Peter Schiff on the Surge in Gold; Jesse Weighs in on Inflation and Deflation

Peter Schiff has not always been correct, most notably on the decoupling theory of foreign markets with the US, and the desirability of their equity markets, at least so far.

It is the case, of course, that the US lagged emergence from the Great Depression as compared to a number of overseas economies, for a variety of reasons on which we have speculated in the past.

Will this happen again? Perhaps, we cannot know. But the US is 'ground zero' for the Wall Street debt fraud and bubble economy based on the dollar reserves, and seems utterly incapable of taking action except to print more money and give it to Wall Street.

The decline in the value of the dollar does seem like a very high probability, as well as the rather severe stagflation which this may eventually produce. On this point Mr. Schiff seems most insightful, especially compared to the commentators on financial television.

The discussion which Peter has towards the end is particularly interesting about inflation and deflation. We tend to diverge again a bit from his analysis there however. He references monetary inflation. But this is not the only cause of price change.

There are definite and easily observable deflationary forces at work in the economy today in the form of slack demand, unemployment, and net credit contraction. This is putting severe downward pressure on prices as one would expect.

This will become worse as people realize that our current 'recovery' is a public relations event, and it may even result in a 'credit crunch' once again as it did last year. This is the 'dollar short' phenomenon that we have described, which particularly impacted European banks holding dollar assets.

At the same time, Bernanke has the printing presses running from the Adjusted Monetary Base up, and is pushing on the monetary inflation button, monetizing bad debts of non-traditional sorts, and weakening the dollar.

Foreign holders of US debt are starting to make their first moves in this game of prisoner's dilemma. At some point if confidence breaks, things might start moving much more quickly. Until then it will be a slow grind, an erosion of value and wealth.

The general American public is, in a sense, caught in the middle, with a lack of jobs and income for the working classes, but higher prices in imports and essentials. This is the stagflation outcome which we had feared. One bright spot is that it might be good for exports, if the Asian countries can generate domestic consumption and decide to free up access to their markets.

See Price Demand and Money Supply As They Relate to Inflation and Deflation You might also take a look at Some Common Fallacies About Inflation and Deflation.

Inflation and Deflation are not linear, that is, not straightforward and simple economic functions with a few variables, except at the tails of probability where the power of the extreme crushes the equation into simplicity by overwhelming other factors into insignificance. You print enough dollars, and consumer demand matters much less as an input to inflation.

Approaching the future with one dimensional game plans can be quite risky. But for some reason gold, and to a less extent silver, always appear to work to some degree in the solution mix, hence their continuing rally despite the best efforts of the powers that be to talk them down. As Bernard Baruch famously observed, "Gold has 'worked' down from Alexander's time... When something holds good for two thousand years I do not believe it can be so because of prejudice or mistaken theory."

The lack of coherent financial reform from the Obama Administration, and their ludicrous proposal to create a 'super-regulator' in the privately owned Federal Reserve, after a landslide victory in an election based on change and reform, is an outcome almost too bizarre to be believable. Unless, that is, you accept that Obama and those around him are either incredibly naive or corrupt. We suspect that as in all things it is some of both.

By the way, in case you missed it, Charlie Rangel, in charge of Ways and Means and the major proponent of a new military draft, is being investigated as another tax cheat among the Democratic leadership.

Do these people take us for imbeciles? Do they think that the world does not see their corruption, their greedy, devious nature when it is not masked by a captive media, and is not repelled by it?

In 2005 we forecast this very outcome, that Wall Street and their cronies would push their schemes beyond all reason, like drunk drivers or addicts who cannot quit, until they create a cathartic, catastrophic event which will cause someone to finally take away their keys at the last.

That time is approaching. No one can predict exactly when, but it is there. Make sure you are wearing your seat belts.

"There is precious treasure and oil in the house of the wise, but a fool consumes all that he has and saves none." Proverbs 21:20

(hat tip to Denver Dave for the link)

A Final Word on Inflation and Deflation

A serious bout of inflation is rarely caused by normal business activity, such as commercial bank lending and private debt.

In almost every case that I have studied, a very serious monetary inflation is triggered by excessive government debt obligations, and not private debt, that can no longer be adequately serviced by a productive real economy and domestic taxation.

That unserviceable debt becomes 'monetized' and a serious inflation results. It is a form of debt default.

Devaluation of a currency is a form of inflation which specifically addresses external debt obligations, as well as default on bonds which is a form of selective national bankruptcy.

The reason that the output gap is no sure barrier to this type of inflation is that it ironically serves to feed it in the presence of profligate government spending, since it dampens tax revenues and domestic GDP.

Private debt bubbles, asset bubbles, stock bubbles all seem to be the symptoms, the side effects, of an over easy monetary policy from a central monetary authority. In some instances they have been caused by exogenous events, even in the face of a hard monetary standard, by events such as a precipitous decline of the population from disease, or a sudden influx of a new wealth from discovery, such as the influx of silver and gold to Spain from the New World.

But the notion that banks must always lend to create inflation, or employment must be at robust levels, absolutely flies in the face of all historical experience.

And it does raise the issue, despite his protestations of innocence, impotence, and confusion, that Fed chairman Greenspan and the Federal Reserve itself, owns a unique culpability in the creation of several bubbles, from tech to housing, and the eventual outcome.

A Postscript on the Question of Inflation and Deflation

First, thanks to the many readers who mailed in a link to the book by Adam Fergusson at the Mises Institute. It is a good read, and free is much more attractive a price than $1,000 which is the price for a hard copy in good condition on Amazon. I purchased my own copy some years ago at a bookstall in Brighton. The online version is available here.

As to the discussion on inflation and deflation, I feel the need to make it clear that that inflation / deflation is a "policy decision" in a fiat currency regime with nothing preordained. In other words, either outcome is possible within a wide range of gradation. Most outcomes in the real world follow a similar pattern, not black and white but many shades of gray.

But not all things are equally possible. "Life is a school of probability."

If the Fed came out tomorrow and raised short term rates to 22% we would see a stronger dollar and the beginnings of a monetary deflation.

This arbitrariness of a fiat currency is intellectually difficult for most people because their domestic money has a natural patina of 'confidence' and objective value to it.

It is an assumption, one of those shorthand beliefs that help us through day to day life without having to intellectualize and analyze every aspect of every decision. It comes from using that currency as a store of wealth and medium of exchange, almost every day of our life (presumably even an American can take a day off shopping occasionally) and assuming that it will hold its value in the short term.

So we tend to invent 'rules' for the creation of money that preclude 'arbitrariness' and help us maintain our assumption set against 'black swan' thinking. When an assumption begins to conflict with the underlying reality it can become a 'prejudice.'

It is this very arbitrariness that is the goal of the central bank and statists whose preference is aggressive financial engineering. The limitation on the Treasury/Fed in a fiat regime is ultimately the value of the dollar and the sovereign debt. While people accept it, they can print it. This is a soft limitation with much more latitude than a hard external standard.

Having added the important caveat of possibility, given that the US is an enormous net debtor, it would be suicidal for the monetary authority to choose deflation as the Japanese did for their own particular reasons. We may experience a brief period of deflation as did the US in the early 1930's in which the money supply actually contracts, but this is much less likely now because the Fed has no external standards with which to contend.

There is a technically possible, rather conspiratorial line of thought that suggests that the wealthy elite who control the central government would opt for deflation in order to enhance their personal cash assets, driving the rest of the US into a form of debt serfdom. The probable response from the public would be in the tradition of the storming of the Bastille or the Winter Palace.

Almost all money issuing entities will choose inflation if they have the option. Sometimes they lose control of the process, the confidence game, and fall into a more serious and pernicious inflation and even hyperinflation. But this is not 'the norm.'

