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These people lost one-third of their savings in a single week (not in crypto)

August 14, 2018

These people lost one-third of their savings in a single week (not in crypto)

Let me say up front– I know I’ve been a bit quiet lately.

It happens every year around this time when I hold the annual Liberty and Entrepreneurship Camp that I’ve been sponsoring for the past nine years.

The event is incredible: I bring in top entrepreneurs and business executives, plus students from all over the world– places like Ivory Coast, Brazil, Singapore, Russia and the United States.

It’s five days of mentorship that seemingly goes round-the-clock. It’s exhilarating… but exhausting. And the Notes from the Field schedule always suffers as a result.

Did you know? You can receive all our actionable articles straight to your email inbox… Click here to signup for our Notes from the Field newsletter.

I’ll tell you more about the event later this week. But in the meantime, I thought it was more pressing to talk about the unbelievable situation currently unfolding in Turkey… because it’s pretty extraordinary what’s happening right now.

As you may know, Turkey has imprisoned a US pastor named Andrew Brunson for alleged terrorism and espionage.

Obviously the US government wants him back. So Uncle Sam has slammed Turkey with economic sanctions.

Turkey’s economy was already wobbly before the sanctions. The country is suffering the effects of debilitating debt and persistent recession.

Now the economy is getting absolutely destroyed.

Turkey’s currency, the lira, is down some 45% this year. Just yesterday the lira was down a whopping 7%.

If you don’t speculate in currencies very much, a 7% move in a single day is basically unprecedented. It almost never happens. So this is a pretty big deal.

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

Prepare for a Chinese Maxi-devaluation

July 26, 2018

Prepare for a Chinese Maxi-devaluation

The news is being dominated by breathless headlines about the new trade war between the U.S. and China. But this trade war has been brewing for years and came as no surprise to readers of my newsletter, Project Prophesy. In fact, the new trade war is simply a continuation of the currency wars that began in 2010.

I’ve warned for over a year that President Trump’s threats of tariffs should be taken seriously, while most of Wall Street discounted Trump’s talk as mere bluster. Now the trade wars are here as we expected, and they will get much worse before they are resolved.

Currency wars arise in a condition of too much debt and too little growth. Economic powers try to steal growth from their trading partners by devaluing their currencies to promote exports and import inflation.

But China can’t keep going with tariffs.

They only import about $150 billion of U.S. exports. At the rate they’re going, they’ll run out of goods to impose tariffs on. Trump can keep going because the U.S. imports so much more from China than they buy from us.

But the Chinese are obsessed with not losing face. Chinese President Xi has just been named in effect dictator for life. He doesn’t want to start out his new dictatorial regime by backing down from a stare-fest with Donald Trump. So he needs another option.

For China to keep fighting, they need an asymmetric response; they need to fight the trade war with something other than tariffs.

China holds over $1.2 trillion of U.S. Treasury securities. Some analysts say China can dump those Treasuries on world markets and drive up U.S. interest rates. This will also drive up mortgage rates, damage the U.S. housing market, and possibly drive the U.S. economy into a recession. Analysts call this China’s “nuclear option” when it comes to fighting a financial war with Trump.

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

Has the PBoC deliberately weakened CNY as part of the trade war?

June 30, 2018

Has the PBoC deliberately weakened CNY as part of the trade war?

It has been another trade war week, as the market has been looking for clues on the Chinese retaliation measures against the Trump tariffs that are planned to go live on 6 July.

Global trade momentum started to weaken even before the trade conflict escalated. The three months from February until April marked the weakest running 3-month period for world trade since early 2015. A bad sign given that the period included a temporary cease-fire between Trump and Xi Jinping. Usually it adds downwards pressure on 10yr bond yields, when world trade is slowing (at least initially). A further slowdown of global trade in June/July/August could keep long bond yields under pressure over the summer. In other words, the trade war fog needs to dissipate for the 10yr US Treasury yield to unfold its upside potential to the range between 3.25%-3.50% (Major Forecast Update: USD to remain in the driving seat)

Chart 1: Less global trade, lower long bond yields

Last week we wrote that we found trade-based Chinese retaliation measures more likely than attempts to retaliate via the financial markets. The fact that Trump is threatening with new tariffs on goods worth a total of USD 450bn makes the retaliation process trickier for China. It is simply not possible to retaliate symmetrically, as there are not enough US exports into China to tax. This leaves an elevated risk of unorthodox retaliation measures being used. Prohibiting symbolic US products from entering Chinese territory could be one way of doing it. Expect more clarity on whether Xi Jinping will deliver an ALL-IN answer as early as this weekend.

