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In the next downturn (which may have started last week, yee-haw), the world’s central banks will face a bit of poetic justice: To keep their previous policy mistakes from blowing up the world in 2008, they cut interest rates to historically – some would say unnaturally — low levels, which doesn’t leave the usual amount of room for further cuts.

Now they’re faced with an even bigger threat but are armed with even fewer effective weapons. What will they do? The responsible choice would be to simply let the overgrown forest of bad paper burn, setting the stage for real (that is, sustainable) growth going forward. But that’s unthinkable for today’s monetary authorities because they’ll be blamed for the short-term pain while getting zero credit for the long-term gain.

So instead they’ll go negative, cutting interest rates from near-zero to less than zero — maybe a lot less. And their justifications will resemble the following, published by The Economist magazine last week.

Why sub-zero interest rates are neither unfair nor unnatural

When borrowers are scarce, it helps if money (like potatoes) rots.DENMARK’S Maritime Museum in Elsinore includes one particularly unappetising exhibit: the world’s oldest ship’s biscuit, from a voyage in 1852. Known as hardtack, such biscuits were prized for their long shelf lives, making them a vital source of sustenance for sailors far from shore. They were also appreciated by a great economist, Irving Fisher, as a useful economic metaphor.

Imagine, Fisher wrote in “The Theory of Interest” in 1930, a group of sailors shipwrecked on a barren island with only their stores of hardtack to sustain them. On what terms would sailors borrow and lend biscuits among themselves? In this forlorn economy, what rate of interest would prevail?

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

A Stock Market Tumble Is the Correction We Need

February 8, 2018

A Stock Market Tumble Is the Correction We Need

The Fed put us in this predicament. Only the market can get us out of it.

Since hitting rock bottom in 2009, stock prices have consistently increased without much volatility — that is, until these first few days of February when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell over 2,200 points (-8.5%) and the S&P 500 tumbled 7.9% from their late-January highs. The most popular measure of stock market volatility, VIX, also spiked dramatically to levels not seen since 2011 and 2009.

Financial analysts and writers have pointed to a few events that may be behind the big movements in the stock market:

Tax reform could have caused some extra uncertainty about the future for all businesses.
Bond markets indicate an increase in future price inflation, which means that the cost of doing business could increase.
The increase in expected inflation coupled with a new, optimistic-looking release of official data on wages across the US might be used by the Federal Reserve to justify further interest rate hikes.

But to really get to the bottom of the current stock market decline, we need to go back to the Federal Reserve’s response to the 2007-08 crisis.

Unprecedented Monetary Policy

During that financial and economic collapse, the Federal Reserve responded in unprecedented ways. We saw the biggest expansions of credit and the lowest interbank lending rates ever.

(The blue line above shows the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet expansions. The red line is the Federal Funds Rate, or the rate banks pay each other for loans. It is viewed as the basis for all other loan rates in the US. Together, these show the unprecedented expansionary monetary policy of the Fed in response to the most recent recession.)

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

The State of the American Debt Slaves

February 8, 2018

The State of the American Debt Slaves

It was one gigantic party. But wait…

Total consumer credit rose 5.4% in the fourth quarter, year over year, to a record $3.84 trillion not seasonally adjusted, according to the Federal Reserve. This includes credit-card debt, auto loans, and student loans, but not mortgage-related debt. December had been somewhat of a disappointment for those that want consumers to drown in debt, but the prior months, starting in Q4 2016, had seen blistering surges of consumer debt.

Think what you will of the election – consumers celebrated it or bemoaned it the American way: by piling on debt.

The chart below shows the progression of consumer debt since 2006 (not seasonally adjusted). Note the slight dip after the Financial Crisis, as consumers deleveraged – with much of the deleveraging being accomplished by defaulting on those debts. But it didn’t last long. And consumer debt has surged since. It’s now 45% higher than it had been in Q4 2008. Food for thought: Over the period, the consumer price index increased 17.5%:

Credit card debt and other revolving credit in Q4 rose 6% year-over-year to $1.027 trillion, a blistering pace, but it was down from the 9.2% surge in Q3, the nearly 10% surge in Q2, and the dizzying 12% surge in Q1. So the growth of credit card debt in Q4 was somewhat of a disappointment for those wanting to see consumers drown in expensive debt.