Our own Fed is rather arrogant these days, fully confident they know how to stop inflation given the Volcker experience. This may cause them to fall into a serious policy error on the inflationary side. In many ways our fate is no longer in their hands, but in those of our creditors, such as the Chinese and the Saudis.

Paul Volcker gave the odds of inflation in the current crisis as 99% for, allowing only for a serious policy blunder against it.

I wanted to highlight the Weimar experience to debunk the 'output gap' and the 'bank lending' restraints on the inflationary outcome. Much of what we hear on the financial channels smacks of propaganda, the 'confidence game.'

Yes the Fed faces the headwinds of slack demand and a very low velocity of money, which the Austrians will assert doesn't DO anything, but is rather of the nature of a economic speedometer. Speedometers don't' DO anything either, but their output is certain to be of some interest to the driver and their passengers.

This is less of an issue than one might think, keeping in mind that monetary inflation is the creation of money supply in EXCESS OF DEMAND. As the velocity decreases, so does demand for money, similarly the expansion of credit. So any monetization of existing debt, or government obligations by the Fed, becomes more potent so to speak.

As for the need to create more debt, let us just say that the Fed and Treasury would have yeoman's work to monetize the debt obligations the US already has, which recent estimates put at north of 40 trillions. Even with inflation at their backs, the government will be pressing the default button, selectively but surely, in the coming years.

The most probable outcome is stagflation, perhaps quite serious IF the economy and financial system is not reformed. This could have the vestiges of a monetary deflation were we not a net importer and net debtor.

This is an important distinction between the US experience and that of Japan whose industrial policy is well known to be in the bureaucratic clutches of MITI and the various kereitsu.

Japan sought to stimulate the economy and avoid deflation while aggressively exporting the fruits of their domestic productivity and consumption to support their long standing industrial policy. One cannot have their natto and eat it too. These were conflicting objectives and resulted in a decades long stagnation. This was a policy blunder of the first order.

So, deflation is possible, but not probable. If people understand that, I will feel that I have done a good job in raising the level of understanding about monetary economics.

But isn't all this debate and too often name-calling amongst the bloggers a distraction from the real problem facing the average person, in the same sense as Paris Hilton, Survivor, big time wrestling, the McLaughlin Group and American Idol?

The banks must be restrained, and the economy brought back into balance, before there can be any sustained recovery.

Some Common Fallacies About Inflation and Deflation: the Weimar Nightmare in Review

There are several fallacies making the rounds of the economic community, often put forward by pundits on the infomercials for corporate America, and also on the internet among well-meaning but badly informed bloggers.

The first of these monetary fallacies is that 'the output gap will prevent inflation.' The second is that a lack of net bank lending or other 'debt destruction' will require a deflationary outcome. Let's deal with the output gap theory first.

Output gap is the economic measure of the difference between the actual output of an economy and the output it could achieve when it is most efficient, or at full capacity.

The theory is that when GDP underperforms its potential, with unemployment remaining high, there can be no inflation because demand is weak and median wages will be presumably stagnant. This idea comes from neoliberal monetarist economics, and a misunderstanding of the inflationary experience of the 1970s.

The thought is that sustained inflation is due to a 'wage-price' spiral. Higher wages amongst workers cause prices to rise, prompting workers to demand higher wages, thereby fueling inflation. If workers do not have the ability to demand higher wages there can be no inflation.

While this is in part true, it tends to confuse cause and effect.

The cause of a monetary inflation, which is a broadly based inflation across most products and services relatively independent of demand, is often based in a monetary expansion of the currency resulting in a debasement and devaluation.

A monetary expansion is relatively difficult to achieve under an external standard since it must be overt and often deliberative. A gradual inflation is an almost natural outcome under a fiat currency regime because policy-makers can almost never resist the temptation of cheap growth and the personal enrichment that comes with it.

There can be short term non-monetary inflation-deflation cycles that tend to be more product specific in a market that is not under government price controls. But this is not the same as a broad monetary inflation or deflation.

The key difference is the value of the dollar which has little or nothing to do with a business cycle or product demand/supply induced inflation/deflation.

In the modern era the Federal Reserve can increase the money supply independent of demand by the monetization of debt, with the only restrictions on their ability to increase supply being the value of the dollar and the acceptability of US sovereign debt. This requires the acquiescence of the Treasury and the cooperation of at least one major money center bank.

People tend to invent 'rules' about how the money supply is able to increase, and confuse financial wagers and credit with money. This is in part because the average mind rebels at the reality behind modern currency and the ease at which it can be created. Further, people often invent facts to support theories that they embrace in an a priori manner.

In a pure fiat currency regime, the swings between inflation and deflation are almost always the result of policy decisions, with the occasional exogenous shock. A government decides to inflate or strengthen their money supply relative to productivity as a policy decision regarding spending, central bank credit expansions, banking requirements and regulations, among other things.

As a prime example of a rapid inflation despite a severe economic slump, what one might call uber-stagflation, is the Weimar experience.

Since pictures are worth 1000 words, let me be brief by showing you a few important charts.

The basic ingredients of the Weimar experience are...

A high level of official debt issuance relative to economic growth

High unemployment with a slumping real GDP



Wage Stagnation



I should stop here and note that although the statistics at hand involve union workers, in fact unemployment was widespread in the Weimar economy. The saving grace of being in the union was that one was more often able to retain their jobs and some level of nominal wage increases.

Anyone who has read the history of the times knows that unemployment, underemployment and slack demand was rampant, and that hoarding was commonplace as people refused to trade real goods for a rapidly devaluing currency.

Rapidly Rising Prices Despite Slack Demand and High Unemployment



So much for the wage price spiral and the output gap.

A Booming Stock Market, at Least in Nominal Terms



Booming Price of Precious Metals as a Safe Haven Even While Basic Material Prices Slumped

Notice the plunge in the price of copper as the economy collapsed and gold and silver soared.

If one can obtain a copy, as it is out of print, one of the best descriptions of the German inflation experience is When Money Dies: the Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse by Adam Fergusson. There is a copy of the book available online for free here.

From my own readings in this area, the people who tended to survive the Weimar stagflation the best were those who:
1. Owned independent supplies of essentials including food and shelter and were reasonably self-sufficient.
2. Had savings in foreign currencies that were backed by gold such as the US dollar and the Swiss Franc
3. Possessed precious metals
4. Belonged to a trade union and/or had essential skills or government position which guaranteed a wage
5. Were invested in foreign equity markets, and even in the domestic German stock market for a time

People will argue now that the Fed understands that inflation is caused by perceptions, and that by managing those perceptions inflation can be avoided because even those prices are rising and the currency is being devalued, if they ignore it the inflation cannot reach harmful levels.

This is what I call the "psychosis school" of behavioral economics.

Granted, perception is important, and managing perception may delay outcomes for a period of time. But unless the underlying cause of the problem is remedied during what is at best is an extended interlude, the resulting break in perception will ignite a firestorm of cognitive dissonance, loss of confidence, and social unrest.

In summary, in a purely fiat currency regime a sustained monetary inflation or deflation is an outcome of policy decisions regarding fiscal policy, monetary policy, and economic balance and output.

As long as the government is able to generate debt, deflation is a highly unlikely outcome. And when the government reaches the practical limits of debt creation, the underpinnings of the currency give way and the economy tends to collapse in a stagflationary slump.

There are no predetermined outcomes in a fiat monetary regime. Deflation, stagflation and hyperinflation are not 'normal' but are certainly possible if the central authority is permitted to abuse the real economy and the money supply for protracted periods of time.

What about Japan? Japan is the perfect example of a policy decision made by a fiat currency regime in what was decidedly NOT a free market, but under the de facto control of a highly entrenched bureaucracy, a single political party, and large corporate giants in pursuit of an industrial policy that favored exports and domestic deflation.

The difference between the Japan of the 1980s and the US of today could not be more stark. Choosing a deflationary policy and high interest rates as a debtor nation is economic and political suicide. It would be interesting to see what happens if the US elites try to take that path.

