The specter of a crisis in emerging countries is back. A veritable tsunami is sweeping through their currencies : The argentine peso has lost 20% to the US dollar since the start of the year, the turkish pound has lost 30% over the last twelve months. The mexican peso, the brazilian real and the...

Rates on the debt of Italy and Spain have reached high levels in 2011 and 2012, even 7% at times, a rate considered as « mortal », because it could snowball into quick defaults. But in 2013 and the start of this year, these rates have been around 4%, in the midst of weak volatility. Does that mea...

What kind of game are the banks and the states playing? Here are four news items that should alert anyone still having faith in the european banking system.

The French government keeps rising taxes of all sorts; one couldn’t hope for gold to escape them.

Quantitative easing causes an artificial wealth effect for the wealthiest, while the middle-class earnings are not improving

We’re here at the heart of the conflict of interests that we have denounced in the past, e.g. the central bank being the banking sector’s regulatory organism : the ECB is judge and party.

Deflation fears persist and, with it, the impact it would have on the gold price. Many observers believe the gold price would go down. Let’s try to clarify things a little.

We’ve already talked about what happened in Cyprus last April : the confiscation of bank accounts over 100,000 euros to shore up local failing banks. We also explained that it was but a rehearsal for future settlement of banking crises : directly looting depositors’ accounts. And, case in point,...

All the hooplah around bitcoin, the banking lobby maneuvers (central banks and large banks), are quite reminiscent of what is happening around gold.

According to the Bank of Italy, of the 255 billion euros borrowed from the ECB through the LTRO, italian banks only reimbursed 15%, or 38 billion euros. So, there still remains 217 billion euros to be paid in 2014... and for Spain, the amounts are just about the same.

Don’t laugh, but Ben Bernanke refutes the fact that easy monetary policy from the Fed has favored Wall Street... he even goes as far as saying it has helped the middle class! Quote : « Even though this may come as a shock, I don’t agree. Our monetary policy has helped american households to impro...

Only 40 european banks have disappeared since the 2008 financial crisis, compared to almost 500 in the United States. The governments have decided to keep their banks alive, and this has caused the healing process to slow down.

Bitcoins : it’s new, it’s in, so to speak, and we keep hearing a lot about this virtual money that was created in 2009 and that is breaking record after record. What should we think about it?

Even if its goals are laudable, a tough regulation always generates perverse effects. Such is the case with Basel III, and it’s a shame, because it’s the solidity of our banks that is concerned.

With the shutdown absurd showdown – temporarily – over, we are now faced with having to re-evaluate the U.S. debt in depth. Is it still a safe, risk-free asset, with the Fed backing it forever with new money? This is an important question.

As we’ve been saying at the time, the spoliation of bank accounts in Cyprus this last March to save their banks was but a general rehearsal. We’ve also learned that there is a european proposal on the table to have depositors of over 100,000 euros contribute should there be a bank bailout in a Eu...

Although we often read in the press or hear from banking and political leaders that the ECB doesn’t buy back sovereign bonds, contrary to the Fed, thus hinting that « we Europeans are more virtuous than the Americans », it’s totally false.

Let’s take a long look at the Fed’s Quantitative Easing, or QE, that we’ve been talking about regularly, to really appreciate its importance and meaning.

Last Thursday, there was quite a surprise : contrary to what the majority of market participants were anticipating, Ben Bernanke decided not to taper his QE (quantitative easing). Thus, $85B a month is still being created by the Fed to keep buying $45B of federal debt and $40B of mortgage-backed...

With the upcoming German national elections, the problems in the Eurozone have been left aside. Angela Merkel doesn’t want to lose some voters by talking about it. Her finance minister slipped, during the campaign, saying that Greece will have to be helped again but, not to worry, with only 10 bi...