Writing in the latest edition of The Spectator (a right wing weekly magazine published in Britain) the regular Daily Telegraph columnist Liam Halligan had this to say:

‘While the Fed has begun ‘tapering’, slowing down the rate of its de facto money–printing, the scale of QE remains vast, some $45 billion a month. That’s driven the absurd ‘bad news is good news’ mantra that still dominates the thinking of investors on Wall Street and other major stock markets. Weak economic numbers make it more likely the Fed will relent and slow down or even reverse its tapering, turning up the funny–money dial, and thus stock prices, even more. Forget economic growth and forget corporate earnings. It’s all about the Fed.

This blatant rigging of western equity markets has gone on for several years, with stocks soaring despite weak economic fundamentals. While everyone in financial circles knows this, to say as much out loud is to guarantee pariah status — and I should know. But eyebrows are now being publicly raised by genuine insiders, with the Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements, an umbrella organisation for the world’s leading central banks, warning of ‘euphoric’ equity valuations. ‘It is hard to avoid the sense of a puzzling disconnect between the markets’ buoyancy and underlying economic developments globally,’ it argued in its annual report published earlier this month.’

While I regard those two paragraphs as a 100% vindication of everything I’ve been bashing on about for the last four years, that’s really by the by: surely the most important point being made by Halligan is that the ‘puzzling disconnect between the markets’ buoyancy and underlying economic developments globally’ is about as puzzling as why the temperature drops after sundown. The disconnect is caused primarily by QE, and secondarily by Zirp.

What’s left of the global economy is being propped up by credit. Credit is what got us into this unholy mess in the first place. What’s left of the global banking system is being propped up by taxpayer dollars, pounds, and euros. To save that system, the next objective of these maniacs will be the expropriation of whatever money we may have been foolish enough to leave in that system.

Unless, of course, you’ve taken it out of the bank and found a better use for it.

More in this anon.