John Williams: “The Fed Will Crash Markets & The Dollar”

 

Economist John Williams warns the Federal Reserve has painted itself into a very tight no-win corner.

No matter what the Fed does with rates it’s going to be a disaster. Williams explains, “You had some very heavy selling towards the end of the year and when you saw the big declines in the stock market you also saw that accompanied by a falling dollar and rising gold prices.”

Hidden Amongst the Furore: Synchronised Warnings From the BIS and the IMF

It has become a disconcerting trend that as geopolitical events intensify and keep a majority of people engaged in the latest outbreak of political theatre, the words of central bankers fall on increasingly deaf ears.

At a seminar of the European Stability Mechanism this month, Bank for International Settlements General Manager Agustin Carstens delivered a speech called, ‘Shelter from the Storm‘.

America Has the Government It Deserves

 

“Every nation gets the government it deserves,” said 18th century French philosopher Joseph de Maistre.

If true, and we suspect there is justice here… the United States is a nation of no-good deadbeats.

For the nation hosts a spendthrift government perpetually on the borrow.

By some metrics, the United States now takes on more debt in one year than it did in the first 200 years of its lovely existence.

Its gross national debt rose $1.27 trillion in fiscal 2018… to a record $21.5 trillion.

The Global Financial System Is Unraveling, and No, the U.S. Is Not Immune

 

The “recovery”/Bull Market is in its 10th year, and yet central banks are still tiptoeing around as if the tiniest misstep will cause the whole shebang to shatter: what are they so afraid of?

The cognitive dissonance/crazy-making is off the charts:

On the one hand, central banks are still pursuing unprecedented stimulus via historically low interest rates, liquidity and easing the creation of credit on a vast scale. Some central banks continue to buy assets such as stocks and bonds to directly prop up the “market.” (If assets don’t actually trade freely, is it even a market?)

Turkey Default Risk Spikes to 2008-2009 Crisis Levels; Possible Contagion, Warns Russell Napier

Source: Bloomberg, Financial Sense® Wealth Management. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

 

All focus is on Turkey right now as their currency goes into freefall and 5-year credit default swaps (insurance against default) have now spiked to levels last seen during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

Russell Napier: “Trade War Is The Beginning Of A New Global Monetary System”

A Country Matures, An Exchange Rate Declines

After two weeks on the road visiting clients your analyst returns with a better view of the consensus outlook. There is, though, much in the consensus to disagree with. In particular it seems peculiar that the consensus believes the democratically elected government of Italy, with policies entirely contrary to EU membership, will be put through the bureaucratic meat grinder in Rome and Brussels and turned into EU sausage, in a similar process that minced the political representatives of Greece.

While this might well be the case, it is hard to understand that the grinding destruction of this democracy, even if it is only moderate compared to the Greek experience, can be anything but bad for growth and asset prices in the EU. Disciplining these politicians to abandon their manifesto promises and follow the ways of the EU is highly unlikely to be a painless experience, either for Italy or the rest of the EU. Nonetheless, investors are content to believe that a painless disciplining of Italy’s elected representatives is all but inevitable. We shall see.

Perhaps the most prevailing consensus view is that the recent weakness of the RMB represents a Chinese counter-punch in the trade war with the US. Coming when it does, it is easy to see the accelerated decline of the RMB as a tactical and not a strategic move. Comments by the PBOC on July 3rd have probably reassured many investors that the managed exchange rate regime is not at risk and that the RMB will continue to be managed against a basket of currencies. Your analyst does not agree.

“It’s A New Chapter For Europe”: Merkel, Macron Unveil Plan To Reform Europe

Lost among the other overnight news, was the launch of “a new chapter” for the EU as termed by Germany’s troubled chancellor Merkel. After her meeting with French President Macron on Tuesday, Merkel said Germany and France have agreed to cooperate to reform the EU’s asylum system as both “understand the topic of migration is a joint task” and “our goal remains a European answer to the challenge.” What she really meant is that if her government is toppled by the collapse of the CSU-CDU coalition – recall Merkel has a 2 week ultimatum to reach a solution on Germany’s treatment of refugees by July 1 – the rest of Europe gets it too, and the grand experiment is over.

Aside from immigration, the two leaders agreed to an in principle plan to strengthen the Euro area, including setting up a euro-area budget and a crisis backstop under the ESM (European stability mechanism), although they postponed decisions on some elements which could prove consequential. Chief among them: specifics on the size and conditions of the euro-area budget.