The chart below shows the leap of the past four quarters over prior years. This pushed credit card debt in Q3 and Q4 finally over the prior record set in Q4 2008 ($1.004 trillion), before it came tumbling down via said “deleveraging.”

These are not seasonally adjusted numbers, and you can see the seasonal surges in credit card debt every Q4 during shopping season (as marked), and the drop afterwards in Q1.

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

It’s Looking A Lot Like 2008 Now…

February 3, 2018

It’s Looking A Lot Like 2008 Now…

Did today’s market plunge mark the start of the next crash?

Economic and market conditions are eerily like they were in late 2007/early 2008.

Remember back then? Everything was going great.

Home prices were soaring. Jobs were plentiful.

The great cultural marketing machine was busy proclaiming that a new era of permanent prosperity had dawned, thanks to the steady leadership of Alan Greenspan and later Ben Bernanke.

And only a small cadre of cranks, like me, was singing a different tune; warning instead that a painful reckoning in our financial system was approaching fast.

It’s fitting that I’m writing this on Groundhog Day, as to these veteran eyes, it sure has been looking a lot like late 2007/early 2008 lately…

The Fed’s ‘Reign Of Error’

Of course, the Great Financial Crisis arrived in late 2008, proving that the public’s faith in central bankers had been badly misplaced.

In reality, all Ben Bernanke did was to drop interest rates to 1%. This provided an unprecedented incentive for investors and institutions to borrow, igniting a massive housing bubble as well as outsized equity and bond gains.

It’s worth taking a moment to understand the mechanism the Federal Reserve used back then to lower interest rates (it’s different today). It did so by flooding the banking system with enough “liquidity” (i.e. electronically printed digital currency units) until all the banks felt comfortable lending or borrowing from each other at an average rate of 1%.

The knock-on effect of flooding the US banking system (and, really, the entire world) in this way created an echo bubble to replace the one created earlier during Alan Greenspan’s tenure (known as the Dot-Com Bubble, though ‘Sweep Account’ Bubble is more accurate in my opinion):

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

The Rowboat (Wages) and the Yacht (Assets)

February 1, 2018

The Rowboat (Wages) and the Yacht (Assets)

As I keep saying: the status quo has divested the working and middle classes.

The reason why the status quo has failed and is fragmenting is displayed in these three charts of wages, employment and assets: wage earners (labor) are in a rowboat trying to catch the yacht of those who own assets (capital).

Here is a chart of weekly wages of those employed fulltime: up a gargantuan $4/week in the 18 years since 2000. Let’s see, $4 times 52 week a year–by golly, that’s a whole $208 a year. Brand new Ford F-150, here we come!

If we go back 38 years to 1980–an entire lifetime of work–we find real (adjusted for official inflation, which seriously understates big-ticket expenses such as rent, healthcare and college tuition/fees) wages have notched higher by $10/week–a gain of $500 annually.

If we adjusted wages by real-world income, we’d find wages have declined since 1980 and 2000.

Here’s employment by age group since the year 2000. THose who can’t afford to retire are still dragging their tired old bones to work while employment for the under-55 cohort hasn’t even returned to the levels of 2000.

Meanwhile, asset valuations have soared. Those who own capital (assets) have done very, very well, those who trade their labor for dollars–they’ve gone nowhere.

Households with two regular jobs could afford to buy a house in Seattle, Brooklyn, or the San Francisco Bay Area in 1995. By 2005, they were priced out. Can a household with median income ($59,000 annually) afford a crumbling shack in any of the white-hot housing markets? You’re joking, right?

The cold reality is wage-earners are tugging on the oars of a water-logged rowboat, trying to catch up with the sleek yacht of asset owners. The system has been rigged to reward those who own assets (capital) or who can borrow immense sums of nearly-free money (credit) to buy assets.

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

Central Banks Put a Safety Net Under Financial Markets

January 30, 2018

CENTRAL BANKS PUT A SAFETY NET UNDER FINANCIAL MARKETS

Most early business cycle indicators suggest that the global economy is pretty much roaring ahead. Production and employment are rising. Firms keep investing and show decent profits. International trade is expanding. Credit is easy to obtain. Stock prices keep moving up to ever higher levels. All seems to be well. Or does it? Unfortunately, the economic upswing shows the devil’s footprints: central banks have set it in motion with their extremely low, end in some countries even negative, interest rate policy and rampant monetary expansion.

