Sunday, October 7, 2007

Inflation, Banking, and Dollar Crises

Washington Mutual 3Q Earnings to Tumble

Washington Mutual Inc. said Friday that the weak housing market and the recent mortgage crunch will lead to a 75 percent drop in its third-quarter net income, making it the latest financial institution to warn investors it took a major hit over the summer.

Dollar falls to 31 year low against Canadian Dollar

Bank Closing Information for Miami Valley Bank, Lakeview, Ohio

On October 4, 2007, Miami Valley Bank, Lakeview, Ohio was closed by the Ohio Department of Commerce, Division of Financial Institutions and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was named Receiver. No advance notice is given to the public when a financial institution is closed.

An Analysis of the Presidents Who Are Responsible for the Borrowing

Dollar's double blow from Vietnam and Qatar

Vietnam is planning to cut its purchases of US Treasuries and other dollar bonds, raising fears that Asian central banks with control over two thirds of the world's foreign reserves may soon join the flight from US assets.

Vietnam, which has mid-sized reserves of $40bn, is seen as weather vane for the bigger Asian powers

Together they hold $3,575bn of foreign reserves, over 65pc of the world's total. China leads with $1,340bn, but South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and even Thailand all built up massive holdings.

A potent inflationary cocktail

Finally, the Federal Reserve showed its true inflationary colors, and Total Fed Credit went up by $6.6 billion last week. The significance of this is that when you take another $6.6 billion in bank credit and multiply it by the current fractional-reserve multiplier (infinity), this calculates out to (according to my rough calculations) exactly 6.6 jillion gazillion umpty-ump quintillion dollars that can be created by the banks, which is just about enough money to bail out everybody in the Whole Freaking World (WFW), which (according to the bizarre current economic theory and practice) is the new purpose of a central bank; create a bubble by creating too much money and credit (which finances the bubble) and then bail everybody out of the ensuing bust by creating another bubble by creating too much money and credit again and again!