European Central Bank In Panic Mode as Economy Stalls

 

The eurozone could not borrow from the momentum of the U.S. economy in the third quarter as economic growth slumped to a tepid 0.2% , the slowest rate in more than four years. With the 19-nation currency bloc beginning to stagnate, and the heavyweights failing to post significant gains, Brussels is in panic mode, likely leaning on the European Central Bank (ECB) for further stimulus.

Economists originally anticipated growth of 0.4%. But global trade woes, tumbling business confidence, Italian distress, and the gradual dissipation of an accommodative monetary policy all contributed to the poor numbers in the July-September period.

Signs Point to a Global Slowdown

 

As gold has struggled through 2018, (down over 10% from $1,363/oz. on January 25 to $1,215/oz. today), my forecast for a strong year-end for gold has remained unchanged.

This forecast is based on a better-late-than-never realization by the Fed that they are overtightening into fundamental economic weakness, followed quickly by a full-reversal flip to easing in the form of pauses on rate hikes in September and December.

Those pauses will be an admission the Fed sees no way out of its multiple rounds of QE and extended zero interest rate policy from 2008 to 2013 without causing a new recession. Once that occurs, inflation is just a matter of time. Gold will respond accordingly.

“It’ll Be An Avalanche”: Hedge Fund CIO Sets The Day When The Next Crash Begins

While most asset managers have been growing increasingly skeptical and gloomy in recent weeks (despite a few ideological contrarian holdouts), joining the rising chorus of bank analysts including those of Citi, JPM, BofA and Goldman all urging clients to “go to cash”, none have dared to commit the cardinal sin of actually predicting when the next crash will take place.

On Sunday a prominent hedge fund manager, One River Asset Management’s CIO Eric Peters broke with that tradition and dared to “pin a tail on the donkey” of when the next market crash – one which he agrees with us will be driven by a collapse in the global credit impulse – will take place. His prediction: Valentine’s Day 2018.

One big, fat, ugly bubble is about to burst… and Donald Trump will be wrongly blamed for it

 

(Natural News) Editor’s note: Donald Trump is officially the president of the United States. But what happens now could change everything…in sudden, unexpected ways.

Today, we’re featuring another important essay from Crisis Investing editor Nick Giambruno on this topic. On Wednesday, Nick said Trump could go down as the worst president…but it won’t be his fault. Today, he gives more reasons why Trump is destined to fail…and what you should be watching closely today.

(Article by  By Nick Giambruno, editor, Crisis Investing from Caseyresearch.com)

The establishment is setting up Donald Trump.

The mainstream media hates him. Hollywood hates him. The “Intellectual Yet Idiot” academia class hates him.

The CIA hates him. So does the rest of the Deep State, or the permanently entrenched “national security” bureaucracy.

They did everything possible to stop Trump from taking office. None of it worked. They fired all of their bullets, but he still wouldn’t go down.

Of course, the Deep State could still try to assassinate Trump. It’s obvious the possibility has crossed his mind. He’s taken the unusual step of supplementing his Secret Service protection with loyal private security.

Pensions Timebomb in “Slow Motion Detonation” In U.S., EU and Internationally

 

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the end of retirement which many Americans, Britons, Europeans and others will suffer as their pensions are decimated in the coming years due to zero percent interest rates and ultra loose monetary policies pursued for the benefit of banks and corporations.

Governments and central banks bailed out banks at the expense of pensioners and the pensions of workers who have been “thrown under the bus”.

Negative Interest Rates Destroying the World Economy

 

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I think I am starting to see the light you have been shining. Negative interest rates really are completely insane. I also now see that months after you wrote about central banks were trapped, others are not just starting to entertain the idea. Is this distinct difference in your views that eventually become adopted with time because you were a hedge fund manager?

Opinion: How negative interest rates take money out of your pocket

Negative interest rates, which central banks in several countries have implemented as a way to spur economic growth, is a radical move. In the last of a three-part series, ‘Negative Thinking,’ commentator Satyajit Das examines this policy and its risks.

