TRUTH ON OUR FAKE ECONOMY by Nomi Prins
"Since late 2007, the Federal Reserve has embarked on grand-scale collusion with other G-7 central banks to
manufacture a massive amount of money..."
Since late 2007, the Federal
Reserve has embarked on grand-scale collusion with other G-7 central banks to
manufacture a massive amount of money. The scope and degree of this collusion are historically unprecedented and
by admission of the perpetrators, unconventional in approach, and - depending
on the speech - ineffective.
Central bankers have played a
game with no defined goalposts, no clock rundown, no max scores, and no true
end in sight. At the Fed’s
instigation, central bankers built policy on the fly.
Cracks in the Facade
On July 31, 2017,
Stanley Fischer, vice chairman of the Fed, delivered a speech in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil. There, he addressed the phenomenon of low interest rates
worldwide.
Fischer admitted that
“the
effects of quantitative easing in the United States and abroad” are suppressing
rates. He also said there was “a heightened demand for safe assets affecting
yields on advanced-economy government securities.” (Actually, there's been heighted demand for
junky assets, as well, which has manifested in a bi-polarity of saver vs.
speculator preference.) What Fischer meant was that investors are realizing that low rates
since 2008 haven’t fueled real growth, just asset bubbles.
Remember,
Fischer is the Fed’s No. 2 man. He was also a professor to former Fed Chair Ben
Bernanke and current European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. Both have
considered him to be a major influence in their economic outlook.
The “Big Three” central banks — the Fed, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan — have
collectively held rates at a zero percent on average since the global financial
crisis began. For nearly a decade, central
banks have been batting about tens of trillions of dollars to do so.
They have fueled bubbles. They
have amassed assets on their books worth nearly $14 trillion. That’s money not
serving any productive, real-economy purpose – because it happens to be in
lock-down.
In other words, why should we hope that a 10-year global “solution” to
instill long-term financial stability and economic growth, even as it’s been
repeatedly touted as such, should do what central bankers said it will? The
answer again is, we shouldn't.
The Winners and Losers
Since the global financial
crisis, the biggest G7 winners have been the Big Six US banks that profited
from access to cheap money. They benefitted from central bank purchases of their securities that
exaggerated the value of the remaining securities on their books. They used
“printed” or electronically crafted money to stockpile cash and fund buybacks
of their own shares and pay themselves dividends on those shares. By producing
and distributing artificial money, central bankers distorted reality in global
markets. Multi-national banks were co-conspirators in that maneuver.
After the Big Six banks passed
their latest round of stress tests, they began buying even more of their own
shares back. The move elevated their stock prices further. The largest U.S.
bank, JP Morgan Chase, announced its most ambitious program to buy back its own
shares since the 2008 crisis, $19.4 billion worth. Citigroup followed suit with a $15.6 billion buy-bank plan.
More ominous than that was
another clear sign that a decade of money-conjuring collusion helped the same
banks that caused the last crisis. Proof came in the form of a letter to the U.S. Senate banking committee
from Thomas Hoenig, the vice-chairman of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance
Corp. (FDIC), the government agency in charge of guaranteeing people’s
deposits. He wrote that in 2017, U.S. banks used 99% of their net earnings
toward purchases of their own stock and paying dividends to shareholders
(including themselves).
They thus legally manipulated
markets in plain sight by pushing their own share prices up with cheap money
availed to them by the central bank that is supposed to regulate them.
As of this year, global debt
levels stood at 325% GDP, or about $217 trillion. The $14 trillion of assets the G-3 central banks held on their books is
equivalent to a staggering 17% of all global GDP. The European Central Bank
(ECB), Bank of Japan (BOJ) and Bank of England are still buying collectively
$200 billion worth of assets per month.
In the wake of that buying,
noncash instruments - crypto currencies and hard assets like gold, unrelated to
the main G-7 monetary system - have become increasingly attractive on the fear
that in another major downturn or crisis, central banks and private banks will
retract cash and liquidity from their customers.
In that likely
event, banks will protect themselves and turn to governments and central banks
again. In the absence of some sort of outside central bank benchmark, like a
modern gold standard or use of currency basket benchmarks like the IMF’s
Special Drawing Rights (SDR), currency wars will continue to be fought.
With rates hovering
between zero and negative in some countries, there would be little to no room to maneuver in the face of another crisis. Thus
- another thing has become increasingly clear: Central bankers have
demonstrated gross negligence regarding the consequences of their monetarily omnipotent
actions.
If rates were to rise higher in
the US (and I don't think we're in for more than another 25 basis points, this
year which is under last year's Fed forecast) so would the cost of servicing
that debt. That would hurt companies domestically and
abroad, induce more defaults and a rush by the banks involved in derivatives
associated with that debt to concoct more toxic assets. The vicious cycle of central bank bailouts would reverberate
again.
Savers and
pensioners are getting close to no interest on their nest eggs. Depositors
are paying banks to house their money through fees that offset
negligible interest. Small businesses have to jump through hoops to get loans
for expansion purposes. Wages are stagnant. Ultimately, big banks had played
the system — and us — again, this time with central banks helping to fund them.
The threat of an even larger collapse looms as stock markets and global debt
have been propelled higher.
As
we approach the ninth anniversary of the collapse of one of my former
employers, Lehman Brothers, and the 10th anniversary of the beginning of
central bank collusion into the financial crisis, there has been – no change –
in global G7 central bank monetary policy.
Jackson Hole offered
a different spin on the same old verbiage, indicating that a bit of nipping
here, means a lot of tucking somewhere else. Janet Yellen took what could be
her last hoorah to craft her legacy as potential Fed Chair nominee and current
Trump National Economic Council Director, Gary Cohn, awaits his possible turn.
And if it’s not him, it’ll remain her, or someone else that will perpetuate
more of the same policies.
While speaking to
the monetary policy glitterati at central bank base-camp, Yellen declared any dialing back of regulatory reform
measures for banks should be “modest.” She said, “The evidence shows that reforms since the crisis have made
the financial system substantially safer.” There
was no mention of the unprecedented decade of easy money bolstering the
financial system - that makes it appear - solvent.
For all the cheap
cash offered up, much at the expense of taxpayers who will bear the burden of
the associated debt this enabled, and the bank fraud it plastered over, it will be ordinary citizens who will pay the
price – yet again. In the era of money fabrication and
monetary policy collusion, a decade of ongoing “emergency” procedure spells an
eventual recipe for disaster.
Big US banks are bigger than
before the crisis. They float atop a life-raft, among other things, of $4.5 trillion
Fed asset book, as part of a total $14 trillion G7 central bank asset book. Yellen’s speech was code for preserving the
status quo and central bank elasticity high. As for Cohn’s sentiment on the
matter? Well, he feels the same. So does Trump. So did Obama.
Take the composite of all
that and what are you left with? Ongoing G7 central bank monetary policy
collusion, zero percent interest rates globally, unlimited QE potential, and
major asset bubbles.
…
Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-30/nomi-prins-decade-g7-central-bank-collusion-and-counting
----
----
READ ALSO:
- A Decade Of Central Bank Collusion by Nomi Prins via NomiPrins.com
----
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario