Royal Canadian Mint Smashes All Records, Strongest Sales Ever of Silver Maples

Written by Nathan McDonald (CLICK FOR ORIGINAL)

 

 

It seems like every other week I write an article that states “a new record has been broken”. It is truly a sign of the times and an indication of the events that are unfolding all around us in this upside-down world we now find ourselves in.

 

 

This article is no different. It’s another strong indication of what is happening behind the scenes amongst the “smart money”. The Royal Canadian Mint has broken yet another record, a record they obtained only just last year.

 

 

Sales of their ever popular Canadian Silver Maple Leaf have surged in Q1 2016. The results are in and a new record has been made! The mint sold a stunning 10.6 million oz, a 27% increase over their strong sales experienced this time last year in Q1 2015. In addition to this, it is well over 1 million oz more than their all-time record seen in Q3 2015.

 

 

You may wonder if this is just a one off, yet it is not. Sales of all gold and silver products are up nearly 20% this year over last, indicating that money is truly flowing into precious metals.

 

 

This has been a long-term trend that we have talked about on this blog for years. Sales keep making new records among the major mints and physical investors of the precious metals continue to accumulate as prices remain at these artificially depressed levels.

 

 

The rampant manipulation is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it has allowed people to take massive amounts of physical off the market and allowed people such as myself to add to our long-term position, building our stacks ever higher. On the other hand, it has damaged those greatly that are ready to begin selling their rounds and enjoy their much-deserved retirements.

 

 

Ultimately, for those of us in the camp that want to see the precious metals move higher in the long term, there is no denying that keeping prices at such low levels for so long is going to destroy the manipulators in the end. The physical markets will once day assert themselves once again and take control of the phony paper price.

 

 

In the meantime, if prices continue to remain at these stagnant levels, we can expect to see more and more records broken as the world continues to crater on the edge of an epic financial disaster. This is an event that will undoubtedly send precious metals exploding higher as those “late to the party” attempt to get whatever they can, at whatever price.

 

 

 

Please email with any questions about this article or precious metals HERE

 

 

 

Royal Canadian Mint Smashes All Records, Strongest Sales Ever of Silver Maples

Written by Nathan McDonald (CLICK FOR ORIGINAL)

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As stock algos push indices ever higher in their inevitable push for all-time-highs, investors are flooding into developed market bonds sending German 10Y Bunds to a new record low 4.8bps (following Aussie record lows overnight) and dragging US Treasury yields drastically lower.

Dow surges to 18,000…

 

As Bund yields collapse to record lows..

 

And Treasuries follow…

 

As global bonds hit record lows…

 

 

Charts: bloomberg

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While yesterday speech by Janet Yellen in Philadelphia provided little in terms of actionable insight (but was far more dovish than her hawkish appearance in Harvard less than two weeks ago) and was described by analysts in a way that best validates their particular market outlook, something best summarized by the following tweet:

I’ve heard people interpret Yellen’s speech as hawkish, dovish, and neutral. All 3 interpretations have one thing in common: bullish.

— Michael Block (@MBlockRhino) June 7, 2016

 

… there was one amusing interlude. In the last question from the Q&A, a retiree asked Yellen if Donald Trump becomes president whether “there is a possibility of an economic crash all over the world because of the how the world views Donald Trump” and whether Yellen thinks that is possible. Here is her response.

While we have no particular insight on that question either, we wonder if and when someone will ask Yellen if there is a possibility that the actions by central banks over the past 8 years will “cause a crash all over the world” also.

Actually, we don’t.

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Copper futures are tumbling by the most in 2 months (testing back towards 4 month lows) after the biggest two-day increase in copper stockpiles monitored by LME since 2004.

Dr.Copper is sick…

 

As LME Copper inventories explode higher…

 

As Bloomberg details,

Copper held in Asian warehouses tracked by the London Metal Exchange jumped 50 percent in the past two days, the most in seven years.

 

 

Supplies are moving to Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan from China, where stockpiles tracked by the Shanghai Futures Exchange have almost halved since mid-March.

 

Base metals are still trading at “relatively low levels,” Jens Naervig Pedersen, a senior analyst at Danske Bank in Copenhagen, said by e-mail. “Uncertainty over the outlook for global manufacturing is outweighing the positive effect of the lower dollar,” he said.

