Tag Archives: Money Supply

In the middle of 1919, the United States was beset by a great many imbalances. Having just conducted a wartime economy, almost everything before then had been absorbed by the World War I effort. With fiscal restraint subsumed by national emergency, inflation was the central condition. Given that the Federal Reserve was by then merely a few years old, no one was quite sure what to do about it. Chairman of the Federal...

Risk assets declined across the globe, with European, Asian shares and S&P 500 futures all falling, while the dollar slumped against most currencies after a news conference by President-elect Donald Trump disappointed investors with limited details of his economic-stimulus plans, and the Trumpflation/reflation trade was said to be unwinding. "The risk was always that a president like Trump would end up upsetting that consensus (of faster U.S. growth, stronger dollar) view by introducing...

As if things were not already chaotic enough in the socialist utopia of Venezuela, following President Nicolas Maduro’s decision to follow Indian PM Modi’s playbook and announce that the nation’s largest denomination bill (100-Bolivars – worth around 3c) will be pulled from circulation in 72 hours, he has tonight closed the border to Colombia to crackdown on currency smuggling by so-called “mafias”. As AP reports,...

The blockchain technology opens up new possibilities for financial market participants. It allows to get rid of middle men and thus, to save cost, speed up clearing and settlement (possibly lowering capital requirements), protect privacy, avoid operational risks and improve the bargaining position of customers. Internet based technologies have rendered it cheap to collect information and to network. This lies at the foundation of business models in the “sharing economy.” It also lets...

Submitted by Nicole Foss via The Automatic Earth blog, Part 1 Here. History teaches us that central authorities dislike escape routes, at least for the majority, and are therefore prone to closing them, so that control of a limited money supply can remain in the hands of the very few. In the 1930s, gold was the escape route, so gold was confiscated. As Alan Greenspan wrote in 1966: In the absence of the gold...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]As momentum builds in the developing deflationary spiral, we are seeing increasingly desperate measures to keep the global credit ponzi scheme from its inevitable conclusion. Credit bubbles are dynamic — they must grow continually or implode — hence they require ever more money to be lent into existence.

Jeff Gundlach is not the only person who is feeling “maximum negative” on Treasuries. In an interview, none other than the “Maestro” Alan Greenspan, the man whose “great moderation” policy made the current global bond bubble possible, said that he is worried bond prices have risen too high. Asked if he finds what is happened in the bond market right now “in any way, shape, or form concerning for financial...

After today’s uneventful Fed announcement, all eyes turn to the BOJ where many anticipate some form of “helicopter money” is about to be unveiled in Japan by the world’s most experimental central bank. However, as Nomura’s Richard Koo warns, central banks may get much more than they bargained for, because helicopter money “probably marks the end of the road for believers in the omnipotence of monetary policy who have...

After yesterday's US and UK market holidays which resulted in a session of unchanged global stocks, US futures are largely where they left off Friday, up fractionally, and just under 2,100. Bonds fell as the Federal Reserve moves closer to raising interest rates amid signs inflation is picking up. Oil headed for its longest run of monthly gains in five years, while stocks declined in Europe. Treasuries retreated in the first full day of trading since Yellen said late Friday that the improving...

The current financial market volatility increasingly reflects loss of faith in policy makers. Celebrity central bankers are learning that they must constantly produce new miracles for their followers. First, the measures implemented since 2009 created an artificial stability and an asset price boom in many markets. But the absolute rate of GDP expansion and level of price changes is inadequate to solve global debt problems. Second, new initiatives seem the risky response of clever...