Category: Central Banks

Thursday, March 01, 2012

Bernanke Maintains Cautious Stance on Further Monetary Easing / Politics / Central Banks

By: Asha_Bangalore

Chairman Bernanke maintained a cautious stance in today’s testimony at the Committee on Financial Services of the House of Representatives and left the door open for additional monetary policy easing. He opened his remarks with the observation that the “pace of expansion has been uneven and modest by historical standards.” In his opinion, economic activity is likely to match the pace seen in the latter half of 2011. The U.S. economy advanced at an average pace of 2.4% in the third and fourth quarters of 2011.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

The ECB Gone Wild; Living in Interesting Times / Politics / Central Banks

By: David_Knox_Barker

The historically hawkish European Central Bank (ECB) has the single mandate of ensuring price stability in the European Union. In the face of the rapidly unfolding debt deflation collapse of the European banking system in December 2011, the ECB shocked global financial markets with the December surprise of $645 billion in long-term refinancing operations (LTRO). The program provided three-year loans to strapped banks. The ECB on a lending binge to over 500 banks qualifies as interesting times by any standard.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Greenspan vs Trichet, a tie? / Politics / Central Banks

By: ECB_Watch

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Money, Banking, and the Federal Reserve / Politics / Central Banks

By: LewRockwell

Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson understood "The Monster". But to most Americans today, "Federal Reserve" is just a name on the dollar bill. They have no idea of what the central bank does to the economy, or to their own economic lives; of how and why it was founded and operates; or of the sound money and banking that could end the statism, inflation, and business cycles that the Fed generates.

Saturday, February 04, 2012

The Fed's BFF / Stock-Markets / Central Banks

By: Adrian_Ash

Cheap money was trending long before "the" Facebook lost its article and 845 million people lost the rights to their lives...

The U.S. FED'S status update last month about how it still loves cheap money always and forever was sure to work magic. Even if the pixie-dust did blow straight past output, incomes and capital formation.

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Official Currency Counterfeiters Run the World / Politics / Central Banks

By: Gary_North

Back in 1969, a Disney cartoonist sat down at his story board and produced a booklet that the Disney organization never saw: The Official Counterfeiter. It was a presentation of fractional reserve banking and the role of the Federal Reserve System.

His name was Vic Lockman. As far as I know, he was the first cartoonist ever to do a booklet based on the Austrian theory of the business cycle. He revised the booklet in 1974. It is now back online.

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Gold Money and Central Banking / Politics / Central Banks

By: William_Bancroft

Gold Money and Central Banking

Continuing a recent piece about today’s central banking elite, Will Bancroft examines recent political attention being focused on the Bank of England. Is it possible that politicians are missing the bigger point? Read on to see how well central bankers have managed our money this last hundred years, and what role gold and silver could play.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Bernanke's Dog(ma) / Politics / Central Banks

By: William_Bancroft

Will Bancroft takes a look at central banking, its intellectual foundations, and its most powerful agents today. What does it all mean for investors? We take a good look at the Bernanke Fed and the cartel of central banks, and wonder whether we are being well lead by our financial captains. Read on to learn more and see how these issues are linked to the gold price.

Friday, January 20, 2012

A Quartet of Fed Chairmen Body Slam Ben Bernanke / Politics / Central Banks

By: Fred_Sheehan

"Ben Bernanke's quest to make the U.S. Federal Reserve more transparent may be nearing an end as it debates a new statement of goals and strategy that is likely to put a number on its preferred inflation rate. A formal, numerical goal for inflation could become Mr. Bernanke's most durable legacy as chairman of the Fed. It would bind his successors to stable prices; end confusion caused by Fed officials who can have slightly different goals; and by reinforcing the Fed's determination to control inflation in the long-run, it could create space for monetary easing." -- "Fed Nears Inflation Target Decision;" Robin Harding in the Financial Times, January 17, 2012

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Fed Plays PR Games / Politics / Central Banks

By: John_Browne

The world was taken by surprise recently by the Federal Reserve Board's announcement that it would publish some of its economic forecasting that forms the basis for its short-term interest rate strategy. The Fed claims that the move will vastly increase so-called transparency, which has become a buzz word for honesty and virtue. However, the new policies do nothing to remove the cloak of secrecy that conceals still many of its most significant activities. This myth of new transparency will do little to lure investors back into the markets but as an unintended consequence will reveal just how profoundly the markets are currently guided from the top.

Sunday, January 08, 2012

Global Interest Rate Movements in 2011 / Interest-Rates / Central Banks

By: CentralBankNews

Of the central banks that net increased their interest rates, the average increase was 281 basis points (skewed up by Belarus; the average would be 185 excluding Belarus).  There were 18 central banks tightening by 100 or more basis points.  The outliers were Belarus 3450bps, Kenya 1200bps, and Uganda 1000bps.  Of those tightening rates, it was largely emerging and frontier markets, with inflation pressures running high on the back of rising food commodity prices and relatively buoyant economic conditions, particularly in the early part of the year.

