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Inflation watch: Beware the ides of March

Inflation watch: Beware the ides of March

President Biden has now had his $1.9 trillion stimulus package passed into law, and it will not be the last in the current fiscal year. Covid is not over and is sure to resurge with new variants next winter.But even assuming that is not the case, we still have to contend with the aftermath of the pre-covid conditions, whereby banks had run out of balance sheet capacity combined with trade tariffs predominantly aimed at China. These conditions were a doppelganger for late-1929, and between 8 February and 20 March the S&P500 index faithfully tracked a similar course to that of October 1929.

As far as possible, this article quantifies inflationary financing of government spending from March to September last year, and already sees evidence on the CBO’s own figures of that exceptional covid response being exceeded in the first half of the current fiscal year just ending. It points to something which no one has really foreseen, that the rate of monetary inflation has increased beyond the banking system’s capacity to accommodate it.

Even if the US manages to emerge from lockdowns in the coming months, the legacy of the turn in the credit cycle, trade tariffs and supply chain disruption threatens a full-scale depression. There can be no doubt monetary inflation will accelerate, and we are beginning to see the consequences in rising bond yields.
Introduction

It is nearly a year since the Fed on 23 March 2020 responded to stock market pressures and cut its funds rate to the zero bound and followed that three days later by increasing quantitative easing to $120bn every month. A further $300bn credit was to be directed at businesses, employers and consumers. The Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility and the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility allowed the Fed to directly support corporate bond prices for large employers.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Welcome to the Wave of Inflation into 2024

We still see that this cycle into 2024 will be one of inflationary. Our computer has projected that this cycle would be one based on shortages. True, that that $1.9 trillion bill is just a Democrat’s wish-list. The $1,400 checks are for about 100 million. The fact that 70% of Americans approve of this and assume they are getting $1,400 checks, that is only 0.013571429% of the total bill. The fact that they would not even make it $2,000 shows that this is all about just their wish list for things that have nothing to do with COVID.

Many governments have been engaging in Quantitative Easing since 2014 with negative rates in Europe, but people have been hoarding cash rather than spending it. Worse still, they have been increasing tax enforcement and shutting down tax-havens and this has led to the deflationary wave which our model shows bottomed in January 2020. Yes, they increased the money supply, but they also reduced disposable income. Those conflicting trends caused one component behind the failure to stimulate the economy. People will NOT borrow unless they see the potential to make a profit. Without CONFIDENCE in the future, then hoard their cash.

As we have been investigating this entire COVID Crash, it comes up clearly that this was a failed manipulation for it was also the shortest-lived crash. Our Energy Model shows a distinctly different pattern when we compare 1987 to 2020. Note how the Energy came back rapidly from the 2020 COVID Crash whereas it took 78 weeks to elect a Weekly buy signal compared to 19 weeks from the 2020 low. This all points to a rally on a different type of economic recovery based upon inflationary shortages and our target of 40,000 we warned about several years ago no longer sounds so crazy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Forbes: Excessive Monetary Stimulus Leaves Gold “Greatly Undervalued”

This week, Your News to Know rounds up the latest top stories involving gold and the overall economy. Stories include: How the expansion of money supply is boosting gold’s allure, an overview of last year’s precious metals imports to the U.S., and U.S. Mint releases final batch of American Gold Eagle coins with current design.

Historic monetary stimulus is casting a bright light on tangible assets

The multi-trillion dollar stimulus appears to have achieved the desired effect, at least in the short term. The influx of freshly-printed, free floating money encouraged risk-on sentiment, increased bond yields and caused money managers to once again turn away from gold.

Yet, as Forbes columnist Frank Holmes points out, the pressures coming down on gold right now could turn out to be its most powerful tailwind further down the line.

According to the Forbes article, M1 (the amount of readily-available or liquid money in circulation) should be approached the same as any other asset class. This is usually the case; many investors treat cash as a part of their portfolios. Therefore, the law of supply and demand should also be applied to cash. In light of the recent monetary expansion, cash quickly starts to look overabundant in the economy.

Holmes notes that M1 has expanded by 355% year-on-year, marking the highest annual rate increase on record by a wide margin. Unsurprisingly, inflation expectations for the next five years based on the Treasury breakeven rate have risen to their highest level since 2011, when gold posted its previous all-time high. Today’s gold price may be some ways off from August’s peak of $2,070, but there are plenty of analysts calling for a retrace this year, and Holmes thinks inflation could kickstart the next round of gold price gains.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

The Global Financial End-Game

The Global Financial End-Game

The over-indebted, overcapacity global economy an only generate speculative asset bubbles that will implode, destroying the latest round of phantom collateral.

