Crise prochaine : ce que les gouvernements préparent

Le monde se rend peu à peu à l'évidence d'une nouvelle crise nous arrivant droit dessus. Le magazine The Economist  analyse cette semaine les options des banques centrales lorsque cette crise frappera l'économie mondiale; reconnaissant les résultats décevants des politiques non-conventionnelles actuelles, The Economist recommande que les gouvernements et les banques centrales aient recours cette fois à des mesures extrêmes.  Lesquelles ? Je vais les passer en revue ici en résumé, mais avant toute chose je voudrais faire remarquer que si cette publication bénéficie nul doute d'un suivi important parmi les décideurs,  son équipe éditoriale n'est pourtant pas vraiment connue pour sa clairvoyance. The Economist a pris parti en faveur de la guerre en Irak ( en Afghanistan aussi) qui s'est avérée être une colossale erreur (ou manipulation selon la manière dont on voit les choses), on le réalise aujourd'hui, d'une ampleur telle à menacer la paix mondiale; The Economist a soutenu George Bush et sa guerre contre le terrorisme, et l'histoire dira si le magazine a raison d'être partisan d'une politique de portes grandes ouvertes aux réfugiés du Moyen-Orient (une façon de résoudre la crise démographique en Europe). The Economist prit parti aussi en faveur des politiques monétaires que l'on connait depuis 2008 et qui ont largement échoué en dehors des Etats-Unis. Sur ce dernier sujet, le prestigieux magazine britannique  en rajoute une couche et  va jusqu'à proposer qu'en cas de grave crise les états aient recours à diverses mesures pour créer une panique inflationniste propre à contrecarrer une spirale déflationniste .

Parmi les mesures suggérées on notera :

-un recours direct des états à la planche à billets, l'Etat emprunterait directement à la banque centrale sans passer par les banques, déconstruisant ainsi toutes les lois apparues au cours du siècle passé pour empêcher les crises inflationnistes, phènomènes destructeurs dont les gouvernements sont toujours la cause

- le rachat par les banques centrales d'obligations junk, d'actions (!) et même d'immeubles si nécessaire... Enfin, en bref, les banques centrales rachètent tout ce qui est pourri, et sauvent tous les incompétents

- l'annulation des obligations rachetées par les banques centrales. The Economist reconnaît que celles-ci seraient alors techniquement en faillite. Mais ce n'est pas grave, puisque elles peuvent être renflouées par le Trésor, c'est-à-dire vous le contribuable 

- davantage de recours aux taux d'intérêt négatifs, qui seront également passés aux épargnants, pour éviter les effets de l'accumulation de cash physique par ceux-ci, le cash deviendrait interdit (une idée suggérée déjà par certains Dr Frankensteins de l'économie, Ken Rogoff, Olivier Blanchard au FMI), ce qui bien sûr arrangerait bien les gouvernements capables désormais de contrôler tous les flux financiers, ainsi que jusque dans les petits détails de votre vie quotidienne

- des hausses de salaire légiférées, pour créer une dynamique inflationniste en forçant les entreprises à relever leur prix . The Economist reconnaît que de telles mesures ne s'appliqueraient pas à toutes les économies, mais le recommande au Japon.

De quoi s'inquiéter, voire paniquer en avance, quand on connait le cheminement des idées qui font les politiques. Des économistes en mal d'attention cogitent, et publient, les belles théories sont peu à peu reprises dans les médias économiques et financiers. Le grand public finit par croire que ces experts peuvent résoudre tous nos problèmes. Lorsque la crise frappe, des politiciens désespérés, qui n'ont rien vu venir, reprennent ces idées à leur compte. De quoi s'inquiéter aussi alors que Christine Lagarde qui s'est faite la porte-parole des apprentis-sorciers vient d'être reconduite pour 5 ans au FMI.   

Gold price alert : channel resistance broken as prices skyrocket

Astounding move reflects major technical breakout, yet with banks collapsing it should also alert investors that things are bad. This is a signal to go long like we haven't seen since 2011. Traders will want to see the month end in strength though before adding to this trade.

This Is It ! Stockmarkets About to Humiliate Central Bankers, Coming Crash Could Be Devastating

It's the end of the road for small investors who for several years now have been caught up in the great illusion created by central bankers, they have been "econned" to use a term coined by Yves Smith . The con was that central banks were going to erase all the mistakes of the past by adding zeroes to deposits of financial institutions, and that it would get the world economy out of the mess resulting from their very own policies . The con allowed the financial elite, banks, hedge funds, captains of industry, internet entrepreneurs and the likes to make back whatever they had foolishly lost in the 2008 financial crisis and grow much richer yet , while for the broader population, employment metrics and income growth remained depressed.