We will know if there is a true monetary deflation in the US because the value of the dollar will start increasing dramatically with regard to other hard assets, other currencies, goods and services, and precious metals and commodities. Prices will decline especially for imports as the dollar gains in purchasing power.

Remember that a true monetary inflation and deflation would only show up over time. Even in the Great Depression in the US, as demand slumped and prices fell, the stage was set for a significant devaluation of the US dollar and a rise in consumer prices well in advance of the eventual recovery of the economy that caused the Fed to tighten prematurely. As I recall the actual contraction in money supply lasted two years. This again highlights was an amazing piece of bad policy that Japan represents in its 'lost decade.'

People embrace beliefs for many motivations. So often I find they are not 'rational' and based on a scientific study of the facts, even on the most cursory level. Fear and greed and prejudice are often motivations that are surprisingly resilient, even in the face of overwhelming evidence against them. Leadership understands this well.

There are often appeals to private judgement. I do not care what you say, this is what I believe, what I think, what I feel. This is appropriate in the supra-natural realm, but in the natural realm there may be private judgement but the facts are public, and the outcomes are well beyond the complete control of the most fully-managed perceptual campaigns, at least so far in human experience.

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." Joseph Goebbels, of the perception modification school of economic thought

What is truth? It is difficult to estimate but not completely out of reach.

Our own view is that a serious stagflation with further devaluation of the US dollar as it is replaced as the world's reserve currency is very likely, after a period of slackening demand and high unemployment. A military conflict is also a probable outcome as countries often go to war when they fail at peace.

Weimar was not an anomaly although the level of inflation was indeed legendary. Argentina, post Soviet Russia, and most recently Zimbabwe are all similar examples. Serious Instances of Monetary Inflation Since World War II

There are many, many variables in play here, and policy decisions yet to be made. It is highly discouraging to see Obama's Administration fail so miserably to do the right things, but there is always room for hope, less so today than six months ago however.

Argue and shout grave oaths and wave our hands though we might, we are in God's hands now.

Let's see what happens.

A very special thanks to our friend Bart at Now and Futures who makes these charts, among other things, available on his highly informative web site for public review. If you are not familiar with his work you might do well to view it. We do not always agree, but he demands attention because of the rigor which he applies to his work for which we are grateful, always.

This Is Your Economy on Credit Crack - and Heading for a Crack-Up

Here is a clear and simple explanation of why we may have already passed the point at which the Fed and Treasury will have no choice but to substantially devalue the bonds and reissue a 'new US dollar' as part of a managed default on our sovereign debt.


Ben's Un-shrinkable Balance Sheet
Delta Global Advisors
April 14, 2009

As he stated again clearly today, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve has deluded himself into thinking that when the time comes, he will be able to shrink the size of the Fed's balance sheet and reduce the monetary base with both ease and impunity. He also has deluded himself into thinking inflation will be easily contained.

It is very important that he does not fool you as well.

The Fed believes low interest rates should not be the result of a high savings rate, but instead can exist by decree, a conviction which has directly led consumers to believe their spending can outstrip disposable income.

The result of such thinking has been a rise in household debt from 47% of GDP in 1980 to 97% of total output in Q4 2008. As a result of this ever increasing burden, the Fed has been forced into a series of lower lows and lower highs on its benchmark lending rate. Keeping rates low is an attempt to make debt service levels manageable and keep the consumer afloat. Problem is, this endless pursuit of unnaturally low rates has so altered the Fed's balance sheet that Mr. Bernanke will be hard-pressed to substantially raise rates to combat inflation once consumer and wholesale prices begin to significantly increase.

Banana Ben Bernanke has grown the monetary base from just $842 billion in August 2008 to a record high of $1,723 billion as of April 2009. But it's not only the size of the balance sheet that is so daunting; it's the makeup that's becoming truly scary.

Historically speaking, the composition of the Fed's balance sheet has been mostly Treasuries. And the Federal Open Market Committee would typically raise rates by selling Treasuries from its balance sheet into the market to soak up excess liquidity. However, because of the Fed's decision to purchase up to $1 trillion in Mortgage Backed Securities (and other unorthodox holdings), it will not be selling highly-liquid US debt to drain reserves from banks. Rather, it will be unwinding highly distressed MBS and packaged loans to AIG. Not to mention the fact the Fed would have to break its promise of being a "hold-to-maturity investor" of such assets.

Moreover, not only are the new assets on the Fed's balance sheet less liquid but the durations of the loans are being extended. According to Bloomberg, the Fed is contemplating extending TALF loans to buy mortgaged backed securities to five years from three after pressure it received from lobbyists and a failed second monthly round of auctions. That means when it finally decides it's time to fight inflation, the Fed will find it much more difficult to reverse course.

But because of the extraordinary and unprecedented (some would say illegal) measures Mr. Bernanke has implemented, only $505 billion of the $2 trillion balance sheet is composed of U.S. Treasury debt. Today, most Fed assets are derived from the alphabet soup of lending programs including $250 billion in commercial paper, $312 billion of Central Bank liquidity swaps and $236 billion in mortgage-backed securities.

Thus, our economy has become more addicted than ever to low interest rates. But because bank assets will now be collecting income at record low rates, when and if the Fed tries to raise rates it will only be able to do so on the margin. If Bernanke raises rates substantially to fight inflation, banks will be paying out more on deposits than they collect on their income streams. Couple that with their already distressed balances sheets and look out!

Additionally, not only do the consumers need low rates to keep their Financial Obligation Ratio low, but the Federal government also needs low rates to ensure interest rates on the skyrocketing national debt can be serviced. Our projected $1.8 trillion annual deficit stems from the belief that the government must expand its balance sheet as the consumer begins to deleverage. In fact, both the consumer and government need to deleverage for total debt relief to occur, else we're just shuffling debts around and avoiding a healthy deleveraging entirely.

In order to have viable and sustainable growth total debt levels must decrease, savings must increase and interest rates must rise. But that would require an extended period of negative GDP growth-a completely untenable position for politicians of all stripes. Ben Bernanke would like you to believe inflation will be quiescent and he can vanquish it if it ever becomes a problem. Just make sure you don't invest as though you believe him.

The Fed's Decision: PRINT

To net today's FOMC statement for you, the Fed has made an aggressive commitment to monetary expansion through its balance sheet to support the financial system.

What was particularly repugnant was the co-ordinated actions in the market ahead of this announcement. This included a major bear raid on the precious metals, and the panic-covering of the financial shares before the official announcement. The cure of the crisis ought not to be an occasion for looting, fraud, deception, and personal enrichment by insiders who in many cases caused the problems which are facing today.

The US government is engaging in the same artificial tactics that lead to the tech bubble and the housing bubble. They are artificial because they are not accompanied by systemic change and meaningful reform. We are shooting the patient with morphine so they can go back to work without treating the disease.

The next phase of this financial credit crisis may be take down the US Bond and the dollar. That is what is known as a financial heart attack.

Release Date: March 18, 2009
FOMC Statement

For immediate release

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January indicates that the economy continues to contract.

Job losses, declining equity and housing wealth, and tight credit conditions have weighed on consumer sentiment and spending. Weaker sales prospects and difficulties in obtaining credit have led businesses to cut back on inventories and fixed investment. U.S. exports have slumped as a number of major trading partners have also fallen into recession.

Although the near-term economic outlook is weak, the Committee anticipates that policy actions to stabilize financial markets and institutions, together with fiscal and monetary stimulus, will contribute to a gradual resumption of sustainable economic growth.

In light of increasing economic slack here and abroad, the Committee expects that inflation will remain subdued. Moreover, the Committee sees some risk that inflation could persist for a time below rates that best foster economic growth and price stability in the longer term.

In these circumstances, the Federal Reserve will employ all available tools to promote economic recovery and to preserve price stability.

