinds of monetary systems - (a) debt-based fiat (our current system), (b) direct-issue fiat (also known as MMT), and (c) commodity-based (usually gold and silver). Hybrids between them are also possible. I predict our current system will come to an end when the USA is forced to become a direct-issue fiat system. This will happen in a crisis of some kind. Whether that crisis is a world war, a great California earthquake, or just a plain old-fashioned financial collapse remains to be seen. Regardless of the cause, the Treasury will no longer be able to borrow, and Congress will give the Treasury the authority to simply issue the dollars required to cover any deficit. This is exactly analogous to what Lincoln did during the Civil War when he issued greenbacks to cover war expenses. A direct-issue system will allow a massive torrent of government spending to inflate all the debt away, and after that the US will migrate to either a new debt-based fiat system, or a commodity-based system - much as the US went back to a gold-based system after the Civil War.
Andrew the owners of the Fed will not allow that. They control your congress remember
There's nothing wrong with BTFD.
I wish I could conjure up my own money and go shopping with it. I'd be a Multi Gazillionaires as well.
Let's examine this in the context of the previous ZH article "Americans R Stoopid".
If the Japs are so darn smart and educated, then how come they're in this mess? Clearly education isn't everything.
Dear Japan: Brains w/o balls is not sustainable.
Clearly - greed and criminal-minded corruption trumps all.
No.
This IS actually the end of the world - or at least the end of civilization as we know it.
THE PERFECT STORM (see p. 59 onwards)
The economy is a surplus energy equation, not a monetary one, and growth in output (and in the global population) since the Industrial Revolution has resulted from the harnessing of ever-greater quantities of energy. But the critical relationship between energy production and the energy cost of extraction is now deteriorating so rapidly that the economy as we have known it for more than two centuries is beginning to unravel. http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2013/01/Perfect-Storm-LR.pdf
No.
This IS actually the end of the world - or at least the end of civilization as we know it.
THE PERFECT STORM (see p. 59 onwards)
The economy is a surplus energy equation, not a monetary one, and growth in output (and in the global population) since the Industrial Revolution has resulted from the harnessing of ever-greater quantities of energy. But the critical relationship between energy production and the energy cost of extraction is now deteriorating so rapidly that the economy as we have known it for more than two centuries is beginning to unravel. http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2013/01/Perfect-Storm-LR.pdf
People here are forgetting about distractions. Starbucks is now promoting the race card. Perfedt distraction to delight the audience. Only a few will actually realize when it happens, then it's too late.
...Chiran school girls are waving good-bye to a departing Kamikaze pilot.
Really? I thought the canopies were screwed shut before departure, or is that just folklore.
War-time propaganda.
The end is nigh, but so it´s been couple years, when it become been widely acknowledged AAA collateral had become scarce commodity. The world´s capacity to serve loans had already met the ceiling and anything beyond this existed only in bankers´ fantasies. Whatever way they try now to extend the equation they cannot extort more than there is to be extorted.
Societies since the dawn of time have become over-whelmed with debt.
Today most of the Western world, China and Japan are over-whelmed with debt.
In ancient times they used to have regular debt jubilees to deal with the problem.
Capitalism used to have recessions that wiped out bad debt.
Throughout history lenders have always lent too much and borrowers borrowed too much.
The modern world is not as sophisticated as many like to think and excessive debt is an age old problem.
The current stance where there is an expectation that all debts will be paid seems to indicate we are actually more stupid than previous generations.
When modern markets reacted to the new internet in exactly the same way as markets reacted to the new tulips in 1600s Holland, it should have indicated there is nothing sophisticated about modern markets.
They are the same as they have always been.
"Europe’s governments are deeply in debt. And the ECB is now making it easier for them to go further into debt. Europe’s bond yields are at their lowest level in 150 years. About one-third of the total new issuance carries a negative nominal yield (that is before you account for inflation).
What sense does it make for the ECB to drive yields lower still … by further pushing up prices? (Bond prices, remember, move in the opposite direction of yields.) None at all – except that many European governments and corporations now get paid to borrow money! "
yes, they are deeply in debt. yes, the ECB would make it easier for them to go further in debt... but the author does not read ZH enough, otherwise he would know that they aren't getting much deeper in debt, otherwise there would be no lack or dearth of sovereign eurozone countries bonds for the ECB to buy
"I’ve been predicting the end of the world – at least the end of the post-1971 monetary world – for a long time"
welcome to the club, me too. since... 1971. my original prediction of the currently fought currency war was off, though. I expected what we are witnessing some ten years earlier
the rough thumb rule for a pure fiat currency is that they usually last up to seventy years, with an average age of forty years. if you take the second number, it would be 1971->2011, if you take the first number it would be 1971->2041
and that is the problem with fiat currencies. their lifespan depends on lots of factors. it all goes back to the simple fact that if the majority of the people would truly understand what money and currencies are... they would stop barking up the wrong tree
and this stretches to currency wars, and the lack of understanding of how they work, and why. at the end, it's about trade. that simple, and so elusive
The power of finance is the power of debt (the bankers only product).
The debt has various different guises loans, mortgages, etc .......
But they are all essentially the same, you are borrowing your own money from the future to spend today.
The loan is issued and spent immediately, the repayments become due in the future.
Unleashing the power of finance/debt obviously looks good when all the loans are being spent.
Eventually everyone is up to their eyeballs in debt and the issuing of new loans slows down to a trickle.
After the loan phase you get the much longer repayment phase when all that money borrowed from the future is paid back.
The power of finance/debt is just shifting money in time from the future to the present.
But sooner or later the future arrives, the repayments overwhelm the economy and the inevitable crash follows the boom.
You are both equally correct but equally wrong. You cling to the outmoded premise that loans will be repaid in the future. Like any borrower who has no intention of ever paying back their loan, they borrow still more because they know the lender hasn't quite caught on yet they aren't getting repaid. In the normal world where you and I exist, this is called fraud. The BoJ is just following Keynes to its logical conclusion - theft.
The BoJ launched this fraud back in the 1990s by purchasing Japanese government and corporate debt with the printing press thus causing the Lost Decade. They impoverished their own people by depriving investors (the average citizen) of market rate returns on capital they loaned by buying stocks and bonds. This forced Japanese investors to take their money overseas to get a better rate of return thus depriving their economy of critical investment money. Why? Because the BoJ colluded with the Japanese government politicians (Socialists) to fund vote buying scams so the pols could stay in power longer because didn't have the tax base to do so otherwise.
The US politicians, specifically liberal Democrats saw the success of the Japanese pols and copied the fraudulent practice. This is why liberals either scoff or fall silent when you ask the question when will all this money be paid back. They sidestep the question by saying as long as the tax base can support the interest payments we can continue to borrow to make social investments (vote buying scams). Once the interest payments appeared to be unsustainable the pols then pushed the Fed into the same fraud as the BoJ, they started buying US Treasuries in third party sales to finance the US debt and artificially depress interest rates which allows the pols to continue the farce that as long as the tax base can pay the interest payments borrowing is sustainable.
All this talk of the Fed raising interest rates is merely the Fed meekly bleating to the Congress, please, please, please stop deficit spending. The Republican House has now introduced a 10 year plan to balance the federal budget to stop deficit spending. Obama's and liberal Democrat's response: The bill is DOA because Obama is going to veto it. That's all you need to know who is committing the financial fraud and who has absolutely no intention of EVER paying one penny back.
Are those girls in the photo holding up shiskabobs?
Yakitori.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeniFoiT-0
Just die already!