In response to an FT article by Wolfgang Münchau on 16th April 2017, entitled ‘The shadow hanging over central bank control’
“Every few decades or so, the world of central banking turns upside down. Over the last 100 years we had systems in which central banks targeted a fixed conversion rate to gold, the supply of money in circulation or, more recently, a rate of expected future inflation. A combination of deep changes in the money markets and financial crises is now conspiring towards another big change…
…This debate is still confined to a small number of experts in central banks, and academics…
…Nothing in this analysis suggests that a crisis is about to hit soon” - Wolfgang Münchau
Nothing in the analysis of money, credit, interest rates, and debt…when it comes from central banks, mainstream economists, or the financial journalists that cover them…ever suggests that a crisis is about to hit soon, and even afterwards it is presented as 'nobody could have seen it coming'. Janet Yellen couldn't forecast what she had for dinner last night.
For example, there are somewhere in the region of 75 million baby boomers due to retire in the US over the next few years. The majority of them are not going to have the retirement that they expect, and have been encouraged to believe that they have 'earned'. In other words, there are trillions in what are technically referred to as 'unfunded liabilities', which those folks will experience as 'broken promises', or if they are less politically correct (and in private they will be) as 'bull$hit'.
Many of the unfortunate souls administering these schemes, have recently reduced their projected returns from 8% down to 7%...meanwhile bonds are still paying next to zilch, and they are being ‘forced’ down the risk curve…’cloud cuckoo land’ doesn't even get close. The central bankers, the governments, and the mainstream economists who ‘analyse’ this must realise what’s happening...because it is almost inconceivable that they can be as utterly 'thick' as their behaviour and communication suggests. Ergo they are kicking the can down the road, AKA 'lying'. The crisis about to unfold in places like Illinois will be just the tip of the iceberg.
Of course what will happen, and is happening, is that property taxes are being raised in order to delay the crisis as long as possible. The problem with that is this: the millennials who will be expected to make up part of this shortfall will say, and from their point of view quite rightly – “why should we pay for the retirement that you've been promised, when it means we can't afford to live”
This is just one aspect of the crisis emerging from over 20 years of financial and monetary ‘abuse’ overseen by the Central Banks, ignored by the politicians, and lapped up by their cronies on Wall Street...and nothing we hear from central banks, mainstream economists or financial journalists, does anything to acknowledge it, let alone address it. ‘Nobody could see it coming' will not wash next time - too many people already do