…

Low rates are supposed to encourage debt-financed consumption and investment, feeding a virtuous cycle of expansion. They also increase wealth, encouraging spending. Low rates and abundant liquidity should drive inflation.

Instead, these policies since 2008 have brought the global economy a precarious stability at best, and have not created economic growth or inflation.

“Fasten Your Seatbelts”: Kyle Bass Previews The Collapse Of China’s $34 Trillion Banking Sector

Earlier this month, Kyle Bass asked a funny question in a discussion with CNBC’s David Faber. To wit: “If some fund manager in Texas is saying that your currency is dramatically overvalued, you shouldn’t care on a $10 trillion economy with $34 trillion in your banks. I have, call it a billion –  it’s so small it should be irrelevant and yet somehow it’s really relevant.”

Bass was referring to China’s penchant for firing off hilariously absurd “Op-Eds” in response to anyone who suggests that the country may indeed be experiencing the dreaded “hard landing” or that a much larger yuan devaluation is a virtual certainty. The People’s Daily literally laughed at George Soros when the aging billionaire said he was short Asian currencies in Davos. “Declaring war on China’s currency? Ha ha,” PD wrote. Chinese media also called Soros a “crocodile,” a “predator,” and said his yuan gambit “cannot possibly succeed.”

This Is The Endgame, According To Deutsche Bank

 

DB’s Jim Reid lays out the “endgame” scenario, one which this website first said is inevitable back in 2009. With Citi and Macquarie already on board, expect what was once merely the figment of a “deranged tinfoil conspiracy-theory blog’s” imagination, to become global monetary policy. And yes, the real endgame is the one we have said from day one: total fiat (and conventional economics) collapse.

* * *

From Deutsche Bank’s chief credit strateigst

Cash Withdrawal Limits and “Bank Holidays” Coming?

Collapsing commodities prices, erratic market turmoil and the bursting of Chinese bubbles are leading to a crisis in confidence in the economic system across the globe. The long-expected crisis to which the global financial and systemic crisis in 2008 may have been a mere prelude may be upon us.

Governments have no appetite for further bailouts. The EU states have passed legislation which will make the banks or rather unfortunate and unsuspecting depositors liable for the bank’s lending and speculative profligacy.

The Shot Not Heard Around the World

China’s recent move to devalue the yuan has sent shock waves through the global financial markets and has convinced most observers that a new front in the global currency wars has begun. The move has caused many observes to envision a new round of competitive devaluations around the globe in which the race to the bottom will intensify. In this scenario they envision that the U.S. dollar will solidify its standing as the only strong currency. This misses the point entirely.

In the past, most of the action in the “currency wars” had been focused on the efforts that many nations undertook to prevent their currencies from rising against the U.S. dollar, which itself was being weakened by a perpetually easy Federal Reserve and persistently negative U.S. trade and budget deficits. But with the dollar now strengthening significantly, the Chinese government has become concerned that the yuan, which has remained largely tethered to the dollar, had become too strong against other currencies, particularly its primary trading partners in Asia and the Pacific. To remain competitive locally, it decided to ease the tether to the dollar and instead let its currency float more freely. The purpose and implications of this significant pivot has largely escaped the U.S. media. In reality, the move raises the likelihood that the yuan will rise significantly when the dollar resumes its long-term bear market, not that it will remain weak forever.

Greece is Just the First of MANY Countries That Will Be Going Belly-Up

The first round of interventions (2007-early 2009) was performed in the name of saving the system. The second round (2010-2012) was done because it was generally believed that the first round hadn’t completed the task of getting the world back to recovery.

However, from 2012 onward, everything changed. At that point the Central Banks went “all in” on the Keynesian lunacy that they’d been employing since 2008. We no longer had QE plans with definitive deadlines. Instead phrases like “open-ended” and doing “whatever it takes” began to emanate from Central Bankers’ mouths.

