We have seen it for several years now: foreclosure sales—there were 5 million since the peak of the housing bubble—have become the hunting grounds for investors with two goals: hanging on to these homes until the Fed’s flood of money drives up their value; and defraying the expenses of ownership by renting them out. And…
The Fed’s Token Voice Of Reason: Megabanks Undermine Americans’ Faith In Democracy
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Fed’s Token Voice Of Reason: Megabanks Undermine Americans’ Faith In Democracy
At the CPAC, as Republicans struggled with the future, some speakers drew crowds of over 1,000 people. But Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher was shuffled off to “an out-of-the-way ballroom” with barely two dozen people showing up; yet he’d talk about “the injustice of operating our economy under the thumb” of too-big-to-fail banks.
IMF: Eurozone Banks Are In Trouble, Trample Taxpayers and Democracy To Bail Them Out!
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on IMF: Eurozone Banks Are In Trouble, Trample Taxpayers and Democracy To Bail Them Out!
At The Confluence of Free Money, Pent-Up Demand, And Reality
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on At The Confluence of Free Money, Pent-Up Demand, And Reality
New vehicle sales have staged a phenomenal recovery from the financial crisis, when buyers went on strike. Sales below the replacement rate create a vacuum that wants to be filled. Pent-up demand. When it kicked in, sales jumped by over 10% annually. Exuberance took over the bludgeoned industry. But late February, something happened to that vacuum.
Potential Cost Of A Nuclear Accident? So High It’s A Secret!
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Potential Cost Of A Nuclear Accident? So High It’s A Secret!
Catastrophic nuclear accidents, like Chernobyl or Fukushima, are very rare, we’re told incessantly. But when they occur, they’re costly. So costly that the French government, when it came up with estimates, kept them secret. But the report was leaked: an accident at a single reactor in a thinly populated part of France could cost over three times France’s GDP.
Is The End Of The ‘Coercive Euro Association’ Taking Shape In Germany?
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Is The End Of The ‘Coercive Euro Association’ Taking Shape In Germany?
Anti-euro movements have been squashed by political establishments across the Eurozone. Then Italy happened. Two anti-austerity parties captured over half the vote and threw the status quo into chaos. It stoked a fire in Germany where Chancellor Merkel’s bailout policies have hit resistance. Now the heat is on to dissolve the “coercive euro association.”
Top American CEOs About Job Creation: Not Happening Here
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Top American CEOs About Job Creation: Not Happening Here
CEOs of the largest US corporations, without aiming at it, shot barn-door-size holes through the rosy jobs picture. Rosy on the surface: unemployment down to 7.7% with 236,000 new jobs created last month. A picture the White House held up as proof of its success. But these CEOs didn’t see it. Not in the US. Though prospects were rosy in cheap countries.
The Ultimate Threat In The Euro Bailout and Austerity Racket: War
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Ultimate Threat In The Euro Bailout and Austerity Racket: War
There have been waves of threats by Eurozone politicians to bully people into accepting “whatever it takes” to keep the shaky construct of the monetary union glued together. These threats peaked last year with disorderly default, and when that wasn’t enough, with the collapse of the Eurozone. But now, the ultimate threat has been pronounced: war.
A “Politically Explosive” Secret: Italians Are Over Twice As Wealthy As Germans
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on A “Politically Explosive” Secret: Italians Are Over Twice As Wealthy As Germans
The ECB and the national central banks of the Eurozone set out to collect “micro-level information” on household wealth. A massive bureaucratic undertaking. Surveys went out in 2010. Results are now ready. No one in Europe had ever done a survey on that scale before. And no one might ever do it again. Because, in the era of bailouts, the results are so explosive that the Bundesbank is keeping its report secret—and word has leaked out why.
‘Regulatory Capture’ Emasculated The Regulators Of Megabanks
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on ‘Regulatory Capture’ Emasculated The Regulators Of Megabanks
Senator Warren set him up brutally. HSBC had admitted “to laundering $881 billion that we know of from Mexican and Colombian drug cartels,” she said. David Cohen, the Treasury’s point man, twitched on her skewer. Why were megabanks and their bankers able to dodge serious punishment for crimes they’d been committing for years? They’re officially too-big-too-jail. And a deeper problem: regulators have been taken over by the banks.