Since the lousy jobs report, there has been a veritable orgy of Fed Speak with juicy morsels and contradictions, interspersed with leaks and rumors, that climaxed today with Chairman Ben Bernanke’s words of wisdom. It whipped markets into a frenzy, drove the Dow up 500 points, knocked yields to historic lows, and caused gold, the safe-haven, to bounce up and down like a rubber ball. And everyone was eagerly waiting for the big lie.
Monthly Archives: June 2012
A Central Banker Utters The Truth
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on A Central Banker Utters The Truth
On July 1, Cyprus, a tiny country on a divided island, will rotate into the Presidency of the Council of the mighty EU—one of those bitter European ironies because Cyprus will have to be bailed out, according to its Central Bank governor. Reality is now even staining the Teflon economy of Germany with a daily litany of suddenly awful data points. But a central banker pointed at an uplifting story of austerity and growth at the edge of Eurozone mayhem.
Argentina: Everything but the Kitchen Sink
by Bianca Fernet • • Comments Off on Argentina: Everything but the Kitchen Sink
Contributed by Bianca Fernet. Argentina is known for its myriad of protests against price increases, lack of wage increases, benefits for veterans, laws regulating the sale of goods on the street, lack of funding for schools, increases in subway prices…. These protests are accompanied by much more disruptive behavior than clanging pots and pans. Yet are treated as commonplace occurrences, like a minor traffic collision