Whether this is more CCFD unwinds or the hangover from the massive speculative bubble of the last 3 months is unclear but the inventory spike in almost without precedent.

This plunge in copper prices is especially notable as the reflation trade appears to have got hold of China commodities once again with Dalian up over 3% overnight, Rebard up over 2% and Shanghai Iron Ore up almost 3%.

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VIX is surging off an ovenight 12 handle, USDJPY and bond yields are tumbling to the lows of the day and US equity futures, while up, have given back the overnight exuberance gains… something’s different today.

 

Gold and Oil are vying for the post-payrolls lead as bonds are still trumpingh stocks…

 

FX and bonds ain’t buying it…

 

And VIX is not being monkeyhammered lower…

 

Stil lit’s early yet and all-time-highs are but a few points away.

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With just one day left before the ECB officially begins buying corporate bonds, the financial world is awestruck by what Mario Draghi has achieved by unleashing an unprecedented demand for ECB-backstopped corporate credit (something we previewed back in March in “BofA Explains Why The ECB Will Be Forced To Buy Junk Bonds“).  As Bloomberg writes overnight, the average yield on investment-grade company notes in euros tumbled to 1.002% on Monday, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data. That’s the lowest in more than a year and a smidgen away from dropping below 1%.

The last time yield on IG paper fell below 1% was last year when Draghi expanded the bond-purchase program, dropping as low as 0.93% in March 2015, before climbing as high as 1.58% in September. Yields are down from around 4.5% at the height of the sovereign-debt crisis in 2011 and 7.3% in 2008, the highest in data going back to 1996.

“The ECB is distorting the market,” said David Riley, head of credit strategy at BlueBay Asset Management LLP in London. “There’s a shock associated with yields falling below 1%.” They will likely fall much lower courtesy of Mario Draghi, whose central bank is actively seeking to crowd out investors and make it even tougher to find yield.

More:

Draghi, the ECB president, has been shaking European debt markets since 2012, when he pledged to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro and presented a bond-buying program dubbed Outright Monetary Transactions. He shocked markets with an interest-rate cut in November 2013, and has lowered borrowing costs three more times since then, pushing the ECB’s main rate to zero for the first time ever in March.

 

Companies benefiting from the lower borrowing costs are issuing bonds at an increasing clip. More than 50 billion euros ($57 billion) were sold in the single currency in May, the second-busiest month on record. Air Liquide SA, the investment-grade French industrial gas maker, issued 3 billion euros of bonds on Monday, with just one of five parts of the deal priced with a coupon above 1 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

 

 

Not everyone is delighted by the ECB’s repricing of the corporate bond market: “we’re on strike when it comes to euro investment-grade paper,” said Gordon Shannon, a portfolio manager at TwentyFour Asset Management LLP, which oversees 6.3 billion pounds ($9.1 billion). “The program has ground spreads down so much that we can’t bring ourselves to buy. We’re buying instead sterling and dollar investment-grade paper, and high-yield bonds.”

Others agreed: “the prospect of average yields below 1 percent is very scary,” said Juan Esteban Valencia, a credit strategist at Societe Generale SA in Paris. “Investors are being pushed outside their comfort zone to sectors like high-yield debt, where they may not have expertise.”  Fear not, Juan, if there is a hiccup in the junk bond market as a result of investor herding, the ECB will simply backstop the high yield space, problem solved.

Bloomberg’s assessment of constant central bank intervention is accurate: “Bond markets around the world are being distorted as central banks step up cheap-money policies to bolster growth and prevent deflation. About $10.4 trillion of government bonds globally have negative yields, with Japan “by far the largest source,” according to a June 2 Fitch Ratings report.”

How this chapter in manipulated markets will end is still unclear, however with central banks backstopping virtually every asset class, it is difficult to see a happy ending especially if and when the much desired inflation materializes and central banks are forced to step back.

In response, some investors are pushing back and even the most conservative firms are turning to speculative-grade debt, traditionally among the riskiest of fixed-income assets. Others have no choice and investors looking for higher yields have been sent searching the world over for decent returns.

Places such as Japan, where overnight a Toyota Motor unit sold yen bonds with the lowest coupon ever for a Japanese company. Toyota Finance Corp issued 20 billion yen ($186 million) of notes at a yield of 0.001%, according to a filing with the nation’s Finance Ministry. That’s the lowest coupon ever for a regular bond by a domestic company that isn’t backed by the government, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

By way of context, Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, last month sold 60 billion yen of debt including 20-year bonds paying a yield of 0.343%. The bond is already trading at a premium to par.

