White Shoe Boys

Yellen: How High Is Up?

"Yellen seems to be setting the table for continued monetization not industrialization. The Fed under Yellen, as under Bernanke, is concerned mainly with the 'monetary economy' because that benefits globalist strategies. A healthy 'normal' economy helps working class people. A monetized economy boosts stock markets, upscale real estate, high-end luxury goods, speculative investments, etc. From my point of view, this is no coincidence and it's one reason High Alert continues to present our 'Wall Street Party' meme. A slow economy awash in currency that is gradually trickled into stock and bond markets is an 'investor's' economy." Continue reading →

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Doug French: The Market Is Rigged

"In the end, the controversy surrounding high-frequency trading is likely much ado about nothing. For one thing, the industry peaked five years ago, pulling in $5 billion in profits. In 2012, it pulled in $1 billion. That might sound like a lot, but JPMorgan Chase made $5 billion just last quarter. As far as influencing markets and costing the average person money, HFT doesn’t compare to the Fed’s quantitative easing and zero interest rate policy. A more sound currency, whether metallic or digital, would spread a healthier culture: one not so obsessed with speculation, wealth, material goods, and nanoseconds." Continue reading →

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Bill Bonner: Don’t Be Fooled By the Wealth Inequality Debate

"QE is supposed to be the weapon in the Fed’s fight against unemployment. The Fed is still buying $45 billion of bonds via QE every month… in addition to holding short-term interest rates to the floor. Where does that $45 billion go? The insurance companies and pension funds that sell bonds to the Fed use this newly created money to buy the real assets of America – houses, companies, commercial property, resources, farmland… everything. And that drives up the prices of everything for everyone else. The Fed says QE is meant to help create jobs… and 'stimulate' the economy. It does nothing of the sort. Instead, it lines the pockets of those at the top of the heap." Continue reading →

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Former US Consumer Finance Watchdog Voices Support for Bitcoin

"Raj Date, the former Deputy Director of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a consumer finance watchdog, said in an interview this week that he supports – and is now investing in – bitcoin. During a segment of Bloomberg Television’s 'Street Smart,' Date commented that, on a personal level, he sees a lot of potential in digital currencies like bitcoin. In the interview, Date said that bitcoin has the potential to deliver faster and more secure payments than is currently possible for most consumers, and remarked that the pace of innovation could result in a broader evolution in digital currencies." Continue reading →

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Fund Manager Jeremy Grantham Blasts the Fed

"The Fed can manipulate stock prices. That's perhaps the only thing they can do. But why would you want to get an advantage from the wealth effect when you know you are going to have to give it all back when the Fed reverses course. At the same time, the Fed encourages steady increasing leverage and more asset bubbles. It's clear to most investing professionals that they can benefit from an asymmetric bet here. The Fed gives them very cheap leverage on the upside, and then bails them out on the downside. And you should have more confidence of that now. The only ones who have really benefited from QE are hedge fund managers." Continue reading →

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Cyprus Central Bank Governor resigns with $250K golden parachute

"One of the main criticisms directed against Demetriades has been how, under his watch, the now defunct Laiki Bank accumulated around €9.5 billion in emergency liquidity aid, only to buckle and fail when the ECB threatened to pull assistance. 'How much independence can a central banker have when, from his statements, it appears he was serving other expediencies instead of his country’s interest,' President Nicos Anastasiades said last year. For the state to get its €10 billion in bailout funds last March, the president said, it was told to privatise state companies, seize deposits, make painful cuts, and raise taxes." Continue reading →

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Gold Fix Study Shows Signs of Decade of Bank Manipulation

"The London gold fix, the benchmark used by miners, jewelers and central banks to value the metal, may have been manipulated for a decade by the banks setting it, researchers say. The paper is the first to raise the possibility that the five banks overseeing the century-old rate -- Barclays Plc, Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) and Societe Generale SA (GLE) -- may have been actively working together to manipulate the benchmark. Authorities around the world, already investigating the manipulation of benchmarks from interest rates to foreign exchange, are examining the $20 trillion gold market for signs of wrongdoing." Continue reading →

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Why Gordon Brown sold Britain’s gold at a knock-down price [2012]

"When Brown decided to dispose of almost 400 tonnes of gold between 1999 and 2002, he did two distinctly odd things. First, he broke with convention and announced the sale well in advance, giving the market notice that it was shortly to be flooded and forcing down the spot price. This was apparently done in the interests of 'open government', but had the effect of sending the spot price of gold to a 20-year low, as implied by basic supply and demand theory. Second, the Treasury elected to sell its gold via auction, which frequently achieved a lower price than the equivalent fix price. It seemed almost as if the Treasury was trying to achieve the lowest price possible for the public’s gold. It was." Continue reading →

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It’s Hard to Summon Sympathy for Big Banks

"It may not be easy to be sympathetic to the big banks, but it is easy to understand their surprise and frustration. They have gone from being viewed as national champions — proof of a country’s standing in the world — to being seen as a potential source of national disaster. Iceland and Ireland went broke because they had to, or chose to, bail out their irresponsible banks. Eric H. Holder Jr., the attorney general, did not help when he said last spring that the Justice Department had to keep in mind that filing criminal charges against a large bank could 'have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.' He quickly backtracked, but the perception was reinforced." Continue reading →

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Could We Have Been Correct About the Stock Market?

"Today government – and its central banks – utilize the private sector for policy purposes. Tomorrow, government may see fit to move those levers directly. In the meantime, there can be no doubt – as we have observed – that the plan is to take the stock market a good deal higher. While equity purists shall object that when earnings decouple from prices a crash is near, we would beg to differ. Volatility is certainly headed our way. But not necessarily an earth shattering crash, or not yet anyway. Markets are strange beasts. Pumped up by modern fiat money, they can go higher than one might expect – and then stay down longer, as well, as Japanese markets have." Continue reading →

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