The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and anticipates that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.

To provide greater support to mortgage lending and housing markets, the Committee decided today to increase the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet further by purchasing up to an additional $750 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities, bringing its total purchases of these
securities to up to $1.25 trillion this year, and to increase its purchases of agency debt this year by up to $100 billion to a total of up to $200 billion.

Moreover, to help improve conditions in private credit markets, the Committee decided to purchase up to $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months.

The Federal Reserve has launched the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility to facilitate the extension of credit to households and small businesses and anticipates that the range of eligible collateral for this facility is likely to be expanded to include other financial assets. The Committee will continue to carefully monitor the size and composition of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet in light of evolving financial and economic developments

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; Elizabeth A. Duke; Charles L. Evans; Donald L. Kohn; Jeffrey M. Lacker; Dennis P. Lockhart; Daniel K. Tarullo; Kevin M. Warsh; and Janet L. Yellen.

The Bank of England Begins Monetization in Earnest

The British Pound is headed to parity with the US dollar. This will add some sting to the economic downturn for the common people of Britian.

Gordon Brown was a key architect in the financial crisis and decline, and it is discouraging to see that he still holds power, in much the same way that it was disappointing to see Larry Summers as Obama's key economic advisor.

Both Britain and the US are experiencing a deficiency in political leadership with regard to the financial crisis. Gordon Brown was expected, but Obama so far has been a crushing disappointment, at least to the public.


Reuters
Bank of England cuts rates, to buy govt bonds to boost economy
By Sumeet Desai and Fiona Shaikh
Thu Mar 5, 2009 9:23am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England cut interest rates by 50 basis points on Thursday to a record low of 0.5 percent, and said it would buy 75 billion pounds of assets to expand the money supply and aid a recession-hit British economy.

Unveiling the asset purchase programme -- the start of "quantitative easing" measures employed when rates get near to their minimum -- the Bank said the likely majority of purchases over the next three months would be of gilts (UK government bonds) at medium and long maturities.

Gilts soared on the announcement, with the June future rallying more than 2.50 full points, while sterling fell against the dollar.

The latest rate reduction means the BoE has now cut interest rates for six months running by a total of 4.5 percentage points as Britain struggles with its first recession since the early 1990s.

The government has given the BoE permission to buy as much as 150 billion pounds' worth of assets with newly-created money. This figure also includes 50 billion pounds set aside in the government's asset purchase facility that hitherto would have been funded by the issue of Treasury bills.

The total of 150 billion pounds was at the top end of what analysts had been expecting.

The Bank said it would monitor the effectiveness of the asset buying programme at its future meetings. Such a policy was pursued by Japan at the start of the decade but is unprecedented in Britain and underlines the severity of the downturn caused by the global credit crisis.

The policy is intended to encourage the banks to lend more freely to households and businesses, and in turn stimulate economic growth.

The latest reduction in interest rates would itself leave a substantial risk of inflation undershooting the two percent target in two-years' time. (In what alternative universe does that follow on? If you lower rates you lower inflation eventually? Perhaps they meant 'overshooting' or perhaps they are just repeating Orwellian memes. - Jesse)

But the BoE added it was also concerned that a low level of interest rates could be counterproductive for some markets.

"It is in line with expectations. The decision to embark on an asset purchase of 75 billion is obviously the right move," said Amit Kara, UK economist at UBS. "We think it is a start and will probably end up double the size, probably over the course of the year."

St. Louis Fed Chief Says Fed Must Inflate Money Supply More Aggressively

Considering the AMB and the narrow money figures went parabolic, with the greatest increase in Fed history, these are somewhat unusual words from a Fed official.

Best to take him at his word. He is only saying the truth about what the Fed is already doing. This sounds like a classic misdirection.

Let's guess. In order to save us he Fed should give more money to the big money center banks through Fed programs? The Fed should buy bad assets at par from unconventional parties like every large corporation with bad debts? The Fed should more aggressively debase the currency and to transfers the wealth of savers of to those who caused this crisis?

This ought to be fun to watch.


Bloomberg
Fed Should Expand Supply of Money, Bullard Says
By Scott Lanman and Anthony Massucci

Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said the U.S. faces a risk of “sustained deflation” and called on the central bank to avert a decline in prices by expanding the money supply.

The prospect of deflation is a “significant downside risk” and may increase home foreclosures, Bullard said in a speech today in New York. Adopting a target “rapid” growth rate for the monetary base, which includes money in circulation and banks’ reserve deposits with the Fed, should “head off any incipient deflationary threat,” he said.

Bullard is one of a few Fed officials to advocate a new policy tool after the Federal Open Market Committee in December cut its main interest rate almost to zero. The central bank is using money-creation authority to put assets such as home loans on its balance sheet, aiming to unfreeze credit and end the longest recession since 1982.

“By expanding the monetary base at an appropriate rate, the FOMC can signal that it intends to avoid the risk of further deflation and the possibility of a deflation trap,” Bullard said in prepared remarks to the New York Association for Business Economics.

He didn’t propose a specific figure for the target.

The FOMC said in its Jan. 28 statement that there’s “some risk that inflation could persist for a time below rates that best foster economic growth and price stability in the longer term.”

Growth Target

The FOMC at its December meeting discussed setting a target for growth in measures of money, such as the monetary base. While a “few” policy makers favored a numerical goal for money growth, most preferred a more open-ended “close cooperation and consultation” with the Fed board on how to expand assets and liabilities, according to minutes of the session.

Bullard’s warning about deflation is stronger than comments by other central bank officials. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said Feb. 11 that he’s “not tremendously concerned about deflation.”

Bullard told reporters after the speech he supports the adoption of an inflation target to prevent expectations for prices from falling too far. A target for inflation “would be helpful at this time,” he said.

“You have to consult with all players, including Congress,” he said. “If they don’t want to do it, then we don’t do it.”

Inflation v. Deflation and the Yield Curve: Jesse's Lifetime Trading Plan

More on the inflation v. deflation debate. There is a divergence among the pros as you can see from this article in Bloomberg which is worth reading.

Our 'model' is deflation now, at least in prices, with a nasty inflation of probably double digits at least to follow.

There is little advantage in trying to anticipate the progression of these events unless you are looking at the slow accumulation of precious metals and key investments with very long time horizons. Timing will be difficult until things become obvious, which leaves sufficient time to move among relatively liquid assets.

The Fed will be slow to drain, and it is not unlikely that we could see short term rates spike up to 15 to 20 percent with much of the longer yield curve at 12+%. The Fed will feel the need to crush a burgeoning inflationary cycle, especially if there are any exogenous shocks in key commodities.

That will set up a once-more-in-our-lifetime buying opportunity in zero coupons and annuitiies, and very high quality dividend paying utilities with DRIPS. We made that play in the early 1980's and it was a long term winner.

You now have our investment gameplan for what is likely to be the rest of Jesse's life. Let's see how it plays out and allow the market to inform us of the timing, and surprise twists. We see little advantage in anticipating these markets and the preservation of capital is paramount.


Bloomberg
Treasury Real Yield at 16-Month High on Inflation Bet
By Dakin Campbell

Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- For the first time since 2007, Treasury investors are betting that inflation will accelerate.

The yield on 10-year notes exceeds the consumer price index by 2.72 percentage points, the most since December 2006. The gap between two- and 10-year rates widened at the fastest pace in a year last month as traders demanded more compensation for longer-term debt. Treasury Inflation Protected Securities that signaled falling prices as recently as Nov. 20 show they will increase in the U.S. this year.

Deflation was the growing concern for investors in 2008 as government bond yields fell to historic lows in December, the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of commodities tumbled 53 percent since July and home prices plunged 18 percent amid a deepening recession. Now, the bond market is saying Federal Reserve interest rates at zero percent, President Barack Obama’s $819 billion planned stimulus package and $8.5 trillion of U.S. initiatives to revive credit markets will reignite inflation.

