Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
Today’s the day.
After months of preparing financial markets for this news, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to announce that it will finally begin shrinking its $4.5 trillion balance sheet.
I know, that probably sound reeeeally boring. A bunch of central bankers talking about their balance sheet.
But it’s phenomenally important. And I’ll explain why-
Reviewing first day motions from a company's chapter 11 docket, and more specifically the CEO's declaration, can be a great way to learn exactly what happened in the days/weeks leading up to a bankruptcy filing. The company spends millions of dollars every month on expensive lawyers (Kirkland & Ellis in the case of Toys "R" Us), investment bankers (Lazard), turnaround advisors (Alvarez & Marsal), claims administrators, etc., who all spend many sleepless nights in the days leading up to a filing trying to make sure the first day motions are as informative as possible.
If once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and three times is a full-blown collapse in the financial system, then Russia may be getting close.
Authored by Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke.
The Grim Reaper has taken his scythe to the Venezuelan bolivar. The death of the bolivar is depicted in the following chart. A bolivar is worthless, and with its collapse, Venezuela is witnessing the world’s worst inflation.
"Like watching paint dry," is how The Fed describes the beginning of the end of its experiment with massively inflating its balance sheet to save the world. As former fund manager Richard Breslow notes, however, Yellen's decision today means the risk-suppression boot is on the other foot (or feet) of The SNB, The ECB, and The BoJ; as he writes, "have no fear, The SNB knows what it's doing."