More Free Money!
In a highly competitive field, the story of the past week was surely the announcement by a half dozen of the world’s largest central banks to engage in, what The Daily Reckoning’sEric Fry described as, “institutionalized money-laundering.”
The Dow leapt nearly 500 points on Wednesday following the news, its largest daily advance since…well…since who cares? It went up a long way, and in a short period of time. Measures in Europe, especially, and around the world, generally, were similarly ebullient. For a day, that is. By Thursday, the enthusiasm had fizzled somewhat. Friday, markets were more or less flat.
Why the frigidity, some punters must be wondering. Where has all the monetary mojo gone? We thought it was “game on.” Free money! Did we miss something here? Let’s say it again, this time with feeling: Free money!
Ah…perhaps the common man is not quite as stupid as his central bankers would like for him to be. Or maybe central bankers are not as intelligent as they fancy themselves to be. Either way there’s a distinct feeling of déjà vu here. Or at least that something’s not quite right…all over again. And investors, at least those at the margins, on the fringe, seem to have identified it.
Fortunately for us — and unfortunately for colluding shysters in pinstripe suits — the margins aren’t as thin as they used to be. Thanks to that thing called “the Internet,” information can now travel faster than a politician’s promise unravels. Those interested in finding the information that matters can.
That’s not to say there won’t always be a market for people wishing to amble through life blanketed in the dulling hum blissful ignorance…
Here are a selection of last week’s TIME Magazine covers from around the world, illustrating our point:
The Internet: Battling Ignorance Since Before Al Gore…ahem…Invented It.
Our point, simply, is that ordinary folk — folk presumed by arrogant officials to be incapable of understanding the difference between “printing” and “counterfeiting” — can, and are, learning for themselves.
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