Artificially depressed borrowing costs are fueling a “boom.” Consumer loans are as cheap as never before, seducing people to increasingly spend beyond their means. Low interest rates push down companies’ cost of capital, encouraging additional, and in particular risky investments – they would not have entered into under “normal” interest rate conditions. Financially strained borrowers – in particular states and banks – can refinance their maturing debt load at extremely low interest rates and even take on new debt easily.

By no means less important is the fact that central banks have effectively spread a “safety net” under financial markets: Investors feel assured that monetary authorities will, in case things turning sour, step in and fend off any crisis. The central banks’ safety net has lowered investors’ risk concern. Investors are willing to lend even to borrowers with relatively poor financial strength. Furthermore, it has suppressed risk premia in credit yields, having lowered firms’ cost of debt, which encourages them to run up their leverage to increase return on equity.

The boom stands and falls with persisting low interest rates. Higher interest rates make it increasingly difficult for borrowers to service their debt. If borrowers’ credit quality deteriorates, banks reign in their loan supply, putting even more pressure on struggling debtors.

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

Central Banks Put a Safety Net Under Financial Markets

January 29, 2018

Central Banks Put a Safety Net Under Financial Markets

Most early business cycle indicators suggest that the global economy is pretty much roaring ahead. Production and employment are rising. Firms keep investing and show decent profits. International trade is expanding. Credit is easy to obtain. Stock prices keep moving up to ever higher levels. All seems to be well. Or does it? Unfortunately, the economic upswing shows the devil’s footprints: central banks have set it in motion with their extremely low, and in some countries even negative, interest rate policy and rampant monetary expansion.

Artificially depressed borrowing costs are fueling a “boom.” Consumer loans are as cheap as ever before, seducing people to spend increasingly beyond their means. Low interest rates push down companies’ cost of capital, encouraging additional, and in particular risky investments – they would not have entered into under “normal” interest rate conditions. Financially strained borrowers – in particular states and banks – can refinance their maturing debt load at extremely low interest rates and even take on new debt easily.

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

ECB Forced to postpone New Stricter Credit Rules Indefinitely

January 27, 2018

ECB Forced to postpone New Stricter Credit Rules Indefinitely

The ECB’s was forced to suspend its new stricter credit rules indefinitely concerning bad loans. The banks were screaming “you idiot” for it would have pushed way too many banks over the edge, particularly in Italy. With the Italian elections coming in March, the new rules would have been a major issue why Italy should also exit the EU.

The ECB originally sought to introduce new rules for dealing with new bad loans previously. As of January, banks were expected to cover all loans, which are now classified as default risk. There was no possible way that could be accomplished.

In Italy, their domestic banks would be oppressed and that fewer new loans would ever be issued. This was finally seen as a major negative consequence for the economy. Only with an extreme rebellion by the banks was the ECB forced to back off.

This illustrates the banking crisis that is still brewing in Europe even after nearly 10 years of quantitative easing. There is little prospect for this crisis to be fixed. All that can happen is to postpone the inevitable.

The ‘Everything Bubble’ and What Happens if Credit Freezes Up in a Credit-Based Economy

January 21, 2018

The ‘Everything Bubble’ and What Happens if Credit Freezes Up in a Credit-Based Economy

“It could get really messy.” Wolf Richter on the X22 Report

The US government bond market has soured, even the 10-year yield is surging, and mortgage rates have jumped. Read… What Will Rising Mortgage Rates Do to Housing Bubble 2?

As the Controlled Inflation Scheme Rolls On

January 13, 2018

As the Controlled Inflation Scheme Rolls On

Controlled Inflation

American consumers are not only feeling good. They are feeling great. They are borrowing money – and spending it – like tomorrow will never come.

After an extended period of indulging in excessive moderation (left), the US consumer makes his innermost wishes known (right). [PT]

On Monday the Federal Reserve released its latest report of consumer credit outstanding. According to the Fed’s bean counters, U.S. consumers racked up $28 billion in new credit card debt and in new student, auto, and other non-mortgage loans in November. This amounted to an 8.8 percent increase in consumer borrowing. It also ran total outstanding consumer debt up to $3.83 trillion.

