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The International Monetary Fund is sounding the alarms of another global crisis. IMF is warning that the storm clouds are currently gathering for another financial crisis.

According to a report by The Guardian, David Lipton, the first deputy managing director of the IMF, said that “crisis prevention is incomplete” more than a decade on from the last meltdown in the global banking system. Not only that but on an individual basis, people are largely unprepared for a major financial downturn. “As we have put it, ‘fix the roof while the sun shines.’ But like many of you, I see storm clouds building and fear the work on crisis prevention is incomplete,” Lipton said.

Lipton said individual nation states alone would lack the firepower to combat the next recession while calling on governments to work together to tackle the issues that could spark another crash.

“We ought to be concerned about the potency of monetary policy,” he said of the ability of the US Federal Reserve and other central banks to cut interest rates to boost the economy in the event of another downturn, while also warning that high levels of government borrowing constrained their scope for cutting taxes and raising spending. –The Guardian

Lipton said individual nation states alone would lack the firepower to combat the next recession while calling on governments to work together to tackle the issues that could spark another crash. Which is an odd position to take considering the central banks and governments of the world cause recession and economic crises in the first place.

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

Europe Struggles as the ECB Pretends to Know What It’s Doing

December 12, 2018

Europe Struggles as the ECB Pretends to Know What It’s Doing

The European Central Bank (ECB) is rumored to be planning a halt to its four-year quantitative easing program at the end of this week when it will stop its asset purchases while continuing to keep interest rates at current near-zero levels through 2019. The Economist laments this ‘rash’ decision, arguing that the European economy is still ‘faltering’, showing only very feeble and unstable signs of growth.

Since 2015, the ECB has bought bonds worth almost $3trn. However, core inflation has remained fairly low, exports have waxed and waned, and the Euro area has shown no clear signs of recovery after the 2008 financial collapse. Groping in the dark, The Economistblames “[p]oor weather, strikes and a bad flu season” for the shaky start of 2018, and low demand, both domestic and foreign, for the overall bleak outlook.

But in fact, the European economy is a very sick patient whose self-appointed doctor, the ECB, is treating it with the same poison that made it ill in the first place. It is also judging the health of its patient by monitoring the wrong signs, i.e. looking for some color in its cheeks rather than a strong heartbeat.

Mises (2009, 20) pointed out as early as 1934 that

[…] the inevitable and ineluctable consequence of the expansion of credit… was bound to lead eventually to a collapse. And the thing which is chiefly advocated as a remedy is nothing but another expansion of credit, such as certainly might lead to a transitory boom, but would be bound to end in a correspondingly severer crisis.

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

The Art of Defaulting

December 5, 2018

The Art of Defaulting

… the debt-financed overspending of the 1960s had continued into the early 1970s. The Fed had funded this spending with easy-credit policies, but by paying back its debts with depreciated paper money instead of gold-backed dollars, the U.S. effectively defaulted.

Ray Dalio

Principles for navigating big debt crises

Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates is one of my role models in life and, when he writes a new book, I would normally visit Amazon.co.uk more quickly than you can count to ten, but not this time!

What? Have I fallen out of love with Ray’s way of thinking? Not at all, but I found out that his new book – Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises – can actually be downloaded for free. Ray, being the class act he is, has decided that everybody should know how to navigate a debt crisis; hence he has chosen to make it freely available (as a PDF copy).

Much (but not all) of the content below is inspired by Ray’s thinking. He is not as explicit in his new book as I am below (and as he has been before) in terms of the timing of the next debt crisis, but it’s pretty clear that he also thinks the writing is on the wall.

If you want to read the wise words of a very smart man, I suggest you give yourself one for Christmas, which you can do here. Christmas presents rarely come cheaper than this.

Debt crises of different sorts

In the following, I will focus on what Ray calls major debt crises – crises that have caused a slump in GDP of at least 3% but, in reality, there are different types of major debt crises.

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

The Federal Punch Bowl Removal Agency

November 30, 2018

The Federal Punch Bowl Removal Agency

US Money Supply and Credit Growth Continue to Slow Down

Not to belabor the obvious too much, but in light of the recent sharp rebound, the stock market “panic window” is almost certainly closed for this year.* It was interesting that an admission by Mr. Powell that the central planners have not the foggiest idea about the future which their policy is aiming to influence was taken as an “excuse” to drive up stock prices. Powell’s speech was regarded as dovish. If it actually was, then it was a really bad idea to buy stocks because of it.

