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The Inflation Illusion

We hear more and more talk about the possibility of imposing negative interest rates in the US. In a recent article former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke asks what tools the Fed has left to support the economy and inter alia discusses the use of negative rates.

We first have to define what we mean by negative interest rates. For nominal rates it’s simple. When the interest rate charged goes negative we have negative nominal rates. To get the real rate of interest we have to subtract inflation from the nominal rate, so to speak remove the illusion of inflation.

1-real FF rate The “real” federal funds rate (effective FF rate minus CPI-U y/y rate of change)

Real interest rates have been negative fairly often, including for most of the period since 2009. The main problem consists of choosing the appropriate measure of inflation.

Since the calculation of price inflation is highly subjective and easy to manipulate, one possibility is to adjust nominal prices to gold to calculate real interest rates. In the chart below you can see nominal U.S. 10-year Treasury rates versus gold-adjusted rates since 1962.

Nominal vs. gold-adjusted treasury yields (actually, the calculation of “price inflation” or a “general level of prices” is not merely subjective – it is literally impossible) – click to enlarge.

Ben Bernanke says in his article:

“The fundamental economic constraint on how negative interest rates can go is that, beyond a certain point, people will just choose to hold currency, which pays zero interest. (It’s not convenient or safe for most people to hold large amounts of currency, but at a sufficiently negative interest rate, banks or other institutions could profit from holding cash, for a fee, on behalf of customers).

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

While America Debates the $20 Bill, China Moves Closer to Gold

April 25, 2016

While America Debates the $20 Bill, China Moves Closer to Gold

On Wednesday, Jack Lew announced that the US Treasury was following Ben Bernanke’s advice and keeping Alexander Hamilton on the $10, instead deciding to bring Harriett Tubman to the $20. While Lew’s news left America distracted in debate over whose portrait should grace the Federal Reserve’s most popular bank note, Zerohedge was highlighting how China was taking important steps to distance themselves from the dollar.

Earlier this week, Reuters reported China taking the bold step of launching a yuan-denominated gold price. Reuters noted:

As the world’s top producer, importer and consumer of gold, China has baulked at having to depend on a dollar price in international transactions, and believes its market weight should entitle it to set the price of gold.

The new benchmark may not be an immediate threat to London, but industry players say over time China could set the price of the metal, especially if the yuan become fully convertible.

During an interview with Bloomberg TV Hao Hong, managing director and chief China strategist with Bocom International, one of China’s largest banks, put it more bluntly:

By trading physical gold in renminbi, China is slowly chipping away at the dominance of US dollars….The gold reserve on the China balance sheet has almost doubled since 2009. By holding gold, and moving away from a US-dollar centric system, we actually require less US dollars.

Of course the true measure of China’s gold holdings is still a closely guarded secret by the Chinese government. While the country has taken steps to increase transparency in its reserved reporting, which bolstered their successful campaign to have the yuan factored into the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights, James Rickards explains:

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

“This Is Catastrophic” – Thousands Of Gallons Of Radioactive Waste Leak At Nuclear Site

April 19, 2016

“This Is Catastrophic” – Thousands Of Gallons Of Radioactive Waste Leak At Nuclear Site

The ongoing radioactive leak problems at the Hanford Site, a nuclear storage tank in Washington State, are nothing new.

We first wrote about the ongoing radioative leakage at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, created as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, in 2013.

As a reminder, during the Cold War, the project was expanded to include nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing complexes, which produced plutonium for most of the 60,000 weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Alas, the site has been leaking ever since, as many of the early safety procedures and waste disposal practices were inadequate and Hanford’s operations released significant amounts of radioactive materials into the air and the neighboring Columbia River.

Hanford’s weapons production reactors were decommissioned at the end of the Cold War, but the decades of manufacturing left behind 53 million US gallons of high-level radioactive waste, an additional 25 million cubic feet of solid radioactive waste, 200 square miles of contaminated groundwater beneath the site and occasional discoveries of undocumented contaminations.