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

China Has Quietly Implemented A 6% Across The Board ‘Tariff’ On All US Imports

June 28, 2018

China Has Quietly Implemented A 6% Across The Board ‘Tariff’ On All US Imports

Trump and Xi have spent much of the last few weeks tossing tariff grenades across the Pacific Ocean as retaliatory retaliations grow ever stronger in rhetoric and potential escalations.

Then this week, Trump seemed to back away from his most serious threats (direct Chinese investment restrictions).

We wonder if this is why…

Since Trump started to rattle his trade war sabre, the last three months have seen the offshore Chinese Yuan tumble over 6% (crashing almost 4% in the last two weeks alone)…

Nothing happens by accident in China and this massive drop in the value of the Yuan mirrors the violent devaluation, snap in 2015…

All of which suddenly makes US imports to China 6% more expensive than they were in Q1 – a stealth tariff that no one is talking about.

And before this is dismissed as just the mirror of USD strength, we suggest the following chart shows very clearly the PBOC allowing the Yuan to weaken notably against just the dollar while – until the last few days – maintaining Yuan’s buying power against the rest of the world.

However, as Capital Economics points out, if the PBOC is using the exchange rate to fight back against the US, it is pulling its punches: the PBOC’s daily reference exchange rate has in the past few days been stronger than market rates might have suggested, not weaker.

It is of course still notable that the PBOC has done relatively little to stand in the way of the currency slide, even if it isn’t directly responsible for it. It always argues that the exchange rate is driven by market forces.

But its tolerance will probably only go so far, given the painful experiences of 2015 and 2016: any benefit to exporters would be swamped if depreciation triggered economic and financial instability.

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

Pakistan Panic: 3rd Currency Devaluation In 2018 Sends Sovereign Risk Soaring Above Argentina, Ukraine

June 22, 2018

Pakistan Panic: 3rd Currency Devaluation In 2018 Sends Sovereign Risk Soaring Above Argentina, Ukraine

While many of the world’s eyes are on the carnage in Argentina as EM collapses, Pakistan has quietly devalued the Rupee three times this year, amid tumbling reserves which has sparked enough investor anxiety to send CDS spiking.

Pakistan is now ‘riskier’ than Greece, Ukraine, and Argentina…

The country has been roiled by domestic political and economic turmoil and was not helped this week when Moody’s changed the outlook on Pakistan to negative from stable citing heightened external vulnerability risk.

Moody’s affirmed its B3 rating

Says foreign exchange reserves have fallen to low levels and will not be replenished over the next 12-18 months, absent significant capital inflows.

Moody’s says low reserve adequacy threatens continued access to external financing at moderate costs, in turn potentially raising government liquidity risks.

It certainly looks like they are losing control of the currency…

And to pile on – Pakistan’s main stock index – down 33% YTD in USD terms – just suffered a ‘death cross’…

Notably all of this carnage has accelerated since the start of January which coincided with Pakistan’s decision to ditch the dollar(following Trump’s remarks) and get closer to China.

“SBP has already put in place the required regulatory framework which facilitates use of CNY in trade and investment transactions,” the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said in a press release late Tuesday, ensuring that imports, exports and financing transactions can be denominated in the Chinese currency.

“The SBP, in the capacity of the policy maker of financial and currency markets, has taken comprehensive policy related measures to ensure that imports, exports and financing transactions can be denominated in yuan,” Dawn news, Pakistan’s most widely read English-language daily, announced while quoting the SBP press release.

