Tag Archive: Japan

Cashless Society – Is The War On Cash Set To Benefit Gold?

2016-10-26

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2016-10-26

Cash is the new “barbarous relic” according to many central banks, regulators, and some economists and there is a strong, concerted push for the ‘cashless society’. Developments in recent days and weeks have highlighted the risks posed by the war on cash and the cashless society.

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Financial Repression Is Now “In Play”

2016-10-20

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2016-10-20

A FALLING MARKET CANNOT BE ALLOWED – at any cost! The Central Bankers have clearly painted themselves into a corner as a result of their self-inflicted, extended period of “cheap money”. Their policies have fostered malinvestment, excessive leverage and a speculative casino approach to investments. Investors forced to take on excess risk for yield and scalp speculative investment returns, must operate in an unstable financial environment ripe for...

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The Swiss Begin To Hoard Cash

2016-10-17

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2016-10-17

While subtle, the general public loss of faith in central banking has been obvious to anyone who has simply kept their eyes open: it started in Japan where in February hardware stores were reported that consumers were hoarding cash, as confirmed by t...

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Why Krugman, Roubini, Rogoff And Buffett Hate Gold

2016-10-10

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2016-10-10

A couple of weeks ago an article appeared on Bitcoin Magazine entitled ‘Some economists really hate bitcoin’. I read it with a sigh of nostalgia. As someone who has been writing about gold for a few years, I am used to reading similar criticisms as those bitcoin receives from mainstream economists, about gold.

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Will The ECB Buy Stocks?

2016-10-05

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2016-10-05

Debate about the ECB’s stimulus options have continued to rage, with an equity purchase plan mentioned as a possibility. We think the ECB could legally buy ETFs that fit its requirements… but it would be controversial and we question the benefits. An ETF programme could total EUR 200bn, which would not be large compared to the overall QE programme.

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Is The US Dollar Set To Soar?

2016-10-03

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2016-10-03

Hating the U.S. dollar offers the same rewards as hating a dominant sports team: it feels righteous to root for the underdogs, but it's generally unwise to let that enthusiasm become the basis of one's bets. Personally, I favor the emergence of non-state reserve currencies, for example, blockchain crypto-currencies or precious-metal-backed private currencies--currencies which can't be devalued by self-serving central banks or the private elites...

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Un-Becoming American – One Man’s Painful Journey To Renouncing Citizenship

In April 2012, I returned to Switzerland – my country of birth – to commence a new phase of my adult life. Naturally, one of the first steps to undertake when establishing oneself in a new country is to open a bank account. I went down to the local Raiffeisen bank branch in the village of Aesch, Luzern, where my relatives and ancestors had lived and worked as farmers for over 10 generations.

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Rogoff Warns “Cash Is Not Forever, It’s A Curse”

2016-09-14

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2016-09-14

Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, postulates to get rid of cash. In his opinion, killing big bills would hamper organized crime and make negative interest more effective. Kenneth Rogoff makes a provocative proposal. One of the most influential economists on the planet, he wants to phase out cash.

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Attack The Fed’s War On Savers, Workers And The Unborn (Taxpayers)

2016-09-13

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2016-09-13

The central banks have gone so far off the deep-end with financial price manipulation that it is only a matter of time before some astute politician comes after them with all barrels blasting. As a matter of fact, that appears to be exactly what Donald Trump unloaded on bubble vision this morning:

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Negative and the War On Cash, Part 2: “Closing The Escape Routes”

2016-09-08

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2016-09-08

History teaches us that central authorities dislike escape routes, at least for the majority, and are therefore prone to closing them, so that control of a limited money supply can remain in the hands of the very few. In the 1930s, gold was the escape route, so gold was confiscated. As Alan Greenspan wrote in 1966:

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Negative Rates and The War On Cash, Part 1: “There Is Nowhere To Go But Down”

2016-09-04

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2016-09-04

As momentum builds in the developing deflationary spiral, we are seeing increasingly desperate measures to keep the global credit ponzi scheme from its inevitable conclusion. Credit bubbles are dynamic — they must grow continually or implode — hence they require ever more money to be lent into existence.

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‘Last Economist Standing’ John Taylor Urges “Less Weird Policy” At Jackson Hole

2016-08-25

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2016-08-25

I attended the first monetary-policy conference there in 1982, and I may be the only person to attend both the 1st and the 35th. I know the Tetons will still be there, but virtually everything else will be different. As the Wall Street Journal front page headline screamed out on Monday, central bank Stimulus Efforts Get Weirder. I’m looking forward to it.

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The World’s Dominant Gold Refineries

2016-08-19

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2016-08-19

There are many precious metals refineries throughout the world, some local to their domestic markets, and some international, even global in scale. Many but by no means all of these refineries are on the Good Delivery Lists of gold and/or silver.

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Spectacular Chinese Gold Demand Fully Denied By GFMS And Mainstream Media

2016-08-18

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2016-08-18

In the Gold Survey 2016 report by GFMS that covers the global gold market for calendar year 2015 Chinese gold consumption was assessed at 867 tonnes. As Chinese wholesale demand, measured by withdrawals from Shanghai Gold Exchange designated vaults, accounted for 2,596 tonnes in 2015 the difference reached an extraordinary peak for the year.

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Stupid is What Stupid Does – Secular Stagnation Redux

2016-08-17

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2016-08-17

Which country, the United States or Japan, have had the fastest GDP growth rate since the financial crisis? Due to Japan’s bad reputation as a stagnant, debt ridden, central bank dependent, demographic basket case the question appears superfluous. The answer seemed so obvious to us that we haven’t really bothered looking into it until one day we started thinking about the demographic situation in the two countries.

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Negative Consumer Financing Rates in Germany, Soon More Negative in Switzerland?

2016-08-07

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2016-08-07

Things are increasingly upside down in the brave new centrally planned world: thanks to negative deposit rates central banks have put an explicit cost on saving, while in various instances, such as taking out a mortgage in Denmark and the Netherlands, the bank actually pays the borrower, thus rewarding living beyond one's means.

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No Big Thoughts, but Several Smaller Observations

2016-08-01

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2016-08-01

Notable that as the CRB Index moves lower, MSCI emerging market equities have done well. European banks are retreating after the stress test results. Tokyo elected its first women governor as this seem to be in part a sign of protest against Abe.

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Richard Koo: If Helicopter Money Succeeds, It Will Lead To 1,500 percent Inflation

2016-07-28

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2016-07-28

After today's uneventful Fed announcement, all eyes turn to the BOJ where many anticipate some form of "helicopter money" is about to be unveiled in Japan by the world's most experimental central bank. However, as Nomura's Richard Koo warns, central banks may get much more than they bargained for, because helicopter money "probably marks the end of the road for believers in the omnipotence of monetary policy who have continued to press for further...

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The World’s Central Banks Are Making A Big Mistake

2016-07-20

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2016-07-20

While everyone was talking about Brexit last month, the Bank for International Settlements released its 86th annual report. Based in Basel, Switzerland, the BIS functions as a master hub for all the world’s central banks. It settles transactions among central banks and other international organizations. It doesn’t serve private individuals, businesses, or national governments.

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FX Weekly Preview: EMU Returns to Center Stage in the Week Ahead

2016-07-17

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2016-07-17

Key event in Europe is not on many calendars--it is a ruling by the European Court of Justice. UK government and Tory Party stabilizing, leaving the Labour Party in disarray. US economy appears to have accelerated into the end of Q2. BOJ's meeting at the end of the month.

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