By Simon Black Today’s the day. After months of preparing financial markets for this news, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to announce that it will finally begin shrinking its $4.5 trillion balance sheet. I know, that probably sound reeeeally boring. A bunch of central bankers talking about their balance sheet. But it’s phenomenally important. And I’ll explain why- When …
One Man’s Opinion: The Trouble With Asset Bubbles: If You Stop Pumping, They Pop
By Charles Hugh Smith The trouble with inflating asset bubbles is that you have to keep inflating them or they pop. Unfortunately for the bubble-blowing central banks, asset bubbles are a double-bind: you cannot inflate assets forever. At some unpredictable point, the risk and moral hazard that are part and parcel of all asset bubbles trigger an avalanche of selling …
One Man’s Opinion: The World Is Becoming Desperate About Deflation
By Vitaliy Katsenelson The Great Recession may be over, but eight years later we can still see the deep scars and unhealed wounds it left on the global economy. In an attempt to prevent an unpleasant revisit to the Stone Age, global governments have bailed out banks and the private sector. These bailouts and subsequent stimuli swelled global government debt, …
One Man’s Opinion: Weird Things Are Happening With Gold
By James Rickards Last week featured two unusual stories on gold – one strange and the other truly weird. These stories explain why gold is not just money but is the most politicized form of money. They show that while politicians publicly disparage gold, they quietly pay close attention to it. The first strange gold story involves Germany… The Deutsche …
One Man’s Opinion: Here’s How The Next Recession Begins
By Simon Black In 1886 there were only 38 states in the United States. Electric power was still cutting edge technology that few people had ever seen. The Statue of Liberty hadn’t even been dedicated yet. But it was that year that a man named Richard Sears founded a small retail company in Minneapolis, Minnesota that would grow into a …
One Man’s Opinion: Orwell Or Kafka – Ken Rogoff’s Crusade Against Cash Continues
Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog, Harvard professor and chess grandmaster Kenneth Rogoff has said some pretty out there stuff before, in his role as self-appointed crusader against cash, but apparently he’s not done yet. In fact, he might just be getting started. This time around he sounds like a crossover between George Orwell and Franz …