Image source: WION News

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

Learning from America’s Forgotten Default

May 22, 2018

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Gold Bill (also known as the Dollar Devaluation Bill)

Learning from America’s Forgotten Default

One of the most pervasive myths about the United States is that the federal government has never defaulted on its debts. There’s just one problem: it’s not true, and while few people remember the “gold clause cases” of the 1930s, that episode holds valuable lessons for leaders today.

LOS ANGELES – One of the most pervasive myths about the United States is that the federal government has never defaulted on its debts. Every time the debt ceiling is debated in Congress, politicians and journalists dust off a common trope: the US doesn’t stiff its creditors.

There’s just one problem: it’s not true. There was a time, decades ago, when the US behaved more like a “banana republic” than an advanced economy, restructuring debts unilaterally and retroactively. And, while few people remember this critical period in economic history, it holds valuable lessons for leaders today.

In April 1933, in an effort to help the US escape the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt announced plans to take the US off the gold standard and devalue the dollar. But this would not be as easy as FDR calculated. Most debt contracts at the time included a “gold clause,” which stated that the debtor must pay in “gold coin” or “gold equivalent.” These clauses were introduced during the Civil War as a way to protect investors against a possible inflationary surge.

For FDR, however, the gold clause was an obstacle to devaluation. If the currency were devalued without addressing the contractual issue, the dollar value of debts would automatically increase to offset the weaker exchange rate, resulting in massive bankruptcies and huge increases in public debt.

To solve this problem, Congress passed a joint resolution on June 5, 1933, annulling all gold clauses in past and future contracts.

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

Everything You Need to Know About Inflation

April 30, 2018

Everything You Need to Know About Inflation

It’s been said that when the U.S. sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold. Inflation by overall annual average has been below target for some years now, since 2012 to be exact. The Fed usually seeks a 2% inflation as a comfort zone.

Granted, it’s only one data point but with unemployment currently low and some signs that economic growth is accelerating, the suggestion exists that overheating/inflation is a risk for the U.S. economy in a way that hasn’t existed for about ten years.

What is inflation?

Inflation is when the buying power of a currency declines over time. If inflation is 2% that translates to a basket of groceries which cost $100 today costing $102 a year from now.

But since prices rise and fall and we each buy different articles how is that tracked? Government statisticians and economists create indexes to reflect a full range of products and services that are consumed weighted by how much the average household spends on each item.

Various ways of measuring are done by comparing the decline of the U.S. dollar compared to other currencies or to gold. The aggregate of the items compared can show how prices are changing over time considering the range of items the average household purchases

This leads to the next question, “is inflation good or bad?”

It can be either. In places like Venezuela today or Zimbabwe a few years ago, inflation was so out of control that the currency ceased to function as a means of exchange and the population was forced to resort to a barter system. This led to a breakdown in the two countries’ financial systems.

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

China Eyes Yuan Devaluation in Trade Dispute

April 10, 2018

China Eyes Yuan Devaluation in Trade Dispute

Finally, we have a story that makes retaliatory sense vs. the widely believed “nuclear” treasury dumping theory.

The widely-circulated “nuclear” theory suggests China would dump US treasuries in a trade war with the US. That theory never made any sense. Such a move would tend to strengthen the yuan, making Chinese exports more expensive. Thus, it would be precisely what the US would want.

The Real Nuclear Option

The real nuclear option would be a devaluation of the yuan, making Chinese goods less expensive to the US.

Reportedly, China is Studying Devaluation.

China is evaluating the potential impact of a gradual yuan depreciation, people familiar with the matter said, as the country’s leaders weigh their options in a trade spat with U.S. President Donald Trump that has roiled financial markets worldwide.

Senior Chinese officials are studying a two-pronged analysis of the yuan that was prepared by the government, the people said. One part looks at the effect of using the currency as a tool in trade negotiations with the U.S., while a second part examines what would happen if China devalues the yuan to offset the impact of any trade deal that curbs exports.

