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Political Economics

Who President Trump ultimately picks as the next Federal Reserve Chairman doesn’t really matter. Unless he goes really far afield to someone totally unexpected, whoever that person will be will be largely more of the same. It won’t be a categorical change, a different philosophical direction that is badly needed.

Still, politically, it does matter to some significant degree. It’s just that the political division isn’t the usual R vs. D, left vs. right. That’s how many are making it out to be, and in doing so exposing what’s really going on.

As usual, the perfect example for these divisions is provided by Paul Krugman. The Nobel Prize Winner ceased being an economist a long time ago, and has become largely a partisan carnival barker. He opines about economic issues, but framed always from that perspective.

To the very idea of a next Fed Chair beyond Yellen, he wrote a few weeks ago, “we’re living in the age of Trump, which means that we should actually expect the worst.” Dr. Krugman wants more of the same, and Candidate Trump campaigned directly against that. As such, there is the non-trivial chance that President Trump lives up to that promise.

Again, it sounds like a left vs. right issue, but it isn’t. The political winds are changing, and the parties themselves are being realigned in different directions (which is not something new; there have been several re-alignments throughout American history even though the two major parties have been entrenched since the 1850’s when Republicans first appeared). Who the next Fed Chair is could tell us something about how far along we are in this evolution.

What Krugman wants, meaning, it is safe to assume, what all those like him want, is simple: success. He believes that the central bank has given us exactly that, therefore it is stupid to upset what works.

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

How The Elite Dominate The World – Part 2: 99.9% Of The Global Population Lives In A Country With A Central Bank

How The Elite Dominate The World – Part 2: 99.9% Of The Global Population Lives In A Country With A Central Bank

Even though the nations of the world are very deeply divided on almost everything else, somehow virtually all of them have been convinced that central banking is the way to go.  Today, less than 0.1% of the population of the world lives in a country that does not have a central bank.  Do you think that there is any possible way that this is a coincidence?  And it is also not a coincidence that we are now facing the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world.  In Part I of this series, I discussed the fact that total global debt has reached 217 trillion dollars.  Once you understand that central banks are designed to create endless debt, and once you understand that 99.9% of the global population lives in a country that has a central bank, then it finally makes sense why we have accumulated so much debt.  The elite of the world use debt as a tool of enslavement, and central banking has allowed them to literally enslave the entire planet.

Some of you may not be familiar with how a “central bank” differs from a normal bank.  The following definition of a “central bank” comes from Wikipedia

A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages a state’s currency, money supply, and interest rates. Central banks also usually oversee the commercial banking system of their respective countries. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the monetary base in the state, and usually also prints the national currency,[1] which usually serves as the state’s legal tender.

 

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

With Just Hours Until Spain’s Ultimatum Runs Out, Catalonia Proposes Its Own Central Bank

With Just Hours Until Spain’s Ultimatum Runs Out, Catalonia Proposes Its Own Central Bank

It’s D-Day for Catalan President Carles Puigdemont who has just a few hours left until 10 am on Monday (4am ET) to respond to the Spanish government’s ultimatum delivered last week by the prime minister, demanding to know whether Puigdemont did, indeed, declare independence last week. If Puigdemont says yes, fails to respond, or provides another meandering answer, Rajoy will start the process under Article 155 to seize control of the breakaway administration in the coming weeks.

While Catalan television station TV3, which is controlled by the regional government, said Puigdemont will not give Rajoy a clear ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ according to Bloomberg, shortly after Jordi Sanchez, leader of separatist group Catalan National Assembly, denied the report and said that, after speaking to Puigdemont on Sunday, the Catalan reply to Rajoy “will be clear.” Speaking to Spanish broadcaster La Sexta, Sanchez said he agrees 100% with Puigdemont’s reply to Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, and that the response will be dignified and clear with no surprises, adding that a will for dialogue exists but the Catalan government will not renounce mandate given by the Oct. 1 independence referendum.

