Wolf Richter

Draghi’s Bold Push For Creeping Defaults And Real Wage Cuts

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There is nothing like a wealthy central bank chief admitting that he wants to, one, help governments default gradually on their debts; and two, cut the real wages of workers. An honesty the Fed never dared to exhibit when it inflicted waves of QE on American workers.

Housing Bubble 2.0 Veers Elegantly

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They’re not even trying to blame the weather this time. “Housing affordability is really taking a bite out of the market,” is how Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist for the California Association of Realtors explained the March home sales fiasco. “We haven’t seen this issue since 2007.” In Southern California, the median price soared to a…

What the Heck is Going on With US Treasuries In Belgium?

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The tiny country of Belgium with a GDP of $484 billion, a country that became famous to the chagrin of some people because it did just fine for a couple of years without a national government – well, it’s growing an enormous mountain of US Treasuries.

What Happens When ‘All Assets Have Become Too Expensive?’

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A report from the asset management and investment banking division of Groupe BPCE, the second largest bank in France, predicts what daredevil voices at the maligned margin of financial analysis have worried about for a while: another global financial panic.

This Chart Shows When the Smart Money Saw The Abenomics Fail

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This year has been lumpy for stocks around the world. Gone are the wild rallies followed by mild rallies interrupted by minor downticks, followed by more rallies. That’s so 2013. It’s as if on December 31, someone turned off the spigot. But in Japan, it turned into a rout.

“It’s not a bubble,” Retail Investors Are Told As The Smart Money Bails Out

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“Biotech Stocks’ Rout Perplexes Analysts” the WSJ headlined the phenomenon, as analysts continue to hype this stuff to small investors. But hedge funds are dumping stocks, and private equity firms are dumping their LBOs. That’s the Smart Money. They’re getting out.

Biggest Credit Bubble in History Flashes Warning: ‘Seek Cover’

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Hidden in the IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report is a doozie of a chart. “Seek cover, implosion in sight,” it screams. It depicts the bubble in covenant-lite and second-lien loans, the same that helped blow up the banks in 2008. Only this time, they’re even worse.

People In Eastern Ukraine: We Don’t Want To Be Annexed By Russia!

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Armed pro-Russian separatists barricaded in official buildings in eastern Ukraine exhorted Uncle Putin to come to their aid. But sudden breath of fresh air: a poll found that an overwhelming majority of the people in that region want to remain part of Ukraine.

America’s Structural Unemployment Crisis in Two Charts

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It didn’t even start with the financial crisis. It started before the 2001 recession. But the strategy exploded in 2009, and it’s still getting worse.