The Hanford site represents two-thirds of the nation’s high-level radioactive waste by volume. Today, Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States and is the focus of the nation’s largest environmental cleanup. The government spends $2 billion each year on Hanford cleanup — one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally. The cleanup is expected to last decades.

However, as Krugman would say, the government was not spending nearly enough, and after a major documented leak in 2013, over the weekend, thousands of gallons of radioactive waste are estimated to have leaked from the Site once again, triggering an alarm and causing one former worker to label it as “catastrophic.”

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

Why All Central Planning Is Doomed to Fail

April 15, 2016

Why All Central Planning Is Doomed to Fail

Positivist Delusions

[ed. note: this article was originally published on March 5 2013 – Bill Bonner was on his way to his ranch in Argentina, so here is a classic from the archives]

We’re still thinking about how so many smart people came to believe things that aren’t true. Krugman, Stiglitz, Friedman, Summers, Bernanke, Yellen – all seem to have a simpleton’s view of how the world works.

Simpletons A bunch of famous people with a simpleton view of how the world works…who not only seriously think the economy can and should be “planned”, but arrogantly believe they are the ones who should do it. It’s a bit like the crazy guy who doesn’t know he’s crazy.

They believe they can manipulate the future and make it better. Not just for themselves… but also for everyone else. Where did such a silly idea come from?

After the Renaissance, Aristotelian logic came to dominate Western thought. It was essentially a forerunner of positivism – which is supposedly based on objective conditions and scientific reasoning.

“Give me the facts,” says the positivist, confidently.

“Let me apply my rational brain to them. I will come up with a solution!”

Beyond the Herald’s Cry

This is fine, if you are building the Eiffel Tower or organizing the next church supper. But positivism falls apart when it is applied to schemes that go beyond the reach of the “herald’s cry.”

That’s what Aristotle said: Only a small community would work. Because only in a small community would all the people share more or less the same information and interests.

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

Former Fed Advisor Asks “Has The Fed Bankrupted The Nation”

April 14, 2016

Former Fed Advisor Asks “Has The Fed Bankrupted The Nation”

Volcker, Greenspan, Bernanke and Yellen.

Which one does not belong? Logic dictates that Volcker should have been odd man out. After all, there is no legendary “Volcker Put.”

The towering monetarist made no bones about never being bound by the financial markets. The same can certainly not be said of his three successors. And yet, history contrarily suggests it is to Volcker above all others that the financial markets will forever be beholden.

Many of you will be familiar with Michael Lewis’ memoir, Liar’s Poker. Yours truly first read the book in a Wall Street training program much like the one Lewis survived to describe in his autobiographical work. The take-away then, in late 1996, was that Gordon Gekko was right — greed was good.

Recently, a second reading of Liar’s Poker, following nearly a decade inside the Federal Reserve, delivered a much different message than did that first youthful reading and was nothing short of an epiphany: Paul Volcker, albeit certainly inadvertently, created the bond market.

On Saturday, October 6, 1979. Volcker held a press conference and announced that interest rates would no longer be fixed and that further the Fed would begin to target the money supply in order to curb inflation and “speculative excesses in financial, foreign exchange and commodity markets.”

Alas, this new regime was not meant to be. In trying to introduce an alternative to interest rate targeting, the Fed replaced one guessing game with another. Predicting the demand for reserves and then buying or selling securities based on that demand proved to be just as dicey as a similar exercise to target a given level of interest rates had been.

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

Bernanke’s New Helicopter Money Plan——-Sheer Destructive Lunacy

April 14, 2016

Bernanke’s New Helicopter Money Plan——-Sheer Destructive Lunacy

If you don’t think the current central bank driven economic and financial bubble is going to end badly, recall a crucial historical fact. To wit, the worldwide race of central banks to the zero bound and NIRP and their $10 trillion bond-buying spree during the last seven years was the brain child of Ben S Bernanke.

