Category: Central Banks
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Why Did Ben Bernanke Cross the Road? / Politics / Central Banks
By: Paul_Tustain
A play in one (very) short act...
"Uncle Ben, what's that over there?"
"Shush, my child."
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Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Jackals of Jekyll Island - Federal Reserve Audit / Politics / Central Banks
By: BATR
The supreme illicit fraud of central banking embodied in the Federal Reserve, acts as a private piggybank for favored cartel thieves. The liquidity of unlimited credit transfers to banksters, especially at zero interest, financed by unimaginable new Treasury Bonds, indebting the American public; is a crime committed by outlaws. The significance of the evidence for the extent of the crony financial manipulations, that the controllers of international capital use to maintain their power strangle hold on humanity, needs to be fully exposed. Only when the beleaguered and downtrodden become sufficiently indignant to usury incarceration, will heads start to roll.
Friday, September 07, 2012
The Fed's Campaign / Politics / Central Banks
By: Peter_Schiff
This past Friday, as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered his annual address from Jackson Hole - the State of the Dollar, if you will - I couldn't help but hear it as an incumbent's campaign speech. While Wall Street was hoping for some concrete announcement, what we got was a mushy appraisal of the Fed's handling of the financial crisis so far and a suggestion that more 'help' is on the way.
It is important to remember that it's not just President Obama's job on the line in this election; in two years time, the next President will have the opportunity to either reappoint Bernanke or choose someone else. So we must understand what platform Bernanke is running on, as his office has an even greater effect on global markets than the President's.
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Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Speaking from Jackson Hole / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Ian_R_Campbell
Why read: You will by now have been bombarded for three-plus days by written and verbal commentary on Federal Reserve Chair Bernanke's Friday, August 31, 2012 remarks made from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. You will have observed last Friday afternoon's U.S.$35+ jump in the physical gold price, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 Index advances on Friday on the same news. Friday was a 'when Mr. Bernanke speaks, everyone listens positively' moment, even if it is 'just possible' that not everything Mr. Bernanke said on Friday ought not to be seen positively.
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Central Bankers Fail to Understand Forces Holding Back the Economy / Economics / Central Banks
By: Mike_Shedlock
Central bankers Debating the Limits of Power in Jackson Hole are wondering what's holding back the economy.
Read full article... Read full article..."What is holding the economy back? Why is it that we've had such incredibly accommodative monetary policy for so long (but) we've had so little growth? I think it remains a puzzle," said Donald Kohn, who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Fed Needs to Get Out of Business of Central Planning / Politics / Central Banks
By: Bloomberg
James Grant, publisher of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, appeared on "Bloomberg Surveillance" with Tom Keene and Sara Eisen this morning and said that the Federal Reserve needs to "get out of the business of central planning."
Of the stock market, Grant said, "I think we live in a hall of mirrors in finance thanks to the zero interest rate regime and the chronic nonstop interventions. We do not know exactly where we are." Grant also said that he "would like to see the Fed admit it can't do what it promises to do" at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium this week.
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Monday, August 27, 2012
What the FED Should Do Now / Politics / Central Banks
By: Alasdair_Macleod
The last time I "advised" the FED on what to do was on Feb. 6, 2012. I "told" Ben not to do QE3, and he didn’t. Instead, he did Operation Twist. This was the second one of its type. The first Operation Twist occurred in 1961. The Twist is an attempt by the FED to alter the shape of the bond yield curve. It really doesn’t succeed. Considering the huge size of the debt market and the arbitrage that occurs along the spectrum of bonds of different maturities, it’s hardly to be expected that the FED is even capable of altering the yield curve in any economically significant manner. Most of the FOMC and its staff knew it would be futile (or should have known), because the research on the effect of the 1961 operation concluded that it did very little and accomplished nothing. This didn’t stop them in 2012. Why do something so futile? My guess is they wanted to throw some kind of a bone to those who were urging the FED to do more, including some on the FOMC itself. They had little to lose and something to gain, which was to buy time and give the appearance of acting.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Crunch Time for Central Banks / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Michael_Pento
Global central banks have promised to pump an unprecedented amount of money into the system. They are trying to mollify the effects from a global contraction in GDP and the growing likelihood of a war between Israel and Iran.
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Monday, August 13, 2012
Greenspan's Silver Anniversary / Politics / Central Banks
By: Fred_Sheehan
"Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of one Sir Alan Greenspan's confirmation vote. Fred, you doing anything special to celebrate?" wrote Scott Frew, General Partner of Rockingham Capital Partners L.P. hedge fund.
Well, no, but we have an obligation to remember. What follows is a draft of was later refined in Panderer to Power: The Untold Story of How Alan Greenspan Enriched Wall Street and Left a Legacy of Recession and in other publications. This includes comments of other senators that may not have been published elsewhere. Reading through this early version, it is notable how many senators were concerned the imbalances - federal budget deficit, trade deficit, the leveraging of corporate balance sheets - were about to crush the country. And here we are 25 years later.
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Saturday, August 11, 2012
Crackpot Economists Don't Know How to End the Fed / Politics / Central Banks
By: Gary_North
It would be very easy to end the Federal Reserve System. Congress would write the following bill. The President would sign it.
- The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and all subsequent amendments to that Act are hereby revoked.
- The gold that belongs to the United States government, and which is kept on deposit with the Federal Reserve System, is hereby transferred to account of the United States Treasury.