While a weaker yuan could help President Xi Jinping shore up China’s export industries in the event of widespread tariffs in the U.S., a devaluation comes with plenty of risks. It would encourage Trump to follow through on his threat to brand China a currency manipulator, make it more difficult for Chinese companies to service their mountain of offshore debt, and undermine recent efforts by the government to move toward a more market-oriented exchange rate system.

It would also expose China to the risk of heightened financial-market volatility, something authorities have worked hard to avoid in recent years. When China unexpectedly devalued the yuan by about 2 percent in August 2015, the move fueled capital outflows and sent shock-waves through global markets.

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

What Happens When Your Money Is Worthless? Living with a Devalued Currency

March 31, 2018

What Happens When Your Money Is Worthless? Living with a Devalued Currency

This is one of the most important and valued articles to help you prepare. I think it could be useful, based on our experience with the economic collapse and its effects on the currency. Let me tell you what life is really like when your country has a devalued currency that is nearly worthless.

How do you buy things with devalued currency?

These last few days I was asked by a fellow prepper overseas how our internal trading, with such a devalued currency, was going on. He asked if we used silver coins and bartering. I answered him that we use mostly US dollars and Euros for large transactions like vehicles, land, and housing, as far as I know. But the reason people are mostly selling is that they are desperate to get out of the country, and the wealth they have accumulated in previous years vanishes, with the bad deals they seem forced to accept.

On the other hand, for day-to-day payments, bolivars are still used, but the prices go up (always UP by the way) depending on the black market dollar price. This is, though, a perfect evidence that this black market dollar is controlled by the government: look at the evolution price, and you will find it stable just before any important election, political campaigns and such.

This is no surprise, those who benefit the most from this black market are those “companies” that aligned with the dollar river…and nowadays that stream is getting dry.

Bad news for oil industry workers

I received very bad news for those still working in the oil industry. So you can understand what is in store for the employees, I have to explain some background first.

As part of our monthly payment, we received a savings incentive: the company retained the 12.5% of our salary in their accounts until the end of the month, and provided another 12.5% (it sounds like a lot but it is not). So, by the end of the month, we had in the corporative account an additional 25%.

This was one of the main benefits for the oil state workers, and that helped to deal with the high performance demanded by the industry. This money, during better times, was kept there until the end of the year, for a new car, or starting a side business, some fancy vacations, and stuff. However I never used it for traveling overseas, but invested in land, some prepping gear and equipment, assisting my parents and my wife’s family, and short family trips from time to time to the beach, or my folks’ place and such.

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

Nothing Exceeds Like Excess

March 27, 2018

Nothing Exceeds Like Excess

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

—Ernest Hemingway

Military spending is the second largest item in the US federal budget after Social Security. It has a habit of increasing significantly each year, and the proposed 2019 defense budget is $886 billion (roughly double what it was in 2003).

US military spending exceeds the total of the next ten largest countries combined. Although the US government acknowledges 682 military bases in 63 countries, that number may be over 1,000 (if all military installations are included), in 156 countries. Total military personnel is estimated at over 1.4 million.

The reader could be forgiven if he felt that a US military base was rather unnecessary in, say, Djibouti or the Bahamas, yet the US Congress will not allow the closure of any military bases. (The Bi-partisan Budget Act of 2013 blocked future military base closings under the argument that they’re all essential for “national security.”) And Congress has a vested interest in keeping all bases open and consuming as much in tax dollars as possible (more on that later).

Of course, those bases need to be kept well-stocked with small arms, tanks, missiles and aircraft. Yet, in spite of the admittedly incredible number of US military bases across the globe, the additional stockpile of weaponry is so great that the government has difficulty finding places to put it all.

One storage location is pictured in the photo above—Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. In spite of the size of the photo, it shows only a portion of the aircraft located there. (And bear in mind, such aircraft often cost over $100 million each.)

If asked, the military states that, although these aircraft are in dead storage and many have never seen any use whatever, they might possibly be called up for service, “if needed.” Of course, if they’re needed, they’re unlikely to be of use if located in Arizona. And, in addition, they may not be useful for warfare, as war technology has moved on since the days when such aircraft designs were suitable.

