America's industrial base is undergoing its most radical restructuring in decades as manufacturers rethink their businesses in the wake of the recession.
From Dow Chemical Co. to Intel Corp., iconic companies are telling stories of wrenching change -- both contraction and recovery -- as they report their earnings for 2009.
Dow Chemical said Tuesday it is aiming to shed some $2 billion worth of basic-chemical factories and other assets this year as it moves into more-profitable specialty chemicals. Appliance maker Whirlpool Corp. said it cut about a tenth of its capacity in 2009 as it struggled with a 9.6% drop in sales. Intel, by contrast, is investing billions of dollars in its U.S. plants as demand for computer gear recovers.
"We are emerging from one of the most challenging economic environments we've seen in decades," said Whirlpool Chief Executive Jeff Fettig, on a conference call Tuesday.
The latest moves are accelerating the U.S. manufacturing economy's longer-term shrinkage, as well as its shift away from heavy sectors, such as automobiles and basic chemicals, toward higher-tech products like super-fast computer chips. In some cases, as with auto makers, companies are stripping down to adjust to diminished U.S. demand or investing in smaller, more-efficient facilities. In other cases, as with chemical makers, they are relocating labor-intensive operations to countries where wages are cheaper.
During 2009, the nation's capacity to produce motor vehicles and chemicals fell 4.4% and 1.7%, respectively, the largest such declines since at least 1949, according to Federal Reserve estimates. Its capacity to produce semiconductors, by contrast, grew an estimated 10.4%. Overall, U.S. industrial capacity fell by an estimated 1% in 2009, the largest year-to-year decline on record, while goods-producing businesses shed more than 2.3 million jobs.
As a result, economists expect unemployment to remain high for many years as millions of American workers in the hardest-hit sectors struggle to find new jobs. And while some economists see the restructuring as necessary to make U.S. industry leaner and more profitable, others worry that the sheer scope of the cutbacks could doom companies that ought to survive.
"The earthquake that we felt was so big, and the aftershocks so strong, that we could easily destroy perfectly good manufacturers that are crucial in the supply chain," such as auto-parts makers that supply the entire industry, said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago. "That's the great danger, and it's still a risk."
The restructuring now under way offers insights into what kinds of goods the U.S. should produce, and in what volumes. In industries such as automobiles, housing and appliances, the move to shed capacity is at least partly correcting distortions that built up over many years of easy credit and profligate consumer spending. Now, companies are adjusting to lower demand.
Whirpool's Mr. Fettig, for example, said his company will "take out more" capacity in 2010, after shutting down some five million units in yearly capacity over the past 15 months -- including a factory in Evansville, Ind., that produced refrigerators and ice makers. Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Alan Mulally forecast total U.S. auto and truck sales at between 11.5 million and 12.5 million units in 2010, far below their recent peak of 17.5 million in 2005.
For chemical makers, the recession has intensified an exodus from the U.S. that has been going on for at least a decade, amid rising energy costs, environmental concerns and growing demand in developing countries. In the past year, Dow Chemical, has closed, or announced plans to close, six plants producing ethylene-related chemicals in Louisiana and Texas.
"The chemical industry is leaving the United States, and it won't be back," said Peter Huntsman, chief executive of Texas-based chemical giant Huntsman Corp., which plans to report fourth-quarter earnings on Feb 19. "When demand picks back up, they'll build new capacity overseas -- in the Middle East, Singapore and China."
Huntsman, he said, is expanding its capacity in the Mideast and China to make chemicals used in products like insulation and high-speed railway construction. It now has about a third of its capacity in the U.S., down from more than four-fifths a decade ago. That capacity is increasingly focused on producing more-specialized chemicals, such as epoxies that can be used in building airplanes.
The situation is different for semiconductor makers, which saw U.S. demand recover sharply as computer makers scrambled to catch up with a spurt of business investment toward the end of 2009. Intel, which produces chips in Chandler, Ariz., Rio Rancho, N.M. and Hillsboro, Ore., boosted its capital investments to $1.08 billion in the fourth quarter, up 15% from the previous quarter and part of a two-year, $7 billion program to upgrade its U.S. plants.
A large chunk of semiconductor production takes place abroad, but many companies still prefer to produce in the U.S., particularly if their manufacturing entails little human labor or is highly complex. Being close to the U.S.-based design centers of major chip users like computer maker Dell Inc. and consumer-electronics maker Apple Inc. also can be an advantage.
"This is a kind of manufacturing that will make sense to do in the U.S. for a long time to come," said Tim Peddecord, chief executive of privately held memory-module producer Avant Technology, which recently opened a new 50,000-square-foot plant in Pflugerville, Texas. The new plant will boost the company's capacity to 800,000 modules a month from 500,000.
Mr. Peddecord said his company is bulking up after a shakeout that drove many rivals out of business. Manufacturing in the U.S., he said, allows Avant to turn around U.S. orders in 24 hours, an advantage in an industry where demand is volatile and clients try to keep inventories low. In addition, the reduced freight costs, compared with shipping goods from China, can offset the added cost of U.S. labor, since labor accounts for less than a hundredth of his average sales price.
-- Bob Tita contributed to this article.
Showing posts with label cautionary tales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cautionary tales. Show all posts
4 February 2010
17 January 2010
Wall Street Thinks You Are a Jealous Little Malcontent
Jesse nails it.
After thinking it over, and listening carefully to the discussion on financial television and the news today in reaction to the proposal for a special bank tax, I can come to no other conclusion. Wall Street thinks that the American people, who came to their aid after the collapse of a monumental and most likely fraudulent bubble, are jealous little malcontents.
They believe that the public wants to limit the bonuses paid by Wall Street because they are just jealous. Or stupid and petty. At least they wish to leave their viewers and readers with that impression.
That's the long and short of it. You, average working stiff and retiree, are just a jealous little malcontent who envies the great success of the financial sector, much like some foreign agitator who attacks the West because they envy its freedoms.
And you are seeking retribution, revenge. That is what this bank tax is all about, retribution.
An economics professor just admitted that he too feels a need for retribution at times, as an emotional response, but being a more educated fellow he sees how negative that is. Instead he proposes that if we must have some bank tax that we divert the funds received into a bank holding fund, a kind of a TARP II, to pay for future financial disasters. Forget about reform. The banks are too smart for it.
I would not call it jealousy or a need for retribution.
I would say that the people as a whole have a sense of right and wrong, a sense of fairness and balance, a sense of outrage that is being held in check by patience, a remarkable forebearance, but wish to see justice done for themselves and their children, because it is the right thing, the only practical thing, to do.
But I can also understand why the Wall Street Bankers and the financial elite would see this as jealousy and envy.
Sociopath: (so⋅ci⋅o⋅path) a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.
The most amoral, pathological son of a bitch I ever worked with, who by the way was enormously charismatic and charming when on public display, was a big tech entrepreneur from the Boston area. When his grandiose schemes started to fall apart, as much from the impracticality of his ego as from the fact that no one would trust him any longer, having senselessly betrayed everyone including his closest friends, he said to me in all the sincerity he could muster, "I am failing because people want to drag me down to their level."
And I can assure you, the halls of too many corporations and big government are infested with such power needing, neurotically driven personality types.
This is what renders any notion of self-regulation and efficient markets the romantic fantasy that they are. People are not uniformly rational and moderate in their behaviour. All people are not possessed of a natural goodness and a self-effacing moderation.
This is what makes the rule of law, the Constitution, so indispensable.
This is not to say that their enablers, the financial demimonde, are sociopaths. They are doing what enablers too often do; go along to get along, say and do whatever is required for pay. Camp followers, as they used to be called.
And as for what happened, well, as one well-heeled, successful young manager advised, "Older people are easy to handle. You just scare them. Then they do whatever they are told."
In his mind 'older' was anyone over 40. And as for the rest of the people, well, you just play on their other emotions like hatred and greed and prejudice. He saw absolutely nothing wrong with this, and was so straightfoward and unabashed in this view that it made my blood run cold, because it was clear that he was not alone in this perspective. And it is obvious that Tim, Ben, and Hank did exactly this, and it worked.
And so now they hit the theme that if the banks are taxed, they will just find ways around the restrictions, and keep doing what they wish to do with bonuses and speculation, but may stop lending to the people for their commercial and personal needs, to punish them.
So there you have it. You are a jealous, envious, little nobody desiring retribution from your betters in the land that your fathers fought and died for.
And not only that, but many of your middle class fellows would agree. They would not think this about themselves of course, but about you, the other. The lazy stupid one. There is no easier way to elevate yourself in your own mind than to just put down, impoverish, the other.
And the banks and their enablers in the government will use this, and shape your thinking with it.
You cannot say that you have not been warned. Many times. Money is power, and in a free republic power must be restrained with checks and balances, with a continuing effort and vigilance.
"Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good." John Adams
There can be no easy truce, no peaceful resolution of the current crisis, until the banks are restrained, and the political and financial systems are reformed, and balance is restored to the economy.
"I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant." H. L. Mencken
Never allow yourself to succumb to hatred and a desire for retribution rather than justice. It is always wrong to hate, because the ultimate tragedy is that we become what we hate, we take the shape of that which possesses our passions, thoughts and attention, we adopt its methods and distortions, even if as in a mirror, until we too are misshapen and lost. And that is the real tragedy, how the whole world can descend into a whirlpool of madness, and become blind. So let us appeal to the law, and to justice, at every turn.
Mr. Obama. Reform these banks.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2010/01/wall-street-thinks-you-are-envious-and.html
After thinking it over, and listening carefully to the discussion on financial television and the news today in reaction to the proposal for a special bank tax, I can come to no other conclusion. Wall Street thinks that the American people, who came to their aid after the collapse of a monumental and most likely fraudulent bubble, are jealous little malcontents.
They believe that the public wants to limit the bonuses paid by Wall Street because they are just jealous. Or stupid and petty. At least they wish to leave their viewers and readers with that impression.
That's the long and short of it. You, average working stiff and retiree, are just a jealous little malcontent who envies the great success of the financial sector, much like some foreign agitator who attacks the West because they envy its freedoms.
And you are seeking retribution, revenge. That is what this bank tax is all about, retribution.
An economics professor just admitted that he too feels a need for retribution at times, as an emotional response, but being a more educated fellow he sees how negative that is. Instead he proposes that if we must have some bank tax that we divert the funds received into a bank holding fund, a kind of a TARP II, to pay for future financial disasters. Forget about reform. The banks are too smart for it.
I would not call it jealousy or a need for retribution.
I would say that the people as a whole have a sense of right and wrong, a sense of fairness and balance, a sense of outrage that is being held in check by patience, a remarkable forebearance, but wish to see justice done for themselves and their children, because it is the right thing, the only practical thing, to do.
But I can also understand why the Wall Street Bankers and the financial elite would see this as jealousy and envy.
Sociopath: (so⋅ci⋅o⋅path) a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.
The most amoral, pathological son of a bitch I ever worked with, who by the way was enormously charismatic and charming when on public display, was a big tech entrepreneur from the Boston area. When his grandiose schemes started to fall apart, as much from the impracticality of his ego as from the fact that no one would trust him any longer, having senselessly betrayed everyone including his closest friends, he said to me in all the sincerity he could muster, "I am failing because people want to drag me down to their level."
And I can assure you, the halls of too many corporations and big government are infested with such power needing, neurotically driven personality types.
This is what renders any notion of self-regulation and efficient markets the romantic fantasy that they are. People are not uniformly rational and moderate in their behaviour. All people are not possessed of a natural goodness and a self-effacing moderation.
This is what makes the rule of law, the Constitution, so indispensable.
This is not to say that their enablers, the financial demimonde, are sociopaths. They are doing what enablers too often do; go along to get along, say and do whatever is required for pay. Camp followers, as they used to be called.
And as for what happened, well, as one well-heeled, successful young manager advised, "Older people are easy to handle. You just scare them. Then they do whatever they are told."
In his mind 'older' was anyone over 40. And as for the rest of the people, well, you just play on their other emotions like hatred and greed and prejudice. He saw absolutely nothing wrong with this, and was so straightfoward and unabashed in this view that it made my blood run cold, because it was clear that he was not alone in this perspective. And it is obvious that Tim, Ben, and Hank did exactly this, and it worked.
And so now they hit the theme that if the banks are taxed, they will just find ways around the restrictions, and keep doing what they wish to do with bonuses and speculation, but may stop lending to the people for their commercial and personal needs, to punish them.
So there you have it. You are a jealous, envious, little nobody desiring retribution from your betters in the land that your fathers fought and died for.
And not only that, but many of your middle class fellows would agree. They would not think this about themselves of course, but about you, the other. The lazy stupid one. There is no easier way to elevate yourself in your own mind than to just put down, impoverish, the other.
And the banks and their enablers in the government will use this, and shape your thinking with it.
You cannot say that you have not been warned. Many times. Money is power, and in a free republic power must be restrained with checks and balances, with a continuing effort and vigilance.
"Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good." John Adams
There can be no easy truce, no peaceful resolution of the current crisis, until the banks are restrained, and the political and financial systems are reformed, and balance is restored to the economy.
"I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant." H. L. Mencken
Never allow yourself to succumb to hatred and a desire for retribution rather than justice. It is always wrong to hate, because the ultimate tragedy is that we become what we hate, we take the shape of that which possesses our passions, thoughts and attention, we adopt its methods and distortions, even if as in a mirror, until we too are misshapen and lost. And that is the real tragedy, how the whole world can descend into a whirlpool of madness, and become blind. So let us appeal to the law, and to justice, at every turn.
Mr. Obama. Reform these banks.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2010/01/wall-street-thinks-you-are-envious-and.html
16 December 2009
There is no question as far as this blogger is concerned that Gold and Silver remain the investment opportunity of a lifetime and the case for a stake only gets more compelling. News Kontent are gold and silver bulls and offering evidence for that case is the rationale for this blog.
An Unbelievable Opportunity in Gold
December 15th, 2009
Yes, there is no typo in the headline of this article. Today there is still an unbelievable opportunity to invest in gold that will disappear over the next several years as this monetary crisis deepens. Despite the general widespread sentiment of Western financial advisers that they have missed the run-up in gold and now it is too late to buy, this is not true at all. In fact, to illustrate how little people understand about the reasons to buy gold, of all my friends that I urged to buy physical gold more than six years ago when gold was less than half of its current price, I only know of one that has bought any gold, and it still took five years of my prodding, four times a year, for this single person to purchase gold. This is how incredibly misunderstood an asset gold remains today despite its enormous run higher in the past 8 years. This brief anecdote aptly illustrates the bias against gold and the foolish belief that gold is a bubble that persists today due to the massive propaganda and disinformation campaigns waged by bankers against gold. It is ironic today that public mistrust of bankers can be at such a high level at the same time that the public is still enormously willing to follow all of the bankers’ propaganda about gold. This great twist of irony illustrates just how powerful the bankers’ century long misinformation campaign about money and gold has been. Few people even understand how money is created let alone why gold is a protector of people’s rights.
Even if gold continues to correct this week, and the bullion banks, the US Treasury, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are able to engineer a further decline in gold prices in the futures markets, this event will not be the bursting of the gold bubble as it will be, and always has been, described by many Western media sources. Even if gold loses another $120+ an ounce from its current price, this event would not mark the bursting of the gold bubble. The incorrect description of corrections in the gold markets, or downright meddling of Central Banks into the suppression of gold prices, as the bursting of a bubble is just as erroneous as the recent descriptions of rising stock markets as signs of economic recoveries. And this is the legacy bankers have created – confusing the masses to believe the exact opposite of what is true.
Though I’m not going to tell you the price point at which I believe gold will start rising again, it is not impossible to time markets as investment charlatans will lead you to believe as well. In fact, at the very beginning of this month, we told all subscribers of my Crisis Investment Opportunities investment newsletter to sell out of their precious metal stocks right before this steep correction in gold and silver occurred to lock in their profits and we’ll tell them to re-enter (or have told them to re-enter) when we feel that a low-risk, high-reward time to reposition our assets has materialized once again. By understanding the rigging game in gold and silver markets and in stock markets, we’ve more than tripled the returns of the S&P 500 this year. In all honesty, however, bankers have filled most investors’ heads over the years with so many lies about gold that for the majority of investors, it would be a futile effort to try to time the market anyway. Most would be better off just understanding the fundamentals behind why they need to own gold and to buy and hold on through the dips and rises until it reaches the mania stage.
Being able to predict the recent steep correction in gold and silver in advance of its occurrence merely requires understanding the manipulation and rigging game in these markets. Understand the rigging game behind gold and it is quite possible to repeatedly time the gold markets with a fair amount of accuracy. Subscribers to my services will vouch that I have called near perfect tops and bottoms in the gold and silver markets more than several times over the past several years. Even if you refuse to acknowledge the indisputable signs that the gold market is, and has been rigged for decades, you only need realize one thing – that despite the best efforts of the US Federal Reserve, the US Treasury and the Bank of England to suppress the price of gold, gold’s long term trend since 2001 when it bottomed at about $250 an ounce, has been up. And if you are astute enough to realize that the gold markets have been, and still are rigged, then observing gold’s rise from $250 an ounce eight years ago to more than $1200 an ounce just a week ago should give you the utmost confidence, that despite the best efforts of bankers to wreck gold’s price, its long-term trend will remain higher for quite some years to come.
Still, no matter what side of the “gold is rigged” debate you stand on (and there is lots of evidence to believe the “gold is rigged” side of the debate thanks to the tireless work of GATA.org), the public’s stated reasons for not owning gold are not only absent of logic but they are downright foolish. Two of the most frequently given reasons I’ve heard from Westerners as to why they will not buy gold are parroted banking propaganda that make absolute no sense. The first reason people often give as to why they are reluctant to buy gold is that gold pays no interest. People would realize how foolish this stated reason was if they only realized that all paper money is issued as debt. If there were no debts in the system, there could be no money, yet people gladly accept an instrument that is issued as a debt and believe that it is a pure asset. Secondly, they state, you can’t buy anything with gold. You can’t pay for many items with Euros in many American stores or buy items with US dollars in many European stores either, but that doesn’t mean the Euro is worthless to own if you live in America or that the dollar is worthless to own if you live in Europe. Both will still have some value in buying goods and services. Thus, to not own gold because “you can’t buy anything in stores with a gold coin or gold bar” is an answer devoid of any logic whatsoever.
Throughout history, gold has always been accepted as a form of money. In fact a gold coin in ancient Roman times would buy you about the same things today as it would have back then. With US dollars, you now need twice as many dollars to buy the same things today as you would have needed just 8 or 9 years ago. If a wealthy eccentric man walked into a Maybach auto dealership and insisted on paying for four custom made Maybachs with $2.4 million worth of gold bars, I guarantee you that the dealer would find a way to accept the gold bars and make the $2.4 million sale, knowing that he could choose to hold on to the gold or to convert it into Euros, Yen, Pounds or Dollars at a later point and time. Thus, there is no reason to believe that gold can not be used to purchase items. Gold may be an inconvenient form of money, but it will be much more inconvenient to watch your fiat money crash and burn and for much of your wealth to be wiped out when the second phase of this monetary crisis commences sometime in 2010 or 2011.
Secondly, psychology plays a huge role in the foolish bias of Westerners against gold. Were Westerners to live in China for just one year, where almost everyone knows multiple people that own physical gold, I guarantee you that their perception of gold, upon returning to America, would be drastically changed. They would be inclined to buy more gold just because of the sheep herd mentality that would make them much more comfortable purchasing physical gold after watching many of their friends and associates engaging in the behavior of buying gold for an entire year. Though in China, this herd behavior happens to be correct, just because everyone is doing the same thing, does not by default, make it the correct behavior. In fact, in investing, just the opposite is normally true. When everyone is doing (or not doing) the same thing, they almost always are wrong. Think of US hedge fund manager John Paulson and his enormous coup of earning $4 billion of profit for himself in 2007. Paulson stood on the opposite side of the subprime mortgage bet from the rest of all of Wall Street. Regarding a recent book based entirely upon Paulson’s enormously successful bet to short the US housing market, one reader stated: “The most amazing thing is that no one seemed to believe [Paulson] until the market crashed and by then it was too late.” Though Paulson was a lone wolf among very few lone wolves that existed at the time regarding his beliefs that the subprime mortgage market would crash and burn, he ended up being right and all of Wall Street ended up being wrong. With buying physical gold, it will also pay to think like a lone wolf if you are a Westerner.
However, here’s the lesson most investors still refuse to learn about Paulson’s enormously successful investment play. The majority of investors never take the next crucial step of investigating the reasons why no one believed Paulson’s comments about the US housing market. If the did, they would discover that the reason nobody believed in Paulson’s enormous bet back then was due to the propaganda of bankers like Ben Bernanke and politicians that assured the American people that the housing market would be fine. Many times the masses immediately accept a person’s statement as truth with no critical analysis of that statement just because that person is a public authority figure. But how naïve would you have to be to believe President Obama’s recent statement on the American TV show 60 Minutes that “[he] did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.” Goldman Sachs’s Political Action Committee was the second largest contributor to President Obama’s election campaign, so were it not for the money of “fat cat bankers”, Obama may very well not even have been elected as President in 2008. Knowing this, do you really believe that Obama has zero obligations to the second largest contributor to his political campaign?
Furthermore, were you to merely analyze President Obama’s financial decisions since he has taken office, the disingenuous nature of his above comment would be readily exposed. Almost every single financial policy decision of his administration has benefited “fat cat bankers” to the detriment of everyday US citizens. Again, those blinded by political or racial loyalties at the expense of logic will be sure to foolishly digest my statement as a politically-biased statement though there is no evidence to support that conclusion. Any reader can easily check my past history of public statements and discover that my criticisms of the foolish monetary and fiscal policies of the Clinton and Bush Administrations are just as numerous as my criticisms levied against the Obama Administration. If you are serious about never wanting to be fooled or bamboozled by a politician again, then never look to a politician’s words, but only to his or her actions, to unearth a politician’s true character and nature. Only a fool would ever accept a politician’s words as an accurate representation of a politician’s intent.