“When the Fed gets finished here they will have an inflation nightmare on their hands,” said Mark MacQueen, who helps oversee $7 billion as co-founder of Sage Advisor Services Ltd. in Austin, Texas. “There is a lot of downside in conservative government bonds.”

MacQueen is selling 30-year Treasuries, which are more sensitive to inflation expectations than shorter-maturity debt.

Rising Yields

The yield on 30-year Treasury bonds climbed 29 basis points, or 0.29 percentage point, to 3.61 percent last week, according to BGCantor Market Data. The price of the 4.5 percent security due in May 2038 declined 5 29/32, or $59.06 per $1,000 face amount, to 116 2/32. For the month, the yield rose 93 basis points, the most since climbing 100 basis points in April 1981.

The yield fell three basis points to 3.57 percent at 8:08 a.m. in New York.

Yields are rising so fast they are already higher than where economists just three weeks ago expected they’d be at year-end. The median estimate of 44 economists, investors and strategists surveyed by Bloomberg News from Jan. 5 to Jan. 12 was for 3.45 percent by 2010.

Investors in 30-year bonds lost 14.6 percent last month, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. index data. January was the worst month for government securities since Merrill Lynch began tracking returns on the securities in 1988. (That was a drop from a record spike high however - Jesse)

Yields on 10-year notes fell to the lowest on record in December as the cost of living dropped 0.7 percent, trimming the annual advance to 0.1 percent, the smallest rise in half a century, according to the Labor Department in Washington.

Crude Oil

Consumer prices fell as crude oil dropped 78 percent to $32.40 a barrel on Dec. 19 after rising to a record $147.27 in July. House prices in 20 cities plunged by more than 18 percent in November from a year earlier, according to the S&P/Case- Shiller index.

At the current sales rate, it would take a record 12.9 months to absorb all the unsold homes on the market. That’s more than twice as much as the five to six months that the National Association of Realtors in Washington says is consistent with a stable market.

“We are in the midst of a deflationary freefall,” said John Brynjolfsson, the chief investment officer at hedge fund Armored Wolf LLC in Aliso Viejo, California. “I don’t anticipate there is anything the Fed can do to prevent that from continuing for the next six to 12 months.”

So-called real yields that measure the difference between Treasuries and the inflation rate turned negative in November 2007 and stayed there until October, dropping as low as negative 1.79 percent in August.

Real Yields

Except for one month in 2005, the last time real yields were negative was 1980, when the Fed raised interest rates to 20 percent to fight inflation that exceeded 14 percent. During that time, real yields were below zero for 23 of 24 months ending December 1980. (The Fed will do this at some point AFTER inflation has become apparent. There will be a significant opportunity to lock in high yields on annuitites, utilities with DRIPS, and the purchase of zero coupons. But that is some years away. It sticks in my mind because I made my parents retirement very comfortable using this strategy in 1980. Timing wil be important.- Jesse)

Policy makers led by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke cut the target rate for overnight loans between banks to a range of zero to 0.25 percent in December to revive lending and stem deflation. Obama’s stimulus plan passed the U.S. House Jan. 28 and went to the Senate for approval.

The current real yield is in line with the average 2.71 percentage points in the past 20 years, showing investors see an increasing threat in inflation. By the fourth quarter, consumer prices will accelerate at a 1.75 percent annual rate, according to the median estimate of 56 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

Yield Curve

The difference in rates on two- and 10-year notes, known as the yield curve, has steepened from a six-month low of 125 basis points on Dec. 26 to 189 basis points on Jan. 30. That’s more than double the average of 91 basis points over the last two decades. Investors usually demand more compensation on longer- maturity debt when inflation is accelerating, causing the curve to steepen.

“We see the Fed and all the policy action gaining traction and reflating the economy,” said Mihir Worah, who oversees $65 billion in inflation-linked securities for Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co., the manager of the world’s biggest bond fund.

Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS, due in 10 years yield 1 percentage point less than notes that aren’t linked to consumer prices. The so-called break-even rate, which reflects traders’ outlook for consumer prices, is up from negative 0.08 percent on Nov. 20.

TIPS pay interest on a principal amount that rises with the Labor Department’s consumer price index. TIPS ended last week at 103 13/32 to yield 1.75 percent.

Inflation concerns are also rising outside the U.S. Charteris Portfolio Managers bought inflation-protected bonds for the first time for its top-performing U.K. gilt fund.

Fed Assets

The City Financial Strategic Gilt Fund started investing in index-linked bonds in November and now holds 65 percent of its assets in the securities, Ian Williams, chief executive officer of Charteris, said in an interview last week in London.

“Government attempts to reflate the economy, especially in the U.S., will ultimately work,” Williams said. “It’s too pessimistic a view to see all this money being pumped into the system and still assume it’s all going to fail.”

The Fed’s assets have grown by $1 trillion over the past year under credit programs ranging from $416 billion in term loans to banks to purchases of $350 billion in commercial paper issued by U.S. corporations. Cash that banks can lend to consumers and business, known as excess reserves, rose to almost $844 billion in the week ended Jan. 14, central bank data shows.

Debt Sales

“We are already seeing a huge expansion of the Fed balance sheet and the multipliers that are implicit there are extraordinary,” said Brynjolfsson at Armored Wolf. “Double- digit inflation is not out of the question in the following decade.”

The corporate bond market offers one sign that the efforts by the Fed to unfreeze credit markets may be working. Companies sold $138 billion of debt last month in the U.S., the most since May, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Fed officials suggested that prices are increasing too slowly at last week’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. “The committee sees some risk that inflation could persist for a time below rates that best foster economic growth and price stability in the longer term,” the FOMC said in a Jan. 28 statement.

“The Fed and Treasury will do whatever they can to get the economy going and that is ultimately what will stop deflation,” said Ethan Harris, co-head of U.S. economic research at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York. “It’s clear they will keep their foot on the accelerator until you get real growth.”

The Price of Gold and the Growth of the Money Supply

We have seen comparisons of the price of gold to the adjusted monetary base and to M1. Based on intense study and reasoning about the current trends in money supply we are convinced that this comparison of growth in MZM with a lag to the change in the price of gold is significantly much more valid than any other we have been able to produce, if one only considers the correlation of the graphs. And it makes logical sense.

MZM is the most valid measure of broad 'liquid' money in the system. We formerly used M3 but this has not been available, with any published certainty, since 2006.

It would make sense that in a free market, the growth trend of a broad measure of 'liquid money,' as opposed to credit or potential money, would be statistically valid with the price of an alternative currency, or wealth asset, like gold over the longer term.



Speaking wonkishly, our preferred comparison would be to be able to measure the difference in growth between real GDP and the growth in broad money supply, and then trend and compare that with the growth in the price of gold.

Since we have no honest measure of price inflation that task is difficult. Our second preference would be to make a similar comparison per capita the economically active rather than real GDP. Is there an accurate measure of job population growth fluctuations with the ebb and flow of the illegals? We are not sure, but are looking into it.

Inflationists vs. Deflationists: Economics as Bread and Circuses

In a purely fiat currency regime, a sustained inflation or deflation is a policy decision.

Since few systems in this world are pure, one has to account for exogenous factors and endogenous lags.

But it remains, deflation or inflation are the result of policy decisions in a fiat regime. If one does not understand that, then there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how things work in a modern monetary system which operates free from a hard external standard.

It is not an idle point, by the way, to understand that in a fiat regime there is a significantly greater latitude in policy decision than otherwise.

That is why central banks wish to maintain a fiat regime, and not to be encumbered by an external standard such as gold.

Once one realizes that it is a policy decision, one realizes that this 'inflation versus deflation" is not about some deterministic outcome based on market forces, but rather on a policy decision, what the governance thinks "should" be done.