It’s been said that generals are forever fighting the last war, and this is certainly true. Even a layman can observe that such conventional aircraft will never see use, as they serve no purpose in modern warfare.

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

Venezuela Knocks Three Zeros Off Its Currency to Halt Hyperinflation

March 26, 2018

Venezuela Knocks Three Zeros Off Its Currency to Halt Hyperinflation

Redenomination is Venezuela’s sorry story of the day. It won’t work.

In a worthless attempt to halt hyperinflation, Venezuela Deletes Three Zeros From Its Failing Currency.

Socialist Venezuela is going through a crisis that has left people struggling to pay for food and find medicines. Prices are being influenced by a black-market exchange rate that rises by the day and is currently five times the nearly inaccessible official rate.

President Nicolás Maduro late Thursday briefly outlined his monetary rescue plan. In a country where a dozen eggs can cost 250,000 bolivars ($5) amid worsening inflation, he would chop three zeros off the currency — arguably bringing the price for those eggs down to 250.

By June 2, under Maduro’s plan, new bolivars with lower denominations would be circulated — but old ones, with denominations as high as 100,000, would remain valid. It would leave vendors charging two prices — one for old bills, the other for the redenominated bolivar.

Empty Shelves

Merchants are arrested if they charge too much for food. The result is no food.

Loot or Die

The Guardian reports ‘We loot or we die of hunger’: food shortages fuel unrest in Venezuela.

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

The Central Bank Bubble: It Will Be Ugly

March 21, 2018

The Central Bank Bubble: It Will Be Ugly

21
Mar

The global economy has been living through a period of central bank insanity, thanks to a little-understood expansion strategy known as quantitative easing, which has destroyed main-street and benefitted wall street.

Central Banks over the last decade simply created credit out of thin air. Snap a finger, and credit magically appears. Only central banks can perform this type of credit magic. It’s called printing money and they have gone on the record saying they are magic people.

Increasing the money supply lowers interest rates, which makes it easier for banks to offer loans. Easy loans allow businesses to expand and provides consumers with more credit to buy goods and increase their debt. As a country’s debt increases, its currency eventually debases, and the world is currently at historic global debt levels.

Simply put, the world’s central banks are playing a game of monopoly.

With securities being bought by a currency that is backed by debt rather than actual value, we have recently seen $9.7 trillion in bonds with a negative yield. At maturity, the bond holders will actually lose money, thanks to the global central banks’ strategies. The Federal Reserve has already hinted that negative interest rates will be coming in the next recession.

These massive bond purchases have kept volatility relatively stable, but that can change quickly. High inflation is becoming a real possibility. China, which is planning to dethrone the dollar by backing the Yuan with gold, may survive the coming central banking bubble. Many other countries will be left scrambling. Some central banks are attempting to turn the current expansion policies around. Both the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, and the Bank of England have plans to hike interest rates. The European Central Bank is planning to reduce its purchases of bonds. Is this too little, too late?

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

How Much Longer Can We Get Away With It?

March 16, 2018

How Much Longer Can We Get Away With It?

Alas, fakery isn’t actually a solution to fiscal/financial crisis..

This chart of “debt securities and loans”–i.e. total debt in the U.S. economy–is also a chart of the creation and distribution of new money, as the issuance of new debt is the mechanism in our financial system for creating (or “emitting” in economic jargon) new currency: when a bank issues a new home mortgage, for example, the loan amount is new currency created out of the magical air of fractional reserve banking.

Central banks also create new currency at will, and emitting newly created money is how they’ve bought $21 trillion in assets such as bonds, mortgages and stocks since 2009. Is there an easier way to push asset valuations higher than creating “money” out of thin air and using it to buy assets, regardless of the price? If there is an easier way, I haven’t heard of it.

Which brings us to the question: how much longer can we get away with this travesty of a mockery of a sham? How much longer can we get away with creating “money” by issuing new debt/liabilities to grease the consumption of more goods and services and the purchases of epic bubble-valuation assets?

