Europe

Submitted by Bill Bonner of Bonner & Partners (annotated by Acting-Man.com's Pater Tenebrarum),

The Hard Rocks of Real Life

The Dow dropped 174 points on Thursday, the biggest fall in six weeks. Not the end of the world. Maybe not even the end of this year’s bounce-back bull run. As you’ll recall, stocks sold off at the beginning of the year, too. Then, investors were buoyed up after central banks got to work – jimmying the credit market on their behalf.

With The Atlanta Fed's slashing its Q1 GDP growth expectations to just 0.1%, consensus estimates for 2016 growth have collapsed. However, none of this should surprise anyone as this is the sixth year in a row that over-optimistic growth hopes devolve into hype for more stimulus and a hockey-stick just around the corner.

While expectations have not improved since 2010, at least one these dreadful soothsayers is defending this year's drop in the same old manner - by promising that H2 will be better, for these 4 reasons...

From one of the biggest cheerleaders of the stock market, in recent months Jamie Dimon's JPM has undergone a dramatic anti-Hugh Hendrian metamorphosis, turning increasingly more skeptical on further risk asset upside and as of one month ago, pulled the plug on its former cheerful nature when in early March it announced it had gone Underweight stocks "for the very first time this cycle."

Now that the prospect of helicopter money by the ECB has so infuriated Germany, the ECB had to reach out to Schauble to "mollify" the Germans who are dreading the second coming of monetary paradrops in one century, it was only a matter of time before Citadel's most prominent employer opined. In a blog post earlier today, Brookings' blogger and the central banker who together with Alan Greenspan has been most responsible for the world's unprecedented debt pile and sad economic state, Ben Bernanke, took the podium to share his views on "helicopter money" head on.

It's official, I'm calling a banking crisis in Europe. Things didn't go well the last time I did this. Of course, many will say, "But the rating agencies have learned their collective lessons. They would most assuredely warn us if the European banks are close to going bust, right?!!!". Yeah, right! Reference our past research note on so-called trusted parties in private blockchains for banks. Those interested in purchasing the 22 page report on what is likely the first major bank to fall victim to the coming Pan-European Banking Crisis can do so here. All others, feel free to read on...