Likewise, you would be very wise to apply the above maxim to bankers as well. Investors should look towards bankers’ actions and not their words when trying to decipher their intent. Bankers are responsible for the propaganda that gold is a barbarous relic. Bankers are responsible for the propaganda that gold is a cumbersome asset to own because it pays no interest. These are their words. Yet if you look toward their actions, Central Bankers all over the world were net buyers of gold this past year. Shouldn’t that alert you to the fact that bankers are a bunch of conniving liars in everything they tell the masses about gold? When Paulson first assumed his position shorting the subprime mortgage market, it was not only bankers, but also chief executives at large commercial investment firms that derided him, stating that the subprime mortgage market would be fine. I personally heard many of the same criticisms when I started telling people to buy physical gold six or seven years ago – that I was crazy for thinking that the US dollar would get into trouble and that the US dollar would be fine, that owning gold was a stupid and foolish investment. People actually laughed at me for buying gold. A top investment strategist at Citigroup stated that gold was a bubble in 2005 when gold reached $500 an ounce. And now, even though the gold critics have been wrong now for eight years in a row now, they still use every gold correction as an opportunity to deceive Americans into believing that gold is a bubble and about to collapse. And amazingly, Americans continue to look not towards bankers’ actions but to their words only. The overwhelming majority of Americans believe the bankers’ WORDS that the US dollar will be fine, and foolishly point out every bear rally in the US dollar as proof that the dollar will be fine.
Ninety-five percent of what I’ve heard financial advisers state about gold is wrong. Ninety-five percent of what I’ve read in the public domain about gold is wrong. Ninety-five percent of what I’ve read from the Western media about the US dollar is wrong. And ninety-five percent of the arguments I’ve read against owning gold, even when filled with supposed “facts”, are wrong. Many of the arguments against gold sound convincing, even though they are deeply flawed because erroneous data are used to produce flawed conclusions. But this is the very definition of propaganda – arguments that use erroneous data presented as “facts” to draw convincing conclusions that are highly flawed, though to the undiscerning eye, they seem quite logical. The reason that bankers have always spread so much propaganda about gold is because gold is the kryptonite of bankers. Gold allows people to preserve their wealth against their fiat currency debasement schemes.
Hank Paulson, in testimony before Congress, stated that it was necessary to bail out Goldman Sachs through the bailout of AIG because the people, “were unhappy with the big discrepancies in wealth, but they at least believed in the system and in some form of market-driven capitalism. But if we had a complete meltdown, it could lead to people questioning the basis of the system.” If Americans really wanted to expose the fraud of the entire financial system, all they would have to do is to put just a tiny part of their entire savings into physical gold. If all Americans put perhaps as little as 5% of their entire savings into physical gold, this would likely be more than adequate to expose the fraudulent basis of the financial system by which firms such as Goldman Sachs reap such ungodly profits year after year. What frightens the bankers the most is the possibility that people will fully understand the basis of the system, and this is why Western Central Bankers continually wage so many disinformation campaigns against gold.
Consider this story about HSBC and its retail gold clients that was reported last month: “The British bank, which has sizeable vaults underneath its US headquarters overlooking Manhattan’s Bryant Park, has told retail customers – many of whom are middle-men and custodian services which store gold with HSBC on behalf of hundreds of their own clients – that all their gold must be out of its facility by July 2010. The decision has seen fleets of armoured cars laden with gold ferrying the precious metal out of New York. An HSBC spokesman declined to comment, but it is understood that the increased demand for physical storage of gold by corporate clients is behind the move to end the retail service, which HSBC inherited when it took over Republic Bank a decade ago.” With banks, it’s never about doing what’s best for their clients. It’s always about what’s doing what’s most profitable for their executives. For HSBC’s individual retail clients that were intelligent enough to own gold, HSBC most likely realized that larger, much more profitable relationships could be built with corporate clients that wanted to buy gold versus their retail clients. Thus, their retail clients got the axe despite the fact that HSBC knew that such a decision would be incredibly inconvenient for them.
Just as was the case with subprime mortgages when almost all of Wall Street got it wrong, the only reason anyone believes that gold is a bubble today is because people have forgotten how to think for themselves, foolishly believe that there are not hidden ulterior motives behind the beliefs spouted by Wall Street, and for some inexplicable reason, still internalize and accept all banker propaganda against gold while at they same time, they claim to distrust them. That’s why no matter how much further gold drops before this correction ends, if you don’t make the move to buy physical gold if you don’t own any, you will look back with regret five years from now and realize that you missed an unbelievable opportunity.
http://www.theundergroundinvestor.com/2009/12/an-unbelievable-opportunity-in-gold/#more-1314
An Unbelievable Opportunity in Gold
December 15th, 2009
Yes, there is no typo in the headline of this article. Today there is still an unbelievable opportunity to invest in gold that will disappear over the next several years as this monetary crisis deepens. Despite the general widespread sentiment of Western financial advisers that they have missed the run-up in gold and now it is too late to buy, this is not true at all. In fact, to illustrate how little people understand about the reasons to buy gold, of all my friends that I urged to buy physical gold more than six years ago when gold was less than half of its current price, I only know of one that has bought any gold, and it still took five years of my prodding, four times a year, for this single person to purchase gold. This is how incredibly misunderstood an asset gold remains today despite its enormous run higher in the past 8 years. This brief anecdote aptly illustrates the bias against gold and the foolish belief that gold is a bubble that persists today due to the massive propaganda and disinformation campaigns waged by bankers against gold. It is ironic today that public mistrust of bankers can be at such a high level at the same time that the public is still enormously willing to follow all of the bankers’ propaganda about gold. This great twist of irony illustrates just how powerful the bankers’ century long misinformation campaign about money and gold has been. Few people even understand how money is created let alone why gold is a protector of people’s rights.
Even if gold continues to correct this week, and the bullion banks, the US Treasury, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are able to engineer a further decline in gold prices in the futures markets, this event will not be the bursting of the gold bubble as it will be, and always has been, described by many Western media sources. Even if gold loses another $120+ an ounce from its current price, this event would not mark the bursting of the gold bubble. The incorrect description of corrections in the gold markets, or downright meddling of Central Banks into the suppression of gold prices, as the bursting of a bubble is just as erroneous as the recent descriptions of rising stock markets as signs of economic recoveries. And this is the legacy bankers have created – confusing the masses to believe the exact opposite of what is true.
Though I’m not going to tell you the price point at which I believe gold will start rising again, it is not impossible to time markets as investment charlatans will lead you to believe as well. In fact, at the very beginning of this month, we told all subscribers of my Crisis Investment Opportunities investment newsletter to sell out of their precious metal stocks right before this steep correction in gold and silver occurred to lock in their profits and we’ll tell them to re-enter (or have told them to re-enter) when we feel that a low-risk, high-reward time to reposition our assets has materialized once again. By understanding the rigging game in gold and silver markets and in stock markets, we’ve more than tripled the returns of the S&P 500 this year. In all honesty, however, bankers have filled most investors’ heads over the years with so many lies about gold that for the majority of investors, it would be a futile effort to try to time the market anyway. Most would be better off just understanding the fundamentals behind why they need to own gold and to buy and hold on through the dips and rises until it reaches the mania stage.
Being able to predict the recent steep correction in gold and silver in advance of its occurrence merely requires understanding the manipulation and rigging game in these markets. Understand the rigging game behind gold and it is quite possible to repeatedly time the gold markets with a fair amount of accuracy. Subscribers to my services will vouch that I have called near perfect tops and bottoms in the gold and silver markets more than several times over the past several years. Even if you refuse to acknowledge the indisputable signs that the gold market is, and has been rigged for decades, you only need realize one thing – that despite the best efforts of the US Federal Reserve, the US Treasury and the Bank of England to suppress the price of gold, gold’s long term trend since 2001 when it bottomed at about $250 an ounce, has been up. And if you are astute enough to realize that the gold markets have been, and still are rigged, then observing gold’s rise from $250 an ounce eight years ago to more than $1200 an ounce just a week ago should give you the utmost confidence, that despite the best efforts of bankers to wreck gold’s price, its long-term trend will remain higher for quite some years to come.
Still, no matter what side of the “gold is rigged” debate you stand on (and there is lots of evidence to believe the “gold is rigged” side of the debate thanks to the tireless work of GATA.org), the public’s stated reasons for not owning gold are not only absent of logic but they are downright foolish. Two of the most frequently given reasons I’ve heard from Westerners as to why they will not buy gold are parroted banking propaganda that make absolute no sense. The first reason people often give as to why they are reluctant to buy gold is that gold pays no interest. People would realize how foolish this stated reason was if they only realized that all paper money is issued as debt. If there were no debts in the system, there could be no money, yet people gladly accept an instrument that is issued as a debt and believe that it is a pure asset. Secondly, they state, you can’t buy anything with gold. You can’t pay for many items with Euros in many American stores or buy items with US dollars in many European stores either, but that doesn’t mean the Euro is worthless to own if you live in America or that the dollar is worthless to own if you live in Europe. Both will still have some value in buying goods and services. Thus, to not own gold because “you can’t buy anything in stores with a gold coin or gold bar” is an answer devoid of any logic whatsoever.
Throughout history, gold has always been accepted as a form of money. In fact a gold coin in ancient Roman times would buy you about the same things today as it would have back then. With US dollars, you now need twice as many dollars to buy the same things today as you would have needed just 8 or 9 years ago. If a wealthy eccentric man walked into a Maybach auto dealership and insisted on paying for four custom made Maybachs with $2.4 million worth of gold bars, I guarantee you that the dealer would find a way to accept the gold bars and make the $2.4 million sale, knowing that he could choose to hold on to the gold or to convert it into Euros, Yen, Pounds or Dollars at a later point and time. Thus, there is no reason to believe that gold can not be used to purchase items. Gold may be an inconvenient form of money, but it will be much more inconvenient to watch your fiat money crash and burn and for much of your wealth to be wiped out when the second phase of this monetary crisis commences sometime in 2010 or 2011.
Secondly, psychology plays a huge role in the foolish bias of Westerners against gold. Were Westerners to live in China for just one year, where almost everyone knows multiple people that own physical gold, I guarantee you that their perception of gold, upon returning to America, would be drastically changed. They would be inclined to buy more gold just because of the sheep herd mentality that would make them much more comfortable purchasing physical gold after watching many of their friends and associates engaging in the behavior of buying gold for an entire year. Though in China, this herd behavior happens to be correct, just because everyone is doing the same thing, does not by default, make it the correct behavior. In fact, in investing, just the opposite is normally true. When everyone is doing (or not doing) the same thing, they almost always are wrong. Think of US hedge fund manager John Paulson and his enormous coup of earning $4 billion of profit for himself in 2007. Paulson stood on the opposite side of the subprime mortgage bet from the rest of all of Wall Street. Regarding a recent book based entirely upon Paulson’s enormously successful bet to short the US housing market, one reader stated: “The most amazing thing is that no one seemed to believe [Paulson] until the market crashed and by then it was too late.” Though Paulson was a lone wolf among very few lone wolves that existed at the time regarding his beliefs that the subprime mortgage market would crash and burn, he ended up being right and all of Wall Street ended up being wrong. With buying physical gold, it will also pay to think like a lone wolf if you are a Westerner.
However, here’s the lesson most investors still refuse to learn about Paulson’s enormously successful investment play. The majority of investors never take the next crucial step of investigating the reasons why no one believed Paulson’s comments about the US housing market. If the did, they would discover that the reason nobody believed in Paulson’s enormous bet back then was due to the propaganda of bankers like Ben Bernanke and politicians that assured the American people that the housing market would be fine. Many times the masses immediately accept a person’s statement as truth with no critical analysis of that statement just because that person is a public authority figure. But how naïve would you have to be to believe President Obama’s recent statement on the American TV show 60 Minutes that “[he] did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.” Goldman Sachs’s Political Action Committee was the second largest contributor to President Obama’s election campaign, so were it not for the money of “fat cat bankers”, Obama may very well not even have been elected as President in 2008. Knowing this, do you really believe that Obama has zero obligations to the second largest contributor to his political campaign?
Furthermore, were you to merely analyze President Obama’s financial decisions since he has taken office, the disingenuous nature of his above comment would be readily exposed. Almost every single financial policy decision of his administration has benefited “fat cat bankers” to the detriment of everyday US citizens. Again, those blinded by political or racial loyalties at the expense of logic will be sure to foolishly digest my statement as a politically-biased statement though there is no evidence to support that conclusion. Any reader can easily check my past history of public statements and discover that my criticisms of the foolish monetary and fiscal policies of the Clinton and Bush Administrations are just as numerous as my criticisms levied against the Obama Administration. If you are serious about never wanting to be fooled or bamboozled by a politician again, then never look to a politician’s words, but only to his or her actions, to unearth a politician’s true character and nature. Only a fool would ever accept a politician’s words as an accurate representation of a politician’s intent.
Likewise, you would be very wise to apply the above maxim to bankers as well. Investors should look towards bankers’ actions and not their words when trying to decipher their intent. Bankers are responsible for the propaganda that gold is a barbarous relic. Bankers are responsible for the propaganda that gold is a cumbersome asset to own because it pays no interest. These are their words. Yet if you look toward their actions, Central Bankers all over the world were net buyers of gold this past year. Shouldn’t that alert you to the fact that bankers are a bunch of conniving liars in everything they tell the masses about gold? When Paulson first assumed his position shorting the subprime mortgage market, it was not only bankers, but also chief executives at large commercial investment firms that derided him, stating that the subprime mortgage market would be fine. I personally heard many of the same criticisms when I started telling people to buy physical gold six or seven years ago – that I was crazy for thinking that the US dollar would get into trouble and that the US dollar would be fine, that owning gold was a stupid and foolish investment. People actually laughed at me for buying gold. A top investment strategist at Citigroup stated that gold was a bubble in 2005 when gold reached $500 an ounce. And now, even though the gold critics have been wrong now for eight years in a row now, they still use every gold correction as an opportunity to deceive Americans into believing that gold is a bubble and about to collapse. And amazingly, Americans continue to look not towards bankers’ actions but to their words only. The overwhelming majority of Americans believe the bankers’ WORDS that the US dollar will be fine, and foolishly point out every bear rally in the US dollar as proof that the dollar will be fine.
Ninety-five percent of what I’ve heard financial advisers state about gold is wrong. Ninety-five percent of what I’ve read in the public domain about gold is wrong. Ninety-five percent of what I’ve read from the Western media about the US dollar is wrong. And ninety-five percent of the arguments I’ve read against owning gold, even when filled with supposed “facts”, are wrong. Many of the arguments against gold sound convincing, even though they are deeply flawed because erroneous data are used to produce flawed conclusions. But this is the very definition of propaganda – arguments that use erroneous data presented as “facts” to draw convincing conclusions that are highly flawed, though to the undiscerning eye, they seem quite logical. The reason that bankers have always spread so much propaganda about gold is because gold is the kryptonite of bankers. Gold allows people to preserve their wealth against their fiat currency debasement schemes.
Hank Paulson, in testimony before Congress, stated that it was necessary to bail out Goldman Sachs through the bailout of AIG because the people, “were unhappy with the big discrepancies in wealth, but they at least believed in the system and in some form of market-driven capitalism. But if we had a complete meltdown, it could lead to people questioning the basis of the system.” If Americans really wanted to expose the fraud of the entire financial system, all they would have to do is to put just a tiny part of their entire savings into physical gold. If all Americans put perhaps as little as 5% of their entire savings into physical gold, this would likely be more than adequate to expose the fraudulent basis of the financial system by which firms such as Goldman Sachs reap such ungodly profits year after year. What frightens the bankers the most is the possibility that people will fully understand the basis of the system, and this is why Western Central Bankers continually wage so many disinformation campaigns against gold.
Consider this story about HSBC and its retail gold clients that was reported last month: “The British bank, which has sizeable vaults underneath its US headquarters overlooking Manhattan’s Bryant Park, has told retail customers – many of whom are middle-men and custodian services which store gold with HSBC on behalf of hundreds of their own clients – that all their gold must be out of its facility by July 2010. The decision has seen fleets of armoured cars laden with gold ferrying the precious metal out of New York. An HSBC spokesman declined to comment, but it is understood that the increased demand for physical storage of gold by corporate clients is behind the move to end the retail service, which HSBC inherited when it took over Republic Bank a decade ago.” With banks, it’s never about doing what’s best for their clients. It’s always about what’s doing what’s most profitable for their executives. For HSBC’s individual retail clients that were intelligent enough to own gold, HSBC most likely realized that larger, much more profitable relationships could be built with corporate clients that wanted to buy gold versus their retail clients. Thus, their retail clients got the axe despite the fact that HSBC knew that such a decision would be incredibly inconvenient for them.
Just as was the case with subprime mortgages when almost all of Wall Street got it wrong, the only reason anyone believes that gold is a bubble today is because people have forgotten how to think for themselves, foolishly believe that there are not hidden ulterior motives behind the beliefs spouted by Wall Street, and for some inexplicable reason, still internalize and accept all banker propaganda against gold while at they same time, they claim to distrust them. That’s why no matter how much further gold drops before this correction ends, if you don’t make the move to buy physical gold if you don’t own any, you will look back with regret five years from now and realize that you missed an unbelievable opportunity.
http://www.theundergroundinvestor.com/2009/12/an-unbelievable-opportunity-in-gold/#more-1314
Full Circle of Govt Debt Default
by Jim Willie, CB. Editor, Hat Trick Letter | December 15, 2009
The continuation of the bank dominoes took 14 months, but it occurred. The initial destructive impact craters were carved in the United States and England. To be sure, major damage was done to assets in Spain and Greece and other smaller nations in the last year, but their banks had remained insulated. The discredit and death of the central bank franchise system showed first clear evidence in September 2008 on Wall Street. The unique mysterious aspect of banking systems is how they cannot be rebuilt once they turn insolvent. They rot in place, a process accelerated by rotten ethical values, euphemistically called moral hazard. To be sure, much so-called money flows through the dead rotten parts, but nothing becomes resuscitated except balance sheets. And besides, those balance sheets only look better due to accounting rules changes that deviate from mark to market (reality). The distortions magnify and turn cancerous. See the outsized mortgage bonds with no value at all. See the foreclosed homes withheld from the market for sale in bloated bank inventory. See the big bank balance sheets with large entries of idle money sitting in the US Federal Reserve. The dirtiest American secret in the banking world is not monetization of bonds. It is that US banks are deeply insolvent and would have suffered a worse fate in the last year if not for extortion from TARP funds as well as rescue funds coming from syndicate contraband accounts. See the Raw Story article and reference to the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime (CLICK HERE).
INITIAL BANG
Focus on the bank impact craters, not the assets within those bank portfolios tied to bonds and properties. The US housing market turned down, and the mortgage finance bubble burst. The primary victims were Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, and AIG, which all died. Fannie and AIG remain in the Intensive Care located south of the Black Hole down yonder under the USGovt tent. To say they have not died is pure denial at best and stupidity at worst, since they continue to generate grandiose losses, as most rotting dead bodies do. The process is called advanced cadaver decomposition, accelerated by the wondrous financial engineering acid reflux. The tales of destruction in dead banks from the initial bang extended to the AngloSphere as Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland, and HBOS effectively died. It remains to be seen if the venerable Lloyds is an empty shell prone and a cave-in also. Nevermind the details of the many death spirals. Focus on the dominoes and their sequential steps in magnificent wreckage. Marvel at the total lack of recognition by the official spokesmen for financial reality at the USDept Treasury, Wall Street analysts, London analysts, and European analysts. They never comment on sovereign debt insurance or default. Both are covered in the December Hat Trick Letter.
One must inquire why the blindness. The main reasons are many, but two stick out from the aerial view. The bank leaders and their supporting cast are attempting to accomplish the impossible. They strive to revive a dead entity, drained of structural integrity, lacking in motivation to function in capital formation, devoid of vibrant liquidity flow, and directly attached to the syndicate strongholds where the drain continues. They live and operate within their Dome of Fiat Perception, whose major layer is the Dome of American Perception. Unfortunately, those working within the American fence posts suffer the greatest blindness, the tragic effect of engrained arrogance after years of incredibly broad bully tactics and criminal abuse. For those sleepy brain-dead in denial of criminal abuse, a challenge. Just identify where the prosecutions are for multi-trillion dollar bond fraud in global export of toxic mortgage bonds and their derivative brethren, perpetrated by protected Wall Street firms! If one cannot identify, please sit down and be quiet, since clearly integrity was perhaps checked in at the corporate gate in exchange for a paycheck. Wall Street prefers to call the fraud mere errors of judgment. And a murder spree at a shopping mall is an firearms accident! A closer examination can detect continuity in the Treasury Secy post, and in the Securities & Exchange Commission, both still showing Wall Street pedigree. They strive to keep the lid on Wall Street legal matters, and do a great job.
DELAYED SECONG BANG
Finally, the harsh reality from the weight of gravity and the passage of time resulted in a second bang. One can always question the motivation of the Dubai World default, and the fact that it occurred when the USDollar was badly oversold. One can question the wisdom to attempt to force Abu Dhabi to cover the bad debts or assumptions that it would cover the bad debts. One can point to a hidden motive to ruin Iranian assets and trade routes, since they own 30% of Dubai properties and benefit from restricted product shipment through Dubai corporations. Regardless, the aerial view is most important. The biggest victims are the London and European banks heavily exposed to Dubai debt. The Powerz prefer to call it a rally on the USDollar from seeking the safety and security. But to the rotten ramparts of the US financial core? HARDLY!! Instead what happened was that the British Pound and Euro currency fell during an expected retreat after a realization of upcoming declared losses. The US has fortified a false front from accounting marked to fantasy that produced a stock rally and recent culmination in the most fraudulent Non-Farm Payroll report in modern history.
The November Jobs Report was dismantled in several pages of the Hat Trick Letter Macro Economic Report just posted, a grand convenient fiction. The easy dismissal has escaped the mainstream lapdog US press. It included Birth-Death Model fictional adjustments (gigantic for past revisions), constant unstable seasonal adjustments, to begin with. Dismissal included weak TrimTabs data, flagging USGovt tax revenue data, a surprise downturn in ISM service sector data, and still prevalent Challenger Gray & Christmas large site job cuts to make a mockery of the ballyhooed report. So the USDollar rally occurred, give them credit, since they needed it to avoid major losses upon the US$ DX futures option expiration. The Powerz got their onions squeezed in a vise and short hairs clipped on the gold futures options expiration three weeks ago, but they avoided a second massacre on the DX expiration last week. Now the US$ has stalled at the downtrend line.