For those seeking a summary, here is the global financial endgame in fourteen points:

1. In the initial “boost phase” of credit expansion, credit-based capital ( i.e. debt-money) pours into expanding production and increasing productivity: new production facilities are built, new machine and software tools are purchased, etc. These investments greatly boost production of goods and services and are thus initially highly profitable.

2. As credit continues to expand, competitors can easily borrow the capital needed to push into every profitable sector. Expanding production leads to overcapacity, falling profit margins and stagnant wages across the entire economy.

Resources (oil, copper, etc.) may command higher prices, raising the input costs of production and the price the consumer pays. These higher prices are negative in that they reduce disposable income while creating no added value.

3. As investing in material production yields diminishing returns, capital flows into financial speculation, i.e. financialization, which generates profits from rapidly expanding credit and leverage that is backed by either phantom collateral or claims against risky counterparties or future productivity.

In other words, financialization is untethered from the real economy of producing goods and services.

4. Initially, financialization generates enormous profits as credit and leverage are extended first to the creditworthy borrowers and then to marginal borrowers.

5. The rapid expansion of credit and leverage far outpace the expansion of productive assets. Fast-expanding debt-money (i.e. borrowed money) must chase a limited pool of productive assets/income streams, inflating asset bubbles.

6. These asset bubbles create phantom collateral which is then leveraged into even greater credit expansion. The housing bubble and home-equity extraction are prime examples of these dynamic.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

The First “Global Inflationary Depression” Is Very Possible

The First “Global Inflationary Depression” Is Very Possible

It is possible that we might soon be witness to the first global inflationary depression. This is not a mix of words we normally see placed together. Several factors make this scenario possible. First, we seldom have depressions but instead, tend to roll through mild recessions, however, what we face may be far more severe. Second, in the past, times of falling economic activity have generally been deflationary as defaults rise but this time, not so much. Third, but not least, in the past, many events tended to be regional rather than global, but over the years as economies have become more interconnected the resulting codependency presents an increased possibility of problems spreading across the world.Currently, the biggest source of demand comes from governments and not working people earning a living or businesses growing. If you remove all the money being spent on Covid-19 vaccinations, tests, and a slew of inefficient spending that has created little long-term benefits to the economy the GDP would fall like a stone. The money flowing from the central banks and governments has created the so-called “pent up demand” we have been hearing about and predictions of 5% or more GDP growth next year. In truth, capacity utilization is down even while trillions of new dollars pour into the system. This is the logic behind saying a depression may be in the wings.

China’s Economy Shows Signs Of Slowing

Recently several articles have appeared indicating the big boost China experienced post-Covid-19 has come to an end. China’s economy was the first to recover from the Covid-19 collapse due to trillions of credit pumped into the economy at home as well as Americans rushing out to buy imported goods using stimulus money…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Sisphean Printing Will Kill Dollar & Bonds

SISYPHEAN PRINTING WILL KILL DOLLAR & BONDS

 

Understanding four critical but simple puzzle pieces is all investors will need to take the flood that leads to fortune.

Why then will the majority of investors still take the wrong current and lose their ventures?

Well because investors feel more comfortable staying with the trend than anticipating change.

Understanding these four puzzle pieces will not just avoid total wealth destruction but also create an opportunity of a lifetime.

The next 5-10 years will involve the biggest transfer of wealth in history. Since most investors will hang on to the bubble markets in stocks and bonds, their wealth will be decimated.

As Brutus said in Julius Caesar by Shakespeare:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea we are now afloat.
And we must take the current when it serves.
Or lose our ventures.”

FOUR PUZZLE PIECES TO CLARITY

So what are the four puzzle pieces that will lead to either fortune or misery.

They are:

1. Stocks
2. Currencies
3. Interest rates
4. Commodities

Just put these 4 pieces together and the conundrum of the direction of markets and the future of the world economy will be very clear.

But sadly most investors will find it difficult to join up the 4 pieces.

ETERNAL PRINTING

Have governments and central banks conditioned investors to eternal happiness by their profligate policies?

Yes, they most probably have. But happiness in this case is ephemeral and will end in “miseries”.

