Records that were reached in the last sovereign debt crisis are being shattered... savers are right to be worried – not only Italians, but all Europeans...

The whole of French wealth owned by individuals totalled 5.233 Trillion euro at the third quarter of 2017, up 8.5% year-to-year. This is the equivalent of 178,200 euro of gross financial wealth per household. It means that French households were 15% richer than their German counterparts (107,700 euro) in the third quarter of 2017. Where are going these “record” savings?

As stated by La Tribune, “Emmanuel Macron wishes the implementation of the European Banking Union – a system for joint management of bank failures – to be finalised as soon as possible in order to draw lessons from the Euro zone’s debt crisis.” Well, alright, but why is it so urgent? Is the French President aware of any disturbing report on the French banks?

Many banks are ailing in Europe, notably in Italy, Greece and Spain, but Deutsche Bank, sitting at the core of Europe’s largest and most competitive economy, is like an atomic bomb that could spark a worldwide financial crisis, just like Lehman Brothers did in the past. Even Mario Draghi, ordinarily placid and nonchalant, is starting to worry...

Here’s new proof of the incompetence of French governments to manage the country’s debt. France issues 10% of its debt in inflation-indexed securities. This insane risk-taking will bring it to ruin if prices start to get into a skid.

Being able to get financing entirely from one’s central bank – at zero cost and without any outside constraint – is the dream of any spendthrift State... until bankruptcy (either by default or by hyperinflation).

Since the two coalitions that won are euro-sceptic, very critical of the euro and against immigration, this means that 70% of Italians are dissatisfied with Rome and Brussels policies.

The planet’s biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater, which manages more than $160 billion, just bet $22 billion on a decline of stocks in the banking sector and other large corporations.

The stock markets are being shaken these days, indexes are in the red, and months of gains have disappeared in a few sessions... Are we witnessing a temporary correction or is this a deeper and lasting crisis? It’s too early to tell, and we’re not going to play the guessing game. However, if we step back a little, we can acknowledge a deeply changing financial landscape, a historical changeover: it has to do with interest rates.

Clearly Europe is fragile – this is where one has to look for risks of price slips, sudden interest rates hikes, overblown balance sheets...

Monetary tapering from the Fed and the ECB, blaringly announced in the media, are thus without any effect; they will not help in emerging from the lethargy of zero or negative rates.

The French like to denounce American capitalism and mock its excesses and instability, especially in the financial sector. Nevertheless, when one looks at the data from the large banks on both sides of the Atlantic, it becomes clear that the most risk is actually with France.

The ECB wants to prevent bank runs by allowing banks to block deposits and authorise limited withdrawals, like they did in Cyprus in March, 2013. According to the institution, the deposit protection scheme is no longer necessary.

With Bitcoin, more and more people are questioning what real money is and, slowly, the whole world will jump in, and gold will benefit from it. And that is good news.

Stuck in its own petard, the ECB doesn’t believe in a vigorous and durable economic recovery anymore – the only thing that would allow it, as well as over-indebted countries, to fall back on their feet.

“Europe’s bank sector has grown too big and may need to shrink, possibly through mergers or failures (...) many banks in the euro area do not earn their cost of capital.” In other words, they are zombie banks, bankrupt and only kept alive by the liquidity flowing from the ECB.

We seldom hear about the risk of a major financial crisis if rates were to rise – almost never within the official networks and mainstream media. One has to listen to independent “marginal” economists outside the banks or universities, such as our own Egon von Greyerz, or Olivier Delamarche, Bill Bo...

Getting one’s money out of the bank – at least a large portion of it – is one thing, but what is one to do with it? The preferred investment, the most reassuring, according to observations and some polls, is real estate.

A new nail should be driven in the savers’ coffins, according to the very serious Reuters press agency: the freezing of bank accounts in order to avoid any bank run.

The trillions of dollars, euro, yens, Yuan etc. created by the central banks since the 2008 crisis haven’t triggered any wave of inflation, contrary to what history has been teaching thus far. But should we underestimate the risk? Of course not.