However, the insanity was in fact greater than this. It is one thing to bluff your way through the weakest recovery in 80+ years with empty promises; but it’s another thing entirely to roll the dice on your entire country’s solvency just to see what happens.

Goldman’s “Conspiracy Theory” Stunner: A Greek Default Is Precisely What The ECB Wants

They all come close, but never precisely to the true endgame: The ECB is run by the Troika, which is run by Germany.

Almost every time you hear something about the Greek crisis, you’re going to hear either about the Troika (ECB/IMF/European Commission) and its components or Germany having its say in the situation. As with Cyprus, they want to create a vassal state out of Greece. We were told Cyprus was all about getting rid of corrupt Russian money laundering, etc. when it really wasn’t. What they had in mind was natural resources such as oil and gas within the area, plus a strategic military launching pad for the Middle East and Mediterranean region. Given that the Greek leadership doesn’t want to give up power, they will cave in and hand over more sovereign rights as well as the deposits of taxpayers.

When they’re finished with Greece they’ll move on to Italy, Spain and France who are facing a situation ten-fold worse. They will not stop until the entire European continent or whatever they can grab is under their control.

 

Last week, we showed a curious thesis by Goldman, which asked if there is a new and “ominous” development in European currency swings, namely the emergence of what may be a “under the table” fight between the ECB and the Bundesbank on which bonds to monetize.

This is what Goldman said then:

the average maturity of ECB bond buying is around 8.0 years, in line with what Executive Board member Coeure said in his May 18 speech. However, while Italy and Spain see purchases that have an average maturity above that of the outstanding debt stock, Bundesbank buying has fallen short from the very beginning…. This kind of signal – from the key hawk in the Eurosystem – has the potential to undercut the credibility of ECB QE, since it weakens the portfolio balance channel.

After all, it was supposed to be low yields in core Europe into risk assets. If those yields now rise and become more volatile, such portfolio effects will be lessened.

Greece could still have a role in a multi-speed Europe

As said over and over, and over again since 2012, look for a multi-bloc Europe. This is the most sensible outcome to the mess and a newly formed United States of Europe is around the corner after the EU turmoil. This is why you will see increased calls for further integration and unification, regardless of the turmoil. In Europe all roads lead to Berlin’s Fourth Reich dominating the continent through it’s Troika.

 

It’s not more political union the EU needs to survive, but more economic success – and some common sense

Sometimes it is easier to see what will happen in three or four years’ time than what will happen in three or four days. And so it is with Greece. One of the things that many of us will have found distressing, alongside the hardships heaped on the Greek people, has been the tone of the debate between the country and the EU’s dominant economy, Germany: fury on the one hand, and something close to contempt on the other. This is not the ever closer union envisaged by the founders of the EU and enshrined in the Treaty of Rome. Ironically the key device designed to pull Europe even closer together, the euro, is driving it apart.

Goldman Asks, Is The Bundesbank “Ominously” Trying To Sabotage The ECB’s QE?

Goldman previously argued that the weak activity reading rattled a market that had been operating on a core thesis of strong US growth. The resulting uncertainty caused Bund yields and EUR/$ to rise, with the DAX also selling off on the day. Since then, something more ominous has come into play…

One clue has been the communications ping pong from the ECB. On May 18, Executive Board member Coeure said “the rapidity of the reversal in Bund yields is worrisome,” citing it as another example of “extreme volatility in global capital markets.”

ECB President Draghi sent the opposite message on Jun. 3, saying “one lesson is that we should get used to periods of higher volatility,” followed on Jun. 10 by Executive Board member Coeure stating that “the ECB does not intend to counter [Bund] volatility in the short term.”

Goldman took a dim view of all this in our last FX Views, even if a charitable interpretation is that President Draghi basically sent a dovish message on Jun.10 and simply didn’t want to signal “activism” in the face of short-term volatility.