The second bang was not so important in providing a lift in the Dead Man Walking Dollar, as it was in signaling a resumption in the dominoes. The central bank system has its next shock in store. The downgrades to government debt for Greece, Spain, and Portugal given last week by ratings agencies signal upcoming debt related earthquakes. In the United States, the game is known innocuously as Extend & Pretend. The Europeans are gifted in the same chicanery. The entire banking system in Spain has kept housing inventory, whether from foreclosures or ruined projects, at still elevated prices, stubbornly refusing to mark them down the necessary 30% or 50%. As a result, Spain has a wide gap between bid and offer, and a huge inventory sitting idle, a stalemate that leads to sinkholes.
THE NEXT BIG BANG
The second bang from Dubai is the most important destabilizing debt event in 14 months, but minimized in the United States. The US press hardly even mentions the downgrades across European on sovereign debt. The US press actually boasts that the financial markets are handling the Dubai situation very well, and might be past it already. What incredible denial, but much expected. The second bang signals the beginning of sovereign debt defaults, several of them, and the reshaping of Europe, both with the European Union and the Euro currency. The movement toward a Parliamentary European Union might soon be dead on arrival. The split of the Euro currency is soon to become a reality, a forecast made months before the Persian Gulf debt default forecast. The prudent action is to put the Lisbon Treaty on hold while member nations default on sovereign debt.
Spain's Govt default will soon default. The reality of proper accounting for property writedowns and the corresponding bank debt losses will have a calamitous effect. Over 20% unemployment and the powerful recession in progress will ensure a Spanish Govt debt default. But the immediate fireworks are seen in Greece, where the Premier Papandreou has shown defiance. He will not permit the nation to undergo the mindless reckless coerced IMF restrictions and guidelines, with the workers of Greece suffering. The past record of such IMF strictures results in permanent crippling of nations, with too many precedents to fill a single page. Something very unusual comes to Greece in response to official defiance, something unprecedented yet powerful and unpleasant. Riots will return to Athens, with much greater force and intensity, and spread across Europe. But the spillover of emotions will lead to much bigger events. The momentum of Spanish and Greek defaults will kill the European Monetary Union, and thus the EU itself. The re-emergence of the Deutsche Mark is assured, except it will be called a variant of the Euro. The codenames to date are the Core Euro or the Nordic Euro. It will become the official currency of Germany and certain stronger Central Europe nations with a trade surplus. If France manages to be included in the Core, it will be a miracle and pure gift. The Germans will need squires to carry their bags, an expedient perhaps. Effects from the currency on trade export will leave France reeling but Germany struggling.
AFTERSHOCK BANGS
Once the cracks in Europe are broken wide open, the minor European nations will fall like flies trapped in a hot summer window. The Baltic States are weak and will no longer be carried. But the bigger and more visible tragedies will be seen in Eastern Europe. A curious malformation was constructed in recent years. The Eastern European nations attempted a reconstruction, with new industrial development. However, they went too far on the mortgage side, emulating Europe, England, and the United States. In doing so, they mixed in a deadly potion on the mortgage finance formula. The nations of Hungary, Poland, and Czech Republic used cheap Swiss funds in the mortgage funding, and will probably all default on sovereign debt. The base Swiss interest rate of 1.5% pumped money into Eastern European homes. Their local currencies each fell around 40% to 60%, making for a total disaster for Swiss bankers. Translated mortgage losses are in the 70% to 80% range. In fact Swiss bankers are struggling to achieve their equilibrium after deep damage in three aspects: toxic US bonds, devastating Eastern European mortgages, and threats to private bank accounts. The aftershock bangs to the Baltic States and Eastern Europe will set up a powerful additional event that will be seen as a climax.
CLIMAX TO EUROPEAN BANGS
At least one major European nation will suffer the ignominy of a sovereign default. By this time, Spain and Greece will have been wrecked, along with Portugal, possibly Italy also, and maybe even Ireland. The prime victims to close the process of sovereign debt default will include France and the United Kingdom. Considered untouchable, these nations will succumb to the wretched financial foundations that befall them. France unfortunately has too many similarities to Spain, which debtors cannot overlook any longer. The United Kingdom unfortunately has too many similarities to the United States, which debtors cannot overlook since the UK cannot print money like the Americans to buy more time, or draw upon clandestine sources of funds. The UK will run out of time. With the French and British defaults, the game goes ballistic and enters the TWILIGHT ZONE.
RUN ON THE USDOLLAR
Some might look at a dangerous run on the USDollar and a severe decline being the primary requirement for a rise in the gold price. It is true that for a long time the most heavily correlated factor for gold rising has been the US$ falling. A negative correlation has been vividly clear. More importantly though, a transition has begun in the last few months. The most important factor for gold has become, and will continue to be the falling value of the major currencies, all the major currencies, not only the USDollar. One must exclude the Japanese Yen in such an argument, since its 0% interest rate has rendered the Bank of Japan a neutered central bank. Watch the BOJ now, as it actually defends against profound damage from a rising Yen currency in the unprecedented process of an unwind to the grandest carry trade ever connected to financial engineering machinery. In fact, a handoff from the Yen Carry Trade to the Dollar Carry Trade is exactly what the USFed and USDept Treasury wish to interrupt. Never in history has a carry trade been installed to drain the vitality of the global reserve currency, to force and retain a near 0% interest rate, and to enable a continued falling value in the US$.
The most important factor for Gold, worth repeating, has become, and will continue to be the falling value of the major currencies. The entire gaggle of currencies is in deep trouble from government sponsored debasement. The entire gaggle of central banks is in deep trouble from discredit to their franchise system. Gold will rise in a powerful manner from the debasement of the major currencies, in particular the USDollar, the Euro, and the British Pound. The process of currency destruction will involve rotations. The events of the last month have shown that severe losses by London and European banks, from Dubai debt default, bring about an indirect lift in the USDollar. It occurred from a selloff of the British Pound and Euro currency, whose banks are lined up for new profound losses. The Powerz portrayed the Dubai events as a flight to security in the USDollar. If so, why is the long-term USTreasury Bond yield rising? The concept of retreating to a currency, the US$, with trillion$ federal deficits, an insolvent banking system, and an economy struggling under the weight of 25% homeowners insolvent on their home loans, IS TOTALLY LUDICROUS. Soon the counter concept of retreating from a currency into Gold will be better understood.
The next confusing events will probably bring about a decline in the Euro currency from imminent and actual default in at least two European Union member nation government debt securities. That is at least two European national sovereign debt defaults. The Euro should decline from such severe events, amidst uncertainty, at least initially. Later, when the European Monetary Union fractures with a shattering deafening blow, the new central core of the Euro currency will be revealed. When that historic event occurs, essentially the revival of the Deutsche Mark, the USDollar will resume its decline in a powerful manner. Gold will then rise in response powerfully in US$ terms. During the monetary earthquake with European government defaults, the gold price will rise powerfully in Euro terms. After the introduction of the new Core Euro currency, the gold price in Core Euro terms will stabilize, with a handoff given to the gold rally in US$ terms. Such will be the nature of the rotation phenomenon. Mainstream analysts will make errors all along the way to promote the false notion of flight to US$ safety and security, when none exists. A flight out of paper fiat currency is the key, and flight into Gold is the major mega-trend that has begun to occur and will continue to occur. Those naysayers might want to examine the gold accumulation by the major savers of the world, who happen to be the major creditors to the USGovt and thereby the major supporters to the USDollar, namely China. They plan to increase their gold holdings six-fold in the next several years. Central banks in aggregate have turned to accumulation in the last several months.
THE MAIN EVENT IS USTREASURY DEFAULT
No forecast invites more private anger, insults, dismissive comments, and generally negative email than my forecast made in autumn 2008 of a USTreasury Default. The climax of the string of global sovereign defaults will be the government debt default for the USGovt, in the USTreasurys. Events in the last year support the forecast. Federal deficits are rising dangerously, over a trillion$ annually. The Greenspan-Guidotti criterion for debt default has long ago been triggered, even assuming the USGovt OWNS ANY GOLD. It does not. Rather it owns clear ledger items called 'Deep Storage Gold' that is not deep in underground vaults, but deep in mountain ore deposits, not yet mined, kept very secretive. The short-term USGovt debt is over $2 trillion, closer to $3.5 trillion if immediate debt finance is counted, as in the next 12 months. The Stimulus Bill was a travesty, more wasted funds and opportunities. The TARP Fund was an $800 billion slush fund, clouded still in secrecy. The foreign wars are a sacred big money loser, with more deficits associated. The competent economists like former USFed Chairman Volcker warn that structural reform is non-existent in the USEconomy and financial sector. Volcker further warns that derivatives have done great harm, and contain no value, only a shift of financial rents. The Global Paradigm Shift is in full force since the spring months, led by the twin concepts of diversification out of US$-based reserves, and of the movement to establish an IMF basket currency as an alternative for international commerce and transaction settlement. The end of the US$ for crude oil sales has been written on the walls. The end to the US$ credit card with unlimited balance is soon to end.
Those people who act as naysayers, even to offer private criticism for the USTreasury Default forecast, seem never to grasp the above arguments, all of which have absolutely zero precedent. They did not foresee many important events, each of which were important Hat Trick Letter forecasts come true. 1) They did not foresee the insolvency of the US banking system. 2) They did not foresee the broader breakdown and wreckage in the mortgage finance industry beyond subprime. 3) They did not foresee the severe whacking to the British Pound. 4) They did not foresee the nationalization and insolvency of fraud ridden Fannie Mae. 5) They did not foresee the downturn and endless US housing bear market decline. 6) They did not foresee the heralded end of the Petro-Dollar, as in exclusive US$ usage for crude oil sales. 7) They did not foresee the Persian Gulf debt shock wave. In fact, they do not foresee anything except the sound of their own voices. THEY WILL NOT RECOGNIZE THE USTREASURY DEFAULT, MOST LIKELY TO COME AS A FORCED DEBT WRITEDOWN WITH DEEP CREDITOR LOSSES. We are in historically unprecedented times. Look for a new USDollar to be used inside the United States fence posts, since the USGovt does not control contracts conducted globally. The devaluation of the US$ will come full circle, and lead to an implosion internally.
TRIGGER EVENT, INSOLVENT USFED !!
The US Federal Reserve is under fire. Many in the USCongress wish to force audits of its balance sheet. Many in the USCongress wish to determine what it does with hundreds of billion$ in USGovt funds. Many citizens in the United States wish to understand its everyday operations and where its loyalty lies, let alone how it manages to fail at both its primary functions. Its defenders cannot come to grips with how the US$ has fallen over 98% in value since its inception. Its defenders cannot come to grips with how the USEconomy is stifled by near 20% unemployment (when those without work are counted). Its defenders cannot justify, or even permit true statistics, regarding the powerful monetization of US$-based official bonds. We are witnessing the Weimar-ization of the USFed and the USTreasury Bond and the USDollar. Once again, American economists ignore history, choose to rewrite it, and ignore the path leading to increasingly damaging cycles. This cycle is systemic, not a business cycle, not a credit cycle, and it contains a cliff much bigger and deeper. The train wreck in progress will culminate in a USTreasury Default.
Put aside the growing debt of the USGovt for a moment. Put aside the growing balance sheet of the USFed for a moment. Put aside the dogmatic belief that the USFed can print money to alleviate financial problems for a moment. Put aside the shifting sands notion that the USDollar will remain the safe haven for a moment. Instead, consider two important notions, monetization and balance sheet. The USFed has been monetizing USAgency Mortgage Bonds in the US credit market, in fact a colossal amount held by foreign central banks. The USFed has been monetizing USTreasury Bonds both by the domestic primary bond dealers, taking their unsold inventory merely one week after auctions. The cash value from foreign mortgage bonds serves as a monetization tool for foreign USTreasury bidding at the same auctions.
Lastly, just look at the USFed balance sheet and its ratio makeup. The USFed is bond buyer of last resort. In expanding its balance sheet, newly acquired assets have terrible quality. The USFed might actually be insolvent here & now due to rising mortgage bond purchases. Half their balance sheet is mortgage bonds. If they are worth just 6% less in true value, the USFed is broke. My conclusion is that the USFed is $100's of billions in the red. Nobody seems to care, believing they can just print money and eliminate their insolvency. It aint that simple.
The US Federal Reserve is killing itself by massive purchases of badly impaired assets, often the toxic assets almost no banks or investors want. Sure, it is also debasing the USDollar in doing so. The most dangerous assets under heavy accumulation are the mortgage backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Demand for them is nonexistent. In the process the USFed has ruined its balance sheet. The ruin has occurred in just the last 12 months. Instead of acting in its historical role as the 'lender of last resort', the USFed has on its own expanded its mandate to become the 'buyer of last resort.' The end result is powerful, as they are a Substandard Junk Bond Warehouse. The destruction of the USFed balance sheet is apparent from the following chart with data, prepared by BusinessInsider.com. See the light blue Fed Agency Debt in the upper right, the cancer that grew upon their balance sheet. Their true value is an order of magnitude lower than book value maintained by the august body. This central bank is walking dead.
Two major billboards must be written and read. 1) The USFed is insolvent. 2) The USFed is dangerously over-leveraged. According to its latest report, the US Federal Reserve owns over $1 trillion of mortgage backed securities, equal to 45.6% of the entire portfolio. One year ago mortgage backed securities were under 1% of its total assets. Actually the number was 0.6%, to make a 76-fold increase in toxic mortgage bond assets on the USFed balance sheet. The credit market actually believes the USFed stepped in and helped the system. But in doing so, they killed themselves. Just like other major banks such as the Wall Street firms, the USFed is very highly leveraged. The USFed carries $2157 billion of debt on $52.8 billion of capital, producing a leverage ratio of 40.8 to 1 ratio. Think over-leveraged, insolvent, and dead, but not yet declared dead. They might actually resign their commission contract with the USCongress, and thereby force a USTreasury Default!!
Here is where the insolvency risk screams out in obvious manner. Its listed mortgage bonds are 19 times greater than its capital, equal to 5.3% in inverse. So therefore, if the true value of these toxic assets is actually 6% lower than their recorded book value, the US Federal Reserve capital is depleted, effectively rendering it insolvent. It stands to reason that if Fannie Mae is insolvent, if Freddie Mac is insolvent, and if monetization supports their bonds, while the market shuns them, then the true value of the mortgage backed securities with their brand is less than 94.7% of their book value. Therefore one might safely conclude that on a strict accounting basis, the USFed is effectively insolvent. My simple guess is that the USAgency Mortgage Bonds on the official USFed balance sheet are worth perhap 30% to 50% less than cited on their books. That would leave the USFed insolvent by 15% to 25%.
One might wonder of motive for the USFed to offer big banks an interest yield on assets held on account. The reason might be to shore up its broken toxic balance sheet and fight off their own insolvency. The USFed remains liquid because banks continue to provide it with funding. Few if any questions come regarding the US Federal Reserve liabilities. The USFed is insolvent, just like the USGovt, just like the Social Security Trust Fund, just like the FDIC, just like US banks, just like US homeowners, and just like US leadership!!!
THE LEGITIMATE & TRUE SAFE HAVEN
That valid haven has been gold & silver for thousands of years. It will continue to be the safe haven. The major global currencies are being horribly debased as major governments fight off insolvent banking systems. In doing so, they have set up conditions for a string of sovereign debt default incidents. They will occur like a string of dominoes arranged in a global circle. The process was begun in the US and UK with broken banking systems and extraordinary measures to deal with it, like bank aid packages, stimulus packages, and liquidity facilities out the ying yang. The naive crowd thought the process ended when the US, UK, and Europe responded with official government rescues and aid, complete with certain nationalizations of key banks and financial institutions. Dubai defaults demonstrate the process continues for credit market crises. No climax has come, but the future holds plenty.
During the rotational lifts and fades of the major currencies, the one constant has been and will continue to be gold & silver. Notice today Tuesday December 15th, the Euro currency is down 130 basis points to the 145.3 area, but gold is flat on the day and silver is flat on the day, almost no change in each. Other warning signs remain, as the crude oil is back over the $70 mark and the 10-year USTNote yield has reached 3.6% in a recent rise. The so-called USDollar rebound has occurred with a rising long-term USTreasury yield, a contradiction for any claim of a flight to safe haven. The only lift for any US$ counter-trend rally come from walking atop the broken structures of other major currencies. The grand rotation during defaults will lift the Gold & Silver prices tremendously. Watch the back door vulnerability. As central banks and sovereign debt securities undergo a powerful unprecedented siege, their defense of the Gold-Dollar balance beam will vanish. British and European weakness does not translate to USDollar strength, not with destroyed finances for the USGovt and an insolvent balance sheet for the USFed. It instead translates to strength in the Gold & Silver bastions for monetary integrity.
Copyright © 2009 Jim Willie, CB
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/willie/2009/1215.html
by Jim Willie, CB. Editor, Hat Trick Letter | December 15, 2009
The continuation of the bank dominoes took 14 months, but it occurred. The initial destructive impact craters were carved in the United States and England. To be sure, major damage was done to assets in Spain and Greece and other smaller nations in the last year, but their banks had remained insulated. The discredit and death of the central bank franchise system showed first clear evidence in September 2008 on Wall Street. The unique mysterious aspect of banking systems is how they cannot be rebuilt once they turn insolvent. They rot in place, a process accelerated by rotten ethical values, euphemistically called moral hazard. To be sure, much so-called money flows through the dead rotten parts, but nothing becomes resuscitated except balance sheets. And besides, those balance sheets only look better due to accounting rules changes that deviate from mark to market (reality). The distortions magnify and turn cancerous. See the outsized mortgage bonds with no value at all. See the foreclosed homes withheld from the market for sale in bloated bank inventory. See the big bank balance sheets with large entries of idle money sitting in the US Federal Reserve. The dirtiest American secret in the banking world is not monetization of bonds. It is that US banks are deeply insolvent and would have suffered a worse fate in the last year if not for extortion from TARP funds as well as rescue funds coming from syndicate contraband accounts. See the Raw Story article and reference to the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime (CLICK HERE).
INITIAL BANG
Focus on the bank impact craters, not the assets within those bank portfolios tied to bonds and properties. The US housing market turned down, and the mortgage finance bubble burst. The primary victims were Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, and AIG, which all died. Fannie and AIG remain in the Intensive Care located south of the Black Hole down yonder under the USGovt tent. To say they have not died is pure denial at best and stupidity at worst, since they continue to generate grandiose losses, as most rotting dead bodies do. The process is called advanced cadaver decomposition, accelerated by the wondrous financial engineering acid reflux. The tales of destruction in dead banks from the initial bang extended to the AngloSphere as Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland, and HBOS effectively died. It remains to be seen if the venerable Lloyds is an empty shell prone and a cave-in also. Nevermind the details of the many death spirals. Focus on the dominoes and their sequential steps in magnificent wreckage. Marvel at the total lack of recognition by the official spokesmen for financial reality at the USDept Treasury, Wall Street analysts, London analysts, and European analysts. They never comment on sovereign debt insurance or default. Both are covered in the December Hat Trick Letter.
One must inquire why the blindness. The main reasons are many, but two stick out from the aerial view. The bank leaders and their supporting cast are attempting to accomplish the impossible. They strive to revive a dead entity, drained of structural integrity, lacking in motivation to function in capital formation, devoid of vibrant liquidity flow, and directly attached to the syndicate strongholds where the drain continues. They live and operate within their Dome of Fiat Perception, whose major layer is the Dome of American Perception. Unfortunately, those working within the American fence posts suffer the greatest blindness, the tragic effect of engrained arrogance after years of incredibly broad bully tactics and criminal abuse. For those sleepy brain-dead in denial of criminal abuse, a challenge. Just identify where the prosecutions are for multi-trillion dollar bond fraud in global export of toxic mortgage bonds and their derivative brethren, perpetrated by protected Wall Street firms! If one cannot identify, please sit down and be quiet, since clearly integrity was perhaps checked in at the corporate gate in exchange for a paycheck. Wall Street prefers to call the fraud mere errors of judgment. And a murder spree at a shopping mall is an firearms accident! A closer examination can detect continuity in the Treasury Secy post, and in the Securities & Exchange Commission, both still showing Wall Street pedigree. They strive to keep the lid on Wall Street legal matters, and do a great job.
DELAYED SECONG BANG
Finally, the harsh reality from the weight of gravity and the passage of time resulted in a second bang. One can always question the motivation of the Dubai World default, and the fact that it occurred when the USDollar was badly oversold. One can question the wisdom to attempt to force Abu Dhabi to cover the bad debts or assumptions that it would cover the bad debts. One can point to a hidden motive to ruin Iranian assets and trade routes, since they own 30% of Dubai properties and benefit from restricted product shipment through Dubai corporations. Regardless, the aerial view is most important. The biggest victims are the London and European banks heavily exposed to Dubai debt. The Powerz prefer to call it a rally on the USDollar from seeking the safety and security. But to the rotten ramparts of the US financial core? HARDLY!! Instead what happened was that the British Pound and Euro currency fell during an expected retreat after a realization of upcoming declared losses. The US has fortified a false front from accounting marked to fantasy that produced a stock rally and recent culmination in the most fraudulent Non-Farm Payroll report in modern history.
The November Jobs Report was dismantled in several pages of the Hat Trick Letter Macro Economic Report just posted, a grand convenient fiction. The easy dismissal has escaped the mainstream lapdog US press. It included Birth-Death Model fictional adjustments (gigantic for past revisions), constant unstable seasonal adjustments, to begin with. Dismissal included weak TrimTabs data, flagging USGovt tax revenue data, a surprise downturn in ISM service sector data, and still prevalent Challenger Gray & Christmas large site job cuts to make a mockery of the ballyhooed report. So the USDollar rally occurred, give them credit, since they needed it to avoid major losses upon the US$ DX futures option expiration. The Powerz got their onions squeezed in a vise and short hairs clipped on the gold futures options expiration three weeks ago, but they avoided a second massacre on the DX expiration last week. Now the US$ has stalled at the downtrend line.