Jerome Powell: a new species of US central banker – a seemingly normal human being in public that transforms into the dollar-dissolving vampire bat Ptenochirus Iagori Powelli when it believes it is unobserved.

We say this for two reasons: for one thing, the Fed is reactive and when it moves from a tightening to a neutral or an easing bias, it usually indicates that the economy has deteriorated to the point where it can be expected to fall off a cliff shortly.

In this case it seems more likely that Mr. Powell has tempered his views on tightening after contemplating the complaints piling up in his inbox and looking at a recent chart of 5-year inflation breakevens. After all, there is no evidence of an imminent recession yet, even though a few noteworthy pockets of economic weakness have recently emerged (weakness in the housing sector is particularly glaring).

Recall that the last easing cycle began with a rate cut in August 2007. This first rate cut was book-ended by a double top in the SPX in July and October. Thereafter the stock market collapsed in the second-worst bear market of the past century – while the Fed concurrently cut rates all the way to zero (and eventually beyond, in the form of QE).

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

Ann Pettifor: If I governed the Bank of England, here’s what I do

November 21, 2018

Ann Pettifor: If I governed the Bank of England, here’s what I do

The radical economist outlines how she’d overhaul the UK’s broken economy.

If such an implausible appointment were ever to be made by a Labour chancellor, I would regard it as a great honour. The Bank of England stands at the pinnacle of Britain’s monetary system, which I regard as one of Britain’s great public goods. It is as vital to our economic health as the sanitation system is to public health. The development of the monetary system and the founding of the Bank of England in 1694 represented – despite all its flaws – a great civilisational advance. As the £1,000 billion bailout of the banking sector in 2007-9 proved, thanks to our monetary system, there need never be a shortage of money. We need never lack the money for all that society regards as vital to economic, social, political and ecological stability. I write that with feeling, having worked in countries that lack a developed monetary system, and therefore have no money.

The Bank of England, explained the governor Mark Carney recently, is ‘the only game in town’. The bank’s power – or at least the power of its civil servants and monetary policy committee members – was greatly enhanced during the Blair government. Under Gordon Brown’s watch one of the most important economic tools available to any government – the power to determine the rate of interest (bank rate) – was delegated to a committee of unelected men (and the occasional woman) at the Bank of England. Brown made clear in 1997 that the monetary policy committee was expected to wield this great power independently of parliament’s scrutiny.

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

Bank of England refuses to return 14 tonnes of gold to Venezuela

November 16, 2018

Bank of England refuses to return 14 tonnes of gold to Venezuela

The Bank of England claims to be one of the largest physical gold custodians in the world, holding gold bars in vault storage on behalf of more than 70 central banks and a number of commercial (bullion) banks.

As a long-standing and well-known gold custodian, it should therefore be a simple matter operationally and logistically for any central bank customer from around the world to withdraw gold bars from the Bank of England and to have those gold bars sent overseas. These types of shipments have been happening at the Bank of England for hundreds of years.

Such an event would normally not generate any media interest nor even be known about in the public domain such is the secrecy and opacity of central bank gold transactions. For these reasons, the current case involving the Bank of England’s refusal to deliver Venezuela’s gold stored in London, and the way its been publicized, raises some questions and deserves comment.

HM Treasury and Fleet Street

So what exactly is the issue? On 5 November, the London headquartered Reuters news agency reported that the Venezuelan state, fearing sanctions, is attempting to repatriate 14 tonnes of gold from the Bank of England in London, but that this gold withdrawal and transport operation has not yet been actioned despite the withdrawal request being made by Venezuela nearly two months ago.

According to Reuters’ sources which were two unnamed “public officials with direct knowledge of the operation“, Venezuela’s gold bar withdrawal delay is being caused by the difficulty and cost in obtaining insurance for the gold shipment, and also because the Bank of England wants to know what Venezuela plans to do with its gold once it receives it.

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

The Fed Will Continue Tightening Until Everything Breaks

November 14, 2018

The Fed Will Continue Tightening Until Everything Breaks

fed's affect on the economy

Around three years ago, in September 2015, I wrote an article titled ‘The Real Reasons Why The Fed Will Hike Interest Rates‘ in which I predicted that the Federal Reserve, in the face of criticism, would soon pursue a program of interest rate hikes into economic weakness. I argued that this plan would be somewhat similar to what the Fed did in the early 1930’s; an action that prolonged the Great Depression for many more years. So far, my prediction has proven to be correct.

