The War On Paper Currency Begins: ECB Votes To “Scrap” 500 Euro Bill

Please see the source for all relevant charts and “tweets”.

 

Update: in case there was any doubt about the ECB’s true intentions, we just got the official “denial”:

• DRAGHI: ANY ECB ACTION ON EU500 NOTE IS NOT ABOUT REDUCING CASH

Translation: the ECB action is only about reducing physical cash, some 30% of it to be specific.

Who Is The New Secret Buyer Of U.S. Debt?

On the surface, the economic atmosphere of the U.S. has appeared rather calm and uneventful. Stocks are up, employment isn’t great but jobs aren’t collapsing into the void (at least not openly), and the U.S. dollar seems to be going strong. Peel away the thin veneer, however, and a different financial horror show is revealed.

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Employment has been boosted only in statistical presentation, and not in reality. The Labor Department’s creative accounting of job numbers omits numerous factors, the most important being the issue of long term unemployed. Millions of people who have been jobless for so long they no longer qualify for benefits are being removed from the rolls. This quiet catastrophe has the side bonus of making it appear as though unemployment is going down.