Ireland “Especially Exposed” To “International Shocks” Warns Central Bank

Ireland remains especially exposed to another financial shock because of the extremely high levels of public and private debt, the open nature of the economy, and Brexit, Irish Central Bank Governor Philip Lane has warned in a pre-budget letter to Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan.

“Ireland is especially exposed due to the legacy of high public and private debt levels, the sensitivity of small, highly-open economies to international shocks and Brexit-related vulnerabilities,” Ireland’s Central Bank Governor said.

The letter was covered in the Irish Independent, Irish Times and Irish Examiner. This is something we covered in our interview with Max Keiser last week – see here.

Deutsche Bank CEO Warns Of “Fatal Consequences” For Savers

 

Deutsche Bank’s war of words with the ECB is not new: it was first unveiled in February when, as we wrote at the time “A Wounded Deutsche Bank Lashed Out At Central Bankers: Stop Easing, You Are Crushing Us.” Europe’s largest bank, with the massive derivatives book, then upped the ante several months later in June, when its chief economist Folkerts-Landau launched a shocking anti-ECB rant in which it warned of social unrest and another Great Depression.

Ironically, these infamous diatribes hurt more than helped: telegraphing to the market just how hurt DB was as a result of the ECB’s monetary policy, the market punished its stock, which has been recently trading within spitting distance of all time lows, in effect making Deutsche Bank’s life even harder as it now has to contend not only with its own internal profitability problems, but also has to maintain a market-facing facade that all is well. So far, it has not worked out very well, prompting numerous comparisons to another infamous bank.

Greece could be forced to lock down savers’ cash as debt crisis worsens

Greece’s central bank has issued the clearest warning yet that the country is on course to default on its sovereign debt at the end of the month and crash out of the single currency, while finance ministers across Europe also confirmed they are making contingency plans for a messy ending to the crisis.

Athens is due to repay €1.6bn to the International Monetary Fund on 30 June but will be unable to do so unless its creditors release a €7.2bn bailout payment before then.

Greek debt crisis reaches ‘DEFCON 1’ as savers pull €400m in ONE DAY and markets plunge

PANIC has descended on Greece as the debt-stricken country careers out the eurozone – with savers pulling millions in cash while investors continue to flee financial markets.

The Greek Prime Minister today blasted Athens’ European Union creditors who he said were trying to “humiliate” and “strangle” Greece into making proposed spending cuts in return for bailout cash.

Alexis Tsipras confirmed that talks have completely stalled, with the two sides in total stalemate over austerity measures.

“Cash Is Coined Freedom”: War on Cash Becomes Official in Germany, Reaches G-7, Draws Withering Fire

It came from a voice that has, by law, the ear of the German government. Peter Bofinger is a member of the German Council of Economic Experts – the “Five Sages on the Economy” – which in its official function advises the government and parliament on economic policy issues. These folks are taken seriously.

So Bofinger told the German magazine Der Spiegel in an interview (full interview behind paywall) that cash should be done away with.

Things Are Unraveling At An Accelerating Rate

Does anyone else have the feeling that things are not just unraveling, but that the unraveling is gathering speed?

Though quantifying this perception is more interpretative than statistical, I think we can look at the ongoing debt crisis in Greece as an example of this acceleration of events.

The Greek debt crisis began in 2011 and reached a peak in 2012. The crisis was quelled by new Eurozone/IMF loans to Greece, and European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi’s famous “whatever it takes speech” in late July, 2012.

Central Planners Are In A State of Panic

The central planners are in a state of fear and panic.  They are trying everything and anything to create market validation for their policies, watching with trepidation as their favored economic metrics fail to respond to all of their frenzied efforts.

They are so far over the tips of their skis right now that there’s nothing they won’t do. They’ve summarily thrown granny under the bus because they have this idea that negative real interest rates are the cure.  The cure for what?  The massive amounts of debts and imbalances their prior policies caused.  So savers are punished in the pursuit of policy.  You know, ‘for the greater good’ and all that.

They’ve spurred the greatest wealth gap ever in US history, greater even than at the extremes of the Great Depression, apparently without the slightest concerns for Plutarch’s ancient admonition that “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”

They’ve even gone so far in Europe as to now force negative nominal interest rates on savers, dispensing with their usual slight-of-hand of letting inflation steal from each unit of currency in their system.  When you’re panicking, there’s no time for subtlety.

They look the other way as “someone” dumps huge amounts of gold contracts into the wee hours of the night, seeking one thing and one thing only: lower prices.  But that’s okay because the central banks destroyed price discovery a long, long time ago. First by invalidating the price of money itself (by driving interest rates to zero), and then in everything else — most importantly risk.