The second bang was not so important in providing a lift in the Dead Man Walking Dollar, as it was in signaling a resumption in the dominoes. The central bank system has its next shock in store. The downgrades to government debt for Greece, Spain, and Portugal given last week by ratings agencies signal upcoming debt related earthquakes. In the United States, the game is known innocuously as Extend & Pretend. The Europeans are gifted in the same chicanery. The entire banking system in Spain has kept housing inventory, whether from foreclosures or ruined projects, at still elevated prices, stubbornly refusing to mark them down the necessary 30% or 50%. As a result, Spain has a wide gap between bid and offer, and a huge inventory sitting idle, a stalemate that leads to sinkholes.
THE NEXT BIG BANG
The second bang from Dubai is the most important destabilizing debt event in 14 months, but minimized in the United States. The US press hardly even mentions the downgrades across European on sovereign debt. The US press actually boasts that the financial markets are handling the Dubai situation very well, and might be past it already. What incredible denial, but much expected. The second bang signals the beginning of sovereign debt defaults, several of them, and the reshaping of Europe, both with the European Union and the Euro currency. The movement toward a Parliamentary European Union might soon be dead on arrival. The split of the Euro currency is soon to become a reality, a forecast made months before the Persian Gulf debt default forecast. The prudent action is to put the Lisbon Treaty on hold while member nations default on sovereign debt.
Spain's Govt default will soon default. The reality of proper accounting for property writedowns and the corresponding bank debt losses will have a calamitous effect. Over 20% unemployment and the powerful recession in progress will ensure a Spanish Govt debt default. But the immediate fireworks are seen in Greece, where the Premier Papandreou has shown defiance. He will not permit the nation to undergo the mindless reckless coerced IMF restrictions and guidelines, with the workers of Greece suffering. The past record of such IMF strictures results in permanent crippling of nations, with too many precedents to fill a single page. Something very unusual comes to Greece in response to official defiance, something unprecedented yet powerful and unpleasant. Riots will return to Athens, with much greater force and intensity, and spread across Europe. But the spillover of emotions will lead to much bigger events. The momentum of Spanish and Greek defaults will kill the European Monetary Union, and thus the EU itself. The re-emergence of the Deutsche Mark is assured, except it will be called a variant of the Euro. The codenames to date are the Core Euro or the Nordic Euro. It will become the official currency of Germany and certain stronger Central Europe nations with a trade surplus. If France manages to be included in the Core, it will be a miracle and pure gift. The Germans will need squires to carry their bags, an expedient perhaps. Effects from the currency on trade export will leave France reeling but Germany struggling.
AFTERSHOCK BANGS
Once the cracks in Europe are broken wide open, the minor European nations will fall like flies trapped in a hot summer window. The Baltic States are weak and will no longer be carried. But the bigger and more visible tragedies will be seen in Eastern Europe. A curious malformation was constructed in recent years. The Eastern European nations attempted a reconstruction, with new industrial development. However, they went too far on the mortgage side, emulating Europe, England, and the United States. In doing so, they mixed in a deadly potion on the mortgage finance formula. The nations of Hungary, Poland, and Czech Republic used cheap Swiss funds in the mortgage funding, and will probably all default on sovereign debt. The base Swiss interest rate of 1.5% pumped money into Eastern European homes. Their local currencies each fell around 40% to 60%, making for a total disaster for Swiss bankers. Translated mortgage losses are in the 70% to 80% range. In fact Swiss bankers are struggling to achieve their equilibrium after deep damage in three aspects: toxic US bonds, devastating Eastern European mortgages, and threats to private bank accounts. The aftershock bangs to the Baltic States and Eastern Europe will set up a powerful additional event that will be seen as a climax.
CLIMAX TO EUROPEAN BANGS
At least one major European nation will suffer the ignominy of a sovereign default. By this time, Spain and Greece will have been wrecked, along with Portugal, possibly Italy also, and maybe even Ireland. The prime victims to close the process of sovereign debt default will include France and the United Kingdom. Considered untouchable, these nations will succumb to the wretched financial foundations that befall them. France unfortunately has too many similarities to Spain, which debtors cannot overlook any longer. The United Kingdom unfortunately has too many similarities to the United States, which debtors cannot overlook since the UK cannot print money like the Americans to buy more time, or draw upon clandestine sources of funds. The UK will run out of time. With the French and British defaults, the game goes ballistic and enters the TWILIGHT ZONE.
RUN ON THE USDOLLAR
Some might look at a dangerous run on the USDollar and a severe decline being the primary requirement for a rise in the gold price. It is true that for a long time the most heavily correlated factor for gold rising has been the US$ falling. A negative correlation has been vividly clear. More importantly though, a transition has begun in the last few months. The most important factor for gold has become, and will continue to be the falling value of the major currencies, all the major currencies, not only the USDollar. One must exclude the Japanese Yen in such an argument, since its 0% interest rate has rendered the Bank of Japan a neutered central bank. Watch the BOJ now, as it actually defends against profound damage from a rising Yen currency in the unprecedented process of an unwind to the grandest carry trade ever connected to financial engineering machinery. In fact, a handoff from the Yen Carry Trade to the Dollar Carry Trade is exactly what the USFed and USDept Treasury wish to interrupt. Never in history has a carry trade been installed to drain the vitality of the global reserve currency, to force and retain a near 0% interest rate, and to enable a continued falling value in the US$.
The most important factor for Gold, worth repeating, has become, and will continue to be the falling value of the major currencies. The entire gaggle of currencies is in deep trouble from government sponsored debasement. The entire gaggle of central banks is in deep trouble from discredit to their franchise system. Gold will rise in a powerful manner from the debasement of the major currencies, in particular the USDollar, the Euro, and the British Pound. The process of currency destruction will involve rotations. The events of the last month have shown that severe losses by London and European banks, from Dubai debt default, bring about an indirect lift in the USDollar. It occurred from a selloff of the British Pound and Euro currency, whose banks are lined up for new profound losses. The Powerz portrayed the Dubai events as a flight to security in the USDollar. If so, why is the long-term USTreasury Bond yield rising? The concept of retreating to a currency, the US$, with trillion$ federal deficits, an insolvent banking system, and an economy struggling under the weight of 25% homeowners insolvent on their home loans, IS TOTALLY LUDICROUS. Soon the counter concept of retreating from a currency into Gold will be better understood.
The next confusing events will probably bring about a decline in the Euro currency from imminent and actual default in at least two European Union member nation government debt securities. That is at least two European national sovereign debt defaults. The Euro should decline from such severe events, amidst uncertainty, at least initially. Later, when the European Monetary Union fractures with a shattering deafening blow, the new central core of the Euro currency will be revealed. When that historic event occurs, essentially the revival of the Deutsche Mark, the USDollar will resume its decline in a powerful manner. Gold will then rise in response powerfully in US$ terms. During the monetary earthquake with European government defaults, the gold price will rise powerfully in Euro terms. After the introduction of the new Core Euro currency, the gold price in Core Euro terms will stabilize, with a handoff given to the gold rally in US$ terms. Such will be the nature of the rotation phenomenon. Mainstream analysts will make errors all along the way to promote the false notion of flight to US$ safety and security, when none exists. A flight out of paper fiat currency is the key, and flight into Gold is the major mega-trend that has begun to occur and will continue to occur. Those naysayers might want to examine the gold accumulation by the major savers of the world, who happen to be the major creditors to the USGovt and thereby the major supporters to the USDollar, namely China. They plan to increase their gold holdings six-fold in the next several years. Central banks in aggregate have turned to accumulation in the last several months.
THE MAIN EVENT IS USTREASURY DEFAULT
No forecast invites more private anger, insults, dismissive comments, and generally negative email than my forecast made in autumn 2008 of a USTreasury Default. The climax of the string of global sovereign defaults will be the government debt default for the USGovt, in the USTreasurys. Events in the last year support the forecast. Federal deficits are rising dangerously, over a trillion$ annually. The Greenspan-Guidotti criterion for debt default has long ago been triggered, even assuming the USGovt OWNS ANY GOLD. It does not. Rather it owns clear ledger items called 'Deep Storage Gold' that is not deep in underground vaults, but deep in mountain ore deposits, not yet mined, kept very secretive. The short-term USGovt debt is over $2 trillion, closer to $3.5 trillion if immediate debt finance is counted, as in the next 12 months. The Stimulus Bill was a travesty, more wasted funds and opportunities. The TARP Fund was an $800 billion slush fund, clouded still in secrecy. The foreign wars are a sacred big money loser, with more deficits associated. The competent economists like former USFed Chairman Volcker warn that structural reform is non-existent in the USEconomy and financial sector. Volcker further warns that derivatives have done great harm, and contain no value, only a shift of financial rents. The Global Paradigm Shift is in full force since the spring months, led by the twin concepts of diversification out of US$-based reserves, and of the movement to establish an IMF basket currency as an alternative for international commerce and transaction settlement. The end of the US$ for crude oil sales has been written on the walls. The end to the US$ credit card with unlimited balance is soon to end.
Those people who act as naysayers, even to offer private criticism for the USTreasury Default forecast, seem never to grasp the above arguments, all of which have absolutely zero precedent. They did not foresee many important events, each of which were important Hat Trick Letter forecasts come true. 1) They did not foresee the insolvency of the US banking system. 2) They did not foresee the broader breakdown and wreckage in the mortgage finance industry beyond subprime. 3) They did not foresee the severe whacking to the British Pound. 4) They did not foresee the nationalization and insolvency of fraud ridden Fannie Mae. 5) They did not foresee the downturn and endless US housing bear market decline. 6) They did not foresee the heralded end of the Petro-Dollar, as in exclusive US$ usage for crude oil sales. 7) They did not foresee the Persian Gulf debt shock wave. In fact, they do not foresee anything except the sound of their own voices. THEY WILL NOT RECOGNIZE THE USTREASURY DEFAULT, MOST LIKELY TO COME AS A FORCED DEBT WRITEDOWN WITH DEEP CREDITOR LOSSES. We are in historically unprecedented times. Look for a new USDollar to be used inside the United States fence posts, since the USGovt does not control contracts conducted globally. The devaluation of the US$ will come full circle, and lead to an implosion internally.
TRIGGER EVENT, INSOLVENT USFED !!
The US Federal Reserve is under fire. Many in the USCongress wish to force audits of its balance sheet. Many in the USCongress wish to determine what it does with hundreds of billion$ in USGovt funds. Many citizens in the United States wish to understand its everyday operations and where its loyalty lies, let alone how it manages to fail at both its primary functions. Its defenders cannot come to grips with how the US$ has fallen over 98% in value since its inception. Its defenders cannot come to grips with how the USEconomy is stifled by near 20% unemployment (when those without work are counted). Its defenders cannot justify, or even permit true statistics, regarding the powerful monetization of US$-based official bonds. We are witnessing the Weimar-ization of the USFed and the USTreasury Bond and the USDollar. Once again, American economists ignore history, choose to rewrite it, and ignore the path leading to increasingly damaging cycles. This cycle is systemic, not a business cycle, not a credit cycle, and it contains a cliff much bigger and deeper. The train wreck in progress will culminate in a USTreasury Default.
Put aside the growing debt of the USGovt for a moment. Put aside the growing balance sheet of the USFed for a moment. Put aside the dogmatic belief that the USFed can print money to alleviate financial problems for a moment. Put aside the shifting sands notion that the USDollar will remain the safe haven for a moment. Instead, consider two important notions, monetization and balance sheet. The USFed has been monetizing USAgency Mortgage Bonds in the US credit market, in fact a colossal amount held by foreign central banks. The USFed has been monetizing USTreasury Bonds both by the domestic primary bond dealers, taking their unsold inventory merely one week after auctions. The cash value from foreign mortgage bonds serves as a monetization tool for foreign USTreasury bidding at the same auctions.
Lastly, just look at the USFed balance sheet and its ratio makeup. The USFed is bond buyer of last resort. In expanding its balance sheet, newly acquired assets have terrible quality. The USFed might actually be insolvent here & now due to rising mortgage bond purchases. Half their balance sheet is mortgage bonds. If they are worth just 6% less in true value, the USFed is broke. My conclusion is that the USFed is $100's of billions in the red. Nobody seems to care, believing they can just print money and eliminate their insolvency. It aint that simple.
The US Federal Reserve is killing itself by massive purchases of badly impaired assets, often the toxic assets almost no banks or investors want. Sure, it is also debasing the USDollar in doing so. The most dangerous assets under heavy accumulation are the mortgage backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Demand for them is nonexistent. In the process the USFed has ruined its balance sheet. The ruin has occurred in just the last 12 months. Instead of acting in its historical role as the 'lender of last resort', the USFed has on its own expanded its mandate to become the 'buyer of last resort.' The end result is powerful, as they are a Substandard Junk Bond Warehouse. The destruction of the USFed balance sheet is apparent from the following chart with data, prepared by BusinessInsider.com. See the light blue Fed Agency Debt in the upper right, the cancer that grew upon their balance sheet. Their true value is an order of magnitude lower than book value maintained by the august body. This central bank is walking dead.
Two major billboards must be written and read. 1) The USFed is insolvent. 2) The USFed is dangerously over-leveraged. According to its latest report, the US Federal Reserve owns over $1 trillion of mortgage backed securities, equal to 45.6% of the entire portfolio. One year ago mortgage backed securities were under 1% of its total assets. Actually the number was 0.6%, to make a 76-fold increase in toxic mortgage bond assets on the USFed balance sheet. The credit market actually believes the USFed stepped in and helped the system. But in doing so, they killed themselves. Just like other major banks such as the Wall Street firms, the USFed is very highly leveraged. The USFed carries $2157 billion of debt on $52.8 billion of capital, producing a leverage ratio of 40.8 to 1 ratio. Think over-leveraged, insolvent, and dead, but not yet declared dead. They might actually resign their commission contract with the USCongress, and thereby force a USTreasury Default!!
Here is where the insolvency risk screams out in obvious manner. Its listed mortgage bonds are 19 times greater than its capital, equal to 5.3% in inverse. So therefore, if the true value of these toxic assets is actually 6% lower than their recorded book value, the US Federal Reserve capital is depleted, effectively rendering it insolvent. It stands to reason that if Fannie Mae is insolvent, if Freddie Mac is insolvent, and if monetization supports their bonds, while the market shuns them, then the true value of the mortgage backed securities with their brand is less than 94.7% of their book value. Therefore one might safely conclude that on a strict accounting basis, the USFed is effectively insolvent. My simple guess is that the USAgency Mortgage Bonds on the official USFed balance sheet are worth perhap 30% to 50% less than cited on their books. That would leave the USFed insolvent by 15% to 25%.
One might wonder of motive for the USFed to offer big banks an interest yield on assets held on account. The reason might be to shore up its broken toxic balance sheet and fight off their own insolvency. The USFed remains liquid because banks continue to provide it with funding. Few if any questions come regarding the US Federal Reserve liabilities. The USFed is insolvent, just like the USGovt, just like the Social Security Trust Fund, just like the FDIC, just like US banks, just like US homeowners, and just like US leadership!!!
THE LEGITIMATE & TRUE SAFE HAVEN
That valid haven has been gold & silver for thousands of years. It will continue to be the safe haven. The major global currencies are being horribly debased as major governments fight off insolvent banking systems. In doing so, they have set up conditions for a string of sovereign debt default incidents. They will occur like a string of dominoes arranged in a global circle. The process was begun in the US and UK with broken banking systems and extraordinary measures to deal with it, like bank aid packages, stimulus packages, and liquidity facilities out the ying yang. The naive crowd thought the process ended when the US, UK, and Europe responded with official government rescues and aid, complete with certain nationalizations of key banks and financial institutions. Dubai defaults demonstrate the process continues for credit market crises. No climax has come, but the future holds plenty.
During the rotational lifts and fades of the major currencies, the one constant has been and will continue to be gold & silver. Notice today Tuesday December 15th, the Euro currency is down 130 basis points to the 145.3 area, but gold is flat on the day and silver is flat on the day, almost no change in each. Other warning signs remain, as the crude oil is back over the $70 mark and the 10-year USTNote yield has reached 3.6% in a recent rise. The so-called USDollar rebound has occurred with a rising long-term USTreasury yield, a contradiction for any claim of a flight to safe haven. The only lift for any US$ counter-trend rally come from walking atop the broken structures of other major currencies. The grand rotation during defaults will lift the Gold & Silver prices tremendously. Watch the back door vulnerability. As central banks and sovereign debt securities undergo a powerful unprecedented siege, their defense of the Gold-Dollar balance beam will vanish. British and European weakness does not translate to USDollar strength, not with destroyed finances for the USGovt and an insolvent balance sheet for the USFed. It instead translates to strength in the Gold & Silver bastions for monetary integrity.
Copyright © 2009 Jim Willie, CB
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/willie/2009/1215.html
12 December 2009
Value and Rules ~ Satyajit Das
Wall Street Revalued: Imperfect Markets and Inept Central Bankers by Andrew Smithers (2009)
The Road to Financial Reformation: Warnings, Consequences, Reforms by Henry Kaufman (2009)
A book review...
In a sense, this crisis is about values (the prices paid for many assets) and the rules (regulations governing financial markets). It is also about rules (rigid model based formulations of price) and values (ethics or the lack thereof). These two books provide different perspectives on the issues.
In Wall Street Revalued, Andrew Smithers, an experienced practitioner (in fund management and now as a consultant), explores the value of stocks. This is a theme that Mr.Smithers has written about before, most notably in his 2000 book Valuing Wall Street which together with the Robert Shiller’s better known Irrational Exuberance presciently highlighted the overvaluation of new economy Internet stocks.
Wall Street Revalued argues that assets can be objectively valued and managing asset prices should be one of the central functions of central bankers. Mr. Smithers’ asserts that denial of these fundamental principles lay at the heart of the global financial crisis. On valuation, Wall Street Revalued favours the “q” ratio (the replacement cost of a company’s assets) and cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio over the previous ten years (a measure also adopted by Professor Shiller).
Eloquent and persuasive, Mr. Smithers make his case well with the advantages of brevity and an abundance of charts and Tables. But some problems remain.
It is not clear how earnings or accurate replacement values can be forecast. This is particularly so at inflection points in economic history – I am sure horse and buggy makers were “cheap” on replacement cost and PE measures after the advent of non-equine modes of transportation. The ability of obscurantist accountants and derivative professionals to affect company earnings and cash flows has become increasingly important. The effect of leverage (both obvious and disguised) also affects these numbers perhaps more that Mr. Smithers acknowledges. How are these to be dealt with at an acceptable level of certainty?
If precise valuation were possible then surely the entire idea would have enabled computers loaded with Mr. Smithers’ data and insight to generate significant excess returns. Markets may deviate from fair value for varying, sometimes lengthy, periods. Echoing Minsky’s famous formulation – “conditionally coherent”, Mr. Smithers argues that markets are “imperfectly efficient”, fluctuating around their fair value.
The question then is over what time horizon will be the true value be achieved? As Keynes stated: “…this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.”
As every sensible trader knows, the price you pay is always wrong. If you sell then by definition you are lowest price in the market. If you buy, then your bid is the highest. They also know price is what you pay while value is what you hope and pray for. The mysteries of value remain.
Before Nouriel Roubini, Marc Faber and the others, there was Henry Kaufman – the original ‘Dr. Doom’. He too saw the crisis coming (this disease is clearly infectious!). The text contains an entire section on his prophetic and neglected early warnings.
Road to Financial Reformation provides a personal (at times) and insightful overview of the global financial crisis and brims with suggestions for reform to avoid a future recurrence. Intended for financiers and regulators involved in the industry, the book is a thoughtful analysis of the main issues.
Dr. Kaufman’s major concern is the blind faith in models and questionable innovations. He is critical of the rapid increase in size and concentration of financial institutions. He identifies how securitisation of bank loans “created the illusion that credit risk could be reduced if the instruments became marketable” and led to a decline in the credit quality of debt. He also shrewdly identifies how the idea of liquidity altered from assets (what you could sell) to one centered on liabilities (what you could borrow).
His solutions are unsurprising. He advocates a single regulator and increased regulation. Amusingly, he urges that “amid the blizzard of quantitative, technical offerings…courses in economic and financial history should be required for all business degrees.” As Marx warned history has a tendency to repeat first as tragedy and then as farce. It is not entirely clear why the simple study of it would prevent this.
The reliance on central bankers, on the part of both Mr. Smithers and Dr. Kaufman, to prick asset bubbles and take responsibility for regulating the financial system is brave.
Recently, Ben Bernanke, President of the Federal Reserve, confessed: “I did not anticipate a crisis of this magnitude.” Mr. Bernanke further acknowledged shortcomings in a more traditional area of central bank expertise – ensuring the adequate capitalisation of banks. It is far from clear that central bankers would be capable of identifying mis-valuation and acting on it. Most tellingly, traders and investors did not prove particularly able at this task. And they were better paid than central bankers.
Regulation and governance generally rely on enforcement and strict compliance. Dr. Kaufman conveniently neglects mention of the fact that he had a seat on Lehman Brothers’ board and a member of its finance and risk committee.
The octogenarian Dr. Kaufman was joined on this committee by a Broadway producer, a former officer of US Navy, founder of Spanish-language TV station and a former chairman of IBM (from some 13 years ago). The 5 directors had been on Lehman's board for a collective 55 years. It appears that there were two meetings of finance and risk committee in 2006 and 2007. The composition of the committee is especially puzzling as there was no inkling that the investment bank was contemplating ownership of warships or producing musicals or programs for Spanish language TV.
Whatever the book’s other considerable insights, Road to Financial Reformation does not make the case for the capabilities of central bankers and other worthies oversighting either the markets or individual institutions. It may ultimately be a case of values rather than rules.
© 2009 Satyajit Das All Rights reserved.
Satyajit Das is a risk consultant and author of Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives (2006, FT-Prentice Hall).
The Road to Financial Reformation: Warnings, Consequences, Reforms by Henry Kaufman (2009)
A book review...
