With all the high-flying stocks out there, and the endless promotion of “recovery in the U.S”, it gets harder and harder every day – to believe anything less. The media machines are in full swing, and the general census ( I believe something like 74% of analysts / newsletter writers ) suggest that the sun is shining, the water is warm – common everyone! It’s safe! Jump on in!
You know – I bet the majority of people “actually believe” that “miraculously” – the troubles in the EU Zone have all magically vanished as well! I’ve heard the floating heads on CNBC as well CNN state this as fact. Josh Brown ( a well-known floating head on CNBC ) looked me square in the eye the other day and stated that “the recession in the EU Zone was over”.
Some facts borrowed from Graham Summers:
1) The European Banking system is over $46 trillion in size (nearly 3X total EU GDP).
2) The European Central Bank’s (ECB) balance sheet is now nearly $4 trillion in size (larger than Germany’s economy and roughly 1/3 the size of the ENTIRE EU’s GDP). Aside from the inflationary and systemic risks this poses (the ECB is now leveraged at over 36 to 1).
3) Over a quarter of the ECB’s balance sheet is PIIGS (Portugal, Italy , Ireland and Greece ) debt which the ECB will dump any and all losses from onto national Central Banks.
So we’re talking about a banking system that is nearly four times that of the US ($46 trillion vs. $12 trillion) with at least twice the amount of leverage (26 to 1 for the EU vs. 13 to 1 for the US), and a Central Bank that has stuffed its balance sheet with loads of garbage debts, giving it a leverage level of 36 to 1.
The troubles in the EU are far from over, only masked during this “latest attempt” to ensure confidence in a system that is hanging precariously near the edge.
Keep in mind Spain’s currently unemployement rate is 25%!
The European Central Bank is currently considering ( and will soon likely implement ) a QE program of it’s own with bond buying and the works, similar to that of Japan and the U.S
This, coupled with “almost guaranteed” additional stimulus from the Bank of Japan has this currency war shifting gears moving forward, and leaves absolutely NO ROOM for tightening / tapering.
I will continue to complete ignore the media, as with the example sighted above……they are “paid” to keep the puppet show going.