The massive deluge of liquidity from central banks in Europe, Japan and the United States (more QE, albeit with zero interest rate) is provoking a general crash in the risk premiums, which renders the markets practically blind.

The sudden burst of panic provoked last week by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) reveals that we have all become so addicted to the central banks’ doings that it is turning pathological.

Greece is, once again, shaking the foundations of the Eurozone, and there is, again, talk of a “Grexit”. Stock markets are tumbling and fear the results of the January 25 anticipated elections.

Kudos to Shinzo Abe who just got brilliantly re-elected despite a largely negative balance sheet! His party took two-thirds of the seats of the House of Representatives, a clear victory. The moniker “Abenomics”, a contraction of his name and economics, is known all around the world. Wow, what a talented politician!

This news should have made the front page but it was hardly mentioned at all: Italy’s public debt is just a notch away from the speculative category!

A YES vote would have acted like a thunder strike and brought about a complete turnaround of the lax monetary policies of Switzerland, Europe (ECB), the United States and Japan. But, sadly, this won’t be the case. Let’s try to understand why.

Swiss bank accounts are not absolutely safe anymore, as several clients of the Portuguese group Banco Espirito Santo are finding out at their own expense.

In Luxembourg and Germany, some banks have started to apply negative interest rates on deposits: In other words, they are charging interest on deposits!

Download ebook for free. The goal of these economics detox chronicles is to propose another view and, first of all, counter the main discourse which permanently paints a rosy picture of the situation.

There is a new alert out for banks and this time, it’s coming from a regulating agency worried of their capacity to weather an eventual next crisis. The alert was sounded by the FSB (Financial Stability Board), the G20’s organism in charge of financial regulation.

Barak Obama and the Democrats just lost the mid-term elections. They were already in minority in Congress and now they are sinking even deeper, losing their majority in the Senate in favour of the Republicans.

Last Sunday, the European Central Bank announced its verdict on the stress tests it has been conducting for several months and, this time around, quite a few banks have failed them.

The United States’ public debt represents a large volume but, however, its absorption capacity is not infinite. And neither is its credibility. Even though the Fed is backing the whole thing and stands ready to print anything to meet payments, at one point defiance will be on the rise. We may not be there quite yet, but this is clearly the last rampart holding together the monetary and financial systems. If this starts to fail there will be a general panic.

An important agreement was signed on Saturday, October 11, between the large global banks “under pressure from regulators” and it relates to derivatives and, more specifically, the CDSs, or credit default swaps.

Central banks have kept silent about this but it’s hard to believe that manipulating the foreign exchange market isn’t part of their policies; it’s probably also part of their new strategy.

Tensions are rising between Germany and the European Central Bank and, this time, concerns are raised openly through an intervention by Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble before the German parliament, the Bundestag. Angela Merkel’s strong man has been in charge of this key ministry since 2...

Average growth in Europe, Japan and the United States keeps slowing down when compared with previous decades: It is near zero in Europe and Japan, and 2% in the U.S.

Cash reserves of corporations located in Europe, Africa and the Middle East (EMEA zone) are reaching record highs, totalling 936 billion euros. This is 40% more than in 2007, just before the crisis, and this is where the problem lies: businesses are making money, but they don’t know what to do with it.

Mario Draghi spoke, last Thursday, and everyone must have thought his announcements were important... because right after his speech, stock markets went up and the euro fell against the dollar! What caused this abrupt temperature rise in the markets?

On Monday, France borrowed at a negative rate, which means investors are losing money... they’re paying to deposit their money! Even though this is for short-term loans (3, 6 and 12 months, for a total of 8.2 billion euros) at rates slightly below zero (-0.002% to -0.004%), this hadn’t occurred since May of 2013.