He’s the one who falsely insisted that Great Depression 2.0 was just around the corner in September 2008. Along with Goldman’s plenipotentiary at the US Treasury, Hank Paulson, it was Bernanke who stampeded the entirety of Washington into tossing out the window the whole rule book of sound money, fiscal rectitude and free market discipline.

In fact, there was no extraordinary crisis. The Lehman failure essentially triggered a self-contained leverage and liquidity bust in the canyons of Wall Street, and it would have burned out there had the Fed allowed money market interest rates to do their work. That is, to rise sufficiently to force into liquidation the gambling houses like Lehman, Goldman and Morgan Stanley that had loaded their balance sheets with trillions of illiquid or long-duration assets and funded them with cheap overnight money.

There would have been no significant spillover effect. The notions that the financial system was imploding into a black hole and that ATMs would have gone dark and money market funds failed are complete urban legends. They were concocted by Wall Street to panic Washington into massive intervention to save their stocks and partnership shares.

The same is true of the claim that corporate payrolls would have been missed for want of revolving credit availability and that the entirety of AIG had to be bailed out to the tune of $185 billion in order to protect insurance and annuity holders.

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

You’ve Been Warned – Ben Bernanke Praises “Helicopter Money” in Latest Blog Post

April 12, 2016

You’ve Been Warned – Ben Bernanke Praises “Helicopter Money” in Latest Blog Post

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

What follows are some excerpts from Banana Republic Ben’s latest blog post titled, What Tools Does the Fed Have Left? Part 3: Helicopter Money.

When monetary policy alone is inadequate to support economic recovery or to avoid too-low inflation, fiscal policy provides a potentially powerful alternative—especially when interest rates are “stuck” near zero. However, in recent years, legislatures in advanced industrial economies have for the most part been reluctant to use fiscal tools, in many cases because of concerns that government debt is already too high. In this context, Milton Friedman’s idea of money-financed (as opposed to debt-financed) tax cuts—“helicopter money”—has received a flurry of attention, with influential advocates including Adair Turner, Willem Buiter, and Jordi Gali.

In this post, I consider the merits of helicopter money as a (presumably last-resort) strategy for policymakers. I make two points. First, in theory at least, helicopter money could prove a valuable tool. In particular, it has the attractive feature that it should work even when more conventional monetary policies are ineffective and the initial level of government debt is high. However, second, as a practical matter, the use of helicopter money would involve some difficult issues of implementation. These include (1) the need to integrate the approach with standard monetary policy frameworks and (2) the challenge of achieving the necessary coordination between fiscal and monetary policymakers, without compromising central bank independence or long-run fiscal discipline. I propose some tentative solutions for these problems.

To be clear, the probability of so-called helicopter money being used in the United States in the foreseeable future seems extremely low.

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

Bernanke’s Former Advisor: “People Would Be Stunned To Know The Extent To Which The Fed Is Privately Owned”

April 11, 2016

Bernanke’s Former Advisor: “People Would Be Stunned To Know The Extent To Which The Fed Is Privately Owned”

With every passing day, the Fed is slowly but surely losing the game.

Only it is not just former (and in some cases current) Fed presidents admitting central banks are increasingly powerless to boost the global economy, even if they still have sway over capital markets. What is far more insidious to the Fed’s waning credibility is when former economists affiliated with the Fed start repeating mantras that until recently were only a prominent feature in the so-called fringe media.

This is precisely what happened today when former central bank staffer and Dartmouth College economics professor Andrew Levin, special adviser to then Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke between 2010 to 2012, joined with an activist group to argue for overhauls at the central bank that they say would distance it from Wall Street and make its activities more transparent and accountable to the public.

Levin is pressing for the overhaul with Fed Up coalition activists. Many of the proposed changes target the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, which are quasi-private and technically owned by commercial banks in their respective districts.

All of that is not surprising. What he said to justify his new found cause, however, is.

“A lot of people would be stunned to know” the extent to which the Federal Reserve is privately owned, Mr. Levin said. The Fed “should be a fully public institution just like every other central bank” in the developed world, he said in a conference call announcing the plan. He described his proposals as “sensible, pragmatic and nonpartisan.”

