Living In A QE World | The Big Picture

All Central Bank Balance Sheets Are Exploding Higher, Or Engaged In QE

The degree to which central banks around the world are printing money is unprecedented.

The first eight charts below show the balance sheets of the largest central banks in the world. They are the European Central Bank (ECB), the Federal Reserve (Fed), the Bank of Japan (BoJ), the Bank of England (BoE), the Bundesbank (Germany), the Banque de France, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB). Noted on the charts are significant events or growth rates.

Shown is the size of each respective balance sheet in its local currency. Note that all are exploding higher as every chart goes from the lower left to the upper right. Most are still making new all-time highs. If the basic definition of quantitative easing (QE) is a significant increase in a central bank’s balance sheet via increasing banking reserves, then all eight of these central banks are engaged in QE.

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via Living In A QE World | The Big Picture.

The Federal Reserve’s Explicit Goal: Devalue The Dollar 33%

This is very troublesome for those planning to live on a fixed income long term.  This type of planned devaluation is a structured default on government obligations like social security payments.  It is also a blatant  transfer of wealth(ie tax) from the savings and wages of the people  to the Federal Reserve and the government.  What is worse, is the the planned 2% rate of inflation is based on Core Inflation, which omits the impact of food and energy, where most inflation frequently occurs.  This type of systemic criminal behavior on the part of the Federal Reserve is another reason to own gold, silver and other commodities as a way to opt out of this insidious transfer of wealth and it’s destructive impact on the middle class. 

JT

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) has made it official: After its latest two day meeting, it announced its goal to devalue the dollar by 33% over the next 20 years. The debauch of the dollar will be even greater if the Fed exceeds its goal of a 2 percent per year increase in the price level.

An increase in the price level of 2% in any one year is barely noticeable. Under a gold standard, such an increase was uncommon, but not unknown. The difference is that when the dollar was as good as gold, the years of modest inflation would be followed, in time, by declining prices. As a consequence, over longer periods of time, the price level was unchanged. A dollar 20 years hence was still worth a dollar.

But, an increase of 2% a year over a period of 20 years will lead to a 50% increase in the price level. It will take 150 (2032) dollars to purchase the same basket of goods 100 (2012) dollars can buy today. What will be called the “dollar” in 2032 will be worth one-third less (100/150) than what we call a dollar today.

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via The Federal Reserve’s Explicit Goal: Devalue The Dollar 33% – Forbes.

Living In A QE World

All Central Bank Balance Sheets Are Exploding Higher, Or Engaged In QE

The degree to which central banks around the world are printing money is unprecedented.

The first eight charts below show the balance sheets of the largest central banks in the world. They are the European Central Bank (ECB), the Federal Reserve (Fed), the Bank of Japan (BoJ), the Bank of England (BoE), the Bundesbank (Germany), the Banque de France, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB). Noted on the charts are significant events or growth rates.

Shown is the size of each respective balance sheet in its local currency. Note that all are exploding higher as every chart goes from the lower left to the upper right. Most are still making new all-time highs. If the basic definition of quantitative easing (QE) is a significant increase in a central bank’s balance sheet via increasing banking reserves, then all eight of these central banks are engaged in QE.

 

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via Living In A QE World | The Big Picture.

Fed pledges low rates till kingdom come! What it means …

Last week, I discussed how the European Central Bank has lost its marbles, launching its own version of quantitative easing. I dubbed it “QE-E.”

I also said that QE accomplishes almost nothing for the “real” economy, even if it juices asset markets. And sure enough, we got more proof of that this week (details to follow!).

Well, this week it was the Federal Reserve’s turn at the podium and what happened? Policymakers didn’t launch an official QE3 program. But they did promise to keep short-term interest rates low through late 2014 … up from a previous pledge of 2013.

Not only that, the Fed also said it would continue with its “Operation Twist” policy of selling shorter-term Treasuries and buying longer-term ones. The goal? Hold down long-term interest rates.

Noted bond fund manager Bill Gross of Pimco dubbed it “QE2.5.” All I could do was shake my head!

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via Fed pledges low rates till kingdom come! What it means … — Money and Markets.

Fed To Markets: Buy Gold And Silver

The Fed just spoke. Here’s a slightly edited transcript:

Blah blah blah … the economy has been expanding moderately … blah blah blah boilerplate inanity blatant lie … the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability ….

To support a stronger economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with the dual mandate, the Committee expects to maintain a highly accommodative stance for monetary policy. In particular, the Committee decided today to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and currently anticipates that economic conditions–including low rates of resource utilization and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run–are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through late 2014.

This of course comes as no surprise to anyone. But seeing it in print had exactly the impact you’d expect. Stocks erased their early losses, the dollar tanked, and precious metals soared. With good reason. It is now the stated policy of the US government to have negative real interest rates for years to come (eons in trader-time).

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via Fed To Markets: Buy Gold And Silver — DollarCollapse.com.

Bernanke lights a fire under gold and silver prices

“Party on!” was Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s message to Wall Street yesterday, as he announced that the Fed will be keeping interest rates at “exceptionally low” levels until late 2014, owing to concerns about stubbornly-high unemployment and the sustainability of the current statistical recovery. Bernanke also confirmed that for the first time in the Fed’s 99-year history, the institution will explicitly target a 2% inflation rate, as measured on the Personal Consumption Index (PCI). Other central banks have long had explicit inflation targets, but not the Fed.