Once again, the record low yield merely reflects the unprecedented monetary stimulus by central banks everywhere, something that is happening even as the narrative blasts daily stories of a “recovery.”

The Bank of Japan has sent yields on Japanese government bonds below zero for notes out to 10 years since adopting a negative-rate policy in January, increasing demand for corporate debt. Average yields on Japanese company bonds dropped to 0.17 percent on Monday from 0.33 percent a year earlier. At this rate of negative compounding, Japan’s debt will pay itself off in a few thousand years.

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Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

Before the lynching of The Donald proceeds, what exactly was it he said about that Hispanic judge?

Stated succinctly, Donald Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over a class-action suit against Trump University, is sticking it to him. And the judge’s bias is likely rooted in the fact that he is of Mexican descent.

Can there be any defense of a statement so horrific?

Just this. First, Trump has a perfect right to be angry about the judge’s rulings and to question his motives. Second, there are grounds for believing Trump is right.

On May 27, Curiel, at the request of The Washington Post, made public plaintiff accusations against Trump University — that the whole thing was a scam. The Post, which Bob Woodward tells us has 20 reporters digging for dirt in Trump’s past, had a field day.

And who is Curiel?

An appointee of President Obama, he has for years been associated with the La Raza Lawyers Association of San Diego, which supports pro-illegal immigrant organizations.

Set aside the folly of letting Clinton surrogates like the Post distract him from the message he should be delivering, what did Trump do to be smeared by a bipartisan media mob as a “racist”?

He attacked the independence of the judiciary, we are told.

But Presidents Jefferson and Jackson attacked the Supreme Court, and FDR, fed up with New Deal programs being struck down, tried to “pack the court” by raising the number of justices to 15 if necessary.

Abraham Lincoln leveled “that eminent tribunal” in his first inaugural, and once considered arresting Chief Justice Roger Taney.

The conservative movement was propelled by attacks on the Warren Court. In the ’50s and ’60s, “Impeach Earl Warren!” was plastered on billboards and bumper stickers all across God’s country.

The judiciary is independent, but that does not mean that federal judges are exempt from the same robust criticism as presidents or members of Congress.

Obama himself attacked the Citizens United decision in a State of the Union address, with the justices sitting right in front of him.

But Trump’s real hanging offense was that he brought up the judge’s ancestry, as the son of Mexican immigrants, implying that he was something of a judicial version of Univision’s Jorge Ramos.

Apparently, it is now not only politically incorrect, but, in Newt Gingrich’s term, “inexcusable,” to bring up the religious, racial or ethnic background of a judge, or suggest this might influence his actions on the bench.

But these things matter.

Does Newt think that when LBJ appointed Thurgood Marshall, ex-head of the NAACP, to the Supreme Court, he did not think Marshall would bring his unique experience as a black man and civil rights leader to the bench?

Surely, that was among the reasons Marshall was appointed.

When Obama named Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, a woman of Puerto Rican descent who went through college on affirmative action scholarships, did Obama think this would not influence her decision when it came to whether or not to abolish affirmative action?

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” Sotomayor said in a speech at Berkeley law school and in other forums.

Translation: Ethnicity matters, and my Latina background helps guide my decisions.

All of us are products of our family, faith, race and ethnic group. And the suggestion in these attacks on Trump that judges and justices always rise about such irrelevant considerations, and decide solely on the merits, is naive nonsense.

There are reasons why defense lawyers seek “changes of venue” and avoid the courtrooms of “hanging judges.”

When Obama reflexively called Sgt. Crowley “stupid” after Crowley’s 2009 encounter with that black professor at Harvard, and said of Trayvon Martin, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” was he not speaking as an African-American, as well as a president?

Pressed by John Dickerson on CBS, Trump said it’s “possible” a Muslim judge might be biased against him as well.

Another “inexcusable” outrage.

But does anyone think that if Obama appointed a Muslim to the Supreme Court, the LGBT community would not be demanding of all Democratic Senators that they receive assurances that the Muslim judge’s religious views on homosexuality would never affect his court decisions, before they voted to put him on the bench?

