Comments on: Notes From Underground: The Significance of the WSJ OP-ED Piece … “Magnitude of the Mess We’re In”

By: yra

yra — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:44:22 +0000

Professor -great post for adding much to fill in the gaps on the NPL in Spain–and the IMF is far an objective player in the game

By: kevinwaspi

kevinwaspi — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:34:35 +0000

Yra,
Another good post, particularly on weaving together the folly of central bank policy with the impact on individual country problems yet to be seen by these experiments!
I particularly enjoyed that you pointed out the NPL stats on the Spanish banks. Now let’s put those numbers in perspective. Looking at some Eurostat statistics and the IMF Global Financial Stability Report, I find that the total assets of the three largest banks in Spain add up to roughly 337% of the Spanish GDP. (Think about that for a minute.) In other words, with 9.9% of Spanish banks’ loans more than 90 days past due, nearly 30% of Spanish GDP is suspect! In comparison, the five largest banks of the U.S. have assets of roughly 60% of U.S. GDP, and all commercial bank assets to U.S. GDP are roughly 80% of U.S. GDP. The ECB will indeed have its hands full (I won’t say what they’ll be full of!) given the 25% and growing unemployment in Spain.
Kevin

By: Jacob Steelman

Jacob Steelman — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:43:37 +0000

Let’s look at the consequences of Bernanke’s most recent QE3 to QEnth action. Immediately the commodity markets turned around. Iron ore at USD80 per tonne promptly reversed itself and went back above USD100.

Bernanke was an appointee of the oil intersts and he has done a great job of making sure the price of oil has stayed much above the USD35 to which in sank at its depth in the GFC. The high prices of commodites keeps those borrowing to develop commodities including oil and gas from having calls on their loan covenants and thus keep the banks from having to take write downs as they would have had the economic correction been allowed to correct the malinvestments of years of Greenspan-Bernanke inflation.

Bernanke is serving his masters and will continue to do so up until the time he is kicked out.

By: asherz

asherz — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 07:06:00 +0000

If QEs were the answer, the Weimar republic would have prospered and there would have been no National Socialists coming to power resulting in 50 million dead. Othere examples abound..A recent trip to Zimbabwe witnessed a 100 BILLION dollar note for sale as a souvenir for $20. Economics 101 taught the lesson of pushing on a string. Velocity is not created by the printing press nor by moving to unsustainable debt levels.Our Princeton professor is taking the reserve currency and beating his drum to voo-doo economics.
Look out below.

By: I'm Not Here

I'm Not Here — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 03:38:32 +0000

Everything is under (banksters’) control. Saudi’s helped crash the oil price. Gold and silver are under attack at this moment. Israel-Iran conflict is moved to the back burner until after the election results. In fact, everything will be put on hold for about another month. Central banks get to play with near 0% money

Any stock market crash will be bought in earnest for price support at an acceptable level. Not sure what the taxpayers will do with all the new stock purchases via the Treasury via the Federal Reserve via the Plunge Protection Team but why worry? Taxpayers have very little say in the matter anyway.

A vote for either candidate is a vote for the status quo.

Euro can rise or fall as long as all the other currencies rise and fall in unison.

When Mexico is the last great hope, you know the end is near.

I’m still looking for those pre-xmas warehouse orders from July/August, haven’t seen them yet, must be pretty grim.