The Machines, Madmen And Morons Are Raging at the Bank of Japan

By David Stockman

This is just plain sick. Hardly a day after the greatest central bank fraudster of all time, Maestro Greenspan, confessed that QE has not helped the main street economy and jobs, the lunatics at the BOJ flat-out jumped the monetary shark. Even then, the madman Kuroda pulled off his incendiary maneuver by a bare 5-4 vote. Apparently the dissenters——Messrs. Morimoto, Ishida, Sato and Kiuchi—-are only semi-mad.

Never mind that the BOJ will now escalate its bond purchase rate to $750 billion per year—-a figure so astonishingly large that it would amount to nearly $3 trillion per year if applied to a US scale GDP. And that comes on top of

HOT: Fed Announces Massive Global Central Bank Intervention

Developing...

UPDATE 1: The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank have just announced coordinated actions to enhance their capacity to provide liquidity support to the global financial system.

UPDATE 2: According to the Fed, the purpose of the actions is to ease strains in financial markets and "thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and so help foster economic activity."

UPDATE 3: The central banks have agreed to lower the pricing on the existing temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangements by 50 basis points so that the new rate will be the U.S. dollar overnight index swap (OIS) rate plus 50 basis points. This pricing will be applied to all operations conducted from December 5, 2011. The authorization of these swap arrangements has been extended to February 1, 2013. In addition, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank will continue to offer three-month tenders until further notice.

As a contingency measure, these central banks have also agreed to establish temporary bilateral liquidity swap arrangements so that liquidity can be provided in each jurisdiction in any of their currencies should market conditions so warrant. At present, there is no need to offer liquidity in non-domestic currencies other than the U.S. dollar, but the central banks judge it prudent to make the necessary arrangements so that liquidity support operations could be put into place quickly should the need arise, the Federal Reserve said. These swap lines are authorized through February 1, 2013.

BOTTOM LINE:Central banks have agreed on a major global money printing scheme. Major global inflation is on its way.

Japan's Central Bank Cuts Key Rate to 0.1 Percent

It's going to be massive global inflation.

The Bank of Japan's policy board voted 7-1 to cut the uncollateralized overnight call rate target from 0.3 percent. It was the second cut in less than two months.

The bank said it plans to start buying commercial paper -- the short-term debt firms use to pay everyday expenses -- in an effort to funnel cash directly to firms and will increase its purchases of government bonds to 1.4 trillion yen ($15.7 billion) per month from 1.2 trillion yen ($13.4 billion).

Fed Quadruples Dollar Availability To Foreign Central Banks

The international re-inflation has begun.

The Fed increased the amount of dollars that the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and other counterparts can offer from $67 billion to $247 billion ``to address the continued elevated pressures in U.S. dollar short-term funding markets.'' The Bank of England, the Bank of Canada and the Swiss National Bank also participated.

Following the announcement the cost of borrowing in dollars overnight dropped to 3.84 percent from 5.03 percent yesterday.

Under the new arrangements, the ECB doubled its limit of dollars it can get from the Fed to $110 billion and Switzerland's central bank can offer $27 billion, an extra $15 billion. New swap facilities with the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada amount to $60 billion, $40 billion and $10 billion, respectively. The arrangements are authorized until Jan. 30.

The ECB said it would offer $40 billion ``for as long as needed'' in overnight funds to the region's banks. It will also increase by $5 billion the amount it lends for 28 days and 84 days to $25 billion and $15 billion. The Swiss National Bank will boost its 28-day auctions to $8 billion and the 84-day offering to $9 billion. Both were previously $6 billion.

The Bank of Canada said it has decided not to draw on its $10 billion swap facility at this time. The Bank of Japan, whose policy board held an emergency meeting today, said it will use its $60 billion as required by market conditions.

In auctions of their own currencies, the ECB today lent 25 billion euros in one-day money and the Bank of England 66.2 billion pounds in one-week loans.

-EPJ Newsdesk

Japan Inflation Hits Decade High

Japanese inflation hit a new decade-high in July. While annual core inflation rose to 2.4%, it was unlikely to prompt the Bank of Japan to move interest rates from their low at 0.5%. As the BOJ eyeballs the possibility of a worldwide recession.