“6 gals for 99c”, Roosevelt and Wabash, Chicago 1939 That the world’s central bankers get a lot of things wrong, deliberately or not, and have done so for years now, is nothing new. But that they do things that result in the exact opposite of what they ostensibly aim for, and predictably so, perhaps is. And it’s something that seems to be catching on, especially in Asia. Now, let’s be clear on one thing first: central bankers have taken on
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Wyland Stanley Boeing 314 flying boat Honolulu Clipper. 1939 • BofA: ‘Shanghai Accord’, Massive Central Bank Intervention Imminent (ZH) • I Don’t Know What The Bulls Are Smoking: Stockman (CNBC) • China Lenders’ Foreign-Exchange Holdings Omitted From PBOC Data (BBG) • Sensitive Financial Data ‘Missing’ From PBOC Report On Capital Outflows (SCMP) • Xi Jinping Demands ‘Absolute Loyalty’ From Chinese State Media (AP) • The Only Thing Worse Than Oil? Investing in It (WSJ) • A Furious Turkey Says US
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Russell Lee “Yreka, California. Magazine stand” 1942 • Commodities’ $3.6 Trillion Black Hole (BBG) • ‘It’s Going To Be Much Worse Than 2008’ (FS) • Has The Market Crash Only Just Begun? (ZH) • The US Economy Has Not Recovered and Will Not Recover (PCR) • Worldwide M&A Activity Falls 23% (Reuters) • US Shale Faces March Madness With $1.2 Billion in Interest Due (BBG) • Moody’s Tallies 28 Downgrades In The Energy Sector Since December (MW) • Why Oil
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Richardson Hope for a New Life: Man passes baby through fence, Serbia/Hungary border 2015 • Negative Interest Rates Set The Stage For The Next Crisis (Stephen Roach) • Why Negative Interest Rates Spell Doom For Capitalism (Romano) • Central Banking Is In Crisis. Can The World Economy Be Far Behind? (Economist) • Bank of Japan Baffled by Negative Reaction to Negative-Rate Policy (WSJ) • Nomura Sees Yen Falling More Than 10% on BOJ Negative Rates (BBG) • Abenomics? How About
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Russell Lee “Yreka, California, seat of a county rich in mineral deposits” 1942 • Negative Interest Rates A ‘Dangerous Experiment’, Warns Morgan Stanley (MW) • Negative Interest Rates Are A ‘Gigantic Fiscal Failure’ (AEP) • Japan’s Exports Drop Most Since 2009 as Sales to China Fall (BBG) • Japan Shelves Plan to Let Pension Fund Directly Invest in Stocks (WSJ) • China’s Banks May Be Getting Creative About Hiding Their Losses (BBG) • China Central Bank Takes Another Step To
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DPC The Wizard Tree, Cathedral Woods, North Conway, White Mountains, New Hampshire 1900 A week after the New Hampshire Presidential Primaries, what lessons, if any, can we take from the dramatic victories of two outsider candidates? Former New Hampshire resident and occasional Automatic Earth contributor Nelson Lebo weighs in. Note: Nelson writes below that “Trumpification is a clear and present danger” for writers like me “who rely on the best available data, statistics, facts”. But so far I find Trump
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DPC Snow removal – Ford tractor Washington, DC 1925 • Banks’ Balance Sheets Are Poor Guides To Actual Risks And Uncertainties (FT) • Banks Are Still The Weak Links In The Economic Chain (FT) • The Eurozone Can’t Survive Another Banking Crisis (MW) • I’m in Awe at Just How Fast Global Trade is Unraveling (WS) • Tilting At Windmills: The Faustian Folly Of Quantitative Easing (Steve Keen) • If Zero Interest Rates Fixed What’s Broken, We’d Be in Paradise
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Byron On the streets after a New York blizzard 1899 • Central Bankers ‘Don’t Have A Clue’ – Jim Rogers (CNN) • There Is Worse To Come As QE Loses Its Impact (FT) • Markets Putting Faith in QE4? (WSJ) • BOJ Launches Negative Rates, Already Dubbed A Failure By Markets (Reuters) • China’s Problems ‘Just Gargantuan’ (CNBC) • China Created A Record Half A Trillion Dollars Of Debt In January (ZH) • China’s Bad Loans Rise to Highest in
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Dorothea Lange We’ll be in California yet. We’re not going back to Arkansas 1938 Financial bubbles blown on the back of massive amounts of debt, of necessity lead to debt deflation (it’s just entropy, really). Fighting this is futile, and grossly costly to boot. The only sensible thing to do is to guide the process as best you can and try to minimize the damage, especially at the bottom rungs of society, because that’s where the deflation first takes hold,
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John M. Fox Garcia Grande newsstand, New York 1946 • Japan’s Economy Shrinks 1.4% As Abenomics Is Blown Off Course (Guardian) • China Imports Plunge -18.8% YoY In January, Exports Fall -11.2% (FT) • Yuan Rises Most Since 2005 as PBOC Voices Support, Raises Fixing (BBG) • PBoC Governor Zhou Breaks Long Silence (BBG) • Chinese Start to Lose Confidence in Their Currency (NY Times) • China Markets Brace for Wild Swings in Year of the Monkey (WSJ) • Selloff
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