The $10 trillion question. The ever expanding central bank balance sheets: What does $10 trillion buy you in the market today?
The Federal Reserve has waded deep into uncharted territory. The Fed has concocted new ways of monetizing debt and allowing banks to essentially expand their balance sheets with no real repercussions to the financial sector. Of course the shrinking middle class might have something to say about this or the 47.77 million Americans on food [...]
The global addiction of central banking stimulus – Contagion spreads to Spain as 10-year edges to 7 percent. Life in a perpetual quantitative easing world.
Financial markets around the world are now desperately dependent on central bank stimulus. The US recovery is largely dependent on the Federal Reserve funneling loans into the system via the quantitative easing process and other archaic forms of money development. It is interesting how the Greek stock market rallied this week merely on the notion [...]
The suffocation of unsustainable global debt – Total global debt is now over $190 trillion and more than three times global GDP. Contagion with European Union.
The biggest market in the world is the European Union and debt problems are still rippling through the global markets. It is apparent with the financial crisis that the global markets are tied together by large banks and interconnected trade. A problem in the largest market should be unsettling and the unemployment rate in the [...]
The chastisement of the American saver – Federal Reserve offers a higher interest rate to banking reserves than too big to fail banks offer American savers.
Americans are facing a banking system that is largely designed to go against their best economic interest. Even a decade ago people were able to find a savings account or a certificate of deposit that would keep up with the rate of inflation. Today, most typical savings accounts at too big to fail banks offer [...]
How to spend $9 trillion in 10 years. How in the financial world did we end up with over $14 trillion in Federal government debt?
If we do a slow rewind back to 2001 U.S. debt stood at $5.8 trillion. This today would seem like a bargain. So how in the world did we end up with the current $14.3 trillion figure in a matter of ten years? People like to ignore history but if you don’t know where your [...]
Does inflation even matter? The growing secrecy of the CPI and how average Americans face budget squeezes through financial maneuvering and the chained CPI.
Things seem to be progressively getting worse for the middle class as most of the debt ceiling talks revolve on sticking it to working Americans as if they were financially able to handle any more austerity moving forward. While the too big to fail banks swim around in pools of bailout money like Scrooge McDuck [...]
Manias, implosions, and financial disasters – the unsustainable nature of our current debt based financial system.
Trying to induce inflation to reduce accumulated debt is not a modern invention. Dr. Carmen Reinhart and Dr. Kenneth Rogoff trace this kind of financial crisis and others back to the Dionysius of Syracuse during the 4th century. The debasement of currency also occurred in the Roman empire and Byzantine empire and as usual printing [...]
The secretive workings of the central banking syndicate – Federal Reserve balance sheet reaches another record. Fighting monetary inflation by creating it.
Central banks provide a mystical approach to solving economic problems although they were initially created to solve short-term financial panics. The first central bank was the Bank of England which was established in 1694. It started out as a private institution but eventually took on a monopoly over all banks in England (all private banks [...]
The brittle financial American middle class – 50 percent of Americans would be in financial trouble if $2,000 of expenses came up in 30 days. By 2020 the world’s richest households will control $202 trillion in wealth, 4 times current global GDP.
This economic recovery has excluded working and middle class Americans which begs the question, what really defines a financial recovery? In past and distant recoveries the economic gains were widely distributed amongst all Americans. Most realize that income gains will never be equal simply because in a market based economy those with certain desirable skills [...]
Federal Reserve punishes savers by subsidizing big banking bailouts – Two largest U.S. banks offer a paltry 0.05 annual percentage rate while increasing service fee charges and upping loan interest rates. S&P 500 not cheap.
The challenge most Americans are facing is first, trying to save money. If that hurdle is accomplished the next tougher question becomes where the money should be placed. The Federal Reserve by default with a negative interest rate policy has punished savers at the expense of massive debtors. The Fed for many decades since the [...]
