Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) was considered “extraordinary” when central bankers rolled that out roughly ten years ago. At that time, people would still have laughed at the idea of negative interest rates. Lenders didn’t pay borrowers and nobody paid their bank to hold their deposits.

So much has changed in the past 10 years. Now negative interest rate policies (NIRP) look set to go viral.

German banks will soon start toeing the European Central Bank line and pass negative rates on to depositors there. Germans who endured zero interest rates and somehow still want a savings account will now have to pay for the “privilege.”

The idea is preposterou ... Read more »

As Global Debt reached a new record high of $250 trillion this year, gold and silver came briefly back on the radar for investors. After five long years, the precious metals finally broke through key technical levels this summer. However, after the Fed started the Repo Operations in September and the $60 billion a month of “Not-QE” in October, the focus returned once again to the Bloated Stock and Bond markets.

What a drastic change from the Fed’s policy last year when it was reducing the size of its balance sheet until the stock market crashed in December 2018. Since then, the huge stock market reversal and all the additional gains have been Fed liquidity induced. Sven Heinrich continues to write and talk about this on his website, the Northmantrader.com. Here is a recent chart from his article, System Failure:

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