By David Stockman
It is almost certain now that we are at the threshold of crossing the Rubicon which will result in a crackup of the EU and the euro. There are just too many centrifugal forces blowing apart this experiment, which was misbegotten from the very beginning. That will then catalyze a thundering global crisis of confidence in central banks, generally, and then we will be off to the races.
Everywhere we look in the world the central banks are on the edge of desperation. Sweden (has now) joined the cavalcade of negative interest rates. Denmark was already there and is desperately fighting off a massive inflow of capital out of the EU and into their market. We saw the calamity a few weeks ago when the Swiss finally had to give up their rather lunatic peg and the exchange rate soared overnight, creating enormous losses and carnage. Draghi is about ready to unload $1.3 trillion of make-believe, printed out of thin air money into the European financial and bond markets. Japan’s madness knows no limit. The red capitalists in Beijing are flying by the seat of their pants right now as they see an implosion everywhere in their massively overextended and debt-ridden markets, particularly real estate. Brazil and Turkey are in huge trouble . . .
The central banks as late as 2006 had combined balance sheets of $5 trillion. Today it’s $16 trillion. Total outstanding credit in the world is now past $200 trillion. There are going to be enormous losses and cascading effects. There is a huge amount of dislocation on the way and it’s going to be devastating in its scope and intensity. There is going to be a massive conflagration (extensive fire that destroys assets) in the financial markets. It’s going to be the Great Repricing of all kinds of financial instruments — stocks and bonds. It’s already happened to commodities and derivatives are waiting in line. That’s where the carnage is going to occur.”
(For the entire interview, click the link.)