In a sense, this crisis is about values (the prices paid for many assets) and the rules (regulations governing financial markets). It is also about rules (rigid model based formulations of price) and values (ethics or the lack thereof). These two books provide different perspectives on the issues.
In Wall Street Revalued, Andrew Smithers, an experienced practitioner (in fund management and now as a consultant), explores the value of stocks. This is a theme that Mr.Smithers has written about before, most notably in his 2000 book Valuing Wall Street which together with the Robert Shiller’s better known Irrational Exuberance presciently highlighted the overvaluation of new economy Internet stocks.
Wall Street Revalued argues that assets can be objectively valued and managing asset prices should be one of the central functions of central bankers. Mr. Smithers’ asserts that denial of these fundamental principles lay at the heart of the global financial crisis. On valuation, Wall Street Revalued favours the “q” ratio (the replacement cost of a company’s assets) and cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio over the previous ten years (a measure also adopted by Professor Shiller).
Eloquent and persuasive, Mr. Smithers make his case well with the advantages of brevity and an abundance of charts and Tables. But some problems remain.
It is not clear how earnings or accurate replacement values can be forecast. This is particularly so at inflection points in economic history – I am sure horse and buggy makers were “cheap” on replacement cost and PE measures after the advent of non-equine modes of transportation. The ability of obscurantist accountants and derivative professionals to affect company earnings and cash flows has become increasingly important. The effect of leverage (both obvious and disguised) also affects these numbers perhaps more that Mr. Smithers acknowledges. How are these to be dealt with at an acceptable level of certainty?
If precise valuation were possible then surely the entire idea would have enabled computers loaded with Mr. Smithers’ data and insight to generate significant excess returns. Markets may deviate from fair value for varying, sometimes lengthy, periods. Echoing Minsky’s famous formulation – “conditionally coherent”, Mr. Smithers argues that markets are “imperfectly efficient”, fluctuating around their fair value.
The question then is over what time horizon will be the true value be achieved? As Keynes stated: “…this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.”
As every sensible trader knows, the price you pay is always wrong. If you sell then by definition you are lowest price in the market. If you buy, then your bid is the highest. They also know price is what you pay while value is what you hope and pray for. The mysteries of value remain.
Before Nouriel Roubini, Marc Faber and the others, there was Henry Kaufman – the original ‘Dr. Doom’. He too saw the crisis coming (this disease is clearly infectious!). The text contains an entire section on his prophetic and neglected early warnings.
Road to Financial Reformation provides a personal (at times) and insightful overview of the global financial crisis and brims with suggestions for reform to avoid a future recurrence. Intended for financiers and regulators involved in the industry, the book is a thoughtful analysis of the main issues.
Dr. Kaufman’s major concern is the blind faith in models and questionable innovations. He is critical of the rapid increase in size and concentration of financial institutions. He identifies how securitisation of bank loans “created the illusion that credit risk could be reduced if the instruments became marketable” and led to a decline in the credit quality of debt. He also shrewdly identifies how the idea of liquidity altered from assets (what you could sell) to one centered on liabilities (what you could borrow).
His solutions are unsurprising. He advocates a single regulator and increased regulation. Amusingly, he urges that “amid the blizzard of quantitative, technical offerings…courses in economic and financial history should be required for all business degrees.” As Marx warned history has a tendency to repeat first as tragedy and then as farce. It is not entirely clear why the simple study of it would prevent this.
The reliance on central bankers, on the part of both Mr. Smithers and Dr. Kaufman, to prick asset bubbles and take responsibility for regulating the financial system is brave.
Recently, Ben Bernanke, President of the Federal Reserve, confessed: “I did not anticipate a crisis of this magnitude.” Mr. Bernanke further acknowledged shortcomings in a more traditional area of central bank expertise – ensuring the adequate capitalisation of banks. It is far from clear that central bankers would be capable of identifying mis-valuation and acting on it. Most tellingly, traders and investors did not prove particularly able at this task. And they were better paid than central bankers.
Regulation and governance generally rely on enforcement and strict compliance. Dr. Kaufman conveniently neglects mention of the fact that he had a seat on Lehman Brothers’ board and a member of its finance and risk committee.
The octogenarian Dr. Kaufman was joined on this committee by a Broadway producer, a former officer of US Navy, founder of Spanish-language TV station and a former chairman of IBM (from some 13 years ago). The 5 directors had been on Lehman's board for a collective 55 years. It appears that there were two meetings of finance and risk committee in 2006 and 2007. The composition of the committee is especially puzzling as there was no inkling that the investment bank was contemplating ownership of warships or producing musicals or programs for Spanish language TV.
Whatever the book’s other considerable insights, Road to Financial Reformation does not make the case for the capabilities of central bankers and other worthies oversighting either the markets or individual institutions. It may ultimately be a case of values rather than rules.
© 2009 Satyajit Das All Rights reserved.
Satyajit Das is a risk consultant and author of Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives (2006, FT-Prentice Hall).
9 December 2009
WSJ ~ Requiem for the Dollar
Requiem for the Dollar
By JAMES GRANT
Illustration by WSJ; iStockphoto (3)
Ben S. Bernanke doesn't know how lucky he is. Tongue-lashings from Bernie Sanders, the populist senator from Vermont, are one thing. The hangman's noose is another. Section 19 of this country's founding monetary legislation, the Coinage Act of 1792, prescribed the death penalty for any official who fraudulently debased the people's money. Was the massive printing of dollar bills to lift Wall Street (and the rest of us, too) off the rocks last year a kind of fraud? If the U.S. Senate so determines, it may send Mr. Bernanke back home to Princeton. But not even Ron Paul, the Texas Republican sponsor of a bill to subject the Fed to periodic congressional audits, is calling for the Federal Reserve chairman's head.
I wonder, though, just how far we have really come in the past 200-odd years. To give modernity its due, the dollar has cut a swath in the world. There's no greater success story in the long history of money than the common greenback. Of no intrinsic value, collateralized by nothing, it passes from hand to trusting hand the world over. More than half of the $923 billion's worth of currency in circulation is in the possession of foreigners.
In ancient times, the solidus circulated far and wide. But it was a tangible thing, a gold coin struck by the Byzantine Empire. Between Waterloo and the Great Depression, the pound sterling ruled the roost. But it was convertible into gold—slip your bank notes through a teller's window and the Bank of England would return the appropriate number of gold sovereigns. The dollar is faith-based. There's nothing behind it but Congress.
But now the world is losing faith, as well it might. It's not that the dollar is overvalued—economists at Deutsche Bank estimate it's 20% too cheap against the euro. The problem lies with its management. The greenback is a glorious old brand that's looking more and more like General Motors.
You get the strong impression that Mr. Bernanke fails to appreciate the tenuousness of the situation—fails to understand that the pure paper dollar is a contrivance only 38 years old, brand new, really, and that the experiment may yet come to naught. Indeed, history and mathematics agree that it will certainly come to naught. Paper currencies are wasting assets. In time, they lose all their value. Persistent inflation at even seemingly trifling amounts adds up over the course of half a century. Before you know it, that bill in your wallet won't buy a pack of gum.
For most of this country's history, the dollar was exchangeable into gold or silver. "Sound" money was the kind that rang when you dropped it on a counter. For a long time, the rate of exchange was an ounce of gold for $20.67. Following the Roosevelt devaluation of 1933, the rate of exchange became an ounce of gold for $35. After 1933, only foreign governments and central banks were privileged to swap unwanted paper for gold, and most of these official institutions refrained from asking (after 1946, it seemed inadvisable to antagonize the very superpower that was standing between them and the Soviet Union). By the late 1960s, however, some of these overseas dollar holders, notably France, began to clamor for gold. They were well-advised to do so, dollars being in demonstrable surplus. President Richard Nixon solved that problem in August 1971 by suspending convertibility altogether. From that day to this, in the words of John Exter, Citibanker and monetary critic, a Federal Reserve "note" has been an "IOU nothing."
To understand the scrape we are in, it may help, a little, to understand the system we left behind. A proper gold standard was a well-oiled machine. The metal actually moved and, so moving, checked what are politely known today as "imbalances." Say a certain baseball-loving North American country were running a persistent trade deficit. Under the monetary system we don't have and which only a few are yet even talking about instituting, the deficit country would remit to its creditors not pieces of easily duplicable paper but scarce gold bars. Gold was money—is, in fact, still money—and the loss would set in train a series of painful but necessary adjustments in the country that had been watching baseball instead of making things to sell. Interest rates would rise in that deficit country. Its prices would fall, its credit would be curtailed, its exports would increase and its imports decrease. At length, the deficit country would be restored to something like competitive trim. The gold would come sailing back to where it started. As it is today, dollars are piled higher and higher in the vaults of America's Asian creditors. There's no adjustment mechanism, only recriminations and the first suggestion that, from the creditors' point of view, enough is enough.
So in 1971, the last remnants of the gold standard were erased. And a good thing, too, some economists maintain. The high starched collar of a gold standard prolonged the Great Depression, they charge; it would likely have deepened our Great Recession, too. Virtue's the thing for prosperity, they say; in times of trouble, give us the Ben S. Bernanke school of money conjuring. There are many troubles with this notion. For one thing, there is no single gold standard. The version in place in the 1920s, known as the gold-exchange standard, was almost as deeply flawed as the post-1971 paper-dollar system. As for the Great Recession, the Bernanke method itself was a leading cause of our troubles. Constrained by the discipline of a convertible currency, the U.S. would have had to undergo the salutary, unpleasant process described above to cure its trade deficit. But that process of correction would—I am going to speculate—have saved us from the near-death financial experience of 2008. Under a properly functioning gold standard, the U.S. would not have been able to borrow itself to the threshold of the poorhouse.
Anyway, starting in the early 1970s, American monetary policy came to resemble a game of tennis without the net. Relieved of the irksome inhibition of gold convertibility, the Fed could stop worrying about the French. To be sure, it still had Congress to answer to, and the financial markets, as well. But no more could foreigners come calling for the collateral behind the dollar, because there was none. The nets came down on Wall Street, too. As the idea took hold that the Fed could meet any serious crisis by carpeting the nation with dollar bills, bankers and brokers took more risks. New forms of business organization encouraged more borrowing. New inflationary vistas opened.
Not that the architects of the post-1971 game set out to lower the nets. They believed they'd put up new ones. In place of such gold discipline as remained under Bretton Woods—in truth, there wasn't much—markets would be the monetary judges and juries. The late Walter Wriston, onetime chairman of Citicorp, said that the world had traded up. In place of a gold standard, it now had an "information standard." Buyers and sellers of the Treasury's notes and bonds, on the one hand, or of dollars, yen, Deutschemarks, Swiss francs, on the other, would ride herd on the Fed. You'd know when the central bank went too far because bond yields would climb or the dollar exchange rate would fall. Gold would trade like any other commodity, but nobody would pay attention to it.
I check myself a little in arraigning the monetary arrangements that have failed us so miserably these past two years. The lifespan of no monetary system since 1880 has been more than 30 or 40 years, including that of my beloved classical gold standard, which perished in 1914. The pure paper dollar regime has been a long time dying. It was no good portent when the tellers' bars started coming down from neighborhood bank branches. The uncaged teller was a sign that Americans had began to conceive an elevated opinion of the human capacity to manage financial risk. There were other evil omens. In 1970, Wall Street partnerships began to convert to limited liability corporations—Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette was the first to make the leap, Goldman Sachs, among the last, in 1999. In a partnership, the owners are on the line for everything they have in case of the firm's bankruptcy. No such sword of Damocles hangs over the top executives of a corporation. The bankers and brokers incorporated because they felt they needed more capital, more scale, more technology—and, of course, more leverage.
In no phase of American monetary history was every banker so courageous and farsighted as Isaias W. Hellman, a progenitor of an institution called Farmers & Merchants Bank and of another called Wells Fargo. Operating in southern California in the late 1880s, Hellman arrived at the conclusion that the Los Angeles real-estate market was a bubble. So deciding—the prices of L.A. business lots had climbed to $5,000 from $500 in one short year—he stopped lending. The bubble burst, and his bank prospered. Safety and soundness was Hellman's motto. He and his depositors risked their money side-by-side. The taxpayers didn't subsidize that transaction, not being a party to it.
In this crisis, of course, with latter-day Hellmans all too scarce in the banking population, the taxpayers have born an unconscionable part of the risk. Wells Fargo itself passed the hat for $25 billion. Hellmans are scarce because the federal government has taken away their franchise. There's no business value in financial safety when the government bails out the unsafe. And by bailing out a scandalously large number of unsafe institutions, the government necessarily puts the dollar at risk. In money, too, the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone. Debased banks mean a debased currency (perhaps causation works in the other direction, too).
Many contended for the hubris prize in the years leading up to the sorrows of 2008, but the Fed beat all comers. Under Mr. Bernanke, as under his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, our central bank preached the doctrine of stability. The Fed would iron out the business cycle, promote full employment, pour oil on the waters of any and every major financial crisis and assure stable prices. In particular, under the intellectual leadership of Mr. Bernanke, the Fed would tolerate no sagging of the price level. It would insist on a decent minimum of inflation. It staked out this position in the face of the economic opening of China and India and the spread of digital technology. To the common-sense observation that these hundreds of millions of willing new hands, and gadgets, might bring down prices at Wal-Mart, the Fed turned a deaf ear. It would save us from "deflation" by generating a sweet taste of inflation (not too much, just enough). And it would perform these feats of macroeconomic management by pushing a single interest rate up or down.
It was implausible enough in the telling and has turned out no better in the doing. Nor is there any mystery why. The Fed's M.O. is price control. It fixes the basic money market interest rate, known as the federal funds rate. To arrive at the proper rate, the monetary mandarins conduct their research, prepare their forecast—and take a wild guess, just like the rest of us. Since December 2008, the Fed has imposed a funds rate of 0% to 0.25%. Since March of 2009, it has bought just over $1 trillion of mortgage-backed securities and $300 billion of Treasurys. It has acquired these assets in the customary central-bank manner, i.e., by conjuring into existence the money to pay for them. Yet—a measure of the nation's lingering problems—the broadly defined money supply isn't growing but dwindling.
The Fed's miniature interest rates find favor with debtors, disfavor with savers (that doughty band). All may agree, however, that the bond market has lost such credibility it once had as a monetary-policy voting machine. Whether or not the Fed is cranking too hard on the dollar printing press is, for professional dealers and investors, a moot point. With the cost of borrowing close to zero, they are happy as clams (that is, they can finance their inventories of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities at virtually no cost). The U.S. government securities market has been conscripted into the economic-stimulus program.
Neither are the currency markets the founts of objective monetary information they perhaps used to be. The euro trades freely, but the Chinese yuan is under the thumb of the People's Republic. It tells you nothing about the respective monetary policies of the People's Bank and the Fed to observe that it takes 6.831 yuan to make a dollar. It's the exchange rate that Beijing wants.
On the matter of comparative monetary policies, the most expressive market is the one that the Fed isn't overtly manipulating. Though Treasury yields might as well be frozen, the gold price is soaring (it lost altitude on Friday). Why has it taken flight? Not on account of an inflation problem. Gold is appreciating in terms of all paper currencies—or, alternatively, paper currencies are depreciating in terms of gold—because the world is losing faith in the tenets of modern central banking. Correctly, the dollar's vast non-American constituency understands that it counts for nothing in the councils of the Fed and the Treasury. If 0% interest rates suit the U.S. economy, 0% will be the rate imposed. Then, too, gold is hard to find and costly to produce. You can materialize dollars with the tap of a computer key.
Let me interrupt myself to say that I am not now making a bullish investment case for gold (I happen to be bullish, but it's only an opinion). The trouble with 0% interest rates is that they instigate speculation in almost every asset that moves (and when such an immense market as that in Treasury securities isn't allowed to move, the suppressed volatility finds different outlets). By practicing price, or interest-rate, control, the Bank of Bernanke fosters a kind of alternative financial reality. Let the buyer beware—of just about everything.
A proper gold standard promotes balance in the financial and commercial affairs of participating nations. The pure paper system promotes and perpetuates imbalances. Not since 1976 has this country consumed less than it produced (as measured by the international trade balance): a deficit of 32 years and counting. Why has the shortfall persisted for so long? Because the U.S., uniquely, is allowed to pay its bills in the currency that only it may lawfully print. We send it west, to the central banks of our Asian creditors. And they, obligingly, turn right around and invest the dollars in America's own securities. It's as if the money never left home. Stop to ask yourself, American reader: Is any other nation on earth so blessed as we?
There is, however, a rub. The Asian central banks do not acquire their dollars with nothing. Rather, they buy them with the currency that they themselves print. Some of this money they manage to sweep under the rug, or "sterilize," but a good bit of it enters the local payment stream, where it finances today's rowdy Asian bull markets.
A monetary economist from Mars could only scratch his pointy head at our 21st century monetary arrangements. What is a dollar? he might ask. No response. The Martian can't find out because the earthlings don't know. The value of a dollar is undefined. Its relationship to other currencies is similarly contingent. Some exchange rates float, others sink, still others are lashed to the dollar (whatever it is). Discouraged, the visitor zooms home.
Neither would the ghosts of earthly finance know what to make of things if they returned for a briefing from wherever they were spending eternity. Someone would have to tell Alexander Hamilton that his system of coins is defunct, as is, incidentally, the federal sinking fund he devised to retire the public debt (it went out of business in 1960). He might have to hear it more than once to understand, but Congress no longer "coins" money and regulates the value thereof. Rather, it delegates the work to Mr. Bernanke, who, a noted student of the Great Depression, believes that the cure for borrowing too much money is printing more money.
Walter Bagehot, the Victorian English financial journalist, would be in for a jolt, too. It would hardly please him to hear that the Fed had invoked the authority of his name to characterize its helter-skelter interventions of the past year. In a crisis, Bagehot wrote in his 1873 study "Lombard Street," a central bank should lend without stint to solvent institutions at a punitive rate of interest against sound collateral. At least, Bagehot's shade might console itself, the Fed was faithful to the text on one point. It did lend without stint.
If Bagehot's ghost would be chagrined, that of Bagehot's sparring partner, Thomson Hankey, would be exultant. Hankey, a onetime governor of the Bank of England, denounced Bagehot in life. No central bank should stand ready to bail out the imprudent, he maintained. "I cannot conceive of anything more likely to encourage rash and imprudent speculation..., " wrote Hankey in response to Bagehot. "I am no advocate for any legislative enactments to try and make the trading community more prudent."
Hankey believed in the price system. It might pain him to discover that his professional descendants have embraced command and control. "We should have required [banks to hold] more capital, more liquidity," Mr. Bernanke rued in a Senate hearing on Thursday. "We should have required more risk management controls." Roll over, Isaias Hellman.
So our Martian would be mystified and our honored dead distressed. And we, the living? We are none too pleased ourselves. At least, however, being alive, we can begin to set things right. The thing to do, I say, is to restore the nets to the tennis courts of money and finance. Collateralize the dollar—make it exchangeable into something of genuine value. Get the Fed out of the price-fixing business. Replace Ben Bernanke with a latter-day Thomson Hankey. Find—cultivate—battalions of latter-day Hellmans and set them to running free-market banks. There's one more thing: Return to the statute books Section 19 of the 1792 Coinage Act, but substitute life behind bars for the death penalty. It's the 21st century, you know.
James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, is the author, most recently, of "Mr. Market Miscalculates" (Axios Press).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704342404574575761660481996.html#printMode
By JAMES GRANT
Illustration by WSJ; iStockphoto (3)
Ben S. Bernanke doesn't know how lucky he is. Tongue-lashings from Bernie Sanders, the populist senator from Vermont, are one thing. The hangman's noose is another. Section 19 of this country's founding monetary legislation, the Coinage Act of 1792, prescribed the death penalty for any official who fraudulently debased the people's money. Was the massive printing of dollar bills to lift Wall Street (and the rest of us, too) off the rocks last year a kind of fraud? If the U.S. Senate so determines, it may send Mr. Bernanke back home to Princeton. But not even Ron Paul, the Texas Republican sponsor of a bill to subject the Fed to periodic congressional audits, is calling for the Federal Reserve chairman's head.
I wonder, though, just how far we have really come in the past 200-odd years. To give modernity its due, the dollar has cut a swath in the world. There's no greater success story in the long history of money than the common greenback. Of no intrinsic value, collateralized by nothing, it passes from hand to trusting hand the world over. More than half of the $923 billion's worth of currency in circulation is in the possession of foreigners.
In ancient times, the solidus circulated far and wide. But it was a tangible thing, a gold coin struck by the Byzantine Empire. Between Waterloo and the Great Depression, the pound sterling ruled the roost. But it was convertible into gold—slip your bank notes through a teller's window and the Bank of England would return the appropriate number of gold sovereigns. The dollar is faith-based. There's nothing behind it but Congress.
But now the world is losing faith, as well it might. It's not that the dollar is overvalued—economists at Deutsche Bank estimate it's 20% too cheap against the euro. The problem lies with its management. The greenback is a glorious old brand that's looking more and more like General Motors.
You get the strong impression that Mr. Bernanke fails to appreciate the tenuousness of the situation—fails to understand that the pure paper dollar is a contrivance only 38 years old, brand new, really, and that the experiment may yet come to naught. Indeed, history and mathematics agree that it will certainly come to naught. Paper currencies are wasting assets. In time, they lose all their value. Persistent inflation at even seemingly trifling amounts adds up over the course of half a century. Before you know it, that bill in your wallet won't buy a pack of gum.
For most of this country's history, the dollar was exchangeable into gold or silver. "Sound" money was the kind that rang when you dropped it on a counter. For a long time, the rate of exchange was an ounce of gold for $20.67. Following the Roosevelt devaluation of 1933, the rate of exchange became an ounce of gold for $35. After 1933, only foreign governments and central banks were privileged to swap unwanted paper for gold, and most of these official institutions refrained from asking (after 1946, it seemed inadvisable to antagonize the very superpower that was standing between them and the Soviet Union). By the late 1960s, however, some of these overseas dollar holders, notably France, began to clamor for gold. They were well-advised to do so, dollars being in demonstrable surplus. President Richard Nixon solved that problem in August 1971 by suspending convertibility altogether. From that day to this, in the words of John Exter, Citibanker and monetary critic, a Federal Reserve "note" has been an "IOU nothing."
