Tag Archive for: sovereign debt crisis

They’re Coming to Take Away Your Cash

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 […]

The Swiss Franc Will Collapse

I have worked to keep this piece readable, and as brief as possible. My grave diagnosis demands the evidence and reasoning to support it. One cannot explain the collapse of this currency with the conventional view. “They will print money to infinity,” may be popular but it’s not accurate. The coming destruction has nothing to […]

100% of Mainstream Interest Rate Theory is Wrong

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. […]

A Monetary Cancer Metastasizes in Europe

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 […]

The Federal Reserve – A Study In Fraud

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 Quantitative Beatings will Continue Until Economy Improves

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 […]

Guest Post: Cyprus – A Stock Market Dies

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 Dollar is Going Up

Let’s take a look at a few graphs of the dollar, from Feb 1, 2013 through Friday May 17, 2013. Yes, I said graphs of the dollar. I’ve priced the dollar in gold first (of course), then silver, the euro, and even the yen. The pattern is obvious. The dollar is going up. I did […]

The Dollar is Going Up Part II

Meanwhile, the spread between the interest rate and the dividend yield or earnings yield makes an attractive arbitrage. If you are the CFO of a public company and your shares pay a 4% dividend and you can borrow at 2%, it is practically a “no brainer”. The problem is that incurring debt for no productive […]

Guest Post: The Big Picture by Alex Manzara

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 […]