Thursday, August 09, 2012
Fed Money Printing Going Digital / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Fred_Sheehan
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is threatening us with "further action" if the economy does not do something or other. (He cannot remember his objective from one press conference to the next, so there is no reason anyone else should.) One view holds the chairman has done all he can, but this underestimates his options. First to follow is a summary of what he proposed in advance and what he delivered. Second, there are some options floating through central-banking channels that should not be dismissed. In conclusion, the consequence may be the end of central banking.
Tuesday, August 07, 2012
Central Bankers, The Not So Super Hero's / Politics / Central Banks
By: Peter_Schiff
The past week provided clear lessons not just in how central bankers have a limited ability to positively influence the economy but also how they are limited in their capacity to deliver the shortsighted policy actions that investors currently crave. The developments should provide new reasons for investors and economy watchers to abandon their faith in central bankers as super heroes capable of saving the economy.
Tuesday, August 07, 2012
Bernanke’s Pursuit of Happiness / Politics / Central Banks
By: Jan_Skoyles
Yesterday Bernanke, in a pre-recorded speech to a conference in Cambridge, MA, extolled the virtues of happiness economics.
Let’s be honest, there was little point in him singing the praises of his own area of economics, that’s fallen flat on its face.
Across the developed world the damages from the fiat money system become greater every day. Governments and central bankers are the ones to thanks for widening levels of poverty and inequality. The majority of our daily lives are affected by decisions made from us drawn from economic studies and statistics. But now the most sacred thing to all of us – our happiness – is something the most powerful government on earth would like to get their hands on.
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Saturday, August 04, 2012
ECB Bazooka Economics / Politics / Central Banks
By: Stephen_Lendman
Did he or didn't he? ECB president Mario Draghi promised "whatever it takes." Great expectations arose. August 2 was D-Day.
Fizzle followed sizzle. Bazooka plans stalled. More on Draghi's pronouncement below and what it means.
Europe's economy is broken. Monetary intervention solved nothing. Core problems fester and grow. Contagion spreads everywhere. Effective solutions are absent.
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Friday, August 03, 2012
Central Banks Have Now Been Revealed to be Impotent! / Politics / Central Banks
By: Sy_Harding
This week central banks and euro-zone officials showed us that is the predicament they’re in.
In the U.S. the Federal Reserve, repeatedly threatened by a stumbling economic recovery, has fired off rounds of quantitative easing each time, accompanied by considerable hullabaloo. The effect was limited, the menace soon returning. And it’s become debatable whether firing off the quantitative easing was itself helpful, or if the temporary reprieve each time was just due to the hope raised by the accompanying rhetoric.
Thursday, August 02, 2012
Audit the Out of Control Fed, Restore “Free Markets for Free People” / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Gary_Dorsch
When will the Fed’s folly and madness come to an end? Perhaps next year, we’ll begin to see big changes at the Federal Reserve, including the sacking of Fed chief Ben Bernanke, and his henchmen of addicted money printers, who have tossed aside the notion of “Moral Hazard,” a long time ago, and instead, are engaging in “financial repression” in the bond markets, and the rigging of the stock market, much to the chagrin of believers in free markets. However, in order for this shake-up at the Fed to occur, the Republican Party would have to beat the odds, by capturing the White House, and majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Auditing The Fed is Like Auditing a Mafia Counterfeiting Operation / Politics / Central Banks
By: Jeff_Berwick
Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act (H.R. 459), or “Audit the Fed,” passed Wednesday July 25, 2012 in the U.S. House of Representatives by a wide margin of 327-98, exceeding the two-thirds majority needed. It had 274 cosponsors. But, by the evening of the same day, mainstream press around the country was already preparing the people for the bill’s fate in the Democrat-controlled Senate. As the Chicago Tribune and others reported, it had little chance of passing in the Senate, let alone being signed into law by the President. In fact, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has already said that the Senate will not even consider the bill, because, as Ron Paul told CSPAN, he didn’t have the “guts.” With this in mind, as well as their own reputations, Romney, Boehner and Cantor backed it. Even Harry Reid backed it… in 1987 and 2010, but now he has changed his mind on a Fed audit for some reason.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Central Banks Are Doomed, Thanks to the Fed's Criminality / Politics / Central Banks
By: Gary_North
The word "untouchable" means something different in India than it does in the West. In India, no one wants to be an untouchable. In the West, achieving the status of untouchable is the supreme organizational goal.
In India, untouchable status means that you cannot move up. In the West, it means that you can't be pulled down.
In every Western nation, certain institutions are untouchable. Anyone challenging them is regarded as a revolutionary, a kook, or a self-promoter looking for publicity.
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Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Belief in the Fed Heads South / Politics / Central Banks
By: Paul_Lamont
In 1720, British legislators considered the South Sea Company's proposal to privatize the national debt. While they debated this swap of debt (in the form of annuities) for stock, a speculative mania for South Sea shares began. Edward Chancellor in Devil Take the Hindmost relates; "Exchange Alley in April 1720 resembled 'nothing so much as if all the Lunatics had escaped out of the Madhouse at once.'"
Most remarkable in this particular financial episode was the involvement of high level authorities.
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Thursday, July 12, 2012
The Fed's Next Move / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Michael_Pento
Spanish and Italian bond yields have now risen back up to the level they were before the EU Summit. We also learned recently that U.S. job growth remains anemic, producing just 80k net new jobs in June. The global manufacturing index dropped to 48.9, for the first time since 2009. And emerging market economies have seen their growth rates tumble, as the European economy sinks further into recession.
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