Category: Central Banks
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Thursday, April 29, 2021
Get Ready for the Fourth U.S. Central Bank / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Michael_Pento
We all should be aware that the current Federal Reserve of the Unites States is not America’s first central bank. In fact, we’ve had a few others before this current disastrous iteration came into existence in 1913. We hope and believe it won’t be long before this latest version goes away for good.
Our first central bank was founded in 1782 and was called The Bank of North America. Soon after, in 1791, The Bank of North America became The First Bank of the United States chartered by Congress. However, in 1811 its twenty-year charter expired and was not renewed.
Five years later Congress chartered its successor called the Second Bank of the United States that lasted from 1816-1836. This Central Bank collapsed for the same reason the others did before it: they were, for the most part, filled with corruption and became progenitors of speculation and economic instability.
Thursday, November 07, 2019
Shades of 2007–2008 - Modern Central Banking Is More Vulnerable than We Think / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: John_Mauldin
Banks are a place where you store your cash, right? Not exactly.When you deposit money in a checking or savings account, you aren’t just letting the bank hold it on your behalf. You are lending the bank that money and the bank is borrowing it.
That’s why deposits show as a liability on the bank’s balance sheet.
We think of banks as lenders, and they are, but they’re also borrowers. They make money by lending at higher rates than they pay as borrowers, and by leveraging their deposits via fractional reserves.
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Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Central Bankers' Desperate Grab for Power / Politics / Central Banks
By: Ellen_Brown
Central bankers are out of ammunition. Mark Carney, the soon-to-be-retiring head of the Bank of England, admitted as much in a speech at the annual meeting of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in August. “In the longer-term,” he said, “we need to change the game.” The same point was made by Philipp Hildebrand, former head of the Swiss National Bank, in a recent interview with Bloomberg. “Really, there is little if any ammunition left,” he said. “More of the same in terms of monetary policy is unlikely to be an appropriate response if we get into a recession or sharp downturn.”
“More of the same” means further lowering interest rates, the central bankers’ stock tool for maintaining their targeted inflation rate in a downturn. Bargain-basement interest rates are supposed to stimulate the economy by encouraging borrowers to borrow (since rates are so low) and savers to spend (since they aren’t making any interest on their deposits and may have to pay to store them). At the moment, over $15 trillion in bonds are trading globally at negative interest rates, yet this radical maneuver has not been shown to measurably improve economic performance. In fact, new research shows that negative interest rates from central banks, rather than increasing spending, stopping deflation and stimulating the economy as they were expected to do, may be having the opposite effects. They are being blamed for squeezing banks, punishing savers, keeping dying companies on life support and fueling a potentially unsustainable surge in asset prices.
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Wednesday, September 04, 2019
Are Central Bankers Taking Sides the in US 2020 Presidential Election? / Politics / Central Banks
By: MoneyMetals
Individual investors are nervous about the stock market and the possibility of recession.
Meanwhile, institutional money from banks and hedge funds is keeping a bid under equities, pushing stock prices higher after every minor dip. Together with the “Plunge Protection Team,” they are keeping the wheels from coming off the stock market cart.
The question is whether that will continue. Or, to be more precise, will we see the monetary stimulus typically expected from the Fed during an economic slowdown, or will central bankers try to torpedo Trump’s re-election campaign as a Fed insider has just proposed?
President Donald Trump is increasingly critical of the Federal Reserve and chairman Jerome Powell for refusing to cut interest rates rapidly enough. He wants to place the blame for any recession and falling stock prices on the central bank and not on the trade war with China.
Tuesday, September 03, 2019
The Central Banks’ Time Machine is Broken / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Michael_Pento
Last week we wrote about how global central banks have created an economic time machine by forcing $17 trillion worth of bond yields below zero percent, which is now 30% of the entire developed world’s supply. Now it’s time to explain how the time machine they have built has broken down. In parts of the developed world, individuals are now being incentivized to consume their savings today rather than being rewarded for deferring consumption tomorrow. In effect, time has been flipped upside down. These same central bankers then broke that time machine by guaranteeing investors they will never cease printing money until inflation has been firmly and permanently inculcated into the economy.
They have printed $22 trillion worth of new credit in search of this goal since 2008. This figure is still growing by the day. But by doing so, they have destroyed Capitalism. Freedom is dying; not by some Red Army but by central banks.
