Oct 11

“If the Fed continues to apply monetary stimulus and subsidy into this system, without a significant reform, the dollar will eventually “break” and the real economy will temporarily collapse. This will result in the mother of all stagflation.”

In my opinion the US dollar will collapse, the real economy will collapse, the stock market will collapse, but not only temporarily, unless you see time from the perspective of an oak tree.

Stagflation would be great. It rather looks like a hyperinflationary depression to me.

Let’s see.

German miracle in the US?!:

“The traditional solution has been a military conflict, which stifles dissent against the government while generating artificial demand sufficient to energize the productive economy. It is a means of exporting your social misery, official corruption, and fiscal irresponsibility to another, weaker people.”

“One only has to look at the “German miracle” of the 1930′s to see this progression from artificial stimulus, to domestic seizure of assets, to scapegoating and aggressive wars of acquisition, as described above. But this progress out of economic depression had made Hitler and Mussolini the darlings of Wall Street and the international financiers. Indeed, Time Magazine had even named Hitler their “Man of the Year” for this economic miracle, even though it was a fraudulent house of cards.”

Maybe that is what Obama’s  ‘change’ is all about.

We are living in interesting times. That’s for sure.


As part of their program of ‘quantitative easing’ which is another name for currency devaluation through extraordinary expansion of the monetary base, the Fed has very obviously created an inflationary bubble in the US equity market.

(Click on images to enlarge them)

monetarybase

Why has this happened? Because with a monetary expansion intended to help cure an credit bubble crisis that is not accompanied by significant financial market reform, systemic rebalancing, and government programs to cure and correct past abuses of the productive economy through financial engineering, the hot money given by the Fed and Treasury to the banking system will NOT flow into the real economy, but instead will seek high beta returns in financial assets.

price-earnings-ratio

Why lend to the real economy when one can achieve guaranteed returns from the Fed, and much greater returns in the speculative markets if one has the right ‘connections?’

bankcredit

The monetary stimulus of the Fed and the Treasury to help the economy is similar to relief aid sent to a suffering Third World country. It is intercepted and seized by a despotic regime and allocated to its local warlords, with very little going to help the people.

price-earnings-ratio-2

By far this presents the most compelling case for a deflationary episode. As the money that is created flows into financial assets, it is ‘taxed’ by Wall Street which takes a disproportionately large share in the form of fees and bonuses, and what are likely to be extra-legal trading profits.

If the monetary stimulus is subsequently dissipated as the asset bubble collapses, except that which remains in the hands of the few, it leaves the real economy in a relatively poorer condition to produce real savings and wealth than it had been before. This is because the outsized financial sector continues to sap the vitality from the productive economy, to drag it down, to drain it of needed attention and policy focus.

At the heart of it, quantitative easing that is not part of an overall program to reform, regulate, and renew the system to change and correct the elements that caused the crisis in the first place, is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. The optimal time to reform the system was with the collapse of LTCM, and prior to the final repeal of Glass-Steagall, and the raging FIRE sector creating serial bubbles.

These injections of monetary stimulus to maintain a false equilibrium is in reality creating an increasingly unsustainable and unstable monetary disequilibrium within the productive economy. As the real economy contracts, the amount of money supply that the economy can sustain without triggering a monetary inflation decreases, and in a nonlinear manner. This is because the money multiplier does not ‘work’ the same in reverse, owing to the ability of private individuals and corporations to default on debt.

Ironically, with each iteration of this stimulus and seizure of wealth, the dollar becomes progressively weaker because there is a smaller productive economy to support it, even if there are less dollars, despite the nominal gains in GDP which are an accounting illusion. This has been further enabled by the dollar’s status as reserve currency backed by nothing since 1971, which has created an enormous overhang of dollars in the hands of other nations.

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Sep 12


September 12, 2009

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Aug 11

The Crony Capitalist Bailout Nation

The starting point for all analysis of the ongoing bailout orgy that is currently being used in crony capitalist fashion to transfer wealth from our middle class to the Illuminati and their transnational conglomerates is whether these bailouts are authorized by the US Constitution. The answer is a resounding NO!!!

Nothing in the Constitution could ever be interpreted in any manner that would in any way allow the conversion of our quasi-capitalist republic into a Marxist-fascistic police state, which is the last thing our Founding Fathers had in mind.

