The stories are all over the Internet. Governments are forcing us into a cashless society. Supposedly the pretext is terrorism, and the real reason is to take more control. No doubt more power appeals to politicians, and banning cash seems like the next step after mandatory reporting of cash transactions. However, I think there is […]
An interesting article on MarketWatch today caught my attention. The subhead is the money quote, “Back in April every economist in a survey thought yields would rise. Guess what they did next.” Every? The article refers to 67 economists polled by Bloomberg, all of whom would seem to believe in the quantity theory of money. […]
The European Central Bank again cut the interest rates it controls. Notably, the deposit rate was moved deeper into negative territory. It is now -0.2% (minus 20 basis points, that is not a typo). The ECB says it’s trying to nudge prices higher, but it’s actually feeding the cancer of falling interest. The linked article […]
Guest Post: By Monty Pelerin In a previous article entitled “Government: ‘A Seedy Circus … Perpetually In Debt’,” government was likened to Larsen E. Whipsnade, the character played by the one-of-a-kind W. C. Fields in the 1939 movie “You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man.” Characterizing Leviathan government as an individual, even one as large as Whipsnade, was a […]
The Fed’s purpose, when it comes down to it, is to buy bonds. Under their various “Quantitative Easing” (QE) programs, they sure have bought a lot of bonds. This pushes up the price of the bonds. Since the yield is basically the inverse of the bond price, this means the rate of interest falls. This […]
Author: Pater Tenebrarum What Happens Usually After Big Bear Markets Conclude? If we look back at the history of big bear markets in stocks, they normally put in a definitive low either at the height of a panic (a spike low), or after an extended period of disinterest, during which the market usually declines considerably further […]
The big picture over the past few months is that markets are experiencing one large adjustment after another, perhaps analogous to the shifting of tectonic plates that create rolling earthquakes and various aftershocks. The first large move was the fall in the yen (rise in dollar/yen), and the change in sentiment towards Apple (AAPL) which […]
Some people believe that by imposing losses on investors and reducing the Cyprus banking system liabilities, the European powers have addressed the problems in Cyprus (if harshly). Others think that it was just an unjust tax on depositors. I have written about the sequence of events. Cyprus banks borrowed money and bought Greek government bonds. […]
Do you think that depositors in Cyprus are being taxed? That their money is being taken from them to go to the government in Cyprus or to Europe? Most analysis of the Cyprus bailout is wrong on this point. Cypriot banks are like all banks in one respect. They raise capital to buy assets that […]
After markets closed on Friday, it was announced that Cyprus worked out a deal with the European Central Bank, European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund (“the Troika”). Here is a typical article reporting on the story. Cyrpus has been in desperate need of a bailout, and was in discussions as early as June last […]