Meanwhile, El Mundo reported that Spain’s central government in Madrid is weighing two options it may impose on Catalonia if the region’s government unequivocally declares independence, El Mundo reported, without saying where it got the information. Madrid would either name a caretaker administration or a unity government made up of representatives of all parties, the newspaper said per Bloomberg. Regional elections would then be called in three to six months, according to the report. It adds that while Replacing the rebel government would require the state using special powers under Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution. that action is not imminent, and may not be taken if the Catalan government demonstrates it hasn’t broken away from Spain and instead will abide by Spanish law.

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

ECB v the Federal Reserve – Different Animals Altogether

QUESTION: Do you you really think Trump would let the Central Banks Default? He said we would write off PoteRicos debt maybe he plans to write everything off can he do that? If this really did happen wouldn’t the dollar be worthless?

S

ANSWER: It seems as though far too many people ASSUME that all central banks were createdEQUAL. Sorry – that is just not the case. These people who do not really know what they are talking about assume that just because the Fed has the power to create elastic money, that therefore the ECB can do the same thing. SORRY – WRONG!!!!

There is a substantial difference between the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB).
The accounting at the Fed allows for it to CREATE money as needed. Now the fiat crowd will argue that the Fed can just create money in a very ELASTIC money supply. This is true and it was intended from the very outset that when economic declines appeared, the leverage within the system would implode and thus to ease that contraction in the supply of money. Hence, the shortage of money resulted in defaults and assets decline in value relative to the contraction in money supply. Therefore, the Fed was created with the power to create ELASTIC money based upon the system of Clearing House Certificates that had pre-existed during the 19th century. The Clearing House  would issue its own money and then after the crisis, that money was retired – hence the term ELASTIC.

So how does this contrast with the ECB? Here in lies the problem. The ECB is NOT authorized to create an ELASTIC MONEY SUPPLY.

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

Janet Yellen’s 78-Month Plan for the National Monetary Policy of the United States

Adventures in depravity are nearly always confronted with the unpleasant reality that stopping the degeneracy is much more difficult than starting it.  This realization, and the unsettling feeling that comes with it, usually surfaces just after passing the point of no return.  That’s when the cucumber has pickled over and the prospect of turning back is no longer an option.

Depravity and bedlam through the ages. The blue barge of perdition in the lower middle ferries the depraved and degenerate to their final destination, a small slice of which can be glimpsed above… [PT]

In late November 2008, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke put in place a fait accompli.  But he didn’t recognize it at the time.  For he was blinded by his myopic prejudices.

Bernanke, a self-fancied Great Depression history buff with the highest academic credentials, gazed back 80 years, observed several credit market parallels, and then made a preconceived diagnosis.  After that, he picked up his copy of A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, turned to the chapter on the Great Depression, and got to work expanding the Fed’s balance sheet.

Now here is something all those “Great Depression experts” always neglect to mention: the Fed’s holdings of government securities expanded my more than 400% between late 1929 and early 1933. Friedman’s often repeated assertion that the Fed “didn’t pump enough” in the early 1930s – which is held up as the gospel truth by nearly everyone – is simply untrue. It is true that the money supply collapsed anyway – but not because the Fed didn’t try to pump it up.

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

Today the music stops

Today the music stops

Today’s the day.

After months of preparing financial markets for this news, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to announce that it will finally begin shrinking its $4.5 trillion balance sheet.

I know, that probably sound reeeeally boring. A bunch of central bankers talking about their balance sheet.

But it’s phenomenally important. And I’ll explain why-

When the Global Financial Crisis started in 2008, the Federal Reserve (along with just about every central bank in the world) took the unprecedented step of conjuring trillions of dollars out of thin air.

In the Fed’s case, it was roughly $3.5 trillion, about 25% of the size of the entire US economy at the time.

That’s a lot of money.

And after nearly a decade of this free money policy, there is more money in the financial system than ever before.

Economists have a measure for money supply called “M2”. And M2 is at a record high — nearly $9 trillion higher than at the start of the 2008 crisis.

Now, one might expect that, over time, as the population and economy grow, the amount of money in the system would increase.

