Money & Energy
The Fed's only raised rates .75%, they're still under 1%, yet the whole of global finance shakes. Whoda thunk?
Best of course is the crypto circus. I understand there's all sorts now, after all, how were you going to run a global economy on 21 million bitcoins? Best is this -- TerraUSD, “The stablecoin, pledged to maintain a value of one dollar, plunged as low as 23 cents this week, showing cryptocurrencies’ vulnerability.”
Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s chief technology officer, on Thursday vowed to defend the token’s dollar peg and said the company had bought “a ton” of US government debt, which it is willing to offload in that effort. But in an interview with the Financial Times, he declined to give details about its $40bn hoard of US government bonds because he did not “want to give our secret sauce”.
Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump…
Let's move to something of real value, the thing that made the modern world go around, energy. So the Europeans, with American encouragement, thought it'd be a good idea to let a war begin, and continue, despite being massively dependent on the Russians for their oil and natural gas. The FT says,
European wholesale gas price benchmark, jumped on Thursday about 13 per cent to about €106 per megawatt hour, more than quadruple levels a year ago.
Electricity prices also rose. Prices for German power hit their highest level in the year to date at over €230 per megawatt hour, according to Refinitiv.
Phew, how do you run your fossil fueled energy intensive economies at those prices? Expect a big jump in your electricity bill this summer America, and that's not including the “externalities” price of burning a lot more coal, but that's never been accounted in price, only in the weather.
Now to the real money, so to speak. A decade ago, the results of the global central banks' vigorously, though not virtuously, pumping all that money to prop up all that bad debt, plus lot more since, would eventually play out in currencies. Is that now?
Currencies Drop to Multiyear Lows Across Asia as Investors Rush to the Dollar
Euro to hit parity against the dollar within six months, Amundi says
EMERGING MARKETS-FX returns to 18-month lows as dollar gallops higher
And most confusing, is this part of the Sanctions' Plan?
Rouble hits two year high vs Euro
The one sure bet? Things are going to get stupider and stupider. If you can find a line, bet all you got on that.