There was a beautiful symmetry to last week’s policy announcement by the Fed. Precisely a week after the ECB had pledged its commitment to unlimited purchases of Euro Zone government bonds, the Fed declared that its new round of debt monetization – ‘quantitative easing’ or QE3 – would be open-ended. Unlimited, open-ended. The concept of [...]
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Dear readers, first of all, apologies seem in order. An unusual gap between blog posts has appeared on the Schlichter Files this summer. The reason is that I was travelling with my family in East Africa through most of August, enjoying the spectacular landscapes and the fascinating wildlife there, and meeting some very interesting people. [...]
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On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon declared that the United States would no longer honour its promise to exchange US dollars held by foreign central banks for gold at a fixed price of $35 an ounce. The innocuous term ‘Nixon closed the gold window’ that is now widely used to describe this act does [...]
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Last week, the Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), or German Institute for Economic Research, an influential think tank, proposed an ingenious solution to the Euro Zone debt crisis. The German government should issue a Zwangsanleihe, a compulsory bond that every German with savings of €250,000 or more should be compelled to underwrite with 10 percent [...]
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On page two of today’s Wall Street Journal Europe you will find the result of a readers’ poll from last Friday: Question: Will the ECB’s rate cut help restore confidence in the bloc’s economy? Answer: 81 percent of readers say no, 19 percent yes. Last week’s round of global monetary easing – another ECB rate [...]
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In my view, there is no escaping the fact that things are not getting better. If anything, they are getting worse. Following the large swings in financial markets this past week and reading the commentary in the press, it strikes me that there is still a surprisingly strong belief out there that our fate is [...]
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“So what do you think should be done?” I often get this question after I presented my case against our fiat money system, and I sense there is a trace of frustration in it, a bit along the lines of, you are telling us that we are in quite a mess but you offer no [...]
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I hate to give personal investment advice. So please do me a favour and do not treat the following as investment advice. I am expressing my personal opinion here. I do so with honesty and conviction, without a personal agenda – I am not trying to sell you anything – but with some good arguments, [...]
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Last week, Chatham House, formerly known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs and a non-profit, non-governmental institution in London whose “mission is to be a world-leading source of independent analysis, informed debate and influential ideas on how to build a prosperous and secure world for all”, published a report with the title, “Gold and [...]
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Greece was bailed out for the second time in four months. Or did it default? Well, a bit of both, I guess. All bondholders are equal. But some are more equal than others. If you are the ECB, your Greek bonds were exchanged, par for par, for new Greek bonds, and you can go on [...]
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Recent Comments
{ Feeding a little conspiracy theory ... considering a four-year schedule, put aside the gold standard... } – Sep 27, 3:20 PM
{ Federico, apologies for the slow response. You make a very good point. Banking systems in... } – Sep 27, 3:15 PM
{ Mr Schlichter, excellent article. I agree with previous comments to a great degree as well.... } – Sep 27, 9:16 AM
{ Richard Fisher, President of the Dallas Fed, and a member of the FOMC of the... } – Sep 27, 3:50 AM