To understand the scrape we are in, it may help, a little, to understand the system we left behind. A proper gold standard was a well-oiled machine. The metal actually moved and, so moving, checked what are politely known today as "imbalances." Say a certain baseball-loving North American country were running a persistent trade deficit. Under the monetary system we don't have and which only a few are yet even talking about instituting, the deficit country would remit to its creditors not pieces of easily duplicable paper but scarce gold bars. Gold was money—is, in fact, still money—and the loss would set in train a series of painful but necessary adjustments in the country that had been watching baseball instead of making things to sell. Interest rates would rise in that deficit country. Its prices would fall, its credit would be curtailed, its exports would increase and its imports decrease. At length, the deficit country would be restored to something like competitive trim. The gold would come sailing back to where it started. As it is today, dollars are piled higher and higher in the vaults of America's Asian creditors. There's no adjustment mechanism, only recriminations and the first suggestion that, from the creditors' point of view, enough is enough.
So in 1971, the last remnants of the gold standard were erased. And a good thing, too, some economists maintain. The high starched collar of a gold standard prolonged the Great Depression, they charge; it would likely have deepened our Great Recession, too. Virtue's the thing for prosperity, they say; in times of trouble, give us the Ben S. Bernanke school of money conjuring. There are many troubles with this notion. For one thing, there is no single gold standard. The version in place in the 1920s, known as the gold-exchange standard, was almost as deeply flawed as the post-1971 paper-dollar system. As for the Great Recession, the Bernanke method itself was a leading cause of our troubles. Constrained by the discipline of a convertible currency, the U.S. would have had to undergo the salutary, unpleasant process described above to cure its trade deficit. But that process of correction would—I am going to speculate—have saved us from the near-death financial experience of 2008. Under a properly functioning gold standard, the U.S. would not have been able to borrow itself to the threshold of the poorhouse.
Anyway, starting in the early 1970s, American monetary policy came to resemble a game of tennis without the net. Relieved of the irksome inhibition of gold convertibility, the Fed could stop worrying about the French. To be sure, it still had Congress to answer to, and the financial markets, as well. But no more could foreigners come calling for the collateral behind the dollar, because there was none. The nets came down on Wall Street, too. As the idea took hold that the Fed could meet any serious crisis by carpeting the nation with dollar bills, bankers and brokers took more risks. New forms of business organization encouraged more borrowing. New inflationary vistas opened.
Not that the architects of the post-1971 game set out to lower the nets. They believed they'd put up new ones. In place of such gold discipline as remained under Bretton Woods—in truth, there wasn't much—markets would be the monetary judges and juries. The late Walter Wriston, onetime chairman of Citicorp, said that the world had traded up. In place of a gold standard, it now had an "information standard." Buyers and sellers of the Treasury's notes and bonds, on the one hand, or of dollars, yen, Deutschemarks, Swiss francs, on the other, would ride herd on the Fed. You'd know when the central bank went too far because bond yields would climb or the dollar exchange rate would fall. Gold would trade like any other commodity, but nobody would pay attention to it.
I check myself a little in arraigning the monetary arrangements that have failed us so miserably these past two years. The lifespan of no monetary system since 1880 has been more than 30 or 40 years, including that of my beloved classical gold standard, which perished in 1914. The pure paper dollar regime has been a long time dying. It was no good portent when the tellers' bars started coming down from neighborhood bank branches. The uncaged teller was a sign that Americans had began to conceive an elevated opinion of the human capacity to manage financial risk. There were other evil omens. In 1970, Wall Street partnerships began to convert to limited liability corporations—Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette was the first to make the leap, Goldman Sachs, among the last, in 1999. In a partnership, the owners are on the line for everything they have in case of the firm's bankruptcy. No such sword of Damocles hangs over the top executives of a corporation. The bankers and brokers incorporated because they felt they needed more capital, more scale, more technology—and, of course, more leverage.
In no phase of American monetary history was every banker so courageous and farsighted as Isaias W. Hellman, a progenitor of an institution called Farmers & Merchants Bank and of another called Wells Fargo. Operating in southern California in the late 1880s, Hellman arrived at the conclusion that the Los Angeles real-estate market was a bubble. So deciding—the prices of L.A. business lots had climbed to $5,000 from $500 in one short year—he stopped lending. The bubble burst, and his bank prospered. Safety and soundness was Hellman's motto. He and his depositors risked their money side-by-side. The taxpayers didn't subsidize that transaction, not being a party to it.
In this crisis, of course, with latter-day Hellmans all too scarce in the banking population, the taxpayers have born an unconscionable part of the risk. Wells Fargo itself passed the hat for $25 billion. Hellmans are scarce because the federal government has taken away their franchise. There's no business value in financial safety when the government bails out the unsafe. And by bailing out a scandalously large number of unsafe institutions, the government necessarily puts the dollar at risk. In money, too, the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone. Debased banks mean a debased currency (perhaps causation works in the other direction, too).
Many contended for the hubris prize in the years leading up to the sorrows of 2008, but the Fed beat all comers. Under Mr. Bernanke, as under his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, our central bank preached the doctrine of stability. The Fed would iron out the business cycle, promote full employment, pour oil on the waters of any and every major financial crisis and assure stable prices. In particular, under the intellectual leadership of Mr. Bernanke, the Fed would tolerate no sagging of the price level. It would insist on a decent minimum of inflation. It staked out this position in the face of the economic opening of China and India and the spread of digital technology. To the common-sense observation that these hundreds of millions of willing new hands, and gadgets, might bring down prices at Wal-Mart, the Fed turned a deaf ear. It would save us from "deflation" by generating a sweet taste of inflation (not too much, just enough). And it would perform these feats of macroeconomic management by pushing a single interest rate up or down.
It was implausible enough in the telling and has turned out no better in the doing. Nor is there any mystery why. The Fed's M.O. is price control. It fixes the basic money market interest rate, known as the federal funds rate. To arrive at the proper rate, the monetary mandarins conduct their research, prepare their forecast—and take a wild guess, just like the rest of us. Since December 2008, the Fed has imposed a funds rate of 0% to 0.25%. Since March of 2009, it has bought just over $1 trillion of mortgage-backed securities and $300 billion of Treasurys. It has acquired these assets in the customary central-bank manner, i.e., by conjuring into existence the money to pay for them. Yet—a measure of the nation's lingering problems—the broadly defined money supply isn't growing but dwindling.
The Fed's miniature interest rates find favor with debtors, disfavor with savers (that doughty band). All may agree, however, that the bond market has lost such credibility it once had as a monetary-policy voting machine. Whether or not the Fed is cranking too hard on the dollar printing press is, for professional dealers and investors, a moot point. With the cost of borrowing close to zero, they are happy as clams (that is, they can finance their inventories of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities at virtually no cost). The U.S. government securities market has been conscripted into the economic-stimulus program.
Neither are the currency markets the founts of objective monetary information they perhaps used to be. The euro trades freely, but the Chinese yuan is under the thumb of the People's Republic. It tells you nothing about the respective monetary policies of the People's Bank and the Fed to observe that it takes 6.831 yuan to make a dollar. It's the exchange rate that Beijing wants.
On the matter of comparative monetary policies, the most expressive market is the one that the Fed isn't overtly manipulating. Though Treasury yields might as well be frozen, the gold price is soaring (it lost altitude on Friday). Why has it taken flight? Not on account of an inflation problem. Gold is appreciating in terms of all paper currencies—or, alternatively, paper currencies are depreciating in terms of gold—because the world is losing faith in the tenets of modern central banking. Correctly, the dollar's vast non-American constituency understands that it counts for nothing in the councils of the Fed and the Treasury. If 0% interest rates suit the U.S. economy, 0% will be the rate imposed. Then, too, gold is hard to find and costly to produce. You can materialize dollars with the tap of a computer key.
Let me interrupt myself to say that I am not now making a bullish investment case for gold (I happen to be bullish, but it's only an opinion). The trouble with 0% interest rates is that they instigate speculation in almost every asset that moves (and when such an immense market as that in Treasury securities isn't allowed to move, the suppressed volatility finds different outlets). By practicing price, or interest-rate, control, the Bank of Bernanke fosters a kind of alternative financial reality. Let the buyer beware—of just about everything.
A proper gold standard promotes balance in the financial and commercial affairs of participating nations. The pure paper system promotes and perpetuates imbalances. Not since 1976 has this country consumed less than it produced (as measured by the international trade balance): a deficit of 32 years and counting. Why has the shortfall persisted for so long? Because the U.S., uniquely, is allowed to pay its bills in the currency that only it may lawfully print. We send it west, to the central banks of our Asian creditors. And they, obligingly, turn right around and invest the dollars in America's own securities. It's as if the money never left home. Stop to ask yourself, American reader: Is any other nation on earth so blessed as we?
There is, however, a rub. The Asian central banks do not acquire their dollars with nothing. Rather, they buy them with the currency that they themselves print. Some of this money they manage to sweep under the rug, or "sterilize," but a good bit of it enters the local payment stream, where it finances today's rowdy Asian bull markets.
A monetary economist from Mars could only scratch his pointy head at our 21st century monetary arrangements. What is a dollar? he might ask. No response. The Martian can't find out because the earthlings don't know. The value of a dollar is undefined. Its relationship to other currencies is similarly contingent. Some exchange rates float, others sink, still others are lashed to the dollar (whatever it is). Discouraged, the visitor zooms home.
Neither would the ghosts of earthly finance know what to make of things if they returned for a briefing from wherever they were spending eternity. Someone would have to tell Alexander Hamilton that his system of coins is defunct, as is, incidentally, the federal sinking fund he devised to retire the public debt (it went out of business in 1960). He might have to hear it more than once to understand, but Congress no longer "coins" money and regulates the value thereof. Rather, it delegates the work to Mr. Bernanke, who, a noted student of the Great Depression, believes that the cure for borrowing too much money is printing more money.
Walter Bagehot, the Victorian English financial journalist, would be in for a jolt, too. It would hardly please him to hear that the Fed had invoked the authority of his name to characterize its helter-skelter interventions of the past year. In a crisis, Bagehot wrote in his 1873 study "Lombard Street," a central bank should lend without stint to solvent institutions at a punitive rate of interest against sound collateral. At least, Bagehot's shade might console itself, the Fed was faithful to the text on one point. It did lend without stint.
If Bagehot's ghost would be chagrined, that of Bagehot's sparring partner, Thomson Hankey, would be exultant. Hankey, a onetime governor of the Bank of England, denounced Bagehot in life. No central bank should stand ready to bail out the imprudent, he maintained. "I cannot conceive of anything more likely to encourage rash and imprudent speculation..., " wrote Hankey in response to Bagehot. "I am no advocate for any legislative enactments to try and make the trading community more prudent."
Hankey believed in the price system. It might pain him to discover that his professional descendants have embraced command and control. "We should have required [banks to hold] more capital, more liquidity," Mr. Bernanke rued in a Senate hearing on Thursday. "We should have required more risk management controls." Roll over, Isaias Hellman.
So our Martian would be mystified and our honored dead distressed. And we, the living? We are none too pleased ourselves. At least, however, being alive, we can begin to set things right. The thing to do, I say, is to restore the nets to the tennis courts of money and finance. Collateralize the dollar—make it exchangeable into something of genuine value. Get the Fed out of the price-fixing business. Replace Ben Bernanke with a latter-day Thomson Hankey. Find—cultivate—battalions of latter-day Hellmans and set them to running free-market banks. There's one more thing: Return to the statute books Section 19 of the 1792 Coinage Act, but substitute life behind bars for the death penalty. It's the 21st century, you know.
James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, is the author, most recently, of "Mr. Market Miscalculates" (Axios Press).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704342404574575761660481996.html#printMode
4 December 2009
Gold Desafio: Global Struggle
by Jim Willie, CB. Editor, Hat Trick Letter
The gold market has become, despite little recognition by the financial press, the battlefield for global control of the financial world. To the winner go the spoils and access to the helm. To the winner goes control of global banking, dominance in commerce, and the advantage in some degree of printing money on a credit card that all nations must finance indirectly. Nevermind the military aspect. In the Untied States, the custodial control of the USDollar as global reserve currency enabled it to spawn numerous syndicates with criminal impunity, since under the USGovt aegis (if not management). The gold market is the site of the most ominous dangerous life changing battle in recent history. My work has frequently mentioned a Paradigm Shift in progress. The shift is of power, influence, dominance, control, privilege, and direction. It also permits the writing of history itself. Since the end of World War II, the Untied States and Great Britain created an empire based primarily upon economic and financial prowess, but certainly reinforced by military strength. With the fall of Wall Street, the ruin of US banks, the insolvency of American households, and the quagmire of US foreign wars, the shift has accelerated. The parallel debacles and ruin into insolvent for Great Britain has ushered in an Anglo removal from the power circuit. The transition will not be smooth. See the endless wars, the attacks on tax havens, and the viruses.
Notice the slow fade of the Japanese, a nation having served as US Lackeys for more than a few decades. They must next join forces with the Chinese, and perhaps bow but not too much since they bring tremendous technological prowess to the table. Thousand year old enmity must yield to cooperative alliance and ventures. Regional unity will become of paramount importance in the next chapter of economic development. The Tokyo mavens are suffering from the shock of the Yen Carry Trade unwinding process. Weeks ago, my articles pointed out how the rise in the Japanese Yen would keep the pressure firmly on their economy, clearly still export driven. The USDollar crisis has its own core troubles. But they are amplified by a stronger yen currency, which is undergoing a handoff to the Dollar Carry Trade. The Yen currency continues to push higher, causing the Japanese Govt to assemble and hammer out emergency policy. Never in history has a carry trade fed off and exploited a decline in the global reserve currency. These are historic times.
GOLD AS CRUX FOR BATTLE
The shift in power is most evident in the rapid rise in accumulated gold by the Chinese Govt. In my view this is the actual crux of the global desafio. In the Spanish language, desafio means a great struggle and battle, much akin to jihad in the Arabic language, but without the warlike military connotation or tendency toward glorified suicide. My first exposure was the Discovery Channel. A show focused upon the Alaskan Desafio as some brave group weathered the wintry storms, traveled with sled dogs, and struggled to eat and sleep. This gold desafio is for global control. Those who control the gold control the global banking with all its trappings. The corrupted COMEX and London Bullion Market Assn are the clear battlegrounds for the gold battle. In an open manner, no longer hidden from view, the COMEX is settling gold long futures contracts with Street Tracks GLD shares. Investors in GLD shares should be horrified at shareholder contamination. Clearly, the COMEX does not have much of any gold bullion, yet it operates formally as an exchange to sell gold, and to create a market for gold price discovery. Some call this new redemption developed appropriately a silent COMEX default, and correctly so. It is the early chapter of a COMEX default, presaged last May.
The two-sided fraud deserves mention once more. In time, the Street Tracks GLD (run by State Street, with JPMorgan as custodian) will be exposed as totally corrupt. They are using GLD shares openly now to cover COMEX short futures contracts. They are likely providing GLD bullion to London to satisfy futures contract delivery demands. Evidence painted a picture after London gold delivery stresses occurred at the same time as vast deletions from the GLD bar list, which suddenly reappeared days later. That is burning the candle at both ends of the GLD itself. Eventually my expectation is for GLD shares to sell at a 40% discount to gold price as the lack of gold inventory is revealed. Then later, after lawsuits, the GLD might easily sell at 80% discount. Finally the climax could be prosecution for fraud and all investors will be given 20 cents per dollar versus gold. Who knows? Maybe it will be 30% and 60% and 40 cents per dollar. The trouble for hapless unsuspecting investors is they did not read the prospectus, which permits such misuse of GLD shares. They just might be lazy and qualified sheeple. The Wall Street crowd did effective planning. One must give a tip of the hat to their brain trust. The GLD is a tool to drain gold demand from the public and to supply it to the syndicate. It is one of the most brilliant open ploys in financial history.
THE ANTICIPATED DUBAI CRUSH
On October 8th, the Jackass gave you a "TOLD YA SO" on the announced previewed end of the Petro-Dollar. The Saudis, with Chinese and Russians on their left and right arms, heralded the end of the sale of crude oil in US$ terms, with French and Japanese in tow. The Germans secretly were in charge of counseling toward the forged deal, but preferred the shadows. The new crude oil transaction settlement system will take time, but surely not to require eight years until 2018 as announced. That stated target date was intended to deflect and distract from US retaliation. The mere announcement should be regarded as a schematic diagram for architects and investors alike to follow. New systems must be constructed. Investors ahead of the curve will be the primary beneficiaries. The changes that result from the announcement itself will assure the completion date to be just 2 or 3 years, not 8 years.
In just two short months, it is time to say "TOLD YA SO" again, this time on the story that came out of the United Arab Emirates. Or should they be also called the Untied Arab Emirates, after their squabbles between city states? The Dubai World debt default and restructure has caused shock waves the world over. IT WAS FORECASTED IN AUGUST BY THE HAT TRICK LETTER. The vast construction bust has caused anticipated ripples. The threat to London banks is acute. Time will tell whether its ripples will cause sufficient damage to London and New York bankers to topple them and to force lost control in other banking functions like gold management, as my forecast indicated. It seems that worsened big London bank solvency from underwritten Dubai losses, rather than Arab USTreasury Bond dumping, will be the principal cause of any imminent breakdown, if it occurs. See the article entitled "US Bank Enemies at the Gates" from late August (CLICK HERE).
For the record, here is what was written over three months ago by the Jackass pen. "The regional construction boom in the Arab world has an epicenter in Dubai. Unfortunately, it has gone bust, and loudly so. If not for the prompt aid by Abu Dhabi bankers, a vast liquidation of Dubai would have embarrassed them in front of the world. Instead, a new threat comes. The Abu Dhabi rescue next must contend with an indigestion problem, as USTreasurys and likely other US$-based bonds are flooding their banking system. They might own a considerable batch of US bank stocks, soon to be dumped. Ambition led to a whiff of hubris, as fantastic architectural design led to large scope, seen in the skyscrapers and bridges. Not shown are the spectacular communities designed as trees with branches and leaf petals, many empty, busted, and without investment income. But they overdid it, and now must deal with corporate failures and liquidation challenges. The Persian Gulf bank failures represent the clear and present threat. The outsized projects have yielded to outsized rescues and next outsized indigestion to handle the funds in ways so as to avoid a string of national bank failures. Vast liquidations come, word comes from contacts.
A bank panic in the Persian Gulf could ensue very soon, a back door threat. It would clearly have origins in the United Arab Emirates, spread to the entire Persian Gulf like to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and elsewhere. From this global toehold, the bank panic could then spread to London, New York, and points in Europe. The UAE bankers must manage their situation. They are loaded to the gills with USTreasurys, the main currency used in the liquidations and rescues local to the UAE. They also have pet stock accounts in big US banks. As further liquidations occur, avoidance of bank failures seems a remote prospect. Watch the enemies at the gates, outside looking in, in urgent need of dumping USTreasury Bonds and other US$-denominated securities."
Much can be told about hidden developments, like family squabbles between the UAE emirate rulers, bitterness over shame brought to the region, anger from unheeded counsel, sudden departures of people in key posts, and a desire to punish (even exploit) the decline in fortunes. The biggest question in my book is how much Abu Dhabi bankers wish to permit London bankers to absorb losses, before Abu Dhabi cleans up and grabs liquidated properties in Dubai at deeply distressed prices? Negotiations are underway, heated, and of vital importance in London between all the bankers involved. What can London offer Abu Dhabi? That is the question. The Arab world takes a dim view of debt to begin with. They abhor home and property mortgages generally, and thus never invest in mortgage bonds. To prove the point, hundreds of Dubai Prisoners languish in their hotels and apartments. They are British, American, and European engineers, financial cogs, analysts, and other workers whose employers from the parent Western firms defaulted on very large loans. These people will remain prisoners, and will likely become pawns in the game during negotiations. Conditions grew so desperate that hundreds of cars lie abandoned at airports, from workers who fled the region before trapped in homes.
Expert analysts warn of continued shock waves, as almost nothing has been resolved, very little asset or corporate liquidation has occurred, fallout has not yet been permitted, bank losses have not been declared, and resolution prices have not been posted. The internal battle between UAE city states, one rich in oil and a banking center, the other recovering from a construction bust amidst great hubris and displayed magnificent follies, will play itself out in the coming several months or years. The internal families are locked in a power struggle. In Dubai, 30% of their economy is derived from real estate, construction, and other property development. They have some truly braindead concepts and ideas at work, like indoor snow skiing, like cooled beaches with underground pipes, and golf courses that require much output from the desalinization plants to water the green landscape against sandy backgrounds. These are like plebeian versions of marble palaces in the desert. To be sure, a great awakening comes as a load of debt is dumped on the big bankers, just when they might have thought the worst was over.
One friend calls the Dubai construction array the greatest property folly in a century. Maybe so! Next come shock waves to London banks. The follies must be liquidated, with great losses dumped upon balance sheets. The banks must take much more lumps and losses. The original $10 billion in debt loss is more like $80 billion. Details on the story appear in the upcoming December Hat Trick Letter reports, which are streaming in on a daily basis. European banks have some exposure too, but not as much as London. The Abu Dhabi rulers must complete bargains with London bankers, who have conspired to suppress the gold price for two decades. The UAE leaders hold a huge amount of gold, and have demanded its return from London custodial accounts. Resentment seethes beneath the surface, the basis for Arab vengeance. The fallout will be wreckage of Royal Bank of Scotland, and maybe HSBC too.
In the process, watch power shift to Abu Dhabi as concessions are made by London under extreme pressures. Parts of Dubai are ghost towns, almost totally unoccupied vast projects. The biggest question in my book is whether RBS can go bust and be liquidated while still operating under the British Govt aegis? Lloyds will take large blows as well. The shock waves have not yet fully reverberated. They will continue for months. The Dubai property prices have not yet bottomed, and might settle at 20 cents per dollar on original basis. The legion of Western wonks in the financial sector stupidly expected Abu Dhabi to rescue all Dubai loans, without benefit of much knowledge of resentment, family conflicts, banker ambitions, and ramifications that extend to the new Gulf Dinar currency that shifted planning rooms (Saudi to Russian). My August article implied the Dubai bust would result since Abu Dhabi would not step in and bail out their UAE brethren. The inner conflicts and agendas were well known all along here.