Despite the fact that the Fed keeps raising rates as it tightens the noose around the supposed economic “recovery”, there are still many people out there who refuse to accept that the central bank would deliberately implode the fiscal bubble that it has spent the last ten years inflating. Even today, I still see arguments proclaiming that the Fed will be forced to pull back if stocks fall beyond 15% to 20%. I also see claims that Fed officials like Jerome Powell had better start looking for another job because Donald Trump won’t be happy with Fed policies that could cause a crash. This is pure delusion from people who do not understand how the Fed operates.

First and foremost, let’s be clear, the Federal Reserve is an autonomous entity that does not answer to government oversight. It never has and it never will. This reality is supported by admission by former Fed officials like Alan Greenspan, who publicly noted that the Fed answers to no one.

The central bank functions in quite the opposite capacity from what many people assume. As Carroll Quigley, prominent American historian, noted in his book Tragedy And Hope:

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

What is the Relation Between Supply and Demand for Money?

November 14, 2018

WHAT IS THE RELATION BETWEEN SUPPLY AND DEMAND FOR MONEY?

For most economists there is the need to keep the so-called economy along the path of a stable economic growth and a stable price inflation. One of the reasons for the possible deviation of the economy from the stable growth path is a change in the demand for money. If the authorities failing to make sure that an increase in the demand for money is accommodated by the corresponding increase in the supply of money this could result in the economy deviating from the path of stable economic growth and stable inflation. Hence, it is imperative for the central bank to make sure that the growth in the supply of money is in tandem with the growth rate of the demand for money in order to maintain economic stability.

Note that on this way of thinking, a growing economy requires a growing money stock, because economic growth gives rise to a greater demand for money. Failing to accommodate a strengthening in the demand for money could lead to a decline in the prices of goods and services, which in turn will destabilize the economy and lead to an economic recession.

Since growth in money supply is of such importance, it is not surprising that economists are continuously searching for the right, or the optimum, growth rate of the money supply.

Some economists who are the followers of Milton Friedman – also known as monetarists – want the central bank to target the money supply growth rate to a fixed percentage. They hold that if this percentage maintained over a prolonged period it will usher in an era of economic stability.

The idea that money must grow in order to sustain economic growth gives the impression that money somehow sustains economic activity.

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

For The First Time Ever, Bank Of Japan Total Assets Surpass Japan’s GDP

November 13, 2018

For The First Time Ever, Bank Of Japan Total Assets Surpass Japan’s GDP

For the first time in history, a central bank has managed to print enough money to buy enough assets to surpass the nation’s annual GDP.

Under the watchful eye of Kuroda, and the overseeing (but independent) hand of Abe, The Bank of Japan’s balance sheet grew to 553.6 trillion yen as on November 10th – that is larger than Japan’s annualized nominal seasonally-adjusted GDP of 552.8 trillion yen (as of the end of June).

Some context for just how crazy this is, here is The Fed vs US GDP…

And putting it all together…

What happens next?

SWIFT Cuts Off Iran Central Bank As Tehran Sells 700,000 Barrels To Direct Buyers

November 12, 2018

SWIFT Cuts Off Iran Central Bank As Tehran Sells 700,000 Barrels To Direct Buyers

As reported last week, shortly after SWIFT caved to US pressure and defied the EU announcing it would cut off a selection of Iranian banks, on Monday, the US Treasury said the Iranian Central Bank has been officially cut off the SWIFT financial messaging system. The disconnection, which comes at a time when Iran’s economy is reeling and its currency is tumbling as a result of restricted oil exports (albeit offset by numerous temporary waivers for top Iranian oil clients), will made it far more difficult for the Islamic Republic to settle import and export bills.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the move is “the right decision to protect the integrity of the international financial system”, and comes after several days planning by SWIFT.

✔

I understand that SWIFT will be discontinuing service to the Central Bank of Iran and designated Iranian financial institutions. SWIFT is making the right decision to protect the integrity of the international financial system.

As previously discussed, SWIFT said it would begin cutting off access to several unspecified Iranian banks. More than 70 Iranian and Iranian-linked financial institutions were sanctioned, including a host of banks that allegedly provided services to Hamas and Hezbollah, and others that provided services to the Iranian armed forces.

