Rickards: The Fed Is “Triple Tightening” Into Crisis

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If you have defective and obsolete models, you will produce incorrect analysis and bad policy every time. There’s no better example of this than the Federal Reserve.

The Fed uses equilibrium models to understand an economy that is not an equilibrium system; it’s a complex dynamic system.

The Fed uses the Phillips curve to understand the relationship between unemployment and inflation when 50 years of data say there is no fixed relationship.

The Fed uses “value at risk” modeling based on normally distributed events when the evidence is clear that the degree distribution of risk events is a power curve, not a normal or bell curve.

Rickards: Here’s Where the Next Crisis Starts

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So many credit crises are brewing, it’s hard to keep track without a scorecard.

The mother of all credit crises is coming to China with over a quarter-trillion dollars owed by insolvent banks and state-owned enterprises, not to mention off-the-books liabilities of provincial governments, wealth management products and developers of white elephant infrastructure projects.

Then there’s the emerging-markets credit crisis, with Turkey and Argentina leading a parade of potentially bankrupt borrowers vulnerable to hot money capital outflows and a slowdown of growth in developing economies.

Close on their heels is the U.S. student loan debacle, with over $1.5 trillion in outstanding debts and default rates approaching 20%.

Russia’s on the Way Back

 

Russia is poised to break out of its oil-related slump and become one of the best performing emerging markets economies in the years ahead. This sleeping giant is breaking its dependence on oil prices and embraces diversified growth.

When you hear the name “Russia” you probably run for cover. Russia has been the subject of nearly continuous media coverage bordering on frenzy since the election of Donald Trump last November.

“It’s Worse Than 2008”: CEO Of World’s Largest Shipping Company Delivers Dire Assessment Of Global Economy

Earlier today, we highlighted the rather abysmal results reported by Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company.

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“The demand for transportation of goods was significantly lower than expected, especially in the emerging markets as well as the Group’s key Europe trades, where the impact was further accelerated by de-stocking of the high inventory levels,” the company said, in its annual report.

Just how bad have things gotten amid the global deflationary supply glut you ask?

Beware the great 2016 financial crisis, warns leading City pessimist

Albert Edwards joins RBS in warning of a new crash, saying oil price plunge and deflation from emerging markets will overwhelm central banks, tip the markets and collapse the eurozone

The City of London’s most vocal “bear” has warned that the world is heading for a financial crisis as severe as the crash of 2008-09 that could prompt the collapse of the eurozone.

Albert Edwards, strategist at the bank Société Générale, said the west was about to be hit by a wave of deflation from emerging market economies and that central banks were unaware of the disaster about to hit them. His comments came as analysts at Royal Bank of Scotland urged investors to “sell everything” ahead of an imminent stock market crash.

BIS Warns of ‘Major Faultlines’ In Global Debt Bubble

– BIS warns “unrealistic and dangerous to expect that monetary policy can cure all the global economy’s ills”

– Bank of International Settlements warns that recent turmoil is not caused by isolated incidents

– Debt levels are now so extreme they threaten the financial system

– Ultra low rates have led to mal-investment and bigger boom/bust cycles

– Emerging markets vulnerable to deeper crises

– ECB easy money may juice markets for a while but reckoning is coming

– BIS acknowledge that central banks rig markets

– Gold and silver protect against crises in financial system

In a stark warning, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central bank of central banks, has said in its quarterly report that the turmoil that has shaken global stock markets in recent weeks showed how developed and emerging markets were exposed to the unwinding of financial vulnerabilities built up since the 2008 crisis.

IMF warns of new financial crisis if interest rates rise

Fund says governments in emerging markets should prepare now for a new credit crunch because of a 10-year corporate borrowing binge

Rising global interest rates could prompt a new credit crunch in emerging markets, as businesses that have ridden the wave of cheap money to load up on debt are pushed into crisis, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

The debts of non-financial firms in emerging market economies quadrupled, from $4tn (£2.6tn) in 2004 to well over $18tn in 2014, according to the IMF’s twice-yearly Global Financial Stability Report.