US non-mortgage consumer debt – this exercise in admirable restraint seems to have served as a template for corporations and the government. [PT] – click to enlarge.

Perhaps this consumer spending binge will finally propel price inflation, as measured by the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) deflator, up to the Fed’s elusive 2 percent target. Academic economists and central planners consider 2 percent price inflation to be the sweet spot for attaining economic heaven on earth. We have some reservations.

Controlled inflation, or what is sometimes called financial repression, is what the Fed is after. Because controlled inflation is the grease that keeps the gears of the debt based monetary system turning. You see, through controlled inflation, and the subsequent slow erosion of debt burdens, borrowers can make good on their debts with dollars of diminished value.

And, of course, the biggest debtor of all is the federal government. Controlled inflation benefits Washington more than anyone else. The government can borrow massive amounts of money and inflate its debts away. Yet this isn’t without consequences…

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

Corporate Coercion and the Drive to Eliminate Buying with Cash

January 6, 2018

Corporate Coercion and the Drive to Eliminate Buying with Cash

“Sorry we’re not taking cash or checks,” said the clerk at the Fed Ex counter over a decade ago to an intern. “Only credit cards.”

Since then, the relentless intensification of coercive commercialism has been moving toward a cashless economy, when all consumers are incarcerated within a prison of corporate payment systems from your credit/debit cards to your mobile phone and very soon facial recognition.

“Terrific!” say those consumers for whom convenience and velocity of transactions are irresistible.

“This is nuts!” say a shrinking number of free-thinking consumers who are unwilling to be dragooned down the road to corporate captivity and coercion. These people treasure their privacy. They understand that it’s none of any conglomerate’s business – whether VISA, Facebook, Amazon or Google – what, where, when and how consumers purchase goods and services. Or where and when they travel, receive healthcare, or the most intimate relationships they maintain. Not to mention consumers’ personal information can be sent to or hacked around the globe.

Cash-consumers are not alone in their opposition to a cashless economy. When they are in a cab and ask the driver how they prefer to be paid, the answer is near-unanimous. “Cash, cash, cash,” reply the cab drivers in cities around the country. They get paid immediately and without having to have a company deduct a commission.

Back some 25 years ago, Consumers Union considered backing consumer groups to sign up Main Street, USA merchants who agreed to discount their wares if people paid in cash. For the same reason – merchants get to keep all the money on sales made with cash or check. Unfortunately, the idea never materialized. It is, however, still a good idea. Today, payments systems are much more comprehensively coercive.

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

Why the Financial System Will Break: You Can’t “Normalize” Markets that Depend on Extreme Monetary Stimulus

January 3, 2018

Why the Financial System Will Break: You Can’t “Normalize” Markets that Depend on Extreme Monetary Stimulus

Central banks are now trapped.

In a nutshell, central banks are promising to “normalize” their monetary policy extremes in 2018. Nice, but there’s a problem: you can’t “normalize” markets that are now entirely dependent on extremes of monetary stimulus. Attempts to “normalize” will break the markets and the financial system.

Let’s start with the core dynamic of the global economy and nosebleed-valuation markets: credit.

Modern finance has many complex moving parts, and this complexity masks its inner simplicity.

Let’s break down the core dynamics of the current financial system.

The Core Dynamic of the “Recovery” and Asset Bubbles: Credit

Credit is the foundation of the current financial system, for credit enables consumers to bring consumption forward, that is, buy more stuff today than they could buy with the cash they have on hand, in exchange for promising to pay principal and interest with their future income.

Credit also enables speculators to buy more assets than they otherwise could were they limited to cash on hand.

Buying goods, services and assets with credit appears to be a good thing: consumers get to enjoy more stuff without having to scrimp and save up income, and investors/speculators can reap more income from owning more assets.

But all goods/services and assets are not equal, and all credit is not equal.

There is an opportunity cost to any loan (i.e. credit), as the income that will be devoted to paying principal and interest in the future could have been devoted to some other use or investment.

So borrowing money to purchase a product or an asset now means foregoing some future purchase.

