Skip to main content

$ 700,000 billion

On thursday, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) published the above figure. It represents the total value of all OTC derivatives outstanding, BTW global GDP is about $63,000 billion, so more than 10x global GDP. The most amazing thing here is that six months ago, total outstanding derivatives was $600,000 billion. In the space of 6 months, financial institution grew their OTC exposure by more than 10%. Picking up premium to make up their revenue shortfall, in the business we have another name for that; picking up dimes in front of a steam roller! Buffet called them weapons of mass destruction, the Europens were blaming derivatives for their current difficulties, they stopped when they found out that it was their central banks that were some of the biggest players... It remains that this development is serious. 

In other news, the British foreign service is preparing for a rapid failure of the Euro, with the obvious dislocation that this would entail. This morning France and Germany have announced that they can achieve closer integration without changing the European treaty, via bilateral agreements. Basically, we are looking at a core Europe that will include France, Germany and maybe Italy (if they can), the rest are on their own. If this last bit of news is true, then both French and German banks will be nationalized (insufficient capital to go on). But it means that core Europe is finally looking for a real solution!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ok so I lied...a little (revised)

When we began looking at farming in 2013/14 as something we both wanted to do as a "second career" we invested time and money to understand what sector of farming was profitable.  A few things emerged, First, high-quality, source-proven, organic farm products consistently have much higher profit margins.  Secondly, transformation accounted for nearly 80% of total profits, and production and distribution accounted for 20% of profits: Farmers and retailers have low profit margins and the middle bits make all the money. A profitable farm operation needs to be involved in the transformation of its produce.  The low-hanging fruits: cheese and butter.  Milk, generates a profit margin of 5% to 8%, depending on milk quality.  Transformed into cheese and butter, and the profit margin rises to 40% (Taking into account all costs).  Second:  20% of a steer carcass is ground beef quality.  The price is low, because (a) a high percentage of the carcass, and (b)...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spray painting Taylor Swift G650 aircraft (updated)

 First, a bit of paint will not harm anyone.  These climate activities are going to learn two things in the next few days:  (1) Trespassing at an airport is a felony almost anywhere in the world.  That means criminal prosecution.   (2) removing paint from an aircraft is expensive.   So these climate activists are about to find out the reach of the British criminal system and it will not be pleasant, the UK has very strict laws about that, I would be surprised if cleaning the aircraft of all the paint will cost less than $100,000.     I am sure that when they planned (premeditation) this little show they had a very valid logic to doing this.  Tonight, they are probably realizing the depth of their troubles.   I understand that in the UK it's a minimum one-year jail sentence.    Also, good luck travelling with a criminal trespass charge against you.  I am relatively certain that the airline industry will ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Janet Yellen from China supporter to Hawk...

There is rarely serious news in the world these days, it seems that most newspapers are filled with headlines and little else, and then Ms Yellen went to China.  Secretary Yellen has long been known in the Biden administration as the voice of moderation when dealing with China, yet as her trip which concluded yesterday a hawk was born:  She warned the Chinese against dumping goods in the United States.    fighting words! The American administration is very concerned about the lack of Chinese domestic consumption.   Even before the COVID-19 epidemic, there were already the beginning signs of a slowdown, automobile sales were off.   China is facing domestic deflation (a clear sign of collapsing demand) China imports few consumer goods, they import raw materials and intermediary goods.   It seems that the American administration is concerned that the Chinese administration will dump consumer goods abroad to keep its manufacturing machinery ...
Post a Comment
Read more