Inflation… ‘when’ not ‘if’…

The endurance of gold at above $900, rising oil prices, the weakening dollar and a Treasury/Fed combo that is increasing the money in circulation will lead us where?

I hate to harp on about inflation but it just doesn’t seem that further down the line we won’t see a lot of it, the market is pricing it in, the yield curve is suggesting it, and yet it remains on the periphery of commentary for the most part.

One important statement in this talk is the bit where one of the guys talks about the fractional reserve system and the multiplier effect that can turn 800+ billion into 8 trillion.

When we are advising longer term fixed rates to avoid the pain this will bring (and it won’t be in 09′, it will be 10′ or 11′ but rest assured it will come), bear in mind that in the short term you will pay more than you have to, but that when everybody else is hurting you will be insulated. The reason for fixing now rather than later is that the …

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How far are we down the rabbit hole?

How far into the credit crunch and liquidity crisis are we? Banking stocks would have you think that it’s all upwards from here on in but how can you be sure? The Regulators in the USA were prepared for 100 to 200 bank closures in the 12-24 month period from the end of 07′. Thus far we have only seen eight actually close.

The total amount of assets involved is €38 billion. That might not seem like much when talking about bankers money, but keep in perspective that its 38,000 units of a million, its twice the size of AIB, its more than all of the lending market in Ireland for the whole year of 2007. And of course this is just the portion that have gone under, the actual ‘writedowns’ that other banks are surviving are (when added together) much larger, which means that some banks are just better able to take their blows than others. The worrisome thing in some cases …

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