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

The Inescapable Reason Why the Financial System Will Fail

December 30, 2017

girardatlarge.com

The Inescapable Reason Why the Financial System Will Fail

Credit cannot expand faster than fundamentals forever

Modern finance has many complex moving parts, and this complexity masks its inner simplicity.

Let’s break down the core dynamics of the current financial system.

The Core Dynamic of the “Recovery” and Asset Bubbles: Credit

Credit also enables speculators to buy more assets than they otherwise could were they limited to cash on hand.

But all goods/services and assets are not equal, and all credit is not equal.

There is an opportunity cost to any loan (i.e. credit), as the income that will be devoted to paying principal and interest in the future could have been devoted to some other use or investment.

So borrowing money to purchase a product or an asset now means foregoing some future purchase.

While all products have some sort of payoff, the payoffs are not equal. If I buy five bottles of $100/bottle champagne and throw a party, the payoff is in the heady moments of celebration. If I buy a table saw for $500, that tool has the potential to help me make additional income for years or even decades to come.

If I’m making money with the table saw, I can pay the debt service out of my new earnings.

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

Weekly Commentary: A Phenomenal Year

December 30, 2017

Weekly Commentary: A Phenomenal Year

2017 was phenomenal in so many ways. The year will be remembered for a tumultuous first year of the Trump Presidency, the passage of major tax legislation and seemingly endless stock market records. It was a year of synchronized global growth and stock bull markets, along with record low market volatility. It was the year of parabolic moves in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. “Blockchain the Future of Money.”

Yet none of the above is worthy of Story of the Year. For that, I turn to this era’s Masters of the Universe: global central bankers. 2017 was a fateful year of central bank failure to tighten financial conditions in the face of bubbling markets and economies. Fed funds ended the year below 1.5%, in what must be history’s most dovish “tightening” cycle. The Draghi ECB stuck to its massive open-ended QE program, though reluctantly reducing the scope of monthly purchases. In Japan, the Kuroda BOJ held the “money” spigot wide open despite surging asset markets and a 2.7% unemployment rate. As for China, the People’s Bank of China was an active accomplice in history’s greatest Credit expansion.

Loose global financial conditions fed and were fed by record Chinese Credit growth. After almost bursting in early 2016, the further energized Chinese Bubble attained overdrive “terminal” status in 2017. Importantly, another year passed with Beijing unwilling to forcefully rein in rampant excess. The situation becomes only more perilous, with global markets increasingly confident that Chinese officials dare not risk bursting the Bubble. Powerful Chinese and global Bubbles were instrumental in stoking Bubble excess throughout the EM “periphery.” In the face of mounting fragilities, “money” inundated the emerging markets. What is celebrated in 2017 will later be recognized as dysfunctional.

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

The Great Oil Swindle

December 16, 2017

silentera.com

The Great Oil Swindle

Is leading us to destruction

When it comes to the story we’re being told about America’s rosy oil prospects, we’re being swindled.

At its core, the swindle is this: The shale industry’s oil production forecasts are vastly overstated.

Swindle: Noun – A fraudulent scheme or action.

And the swindle is not just affecting the US. It’s badly distorted everything from current geopolitics to future oil forecasts.

The false conclusions the world is drawing as a result of the self-deception and outright lies we’re being told is putting our future prosperity in major jeopardy. Policy makers and ordinary citizens alike have been misled, and everyone — everyone — is unprepared for the inevitable and massive coming oil price shock.

An Oil Price Spike Would Burst The ‘Everything Bubble’

Our thesis at Peak Prosperity is that the world’s equity and bond markets are enormous financial bubbles in search of a pin. Sadly, history shows there’s nothing quite as sharp and terminal to these sorts of bubbles as a rapid spike in the price of oil.

And we see a huge price spike on the way.

As a reminder, bubbles exist when asset prices rise beyond what incomes can sustain. Greece is a prime recent example. In 2008 when the price of oil spiked to $147/bbl, Greece could no longer afford imported oil. But oil is a necessity so it was bought anyway, their national balances of payments were stressed to the point that they were exposed as insolvent and then their debt bubble promptly and predictably popped. The rest is history. Greece is now a nation of ruins and their economy might as well be displayed alongside the Acropolis.

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

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