Central banks are now caught in Sisyphean task of printing money to eternity.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Michael Burry Warns Weimar Hyperinflation Is Coming

Michael Burry Warns Weimar Hyperinflation Is Coming

Update (1815 ET): one day after the Weimar tweetstorm below, and shortly after our article came out, Burry tweeted the following:

People say I didn’t warn last time. I did, but no one listened. So I warn this time. And still, no one listens. But I will have proof I warned.

Indeed he will.

* * *

One week ago, Bank of America hinted at the unthinkable: the tsunami of monetary and fiscal stimulus, coupled with the upcoming surge in monetary velocity as the world’s economy emerges from lockdowns, would lead to unprecedented economic overheating… or rather precedented as BofA’s CIO Michael Hartnett reflected back on the post-WW1 Germany which he said was the “most epic, extreme analog of surging velocity and inflation following end of war psychology, pent-up savings, lost confidence in currency & authorities” and specifically the Reichsbank’s monetization of debt, and extrapolated that this is similar to what is going on now.

There is, of course, another name for that period: Weimar Germany, and because we all know what happened then, it is understandable why BofA does not want to mention that particular name.

Of course, others have been less shy – in 1974, Jens Parsson wrote a fascinating, in-depth historical analysis of the hyperinflationary collapse of Weimar Germany under the original money printer, Rudy von Havenstein, “Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations” one which we periodically remind readers is absolutely critical reading in preparation for what comes next.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Federal Reserve & Fake Conspiracies

QUESTION: I found your history of the Federal Reserve very insightful which nobody else has put together. Can you explain your comment that the ECB could go bankrupt but not the Fed?

Thank you very much.

HB

ANSWER: Here is a full set of $1 bills with each issued by its respective branch. I would like to t5han Kohn C for having this framed and sent to me as a gift. The Federal Reserve is independent whereas it has its own authority to increase or decrease its power to create elastic money. I understand that many see this as evil, but it was absolutely essential. During an economic crash, people hoard their cash and do not spend it. Consequently, banks start to fail because they lent money out long-term as in mortgages but the demands by depositors are immediate. That is why a bank would fail in the midst of a run. Its assets are tied up in loans which they then recall and cannot sell the real estate to get liquid.

Right now we have had that problem where the velocity of money has been declining from 2007 until Trump was elected, but then it took a nose-dive in a waterfall event thanks to COVID lockdowns and rising unemployment. The Fed’s “elastic” money means they can create money in electronic form purchasing in debt which in theory injects cash into the system. However, because Congress has been so corrupt, the requirement to buy government debt has not directly helped the economy as it was originally intended to do in 1913 when it would only by corporate debt. That prevented companies from going bust and laying off people because they did not have the immediate cash.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

martin armstrong, armstrong economics, fed, us federal reserve, money printing, money, fiat currency, conspiracies

Crazy days for money

Crazy days for money

This article anticipates the end of the fiat currency regime and argues why its replacement can only be gold and silver, most likely in the form of fiat money turned into gold substitutes.

It explains why the current fashion for cryptocurrencies, led by bitcoin, are unsuited as future mediums of exchange, and why unsuppressed bitcoin has responded more immediately to the current situation than gold. Furthermore, the US authorities are likely to suppress the bitcoin movement because it is a threat to the dollar and monetary policy.

This article explains why growth in GDP represents growth in the quantity of money and is not representative of activity in the underlying economy. The authorities’ monetary response to the current economic situation is ill-informed, based on a misunderstanding of what GDP represents.

The common belief in the fund management community that rising interest rates are bad for gold exposes a lack of understanding about the consequences of monetary inflation on relative time preferences. Rising interest rates will be with us shortly, and they will burst the bond bubble with negative consequences for all financial assets and the currencies that have inflated them.

In short, we are sitting on a monetary powder-keg, the danger of which is barely understood by policy makers and which could explode at any time.

Introduction

We have entered a period the likes of which we have never seen before. The collapse of the dollar and dollar assets is growing increasingly certain by the day. The money-printing of the dollar designed to inflate assets will end up destroying the dollar. We know this thanks to the John Law precedent three hundred years ago. I last wrote about this two weeks ago, here. In 1720, it was just France and Law’s livre…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Foundation for Potential Price Hyperinflation is Being Laid

The Federal Reserve sure seems to have a tough time finding and reporting signs of rising inflation — especially when it’s hidden in other sectors like a lack of demand for energy.

