“Fraud generates risk, and risk eventually breaks out in the “safest” parts of the financial plumbing, the ones nobody gives a second thought to because they’re “low risk.”” – C H Smith
Let’s go all the way back to the last time a central banker actually spoke the truth in public: December 5, 1996, 18 long years ago. It was on that day that Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan gave a typically dry speech that hinted stocks could actually become overvalued (gasp!) due to irrational exuberance and subsequently plummet when rational valuations returned:
Clearly, sustained low inflation implies less uncertainty about the future, and lower risk premiums imply higher prices of stocks and other earning assets. We can see that in the inverse relationship exhibited by price/earnings ratios and the rate of inflation in the past. But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?
Global stock markets promptly sold off hard at the shocking revelation that stocks might actually become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions. This sharp reaction to a fundamental truth about markets–that they are prone to the irrational exuberance of participants, and the computer trading programs keyed to this momentum magnify the irrationality–caused central bankers to avoid any upsetting truth from then on. Continue reading
A fractional gram’s worth of gold is affixed to layers of polyester, creating a note – called an “Aurum” – similar in dimension and thickness to a U.S. dollar bill. This gold (usually 1/10th or 1/20th of a gram) is commercially recoverable. So an Aurum offers similar potential as a coin or bar, in terms of providing a vehicle for storing and exchanging known, dependable increments of precious metals – just in much smaller (and more affordable) amounts than commercially available to date.
Now that we have celebrated Thanksgiving, I was struck by the news that Congress is considering legislation that would grant large tax breaks to corporate citizens and actually remove tax breaks for the poor and the middle class.
On the weekend of November 16th, the G20 leaders whisked into Brisbane, posed for their photo ops, approved some proposals, made a show of roundly disapproving of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and whisked out again. It was all so fast, they may not have known what they were endorsing when they rubber-stamped the Financial Stability Board’s “Adequacy of Loss-Absorbing Capacity of Global Systemically Important Banks in Resolution,” which completely changes the rules of banking.