Granted the Fed does not have perfect latitude. There are the restraints of law and the Congress, and the necessary cooperation of the Treasury and the banking system.

However, the most legitimate, the least endogenous limitation in a fiat system is the value of the bond and the dollar to external market actors. This is the tradeoff that the Fed and Treasury must make in weighing the outcome of their actions.

All this backslapping and scoring of points between the inflation and deflation 'camps' is particularly obtuse because this monetary chess match is most heatedly being argued about by people who think they are watching a game of ping pong.

Yes we will likely see a deflationary episode in the short term, certainly in prices as the aggregate demand contracts, as the Fed fights the credit collapse. We briefly saw deflation at the trough in 2002, depending on how one chooses to define deflation.

But, make no mistake, the Fed can print money and monetize Treasury debt until the cows come home. Bernanke was not lying when he put his cards on the table in his famous helicopter speech some years ago. He wasn't just trying to fool us as some would hypothesize.

They will monetize debt and 'print money' covertly and quietly because they do not wish to trash the Bond and Dollar, since this is the fuel of their machine.

Economic cargo cultists frequently resort to imaginary restrictions on the Fed, such as they can't do this or they can't do that. Growth in money supply must come from the lending of the private banking system. The Fed "only controls the monetary base" and "doesn't set interest rates."

That is all bollocks. It is playing with words, parsing the truth, Clintonesque.

First, there are some gray areas in the statutes that prohibit the Fed from DIRECTLY buying debt from the Treasury without subjecting it to the discipline of the marketplace, ie. taking through a public auction first. The law is soft on this point, but one might contend it is not necessary to change it if the Fed has one or two banks that are policy captives. We believe they do.

Second, growth in the money supply has to come from the lending of banks, the creation of new debt, only when you have run out of 'old debt' and prior obligations to spending.

Does ANYONE who has been following the fiscal discussions in the US believe that we will run out of debt in our lifetimes? The lending of the banks, the creation of new debt, is a measure of economic vitality in some dimensions yes. But growth by debt creation is NOT the only way for an economic system to function, and it may indeed may not be the best. But regardless, it is not necessary while there is debt that can be monetized, and certainly we have a surfeit of that.

The only limitation on the Fed and Treasury are the Congress and the acceptance of the dollar and the Bond in a fiat regime. Period.

Unless there is some greater conspiratorial policy reason, any net debtor that chooses deflation rather than inflation of the means of the repayment of their debt should have their head examined.

There are those who believe that the US "creditor class" will seek to encourage liquidationism and deflation to protect their private fortunes, created during the bubble period.

This is not actually a bad theory, except that the real creditor class lives in China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. Since two of them are virtual client states of the US and the third is bound to its industrial policy the status quo seems to have some momentum, despite the best attempts of Zimbabwe Ben and His Merry Banksters to denigrate our currency and their customers' sovereign wealth.

One might suspect that the domestically wealthy (note the distinction between that and 'creditor class') would like to channel the bulk of the inflationary effort into their own pockets and benefits for the bulk of the effort before it stops short of hyperinflation, and then cut off the spending.

Hey, we're already doing that! Isn't it nice to see how things work?

People forget that in many ways this is a replay of the Great Depression, wherein a Republican minority in the Congress, and ultimately the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court, fought the New Deal tooth and nail, to the point of class warfare and a suspected plan to take the country into fascism in sympathy with the industrialists of Germany and Italy.

It was interesting to see the "Chicago School" A Dark Age of Economics making arguments against fiscal stimulus that would be worthy of freshmen economics students. One can make the case that these mighty brains are so highly specialized that they have forgotten the basics. An alternative reason might be a willingness to declare that 2+2=5 if it suits your ideological bias and those who must be obeyed. It was just a tiny bit satisfying to see Krugman and DeLong administer and intellectual beating to these luminaries.

So, as you may have noticed, Jesse is cranky today, and not merely because he was rousted from a warm bed to clear a snow-covered driveway. It is also because this country is in a dangerous, potentially fatal, situation and is suffering from an absolutely incredible, ongoing lack of adult supervision and serious discussion about the basic issues. Deception and spin is no longer an exception, but standard operating procedure.

Right now we are still in a 'credit crunch' which is a predictable (and we did predict it last year and even earlier than that) result of a collapsing bubble. In the very short term it was a liquidity problem, as the system seized, but as that was addressed the true problem is exposed as a solvency, not a liquidity, problem. And that problem exists because those that should take the hit for the writeoffs to resolve their insolvency want desperately to pass it on to someone else, eg. the public. There is still an enormous amount of accounting legerdemain (or would that be "ledgerdemain?")

There is not a shortage of liquidity; there is a scarcity of trustworthy market information in terms of value and risk that is causing a seizure in credit growth from fear. Why take 5% from someone who may already be bankrupt when you can accept a relatively no-risk 2% from the Fed? As the waters reced in this recession one would think the nakedness would be more apparent, except that the Treasury and Fed have been supplying portable cabanas to their favorite emperors, to spare their tender sensitivies and enormous bonuses.

We allow that a deflation can occur. If the Fed raised short term rates to 20% tomorrow and started draining, and raised reserve requirements to 50%, we would see a true monetary deflation in short order. But with regards to the here and now, as opposed to some alternate hypothetical universe, currently The Fed Is Monetizing Debt and Inflating the Money Supply.

We would like to see an intelligent examination of the series of policy errors that created the one decent example of a contemporaneous deflation in a fiat regime, that of modern Japan. Because it would then help people to get beyond it, and consider the other twenty or more examples of countries facing serious inflation or even hyperinflation since World War II. But let's just suffice to say that the problems in Japan were somewhat particular to their situation and it was a genuine policy choice which they made.

We might also make the same errors, or even repeat the errors of the Fed in the 1930 of withdrawing liquidity too precipitously because of a misplaced fear of inflation. But with a Democratic administration and a more knowledgable, almost complacent Fed in place this does not seem probable to us at all.

The country is still drunk on easy money and hubris and preoccupied with bread-and-circuses debate between political and financial strategists masquerading as policy experts, while insiders loot the country.

All this noise serves to do is to distract the nation from a identifying the causes of the current crisis and instituting meaningful reforms to keep us from throwing a quick fix at our latest disaster and setting up another cycle of bubble, boom and bust again.

There can be no sustained recovery in the economy until there is financial reform, and a revival of the individual consumer through an increase in the median wage. Right now consumers are attempting to repair their balance sheets by defaulting on debt. This is not productive in the longer term. And it is a bit of an ironic exercise as well, since the debt is being tacked right back on to the taxpayers through the public balance sheet in the government bailouts.

Why is every solution being addressed to and through the unreformed corporate sector? Is it because the best way to deal with a scandal which you caused is to put your own people in charge of investigating it, and setting the agenda for the discussion of potential reactions to maintain the status quo? Anyone who has been in a large corporation should be well familiar with such an obvious tactic. This is likely a reflection of our distorted economic and public policy infrastructure.

A proper examination of relative value and risk cannot be expected yet until we sober up. Let's hope that happens soon, and not as the result of critically damaging economic and social pain.

Is Money Supply a Relative Absolute?

There has been discussion over the weekend regarding an intriguing blog entry from friend Cassandra Inflation v. Deflation with regard to the Fed's monetization of debt. The principle assertion seems to be that if the Fed is merely replacing existing credit dollar for dollar as it is written off, then the result is not inflationary.

If the original wholesale money market borrowing and lending was not inflationary, then why should its substitute be inflationary? Indeed, the real question is whether the expansion of the Fed's balance sheet is keeping pace with the contraction of money market credit more generally. If not, then the consequence may be deflationary.

Implicit in this of course are two conditions. The first, that the level of wholesale borrowing and lending had not been and would have continued not to be inflationary, and secondly, that the expansion of the Fed's balance sheet is equivalent dollar for dollar with the debt it is said to be replacing.