But even on a per-capita basis, and relative to the size of US GDP, there is more money in the system than there has ever been, at least in the history of modern central banking.

And that has consequences.

One of those consequences is that asset prices have exploded.

Stocks are at all-time highs. Bonds are at all-time highs. Many property markets are at all-time highs. Even the prices of alternative assets like private equity and artwork are at all-time highs.

But isn’t that a good thing?

Well, let’s look at stocks as an example.

As investors, we trade our hard-earned savings for shares of a [hopefully] successful, well-managed business.

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

Top Financial Expert Warns Stocks Need To Drop ‘Between 30 And 40 Percent’ As Bankruptcy Looms For Toys R Us

Top Financial Expert Warns Stocks Need To Drop ‘Between 30 And 40 Percent’ As Bankruptcy Looms For Toys R Us

Will there be a major stock market crash before the end of 2017?  To many of us, it seems like we have been waiting for this ridiculous stock market bubble to burst for a very long time.  The experts have been warning us over and over again that stocks cannot keep going up like this indefinitely, and yet this market has seemed absolutely determined to defy the laws of economics.  But most people don’t remember that we went through a similar thing before the financial crisis of 2008 as well.  I recently spoke to an investor that shorted the market three years ahead of that crash.  In the end his long-term analysis was right on the money, but his timing was just a bit off, and the same thing will be true with many of the experts this time around.

On Monday, I was quite stunned to learn what Brad McMillan had just said about the market.  He is considered to be one of the brightest minds in the financial world, and he told CNBC that stocks would need to fall “somewhere between 30 and 40 percent just to get to fair value”…

Brad McMillan — who counsels independent financial advisors representing $114 billion in assets under management — told CNBC on Monday that the stock market is way overvalued.

The market probably would have to drop somewhere between 30 and 40 percent to get to fair value, based on historical standards,” said McMillan, chief investment officer at Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Financial Network.

McMillan’s analysis is very similar to mine.  For a long time I have been warning that valuations would need to decline by at least 40 or 50 percent just to get back to the long-term averages.

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

What Does the QE Experience Say About Rates in a Shrinking Fed Balance Sheet World?

What Does the QE Experience Say About Rates in a Shrinking Fed Balance Sheet World?

The Federal Reserve is likely to decide next week to begin letting assets roll of its balance sheet as bonds mature, instead of reinvesting the proceeds. This means that the balance sheet will begin to shrink in size and other market participants will be forced to absorb the supply of new issuance of treasury and mortgage backed securities. Conventional analysis of supply and demand dynamics might suggest the exiting of a large marginal buyer of these securities would cause yields to rise to some higher equilibrium level, but the QE experience suggests something else entirely. When the Fed was engaged in asset purchases and the rate of change in the Fed’s balance sheet was rising (late 2010, mid 2012 through early 2013) long-term treasury yields rose on the back of juiced growth and inflation expectations produced by the stimulus. When the rate of change in the Fed’s balance sheet would flat line or fall (most of 2010, most of 2013 through 2014) treasury yields fell on the back of subdued growth and inflation expectations. Importantly, it was both real rates (TIPS) and breakeven inflation that followed this pattern, which is indicative of the level of economic stimulus produced by QE. Chart 1 below shows 10-year nominal rates (red line, right axis) overlaid on the three month difference in the Fed’s balance sheet (blue line, left axis). Chart 2 below shows 10-year real rates (red line, right axis) overlaid on the three month difference in the Fed’s balance sheet (blue line, left axis). Chart 3 below shows 10-year implied breakeven inflation expectations (red line, right axis) overlaid on the three month difference in the Fed’s balance sheet (blue line, left axis).

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

 

 

Bank of Canada Shuts Out Free Market Economists from Key Policy Conference – Peter Diekmeyer

Bank of Canada Shuts Out Free Market Economists from Key Policy Conference – Peter Diekmeyer

 

Next week’s Bank of Canada policy conference appears set to deliver standard talking points. Not a single free market economist has been invited and a BOC spokesperson confirmed that the alternative-financial press is also being shut out.

