REI Wealth Monthly Issue 11 | Page 20

THE CREDIT CRISIS: THE BUBBLING BOND MARKET RICK TOBIN n recent years, both short and long term interest rates have plunged to near, or at, all-time record lows, partly due to the manipulation of the U.S. Bond Market. Since the Credit Crisis (www.thecreditcrisis.net) officially began back in the Summer of 2007, asset prices have both crashed and boomed over the past six (6) years because of, or in spite of, the sluggish U.S. economy. For U.S. economists, financial analysts, investors, bankers and Central Bankers, one of the biggest fears since 2007 or 2008 was that the USA may end up somewhat like Japan back in the 1990s, when their stock, bond, and real estate “bubbles” all popped. Sadly for the Japanese, the past few decades have been very asset deflationary as asset values have plummeted to values at a fraction of the market peaks in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, in spite of their incredibly low interest rate policies, which were somewhat akin to the USA’s ongoing “Quantitative Easing” policies.