When Richard Nixon appointed Judge Clement Haynsworth to the Supreme Court, it was partly because he was a distinguished jurist of South Carolina ancestry. And the Democrats who tore Haynsworth to pieces did so because they feared he would not repudiate his Southern heritage and any and all ideas and beliefs associated with it.

To many liberals, all white Southern males are citizens under eternal suspicion of being racists. The most depressing thing about this episode is to see Republicans rushing to stomp on Trump, to show the left how well they have mastered their liberal catechism.

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It may seem like a different world now, but it was about 8 years ago when panicked traders woke up to find a dramatic collapse in overnight futures, which forced the clueless Fed to cut rates by 0.75% on fears that the great selling had started. It hadn’t, at least not just yet, and a few hours later it was revealed that the plunge was the result of the action of one solitary “rogue” trader: Jerome Kerviel, who at that time worked for SocGen, Kerviel was later convicted  of causing a record trading loss of €4.9 billion at the second largest French bank, Societe Generale.

Then today, in a surprising twist, nearly a decade after his infamous trade, Kerviel won a payout of more than €450,000 in a Paris employment lawsuit over claims he was unfairly dismissed. According to Bloomberg, the award Tuesday includes €100,000 for unfair dismissal and his €300,000 bonus for 2007. The court, however, rejected Kerviel’s multi-billion euro request for more than the underlying loss at the bank.

The employment tribunal verdict is the latest twist in the story of the former trader who has taken equal turns as villain and folk hero since he was blamed for causing the record loss at France’s second-largest lender. The ruling could have an effect on other pending cases that Kerviel has filed in French courts.  “Societe Generale can’t pretend it was not aware of Jerome Kerviel’s fake operations” before his dismissal in January 2008, Judge Hugues Cambournac said. The dismissal “didn’t sanction Kerviel’s acts, but its consequences.”

However, Kerveil will wait a long time before seeing the award if at all: SocGen has said it will “immediately” appeal the ruling, which includes an order to immediately pay Kerviel 80,000 euros. “It’s a scandalous decision,” said Arnaud Chaulet, a lawyer representing Societe Generale.

At a hearing last month, Kerviel’s lawyer, David Koubbi, justified the tit-for-tat demand for compensation by telling the tribunal that it was only fair because the bank had previously pressed for Kerviel to pay back the full trading loss. It was not clear where the solitary trader would have found the billions needed to fill the gap. So while an order requiring him to repay the amount of the trading loss has been overturned, Kerviel’s claims that he wasn’t responsible for the scandal have fallen on deaf ears in French courts.

Several verdicts found Kerviel exclusively guilty for the trading loss, yet he contests the amount of the loss and says Societe Generale should also be held responsible. As Bloomberg adds, the former trader has mounted a fresh legal challenge to his conviction after Nathalie Le Roy, the police officer who led Kerviel probes in 2008 and 2012, expressed concerns last year about how she was pressured to focus solely on evidence that would incriminate him. France’s court of review and reassessment in March indefinitely delayed a decision on the bid for a retrial. Judges said they want to wait for separate lines of inquiry into the use of forged documents, witness subordination and obtaining a ruling under false pretenses to run their course.

Additionally, a civil trial over the amount Kerviel owed Societe Generale is scheduled for June. That amount may end up being well higher than the €400,000 SocGen now owes the former trader.

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Gold prices surged nearly 3% after the very poor jobs number on Friday, have maintained those gains and appear to be consolidating as concerns about the U.S. economy and BREXIT deepen.

Gold Prices in USD – 1 Week (GoldCore)

Gold was marginally higher yesterday and 2.7% higher last week breaking a run of recent weekly losses and a 5% loss in May.

BREXIT concerns are gaining momentum after three recent polls suggested that the ‘leave’ side are gaining an advantage and a BREXIT looks more likely.

An ITV poll showed 45% for “Leave” and 41% for “Remain.” A survey by global market research company TNS showed 43 percent backing an EU exit, and 41 percent wanting to stay in. An online poll showed 48 percent supported leaving the EU, while 43 percent were in favor of remaining and 9 percent were undecided, according to ICM.

This is leading to concerns about a coming period of market volatility and turmoil. This should support gold and silver and indeed lead to gains on safe haven demand.

Sterling fell versus gold 1.2% yesterday – from £857 to £867.66 per ounce after the polls showed UK citizens favoured leaving the EU. That revived concerns the BREXIT referendum on June 23 will throw global markets into turmoil and severely undermine confidence in the already vulnerable, nascent EU super state.

