Juggling Dynamite

Danielle was a guest today with Kerry Lutz on The Financial Survival Network talking about recent developments in the world economy and markets. You can listen to an audio clip of the segment here.

This clear-eyed discussion is well worth the 26 minute listen.

Merryn Somerset Webb interviews Paul Hodges about the reality of an aging population and the global economy’s ‘Great Unwinding’.  Here is a direct video link.

“Merryn: To bring that back to the oil price, the oil price up at $100 was a function not of real demand but of stimulated demand?

Paul Hodges: It was a complete and utter charade from beginning to end. There has never been, since 2009, a single moment anywhere in the world where there was a supply shortage, a customer didn’t get the oil, the petrol, or anything else that they wanted, but it was all built on wishful thinking from the central banks. They were saying, “We can create demand by printing money.”

… You have to love honest statements. Some British humor is also much appreciated.

Oh, oh, the new Greek Finance Minister is admitting the ECB Emperor is stark naked and making perfectly logical sense in the process!! This will never do!

In this 4 minute interview, the new Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, explains why Greece won’t be borrowing more (as advised by the bankers) but instead looks to “end the vicious cycle” of bailout and borrowing that has persisted through years of financial crisis. He dares to point out the madness of the ECB QE plan to issue debt to buy back more debt. It’s like a ‘who’s on first’ skit…awesome television.

Here is a direct video link.

“If you look at the existing agreement it recognizes that we can’t pay, and it imposes on us the very strange notion that as a bankrupt state we must borrow more money from our partners, even more money than they have already given us, to repay a central bank that is in the process of printing 1 trillion Euros.

Now you only have to state this to realize…how can I look the German, the Slavic, the Finnish taxpayer in the eye and say, ‘you know that I can’t really repay you the money I already borrowed from you, but’ they are asking me to borrow more to give to a central bank, for what, not for money that we borrowed from the central bank, but for monetary operations of Mr Trichet, the previous head of the ECB, carried out that failed, and from which Greece never benefited, not by 1 Euro.'”

Well gee, when you put it like that Yanis, the ECB plan clearly is preposterous. Now what happens? This is getting interesting.