Central banks are not the only ones printing money to help get through this financial crisis.  Private citizens are increasingly turning to the printing press to help alleviate their financial problems as well.  My translation of an article from Finanzas, a major Spanish finance website, explains.
A total of 413,000 counterfeit euro banknotes were withdrawn from [...]

I saw this post with cool pictures on popping bubbles and I thought about Alan Greenspan.  Sir Alan says you cannot recognize bubbles until after they have burst.  I think that’s nonsense – certainly in the case of the “Great Credit Bubble.”
Here’s a quote from the article for you inspired by the former Fed Chairman:
“…bubbles. [...]

In the clearest signal yet that we are still in a potentially devastating global deflationary spiral, The Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank and the world’s oldest central bank, has effectively cut interest rates to minus 0.25% and has started a program of quantitative easing a.k.a printing money. These are the most dramatic moves yet by a [...]

This post is from Niels Jensen of Absolute Return Partners.  I have featured his monthly newsletter a number of times on Credit Writedowns (here’s the link to the last one, hilarious title).  Jensen is very good.
Visit www.arpllp.com to learn more about Absolute Return Partners and to sign up to receive their free monthly newsletter by [...]

Of late, there have been a lot of worries about he potential for inflation in the U.S.  Marc Faber is the most noted pundit in this regard. Over-the-top comments he made back in May about hyperinflation in the U.S. may have been a catalyst for all of the inflation talk. See my post Marc Faber: [...]

It seems like a long time off, but the Fed is going to eventually have to withdraw all of the excess liquidity it has created when the economy recovers.  However, doing so will prove tricky.  First, we have debt deflationary situation in the United States which could lead to a serious double-dip if a restrictive [...]

In case you missed it, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was on Capitol Hill this morning making his case in regards to the Bank of America – Merrill Lynch deal.  The Chairman stated in unequivocal terms that he did not pressure anyone.  Rather, he stated that he cautioned Ken Lewis about the prudence of invoking [...]

Here’s a conspiracy theory for you.  As I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, I ill keep this one pretty simple. Here’s the chain of events.
Back in late September when the world was falling apart, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner and Hank Paulson were all desperate to keep things from unravelling.  As a result, they [...]

Just last week, we saw a parade of banks exiting the dreaded TARP program set up last year by the U.S. government and used to temporarily recapitalize the U.S. banking system.  The banks were able to do so in no small measure because of the unrealistically rosy scenarios in the stress tests used to determine [...]

Will Hutton has a pretty good interview with Paul Krugman in the Guardian newspaper.  The exchange is quite long, so it gives you a fairly broad understanding of Krugman’s view on the global economy and specific country economies.  What I found especially interesting was Krugman’s admission that we are essentially flying blind.
The Federal Reserve has [...]