These distinctions will be lost on most, but they are quite important, and we urge to reader not to gloss over them in preparing a rebuttal to support their bias du jour.

Let's consider an hypothesis someone put to us some time ago. They claimed that the appropriate rate of growth for any money supply is zero, which they considered 'neutral.'

To this we put the question, "If one holds the money supply static for a long period of time in a country whose population is growing at 10% per annum, and GDP is growing at 10% as well, is this a neutral money supply growth rate?

The answer of course is no. Money supply that remains static in a growth situation, whether one measures it in a ratio to economic growth or per capita, is obviously on a deflationary trend because supply is not growing at a rate equivalent to the increase in demand.

Seems obvious in this perspective right? We are not saying it is good or bad, appropriate or not. It is what it is, a growth in money supply that is lagging the growth in demand for money.

Conversely, if money supply is kept static in a country where the population is decreasing, and economic growth contracting, is it neutral? No it is inflationary, since the growth rate of money supply (zero) is greater than the growth rate of the demand for money, which is in decline presumably.

Now, one can imagine all sorts of possible scenarios as exceptions because there are lags in all economic cause and effect. To complicate matters there is no instantaneously correct rate of money supply growth without a context since reality is inherently in a state of flux.

However, though, it is clear that a static money supply is not necessarily neutral compared to the state of the growth of the money supply in a different economic context.

Secondly, we will postulate something we are not quite ready to prove yet, and that is that credit is not the same as money supply. We offer a piece instead that was blogged some time ago in which the various components of money supply are discussed.

Money Supply: a Primer

Its something to consider, and has received too little attention in our opinion.

If you have one thousand dollars in cash, in your pocket, is it completely equivalent to one thousand dollars worth of honey which you have at home in your pantry, in terms of its affect on inflation or deflation?

Forgiving the pun, the honey is decidedly less liquid than the cash.

What if you have one thousand dollars in cash, and another thousand is owed to you by an acquaintance in a distant city who promised to pay it back on demand the last time you spoke to them a year ago. Are those equivalent dollars?

Does it matter who is holding the money? What if the bulk of the money being added to to the economy is being given to gamblers in Las Vegas, rather than lets say farmers in Pennsylvania. Is there a difference in that money's effect on inflation or deflation? Yes there are few differences in the very long run, but sometimes the run becomes so long that it is irrelevant to the policy questions at hand.

This essay does not seek to provide answer to these questions at this time, since this is basis for a new perspective in economics. And unfortunately the discussion is premature. It is rather like a room full of well seasoned drunks, after a week long binge, gathering to attend a lecture on sober thought. We have so utterly lost the conception and relationship of value and risk that we must sober up a bit before we can even think about it once again.

Rather, the purpose of this essay is to cast doubt on the certainty that what we call money is always and everywhere equivalent in force and power and influence as an economic actor no matter where and how it is held.

Having said all that, it is obvious that the Money Supply as measured by the means at our disposal is growing at a rate more significant than economic growth, and that difference is now even greater as the economy slows and contracts. As an engineer and an operational business unit manager we always tend to fall back on what can be measured, what is real and knowable, when theory fails and the bosses are lost in flights of fancy.

The Fed is Monetizing Debt and Inflating the Money Supply

As water is added to the ecosphere, it flows and pools in many places. Money as water in the econosphere is evaporating through debt retirement, but perhaps not through debt destruction, or at least not in the same way. Someone must lose if a debt is written off right? What if that loss is booked at the Fed, and they realize that loss by simply 'making it go away' at least as far as the real economy is concerned? Is there a contraction in the money supply anywhere?

There are all questions worth considering, and we will have much more data as the results of Mr. Bernanke's experiments produce additional data.

But one thing is certain in our minds, and that is certainty in this situation is an illusion. We do not think that even the Fed knows exactly what they are doing. Rather, they are feeling their way through uncharted waters, projecting perhaps a confidence, but this is primarily for effect, not as a genuine state of mind.

And based on first principles, deflation, while possible, is never a certainty in a fiat regime where there is a central monetary authority that holds the power to monetize debt. The only boundary on their power is the acceptability, or value, of the money they produce, and that is also known as inflation.

Obviously the Fed may do a poor job or an outstanding job of managing the nation's money supply and economy. We will not really know until after the fact given the lags in these sorts of machinations.

But what is different, what is dangerous, is that the Fed has grasped the reins of a highly complex system, that is now more global than at any time before, and is trying to pull it in a certain direction, without immediate feedback on what it is that is happening. The last five or six times in which the Fed has done this something 'unexpected' has occurred.

Another factor most do not consider which is of some importance is the potential for systemic reform in the economy that is the context for the actions of the money supply. Without serious financial reform we most likely will take spin on the wheel of boom and bust again, with a greater disparity of wealth and a greater loss of democratic freedoms.

Either state is possible, make no mistake, but the probability is highest that the loss of control will be an inflation, with the key metric being 'how bad' and 'how difficult to subdue once it is unleashed.' Why? Because inflation is the default condition of a fiat currency that becomes uncontrolled. Deflation requires a sustained effort for whatever reasons, generally policy error or a conflict in desired outcomes.

A softer, much more judgemental reason, is that those who are now telling us that inflation is not an issue are the very ones who have been acutely wrong, for whatever reason, since this crisis began, if not years before that. They speak their book, and shamelessly. But that is no determinant, merely a confirmation of sorts.

What concerns us most is that the Fed is quite confident, in their own words, that they know how to deal with inflation after Volcker. That reminds us too much of hubris, and the classical myth of Phaëton who confidently took the reins of the chariot of the Sun from the golden Apollo, and very nearly burned down the world in the process.

Some Thoughts on the Debt Disaster in the US and UK and Possible Alternatives

This is a rather important essay in that it nicely frames up the problem that we face, and the constraints on the remedies at our disposal.

We will be speaking more about that in the near term, but for now here is a framework by which to understand the boundaries, the 'lay of the land.'

The key point is that the debt to GDP ratio has become unsustainable. The way to correct this is to lower it to a level that is manageable and to work it down.

It will likely require a combination of inflation and debt reduction by bankruptcies and writedowns in order to restore the economy to something which can be used to achieve a balance.

Liquidationism is a trap because it reduces GDP and cripples the productive economy as it reduces debt. It is similar to poisoning a patient to treat an infection. It is favored only by those who believe that they can insulate themselves and profit by it.

Without serious systemic reforms, any remedies will not obtain traction, merely provide a new step function for a repetition of the cycle of debt expansion, as was done in the series of credit bubbles under Alan Greenspan and Bush-Clinton.

The impact will be felt around the globe because of the interconnectedness of the world economy and finance, but the heart of the problem is in the US and the UK.


Economic Times
US and UK on brink of debt disaster
20 Jan, 2009, 0419 hrs IST

LONDON: The United States and the United Kingdom stand on the brink of the largest debt crisis in history.

While both governments experiment with quantitative easing, bad banks to absorb non-performing loans, and state guarantees to restart bank lending, the only real way out is some combination of widespread corporate default, debt write-downs and inflation to reduce the burden of debt to more manageable levels. Everything else is window-dressing. (Quantitative easing, bad banks, and state guarantees are the instruments of inflation. The amount of inflation that the West can manage will greatly affect the amount of these more draconian measures - Jesse)

To understand the scale of the problem, and why it leaves so few options for policymakers, which shows the growth in the real economy (measured by nominal GDP) and the financial sector (measured by total credit market instruments outstanding) since 1952.

In 1952, the United States was emerging from the Second World War and the conflict in Korea with a strong economy, and fairly low debt, split between a relatively large government debt (amounting to 68 percent of GDP) and a relatively small private sector one (just 60 percent of GDP).

Over the next 23 years, the volume of debt increased, but the rise was broadly in line with growth in the rest of the economy, so the overall ratio of total debts to GDP changed little, from 128 percent in 1952 to 155 percent in 1975.