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Friday, August 23, 2019
The Central Bank Time Machine / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Michael_Pento
We are now witnessing the death throes of the free market. The massive and record-breaking global debt overhang, which is now $250 trillion (330% of GDP), demands a deflationary deleveraging depression to occur; as a wave of defaults eliminates much of that untenable debt overhang. The vestiges of the free market are trying to accomplish this task, which is both healthy and necessary in the long term—no matter how destructive it may seem during the process. Just like a forest fire is sometimes necessary to clear away the dead brush in order to promote viable new growth. However, the “firemen” of today (central banks) are no longer in the business of containing wildfires, but instead proactively flooding the forest with a deluge of water to the point of destroying all life.
In point of fact, the free market is no longer being allowed to function. Communism has destroyed capitalism, as the vital savings and investment dynamic has been obliterated. Central banks have decided that savers deserve no return on their so-called risk-free investments and have hence forced into existence humongous bubbles in junk bonds and equity markets worldwide. They have destroyed the savings and investment dynamic and turned time backward.
Thursday, June 20, 2019
Interest Rates Square Minus Zero / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Raul_I_Meijer
I intentionally start writing this mere minutes away from Fed chair Jay Powell’s latest comments. Intentionally, because the importance ascribed to those comments only means we have gotten so far removed from what capitalism and free markets are supposed to be about, that it’s pathetic. The comments mean something for rich socialists, but nothing for the man in the street. Or, rather, they mean that the man in the street will get screwed worse for longer.
And it’s not just the Fed, all central banks have it and do it. They play around with rates and definitions and semantics until the cows can never come home again. And they have such levels of control over their respective societies and economies that the mere use of the word “markets” should result in loud and unending ridicule. There are no markets, because there is no price discovery, the Fed and ECB and BOJ got it all covered. Any downside risks, that is.
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Tuesday, October 02, 2018
Global Central Banks Enter the Danger Zone / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Michael_Pento
Investors are experiencing huge moves in commodities, currencies, equities and in sovereign debt across the globe. And now the fall has arrived. Expect the volatility currently witnessed in markets to only surge.
This is because global central banks have overwhelmingly turned hawkish in a vain attempt to gradually let the air out of the massive bubbles they have spent the last decade recreating. Unfortunately, that is not the nature of asset bubbles—they don’t end with a whimper--and they are about to burst in violent fashion.
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Saturday, September 15, 2018
Central Banks Have Gone Rogue, Putting Us All at Risk / Politics / Central Banks
By: Ellen_Brown
Excluding institutions such as Blackrock and Vanguard, which are composed of multiple investors, the largest single players in global equity markets are now thought to be central banks themselves. An estimated 30 to 40 central banks are invested in the stock market, either directly or through their investment vehicles (sovereign wealth funds). According to David Haggith at Zero Hedge:
Read full article... Read full article...Central banks buying stocks are effectively nationalizing U.S. corporations just to maintain the illusion that their “recovery” plan is working. … At first, their novel entry into the stock market was only intended to rescue imperiled corporations, such as General Motors during the first plunge into the Great Recession, but recently their efforts have shifted to propping up the entire stock market via major purchases of the most healthy companies on the market.
Monday, March 05, 2018
Trump to Declare War on Fed Central Bank / Politics / Central Banks
By: Michael_Pento
We are only a little over one year into the Donald’s Presidency and what we know most for sure is that our new President loves debt. Not only did debt and deficits get the cold shoulder in the recent State of the Union, Trump played “Let’s Make a Deal” with the Lords of the Swamp Mitch and Chuck to increase government spending by 13% over current levels. We also know that he prefers a weaker dollar, which he hopes will engender balanced trade—along with trade tariffs it now seems. But most of all, he loves as a rising stock market that he views as a report card for the administration and his success.
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Which Central Bank Will Go Under First When the Everything Bubble Bursts? / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Graham_Summers
In the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis, Central Banks began cornering the sovereign bond market via Zero or even Negative interest rates and Quantitative Easing (QE) programs.
The goal here was to reflate the financial system by pushing the “risk free rate” to extraordinary lows. By doing this, Central Bankers were hoping to:
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Tuesday, December 05, 2017
Central Banks Won’t See Our Sympathy / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Rodney_Johnson
It’s official. Lending institutions are having a tough time making loans.Don’t get me wrong, they still make money the old fashioned way: by borrowing from us through deposits on which they pay almost no interest, and then lending it long term to anyone that qualifies. But they’ve had to jack up their other fees because the traditional business plan just isn’t cutting it.