Since humans are still using Wetware 1.0 (a.k.a. human nature), we can constructively refer to the Roman Empire’s experience with creating “money” with no intrinsic value. The reason why the Roman Empire (Western and Eastern) attracts such attention is 1) we have a fair amount of documentation for the period, something we don’t have for other successful empires such as the Incas, and 2) we’re fascinated by the decline and collapse of the Western Empire, a structure so vast and successful that collapse seemed impossible just a few decades before the final unraveling.

One of the books I’m currently enjoying is The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, a new exploration of the impact of climate change and pandemics on the Roman Empire’s final few centuries.

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

Albert Edwards: “Trump Will Soon Turn His Protectionist Fire On Germany. That Will Be Messy”

March 15, 2018

Albert Edwards: “Trump Will Soon Turn His Protectionist Fire On Germany. That Will Be Messy”

We were wondering how long before one of our favorite “perma-skeptics”, Socgen’s Albert Edwards, would chime in on the global trade war that broke out in the past few weeks, especially since trade protectionism, tariffs and subsidies are the opposite side of the same “strategic” coin of currency devaluation which we have observed for the past decade, and both of which have one purpose: to make one nation’s goods and service (and stocks) cheaper to the outside world (curiously, in recent years, it has emerged that “soft” protectionism i.e. currency devaluation, is far more acceptable to the establishment than direct or targeted trade intervention via tariffs and trade protectionism).

We got the answer today when in a note, what else, warning what comes next, Edwards writes that whereas “a trade war and competitive currency devaluation was always going to be the end game in our Ice Age thesis as a global deflationary bust destroyed wealth, profits and jobs” and it now looks that this endgame “might be arriving sooner than we had anticipated.”

The reason: central banks. The catalyst: Donald Trump.

As Edwards explains, while the world is all too quick to point the finger at Trump for daring to expose that the trading emperor is naked, the real culprit behind massive trade imbalances is elsewhere, usually inside a central bank building:

“Increasing trade tensions are an inevitable consequence of the side-effects of QE pursued by central banks – especially the ECB. In the near term, there are a couple of trade issues rankling the US Administration far more than steel and aluminium that could easily trigger a full-scale trade war. More immediate is the impending result of a US probe into China’s alleged theft of intellectual property. And boiling away in the background are Germany’s, and now too the eurozone’s, outsized trade surpluses.”

Edwards begins his analysis by pointing out something trivial: politicians lie.

In this context, Edwards claims that President Trump “is a most unusual politician. Like him or loath him, he seems to be doing something politicians seldom ever do: namely, attempting to fulfill his election promises. This is most unusual!”

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

The Failure of Fiat Currencies

March 1, 2018

The Failure of Fiat Currencies

We work hard for our money, as we think it has long-lasting value. That value can buy us other things that we want. It seems like a good exchange. However, few of us consider how extrinsic the value of money really is. In reality, we are dealing in valueless fiat currencies.

At one time, our money was backed by the tangible value of gold or other precious metals, legal tender for anything of equal value.

That is not the case any longer. The value of a dollar bill these days is what the government says it is. This arbitrary value is dependent on the whim of the government. And the government can print money like a copy machine run amok. There are no limits to how much money can be put into circulation. That is because this money isn’t backed by any real value, it’s called fiat currency.

The US dollar became fiat currency when it stopped being backed by gold over 46 years ago and it has lost 97 percent of its value since the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913.

Apart from cryptocurrencies, all the world’s major countries are using fiat currency.

Since Roman times, fiat money has failed spectacularly throughout history due to the same pattern of rapid devaluation and then total collapse. The Romans used a 100 percent pure silver coin called the denarius at the start of the first century. By mid-century, during Nero’s rule, the denarius only contained 94% silver. By 100 A.D., the silver content had been reduced to 85%. The value of the coin was decreasing steadily. This worked well for Nero and his followers, who no longer had to pay their debt at the full, actual value while additionally increasing their own wealth. During the next century, the coin was made of less than 50% silver.

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

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Chart 1: Less global trade, lower long bond yields

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