Monthly Archives: August 2015

The Chinese surprise devaluation yesterday and has put currencies across Asia further under pressure. This is only a natural and the most stupid thing local Asian central bankers could do would be to fight it. Rather as China moves closer to a freely floating exchange rate it should inspire other Asian countries to do the same thing and I am therefore happy to see that the Vietnamese central bank this morning has widened the fluctuation band for the Dong and in that sense moved a bit closer to a freely floating Dong. Even though the hand has been forced somewhat by the PBoC’s devaluation yesterday it is nonetheless positive that we are seeing a move towards more freely floating exchange rates in Asia.

In that since it is not a “currency war”, but rather a liberation war, which in the end hopefully will secure monetary sovereignty to Asian nations such as…

It is no secret that gold has been pounded in recent weeks. Forget about the old highs and hopes of gold going above $2,000 per ounce. Now gold bugs have to seriously contend with the possibility that gold could break under $1,000 per ounce.

What has been interesting to see is that a handful of nations are still adding to their gold reserves. After all, gold reserves are viewed as being crucial to actually putting in a real value that aims to support a nation’s currency. The decline in the price of gold has gotten even worse since the end of June, but five central banks were buyers of gold in the first half of 2015. Still, gold bugs need to consider that not all gold additions are created equally.

New data released by the World Gold Council (WGC) shows central bank purchases and holdings for the month of August. 24/7…

If you ever read Friedman and Schwartz’s “A Monetary History of the United States” you know what happens when a central bank fails to act as a lender-of-last resort in the event of a bank run and/or at the same time fails to offset the impact on broad money growth of such bank run.

It of course happened in the US in 1930-31 and again in Europe after the collapse of Credit-Anstalt in Austria also in 1931. In both cases the result was a deep depression. Now it has happened again in Greece, but Greece is already in a deep economic depression.

Just have a look at this shocking graph from Macropolis.gr.

There is no great reason to trust eyeball-econometrics, but judging from the sharp drop in Greek July PMI (released today) then we should expect another 10-15% drop in Greek real GDP in the next couple of quarters. That…

“My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Luca Brasi held a gun to his head and my father assured him that either his brains, or his signature, would be on the contract.”                                                                                                                                                 — The Godfather (1972)

In the modern global banking system, all banks need a credit line with the central bank in order to be part of the payments system. Choking off that credit line was a form of blackmail the Greek government couldn’t refuse.