Not a very pretty picture, I would rather look at a Paul Klee, but sometimes these things must be faced - and you can always rely Tyler Durdan at Zero Hedge to ram them in front of your eyes.
J. P. Morgan (JPM) is America's biggest bank and you can take it as a given that the situation there is mirrored across the American (and British!) banking scene. In simple language what it shows is that the bank has deposits filling its offices from the basements to the roof-tops. However, should you think that with all that dosh it would be 'easy-peasy' to get a loan, say, to start a business, you would be a sucker wrong. These days, JPM does not 'do' lending. You can see the line of blue (lending) bars actually ends up lower than 2008. But the deposits are, literally, through the roof!
So the question is, where is all this money coming from to swell the coffers of JPM? Well that's an easy one to answer - straight off the printing presses run by the Federal Reserve - and 'over here' the BoE who, incidentally, have just awarded the next money-printing contract to De La Rue. So, no need for JPM and the other banks to lend money out on interest, too risky, too messy and too much like hard work. Much easier with all that dosh in the vaults to invest it in the stock market:
In other words, by keeping the pedal to the metal on QE [Quantative Easing, or, Money Printing] for the past 6 years, the Fed has giving the banks all the benefits of money creation (soaring deposits), without any of the risks (loan creation in a record low Net Interest Margin environment). And if you are JPM you will be perfectly happy with this arrangement and not seek to lend out any money, as the case has been for the past six years. Which means consumers who wish to take out loans to fund ventures and other growth strategies are fresh out of luck, because the banks that ordinarily supply them with this risk capital have simply shut down the process entirely, and instead are gambling in the stock market.
This is the equivalent of one of those wonderful, imaginary, Victorian cycling-machines fitted with rotor blades which will keep you high up in the air - for just so long as you can keep pedalling. When you can't, they will pick up the smashed detritus of your machine - and you! - and bury you together.
Er, have a nice day!
