Free Republic

Central bank digital currencies can push the world away from depending on the U.S. dollar, the organization said. . The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a handbook for global central banks regarding the development and implementation of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The IMF’s “Central Bank Digital Currency Virtual Handbook” published last week pointed out that the increased use of CBDCs can “reduce dollarization” of the global economy—a situation where countries move away from relying on the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. De-dollarization would push up borrowing costs in the United States, making loans expensive for businesses and individuals,...

Central banks globally have been accumulating gold reserves at a furious pace last seen 55 years ago when the U.S. dollar was still backed by gold. According to the World Gold Council (WGC), central banks bought a record 399 tonnes of gold worth around $20 billion in the third quarter of 2022, with global demand for the precious metal back to pre-pandemic levels. Retail demand by jewelers and buyers of gold bars and coins was also strong, the WGC said in its latest quarterly report. WGC says that the world's gold demand amounted to 1,181 tonnes in the September quarter,...

Based upon reports from inside several governments, the IMF has been directing all central banks to terminate paper money by 2022 and move to digital currencies. The real motive here is to terminate the underground economy and to ensure that everyone is 100% taxed as they determine. This has been the driving force behind the shift toward tangible assets with real estate, collectibles, and equities rising. This has been capital trying to get off the grid. One house on the beach I am personally aware of sold for $1.2 million in 1992 is up for sale now at $7.8 million....

As of January 21st, China’s Communist Party confirmed 473 cases of the Coronavirus, mostly concentrated in Mainland China, Wuhan Provence, but the world doubted the accuracy of what was reported, particularly since the method for counting confirmed cases keeps changing. The most current confirmed cases are 79,498 with total deaths reported at 2,621. Even as China says the spread is slowing, globally the spread is picking up. Particularly troubling is what is happening in Italy, with 3 reported cases last week and 219 and 5 deaths reported today. At this writing, 33 countries have reported cases and this pandemic is...

For years central banks had been keeping rates near 0%, or below, and at the same time printing over a hundred billion dollars’ worth of fiat currencies each and every month to purchase bonds and stocks. That is all changing now. ... fourteen major global central banks are either in the process right now, or have indicated that they be will next year, in the process of raising interest rates. At the same time, QE on a global net basis will plunge from $180 billion per month at its peak during 2017, to $0 by December…and will then go negative...

The pullback in stocks the past two trading days is both long overdue and healthful. But after nearly a decade of easy money engineered by the Fed and other central banks, is the sell-off in the bond market simply a short-term tantrum? Or is it the start of a secular bear market in bonds, due to higher inflation, that can only end in tears? If one thinks about interest rates as simply the price of money, one could argue that the correction in stock prices would be more worrisome if accompanied by significantly lower bond yields than higher ones. In...

Eight years after the crisis of 2008-09, central banks are still injecting $200 billion a month into the global financial system to keep it from imploding. If you want a central banker to choke on his croissant, read him this quote from socio-historian Immanuel Wallerstein: "Countries (have lost the ability) to control what happens to them in the ongoing life of the modern world-system." Stated another way, Wallerstein is asking: what do central banks no longer control? The quote is from Wallerstein's recent meditation on China: China is Confident: How Realistic? "The question is how realistic is this self-assessment of...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/698305/Deutsche-Bank-financial-crisis-EU-Angela-Merkel 'We should nationalise German banks' Warning Deutsche Bank teetering on edge of CRISIS A TOP economist has warned that Germany's biggest bank is teetering on the edge of crisis and they only way to protect it against future shocks is to nationalise it. By SIMON OSBORNE 20:03, Tue, Aug 9, 2016 | UPDATED: 21:00, Tue, Aug 9, 2016 Germany central bank, the Deutsche Bank, would be hit hard in a new financial crisis Martin Hellwig said stress tests carried out by the European Central Bank revealed the Deutsche Bank would be left in a precarious position in the event of...

In the first six months of 2016, foreign central banks sold a net $192 billion of U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds. This is more than double the pace from the same time last year. China, Japan, and Brazil were the leaders in selling U.S. debt. With the U.S. debt running at approximately $19.4 trillion, this could be problematic. A large selloff of U.S. bonds would decrease their price, or in other worlds, increase domestic interest rates in general (bond prices and interest rates always move in the opposite direction).

Over the course of the last few months, Brexit has become one of the biggest catch-all preemptive scapegoats of recorded human history. Even far beyond the old continent’s porous borders, politicians, central bankers, and economists are warning their respective populations to brace for a serious aftershock if the people of Britain vote to leave the EU. This is is a remarkable feat given that the UK has its own perfectly functioning currency, and as such decoupling from the EU, while bumpy, should not pose an immediate financial threat either to the UK or the EU, let alone the world at...