Friday, December 30, 2011

Rothschild, U.S. Fed, Admit Nothing. Explain Nothing / Politics / Central Banks

By: Richard_Mills

Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild, founder of the International Banking House of Rothschild said:

"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."

The Rothschild brothers, already laying the foundation for the Federal Reserve Act, wrote the following to New York associates in 1863:

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

What Will 2012 Bring for Global Central Banks Monetary Policy? / Interest-Rates / Central Banks

By: CentralBankNews

he year of 2011 was an interesting and eventful year in monetary policy.  As the chart below shows, the GDP weighted average interest rate of central banks crept up in the first half of the year as commodity prices remained buoyant, economic recoveries showed signs of gaining momentum, and inflation was the key concern in emerging markets.  But this was then followed by a reversal in course in the later part of the year as the specter of the European debt crisis and slowing global growth raised downside risks for growth and price stability, spurring central bankers to cut rates and otherwise ease policy settings.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Should Definition of Central Bank Lender of Last Resort Function Be Expanded? / Interest-Rates / Central Banks

By: Paul_L_Kasriel

A fractional-reserve banking system is susceptible to bouts of liquidity stringencies that, if left unchecked, can result in serial bank failures and an abrupt contraction in bank credit. The sine qua non of central banking is to act as a lender of last resort to otherwise solvent but temporarily illiquid banks so as to prevent their temporary illiquidity from deteriorating into insolvency, which would result in the aforementioned contraction in bank credit. This "narrow" interpretation of the lender-of-last resort function was the catalyst for the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. After the Banking Crisis of 1907, Congress believed that it was necessary to re-establish a central bank lender of last resort so as to prevent temporary financial market liquidity stringencies from deteriorating into severe economy-wide recessions.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Robert Prechter Explains The Fed, Money, Credit and the Federal Reserve Banking System / Interest-Rates / Central Banks

By: EWI

This is Part III, the final part of our series "Robert Prechter Explains The Fed." (Here are Part I and Part II.)

Money, Credit and the Federal Reserve Banking System

Conquer the Crash, Chapter 10 By Robert Prechter

Thursday, December 22, 2011

U.S. Fed Lets Banks Off the Hook… Again / Politics / Central Banks

By: Money_Morning

David Zeiler writes: We've told you before that the U.S. Federal Reserve puts Wall Street's interest above that of the American public. And yesterday (Wednesday) the central bank proved it... again.

Confronted with the opportunity to enact meaningful change to the regulatory system, the Fed punted on its responsibility to protect the public from the very banks that brought down the global economy.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Out of Answers, Federal Reserve Can Only Offer Empty Rhetoric / Politics / Central Banks

By: Money_Morning

David Zeiler writes: The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is scheduled to issue a statement at 2:15 pm. today (Tuesday), but don't expect anything other than more empty rhetoric.

Indeed, with few options remaining, the Fed is expected to produce little more than a statement designed to reassure the markets following today's meeting.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Are Central Banks Buying Printing Presses? / Politics / Central Banks

By: Eric_McWhinnie

Gold and silver remain stuck in a range as Europe continues to keep investors waiting for the next headline. Reuters reports, “Europe divided on Friday in a historic rift over building a closer fiscal union to preserve the euro, with an overwhelming majority of countries led by Germany and France agreeing to forge ahead with a separate treaty, leaving the EU’s third biggest economy Britain isolated.” It is still unknown when more definite action will take place to address the debt crisis. A new treaty could take several months to negotiate, and may even require referendums in some countries.

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Jim Rogers: "The Fed is Lying to Us" / Stock-Markets / Central Banks

By: Money_Morning

David Zeiler writes: Despite statements to the contrary, the U.S. Federal Reserve has continued to pump money into the economy, says investing legend Jim Rogers.

The resulting low interest rates and creeping inflation, he says, are destroying the wealth of millions.

Saturday, December 03, 2011

One Bank to Rule Them All / Politics / Central Banks

By: Mike_Whitney

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve and the central banks of Canada, England, Japan, Switzerland, and Europe launched a coordinated monetary intervention aimed at easing interbank lending in the eurozone. While the emergency action sent stocks into the stratosphere, it did not relieve tensions in the markets or increase trust between the banks. In fact, on Thursday, banks stashed €313.763 billion at the European Central Bank’s overnight deposit facility, a new high for the year. Banks leave money with the ECB overnight when they are too worried about counterparty risk to lend to other banks. At the same time, the amount of money that EU banks are borrowing from the ECB, continues to rise, indicating their inability to raise money in the capital markets. These signs of growing distress show that the hoopla surrounding the central bank action are unwarranted. Conditions in the eurozone continue to deteriorate.