While the US could not directly force SWIFT to cut off Iranian banks, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had warned that penalties would be applied to SWIFT and any other firms that refused to comply with the latest sanctions, effectively forcing SWIFT to pick between compliance with US demands or angering top EU officials. It picked the former.

An allegedly “neutral” entity, SWIFT had found itself torn between a US-EU diplomatic row as of late.

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

Europe More Than Europe: From ‘Boom’ To The Precipice of Recession

November 2, 2018

Europe More Than Europe: From ‘Boom’ To The Precipice of Recession

Data dependent, they claim. They aren’t. Mario Draghi at his last press conference admitted, “incoming information, [is] somewhat weaker than expected.” There is so much riding on the word “somewhat.” Because of the weasel, the head of the ECB told the assembled media policy normalization was unimpeded. He did so with a straight face.

Good. Europe’s QE experiment needs to end. Not because it succeeded, rather since there was no hope for it from the beginning. It was a giant waste, at best an enormous distortion. At most, it was a huge distraction from the real problem.

You have to hand it to the Germans. They seem quite capable of the more serious business of economics (small “e”). Where Economists (capital “E”) like Draghi play the game of somewhat data dependent, businesses in Germany refuse license to the same luxury. They are business dependent, meaning that if things really were booming they would act that way. And if something like recession looms, the Germans would know it.

And that’s exactly what they’ve said for much of this year particularly the past four or five months. The global economy, which heavily influences Germany’s, is heading for another downturn. For Europe as a whole, it’s a whole lot of trouble.

The European Union’s statistical body confirms today what German sentiment has been warning about. The European economy is already on the precipice of recession. The ZEW survey in September was as low as it was when Europe was last contracting. In Q3 2018, Eurostat reports that GDP expanded by just 0.16% over Q2. That was about one-third the rate in Q2, which was itself about three-quarters the gain in 2017.

Data dependent. Like the ZEW index, GDP growth was the lowest since Europe’s last recession.

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

The Fed’s Mandate To Pick Your Pocket – The Real Price Of Inflation

October 31, 2018

The Fed’s Mandate To Pick Your Pocket – The Real Price Of Inflation

“Inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon.” – Milton Friedman

This oft-cited quote from the renowned American economist Milton Friedman suggests something important about inflation. What he implies is that inflation is a function of money, but what exactly does that mean?

To better appreciate this thought, let’s use a simple example of three people stranded on a deserted island. One person has two bottles of water, and she is willing to sell one of the bottles to the highest bidder. Of the two desperate bidders, one finds a lonely one-dollar bill in his pocket and is the highest bidder. But just before the transaction is completed, the other person finds a twenty-dollar bill buried in his backpack. Suddenly, the bottle of water that was about to sell for one-dollar now sells for twenty dollars. Nothing about the bottle of water changed. What changed was the money available among the people on the island.

As we discussed in What Turkey Can Teach Us About Gold, most people think inflation is caused by rising prices, but rising prices are only a symptom of inflation. As the deserted island example illustrates, inflation is caused by too much money sloshing around the economy in relation to goods and services. What we experience is goods and services going up in price, but inflation is actually the value of our money going down.

Historical Price Levels

The chart below is a graph of price levels in the United States since 1774. In anticipation of a reader questioning the comparison of the prices and types of goods and services available in 1774 with 2018, the data behind this chart compares the basics of life. People ate food, needed housing, and required transportation in 1774 just as they do today. While not perfect, this chart offers a reasonable comparison of the relative cost of living from one period to the next.

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

Volcker Recalls Another Time the Fed Was in the President’s Crosshairs

October 25, 2018

Volcker Recalls Another Time the Fed Was in the President’s Crosshairs

The central banker’s memoir recounts an awkward encounter with Ronald Reagan.

Reagan and Volcker in the Oval Office in 1981.

PHOTOGRAPHER: J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/AP PHOTO

Donald Trump’s repeated public criticism of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy seems extraordinary, but he isn’t the first president to oppose raising rates. Paul Volcker, 91, has had firsthand experience with this, both in Lyndon Johnson’s Treasury Department and as Fed chairman during the Reagan administration, as he recalls in Keeping at It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government (Oct. 30, PublicAffairs), written with Bloomberg Markets Editor Christine Harper. Volcker, who was Fed chairman from 1979 to 1987, is credited with ending an era of double-digit inflation by pushing short-term rates as high as 20 percent.

