Free Money Thursday – More Bad News Is Good News For The Bulls

Europe is not growing.

Italy, Romania and Cyprus are in Recession (2 consecutive negative quarters) and Belgium dropped 75%, Czech 100% (to zero), Germany down 130%, Latvia down 85%, Hungary down 30%, Poland down 45%…  These are NOT GOOD numbers!  

Yesterday we got a -1.7% reading on Japan, down over 200% from last quarter’s +1.5%.  Our own GDP grew at just 1% from last Q, which itself was down 0.5% from the quarter before it but, fortunately, last year’s Q2 was so terrible that, by comparison to that – we improved by 2.4% – and that somehow made people happy.  

The euro zone’s three largest economies, which account for two-thirds of the region’s €9.6T ($12.8T) GDP, all did not post any growth. German GDP shrank 0.2% from the first quarter and Italy’s output fell at a similar pace. The French economy, the bloc’s second largest behind Germany, stagnated for a second straight quarter.  How, exactly, does this translate into a bullish signal for the markets?  

The answer is: It doesn’t.  The bullishness is nothing more than anticipation of MORE FREE MONEY over longer periods of time and that is, indeed good for our Corporate Citizens and the top 1% Human Citizens lucky enough to own them (we own lots in our Long-Term Portfolios!) as they are able to refinance debt at record lows and buy back their own stock with free money and buy whole other companies with free money – all supplied their friendly Central Banksters as well as the suckers who put their hard-earned cash into banks and bonds at 1% interest.  

That’s right, the yeild on the German 10-Year Bund has dropped to 1% today.  Auntie Angela will hold $1M of your money for 10 years and give you back $1,100,000 when she’s done – isn’t that FANTASTIC!  It sure is for those of us who get to borrow that money – not so much for people trying to save.