A recent example of the Fed’s “inflation blindness” comes from a speech Chairman Jerome Powell gave to the Economic Club of New York. According to a MarketWatch piece that reported on that speech:

Powell said he doesn’t expect “a large nor sustained” increase in inflation right now. Price rises from the “burst of spending” as the economy reopens are not likely to be sustained.

It’s odd that Powell would say he doesn’t expect a sustained increase in inflation, because food price inflation has consistently run 3.5 to 4.5 percent since April last year. That sure seems like a sustained increase in food prices.

What Powell seems to have “forgotten” is that some of the overall inflation includes negative energy price inflation (as low as negative 9 percent at one point). But now that the demand for fuel is returning, the official gasoline index rose 7.4 percent in January.

It will be much more challenging for Powell to keep downplaying the risk of hyperinflation once energy price inflation rises back to “pre-pandemic” levels.

In fact, Robert Wenzel thinks the main inflation event is “just about to hit.” If it does, and inflation does rise past Powell’s two percent target, it isn’t likely to stop there. Jim Rickards thinks that’s when hyperinflation can gain momentum:

If inflation does hit 3%, it is more likely to go to 6% or higher, rather than back down to 2%. The process will feed on itself and be difficult to stop. Sadly, there are no Volckers or Reagans on the horizon today. There are only weak political leaders and misguided central bankers.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

The Only Way Out of the Death Trap

The Only Way Out of the Death Trap

I’ve said the U.S. is caught in a debt death trap. Monetary policy won’t get us out because the velocity of money, the rate at which money changes hands, is dropping.

Printing more money alone will not change that.

Fiscal policy won’t work either because of high debt ratios. At current debt-to-GDP ratios, each additional dollar spent yields less than a dollar of growth. But because it must be borrowed, it does add a dollar to the debt. Debt becomes an actual drag on growth.

The ratio gets higher, and the situation grows more desperate. The economy barely grows at all while the debt mounts. You basically become Japan.

The national debt is $27.8 trillion. A $27.8 trillion debt would not be an issue if we had a $50 trillion economy.

But we don’t have a $50 trillion economy. We have about a $21 trillion economy, which means our debt is bigger than our economy.

The debt-to-GDP ratio is about 130%. Before the pandemic, it was about 105% (the policy response to the pandemic caused the spike).

Already in the Danger Zone

But even a ratio of 105% is in the danger zone.

Economists Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart carried out a long historical survey going back 800 years, looking at individual countries, or empires in some cases, that have gone broke or defaulted on their debt.

They put the danger zone at a debt-to-GDP ratio of 90%. Once it reaches 90%, debt becomes a drag on growth.

Meanwhile, we’re looking at deficits of $1 trillion or more, long after the pandemic subsides.

In basic terms, the United States is going broke. We’re heading for a sovereign debt crisis.

I don’t say that for effect. I’m not looking to scare people or to make a splash. That’s just an honest assessment based on the numbers.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Historical lessons in prosperity vs. poverty

Historical lessons in prosperity vs. poverty

As the grandson of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan had a lot to prove.

So he set his eyes on the biggest prize in the known world at the time: southern China.

Kublai Khan completed his conquest of China in 1279, forging a new empire and creating the Yuan dynasty.

The Mongols were known for their expensive habits— they liked war and women especially. So when the money started to run out, administrators in the Yuan dynasty started printing paper money.

Yuan officials weren’t the first to come up with this idea; the government from the prior Song dynasty had also printed paper money. But there was a huge difference—

Paper currency from the Song dynasty, known as guanzi, was backed by copper, silver, and gold coins.

The Yuan currency, however, was backed by nothing. So whenever the government started to run out of money, they simply printed more.

By 1350, Kublai Khan had been dead for decades. But the Yuan dynasty’s economic overseers were still printing paper money like crazy. And it was causing severe hyperinflation across China.

People’s lives were turned upside down by the government’s fiscal irresponsibility, and rebellions broke out across the country.

By 1368, the Yuan dynasty had completely collapsed, and a destitute peasant farmer-turned-monk named Zhu Yuanzhang rose up to become Emperor and found the new Ming Dynasty.

To stimulate the economy ravaged by inflation, the Ming dynasty created an unprecedented level of economic freedom.

Markets and industries were deregulated; the government abandoned its monopoly on salt production, for example, and merchants were encouraged to allow market competition to set prices.

