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Tuesday, July 29, 2014

ORTEL: Note to Janet Yellen: The American bubble is popping

This week, guests will interact with Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen and colleagues inside a benign bubble that no outsider can prick — a scripted symposium, manufactured for the select few in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Perhaps privileged attendees will finally dare to confront sobering truth — reckless suppression of benchmark U.S. dollar interest rates, as the Fed has done since 2008, locked all Americans into a dangerous financial bubble that rivals and enemies are sure to pierce, perhaps quite soon.

Cursory review of financial statements reveals extraordinary measures by which the Federal Reserve System has intervened in capital and currency markets since 2006. Yet, from recent testimony, we already know that Ms. Yellen, like predecessor Ben Bernanke, refuses to recognize the omnipresent bubbles that resulted.

The single most important clue for discerning financial excess inside the U.S. is the interest rate the U.S. Treasury pays on its 10-year notes. Professional investors who control the bulk of the world's wealth price securities in reference to this rate — the lower it falls, the higher prices climb for most assets.

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