Update 05/22 15:40
After today's key reversal in the stock market during Bernanke's testimony to Congress, evidence is building that the Fed has LOST control.
Update ends
Repeated attempts at crashing the paper market in Gold and Silver are failing due to heavy demand for physical metals.
The latest attempt was last night when paper Gold & Silver were taken down heavily within a few minutes of the market opening.
They are now trading well into positive territory.
The interest rate on Japanese bonds has now broken above it's medium term downtrend.
It is estimated that a rise of 1% in Japanese interest rates will cost the Japanese banks $10tn Yen.
US economic data has been falling off a cliff since early April.
The data issued last week was all dire, indicating a US recession might not be far away (it's possible that it has already just started).
Barron's chart of economic indicators.
http://www.demeadville.com/baro.html
Europe's debt crisis remains.
Absolutely nothing has been done to resolve it, the politicians have just made it worse over the last 3 or 4 years.
France is likely to be the next major shoe to drop in the Eurozone. Most of the major French banks are insolvent - they loaned out too much cheap money to Greece and Italy.
Before the media reports on France we are likely to hear about debt and banking crises in Slovenia and Malta.
Europe's bank debt as a percentage of GDP.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-18/spot-odd-continent-out-total-bank-assets-gdp
Housing is still overpriced.
In the US it is now 20 to 40% above it's long term inflation adjusted average.
The second leg of the housing downturn is yet to come.
Data in the US reveals that recent house price rises are nothing more than a dead cat bounce in previously bubble areas.
http://www.businessinsider.com/map-of-us-housing-market-growth-2013-5
Media pundits continue to talk the market up and ignore the poor economic data that has been coming out over the last 6 weeks or so.
Media pundits are talking about some miraculous growth in US consumer spending in the near future, when the jobs data is poor and around $500bn is going to be taken out of middle class pockets over the next year or so due to the Fiscal Cliff tax hikes and the full implementation of Obamacare.
US jobs data
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/aggregated-nfp-employment-numbers-for.html
We are now undoubtedly in the biggest bubble ever.
In sovereign debt, junk bonds, personal debt, stock market etc.
It was estimated in 2011 that this debt bubble is 20 to 30 times larger than the one that caused financial Armageddon in 2008.
But that is only in Europe - you have to add in the US, Japan, Canada etc.
And things have only got worse since 2011. Western governments and Central Banks around the world continue to take the wrong course of actions.
A global economic summary
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/a-global-economic-summary-why-paul.html
Updated 05/22
Federal Reserve's Bullard warns that he is very concerned about QE losses.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/there-is-no-way-out-for-federal-reserve.html
Bank of Japan head warns that the Fed can NEVER take the QE punchbowl away without causing a global interest rate shock.
He is presumably already worried about the recent falls in Japanese government bonds (see above chart).
The simple fact of the matter is that QE hasn't worked and won't work in the future.
It hasn't worked in Japan and they have been doing the same thing for over 20 years now.
All of the Federal Reserve money printing and balance sheet increases in 2013 has gone to FOREIGN banks operating in the US.
The Federal Reserve now has over $1tn out on loan to foreign banks.
Presumably most of this has gone towards trying to prop up the balance sheets of the 500+ insolvent European banks.
(As an aside the US taxpayer has also kindly donated a few billion in interest payments to these foreign banks. A small amount of interest is paid on deposits at the Fed, reducing the amount that gets paid to the Treasury from Fed profits this year.)
The longer the Federal Reserve goes on with their massive program of balance sheet increases, the greater the eventual financial crash will be.
We are already at the stage where just a hint of a slowdown in debt purchases will cause a stock market crash.
It looks like Goldman Sachs is ready to sell.
They increased their forecasts for the S&P on Monday (reported everywhere) while simultaneously reporting that hopes of a global recovery have gone as the slowdown deepens (reported nowhere).
Update 05/23
Nikkei limit down despite Japanese Central Bank intervention
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