Unsurprisingly given their enthusiasm for easy money, the market response to this move was euphoric. The Dow gained 0.64% to settle at 12756.96, while the Nasdaq tacked on 1.14% to settle at 2818.31. Asian and European exchanges have also reported gains this morning. Commodities such as copper and crude oil are up, while precious metals – ever sensitive to signs of more monetary easing from the Fed – notched impressive gains.

The gold price blew through overhead resistance around $1,680 with ease, and is now trading back above $1,700 per troy ounce. Silver broke through the $33 mark easily, which could be technically significant given that the price has been encountering stubborn selling around $32.50-$33 since last autumn. If silver can break through $35, and if we see signs that hedge funds are at last beginning to grasp that both the Fed and the European Central Bank are committed to more-or-less perpetual money printing – whatever euphemisms they may use to disguise this fact – silver has a real chance of starting the kind of trending move higher that we saw in late 2010/early 2011.

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via Bernanke lights a fire under gold and silver prices.

Fed to Maintain Rates Near Zero Through Late 2014

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve, declaring that the economy would need help for years to come, said Wednesday it would extend by 18 months the period that it plans to hold down interest rates in an effort to spur growth.

The Fed said that it now planned to keep short-term interest rates near zero until late 2014, continuing the transformation of a policy that began as shock therapy in the winter of 2008 into a six-year campaign to increase spending by rewarding borrowers and punishing savers.

The economy expanded “moderately” in recent weeks, the Fed said in a statement released after a two-day meeting of its policy-making committee, but jobs were still scarce, the housing sector remained deeply depressed and Europe’s flirtation with crisis could undermine the nascent domestic recovery.

The Fed forecast growth of up to 2.7 percent this year, up to 3.2 percent next year and up to 4 percent in 2014, but at the end of that period, the central bank projected that the recovery would still be incomplete. Workers would still be looking for jobs, and businesses would still be looking for customers.

“What did we learn today? Things are bad, and they’re not improving at the rate that they want them to improve,” said Kevin Logan, chief United States economist at HSBC. “That’s what they concluded — ‘We’ve eased policy a lot, but we haven’t eased it enough.’ ”

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via Fed to Maintain Rates Near Zero Through Late 2014 – NYTimes.com.

Jim Rogers – CNBC 28 December 2011 – YouTube

Jim Rogers – CNBC 28 December 2011 – YouTube.

More Deficits, More Debt

December 19, 2011 – In the first two months of the current fiscal
year that began on October 1st, the US national debt has grown $320
billion. That is $21 billion more than the same 2-month period last
year, which illustrates that the growth of the national debt continues
to accelerate. The reason of course is the federal government’s huge
operating deficit, which is not getting any smaller. This point is
illustrated in the following chart.

Hyperinflation is always the outcome of unchecked government
spending. The spending leads to ever greater deficits, which requires
the government to borrow ever greater amounts of money. Eventually a
point is reached when the government needs to borrow more money than
lenders have the capacity – or willingness – to lend. Thereafter the
government can take either of two alternative paths.

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via More Deficits, More Debt.

BIS Calls for Hyperinflationary Depression?

Monday, December 12, 2011 – by Staff Report

The Bank for International Settlements Sunday issued an oblique endorsement of coordinated action by the world’s largest central banks to ease funding conditions for banks. “A freezing of interbank markets in major funding currencies, as during the recent crisis, may require the ability to supply official liquidity in major currencies in an elastic manner,” the BIS wrote in its regular quarterly report.” – MarketWatch

Dominant Social Theme: Inflate! And everything will work out.

Free-Market Analysis: We’ve already indicated that we believe the Anglosphere power elite is attempting to create a kind of Great Depression in order to ease the path of world government. This squib of an article in MarketWatch (excerpted above) – unnoticed by most of the mainstream press – only reconfirms our impression.

It endorses recent “coordinated” central banking loosening. But it does more: “A freezing of interbank markets in major funding currencies, as during the recent crisis, may require the ability to supply official liquidity in major currencies in an elastic manner.”

Think about that. The BIS, whatever it is, is all for printing lots of money. And the BIS is no small-time trade group. It is perhaps the most powerful (and least known) global business body in the world. Its mysteries are manifold. its workings are well-hidden.

Of course, somebody actually set up the Bank for International Settlements in the late 1930s. And since then someone has set up or helped set up about 200 central banks around the world, many of them reporting directly to the BIS.

But who? And how did it happen? Dunno.

Who speaks to the head of a state, asking him or her to set up a central bank? Dunno. Do you?

Why is that Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq have central banks when they didn’t before, or not the kind they do now? Did you read about it?

Meh … this ruinous financial system is not a plant or a tree. It did not grow spontaneously. It did not grow naturally. And we would submit to you that those who created it know what they’re doing.

The key as always is to pretend that one does NOT know. The key is to create cognitive dissonance. Even today, if you asked the average person-on-the-street if the powers-that-be are trying to create a Depression (let alone a hyperinflationary one), you would get the ol’ crazy look, as in … “What is this fellow … nuts?”

But, no, nothing nutty about it. The European Union and the euro are grinding a whole European generation into dust. China’s burgeoning middle class is about to get walloped if China ends up in a proverbial hard landing, as well it might. The US has NEVER recovered from the disaster of the mid-2000s (first decade) nor shall it for the foreseeable future.

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via The Daily Bell – BIS Calls for Hyperinflationary Depression?.

via BIS Calls for Hyperinflationary Depression?.