Financial crisis

Piepenburg addresses what he perceives as the misleading debate surrounding hard versus soft landings, asserting that the evidence of a severe economic downturn is unmistakably apparent. The conversation then turns to the reality rather than hype of de-dollarization, the questioned performance of...

Rising interest rates have led to a significant increase in the burden of public debt. The United States now has to pay over $1 trillion in interest, an amount that has doubled in just nine months. This burden is set to rise considerably further, as most of the debt is short-term, requiring refin...

We are on the inevitable road to perdition for the world economy & financial system, ending in a potential global conflict of uncontrollable proportions. Evil begets evil as The Cycle of Evil hits countries at the end of an uncontrollable debt expansion.

Far removed from the turmoil of the bond markets, gold continues to move ahead without the slightest speculative excess, and in a climate of general indifference.The price of gold in yens is now rising exponentially, just as it would against any currency of a country in a sovereign crisis.

This week we will look at the performance of gold compared to the United States financial sector. When this relationship is rising, it can be said that investors are showing a preference for hard money. When it is falling, investors are showing more confidence in the paper money system.

The relationship between gold and real rates broke down when real rates turned positive again. What counts now is the search for solvency, not the search for yield. The return of investment takes precedence over return on investment.

We now have two dangerous wars, maybe we will have a global war. We have a coming collapse of stock markets and debt markets and a banking system which probably will not survive in its present form.

The rise in interest rates initiated by the Fed has had a devastating effect on bonds, which were massively purchased by banks, insurers and pension funds when rates were low. The question is whether this fragility in the banking and insurance sector is likely to trigger a credit crunch.

Inflation seems to be picking up again in the United States. In addition to the geopolitical situation, there is also likely to be a great deal of unrest on the US debt front.

The current bond crash is historic. The EDV ETF, which measures the price of very long-dated US Treasuries, has fallen by 58% in just over a year. The bond market's current fall is now greater than that recorded by the equity market during the last financial crisis in 2008 (-56%).