Everything Bubble

Federal Regulator Details Crazy Risk-Taking By Banks, Blames Fed

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on Federal Regulator Details Crazy Risk-Taking By Banks, Blames Fed

Banks are again taking the same risks that triggered the financial crisis, and they’re understating these risks. It wasn’t an edgy blogger that issued this warning but the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. And it blamed the Fed’s monetary policy.

Last Time Corporate America Did This, The Stock Market Crashed

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on Last Time Corporate America Did This, The Stock Market Crashed

So what happens when these huge and reckless buyers with their nearly endless resources start cutting back after a phenomenal peak? Well, we know what happened in 2008.

This Debt Is Explosive, And it Sits on the Shelf Everywhere, Waiting to go off

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on This Debt Is Explosive, And it Sits on the Shelf Everywhere, Waiting to go off

I was interviewed by Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues for “Janela na web” (a Portuguese site) and the printed edition of Expresso. After what I said, he might never interview me again :-]

Public Pension Plans: Boom and Bubble Forever Or Bust

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on Public Pension Plans: Boom and Bubble Forever Or Bust

State and city pension plans have been in a heap of trouble for years. What they need in order to be there in the future is a booming economy year after year and endlessly inflating asset bubbles. Otherwise, forget it. And even then, there’s a $1.1 trillion hole.

Fed’s Bullard: ‘The Bubble Was Developing Under Our Noses’

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on Fed’s Bullard: ‘The Bubble Was Developing Under Our Noses’

Wiping out in one fell swoop six years of carefully orchestrated propaganda, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard admitted the Fed had dropped the ball during the prior bubble that blew up the financial system, and that it’s dropping the ball again during the current bubble.

QE, Bailouts, And Families Struggling to Buy Food

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on QE, Bailouts, And Families Struggling to Buy Food

It was a very basic question: Have there been times when you did not have enough money to buy the food you or your family needed? In wealthy countries, the percentages should be small, and given all the money-printing, it should be zero, you’d think.

The Hazardous Hunt For Carry – Why The EM Rebound Isn’t Real

by David Stockman •  • Comments Off on The Hazardous Hunt For Carry – Why The EM Rebound Isn’t Real

The monetary plumbers keep banging money market rates to zero, thereby ignoring what the money market rate really is in a financialized, debt-ridden system: the price of hot money, the single most important price in all of capitalism.