Category: Fiat Currency
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Lessons of History, Part 1: Not a Mention of Money / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: John_Rubino
I’m listening to the audio version of George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I, written by Miranda Carter and brilliantly narrated by Rosalyn Landor. It’s the story of some almost supernaturally dysfunctional governments blundering into a war that seems more rather than less crazy with the passage of time.
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Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Gold, Dollar and the Swiss Surprise / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
Let's step back in time. As we all remember, on January 15th, a surprise decoupling from the euro peg caused the Swiss franc to rally up to 23%, an unprecedented move in the currency market. Why was the peg introduced and later removed?
The SNB pegged the franc to the euro on September 6th, 2011, in the very middle of the Eurozone debt crisis. A few peripheral countries, whose debts had been downgraded to junk status, asked for bailouts. Therefore, investors ran from euros and moved into the Swiss franc, a traditional safe haven. The SNB introduced a minimal exchange rate at CHF 1.20 per euro (0.83 euro per franc) in order to resist the currency appreciation (the CHF gained 28% since the beginning of the Global Financial Crisis). Although gradual appreciation is positive and reflects the strength of a currency, sudden capital inflows and exchange rate fluctuations may be quite detrimental, and therefore the SNB began printing and selling francs to keep the currency from exceeding 0.83 euro.
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Friday, March 06, 2015
Euro Depreciation and U.S. Manufacturing / Economics / Fiat Currency
By: John_Rubino
The premise of a currency war is that by devaluing its currency a country is able to sell things overseas more cheaply, which gooses its growth at the expense of its trading partners.
If it actually works that way, then you’d expect this chart of the euro plunging against the dollar…
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Thursday, March 05, 2015
Mr. Ponzi – Patron Saint / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: DeviantInvestor
Mr. Ponzi was a charming con-artist who operated about a century ago in the United States and Canada. He enticed investors to contribute new money to his investment scheme (100% return in 90 days), skimmed a portion for his luxurious needs, and used the remaining money to pay off prior investors. The system worked marvelously until it collapsed and people realized that his postal reply coupon investments could not produce the profits that supposedly paid off early investors.
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Sunday, February 22, 2015
Who Decides What Is Money? / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: John_Rubino
The following is an edited excerpt from The Money Bubble: What To Do Before It Pops:
During a 2011 congressional banking subcommittee hearing, Texas congressman Ron Paul - long a champion of gold's role in the financial world - asked Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke if gold is money. "No," replied Bernanke, "It's an asset." Video of this exchange went viral in the gold-bug community, because the difference between money and an asset is, to people who care about such things, both profound and crucial to the future of the global financial system.
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Monday, February 02, 2015
What Comes After Paper Money, Part 1: Fiat's Obvious Failure / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: John_Rubino
Business Insider just posted a Deutsche Bank chart that illustrates the difference between life under the Classical Gold Standard and today's "modern" forms of money. It's for the UK only but is a pretty good representation of the world in general:
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Saturday, January 31, 2015
Swiss Franc’s Euro-Peg Post Mortem / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Frank_Shostak
On January 15, 2015 the Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced an end to its three-year-old cap of 1.20 franc per euro. (The SNB introduced the cap in September 2011.) The SNB has also reduced its policy interest rate to minus 0.75 percent from minus 0.25 percent. The Swiss franc appreciated as much as 41 percent to 0.8517 per euro following the announcement, the strongest level on record — it settled during the day at around 0.98 per euro
Thursday, January 29, 2015
The End of Currency 'Safe-Havens' / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Julian_DW_Phillips
Swiss - Negative rates
In the past [even the recent past] investors have often 'parked' their funds in a 'safe-haven' currency, when fears about the dollar or other currencies rose. The leading candidates have always been the Swiss Franc and the Yen, with gold, in the last three years usually being excluded, because of its declining trend against the dollar and the limited amount of stock relative to the availability of these currencies. While gold's trend seems to have changed to the upside now, the developed world is still 'out of gold'.
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Saturday, January 24, 2015
Safe Haven 101 For Investors Concerned About the Future / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Ron_Holland
Dictionaries broadly define a safe haven as a place of refuge or sanctuary. I'm using the term to describe a hoped for place of security if a future catastrophe should take place. Possibilities include a major natural disaster, the coming end of the forced petrodollar scam, an unexpected major new war or civil disruption as the United States makes the always difficult transformation from leading world empire to a has-been nation heading downward on the stage of world history.
This has happened to all great empires that have gone this way before the Washington Empire and will eventually happen to all future global empires. It is the nature of all aggressive empires to overreach politically and militarily as well as in the economic sphere.
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Saturday, January 24, 2015
U.S. Dollar Denial Ain't Just a River / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
Safe to say, with oil cut in half, precious metals prices contained below $20, and both housing and equities booming on little to no real economic growth, we are at peak ignorance in terms of monetary understanding. This cannot end well.
