Archives
The Fed Talks And The Market Tanks. That’s Different
August 21st, 2015
Normally there’s a distinct pattern to the impact of Federal Reserve statements on the financial markets. The tone of equities trading in particular starts to improve as the moment of the announcement approaches; the words turn out to be ...
Another Monday, Another Batch Of Brutal Numbers
August 17th, 2015
The global recovery meme got another series of jolts this morning, as pretty much everything suprised on the downside. In no particular order: ” Japan economy shrinks in second quarter in setback for ‘Abenomics’ China’s economic ...
Can You Imagine The Fed Raising Rates In This World? Currency Crisis Edition
August 13th, 2015
A month ago China’s stock bubble was bursting and Greece was imploding. Yet the US Fed, in a violation of both headline sentiment and common sense, was still promising to raise interest rates come September. Fast forward to this ...
China About To Make History — Again
August 10th, 2015
Any discussion of China has to open with the now-widely-understood fact that the numbers it reports are not to be trusted. Knowing this makes it easy to dismiss claims of high and consistently-on-target GDP growth, for instance, as a ...
Here Comes The Next Trillion-Dollar Bailout
August 4th, 2015
As boxers like to say, it’s the punch you don’t see that knocks you out. In a world where a growing part of the financial system is hidden from view and excluded from official statistics, those are words to ...
Fed To Markets: You’re STILL Too Easy To Fool!
July 31st, 2015
These days no matter what the Federal Reserve actually says, the markets respond like dogs sensing a piece of bacon coming their way. This is so for several reasons: 1) The world is vastly overleveraged, which terrifies investors and ...
China: Major Devaluation Coming
July 28th, 2015
The whole “market economy” thing is turning out to be a little trickier than China’s dictators expected. To set up the story: After the 2008 crash the country borrowed about $15 trillion (an amount that dwarfs the US Fed’s ...
What Blows Up Next? Part 1: Resource-Based Economies
July 24th, 2015
The Great Recession and its aftermath was actually the best of times for countries with natural resources to sell. The US, Europe and Japan ran record deficits and cut interest rates to zero or thereabouts, sending hot money pouring ...
Does A Commodities Crash Mean Global Depression, Mass-Devaluation Or Both?
July 22nd, 2015
First, precious metals peaked and began drifting lower. Then copper fell, oil plunged and it became obvious that these weren’t isolated events. The entire commodities complex — that is, all the physical inputs a modern economy uses to power, ...
Was Greece Always Part Of The Plan?
July 20th, 2015
Since its inception, critics of the eurozone have been pointing to its incomplete nature — everyone uses the same money but keeps their own national budgets and tax regimes — and speculating that this “fatal flaw” would doom the ...