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

Former IMF Chief Economist Admits Japan’s “Endgame” Scenario Is Now In Play

April 11, 2016

Former IMF Chief Economist Admits Japan’s “Endgame” Scenario Is Now In Play

Back in October 2014, just after the BOJ drastically expanded its QE operation, we warned that the biggest risk facing the BOJ (and the ECB, and the Fed, and all other central banks actively soaking up securities from the open market) was a lack of monetizable supply. We cited Takuji Okubo, chief economist at Japan Macro Advisors in Tokyo, who said that at the scale of its current debt monetization, the BOJ could end up owning half of the JGB market by as early as in 2018. He added that “The BOJ is basically declaring that Japan will need to fix its long-term problems by 2018, or risk becoming a failed nation.”

Which is why 17 months ago we predicted that, contrary to expectations of even more QE from Kuroda, we said “the BOJ will not boost QE, and if anything will have no choice but to start tapering it down – just like the Fed did when its interventions created the current illiquidity in the US govt market – especially since liquidity in the Japanese government market is now non-existent and getting worse by the day.”

As part of our conclusion, we said we do not “expect the media to grasp the profound implications of this analysis not only for the BOJ but for all other central banks: we expect this to be summer of 2016’s business.”

Since then, the forecast has panned out largely as expected: both the ECB and BOJ, finding themselves collateral constrained, were forced to expand into other, even more unconventional methods of easing, whether it be NIRP in the case of the BOJ, or the outright purchases of corporate bonds as the ECB did a month ago.

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

Ben Bernanke: “Helicopter Money May Be The Best Available Alternative”

April 11, 2016

Ben Bernanke: “Helicopter Money May Be The Best Available Alternatives

Now that the prospect of helicopter money by the ECB has so infuriated Germany, the ECB had to reach out to Schauble to “mollify” the Germans who are dreading the second coming of monetary paradrops in one century, it was only a matter of time before Citadel’s most prominent employer opined. In a blog post earlier today, Brookings’ blogger and the central banker who together with Alan Greenspan has been most responsible for the world’s unprecedented debt pile and sad economic state, Ben Bernanke, took the podium to share his views on “helicopter money” head on.

In “What tools does the Fed have left? Part 3: Helicopter money” the former Fed head who first infamously hinted at helicopter money in his November 2002 speech “Deflation: Making Sure “It” Doesn’t Happen Here” when he quoted Milton Friedman, once again started off with a Friedman quote:

“Let us suppose now that one day a helicopter flies over this community and drops an additional $1,000 in bills from the sky, which is, of course, hastily collected by members of the community. Let us suppose further that everyone is convinced that this is a unique event which will never be repeated.” (Milton Friedman, “The Optimum Quantity of Money,” 1969)

He then pulls a quote from his own book “The Courage to Act”

“The deflation speech saddled me with the nickname ‘Helicopter Ben.’ In a discussion of hypothetical possibilities for combating deflation I mentioned an extreme tactic—a broad-based tax cut combined with money creation by the central bank to finance the cut. Milton Friedman had dubbed the approach a ‘helicopter drop’ of money. Dave Skidmore, the media relations officer…had advised me to delete the helicopter-drop metaphor…

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

Mises.org: And So It Begins…Negative Interest Rates Trickle Down in Japan

April 5, 2016

MISES.ORG: AND SO IT BEGINS… NEGATIVE INTEREST RATES TRICKLE DOWN IN JAPAN

The negative interest rates imposed by the Bank of Japan have begun to make their way into the Japanese banking system. Japanese trust banks have begun to impose negative interest rateson accounts held by institutional investors. It shouldn’t be surprising that Japanese banks are trying to pass on the costs imposed by the central bank’s policy of negative interest rates. It happened in Switzerland, it is happening in Japan, and it will happen in Europe. And as it becomes more widespread, investors will begun to withdraw their funds from the banking system.

