Central Banks Are Trapped – Are Higher Interest Rates the Only Answer?

COMMENT: Marty, well it looks like you have done it. The central banks are going to start raising interest rates right in line with your model. It is interesting how your computer puts the entire world before you to see. Keep up the good work. They obviously are starting to follow you.

SS

Facebook Could Check Your Loan Applications Against Your Friends’ Credit

Just call it “friendlining”

Facebook friend lists are a weird collection of your classmates, coworkers, distant relatives, former roommates, and other people you may have known at one point in your life. A new patent granted to Facebook would let lenders check those same friends’ credit scores and take them into account when deciding to grant a loan. It’s totally not something straight out of a cyberpunk dystopia.

The FDIC’s Plan to Raid Bank Accounts During the Next Crisis

The financial system is predominantly comprised of digital money. Actual physical Dollars bills and coins only amount to $1.36 trillion. This is only a little over 10% of the $10 trillion sitting in bank accounts. And it’s a tiny fraction of the $20 trillion in stocks, $38 trillion in bonds and $58 trillion in credit instruments floating around the system.

Suffice to say, if a significant percentage of people ever actually moved their money into physical cash, it could very quickly become a systemic problem.

Indeed, this is precisely what caused the 2008 meltdown, when nearly 24% of the assets in Money Market funds were liquidated in the course of four weeks. The ensuing liquidity crush nearly imploded the system.

“Colossal Defeat” For Obama As Australia Joins China’s Regional Bank

Having attacked its “closest ally” UK for “constant accomodation” with China, we suspect President Obama will be greatly displeased at yet another close-ally’s decision to partner up with the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). As The Australian reports, “make no mistake,” the decision by Australia’s Abbott government to sign on for negotiations to join China’s regional bank, foreshadowed by Tony Abbott at the weekend,  “represents a colossal defeat for the Obama administration’s incompetent, distracted, ham-fisted dip­lomacy in Asia.”