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Sunday, September 17, 2017
Believe Your Own Eyes: Central Banks FOLLOW the Market - Video / Stock-Markets / Central Banks
By: EWI
Believe Your Own Eyes: Central Banks FOLLOW the Market
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Sunday, August 27, 2017
Jackson Hole and the Appalachians / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Raul_I_Meijer
The Jackson Hole gathering of central bankers and other economics big shots is on again. They all still like themselves very much. Apart from a pesky inflation problem that none of them can get a grip on, they publicly maintain that they’re doing great, and they’re saving the planet (doing God’s work is already taken).
But the inflation problem lies in the fact that they don’t know what inflation is, and they’re just as knowledgeable when it comes to all other issues. They get sent tons of numbers and stats, and then compare these to their economic models. They don’t understand economics, and they’re not interested in trying to understand it. All they want is for the numbers to fit the models, and if they don’t, get different numbers.
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Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Central Banks ARE The Crisis / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Raul_I_Meijer
If there’s one myth -and there are many- that we should invalidate in the cross-over world of politics and economics, it‘s that central banks have saved us from a financial crisis. It’s a carefully construed myth, but it’s as false as can be. Our central banks have caused our financial crises, not saved us from them.
It really should -but doesn’t- make us cringe uncontrollably to see Bank of England governor-for-hire Mark Carney announce -straightfaced- that:
Read full article... Read full article...“A decade after the start of the global financial crisis, G20 reforms are building a safer, simpler and fairer financial system. “We have fixed the issues that caused the last crisis. They were fundamental and deep-seated, which is why it was such a major job.”
Friday, July 21, 2017
Are Central Bankers Secretly Terrified? / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Graham_Summers
Central Bankers are absolutely terrified.
In the last month, both Fed President Janet Yellen and ECB President Mario Draghi have issued somewhat hawkish statements, only to turn around within 48 hours and walk back their comments.
Again, two of the most powerful Central Bankers in the world couldn’t even last three days being hawks.
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Friday, April 28, 2017
Calling out the Central Bankers / Politics / Central Banks
By: Rodney_Johnson
I’m a fan of the Marvel Comics movies, like X-Men and Iron Man.My lovely wife often catches me watching tidbits of the Avenger films when I sit down in front of the TV to relax for a few minutes. I’ll flip around until I find one, watch just 20 to 30 minutes, then move on to another project in the house.
It drives her nuts!
I know the ending. The characters use their skills to better the world. They have clear goals, choose their targets, and execute. These are nice, neat packages, which is completely unlike the real world.
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Monday, March 20, 2017
Where the Fed Goes, Other Central Banks May Not Follow / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: STRATFOR
It has been a busy couple of days for the world's central banks. Since the U.S. Federal Reserve made its decision to hike interest rates, rate announcements have followed from the People's Bank of China, the Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of England. This confluence of activity from most of the key guardians of the global economy provides a good opportunity to take stock of where things stand.
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Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Broken Central Banks: 4 Quick Pix / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Jim_Willie_CB
The Western central bank franchise system is totally broken, totally insolvent, and totally corrupt. It invites the Gold Standard return. The entire financial system is built upon a debt-based monetary system. The debt saturation process has run its full course. The central bank heads have been covering the sovereign debt for the last five years, having rendered their balance sheets as ruined. Debt is at obscene levels, like $19.7 trillion for the USGovt. No debt limits are in place anymore, a signal that most likely it has already defaulted. A hidden game is underway, with control lost to the creditors, even as they attempt to salvage their debt holdings. The major central banks continue to manage badly the great game, where money is fake phony and a farce. A titanic battle is underway, where the Eastern nations are discarding their USTreasury Bonds, and doing so in tremendous volume while they set up the many platforms and pieces to the Gold Standard.
Monday, September 26, 2016
BoJ, FOMC and Where To Now? / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Gary_Tanashian
The Bank of Japan gave us a glimpse as to just how far down the rabbit hole we may have to follow global policy makers as we try to make sense of ever more complex and shall we say, innovative ‘tools’ being used in the effort to engineer individual economies and asset markets within the global financial system. BoJ announced it would conduct “JGB purchase operations” in order to “prevent the yield curve from deviating substantially from the current levels”.
The market initially interpreted this to mean BoJ stood in support of a rising yield curve, which would for example, help the banks (ref. MTU and SMFG, which exploded higher off of the support levels we had projected), but by the end of the week the Japanese Yield Curve had eased substantially and there seemed to be confusion about what the policy’s intent, or would-be effects, actually were. I wonder if the BoJ even fully knows what it is doing now. Lots of moving parts in a complex system.
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