Did you know that central banks bought more gold last year than any year in the past 55 years—since 1967?
Though most don’t realize it, 1967 was a significant year in financial history, mainly due to the events at the London Gold Pool.
The London Gold Pool was an agreement among central banks of the United States and Western European countries to stabilize the price of gold. The goal was to maintain the price of gold at $35 per ounce by collectively buying or selling gold as needed. Continue reading
We’re not living the American dream.
When a few mid-sized US banks suddenly went belly-up last month, the bond market made its feelings known — and with gusto. Two-year Treasury yields slid a percentage point over three days, the most since 1982. For traders accustomed to treating such signals as sacrosanct, the message was obvious: The recession many had been (incorrectly) predicting since last summer was really, truly inevitable now. 
The stress on the financial sector caused by two bank failures in the United States last month is still a threat and should be addressed by a reimagining of the regulatory process, according to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.
What would be your immediate concern if you lost your job? In a GOBankingRates survey polling 1,002 Americans, more than half of overall Americans said they wouldn’t be able to afford their basic bills and groceries.
The International Monetary Fund warned this week of “vulnerabilities” among so-called non-bank financial institutions, saying global financial stability could hinge on their resilience. The Bank of England called attention to the same issue last month.
With inflation, prices, and bank failures all on the rise these days, many of us are looking anxiously toward our pocketbooks and wondering what we’ll do when the financial crisis inevitably hits. Will we have to start over with our retirement fund, or will we be impoverished in a matter of months? 
Fear is in the air. In recent days we have seen a level of panic that we have not witnessed since 2008, and in such an environment people just want to make sure that their money is safe. But there are very few places in our financial system that are truly “safe” at this point. The cryptocurrency industry has already experienced an absolutely disastrous crash, collapsing bond prices have blown a 620 billion dollar black hole in bank balance sheets, residential real estate prices have started to plummet, and now the largest commercial real estate crisis in the entire history of the United States is looming.
“The world would be better off if people tried to become better. And people would become better if they stopped trying to become better off. For when everybody tries to become better off, nobody is better off. But when everybody tries to become better, everybody is better off.
