The foxes are in the hen-house, the inmates run the asylum, and perversity remains a hallmark of the financial sector. Here I sit in my San Francisco sanctuary, pondering it all.
Japan's public debt continues to balloon out of control. Abenomics is no more sane than the Bernanke/Yellen paradigm. How many yen Japan will have to print to hyperinflate the debt mountain away is anyone's guess. I won't guess the number of yen I should hold; it will be precisely zero until Japan wises up.
Fitch raised the latest alarm about real estate collateral under Chinese banks. No one really listens to Fitch anyway because they're the smallest of the three main ratings agencies. It's good that they went on the record so Moody's and S+P will look bad in hindsight for not badmouthing China.
China is eager to do business with Russia. Sanctions are for law-abiding countries, not single-party kleptocracies. Russia knows it's the junior partner here and doesn't care as long as it gets cash up front. Expect Putin's circle to steal that cash and leave Russian infrastructure to languish further. The scheme will come back to haunt Russia in about a decade when Chinese colonists try to slice off Siberia.
The ECB is getting excited about the prospect of QE driving up inflation. The stupidity is so hot it just burns. Runaway inflation will destroy the value of whatever bonds the ECB and others are buying. Choosing fiscal sanity is the furthest thing from the ECB's planning process. They instead prefer a junkie's rush into a bond-buying addiction.
In other news, I'm sure someone did something nutty in San Francisco today. I'm just as sure it wasn't me.
Japan's public debt continues to balloon out of control. Abenomics is no more sane than the Bernanke/Yellen paradigm. How many yen Japan will have to print to hyperinflate the debt mountain away is anyone's guess. I won't guess the number of yen I should hold; it will be precisely zero until Japan wises up.
Fitch raised the latest alarm about real estate collateral under Chinese banks. No one really listens to Fitch anyway because they're the smallest of the three main ratings agencies. It's good that they went on the record so Moody's and S+P will look bad in hindsight for not badmouthing China.
China is eager to do business with Russia. Sanctions are for law-abiding countries, not single-party kleptocracies. Russia knows it's the junior partner here and doesn't care as long as it gets cash up front. Expect Putin's circle to steal that cash and leave Russian infrastructure to languish further. The scheme will come back to haunt Russia in about a decade when Chinese colonists try to slice off Siberia.
The ECB is getting excited about the prospect of QE driving up inflation. The stupidity is so hot it just burns. Runaway inflation will destroy the value of whatever bonds the ECB and others are buying. Choosing fiscal sanity is the furthest thing from the ECB's planning process. They instead prefer a junkie's rush into a bond-buying addiction.
In other news, I'm sure someone did something nutty in San Francisco today. I'm just as sure it wasn't me.