How can our government simply hand over fiat money created out of thin air, which in itself totally violates the provisions in our Constitution dealing with the issuance of money, to whoever they deem to be too-big-to-fail?

The very idea of such targeted bailouts violates every precept upon which our nation was founded, and our Constitution in no way allows the bailout of any private person or business entity, especially where this creates special privileges to be given to a chosen few “anointed” entities at the expense of our citizens in general.

Regulation of interstate commerce does not mean doling out crony capitalist bailouts, which amount to nothing short of the implementation of feudalism under the Puppet Master oligarchs of our Shadow Government.

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Jul 31

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Jul 04

Special guest, Paul Craig Roberts.

1 of 4:

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Jul 03

“…, punishing savers with negative deposit rates is the height of stupidity.”

“It would be fitting if there was an immediate run on deposits. And if that happens what will Sweden do? Halt deposits? Sweden risks (and deserves) a currency collapse and bank runs for this insane effort. Look for capital flight in Sweden.”


There has been a lot of ludicrous recommendations recently to combat deflation by making deposit rates negative. I did not think any central bank would be dumb enough to try it. I thought wrong.

Today, Riksbank, Sweeden’s central bank cut the deposit rate to -0.25% effectively charging savers interest on deposited money.

DATE 2/07/2009
The weak development of the economy requires a somewhat more expansionary monetary policy. The Executive Board of the Riksbank has therefore decided to cut the repo rate by 0.25 of a percentage point to 0.25 per cent.

Deep economic downturn

Economic activity abroad is very weak and this hits Sweden hard. Exports have fallen substantially and the situation on the labour market is continuing to deteriorate rapidly. The information received in recent months points to the economic downturn in 2009 being somewhat deeper than the Riksbank forecast in April.

Deposit Rate

The decision on the repo rate will apply with effect from Wednesday, 8 July. The deposit rate is at the same time cut to -0.25 per cent and the lending rate to 0.75 per cent.

Sweden Attempts To Boost Lending

Please consider Sweden cuts rates to new low, offers banks loans.

Sweden’s Riksbank cut interest rates to a fresh record low on Thursday and offered banks 100 billion crowns ($13.2 billion) to boost lending as it strives to reverse the country’s worst recession since the 1940s.

The central bank lowered its key interest rate by 25 basis points to 0.25 percent in a surprise move, putting official rates at their lowest since records began in 1907, and said it expected rates to remain at that level until late 2010.

“It’s a double whammy, or even a triple whammy,” said Roger Josefsson at Danske Markets.

“The deposit rates are actually negative now. In some sense they are creating a money machine for banks. You can lend all you want, but don’t put that back into the central bank.”

Sweden was plunged into recession late last year as the global financial crisis pulled the plug on market demand, leaving firms such as world number two truck firm Volvo scrambling to cut costs and shed jobs.

The central bank forecast the economy will contract 5.4 percent this year and return to tepid growth of 1.4 percent next year.

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Jun 12

Marc Faber: “There is no deflation at the present time.”

Related article:
Marc Faber: U.S. will go into Hyperinflation, Approaching Zimbabwe Levels (Bloomberg)

1 of 3:

Added: 11. Juni 2009

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Mar 27

“Rejoice?” “Printing money to fend off disaster?”

Related articles:
- The Bank’s £200bn gamble (Independent):

Won’t quantitative easing cause inflation? Yes – and that is the general idea. Warren Buffett, the world’s most successful investor, has warned of “an onslaught of inflation” as a result of current policies.
- Beware Bank of England’s monetary con trick (Financial Times)

- The dangers of printing money: four lessons from history (Times)

Destroying the value of your money through inflation is the general idea? (!!!)

Quantitative easing = Increasing the money supply (by creating money out of thin air) = Printing money = Inflation

Inflation is a tax and even Bernanke admitted that. The central banksters and the governments are looting the taxpayer. Rejoice, you have just been robbed!

I know I am repeating myself here, but there are so many new readers that need to know this:
“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. … This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.”
- Alan Greenspan

“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”
- John Maynard Keynes

But now enjoy Mr. Deflation (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard).