In time, the government stabilized the currency and reintroduced metallic coins. And by the 1500s Ming officials even allowed foreign currencies like the Spanish Silver Dollar to circulate in China.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“The Fed’s Monetary Punchbowl Is Fueling Rampant Home Price Appreciation”: AEI

“The Fed’s Monetary Punchbowl Is Fueling Rampant Home Price Appreciation”: AEI

“There is no justification” for continuing the purchases of mortgage-backed securities. The Fed is “misdiagnosing its impact on the housing market.” Pressure rises on the Fed to back off, in face of market craziness.

During the press conference following the FOMC meeting last week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell was asked by different reporters about the craziness going on in the stock market, the chaotic thingy with GameStop, corporate debt, and the housing market.

The fact that he was asked several times about the exuberant nuttiness in asset prices shows that by now everyone has picked up on it. And people are increasingly incredulous that the Fed would continue with its monetary policies in face of these markets.

Powell brushed off the GameStop thingy and gave his usual it’s-not-our-fault and it’s-never-ever-our-fault justifications for the exuberant nuttiness in the markets. The near-0% interest rates and $3 trillion in QE in just a few months had nothing to do with anything, but the drivers of the nuttiness have been the “expectations about vaccines” and “fiscal policy,” he said (transcript). “Those are the news items that have been driving asset values in recent months.”

Upon hearing this, people globally were just rolling up their eyes. And a reporter challenged him softly about the housing market – the 9% surge in prices from already lofty levels. “Are you concerned about a bubble forming there yet? And is there a price increase that you’re looking at where it might change the level of mortgage-backed securities the Fed is buying?”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Update on Fed’s QE: The Crybabies on Wall Street, which Clamored for More, Are Disappointed

Update on Fed’s QE: The Crybabies on Wall Street, which Clamored for More, Are Disappointed

And five SPVs expired, including the one that bought corporate bonds and bond ETFs.

The Fed has now put on ice five of its SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles) which had been designed back in March to bail out the bond market. It unwound its repo positions last June. Its foreign central bank liquidity swaps are now down to near-nothing except with the Swiss National Bank, which seems to have a need for dollars. The Fed has been adding to its pile of Treasury securities at the rate spelled out in its FOMC statements, thereby monetizing part of the US government debt. And it has been adding to its pile of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS).

The result is that total assets on its weekly balance sheet through Wednesday, at $7.4 trillion, are roughly flat with the level in mid-December and are up by $200 billion from early June, with an average growth rate over the six-plus months of $30 billion a month.

And the crybabies on Wall Street that have for months been clamoring for more QE have been disappointed. It’s still a huge amount of QE, but for the crybabies on Wall Street, it’s never enough:

But the long-term chart shows just how hog-wild the Fed had gone, furiously trying to bail out and enrich the asset holders, which are concentrated at the very top, thereby creating in the shortest amount of time the largest wealth disparity the US has ever seen. From crisis to crisis, from bailout to bailout, and even when there is no crisis:

Repurchase Agreements (Repos) remained at near-zero:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ray Dalio: “We Are On The Brink Of A Terrible Civil War”

Ray Dalio: “We Are On The Brink Of A Terrible Civil War”

It was over a decade ago that we first warned the Fed’s unconstrained monetary lunacy will eventually result in civil war, a prediction for which Time magazine, which back then was still somewhat relevant, mocked us. This is what Time’s Stephen Gendel said in October 2010:

What is the most likely cause of civil unrest today? Immigration. Gay marriage. Abortion. The results of Election Day. The mosque at Ground Zero. Nope.

Try the Federal Reserve. Nov. 3 is when the Federal Reserve’s next policy committee meeting ends, and if you thought this was just another boring money meeting you would be wrong. It could be the most important meeting in the Fed’s history, maybe. The U.S. central bank is expected to announce its next move to boost the faltering economic recovery. To say there has been considerable debate and anxiety among Fed watchers about what the central bank should do would be an understatement. Chairman Ben Bernanke has indicated in recent speeches that the central bank plans to try to drive down already low interest rates by buying up long-term bonds. A number of people both inside the Fed and out believe this is the wrong move. But one website seems to indicate that Ben’s plan might actually lead to armed conflict. Last week, a post on the blog Zero Hedge said … that the Fed’s plan is not only moronic, but “positions US society one step closer to civil war if not worse.”

* * * * *

The problem is that the Fed directly sets only short-term interest rates. And they are already about as close to zero as you can go. That’s why Bernanke has been talking about something called “quantitative easing.” …

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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