Some people, such as Ben Bernanke, don’t think that will have much of an effect on the banking system.

It seems implausible, though, that modestly negative short-term rates would have large incremental effects on bank profitability or lending. Contrary to the simple story, most U.S. bank funding does not come from small depositors, but from wholesale funding markets, large institutional depositors, and foreign depositors, all of whom would presumably accept a marginally negative rate if the alternative were holding currency.

It’s actually the depositors at either end of the Bell curve who would be most likely to withdraw their funds. The depositor with $500 in the bank who is facing guaranteed losses might just pull out five $100 bills and stuff them under his mattress. Similarly, a large institutional depositor with $500 million or more in funds facing a negative interest rate of -0.10% (a cost of $500,000+ per year) might find it more worthwhile to build a safe room and hire armed guards, particularly if he thinks negative interest rates will be around for a long time. It is the depositors with in-between sums, too much to stuff under the mattress but too little to assume full responsibility for guarding their money, who will be affected the most.

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

A Quarter Century Of Monetary Voodoo

April 4, 2016

A Quarter Century Of Monetary Voodoo

A Witless Tool of the Deep State?

Finance or politics? We don’t know which is jollier. The Republican presidential primary and Fed monetary policies seem to compete for headlines. Which can be most absurd? Which can be most outrageous? Which can get more page views?

Politics, led by Donald J. Trump, was clearly in the lead… until Wednesday. Then, the money world, with Janet L. Yellen wearing the yellow jersey, spurted ahead in the Hilarity Run.

“Cautious Yellen drives global stocks near 2016 peak,” reported a Reuters headline. The story itself was a remarkable tribute to the whole jackass money system.

At first glance, “cautious Yellen” would seem incongruous with stocks rising to “near 2016 peak.” Caution normally means playing it cool, not encouraging speculation.

But it wasn’t so much what Ms. Yellen said that sent stocks racing ahead. It was what she hasn’t done. And she hasn’t done exactly what we thought she wouldn’t do. That is, so far this year, she has not taken a single step in the direction of a “normal” monetary policy; our guess is that she never will.

Why not? Is it because she is a witless tool of Deep State cronies? Is it because her economic theory is silly, superficial, and simpleminded? Or is it because she and her predecessor, Ben Bernanke, have done so much damage to the normal world that there is nothing to go back to?

A coo-coo for the stock market…

“Cautious Yellen drives global stocks near 2016 peak,” reported a Reuters headline. The story itself was a remarkable tribute to the whole jackass money system.

At first glance, “cautious Yellen” would seem incongruous with stocks rising to “near 2016 peak.” Caution normally means playing it cool, not encouraging speculation.

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

Deficit Spending is Not the Answer

March 28, 2016

Deficit Spending is Not the Answer

The Growing Chorus for Fiscal Stimulus

Central bankers and monetary adherents the world over are united in the common grouse that fiscal policy is lacking. Grander programs of direct stimulation are needed, they grumble. Monetary policy alone won’t cut the mustard, they gripe.

1-global debt Global debt-to-GDP ratios (excl. financial debt). Obviously, it is not enough. More debt is needed, so we may “stimulate” ourselves back to prosperity.

Hardly a week goes by where the monetary side of the house isn’t heaving grievances at the fiscal side of the house. The government spenders aren’t doing their part to boost the GDP, proclaim the money printers. Greater outlays and ‘structural reforms’ are needed to spur aggregate demand, they moan.

For example, last month, just prior to the G20 gala, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) asserted that “Getting back to healthy and inclusive growth calls for urgent policy response, drawing on monetary, fiscal, and structural policies working together.”

The OECD report also stated that “The case for structural reforms, combined with supporting demand policies, remains strong to sustainably lift productivity and the job creation.”