Why Italians are fed up with Europe

Joep Bertrams

 

The rise to government of Eurosceptic parties is the consequence of austerity policies made in the name of cleaner public finances and of the euro convergence criteria.

Two Eurosceptic forces are now governing Italy. On one hand the 5-Star Movement, the anti-system party of Luigi de Maio founded by the humorist Beppe Grillo. On the other, far-right xenophobic Liga led by Matteo Salvini. How could this have happened? How did one of the European Union’s six founding members, host of Treaty of Rome in 1957, and for a long time the EU’s most Europhile country, give a parliamentary majority to groups so hostile to European integration?

DB warns of US debt crisis.

 

“A coming debt crisis in the US?” warns a Deutsche Bank report* by Quinn Brody and Torsten Slok.

This graph is gorgeous. US deficits have, historically, been driven overwhelmingly by the state of the business cycle, and have very little to do with tax policies and spending decisions that dominate press coverage. In booms, income rises, so tax rate times income rises. In busts, the opposite, plus “automatic stabilizer” spending kicks in.

Until now.

America’s “Actual” GDP: The Shocking Truth

 

Saturday last we offended the pieties.

We reckoned that democracies — being shortsighted — tend toward vast accumulations of debt.

In response, reader Tom B. dealt with us as follows:

The committed ignorance of pseudointellectual arrogance and their refusal to take an economics class on the uses of the FIAT dollar is stunning! It’s the reason Warren Buffet [sic] smiles every time “financial experts” demagogue debt!

Congrats, Daily Reckoning, you’re consistently ignorant!

It is with high honor that we accept Tom’s congratulations.

True consistency is a rare feat in this world… even if consistently ignorant.

How Governments and Banks Track Your Every Move

 

It sounds like a bad science fiction movie.

Somewhere, in the near future, all citizens will be stamped with unique 12-digit numbers.

The numbers, assigned by the government and major financial powers, are for the sole purpose of tracking the citizens like bar-coded products.

Throughout their lives, new information is entered into a universal database that hooks into these numbers – giving the ruling class new information that is used to judge each individual person’s merits.

The Secret Force Behind Today’s Rigged Markets

 

Markets were up again big today and volatility was down. But we haven’t seen the last of rising volatility, nor of the central banks’ attempts to thwart it.

This week, new Fed Chair Jerome Powell will be giving his first congressional testimony, and you can be sure that markets are waiting on his words with bated breath.

Before his testimony, the Fed will be releasing its Monetary Policy Report, which will also give an indication to the direction of Fed policy.

Germany is the leading breaker of EU rules

 

No other country seems to lecture EU states as much as Germany. But, embarrassingly, Angela Merkel’s government is in breach of European regulations more than anyone else.

Yes, it’s really true: Germany is the top rule breaker in the European Union. The country, which has lectured debt sinners like Greece, performs worst in complying with European Union legislation. Physician, heal thyself.

66% of the Economy is Already Electronic & 99% of Money is Electronic

 

QUESTION: I loved your mention of how our money is not “printed”. You are THE ONLY financial expert to mention this. And you can’t understand our economy without understanding Electronic Money. I researched this 3 or four years ago and came up with, .003 physical currency vs the rest as Electronic Money. I later stumbled across an article on the same subject by an economics professor who put the ratio at .0003 physical. SO, who/where/how much/ and by who’s authority is E money created? E money is how the economy is propped up, and the amount is in TRILLIONS UPON TRILLIONS.

ANSWER: That is about correct. However, it is actually much worse. About 40% of the value of the paper currency of the United States circulates outside the USA. In fact, about 40% of the debt is also held outside the USA.

Here Is The IMF’s Global Financial Crash Scenario

 

Hidden almost all the way in the end of the first chapter of the IMF’s latest Financial Stability Report, is a surprisingly candid discussion on the topic of whether “Rising Medium-Term Vulnerabilities Could Derail the Global Recovery”, which is a politically correct way of saying is the financial system on the verge of crashing.

In the section also called “Global Financial Dislocation Scenario” because “crash” sounds just a little too pedestrian, the IMF uses a DSGE model to project the current global financial sitution, and ominously admits that “concerns about a continuing buildup in debt loads and overstretched asset valuations could have global economic repercussions” and – in modeling out the next crash, pardon “dislocation” – the IMF conducts a “scenario analysis” to illustrate how a repricing of risks could “lead to a rise in credit spreads and a fall in capital market and housing prices, derailing the economic recovery and undermining financial stability.”