Philippe Herlin

In order to understand the world of finance today – post-gold standard-, post- 2008 crisis-, zero rates- and QE- finance – it makes sense, sometimes, to turn to others than economists.

Zero rates are hitting European banks at the core of their activity, and we must add to that their bad loans, especially in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus

The money created without any counterparty artificially inflates the value of assets, until they reach a breaking point – sooner or later.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) just called for urgent action to be taken in regards to European banks’ bad loans.

The financial world is so upended that even Switzerland is starting to slide awkwardly.

The result of the constitutional referendum in Italy held last Sunday, December 4th, is undisputable, 60% voting “no”, and there was a large participation.

During the election campaign, Donald Trump accused the Fed of playing the Democrats’ game by keeping rates low and creating a “horrible financial bubble”.

The earthquake has happened: Donald Trump is president-elect of the United States of America. Quite an enormous “black swan”! What should we expect now? On the one hand, Trump’s victory seems like a formidable denial of the economic lies being spread since the 2008 financial crisis: no, unemploy...

We can’t help but see also the beginning of a flight away from the currencies. And, besides, those countries (China, Middle-East countries) are indeed big buyers of gold, whether through their people or their central banks.

The possibility of a hike in long-term rates is becoming a recurrent issue of concern in the markets. Will the Fed raise its rates? Are investors anticipating a normalisation in the yield curve? More important is the question of all the liquidity created by the central banks since 2008.

The financial and banking crisis can hit Germany as well – it could even become the epicentre of the crisis, given the size of Deutsche Bank.

Several analysts in favour of gold are predicting a spike to come in the precious metal’s price. They base this prediction on several arguments

This question might sound preposterous, but this movement is very real and growing in importance: central banks are progressively buying private assets with their unmatched firepower.

This long-standing monetary policy generates a massive and catastrophic perverse effect: banks are no longer profitable. In other words, this policy pushes them into bankruptcy. This is what no less than the IMF explains in a study from last August 10.

We’ve already talked about the banking crisis in Italy, with 360 billion € in bad loans, the equivalent of 22% of its GDP, an inordinate amount that leads us to fear the worst. The situation has been temporarily stabilised after a deal between the head of government and Brussels: a bailout plan h...

In the United States the Fed just allowed a defaulting bank to keep its clients’ collateral.

The Big Short consists in acquiring physical gold and waiting, knowing this could be lucrative in the short term if stock markets keep on falling, or will be lucrative longer term if central banks keep on printing paper money.

2016 is off to a very bad start for the stock markets worldwide: they have lost approximately 10% of their value since January 1st, one of the worst starts of a year in stock market history. Since their peak of last June, stock markets worldwide have declined by 20%, according to Bloomberg, which...

What will American banks do if their own existence is in jeopardy, due to major losses? Well, as a matter of fact, there is only one possibility left: draw from their clients’ accounts.

The collapse of four regional Italian banks (Banca Etruria, CariChieti, Banca Marche and Carife) is starting to take on alarming proportions.