Central banks are dumping America’s debt at a record pace. China, Russia and Brazil sold off U.S. Treasury bonds as they tried to soften the blow of the global economic slowdown. They each sold off at least $1 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds in March. In all, central banks sold a net $17 billion. Sales had hit a record $57 billion in January. So far this year, the global bank debt dump has reached $123 billion. It’s the fastest pace for a U.S. debt selloff by global central banks since at least 1978, according to Treasury Department data published Monday...

see link below

Some 95 percent of the 220 billion euros disbursed to Greece since the start of the financial crisis as loans from the bailout mechanism has been directed toward saving the European banks. That means about 210 billion euros was eventually channeled to the eurozone credit sector while just 5 percent ended up in state coffers, according to a study by the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin. “Europe and the International Monetary Fund have in previous years mainly saved the banks and other private creditors,” concluded the report, published yesterday in German newspaper Handelsblatt. ESMT director Jorg...

We live in strange economic times, stranger perhaps than at any other point in history. Since 2007-2008, the globally intertwined and dependent fiscal system has suffered considerable declines in every conceivable area. Manufacturing around the world is in a slump, from Japan to China to Europe, with the minimal manufacturing accomplished in the U.S. also fading. Consumption is falling, most notably in petroleum and raw materials. Employment is truly dismal, with the U.S. posting over 94 million people as “non-participants” in the national work force. High paying jobs are disappearing, and the only jobs replacing them are in the...

Central banks cannot haul economies out of stagnation on their own, the OECD has warned. Catherine Mann, chief economist at the Paris-based think-tank, said countries were now “overloaded on monetary policy” as she described the use of negative interest rates as “a reaction of central banks trying to meet the objective of raising inflation and fostering growth alone”. Ms Mann said banks faced being “squeezed” by the unintended consequences of sub-zero rates in an environment where demand remained subdued. The OECD has repeatedly warned that fiscal policy and structural reforms are needed to ensure recoveries are self-sustaining. “In the economies...

Central Banks Have Signed Their Death Warrants During the past year U.S. consumption spending for health care rose by 5%. Spending at restaurants and bars were up by 9%, while spending for gasoline and other energy products was down by 22%. This was Mr. Market at work--millions of households reallocating their spending in response to relative price changes. It had nothing to do with a macroeconomic abstraction called "weak demand". Actually, the medical care component of the CPI rose 3.3% last year. Housing and shelter were up by 3.2%, while gasoline prices were down by 7.3%. It all added up...

Hold tight, wait 'til the party's over. Hold tight, we're in for nasty weather. There has got to be a way Burning down the house. By now, it should be obvious to the observant that the 'scoundrels-looting-the-treasury' phase of our economic arc is about played out, and before the entire rotten financial edifice collapses, there will be a war ignited across Europe and the Middle East which will serve as a distraction for the masses, while the very worst of the scoundrels take to ground to wait for the smoke to clear before they emerge. The gangsters actually directing the...

NEW HAVEN - In what could well be a final act of desperation, central banks are abdicating effective control of the economies they have been entrusted to manage. First came zero interest rates, then quantitative easing, and now negative interest rates - one futile attempt begetting another. Just as the first two gambits failed to gain meaningful economic traction in chronically weak recoveries, the shift to negative rates will only compound the risks of financial instability and set the stage for the next crisis. The adoption of negative interest rates - initially launched in Europe in 2014 and now embraced...

PARIS (AP) -- Questions are growing over the financial health of banks, particularly in Europe and the U.S., as they face a toxic mix of low economic growth, bad loans and squeezed earnings. France's Societe Generale became Thursday the latest bank to issue a confidence-shattering profit warning, which helped trigger a new sell-off in financial stocks. The bank saw its share price stumble 12 percent and major rivals like Deutsche Bank and UniCredit saw losses of nearly 10 percent. European banks are not the only ones to suffer. Japanese bank Mitsubishi Financial fell 7 percent on Thursday. In the U.S.,...

The global Central Banks have declared War on Cash. Historically, one of the safest things to do when the markets begin to collapse is to move a significant portion of your holdings to cash. As the old adage says, during times of deflation, "cash is king." The notion here is that cash is a safe haven. And while earning 1-2% in interest doesn't do much in terms of growing your wealth, it sure beats losing 20%+ by holding on to stocks or bonds during their respective bear markets However, in today's world of fiat-based Central Planning, cash represents a REAL...