The pound also dropped to a three-week low versus the dollar after the polls. While the pound pared its earlier declines, a gauge of anticipated swings against the dollar in the next month surged to the highest in at least seven years. One-month implied volatility in pound dollar trading rose above 22 percent, the highest since February 2009.

Gold has given up some of those gains since as sterling has recovered and as odd ‘fat finger’ trades helped sterling bounce overnight. Gold in sterling terms had risen 5.5% since the start of last week (May 30), due to increasing BREXIT concerns and the poor jobs number in the U.S.

Markets participants are preparing for turmoil. “The result is going to be announced at an awkward time, in the middle of the night,” said Joe Rundell, head of trading at ETX according to the BBC. “And we expect that whatever the result there will be significant movements on the FTSE 100, the sterling markets and in gold.”

Gold rallied 2.8% percent back above $1,245 on Friday after the very poor jobs number saw traders sell risk assets especially equities and allocate to safe haven assets.

The May employment report showed Americans returned to the labour market at their slowest pace in almost six years. The US non farm workforce added only 38,000, jobs missing the forecast of 160,000 and indicating that the US is in recession or heading to recession. Additionally, the March and April figures were revised 22,000 and 37,000 lower respectively.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen looks set to stay uber dovish and maintain ultra low monetary policies due to concerns about the U.S. economy, global economy and indeed BREXIT.

Yellen said at the weekend that the risk of Brexit is also weighing on the Fed’s interest rate decision. She warned that a UK vote to leave the European Union could badly impact the U.S. and global economy and affect the timing of the next interest rate rise. Market participants are concerned that the fragile U.S. and global recovery is spluttering and even a very small interest-rate increase of 25 basis points could derail the U.S. and global economies and lead to a recession.

A vote for BREXIT should see gold and silver rise sharply on a safe haven bid in futures markets and safe haven demand for bullion. A vote to remain would be expected to see gold and silver fall as risk appetite comes back into the market supporting equities and sterling. However, price weakness in the precious metals would likely be short term given the current strong supply and demand fundamentals for them.

Recent Market Updates
– Silver – Perfect Storm Brewing in the Market
– Martin Wolf: There Will Be Another “Huge” Financial Crisis
– Silver Price To Surge 800% on Global Industrial and Technological Demand
– BREXIT Gold Diversification As Vote Fuels Market Uncertainty
– Gold Forecasts Revised Higher – Citi Says “Buy the Dip”
– Gold Should Rise Above $1,900/oz -“Get In Now!”
– World’s Largest Asset Manager Suggests “Perfect Time” For Gold

Breaking News and Commentary
Pound slides as polls show Brexit support, as Yellen hints at US rate rises – Bloomberg
Gold holds near two-week highs as cautious Yellen hurts dollar – Reuters
Asian Stocks Rise as Commodities in Bull Market – Bloomberg
Gold Futures Rise as Bets Mount That Fed Will Delay Rate Rise – Bloomberg
Gold futures close at 2-week high as Yellen ‘plays charades’ – Marketwatch

Cable Plunges After “Leave” Voters Overtake “Remain” In Latest Brexit Poll – Bloomberg
Bank of Montreal warns against other banks in gold business – Reuters via GATA
Massive Explosions Cripple Nigerian Oil Industry – Traders DNA
Why Big Job Misses Are Likely to Continue – Financial Sense
US Jobs Report: Rocket Fuel For Gold – 321 Gold
Read More Here

Gold Prices (LBMA AM)
07 June: USD 1,211.00, EUR 1,086.63 and GBP 851.02 per ounce
06 June: USD 1,240.55, EUR 1,092.67 and GBP 859.08 per ounce
03 June: USD 1,211.00, EUR 1,086.63 and GBP 839.34 per ounce
02 June: USD 1,215.50, EUR 1,085.32 and GBP 842.10 per ounce
01 June: USD 1,216.25, EUR 1,090.00 and GBP 841.77 per ounce

Silver Prices (LBMA)
07 June: USD 16.31, EUR 14.36 and GBP 11.18 per ounce
06 June: USD 16.40, EUR 14.47 and GBP 11.39 per ounce
03 June: USD 16.10, EUR 14.45 and GBP 11.17 per ounce
02 June: USD 15.98, EUR 14.27 and GBP 11.07 per ounce
01 June: USD 15.95, EUR 14.30 and GBP 11.04 per ounce

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Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds

* * *

Bernanke blew it big-time, letting the “recovery” run seven years without any significant increase in rates.