4295203312_1ec36291bc_b The Chateau de la Muette in Paris – this magnificent building that once housed members of France’s nobility nowadays ironically serves as the headquarters of the socialistic central planning bureaucracy known as the OECD. This parasitic carbuncle is high up on the list of globalist institutions that must be considered an extreme threat to economic freedom and progress. Photo via oecd.org

Several weeks later, on March 10, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi offered a similar refrain. At the ECB press conference Draghi remarked that “all [Eurozone] countries should strive for a more growth-friendly composition of fiscal policies.”

Then, wouldn’t you know it, former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke also added his alto vocals to the chorus. Last week, in his Brookings Institution blog, he wrote:

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

Japan Goes Full Krugman: Plans Un-Depositable, Non-Cash “Gift-Certificate” Money Drop To Young People

March 23, 2016

Japan Goes Full Krugman: Plans Un-Depositable, Non-Cash “Gift-Certificate” Money Drop To Young People

The Swiss, the Finns, and the Ontarians may get their ‘Universal Basic Income’ but the Japanese are about to turn the Spinal Tap amplifier of extreme monetary experimentation to 11. Sankei reports, with no sourcing, that the Japanese government plans to unleash “vouchers” or “gift certificates” to low-income young people to stimulate the “conspicuous decline” in consumption among young people. The handouts may not be deposited, thus combining helicopter money (inflationary) and fully electronic currency (implicit capital controls and tracking of spending).

Since Ben Bernanke reminded the world of the existence of government printing-presses, echoed Milton Friedman’s “helicopter drop” solution to fighting deflation, and decried Japan for not being as insane as it could be… it has only been a matter of time before some global central bank decided that the dropping of cash onto the populace was the key to economic recovery. Having blown their wad on QQE (and been left with a quintuple-dip recession) and unleashed NIRP, it appears Japan has reached that limit.

As Bloomberg reports,

The Japanese government plans to include gift certificates for low-income young people in its fiscal 2016 supplementary budget, Sankei reports, without saying who provided the information.

Recipients would be able to use them for daily necessities.

The government sees gift certificates as more effective in stimulating consumption than cash handouts, which may be deposited.

As Sankei reports (via Google Translate),

The government 23 days, as the centerpiece of the 2016 fiscal year supplementary budget to organize because of the economic stimulus, cemented the policy to include the low-income measures for young people. To examine the distribution of vouchers to be devoted to the purchase of such daily necessities.

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

Will The Fed Follow The BoJ Down The NIRP Rabbit Hole?

March 17, 2016

Will The Fed Follow The BoJ Down The NIRP Rabbit Hole?

On Monday, in “JPM Looks At Draghi’s ‘Package,’ Finds It ‘Solid’ But Underwhelming,” we noted that according to Mislav Matejka, investors would do well to fade the ECB’s latest attempt to jumpstart inflation, growth, and of course asset prices with Draghi’s version of a Keynesian kitchen sink.

“Overall, we believe the latest package is far from a game changer,” Matejka opined.

What was especially interesting about that particular note was the following graph and set of tables which show just how “effective” NIRP has been for the five central banks that have tried it so far.

As you can see, once you go NIRP, it’s pretty much all downhill from there whether you’re talking inflation, the economy, or even equities.

Given that, and given that the entire idea is absurd on its face for a whole laundry list of reasons, one wonders why any central banker would chase down this rabbit hole only to find themselves the protagonist in the latest retelling of “Krugman in Wonderland”.

In any event, for those wondering whether the Fed will join the ECB, the BoJ, the Riksbank, the SNB, and the NationalBank in this increasingly insane monetary experiment, below, courtesy of Bloomberg, find a chronological history of Fed and analyst commentary on NIRP in America.

FED COMMENTARY

March 16: Yellen said during post-FOMC press conference Fed isn’t actively considering negative rates, studying effects in other nations
March 2: San Francisco President Williams said “we’re not doing negative interest rates”; Williams Feb. 25 said negative rates are “potentially in the toolbox” but may have “unintended consequences”
March 1: Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Bloomberg Radio and TV negative interest rates, if pursued for an extended period of time, will eventually distort saving and investment…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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