Thursday 9/13/2012 The Race To The Bottom Is On!

Helicopter Ben is running his mouth again, channeling "Super Mario" of the ECB.  "The FED will do what's needed to support the economy."  Read: More QE via "unlimited" purchases of MBS (mortgage backed securities) and continued zero interest rates through 2015.

More specifically keep growing the FED balance sheet by printing more and more money so the FED's constituent banks can buy more and more stocks, and pay their board members bigger and bigger year-end bonuses. (It is September after all.)  Wonderful! 

Another lesson not learned apparently.  Trying to extinguish old bad debt with new bad debt is a fools errand. It is precisely why Europe is on the brink of collapse.  The ECB just called this week for "unlimited" bond purchases so the FED can't be left behind in the race to the bottom.  Who has the fastest printing presses is now the new competition between the FED and the ECB. 

What was it Henry II of England said?  "Won't someone rid me of this meddlesome priest?" (banker)



An apendage thanks to my friend at Coyote Prime - "Running 'Cause  I Can't Fly"

"Where Is King Henry Now That We Need Him?"

 

"In this year, before Christmas, King Henry sent from Normandy to England, and commanded that all the moneyers that were in England should be deprived of their members; that was the right hand of each, and their testicles beneath. That was because the man that had a pound could not buy for a penny at a market. And the bishop Roger of Salisbury sent over all England, and commanded them all that they should come to Winchester at Christmas. When they came thither they were taken one by one, and each deprived of the right hand and the testicles beneath. All this was done within the twelve nights; and that was all with great justice, because they had fordone all the land with their great quantity of false money which they all bought."

- "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," p. 221 (year 1125).
Edited, with a Translation, by Benjamin Thorpe, Vol. II
(London: Longman, Green, Longman,and Roberts, 1861)