by Tyler Durden{jcomments on}
EURUSD Takes Out Day’s Lows After Irish Opposition Says Will Vote Against EU/IMF Bailout
Remember Europe and that insolvent country which Ron Insana conclusively determined does not matter? It’s back on the scene after Reuters reports that the main Irish opposition Labor party has just announced it will vote against the IMF/EU bailout package. Just what spin Olli Rehn will have to use to calm markets after his latest vassal nation continually refuses to go quietly into that good night, remains to be seen.
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John Williams Talks To BNN About The “Great Hyperinflationary Collapse”
Any interview that starts off with John Williams saying “Eventually it is going to be a hyperdeflationary great depression” is sure to be controversial. While not necessarily news to those who subscribe to the Shadowstats.com editor’s newsletter, sometime we wish that Blackhawk Ben was among them, because despite his 100% confidence that rates will never do the kind of move that they exhibited in the past two days, they, well, did. To quote Williams, who actually keeps track of the US economy as if it were a GAAP audited corporation: “The annual deficit is running $4-5 trillion a year, that includes the Y/Y change in the NPV of unfunded liabilities… There is no political will to deal with this.” The catalyst is well-known: “When you see panic selling of the US dollar, that’s when you have to be really careful. But what’s already been done with the dollar has spiked oil prices, and other commodity prices.” On the question of why Bernanke would not be able to pull off what Volcker did in the early 1980s, Williams’ explanation for why this time it is different, mostly focuses on the size of the US trade and budget deficits, which are not even remotely comparable on both an absolute and relative basis. Most specifically what consumers should do in the post-apocalypse world, Williams is not too optimistic. Ironically, he notes that Zimbabwe in its hyperinflation may have been lucky in that it had the dollar to fall back on in the black market, and now every market. However the US does not have that facility, and this “will get very difficult when food starts disappearing from shelves.” Having goods for storage and barter would be critical. However, there may be a snag…
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Mike Krieger Explains Why Silver Bullets Are The Only Defense Against Modern Financial Vampires
Keiser’s campaign has been accepting videos from members of its audience that support the campaign and he has then been posting the best one’s on the website. This takes the focus away from any one particular individual and puts it in the hands of the people that are participating. This is extremely empowering just as youtube and the internet in general are extraordinarily empowering. Someone that has never reached more than ten or twenty people in their lives with their views are now reaching thousands through the internet. The establishment “filter” on news and ideas is gone. The internet is the Guttenberg printing press on steroids. Let’s not forget that the Guttenberg press was key in sparking the Renaissance. This is why I am completely convinced that the current system will collapse. It has run its course and is no longer helpful to humanity’s progress in the 21st century. The people do not want things to stay the way they are and in fact the means of ending it are very simple. Much more simple than voting at the polls for politicians that know nothing and can be bought off within a week. Vote with your money. Buy silver.
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Household Net Worth Jumps By $1.2 Trillion In Q3, All Due To Stock Market Gains As Deleveraging Continues For 10th Straight Quarter
With today’s release of the Fed’s Z1 statement, we once again see why Ben Bernanke’s only “wealth effect” focus is on the stock market. In Q3 of 2010, household net worth jumped by $1.2 trillion from $53.7 to $54.9 trillion, the vast majority of which was due exclusively to a change in the value of “corporate equities” held by the public, which rose from $6.9 trillion to $7.8 trillion. Still, this level is only back to the $7.7 trillion as of Q1 2010, and is roughly 30% off the all time high of $10.3 trillion seen in Q2 and Q3 of 2007, aka the peak of the bubble. What is also notable is that consumer deleveraging, as everyone knows, is continuing: total household debt declined for the tenth consecutive quarter, and was down by $58 billion to $13,429.4 billion. The peak was $13,923 billion in Q1 2008, so just about half a trillion higher. Elsewhere, some may be surprised to learn that business debt increased to an all time record high of $7,351 billion, an $82 billion increase in the quarter. So even as all those continue to note the $1.2 trillion in non-financial cash built up by banks, of which at least half is offshore, at the very same time Corporations have grown their total debt by the same amount since Q1 2007. So net, it is not only a wash, but is domestically leveraging as companies don’t have free access to the foreign cash even as all their debt is domestic. Hopefully that will finally end the “cash on the sidelines” farce. Yet the one chart which needs no introduction, or explanation is that of the Federal and State and Local Government debt. That grew by $350 billion in the last quarter as the government continues to attempt to offset the drop in household leverage.
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Eurobond Trading Desk Commentary: “The ECB Is The Only Buyer Out There Right Now”
If anyone was concerned that someone may be stupid enough to believe the vomitorium of lies and deceit coming out of Europe on a millisecondly basis, we are hereby happy to assuage your fears. Courtesy of a very spot on trading desk comment, we can confirm that nobody but the ECB is buying Greek, Portuguese, and Irish bonds.
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