And yet for many who see the injustice, the inequality, or have dared witness the raping of justice on the way to this perception, the blame is too often misplaced. The sad reality is that those who are left to think about it come to the conclusion that the problem is capitalism - that more of the same should be implemented.
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Wednesday, January 21, 2015
The Swiss will not have more EU QE / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: BATR
In the ridiculous charade that passes for the foreign exchange currency markets, the ease upon which a 39% spike in the Swiss Franc to the EU has most financial journalist puzzled. A flagship of establishment journalism like the Washington Post provides a quaint explanation in Why Switzerland’s currency is going historically crazy. The Swiss intend to keep their exchange rate at 1.2 Swiss francs per euro caused unsustainable negative competiveness in Swiss exports to EU customers. How many times have you heard that same old song? Corporatist media consistently spins a yarn that suppressing one’s own currency is good for business.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Switzerland Wins As Its Central Bank Surrenders / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Peter_Schiff
If anyone had any doubt how severely the global economy has been distorted by the actions of central bankers, the "surprise" announcement last week by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to no longer peg the Swiss franc to the euro should provide a moment of crystal clarity. The decision sent the franc up almost 30% in intraday trading, a scale of movement that is unprecedented for a major currency in the modern era. Although very few in the media or on Wall Street fully understand the ramifications, the situation that forced the Swiss to abandon the peg will soon be faced by bankers of much larger countries in the coming years, the implications of which can have more profound implications for global financial markets.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
The Swiss Release the Kraken! / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: John_Mauldin
“Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee….
“There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.”
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Switzerland Frees the Swiss Franc / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Frank_Hollenbeck
You can fix your currency or you run independent monetary policy. But you cannot do both at the same time. In spectacular fashion, the Swiss government finally capitulated and decided control over the money supply was more important than a fixed rate against the euro. The Swiss franc rocketed up 30 percent in value minutes after the central bank’s decision to let the currency float.
Saturday, January 03, 2015
The Great Fallacy at the Heart of Modern Monetary Theory / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Jesse
As with all theories that miss the mark, Modern Monetary Theory presents some insights into the matter of course, but seems to hinge on one or two key assumptions that are more matters of assertion than historical or even practical experience. It is founded not so much an economic theory, but on a belief without a firm foundation.
Monday, December 29, 2014
Counting Your Chickens in Dollars / Commodities / Fiat Currency
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
With silver, you have a rare physical commodity that you can literally take into your possession.
It’s known that quantity, in investment form, is far less than what is perceived by the mainstream. And as a direct consequence, orders of magnitude less than the price indicates.
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Monday, December 08, 2014
What a Reserve Currency Should Look Like / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: MISES
Patrick Barron writes: Much has been written lately, including by me, about the coming rejection of the dollar as the primary reserve currency of the world’s most important central banks.
My prediction is based upon two things: one, that the Federal Reserve is controlled by inflationist politicians whose main goal is to monetize the federal government’s vast annual budget deficits; and, two, that the rest of the world is getting fed up with holding ever more fiat dollars of decreasing purchasing power. In the first instance, as long as the Fed can get away with printing dollars that ultimately are used to purchase federal government debt, there is no reason for it to cease federal debt monetization, or for the federal government itself to balance its budget.
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Friday, November 21, 2014
Paper Money Yielding Madness / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
The mainstream investor (with any time and "money" left), wielding an internet connection, and hell bent for yield is about to feel the temperature drop despite a thousand reminders that the cold winter is coming. (Or perhaps not - if you are in South Florida.)
Zero interest policy scorches the planner and the saver, rotting the seed corn while providing fuel for speculation, breeding the trading culture pestilence we see today. Yet again, another tiresome cycle appears. More bubbles to end all bubbles.
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Thursday, November 20, 2014
The Cultural and Political Consequences of Fiat Money / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: MISES
Jörg Guido Hülsmann writes: It may seem unusual that an economist would talk about culture. Usually, we talk about prices and production, quantities produced, employment, the structure of production, scarce resources, and entrepreneurship.
But there are certain things that economists can say about the culture, and more precisely, that economists can say about the transformation of the culture. So what is culture? Well, to put it simply, it is the way we do things. This can include the way we eat — whether or not we dine with family members on a regular basis, for example — how we sleep, and how we use automobiles or other modes of transportation. And of course, the way we produce, consume, or accumulate capital are important aspects of the culture as well.
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Monday, November 10, 2014
Fiat Wealth Illusion - We Don't Need Your Stinking Principles / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
“Nobody can predict how long governments can get away with fake growth, fake money, fake financial stability, fake jobs, fake inflation numbers and fake income growth. Our feeling is that confidence, especially when it is unjustified, is quite a thin veneer. When confidence is lost, that loss can be severe, sudden and simultaneous across a number of markets and sectors.” - Paul SingerI noticed the following financial cartoon was making its rounds over the weekend. Particularly this section. In case you can't see the image, the quote that stood out was this one:
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