Quote:

About 9 percent of the foreign- exchange reserves of Switzerland’s central bank were invested in shares at the end of the third quarter, the Swiss bank said on its website.

Wild...this really takes the f'in cake.

Why would they do something like this? I thought for-ex reserves were to smooth out volatility and provide stability? Do they not have confidence in their reserve currencies and as such that they have a desire to convert their currencies into something else like equities?

Quote:

To combat deflation, Bernanke provided a prescription for the Federal Reserve to prevent it. He identified seven specific measures that the Fed can use to prevent deflation.

1) Increase the money supply (M1 and M2).

"The US government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost." "Under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and, hence, positive inflation."[1]

2) Ensure liquidity makes its way into the financial system through a variety of measures.

"The U.S. government is not going to print money and distribute it willy-nilly ..."although there are policies that approximate this behavior."[1]

3) Lower interest rates – all the way down to 0 per cent.

Bernanke observed that people have traditionally thought that, when the funds rate hits zero, the Federal Reserve will have run out of ammunition. However, by imposing yields paid by long-term Treasury Bonds,

"a central bank should always be able to generate inflation, even when the short-term nominal interest rate is zero ...[this] more direct method, which I personally prefer, would be for the Fed to announce ceilings for yields on all longer-maturity Treasury debt."[1]

He noted that Fed had successfully engaged in "bond-price pegging" following the Second World War.

4) Control the yield on corporate bonds and other privately issued securities. Although the Federal Reserve can't legally buy these securities (thereby determining the yields); it can, however, simulate the necessary authority by lending dollars to banks at a fixed term of 0 per cent, taking back from the banks corporate bonds as collateral.

5) Depreciate the U.S. dollar. Referring to U.S Monetary Policy in the 1930s under Franklin Roosevelt, he states that:

"This devaluation and the rapid increase in money supply ... ended the U.S. deflation remarkably quickly."[1]

6) Execute a de facto depreciation by buying foreign currencies on a massive scale.

"The Fed has the authority to buy foreign government debt ... [t]his class of assets offers huge scope for Fed operations because the quantity of foreign assets eligible for purchase by the Fed is several times the stock of U.S. government debt."[1]

Everything is going according to plan.

-Of course the plan is to impoverish hundreds of millions of People and seize their real assets by printing counterfeit currency, suspend accounting rules, ignore capital structures, and strip whole Sovereign Nat5ions of the their Governments if these Sovereigns resist in any way to this plundering of their constituent Citizenry, domiciled Corporations, and National Treasuries...

Hmmm...
Seems like a lot of US Treasury Debt is flowing into the Cayman Islands and Great Britain right now.
Supposedly the Chinese, Russians and Others are buying indirectly via London.

It kinda makes Me wonder how many of these Central Banks and Sovereign Wealth Funds are taking these securities over to the City Of London to Re-hypothecate them so as to increase their leverage...


Off to see if Our Bleoved 'Lord Tinfoil' has brought any further evidence of those TRILLIONS Of Dollars in Cash Transfers into G.B. from the US over to the House Of Cards...

The globe has gone mad. Not just swaps, but repos will come from this. Bernanke is a genius. And now this from our friends across the other pond....
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar12/SPX-....

Is this the last power play of the world Ponzi scheme? One hiccup in U.S. markets and it seems this whole ****house goes up in flames.

Look on the bright side, the Israeli's will kill those bankster bastards after their money is stolen.

Always look for the silver lining...

Flap

How can there be hiccup when all they will do is buy more. Just look for gas to be $7 a gallon this summer. Thanks Ben.

Hell, Genesis, you're from Chi-town. You should recognize payola when you see it. They didn't say it was going to be used to buy in the open market, did they? This is grease for the machine, pure and simple. The question is "What kind of machine are we talkin about?" And would that machine be traveling eastward at Mach 2 with "special" presents, hmmm?

Global rehypothecation schemes for the Mother ****ing Win!

Obviously the central banks have adopted rules that parallel CalvinBall :
http://www.bartel.org/calvinball/

Permanent Rule: You may not play the Calvinball the same way twice.

Primary Rule: The following rules are subject to be changed, amended, or deleted by any player(s) involved. These rules are not required, nor necessary to play Calvinball.

1.0. The following words in these rules are mostly freely interchangeable, the Primary Rule applies:


Can
May
Must
Shall
Should
Will
Would

1.1. All players must wear a Calvinball mask (See Calvinball Equipment - 2.1). No one may question the masks.

1.2 Any player may declare a new rule at any point in the game. The player may do this audibly or silently depending on what zone (Refer to Rule 1.5) the player is in.

1.3. A player may use the Calvinball (See Calvinball Equipment - 2.2) in any way the player see fits, whether it be to incur injury upon other players or to gain benefits for himself.

1.4. Any penalty legislation may be in the form of pain, embarassment, or any degradation the rulee wishes to execute upon the other player.

1.5 The Calvinball Field (See Calvinball Equipment - 2.3) should consist of areas, or zones, which are governed by a set of rules declared by players. Zones may be appear and disappear as often and wherever the player decides. For example, a corollary zone would enable a player to make a corollary (sub-rule) to any rule already made. Or a pernicious poem place would require the intruder to do what the name implies. Or an opposite zone would enable a player to declare reverse playibility on the others. (Remember, the player would declare this zone oppositely by not declaring it.)

1.6 Flags (Calvinball Equipment 2.3) shall be named by players whom shall also assign the power and rules which shall govern that flag.

1.7 Songs are an integral part of Calvinball and verses must be sung spontaneously through the game when randomly assigned events occur.

1.8 Score may be kept or disregarded. In the event that score is kept, it shall have no bearing on the game nor shall it have any logical consistency to it. (Legal scores include 'Q to 12', 'BW-109 to YU-34, and 'Nosebleed to Pelvic Fracture'.)

Amazing, the Fed is buying stocks (albeit indirectly through their central bank brokers). Talk about market distortion. This kicks the can just a bit more. I thought AAPL top would be $600ish, now $1,000 or $1,200 is not unreasonable...before it goes to $120. Amazing.

Stocks are not going down. The economy will crumble and millions will be starving, bu the numbers on the screen will continue to be GREEN.

So Israel is moving money from treasuries (foreign currency reserve) into stocks. Even they know treasuries are doomed.

P/E Multiples in triple digits for all companies?

Don't see how this is really any different than all those sovereign wealth funds that have been in the market for years, this just seems a little more direct than those. However, as with the UK selling gold at the bottom this may just be a similar type event that marks the market top.

Go long bobbleheads!

When Israel loses its shirt on the equities it bought, the US Treasury will bail them out. No worries.

Oh my gawd!!

Israel has reserves? How about they payback some of the $3 bil per year we've been giving them for the last 30 years.

Ah, but if everything is linked every possible way then it can't fail, can it?
Except all at once.

But that has been the plan all along. We borrow money, give you the money, and you buy our bonds with it to allow us to borrow more money, and now to buy our stocks. What could possibly go wrong?

Does that mean the criminal ****s will get rid of their long oil bets?

Stocks are carrying a risk free return. People are hoarding cash. These ****ers aren't going to get their money back.

Taleb has laid it all out clearly; in the rush to create systemic stability by erasing cyclicality they are just creating the mother of all instabilities...where everything is connected and correlated, and a minor disturbance can act as a black swan and bring the whole lot down.