Everything Bubble

How Wall Street Manipulates The Buy-to-Rent Housing Racket

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on How Wall Street Manipulates The Buy-to-Rent Housing Racket

The smart money had a goal, which it now reached via the “multiplier effect” by which a small number of sales can have extreme consequences in price for the rest.

UBS: The Secret Reason The Fed Is ‘Tolerating’ Bubbles

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on UBS: The Secret Reason The Fed Is ‘Tolerating’ Bubbles

“Asset prices have reached stunning levels, obviously out of line with ‘fundamentals.’ The “most dangerous” are housing bubbles; when they burst, they “wreck whole economies.”

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.