June 23, 2014
Central banks and government entities around the world are now dominant players in the stock market with some $30 trillion invested in equities and other assets, according to a new survey released this week offering the first comprehensive analysis of public-sector investments. About half of that is from central banks. In other words, monetary authorities, which conjure fiat currency into existence out of thin air, are using much of that “funny money” to gobble up real assets — propping up stock prices but eroding the value of people’s savings through inflation of the currency supply. The significance of the findings is monumental.
By far the largest overall central bank-controlled investor is the Communist Chinese dictatorship’s “State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE),” which is part of the regime’s central bank known as the “People’s Bank of China.” According to the survey, SAFE has almost $4 trillion under management, including massive stakes in publicly traded European companies. Beyond SAFE, Beijing’s central bank has also been directly scooping up minority positions in key European companies and industries. Other Asian central banks are becoming giant players in equities, too.
While the privately owned U.S. Federal Reserve System has apparently been sticking with government bonds and mortgage-backed securities, its own massive role in distorting markets and central planning has been documented extensively by this magazine and countless analysts. Among other radical measures, the U.S. central bank has showered trillions of dollars on crony megabanks around the world. Since the economic crisis, the Fed has also engaged in currency printing on an unprecedented scale, euphemistically referred to as “quantitative easing,” or QE. Its balance sheet is now over $4 trillion and still growing.
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