The only real change was in the composition. Private debts increased (7.8 times) more rapidly than public ones (1.5 times). As a result, there was a marked shift in the debt stock from public debt (just 37 percent of GDP in 1975) toward private sector obligations (117 percent). But this was not unusual. It should be seen as a return to more normal patterns of debt issuance after the wartime period in which the government commandeered resources for the war effort and rationed borrowing by the private sector.

From the 1970s onward, however, the economy has undergone two profound structural shifts. First, the economy as a whole has become much more indebted. Output rose eight times between 1975 and 2007. But the total volume of debt rose a staggering 20 times, more than twice as fast. The total debt-to-GDP ratio surged from 155 percent to 355 percent.

Second, almost all this extra debt has come from the private sector. Despite acres of newsprint devoted to the federal budget deficit over the last thirty years, public debt at all levels has risen only 11.5 times since 1975. This is slightly faster than the eight-fold increase in nominal GDP over the same period, but government debt has still only risen from 37 percent of GDP to 52 percent.

Instead, the real debt explosion has come from the private sector. Private debt outstanding has risen an enormous 22 times, three times faster than the economy as a whole, and fast enough to take the ratio of private debt to GDP from 117 percent to 303 percent in a little over thirty years.

For the most part, policymakers have been comfortable with rising private debt levels. Officials have cited a wide range of reasons why the economy can safely operate with much higher levels of debt than before, including improvements in macroeconomic management that have muted the business cycle and led to lower inflation and interest rates. But there is a suspicion that tolerance for private rather than public sector debt simply reflected an ideological preference.

THE DEBT MOUNTAIN

The data makes clear the rise in private sector debt had become unsustainable. In the 1960s and 1970s, total debt was rising at roughly the same rate as nominal GDP. By 2000-2007, total debt was rising almost twice as fast as output, with the rapid issuance all coming from the private sector, as well as state and local governments.

This created a dangerous interdependence between GDP growth (which could only be sustained by massive borrowing and rapid increases in the volume of debt) and the debt stock (which could only be serviced if the economy continued its swift and uninterrupted expansion).

The resulting debt was only sustainable so long as economic conditions remained extremely favorable. The sheer volume of private-sector obligations the economy was carrying implied an increasing vulnerability to any shock that changed the terms on which financing was available, or altered the underlying GDP cash flows.

The proximate trigger of the debt crisis was the deterioration in lending standards and rise in default rates on subprime mortgage loans. But the widening divergence revealed in the charts suggests a crisis had become inevitable sooner or later. If not subprime lending, there would have been some other trigger.

WRONGHEADED POLICIES

The charts strongly suggest the necessary condition for resolving the debt crisis is a reduction in the outstanding volume of debt, an increase in nominal GDP, or some combination of the two, to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio to a more sustainable level.

From this perspective, it is clear many of the existing policies being pursued in the United States and the United Kingdom will not resolve the crisis because they do not lower the debt ratio.

In particular, having governments buy distressed assets from the banks, or provide loan guarantees, is not an effective solution. It does not reduce the volume of debt, or force recognition of losses. It merely re-denominates private sector obligations to be met by households and firms as public ones to be met by the taxpayer.

This type of debt swap would make sense if the problem was liquidity rather than solvency. But in current circumstances, taxpayers are being asked to shoulder some or all of the cost of defaults, rather than provide a temporarily liquidity bridge.

In some ways, government is better placed to absorb losses than individual banks and investors, because it can spread them across a larger base of taxpayers. But in the current crisis, the volume of debts that potentially need to be refinanced is so large it will stretch even the tax and debt-raising resources of the state, and risks crowding out other spending.

Trying to cut debt by reducing consumption and investment, lowering wages, boosting saving and paying down debt out of current income is unlikely to be effective either. The resulting retrenchment would lead to sharp falls in both real output and the price level, depressing nominal GDP. Government retrenchment simply intensified the depression during the early 1930s. Private sector retrenchment and wage cuts will do the same in the 2000s.

BANKRUPTCY OR INFLATION

The solution must be some combination of policies to reduce the level of debt or raise nominal GDP. The simplest way to reduce debt is through bankruptcy, in which some or all of debts are deemed unrecoverable and are simply extinguished, ceasing to exist.

Bankruptcy would ensure the cost of resolving the debt crisis falls where it belongs. Investor portfolios and pension funds would take a severe but one-time hit. Healthy businesses would survive, minus the encumbrance of debt.

But widespread bankruptcies are probably socially and politically unacceptable. The alternative is some mechanism for refinancing debt on terms which are more favorable to borrowers (replacing short term debt at higher rates with longer-dated paper at lower ones).

The final option is to raise nominal GDP so it becomes easier to finance debt payments from augmented cashflow. But counter-cyclical policies to sustain GDP will not be enough. Governments in both the United States and the United Kingdom need to raise nominal GDP and debt-service capacity, not simply sustain it.

There is not much government can do to accelerate the real rate of growth. The remaining option is to tolerate, even encourage, a faster rate of inflation to improve debt-service capacity. Even more than debt nationalization, inflation is the ultimate way to spread the costs of debt workout across the widest possible section of the population.

The need to work down real debt and boost cash flow provides the motive, while the massive liquidity injections into the financial system provide the means. The stage is set for a long period of slow growth as debts are worked down and a rise in inflation in the medium term.

The Fed is Monetizing Debt and Inflating the Money Supply

Here are the latest figures on the growth of the various money supply measures.

See Money Supply: A Primer for a review of measures and their differences.

The charts indicate that the growth in the money supply is due to a significant monetization of debt by the Fed in expanding its balance sheet and deficit spending by the Treasury, rather than organic growth from credit expansion from commercial sources and economic activity. The negative GDP figures confirm this.

You could imagine this as a tug of war if you wish. On one side is the deflationary force of bad debt and falling aggregate demand. On the other is the Treasury, the Fed, and the Congress, using the triple threat of deficit spending, monetization of debt, and stimulus programs. The limits of the power of the Feds are the value of the dollar and the acceptability of Treasury debt.

There is no lack of debt that can be monetized. To think otherwise is fantasy. But there are limitations about how much the dollar can bear, which is why the banks and moneyed interests have shoved their way to the front of the line, and are gorging themselves now with a little help from their friends in the Treasury and the Fed. When the time comes they intend to throw the public agenda under the bus. Its an old script, many times performed with minor enhancements.

If the current trend continues, it will have an inflationary effect on certain financial assets and commodities, and a negative impact on the dollar. There are lags in the appearance of this, but it will come.

Because the Dollar Index (DX) is an outmoded and artificial measure of dollar strength, containing nothing to account for the Chinese renminbi for example, it may not be a true reflection of the progress of this inflation. Time will tell.

A similar case might be made for certain strategic commodities, gold and oil, which are the instrument of government policy. Although it is much less important, silver may be one of the first commodities to break out because the government maintains no significant physical inventory of it as it does for gold and oil.

The huge short interest in silver may be an ignored scandal on the order of the Madoff Ponzi fund, not in dollar magnitude, but likely in terms of regulatory lapse and deep capture.



M1 has become a much less useful measure of the money supply these days because of changes in banking rules and technology. However, M1 is a good intermediate measure of the impact of the growth in the Fed's balance sheet as it feeds through the system.





Growth in MZM frequently results in financial asset expansion once it gains traction.



The US Dollar does not generally react well to aggressive growth in MZM.



The growth of credit, organic growth from economic activity, is sluggish.



The growth in the Monetary Base due to Fed inflationary activity has been nothing short of spectacular, without equal in US monetary history. This makes all Money Multiplier measures that use the AMB in the denominator meaningless for now.



The spike in Treasury settlement failures is one measure of the stress in the financial system. It seems to be quieter now, after spiking in response to seizures in the bonds trading. We will maintain a watch on this.