Central Banks Out of Ammo

For the past year, the central bankers' grand plan has been unraveling in the most troubling way, but that was to be expected. In their obsession with fighting deflation, they created a new bubble, multiple bubbles rather, which of course will have devastating effects once they burst, ensuring this time a deflationary spiral. First oil prices collapsed with a fatal combination of oversupply -encouraged in the first place by artificially high prices and an oil rush facilitated by cheap financing- then lower demand from China and EM . Then in China, what had to happen finally happened, the stockmarket collapsed auguring troubles for the chinese economy. Emerging markets were displaying signs of trouble long before that new development, the perpective of higher US interest rates - Fed  needing to gain some of its credibility back - then of an outright economic collapse in China have kept pressuring their stockmarkets. Soon after the  early exhilirating effects of Super Mario's QE started to dissipate, and  European stockmarkets too came under pressure. US equities appeared resilient for a while, on the back of a relative economic strength . But finally the S&P started to fall too. A trapped Fed which has lost credibility under Janet Yellen, an energy industry collapse threatening a junk bond catastrophe, an internet bubble all over again, the effects of the chinese collapse, and probably uncertainty about the US presidential election, are the factors behind the weakness in US equities . The technical picture is ugly, across all world stockmarkets. Investors have been warned many times over, now it's coming ... the crash !


  The following charts show the technical damage in Europe: this market is not coming back !

                               IBEX35 Monthly  Chart by ProRealtime

                              FTSE EuroTop100 Monthly   Chart by ProRealtime

Banks got absolutely hammered; this should give food for thought to investors ....

                               Stoxx 600 Banks  Chart by ProRealtime

Why are banks cratering ? SOMETHING IS ROTTEN ...
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-walking-dead-something-is-rotten-in-the-banking-system/


TOP IS IN ! Record price reached for classic car sold at Paris auction !
 This follows another record for a Ferrari sold in 2014 in the US for $38M !

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35508378

Janet Yellen failed to raise interest rates while she could,  she lost all credibility when she started to conduct monetary policy not on the basis of the economic data she said determined policy (unemployment rate chiefly) but on the basis of the evolution of equity markets. At the slightest correction in equities, Fed governors would come out cajoling the markets with various pretexts to maintain ultra-accommodation. The Fed turned into the mother of all speculators by banking on ever higher stockmarkets to bail out the economy, that was utter foolishness given the evident frothiness in various segments of the market (e.g. internet,biotechs). With rates close to zero the Fed now has little room to ease again if necessary. Signaling another round of QE is in the cards may not have the effect it had previously, given the ongoing slump in market and economic conditions. For the bursting of a bubble no longer amounts to economic headwinds, it's a tsunami .  

Negative Rates on Excess Reserves and Negative Bond Yields Could Backfire

Other central banks were to pick up where the Fed had left off, or so was investors' thinking. But the world found out that QE and other  unconventional policies didn't work as well outside the US. The BOJ's massive quantitative easing is today deemed a failure http://buy-point.blogspot.ch/2013/04/les-traders-remercient-la-banque-du.html, and the ECB's own massive QE campaign had its effects on equities recently reversed, with the unintended -and displeasing for exporters- consequence of a spike in the EUR/USD rate.  Under political pressure,  Mario Draghi threw the ECB's founding rules through the window becoming a deficit enabler and a money printer of the worst kind , he adopted the same modus operandi as the FOMC, enslaving the board of governors to the markets. Now the ECB is trapped too. Its new policy tool, negative interest rates, is hurting the banking sector and it's unclear whether it will jolt lending to the "real economy". It has certainly failed so far to weaken the euro, which was one of its objectives, EUR/USD skyrocketed in recent days ! There is a possibility negative rates will backfire, with banks margins being squeezed leading to less lending, plus higher costs for customers who will keep more cash at home. Not to mention, that further QE may run into problems if banks prefer to hold bonds rather than cash. One should take notice that banks share prices are collapsing. In similar fashion to other central banks actions, all the ECB did with its various measures was enriching speculators, lending never went to the broader economy, it went to the rich. That's why high-end real estate prices increased, art prices increased while inflation remained very subdued and significantly under the ECB's target. In all likelihood, inflation will stay close to zero for an extended period, because that just what happens when asset prices deflate after a bubble. With that in perspective, an inflation target is almost irrelevant. Europe is going japanese. Actually, it's worse.     

Eurozone inflation, headline and core

Charts courtesy of Tradingeconomics.com

Day of Reckoning Soon Coming For Mad Central Bankers

Update will be posted shortly

El-Erian sounds off on central banks :

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/26/mohamed-el-erian-warns-about-a-day-of-reckoning.html