COMMENT: Marty,
The central banks tell us they will lower interest rates, even into negative territory, in order to stimulate the economy through bank lending. YOU tell this is an outdated theory that has NEVER worked and I believe you.
Surely the central banks persist will this excuse not because they think it will work but because they can use the theory as a smokescreen to hide the real reason.
The real reason is, I believe, that they are being leaned-on by politicians to keep rates low or negative because our governments cannot afford to pay higher interest on the massive debts they have accumulated over the decades and have never paid off.
AB
REPLY: You are correct. We warned that when the Economic Confidence Model turned in 2015.75, it would be the beginning of the Sovereign Debt Crisis. Today, the ECB owns 40% of all Eurozone public debt with no end in sight. They have destroyed their bond market. This cycle should collide with the Monetary Crisis Cycle, so we will have some very interesting times ahead.
We must separate the USA from the rest of the world. Europe especially cannot allow official rates to rise without blowing up the entire EU austerity move. The Fed was raising rates because that was the proper policy. He ran into stiff resistance from outside the USA because Europe left its banks with all the toxic bombs and cut rates hoping they would make enough money to cover their losses. This is why Deutsche Bank is in trouble and rumors are flying about HSBC.
But the Fed cannot stand against the entire world. The USA has the ONLY viable bond market. Lowering rates in the USA will also destroy the US bond market and then we are looking at a not so happy ending to the debt crisis.