The BOC event, titled Monetary Policy Framework Issues: Toward the 2021 Inflation Target Renewal , takes place during a critical time for Canada’s central bank.

Bank of Canada economists emerged from the 2008 financial crisis red-faced, after having failed to predict the event in advance, despite the clear warning signs and having some of the country’s most respected practitioners on staff.

The BOC then had to bail out Canada’s big five banks, whose solvency the monetary authority is charged with overseeing.

Questions regarding Poloz’s “trickle down”economics

Things do not appear to have improved much under the reign of Stephen Poloz, its current Governor.

The Bank of Canada ranks last among the G-7 central banks in terms of its gold holdings, this during a time of record high Canadian household debts and one of the planet’s biggest housing bubbles.

There are also increasing questions regarding Mr. Poloz’s “trickle down” economics strategy, which consists of leveraging “considerable economic stimulus” to boost asset prices, in the hope that a resulting “wealth effect” will trickle down to the poor and the young.

Government-financed academics, officials and a government financed NGO

A quick look at the presenters at the upcoming event reveals the usual “broad range of opinions” that Canada’s central bank consults.

The 20 panelists, almost all of whom are financed or regulated by government, include:

  • Four Canadian government employees
  • Eight academics from Canadian universities, which draw the vast majority of their funds from government.
  • One presenter from a Canadian think tank that received a reported $30 million in government money
  • One representative representing Canada’s big banks, which were bailed out by governments during the last financial crisis.

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

Fearing Contagion, Russia Bails Out Bondholders in its Biggest Bank Collapse Yet

Fearing Contagion, Russia Bails Out Bondholders in its Biggest Bank Collapse Yet 

“The panicky mood has been dampened down,” as other banks are rumored to be teetering.

True to the playbook of bank bailouts, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) decided to bail out Bank Otkritie Financial Corporation, the largest privately owned bank in the country, and the seventh largest bank behind six state-owned banks.

The Central Bank put in an undisclosed amount of money in return for at least a 75% stake. This is likely to be Russia’s biggest bank bailout ever, well ahead of the current record holder, the $6.7 billion bailout of the Bank of Moscow in 2011.

Otkritie and its businesses would operate as usual, the Central Bank said. The banks obligations to creditors and bondholders, which include other Russian banks, would be honored to avoid contagion.

The controlling shareholder of Otkritie bank is Otkritie Holding, with a 65% stake. The bank had grown by wild acquisitions, grabbing other banks, insurers, non-pension funds, and the diamond business of Russia’s second largest oil producer Lukoil. Otkritie Holding is owned by executives of Lukoil, state-owned VTB bank, Otkritie, and other companies. So clearly, this bank is too big to fail.

Lukoil is also one of Otkritie’s largest clients. So Lukoil CEO Vagit Alekperov said in a statement that he saw no risks for Lukoil associated with the bail out, and that Lukoil supported the Central Bank’s decision.

In July, according to Reuters, Kremlin-backed rating agency ACRA downgraded Otkritie to a BBB- rating, citing the “low quality of its loan portfolio.”

On August 17, Moody’s placed Otkritie on review for possible downgrade, citing two big issues:

  1. “The recent elevated volatility of the bank’s customer deposits, which puts pressure on its liquidity position and negatively affects its funding costs”
  2. The bank’s “increased involvement in financing the large financial and industrial assets of its controlling shareholder Otkritie Holding.”

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

Russian Central Bank Bails Out Otkritie Bank, Country’s Largest Private Lender

Russian Central Bank Bails Out Otkritie Bank, Country’s Largest Private Lender

It’s been a while since the world had any bank solvency concerns; in fact, ever since the thrice botched bail out of Monte Paschi and the debacle that was Banco Popular, it has been largely smooth sailing. That changed moments ago, when the Russian central bank announced on Tuesday afternoon it has bailed out Otkritie Bank, which according to Interfax, “ranks 1st among privately-owned banks and 4th by assets among banking groups in Russia.”