Yellen Is Trapped in the Worst Nightmare Ever

Fed is really caught between a rock and a very dark place. Yes, they have the IMF and the world pleading with them not to raise rates for it will hurt other debtors who borrowed excessively using dollars to save money. The Fed is also caught between domestic policy objectives that dictate they MUST raise rates of they will bankrupt countless pension funds and international where emerging markets will go into default because commodities have collapsed and they have no way of paying off this debt that has risen to about 50% of the US national debt.

Doomsday clock for global market crash strikes one minute to midnight as central banks lose control

China currency devaluation signals endgame leaving equity markets free to collapse under the weight of impossible expectations

When the banking crisis crippled global markets seven years ago, central bankers stepped in as lenders of last resort. Profligate private-sector loans were moved on to the public-sector balance sheet and vast money-printing gave the global economy room to heal.

Time is now rapidly running out. From China to Brazil, the central banks have lost control and at the same time the global economy is grinding to a halt. It is only a matter of time before stock markets collapse under the weight of their lofty expectations and record valuations.

The FTSE 100 has now erased its gains for the year, but there are signs things could get a whole lot worse.

EL-ERIAN: If the Greek ‘no’ vote wins, prepare for a global stock market sell-off

They’re still counting the votes, but so far the “No” vote has the lead. In other words, “No” the Greek people do not want to accept strict fiscal austerity measures in exchange for desperately needed bailout money.

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In a post on Facebook, Allianz’s Mohamed El-Erian offered a brief preview of things to come should the “No” vote win.

“IF this historic “no” win is confirmed, look initially for a general selloff in global equities, along with price pressures on the bonds issued by Greece, other peripheral Eurozone economies and emerging markets,” he wrote.

Markets More: HSBC Bearish HSBC WARNS: The world economy faces a ‘titanic problem’

HSBC chief economist Stephen King is already thinking about the next recession.

In a note to clients Wednesday, he warns: “The world economy is like an ocean liner without lifeboats. If another recession hits, it could be a truly titanic struggle for policymakers.”

What The World’s Biggest Banks Have In Store For The U.S. Dollar

Central bankers from Beijing to Brasilia have been acquiring a lot more dollars of late, but the overweight of the greenback has reached its limits. There is only one way left to go. It is time to sell the dollar once again.

Or so says Jerome Booth.

Booth has been in the currency and fixed income markets since 1999. That’s when he helped launch the Ashmore Group, one of the largest pure-play emerging market fund managers in the world with around $70 billion under management. Before he retired to write books and launch his new private equity firm New Sparta Limited, Booth was a regular source of mine here at FORBES. He’d talk about the wonders of emerging market debt; their relative strength compared to the Western world and how they’ve improved  from their “Third World” days of yesteryear; and the day of reckoning that would come when the Chinese yuan becomes a reserve currency.

IMF fears ‘cascade’ of woes as Fed crunch nears

The United States is poised to raise rates much more sharply than markets expect, risking a potential storm for global asset prices and a dollar shock for much of the developing world, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

The IMF fears a “cascade of disruptive adjustments” as the US Federal Reserve finally pulls the trigger for the first time in eight years, ending an era of cheap and abundant dollar liquidity for the international system.

Only mass default will end the world’s addiction to debt

As global debt rises off the scale, creditors stand to take a huge hit in a threatened tsunami of defaults

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Nonetheless, where Argentina treads, others will surely soon be following. The world is sinking under a sea of debt, private as well as public, and it is increasingly hard to see how this might end, except in some form of mass default.

The US Dollar is Breaking Out Against Every Major Currency

The US Dollar is breaking out against EVERY major world currency.This is not some blip on the financial radar. The US Dollar has been trading sideways for several years. But in the last 8 months, that all changed as the US Dollar broke out against the Yen, the Euro, the Australian Dollar… literally everything.