Today, China remains central to the notion that the world is in recovery. It is believed to be growing at 7%: not as rapid as the 9% growth we’re used to seeing, but still dramatically higher than any of large country... Only the whole thing is bogus.
The era the phony recovery narrative has come unhinged. We have now entered a cycle of actual price discovery in which financial assets fall to more accurate values. This will eventually result in a stock market crash, very likely within the next 12 months.
In the simplest of terms, Abenomics was a form of economic warfare. It marked a transition in global Central Banking policy from an era of coordination to an era in which it is each country/ Central Bank for itself.
Nothing exposes the fallacies of the Fed’s policies like its horror at the prospect of raising rates even a little bit. Rates have been effectively zero for five years.
We need to consider the Cyprus “bail-in” and its implications. The reason for this is that this tiny country has provided the world with a template of what is eventually going to be a global phenomenon.
True, the world faces issues today… so it’s not odd for bond yields to be lower… but are those issues on par with a disease that wiped out 25%+ of Europe’s population… or the single largest military conflict in history?
The US stock market is trading at 1929-bubblesque valuations, with a CAPE of 27.34 (the 1929 CAPE was only slightly higher at 30. And when that bubble burst, stocks lost over 90% of their value in the span of 24 months.
As usual, US stocks are the last to “get it.” But this won’t last for long. The S&P 500 is sitting on the ledge of a massive cliff. And when it finally tumbles, the move will be both fast and violent.
In short, Bernanke bankrupted the US and most Americans in the span of ten years. He created the biggest housing bubble in 100 years and also casue the greatest Crash in 100 years. A few blog entries won’t change this.