Otkritie Bank’s clients include (as of 2016), 29,000 corporations 163,000 SMEs and 3.4 million individuals, including high net worth individuals. The Bank has 400 offices across Russia.

From Reuters:

  • RUSSIA’S C.BANK SAYS HAS DECIDED TO BAIL OUT OTKRITIE BANK, ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S LARGEST PRIVATE LENDERS – Reuters – 10:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time Aug 29, 2017
  • RUSSIA’S C.BANK SAYS TO BECOME SHAREHOLDER IN OTKRITIE BANK
  • RUSSIA’S C.BANK SAYS WILL NOT USE BAIL IN SYSTEM
  • RUSSIA’S C.BANK SAYS OTKRITIE BUSINESSES TO CONTINUE OPERATING AS USUAL

Otkritie’s current owners include the Czech PPF Group (29.9%) owned by Petr Kellner, the Slovak businessman Roman Korbacka (20%), and the Russian ICT Group (50.1%) of which Alexander Nesis is President. Or  rather included, as following the bailout, all of their stakes will be substantially diluted if not wiped out. The bank’s current owners and executives are said to cooperate with the regulator.

As the central bank’s press release adds “the bank is a systemically important credit organization, it occupies the 8th place in terms of assets. The Bank’s infrastructure includes 22 branches and more than 400 internal structural subdivisions.”

And since we live in a world where bailouts are bullish, this happened:

  • DOLLAR BONDS OF RUSSIA’S OTKRITIE BANK RISE ACROSS THE CURVE AFTER CENTRAL BANK PLEDGES RESCUE, BOND MATURING APRIL 2019 UP 20 CENT

 

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

China’s Plunge Protection Team Holds $150 Billion In Stock, Claims “State Meddling” Stabilizes Markets

China’s Plunge Protection Team Holds $150 Billion In Stock, Claims “State Meddling” Stabilizes Markets

It was two years ago, in June of 2015, when just as the Shanghai Composite was flirting with 5,000 and when literally the local banana stand guy was trading stocks, that the Chinese stock bubble burst, unleashing an unprecedented selling spree, a 40% drop in just two months, and Beijing’s nationalization of the stock market, courtesy of the domestic plunge protection team, the China Securities Regulatory Commission also known as the “National Team”.

The decision by local authorities to effectively shut down price discovery had a huge confidence crushing impact on local investor confidence. As Gavekal Research put it overnight, “the lack of trust was crystallized by the decision in the summer of 2015 to “shut down” the equity markets for a while and stop trading in any stock that looked like it was heading south. That decision confirmed foreign investors’ apprehension about China and in their eyes set back renminbi internationalization by several years, if not decades.”

Understandably, with the realization that China (or any other nation for that matter), no longer has a an efficient, discounting stock market, but merely a policy tool meant to inspire confidence on the way up, and punish short sellers and “speculators” on the way down, the China Securities Regulatory Commission kept a low profile: after all why remind traders and investors that the local market only exists in the imaginations of several Beijing bureaucrats who sit down every day to decide the “fair value” of all market-traded equities.

That changed last week, when for the first time in years, the Chinese Plunge Protection Team broke its silence and said that “state meddling has successfully stabilized China’s US$7 trillion stock market by curbing volatility and steering valuations to rational levels.

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

Fake News From the Fed

Fake News From the Fed

Fake News From the FedWhat you see in the media is mostly “fake news.”

Reuters had this story recently:

Most Federal Reserve policymakers think the central bank should take steps to begin trimming its $4.5 trillion balance sheet later this year as long as the economic data holds up, minutes from their last meeting showed…

Provided that the economy continued to perform about as expected, most participants anticipated that gradual increases in the federal funds rate would continue and judged that a change to the Committee’s reinvestment policy would likely be appropriate later this year,” the Fed said in its minutes.

This is the public spectacle – where tiny and often trivial bits of real news are conflated with vast myths and illusions.

The Fed fiddles with short-term interest rates… President Trump tweets a threat to the Freedom Caucus… the GOP proposes a new health-care plan…

You can’t know what any of these “facts” mean without reference to a huge body of non-facts – beliefs, ideas, and prejudices, many of them absurd.