The next shoe for the condemned Caucasian crowd is mortgage losses from Eastern Europe. For several years, the Swiss provided the funds as a result of their 1.5% steady official rate. At the time, it was 3% below the rest of the continent. The combination of home loan default, and sharply lower Eastern Europe currency basis has resulted in near total losses to Swiss banks on such mortgage portfolios. Also, watch Greece, which could be the next Dubai crush zone. It is a construction bust center also, like Spain. The socialist roots in Southern Europe have enabled a denial of property price declines from Spain to Italy to Greece. Instead of vast arrays of homes being sold at distressed lower prices, they sit in inventory at elevated absurd high prices. The bust impact comes soon, as these assets cannot be carried much longer on the books.
GO GOLD GO GOLD
This is just the beginning. We are still in the proverbial second inning of this gold explosion. Gold continues to rise because the system is breaking, because almost zero remedy has been completed, because pressures are brought to bear using the same broken tools to fix the problems, because mountains of new money are wasted and paid to failed bankers, because the crisis is ongoing, because the economies are not responding to stimulus, because home foreclosures and job losses continue unabated. Much more government rescue and stimulus comes, MUCH MORE. The Chinese are firmly in control of the gold price. They inch up the gold price systematically in order to release more supply from both the cash desperate and the investment knuckleheads. A big story has hit the press, that HSBC is backing out of the gold storage business. My gut tells me that HSBC might be clearing major bank vault space to hold Chinese deliveries from metals exchanges. The gold price does not merely rise from a weakening USDollar and major currencies. Nations intentionally try to undercut themselves in order to preserve their export economies. The gold price also rises from the gradual removal of shackles that have falsely suppressed the price, as supply has dwindled, replaced by paper gold, and probably tungsten gold too. In the last couple weeks, extraordinary scrutiny has come to the gold delivery system. The process reveals an unspeakable global shortage of gold bullion. The gold price is attempting to adjust to a proper higher price free from interference, based upon supply matching demand. The gold price will rise further from continued debasement of the major currencies. Even now, with the COMEX and LBMA in London, the gold market cannot clear at the current price. There is an extreme shortage of gold bullion in physical supply, due to years of price intervention and replacement by paper gold. Apart from weak or destroyed currencies, the gold price must be higher from basic intervention relief.
Some argue that gold must rise to match the supply of newly created money, bound in the fiat currencies with pretty designs and colored ink, even watermarks. Gold should rise in parallel with money creation, but not in lockstep. A currency can always be fixed according to a cover clause that dictates 1% of money can be redeemed in gold. Later, a move to 1.5% in the gold cover clause would fortify one currency in much the same way that official national interest rates lift currencies upon changed policy. Personally my wish is for the gold price to continue its powerful bull run without the Euro currency breakout toward 160. That would expose all the currencies together as horribly weak if not invalid. If the Euro rushes toward 160, the gold market in Europe must then adapt to an interruption in the bull roaming on the continent. Stand back! The explosive upward thrust in the gold price is still a threat, much like Mount St Helens. The Powerz have begun to lose control of the gold market.
No search for safe haven in the USDollar took place after the Dubai world shock. Rather it was a retreat from the British Pound and Euro currencies, which bore the risk of loans underwritten. In one short week, the effect has dissipated, as the USDollar is weaker than BEFORE the Dubai incident broke to make news. All currencies are weak relative to the stable powerful reliable gold. The USDollar is showing a steady relentless weakness, unable to snap into any recovery. It is my view that ruining the federal finances is what Obama was hired to do by the syndicate. The high risk of USMilitary coup in the future remains acute in order to avert a USTreasury default, or perhaps coincident with a default. Obama's specific job is to run up deficits and ruin the dollar, which paves the way for the coup. The Cap & Trade game is just another fraud revealed, with credit given to the intrepid internet websites that gave up the ghost. The upcoming coup has a definite purpose, to remove foreign creditors from any receivership tribunal. The Untied States can become a sequestered state, free from foreign interference. Yet isolation would be the fate won.
ENTER THE CLOWNS
Don't bother to pardon the misspelled names, done to disguise the identities of clowns within our midst. The Jackass is fully capable of errors, usually admitted quickly. My biggest arena for errors has been long-term USTreasury Bond yields, due to interventions, interference, and monetizations. Other errors have been made, hoped to be minor in nature. An extraordinary amount of information must be digested, absorbed, and integrated into any editorial analytic work that covers a complex and treacherous financial world. Errors come since we are human. But what follows is not ordinary, and speaks to an arena tilted toward deception delivered with motive. My work has an objective to analyze correctly, to highlight connected factors, to explain complexities, to forewarn with lead time, and to make forecasts. The string of solid forecasts is my carrying card. Other foibles are carried. My body is adorned by moles, one just like my mother's. More than a few wild long hairs grow from my eyebrows, making some wonder if General Elmo Zumwalt was a distant uncle. My eyes are uneven, one lower, but no glasses are needed to correct vision. My head is balding, but hats keep it warm. My right foot is pigeon toed, that results in a hook in the soccer kick. The left kick is more adept. But my work is factual, helped along by wonderful reliable sources and numerous newshound friends. Minor errors are committed along the way. One should care not about a minor typo within articles offered in the public domain, despite my usual final proofread pass. What follows is a list of elements inside the gold community, often doing a notable disservice.
Why are the US financial airwaves polluted by Denis Gartmann and his consistently incorrect and shallow preachings? His fund is down, not down hard, as he maintains his negative opinion of the gold asset story. He hedged a gold position with an offsetting currency position, resulting in a total waste of investment funds. Gold just happens to be the biggest story and one of the best performing assets in the last half decade. One might conclude such strong performance is worthy of disdain, disrespect, and disrepute. NOT! A contact of mine is considering a new Anti-Gartmann Fund, with a double leverage component that takes the opposite position of the Gartmann fool. Given his steadily shallow analysis and lack of comprehension of the gold market, one might conclude that Gartmann has a secondary income source from Wall Street firms. He might indeed be paid to denigrate the Gold Bull market, despite the tarnish to his reputation. An aside on Gartmann, who used to speak as the Cambridge House gold conferences alongside the Jackass. He appeared in 2005, much to my surprise, since he is so incredibly lacking in insight. From the podium, in front of over 1000 people, he delivered probably the stupidest speech ever to penetrate my ears. Gartmann actually claimed, one year before the housing bust struck, that the USEconomy was still grossly under-leveraged. He actually made numerous points about how the assets within the Untied States still had countless additional collateral from which to draw credit. He actually spoke of numerous new avenues to extend credit, and how the extra funds to surge within the channels of the American system would result in much greater economic growth. He concluded that the best days of the USEconomy were well ahead of us. He praised the merits of risk. Then came the bust. One must wonder if the 1000 people remember the idiotic preachings and drivel from the man that day in Vancouver. The Jackass sure does, one of only a handful who emitted laughter during the Gartmann ideological face plant in the snow. What is his latest correct forecast??
The same conference featured Doug Kasey, who went galactic in a mindless harangue. He spoke of the eventual cap on commodity prices from mining asteroids in the solar system. You see, they are rich in iron and other base metals. He ignored the cost of mining in the deep solar recesses, and how the high cost would impose a cost cap, but one perhaps 50 to 100 times the current commodity prices. After all, in order to exploit the vast asteroid metal supply, one must escape the earth's orbit, at a heavy cost, an overlooked factor. The conference management might have done well to give Doug a face to face check before he stepped up to the podium. Man oh man!! That was a memorable conference with two icons displaying their unwaxed cross-eyed viewpoints for all to see. One must give Kasey credit for many speeches that challenge the honesty and integrity of the USGovt and USMilitary enterprises.
Next take Pablo Van Eaton. The man sounds good, looks great, has a great speaker voice, and is a nice fellow. But he carries a distinction above all others. Van Eaton provides the most eloquent and well constructed arguments for consistently wrong forecasts, and has done so for several years. He had one good call a few years ago on mining stocks hitting a peak, but that call has been eclipsed by a long list in a row that seems not to end. It is like he was a champion on his school forensic team, burdened by arguing the merits of a plainly wrong position, but excelled. When gold was meandering in the low to middle 900 level for months earlier this year, he forecasted a move in the gold price down below 800, as the deflation threat would take its toll. However fallible, he is still invited to appear as a panelist on the dinner hour shows for the Canadian Business Channel. The major investment houses must love his steady disdain shown for the gold market. His subscribers are welcome to switch over to the Hat Trick Letter, where correct forecasts are not only important but are regularly given. Pablo attracts crowds at the conferences. Bless them one and all who hang on his every word, as they must have very short memories. What is his latest correct forecast??
A vivid memory is etched in the Jackass mind from the Calgary conference in 2004, offered also by the Cambridge House. Van Eaton shared generously a taxicab with the Jackass to the airport. The conference had ended. During the taxi ride, Van Eaton expounded on why the USDollar would suffer a serious decline from May to the end of the 2004 year, since Asian sovereign funds would diversify away from the USDollar. In direct rebuttal, the Jackass explained in simple terms that the US Federal Reserve had begun to raise the official interest rate, and would continue for several more meetings. The Jackass rebuttal argument was that we live in a bond driven world, and as long as the official US interest rate was rising, the USDollar would continue to rise in a surprisingly counter-trend rally from basic bond speculation. The point was made quietly, tactfully, professionally, since Pablo was paying for the taxi. Furthermore, my extended argument was that the Asians would hold off on a major dumping of US$-based assets, and instead sell after a year or two had passed. Score one more correct call for the Jackass, and one more wrong forecast for Van Eaton, who shared the same fallacious argument before 1000 people at the same Calgary conference. IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS, THE USDOLLAR ENJOYED A POWERFUL UPWARD RALLY IN PURE COUNTER-TREND FASHION. It ended when the USFed halted the rate hikes, as forewarned. One must wonder where Pablo takes his cues, or who pays his clandestine paychecks. One must not become too enamored of that charming foreign accent, which delivers a flow a words like a melody. The Jackass does not care if a hillbilly accent is worn when the mental acumen comes through in brilliance. Take TBoone Pickens. His homey folksy Texan accent is charming, and sounds nowhere near as intelligent and alluring as Van Eaton. But Pickens is as consistently correct on forecasts as Van Eaton is wrong.
Another lame entry is Richard Burnedstein, the respected economist from Merrill Lynch. This week he said gold has no driving fundamentals that justify its rising price. Clearly Burnedstein loves the paper game, and surely maintains a high derived price on all things paper. His paycheck is also high, derived from a major paper merchant firm. One must excuse Richard since he at least comes forth with the Merrill Lynch name attached to his own, including all appearances. So his preachings are a much more genuine acknowledged compromise of mental processes. He is paid to represent his firm, whereas Gartmann could easily be receiving large funds from the back door, where his allegiance lies and influence of partners is more hidden. Never forget that Wall Street earns almost zero investment banker fees from gold or the mining firms. It is like dogs selling cat food; they don't do it! What mining firms do solicit in funds for stock issuance is largely conducted in Toronto and Vancouver. So the gold fundamentals are lacking in the man's compromised view. What is his latest correct forecast??
One must suppose that skyrocketing gold investment demand and rush to diversify out of a collapsing dollar do not qualify as fundamental. And the absence of metals exchange gold inventory also does not qualify as fundamental. And the Chinese pledge to lift their gold reserves 10-fold to 10 thousand metric tonnes in eight to ten years, that is not fundamental either. And the G-20 pledges to formally move toward an IMF basket of currencies, known as the Special Drawing Rights, and away from the USDollar, that is not fundamental either. And the Saudi announcement of a phase-out of sales for crude oil in US$ terms over the next few years, neither is that a fundamental. And the grossly insolvent banks in the Untied States, England, and Europe, which are simultaneously struggling, unable to extend loans, desperately suckling from government teats, that is not fundamental either. Burnedstein plainly fails to recognize that the entire world is grasping for something tangible within the global monetary system overrun by toxic paper, and that anchor reached for is gold.
The last two figures that complete the clown show are more closely tied to websites and their associated businesses. Bobo Moriarity is the owner and editor of a formerly prominent website. He shows a surplus of his own articles on his website, usually to extol the merits of some stock he owns. Many thrive and do very well. Not many other analyst articles appear. In Spanish, a bobo is an idiot, a dunce, by the way. Big Bobo, who is reportedly wonderful on field trips to visit mine properties, has called the $1190 gold high of last week a top. He did not use the word bubble, but he expects a notable correction and a long period to achieve new highs. The gold price has gone north instead, laying waste to his forecast, which was correct, but only for approximately one day. Maybe when the gold price reaches $1250 per ounce, he will retract his forecast. He has shown a disproportional disrespectful critical insulting tone to the lowly Jackass from an error committed. It is admitted. The pre-1964 dimes were silver coated but with copper core (not zinc), and besides, in earlier years the dimes were only 93% silver anyway (not 100%). Points taken! Beat me with a stick, but not a golden rod! The switch from majority silver to negligible silver in US coinage escapes Moriarity to this day. His criticism includes great departures from the reality of my correct forecasts and command of the English language, even sentence construction. He is way out of bounds! He finds no merit in the entire tungsten story, and urges proof put on the table. Proof comes but not soon, since murder is often an obstacle to arriving at such press conferences. Maybe when the gold price reaches $1300 or $1500 per ounce, he will understand the Global Paradigm Shift and why gold has risen in a powerful manner in the last two months. Maybe he is not aware that the Chinese are major buyers, and even control the price rise step by step. Surely he does. The most basic Head & Shoulders Reversal Pattern dictates a price target of 1300. The Christmas season is traditionally strong, another factor ignored by Bobo. So he thumbs his nose at seasonal strength and aint a chartist either. To the good Captain, let the gold battle cry be "1-2-3 GOLD" !!
Then we have Jon Needler, who must be the son of the website owners where he displays his anti-gold propaganda. To point out Needler's erroneous forecasts and perspectives would require a full article at least 15 pages in length. He seems the most likely to receive a secondary clandestine remuneration for his diligent work in denigrating the gold market. He comprehends precious little about gold or silver. His arguments are so full of holes that a high school economics student could easily challenge him. His forecasts are consistently not just wrong, but wrong in powerful directional thrusts. Yet his work continues to be posted, despite little or no value. Precisely zero rebuttal will be given, since his work is so extraordinarily devoid of substance or quality. In fact, Needler serves as a salesman for paper gold certificate who openly admits his preference for gold coins. What is his latest correct forecast??
Then consider Henry Orlandwini. His work is actually quite good. The one Hat Trick Letter subscriber is still hoping for return of the $28k absconded by him. Occasionally, like today, he said something that struck the Jackass as lacking deeper insight. He said, "I think currencies are devaluing more than gold is rising, and that is why I contend that overbought is a relative term. Gold is rising, but not as fast as the world currencies are falling." The initial reaction here was "wow, really dumb statement." This is a much bigger phenomenon than just currencies falling. We are in the midst of a systemic breakdown and major financial upheaval. We have a broken monetary system, a threatened global reserve currency, discredited central banks, insolvent major banking systems, and an important Paradigm Shift away from the USDollar as power shifts also to the East. Orlandwini is watching too much the branches, leaves, and ferns within the forest, and seems to be missing the bigger picture. When he attempts to forecast the gold price today and the US$ DX index today, identifying resistance and support levels, he might be missing the biggest story of the last few decades. It is the collapse of the US$-based global monetary system and the urgent effort to replace it and to salvage wealth accumulated. Furthermore, and more precisely, the gold price is pushed by not only a weakening USDollar and weakening major global currencies. They are simultaneously being destroyed, debauched, and debased, not just weakened. The additional force that Orlandwini overlooks is that the gold price is attempting to free itself from the Wall Street and London City shackles. The gold price (silver too) is attempting to find its correct price, even besides the continued weakening of currencies.
Lastly, consider US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. He was clearly chosen by the syndicate to continue the Banker Welfare programs, to run the USDollar printing press until it seizes up, and to preach about how deflation will not happen here. He has not uttered one correct forecast in his entire tenure. He missed every single major banking turn of events, every single breakdown, misjudged the size of bank losses every step of the way, and has missed the economic relapse. The battle for the Bernanke re-appointment will reveal the titanic struggle for wresting control of the USDollar, the US banking system, and the disclosure of deeply engrained corruption. If truth be known, the center of the financial syndicate is the USFed, with operations headquartered in Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. Payoffs from TARP Funds were diverse. Extortion was probably involved amidst reported death threats to Paulson and other Heads of Banking State. Orders were given to use TARP Funds but do not lend. Guidance was given for acquisitions of ailing banks, not loans. The USFed is the center nexus that processes narco syndicate funds. If truth be known, so is Dubai, by way of Baghdad.
Copyright © 2009 Jim Willie, CB
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/willie/2009/1202.html
by Jim Willie, CB. Editor, Hat Trick Letter
The gold market has become, despite little recognition by the financial press, the battlefield for global control of the financial world. To the winner go the spoils and access to the helm. To the winner goes control of global banking, dominance in commerce, and the advantage in some degree of printing money on a credit card that all nations must finance indirectly. Nevermind the military aspect. In the Untied States, the custodial control of the USDollar as global reserve currency enabled it to spawn numerous syndicates with criminal impunity, since under the USGovt aegis (if not management). The gold market is the site of the most ominous dangerous life changing battle in recent history. My work has frequently mentioned a Paradigm Shift in progress. The shift is of power, influence, dominance, control, privilege, and direction. It also permits the writing of history itself. Since the end of World War II, the Untied States and Great Britain created an empire based primarily upon economic and financial prowess, but certainly reinforced by military strength. With the fall of Wall Street, the ruin of US banks, the insolvency of American households, and the quagmire of US foreign wars, the shift has accelerated. The parallel debacles and ruin into insolvent for Great Britain has ushered in an Anglo removal from the power circuit. The transition will not be smooth. See the endless wars, the attacks on tax havens, and the viruses.
Notice the slow fade of the Japanese, a nation having served as US Lackeys for more than a few decades. They must next join forces with the Chinese, and perhaps bow but not too much since they bring tremendous technological prowess to the table. Thousand year old enmity must yield to cooperative alliance and ventures. Regional unity will become of paramount importance in the next chapter of economic development. The Tokyo mavens are suffering from the shock of the Yen Carry Trade unwinding process. Weeks ago, my articles pointed out how the rise in the Japanese Yen would keep the pressure firmly on their economy, clearly still export driven. The USDollar crisis has its own core troubles. But they are amplified by a stronger yen currency, which is undergoing a handoff to the Dollar Carry Trade. The Yen currency continues to push higher, causing the Japanese Govt to assemble and hammer out emergency policy. Never in history has a carry trade fed off and exploited a decline in the global reserve currency. These are historic times.
GOLD AS CRUX FOR BATTLE
The shift in power is most evident in the rapid rise in accumulated gold by the Chinese Govt. In my view this is the actual crux of the global desafio. In the Spanish language, desafio means a great struggle and battle, much akin to jihad in the Arabic language, but without the warlike military connotation or tendency toward glorified suicide. My first exposure was the Discovery Channel. A show focused upon the Alaskan Desafio as some brave group weathered the wintry storms, traveled with sled dogs, and struggled to eat and sleep. This gold desafio is for global control. Those who control the gold control the global banking with all its trappings. The corrupted COMEX and London Bullion Market Assn are the clear battlegrounds for the gold battle. In an open manner, no longer hidden from view, the COMEX is settling gold long futures contracts with Street Tracks GLD shares. Investors in GLD shares should be horrified at shareholder contamination. Clearly, the COMEX does not have much of any gold bullion, yet it operates formally as an exchange to sell gold, and to create a market for gold price discovery. Some call this new redemption developed appropriately a silent COMEX default, and correctly so. It is the early chapter of a COMEX default, presaged last May.
The two-sided fraud deserves mention once more. In time, the Street Tracks GLD (run by State Street, with JPMorgan as custodian) will be exposed as totally corrupt. They are using GLD shares openly now to cover COMEX short futures contracts. They are likely providing GLD bullion to London to satisfy futures contract delivery demands. Evidence painted a picture after London gold delivery stresses occurred at the same time as vast deletions from the GLD bar list, which suddenly reappeared days later. That is burning the candle at both ends of the GLD itself. Eventually my expectation is for GLD shares to sell at a 40% discount to gold price as the lack of gold inventory is revealed. Then later, after lawsuits, the GLD might easily sell at 80% discount. Finally the climax could be prosecution for fraud and all investors will be given 20 cents per dollar versus gold. Who knows? Maybe it will be 30% and 60% and 40 cents per dollar. The trouble for hapless unsuspecting investors is they did not read the prospectus, which permits such misuse of GLD shares. They just might be lazy and qualified sheeple. The Wall Street crowd did effective planning. One must give a tip of the hat to their brain trust. The GLD is a tool to drain gold demand from the public and to supply it to the syndicate. It is one of the most brilliant open ploys in financial history.
THE ANTICIPATED DUBAI CRUSH
On October 8th, the Jackass gave you a "TOLD YA SO" on the announced previewed end of the Petro-Dollar. The Saudis, with Chinese and Russians on their left and right arms, heralded the end of the sale of crude oil in US$ terms, with French and Japanese in tow. The Germans secretly were in charge of counseling toward the forged deal, but preferred the shadows. The new crude oil transaction settlement system will take time, but surely not to require eight years until 2018 as announced. That stated target date was intended to deflect and distract from US retaliation. The mere announcement should be regarded as a schematic diagram for architects and investors alike to follow. New systems must be constructed. Investors ahead of the curve will be the primary beneficiaries. The changes that result from the announcement itself will assure the completion date to be just 2 or 3 years, not 8 years.