Later in the fall of 1965, Treasury Secretary Henry Fowler became deeply concerned about a warning he had received from Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin. The Fed planned to raise its discount rate, the rate the Fed charges banks for short-term loans, with the presumed effect of raising all market rates. Martin’s clear aim was to forestall inflationary pressures as Vietnam War spending rose in an already fully employed economy. A spirited internal debate developed. The Council of Economic Advisers and the Bureau of the Budget lined up with Fowler in pleading for delay. Privately, I was sympathetic to Martin’s argument and hoped to persuade the secretary into a compromise: perhaps a quarter-percentage-point increase instead of the planned half-point.

The unfortunate result for me was the creation of a four-man ad hoc committee to examine the issue. The composition was odd. Although I was the Treasury’s representative, I was eager to compromise. Dan Brill, the Fed’s research chief, was strongly opposed to any rate hike despite his boss’s view. So were, in varying degrees, representatives from the CEA and the Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget). Predictably, we concluded that the decision could wait until January so it could be coordinated with the new budget.

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

“ECB Is Worst-Run Central Bank In The World” – Felix Zulauf Sees 30% Plunge In US Stocks “Taking The World With It”

October 21, 2018

“ECB Is Worst-Run Central Bank In The World” – Felix Zulauf Sees 30% Plunge In US Stocks “Taking The World With It”

Felix Zulauf was a member of the Barron’s Roundtable for about 30 years, until relinquishing his seat at our annual investment gathering in 2017. While his predictions were more right than wrong, it was the breadth of his knowledge and the depth of his analysis of global markets that won him devoted fans among his Roundtable peers, the crew at Barron’s, and beyond. Simply put, Felix, president of Zulauf Asset Management in Baar, Switzerland, always knew—and still knows—better than most how to connect the dots among central bankers’ actions, fiscal policies, currency gyrations, geopolitics, and the price of assets, hard and soft.

With interest rates rising, governments in flux, and the world’s two biggest economies facing off over trade, it seemed the right time to ask him how today’s turmoil will impact investors in the year ahead. Ever gracious, he shared his thoughts and best investment bets in an interview this past week. Read on for the view from Baar.

Barron’s: Felix, how have you been keeping busy since you left the Roundtable?

Felix Zulauf: I’m still running money, but it’s my own money, and I’m still a consultant to investors and institutions. I’m in the market almost every day. I like analyzing the world; the tectonic shifts occurring make it too fascinating to quit.

Which shifts do you mean?

For one, we have left the world of free markets and entered the world of managed economies. This is a major change in my lifetime. Central banks took over the running of economic policy after the financial crisis and run the show to this day. Also, the globalization movie is starting to run backward.

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

Peter Schiff: The Next Economic Crash Will Be “Far More Painful” Than The 2008 Recession

October 15, 2018

Peter Schiff: The Next Economic Crash Will Be “Far More Painful” Than The 2008 Recession

Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff is sounding the alarm after this week’s market selloff, saying Wall Street and the U.S. economy are on the verge of a recession.

“I think as Americans lose their jobs, they are going to see the cost of living going up rather dramatically, and so this is going to make it particularly painful,” Schiff said.

“This is a bubble not just in the stock market, but the entire economy,” he told Fox News Business.

Schiff is predicting a recession, accompanied by rising consumer prices, that will be “far more painful” than the 2007-2009 Great Recession.

As SHTFplan.com’s Mac Slavo notes, President Donald Trump blamed the recent stock market woes on the Federal Reserve and the rising of interest rates.

“I think the Fed is making a mistake. They’re so tight. I think the Fed has gone crazy,” Trump told reporters on his way to a rally in Pennsylvania on Wednesday.

Trump said that the United States’ central bank is solely responsible for the worst stock market selloff since February, saying the Federal Reserve “has gone crazy.”

Schiff said it isn’t entirely the Fed’s fault, however, because they have been acting “irrationally” for a very long time while slowly adding nails to the economy’s coffin.

“What is crazy is for the Fed to believe that they can raise interest rates without pricking their own bubble,” he said.

“All bear markets start off as corrections. I think this one is probably a bear market. It’s long overdue,” Schiff said on FOX News Business.

Schiff said investors are on the edge of a precipice that foresees a bear market far worse than the stock market crash of 2008.

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

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