Remember, a “myth” is not necessarily untrue; it just can’t be tested or disproven.

And since reality is infinitely complex, and a myth can only reflect a small trace of it… no matter how attractive or “true” it is, the myth always leaves out more truth than it describes.

Critical Narrative

We make no pretense of ever knowing the “truth.”

That would be impossible. All we can do is try to identify the most ridiculous myths… and find the most useful one, the one we can believe without getting kicked in the pants.

Imagine you were a Jew in Germany in the 1930s… or a stock market investor in the US in 1929… or a merchant in Mosul, Iraq, in 2003.

In each case, there were plenty of ways to understand what was going on. But the critical narrative was: Time to get out of town.

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

Venezuela Is Down To Its Last $10B As Debt Payments Loom

Venezuela Is Down To Its Last $10B As Debt Payments Loom

Maduro PDVSA

Venezuela’s central bank is down to its last $10.5 billion in foreign reserves, according to the institution’s most recent report on the country’s financials.

Over the remainder of 2017, Caracas needs to fund $7.2 billion in debt payments – an amount that it can only meet if oil prices spike far higher than the ongoing boosts caused by OPEC’s output reduction agreement.

Current reserves stand 66 percent lower than levels in 2011, when the government held $30 billion in foreign currencies to spend on loan repayments and other official business.

“The question is: Where is the floor?” Siobhan Morden, head of Latin America fixed income strategy at Nomura Holdings, told CNN Money. “If oil prices stagnate and foreign reserves reach zero, then the clock is going to start on a default.”

Venezuela’s financial report for 2016 stated that roughly $7.7 billion of the remaining $10.5 billion in foreign reserves had been preserved in gold. Last year, in order to fulfill debt obligations, Caracas began shipping gold to Switzerland.

The drastic fall in oil prices in 2014 and widespread corruption have both caused an economic meltdown in the South American country, where citizens had become accustomed to imported goods paid for by fossil fuel revenues.

President Nicolas Maduro has resorted to opening the country’s border with Colombia to allow Venezuelans to purchase necessary medical and day-to-day supplies.

Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA’s default is probable, according to the ratings agency Fitch, which cited the oil giant’s weak liquidity position and high amortization scheduled for 2017 as the causes of the default problem last month.

“Should oil prices remain around current levels, average recovery may lead to additional future defaults to further reduce obligations and allow for necessary transfers to the government,” said Fitch’s senior director Lucas Aristizabal.

The company has projected that its oil production will maintain its 23-year-low in 2017.

Japan: A Future of Stagnation

Japan: A Future of Stagnation

Take a declining population with declining rates of productivity growth and load it up with debt, and you get a triple-whammy recipe for permanent stagnation.

One of our longtime friends in Japan just sold the family business. The writing was on the wall, and had been for the past decade: fewer customers, with less money, and no end of competition for the shrinking pool of customers and spending.

Our friend is planning to move to another more vibrant economy in Asia. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life struggling to keep the business afloat. She wanted to have a family and a business with a future. It was the right decision, not only for her but for her family: get out while there’s still some value in the business to sell.

I have written a number of entries on Japan’s economic downward-spiral and its largely hidden social depression over the past decade, most recently: Global Bellwether: Japan’s Social Depression (September 25, 2014)

Lessons from Japan: Decades of Decay, Unavoidable Collapse (April 26, 2016)

The Keynesian Fantasy is that encouraging people to borrow money to replace what they no longer earn is a policy designed to fail, and fail it has. Borrowing money incurs interest payments, which even at low rates of interest eventually crimps disposable earnings.

Banks must loan this money at a profit, so interest rates paid by borrowers can’t fall to zero. If they do, banks can’t earn enough to pay their operating costs, and they will close their doors.

If banks reach for higher income, that requires loaning money to poor credit risks and placing risky bets in financial markets. Once you load them up with enough debt, even businesses and wage earners who were initially good credit risks become poor credit risks.

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

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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