In just two short months, it is time to say "TOLD YA SO" again, this time on the story that came out of the United Arab Emirates. Or should they be also called the Untied Arab Emirates, after their squabbles between city states? The Dubai World debt default and restructure has caused shock waves the world over. IT WAS FORECASTED IN AUGUST BY THE HAT TRICK LETTER. The vast construction bust has caused anticipated ripples. The threat to London banks is acute. Time will tell whether its ripples will cause sufficient damage to London and New York bankers to topple them and to force lost control in other banking functions like gold management, as my forecast indicated. It seems that worsened big London bank solvency from underwritten Dubai losses, rather than Arab USTreasury Bond dumping, will be the principal cause of any imminent breakdown, if it occurs. See the article entitled "US Bank Enemies at the Gates" from late August (CLICK HERE).
For the record, here is what was written over three months ago by the Jackass pen. "The regional construction boom in the Arab world has an epicenter in Dubai. Unfortunately, it has gone bust, and loudly so. If not for the prompt aid by Abu Dhabi bankers, a vast liquidation of Dubai would have embarrassed them in front of the world. Instead, a new threat comes. The Abu Dhabi rescue next must contend with an indigestion problem, as USTreasurys and likely other US$-based bonds are flooding their banking system. They might own a considerable batch of US bank stocks, soon to be dumped. Ambition led to a whiff of hubris, as fantastic architectural design led to large scope, seen in the skyscrapers and bridges. Not shown are the spectacular communities designed as trees with branches and leaf petals, many empty, busted, and without investment income. But they overdid it, and now must deal with corporate failures and liquidation challenges. The Persian Gulf bank failures represent the clear and present threat. The outsized projects have yielded to outsized rescues and next outsized indigestion to handle the funds in ways so as to avoid a string of national bank failures. Vast liquidations come, word comes from contacts.
A bank panic in the Persian Gulf could ensue very soon, a back door threat. It would clearly have origins in the United Arab Emirates, spread to the entire Persian Gulf like to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and elsewhere. From this global toehold, the bank panic could then spread to London, New York, and points in Europe. The UAE bankers must manage their situation. They are loaded to the gills with USTreasurys, the main currency used in the liquidations and rescues local to the UAE. They also have pet stock accounts in big US banks. As further liquidations occur, avoidance of bank failures seems a remote prospect. Watch the enemies at the gates, outside looking in, in urgent need of dumping USTreasury Bonds and other US$-denominated securities."
Much can be told about hidden developments, like family squabbles between the UAE emirate rulers, bitterness over shame brought to the region, anger from unheeded counsel, sudden departures of people in key posts, and a desire to punish (even exploit) the decline in fortunes. The biggest question in my book is how much Abu Dhabi bankers wish to permit London bankers to absorb losses, before Abu Dhabi cleans up and grabs liquidated properties in Dubai at deeply distressed prices? Negotiations are underway, heated, and of vital importance in London between all the bankers involved. What can London offer Abu Dhabi? That is the question. The Arab world takes a dim view of debt to begin with. They abhor home and property mortgages generally, and thus never invest in mortgage bonds. To prove the point, hundreds of Dubai Prisoners languish in their hotels and apartments. They are British, American, and European engineers, financial cogs, analysts, and other workers whose employers from the parent Western firms defaulted on very large loans. These people will remain prisoners, and will likely become pawns in the game during negotiations. Conditions grew so desperate that hundreds of cars lie abandoned at airports, from workers who fled the region before trapped in homes.
Expert analysts warn of continued shock waves, as almost nothing has been resolved, very little asset or corporate liquidation has occurred, fallout has not yet been permitted, bank losses have not been declared, and resolution prices have not been posted. The internal battle between UAE city states, one rich in oil and a banking center, the other recovering from a construction bust amidst great hubris and displayed magnificent follies, will play itself out in the coming several months or years. The internal families are locked in a power struggle. In Dubai, 30% of their economy is derived from real estate, construction, and other property development. They have some truly braindead concepts and ideas at work, like indoor snow skiing, like cooled beaches with underground pipes, and golf courses that require much output from the desalinization plants to water the green landscape against sandy backgrounds. These are like plebeian versions of marble palaces in the desert. To be sure, a great awakening comes as a load of debt is dumped on the big bankers, just when they might have thought the worst was over.
One friend calls the Dubai construction array the greatest property folly in a century. Maybe so! Next come shock waves to London banks. The follies must be liquidated, with great losses dumped upon balance sheets. The banks must take much more lumps and losses. The original $10 billion in debt loss is more like $80 billion. Details on the story appear in the upcoming December Hat Trick Letter reports, which are streaming in on a daily basis. European banks have some exposure too, but not as much as London. The Abu Dhabi rulers must complete bargains with London bankers, who have conspired to suppress the gold price for two decades. The UAE leaders hold a huge amount of gold, and have demanded its return from London custodial accounts. Resentment seethes beneath the surface, the basis for Arab vengeance. The fallout will be wreckage of Royal Bank of Scotland, and maybe HSBC too.
In the process, watch power shift to Abu Dhabi as concessions are made by London under extreme pressures. Parts of Dubai are ghost towns, almost totally unoccupied vast projects. The biggest question in my book is whether RBS can go bust and be liquidated while still operating under the British Govt aegis? Lloyds will take large blows as well. The shock waves have not yet fully reverberated. They will continue for months. The Dubai property prices have not yet bottomed, and might settle at 20 cents per dollar on original basis. The legion of Western wonks in the financial sector stupidly expected Abu Dhabi to rescue all Dubai loans, without benefit of much knowledge of resentment, family conflicts, banker ambitions, and ramifications that extend to the new Gulf Dinar currency that shifted planning rooms (Saudi to Russian). My August article implied the Dubai bust would result since Abu Dhabi would not step in and bail out their UAE brethren. The inner conflicts and agendas were well known all along here.
The next shoe for the condemned Caucasian crowd is mortgage losses from Eastern Europe. For several years, the Swiss provided the funds as a result of their 1.5% steady official rate. At the time, it was 3% below the rest of the continent. The combination of home loan default, and sharply lower Eastern Europe currency basis has resulted in near total losses to Swiss banks on such mortgage portfolios. Also, watch Greece, which could be the next Dubai crush zone. It is a construction bust center also, like Spain. The socialist roots in Southern Europe have enabled a denial of property price declines from Spain to Italy to Greece. Instead of vast arrays of homes being sold at distressed lower prices, they sit in inventory at elevated absurd high prices. The bust impact comes soon, as these assets cannot be carried much longer on the books.
GO GOLD GO GOLD
This is just the beginning. We are still in the proverbial second inning of this gold explosion. Gold continues to rise because the system is breaking, because almost zero remedy has been completed, because pressures are brought to bear using the same broken tools to fix the problems, because mountains of new money are wasted and paid to failed bankers, because the crisis is ongoing, because the economies are not responding to stimulus, because home foreclosures and job losses continue unabated. Much more government rescue and stimulus comes, MUCH MORE. The Chinese are firmly in control of the gold price. They inch up the gold price systematically in order to release more supply from both the cash desperate and the investment knuckleheads. A big story has hit the press, that HSBC is backing out of the gold storage business. My gut tells me that HSBC might be clearing major bank vault space to hold Chinese deliveries from metals exchanges. The gold price does not merely rise from a weakening USDollar and major currencies. Nations intentionally try to undercut themselves in order to preserve their export economies. The gold price also rises from the gradual removal of shackles that have falsely suppressed the price, as supply has dwindled, replaced by paper gold, and probably tungsten gold too. In the last couple weeks, extraordinary scrutiny has come to the gold delivery system. The process reveals an unspeakable global shortage of gold bullion. The gold price is attempting to adjust to a proper higher price free from interference, based upon supply matching demand. The gold price will rise further from continued debasement of the major currencies. Even now, with the COMEX and LBMA in London, the gold market cannot clear at the current price. There is an extreme shortage of gold bullion in physical supply, due to years of price intervention and replacement by paper gold. Apart from weak or destroyed currencies, the gold price must be higher from basic intervention relief.
Some argue that gold must rise to match the supply of newly created money, bound in the fiat currencies with pretty designs and colored ink, even watermarks. Gold should rise in parallel with money creation, but not in lockstep. A currency can always be fixed according to a cover clause that dictates 1% of money can be redeemed in gold. Later, a move to 1.5% in the gold cover clause would fortify one currency in much the same way that official national interest rates lift currencies upon changed policy. Personally my wish is for the gold price to continue its powerful bull run without the Euro currency breakout toward 160. That would expose all the currencies together as horribly weak if not invalid. If the Euro rushes toward 160, the gold market in Europe must then adapt to an interruption in the bull roaming on the continent. Stand back! The explosive upward thrust in the gold price is still a threat, much like Mount St Helens. The Powerz have begun to lose control of the gold market.
No search for safe haven in the USDollar took place after the Dubai world shock. Rather it was a retreat from the British Pound and Euro currencies, which bore the risk of loans underwritten. In one short week, the effect has dissipated, as the USDollar is weaker than BEFORE the Dubai incident broke to make news. All currencies are weak relative to the stable powerful reliable gold. The USDollar is showing a steady relentless weakness, unable to snap into any recovery. It is my view that ruining the federal finances is what Obama was hired to do by the syndicate. The high risk of USMilitary coup in the future remains acute in order to avert a USTreasury default, or perhaps coincident with a default. Obama's specific job is to run up deficits and ruin the dollar, which paves the way for the coup. The Cap & Trade game is just another fraud revealed, with credit given to the intrepid internet websites that gave up the ghost. The upcoming coup has a definite purpose, to remove foreign creditors from any receivership tribunal. The Untied States can become a sequestered state, free from foreign interference. Yet isolation would be the fate won.
ENTER THE CLOWNS
Don't bother to pardon the misspelled names, done to disguise the identities of clowns within our midst. The Jackass is fully capable of errors, usually admitted quickly. My biggest arena for errors has been long-term USTreasury Bond yields, due to interventions, interference, and monetizations. Other errors have been made, hoped to be minor in nature. An extraordinary amount of information must be digested, absorbed, and integrated into any editorial analytic work that covers a complex and treacherous financial world. Errors come since we are human. But what follows is not ordinary, and speaks to an arena tilted toward deception delivered with motive. My work has an objective to analyze correctly, to highlight connected factors, to explain complexities, to forewarn with lead time, and to make forecasts. The string of solid forecasts is my carrying card. Other foibles are carried. My body is adorned by moles, one just like my mother's. More than a few wild long hairs grow from my eyebrows, making some wonder if General Elmo Zumwalt was a distant uncle. My eyes are uneven, one lower, but no glasses are needed to correct vision. My head is balding, but hats keep it warm. My right foot is pigeon toed, that results in a hook in the soccer kick. The left kick is more adept. But my work is factual, helped along by wonderful reliable sources and numerous newshound friends. Minor errors are committed along the way. One should care not about a minor typo within articles offered in the public domain, despite my usual final proofread pass. What follows is a list of elements inside the gold community, often doing a notable disservice.
Why are the US financial airwaves polluted by Denis Gartmann and his consistently incorrect and shallow preachings? His fund is down, not down hard, as he maintains his negative opinion of the gold asset story. He hedged a gold position with an offsetting currency position, resulting in a total waste of investment funds. Gold just happens to be the biggest story and one of the best performing assets in the last half decade. One might conclude such strong performance is worthy of disdain, disrespect, and disrepute. NOT! A contact of mine is considering a new Anti-Gartmann Fund, with a double leverage component that takes the opposite position of the Gartmann fool. Given his steadily shallow analysis and lack of comprehension of the gold market, one might conclude that Gartmann has a secondary income source from Wall Street firms. He might indeed be paid to denigrate the Gold Bull market, despite the tarnish to his reputation. An aside on Gartmann, who used to speak as the Cambridge House gold conferences alongside the Jackass. He appeared in 2005, much to my surprise, since he is so incredibly lacking in insight. From the podium, in front of over 1000 people, he delivered probably the stupidest speech ever to penetrate my ears. Gartmann actually claimed, one year before the housing bust struck, that the USEconomy was still grossly under-leveraged. He actually made numerous points about how the assets within the Untied States still had countless additional collateral from which to draw credit. He actually spoke of numerous new avenues to extend credit, and how the extra funds to surge within the channels of the American system would result in much greater economic growth. He concluded that the best days of the USEconomy were well ahead of us. He praised the merits of risk. Then came the bust. One must wonder if the 1000 people remember the idiotic preachings and drivel from the man that day in Vancouver. The Jackass sure does, one of only a handful who emitted laughter during the Gartmann ideological face plant in the snow. What is his latest correct forecast??
The same conference featured Doug Kasey, who went galactic in a mindless harangue. He spoke of the eventual cap on commodity prices from mining asteroids in the solar system. You see, they are rich in iron and other base metals. He ignored the cost of mining in the deep solar recesses, and how the high cost would impose a cost cap, but one perhaps 50 to 100 times the current commodity prices. After all, in order to exploit the vast asteroid metal supply, one must escape the earth's orbit, at a heavy cost, an overlooked factor. The conference management might have done well to give Doug a face to face check before he stepped up to the podium. Man oh man!! That was a memorable conference with two icons displaying their unwaxed cross-eyed viewpoints for all to see. One must give Kasey credit for many speeches that challenge the honesty and integrity of the USGovt and USMilitary enterprises.
Next take Pablo Van Eaton. The man sounds good, looks great, has a great speaker voice, and is a nice fellow. But he carries a distinction above all others. Van Eaton provides the most eloquent and well constructed arguments for consistently wrong forecasts, and has done so for several years. He had one good call a few years ago on mining stocks hitting a peak, but that call has been eclipsed by a long list in a row that seems not to end. It is like he was a champion on his school forensic team, burdened by arguing the merits of a plainly wrong position, but excelled. When gold was meandering in the low to middle 900 level for months earlier this year, he forecasted a move in the gold price down below 800, as the deflation threat would take its toll. However fallible, he is still invited to appear as a panelist on the dinner hour shows for the Canadian Business Channel. The major investment houses must love his steady disdain shown for the gold market. His subscribers are welcome to switch over to the Hat Trick Letter, where correct forecasts are not only important but are regularly given. Pablo attracts crowds at the conferences. Bless them one and all who hang on his every word, as they must have very short memories. What is his latest correct forecast??
A vivid memory is etched in the Jackass mind from the Calgary conference in 2004, offered also by the Cambridge House. Van Eaton shared generously a taxicab with the Jackass to the airport. The conference had ended. During the taxi ride, Van Eaton expounded on why the USDollar would suffer a serious decline from May to the end of the 2004 year, since Asian sovereign funds would diversify away from the USDollar. In direct rebuttal, the Jackass explained in simple terms that the US Federal Reserve had begun to raise the official interest rate, and would continue for several more meetings. The Jackass rebuttal argument was that we live in a bond driven world, and as long as the official US interest rate was rising, the USDollar would continue to rise in a surprisingly counter-trend rally from basic bond speculation. The point was made quietly, tactfully, professionally, since Pablo was paying for the taxi. Furthermore, my extended argument was that the Asians would hold off on a major dumping of US$-based assets, and instead sell after a year or two had passed. Score one more correct call for the Jackass, and one more wrong forecast for Van Eaton, who shared the same fallacious argument before 1000 people at the same Calgary conference. IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS, THE USDOLLAR ENJOYED A POWERFUL UPWARD RALLY IN PURE COUNTER-TREND FASHION. It ended when the USFed halted the rate hikes, as forewarned. One must wonder where Pablo takes his cues, or who pays his clandestine paychecks. One must not become too enamored of that charming foreign accent, which delivers a flow a words like a melody. The Jackass does not care if a hillbilly accent is worn when the mental acumen comes through in brilliance. Take TBoone Pickens. His homey folksy Texan accent is charming, and sounds nowhere near as intelligent and alluring as Van Eaton. But Pickens is as consistently correct on forecasts as Van Eaton is wrong.
Another lame entry is Richard Burnedstein, the respected economist from Merrill Lynch. This week he said gold has no driving fundamentals that justify its rising price. Clearly Burnedstein loves the paper game, and surely maintains a high derived price on all things paper. His paycheck is also high, derived from a major paper merchant firm. One must excuse Richard since he at least comes forth with the Merrill Lynch name attached to his own, including all appearances. So his preachings are a much more genuine acknowledged compromise of mental processes. He is paid to represent his firm, whereas Gartmann could easily be receiving large funds from the back door, where his allegiance lies and influence of partners is more hidden. Never forget that Wall Street earns almost zero investment banker fees from gold or the mining firms. It is like dogs selling cat food; they don't do it! What mining firms do solicit in funds for stock issuance is largely conducted in Toronto and Vancouver. So the gold fundamentals are lacking in the man's compromised view. What is his latest correct forecast??
One must suppose that skyrocketing gold investment demand and rush to diversify out of a collapsing dollar do not qualify as fundamental. And the absence of metals exchange gold inventory also does not qualify as fundamental. And the Chinese pledge to lift their gold reserves 10-fold to 10 thousand metric tonnes in eight to ten years, that is not fundamental either. And the G-20 pledges to formally move toward an IMF basket of currencies, known as the Special Drawing Rights, and away from the USDollar, that is not fundamental either. And the Saudi announcement of a phase-out of sales for crude oil in US$ terms over the next few years, neither is that a fundamental. And the grossly insolvent banks in the Untied States, England, and Europe, which are simultaneously struggling, unable to extend loans, desperately suckling from government teats, that is not fundamental either. Burnedstein plainly fails to recognize that the entire world is grasping for something tangible within the global monetary system overrun by toxic paper, and that anchor reached for is gold.
The last two figures that complete the clown show are more closely tied to websites and their associated businesses. Bobo Moriarity is the owner and editor of a formerly prominent website. He shows a surplus of his own articles on his website, usually to extol the merits of some stock he owns. Many thrive and do very well. Not many other analyst articles appear. In Spanish, a bobo is an idiot, a dunce, by the way. Big Bobo, who is reportedly wonderful on field trips to visit mine properties, has called the $1190 gold high of last week a top. He did not use the word bubble, but he expects a notable correction and a long period to achieve new highs. The gold price has gone north instead, laying waste to his forecast, which was correct, but only for approximately one day. Maybe when the gold price reaches $1250 per ounce, he will retract his forecast. He has shown a disproportional disrespectful critical insulting tone to the lowly Jackass from an error committed. It is admitted. The pre-1964 dimes were silver coated but with copper core (not zinc), and besides, in earlier years the dimes were only 93% silver anyway (not 100%). Points taken! Beat me with a stick, but not a golden rod! The switch from majority silver to negligible silver in US coinage escapes Moriarity to this day. His criticism includes great departures from the reality of my correct forecasts and command of the English language, even sentence construction. He is way out of bounds! He finds no merit in the entire tungsten story, and urges proof put on the table. Proof comes but not soon, since murder is often an obstacle to arriving at such press conferences. Maybe when the gold price reaches $1300 or $1500 per ounce, he will understand the Global Paradigm Shift and why gold has risen in a powerful manner in the last two months. Maybe he is not aware that the Chinese are major buyers, and even control the price rise step by step. Surely he does. The most basic Head & Shoulders Reversal Pattern dictates a price target of 1300. The Christmas season is traditionally strong, another factor ignored by Bobo. So he thumbs his nose at seasonal strength and aint a chartist either. To the good Captain, let the gold battle cry be "1-2-3 GOLD" !!
Then we have Jon Needler, who must be the son of the website owners where he displays his anti-gold propaganda. To point out Needler's erroneous forecasts and perspectives would require a full article at least 15 pages in length. He seems the most likely to receive a secondary clandestine remuneration for his diligent work in denigrating the gold market. He comprehends precious little about gold or silver. His arguments are so full of holes that a high school economics student could easily challenge him. His forecasts are consistently not just wrong, but wrong in powerful directional thrusts. Yet his work continues to be posted, despite little or no value. Precisely zero rebuttal will be given, since his work is so extraordinarily devoid of substance or quality. In fact, Needler serves as a salesman for paper gold certificate who openly admits his preference for gold coins. What is his latest correct forecast??
Then consider Henry Orlandwini. His work is actually quite good. The one Hat Trick Letter subscriber is still hoping for return of the $28k absconded by him. Occasionally, like today, he said something that struck the Jackass as lacking deeper insight. He said, "I think currencies are devaluing more than gold is rising, and that is why I contend that overbought is a relative term. Gold is rising, but not as fast as the world currencies are falling." The initial reaction here was "wow, really dumb statement." This is a much bigger phenomenon than just currencies falling. We are in the midst of a systemic breakdown and major financial upheaval. We have a broken monetary system, a threatened global reserve currency, discredited central banks, insolvent major banking systems, and an important Paradigm Shift away from the USDollar as power shifts also to the East. Orlandwini is watching too much the branches, leaves, and ferns within the forest, and seems to be missing the bigger picture. When he attempts to forecast the gold price today and the US$ DX index today, identifying resistance and support levels, he might be missing the biggest story of the last few decades. It is the collapse of the US$-based global monetary system and the urgent effort to replace it and to salvage wealth accumulated. Furthermore, and more precisely, the gold price is pushed by not only a weakening USDollar and weakening major global currencies. They are simultaneously being destroyed, debauched, and debased, not just weakened. The additional force that Orlandwini overlooks is that the gold price is attempting to free itself from the Wall Street and London City shackles. The gold price (silver too) is attempting to find its correct price, even besides the continued weakening of currencies.
Lastly, consider US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. He was clearly chosen by the syndicate to continue the Banker Welfare programs, to run the USDollar printing press until it seizes up, and to preach about how deflation will not happen here. He has not uttered one correct forecast in his entire tenure. He missed every single major banking turn of events, every single breakdown, misjudged the size of bank losses every step of the way, and has missed the economic relapse. The battle for the Bernanke re-appointment will reveal the titanic struggle for wresting control of the USDollar, the US banking system, and the disclosure of deeply engrained corruption. If truth be known, the center of the financial syndicate is the USFed, with operations headquartered in Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. Payoffs from TARP Funds were diverse. Extortion was probably involved amidst reported death threats to Paulson and other Heads of Banking State. Orders were given to use TARP Funds but do not lend. Guidance was given for acquisitions of ailing banks, not loans. The USFed is the center nexus that processes narco syndicate funds. If truth be known, so is Dubai, by way of Baghdad.
Copyright © 2009 Jim Willie, CB
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/willie/2009/1202.html
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