It is now painfully obvious that Ben Bernanke blew it big-time by not raising rates three years ago when the economy and markets enjoyed tailwinds. The former Federal Reserve chairperson, who has claimed the mantle of savior of the global economy, foolishly kept rates at zero until tailwinds turned to headwinds, at which point he handed Janet Yellen the unenviable task of raising rates as the headwinds are strengthening.

Ben Bernanke is not the savior who rescued the global economy; he is the clueless fool who plunged a poisoned knife in its back. After weathering the spot of bother in Euroland in 2011-2012, the global economy had multiple tailwinds in 2013–tailwinds that enabled Bernanke and the Fed to raise rates in a series of measured steps.

Tailwind #1: the Fed’s binge-buying of assets (QE3) was still ramping up in 2013:

 

Tailwind #2: the yield curve spread had bounced off its 2012 low:

 

Tailwind #3: market speculative positions and sentiment were solidly positive:

 

Tailwind #4: China’s economy and appreciation of the yuan had not yet weakened:

In April 2013, the market’s “recovery” had already been running for four years. By mid-2013, the S&P 500 had soared from 667 in March 2009 to 1,600, exceeding its previous all-time highs around 1,574–a gain of 930 points or 140% off the 2009 lows.

What else did The Bernank want in mid-2013–an infinite line of credit with the Central Bank of Mars? He had literally every tailwind a central banker could want to support higher interest rates–especially rates that could have clicked higher by tiny .25% increments.

Instead, Bernanke blew it big-time, letting the “recovery” run seven years without any significant increase in rates. Now that the “recovery” is in its eighth year, it’s starting to roll over. All those tailwinds have reversed into headwinds, especially China, which has seen the RMB (yuan) strengthen by 20% as its currency peg to the U.S. dollar has dragged it higher.

The 20% appreciation in the yuan makes China’s exports increasingly costly and thus less competitive globally.

As I explained in Why the Fed Has to Raise Rates (December 4, 2015), the U.S. dollar serves two sets of users: the domestic U.S. economy and the international economy that uses the USD as a reserve currency.

While the Fed poo-bahs are constantly spewing propaganda about how the Fed serves Main Street (well, it does serve Main Street in a manner of speaking–as a tasty snack to Wall Street), the one absolutely critical mission of the Fed in the Imperial Project is maintaining U.S. dollar hegemony.

No nation ever achieved global hegemony by weakening its currency. Hegemony requires a strong currency, for the ultimate competitive advantage is trading fiat currency that has been created out of thin air for real commodities and goods.

Generating currency out of thin air and trading it for tangible goods is the definition of hegemony. Is there is any greater magic power than that?

In essence, the Fed must raise rates to maintain the U.S. dollar hegemony and keep commodities such as oil cheap for American consumers. The most direct way to keep commodities cheap is to strengthen one’s currency, which makes commodities extracted in other nations cheaper by raising the purchasing power of the domestic economy on the global stage.

Another critical element of U.S. hegemony is to be the dumping ground for exports of our trading partners. By strengthening the dollar, the Fed increases the purchasing power of everyone who holds USD. This lowers the cost of goods imported from nations with weakening currencies, who are more than willing to trade their commodities and goods for fiat USD.

The loser as the USD strengthens is China, which must devalue its currency or de-peg its currency from the USD to preserve its export-sector competitiveness. Anything that could disrupt China’s fragile economy, credit expansion and capital flows is a global worry, and Bernanke blew it big-time by not raising rates when global growth was still a tailwind.

Now that the tailwinds have become headwinds, the global economy is like a cracked glass teetering on a fence post in a rising storm. Every move in interest rates has immediate consequences in currencies, bond yields and capital flows, and each of these winds has the potential to topple the increasingly fragile global economy into recession–or worse.

Ben Bernanke blew it big-time, not just for America, but for the world. This reality cannot be dismissed as the luxury of hindsight; it was clear to many observers that after four years of recovery, it was time to start raising rates in 2013. Leaders must lead; if the Fed chair is so weak-kneed that he/she must ask the market’s permission for every decision, that’s not leading–it’s following a short-term profit-obsessed liquidity junkie off the cliff.

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