Rejoice. After much pious posturing – and criminal wastage of time – the European Central Bank at last seems ready join the Anglo-Saxons, Japanese, Swiss, and Isrealis in printing money to fend off disaster.

Two key governors tipped us off today that the bank is ready to buy assets outright on the open market, including mortgage debt. This is a huge development, exactly what is required to help restore the animal spirits of global investors.

Until now the ECB has offered unlimited liquidity in exchange for collateral from banks. That is not the same thing at all. It is sterilized stimulus. The bank has adamantly refused to cross the Rubicon by scattering money through the economy in real blast of QE. (quantitative easing)

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Feb 17


Source: YouTube

Related article: Federal obligations exceed world GDP

John Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics

Some Biographical & Additional Background Information

Walter J. “John” Williams was born in 1949. He received an A.B. in Economics, cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1971, and was awarded a M.B.A. from Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business Administration in 1972, where he was named an Edward Tuck Scholar. During his career as a consulting economist, John has worked with individuals as well as Fortune 500 companies.

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Jan 22

- Obama administration considers launch of ‘bad bank’ (Telegraph)

- US Initial Jobless Claims Match Highest Since ’82 (Bloomberg)

- Barack Obama inauguration: this Emperor has no clothes, it will all end in tears (Telegraph)

- Despite billions, banks still teeter on the brink (MSNBC)

- Microsoft to shed 5,000 jobs (Financial Times)

- Intel to Cut at Least 5000 Jobs (New York Times)

- GM Gets $5.4 Billion Loan Installment From Federal Government (CNNMoney)

- US jobless claims surge, housing start tumble (Forbes)

- Housing Starts, Permits in US Slump to Record Low (Bloomberg)

- Banks Foreclose on Builders With Perfect Records (New York Times)

- Jim Rogers: Now it’s time to emigrate, says investment guru (Independent)

- Saudi prince’s firm loses $8.3B in 4Q (AP)

- Investors flee after brutal losses at global markets (Emirates Business)

- Indians Flee Dubai as Dreams Crash – Fall out of Economic Crisis (Daijiworld):
It’s the great escape by Indians who’ve hit the dead-end in Dubai.

- China growth slows, Bank of Japan sees deflation (Forbes):
(Reuters) – China’s economy slowed sharply in the fourth quarter and Japan’s central bank on Thursday predicted two years of deflation as Asia’s largest economies buckle under the strain of the financial crisis.

- Roubini Sees China Recession Despite ‘Massaged’ GDP (Bloomberg)

- Asian economic woe grows as China slows and Japanese exports plunge (Telegraph):
China’s economy may have ground to a halt entirely between the third and fourth quarters of last year and Japanese exports plunged 35pc in December, underlining the scale of the slowdown in Asia.

- ZIMBABWE: Inflation at 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent (IRIN)

- Sony forecasts $2.9bn operating loss (Financial Times)

- Hedge funds’ $400bn withdrawals hit (Financial Times)

- Google income drops 68% on one-time charges (IHT)

- Is Britain facing bankruptcy? (Guardian)

- Manufacturing outlook plummets (Financial Times)

- Car production plummets as pressure for industry bail-out grows (Telegraph)

- London’s Evening Standard sold to ex-KGB agent (Reuters)

- AIG starts $20bn auction of Asian unit (Financial Times):
AIG, the stricken insurance giant, on Wednesday kicked off the sale of its Asian life assurance unit – one of its most prized assets – in the hope of raising up to $20bn to help repay the $60bn US government loan that is keeping the group alive.

- UBS to Cut Securities Jobs, Close More Debt Units (Bloomberg)

- Japanese Housewives Desperate After Currency Scheme Collapses (Bloomberg)

- New age of rebellion and riot stalks Europe (Times Online)

- Increase in burglaries shows effect of recession (Guardian)

- Chinese media issues stinging attack on Barack Obama and George W Bush (Telegraph)

- Barclays may lose control to Gulf investors (Telegraph)

- Cars to be crushed in insurance crackdown (Scotsman)

- Investors say jailed pilot swiped money for years (Washington Post)

- Capital One Reports $1.42 Billion Loss on Charges (Bloomberg)

- Nokia reports sharp fall in profits (Financial Times)

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