Buiter Still Obsessing Fitfully on Gold: What Time is the Next Currency Crisis?

Mr. Buiter, advisor to central banks and to Goldman Sachs, is at it again, comparing gold to Yap Island stone money, ranting against those who would trade valuable bank paper for something that he does not like, (but has endured as a store of wealth nonetheless for thousands of years).

Once is a phenomenon, but twice is a trend. What can be dismissed as a crank rant must now be seen as a symptom of a man talking his book, and none too gracefully.

We give more credence now to the rumours that the Bank of England has miscalculated badly and the LBMA et al. are 'on the hook' for more gold than they can provide, precipitating a crisis for their advisors, especially those on the wrong side of the trading advice. And further, that gold held offshore by some prominent members of the European Union are having difficulty getting their collateral back from some of the bullion banks in a deliverable condition.

Quite a few options are coming due on the US Comex next week, and the bankers may be once more 'staring into an abyss.' Or setting up for a big push lower to 'save the banks.' That would be traditional central banking stewardship of late days.

"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake..." Eddie George, Governor Bank of England, in a conversation with CEO of Lonmin, September 1999

"W. Buiter, CBE, Member Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England (1997-2000)" Shoulder to shoulder with Sir Eddie on the brink, eh? That must have been rather intense. Oh, bravo.

People can remain rational and place their trust in the timeless longer than central bankers and politicos can feed them arbitrary illusions and promissories for wealth on the bankers' terms. At least while they retain free market choice.

Welcome to the unintended downside of quantitatively easing your way to wealth, ie. a loss of credibility.

Welcome to the world of bubble-nomics with negative returns on savings.

Financial Times
Yapping away at gold: lessons from the last days of the Rai

By Willem Buiter

November 16, 2009

Far be it from me to assert that a fate similar to that suffered by the Yapese Rai will befall gold - another intrinsically worthless fiat commodity. But the demise of the Rai as a store of value and means of payment, when taken together with the historical experience of pre-columbian native American tribes and nations that attached very little value to the shiny metal, should give the gold bugs some sleepless nights. More importantly, it ought to discourage investors who are not rich enough to survive a speculative disaster from putting too much of their savings into this frivolous store of value.

(Pre-columbian native American tribes that atttached very little value to the shiny metal Oops1 and Oops2 not to mention the Aztecs and the Mayans, who were rumoured to have existed prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Fact check please, other than watching American 'cowboy movies.'

Oh, perhaps your understanding of early American economic history pivots on the sale of Manhattan island to the Dutch by a tribe of Indians for some beads? A bit selective perhaps, and a narrow experience for a pivotal historical thesis. It may be like basing a general history of European Banking on Wall Street's recent selling worthless CDO "wampum" to the continent's commercial banks. - Jesse)

Comment 5 to this article from some fellow named 'Jesse'

"Perhaps if I phrase it this way it might be more clear.

In one philosophic sense, gold is indeed a fiat valuation, if all valuations are fiat,

nothing being essential but air to breathe, food to eat, shelter and clothing in

roughly that order. All else is discretion.

Gold, however, may be less fiat, less arbitrary a a money, a medium of exchange

and a store of value, rather than the essential itself, in an other than barter economy. Just as the Aussie dollar or the euro may be less ephemeral than the US dollar,

This is what is happening. The Bank of England made an error in selling its nation's

gold 'at the bottom' and will pay a price for this; live with it.

Oh, and try to move on please, else you may begin to resemble King Canute, sitting

on his throne at ocean's edge, ordering the incoming tide to stop its inundation.

Thank you. Mr. Buiter Apparently Does Not Like Gold

Mr. Willem Buiter’s CV Summary

Previous academic appointments in economics at Princeton University, the LSE, the University of Bristol, Yale University and Cambridge University.

Former external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England (1997-2000)

Former Chief Economist and Special Counsellor to the President, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (2000 - 2005)

Advisor/consultant for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-Americal Development Bank, the OECD, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Commission, many national governments and central banks.

Advisor to Goldman Sachs International (2005 - present)

P.S. If Goldman Sachs is holding gold short on your advice and getting face-ripped by it (sweet) I'll let you be my Facebook BFF for life.

What is a "Nominal" Stock Market Chart Versus a "Deflated" View?

Lots of interesting questions in the email bag over the weekend.

A reader asks 'What exactly is a nominal or artificial stock market rally as you use the terms?'

Nominal is used to mean "being such in name only; so-called; putative." This is an example of a nominal, or artificial stock market rally that someone had posted over at Alphaville earlier this year. (Hat tip to Rasputin of WSB for reminding me of where I had seen these charts.)

The Zimbabwe Industrial Index



I would have preferred a logarithmic chart for this extreme view of a hyperinflation in action, because the final moonshot tends to crush the detail of the prior action by skewing the scale so high. Still on the surface that looks pretty good right? Enough to get Jimmy C. to pound some teak on the table on Mad Money?

Another way to show the detail is to deflate the nominal chart.

The 'deflated' view is when you take the index and show what its value would be in terms of some other value, in this case the US dollar.

The Zimbabwe Industrial Index Deflated by the US$



Here is an example of the SP 500 viewed from two perspectives.



"Oh this is all very well and good Jesse, but when I go to the grocery store or to the gas station or the convenience store to buy my instant Lotto tickets I pay in dollars and not gold or euros."

Yes, but when your suppliers go to buy their goods that are imported, they pay in dollars that are depreciating. You know that some prices are moving higher despite slack demand overall. This is what we call 'selective inflation.' This is how it starts.

The trick of course is to get off Bernanke's monetary hamster wheel. If you are not in the US, reducing exposure to the dollar is more straightforward. If you are a Yank, then generally you would look to add exposure to contra dollar hedges to lessen your currency risk. You might also wish to begin to secure some essentials for your future.

Having said all this, as you may recall we are dubious on the hyperinflationary and severe deflationary scenarios for the US. It seems that a severe 'stagflation' is most likely based on current policies. Obama and crew are inflating the currency, but it is selectively being applied to the FIRE and Health sectors, resulting in a very slack stimulus to overall employment and the median wage.

The worst of both worlds: Inflation and Unemployment.

This is the policy mistake made by Japan in trying to reflate a status quo that was broken beyond all sustainable repair. But what can you expect when you reappoint the same team of Timmy and Larry to key economic positions, the crew that started the mess in the 1990's under Robert Rubin?

Continuity of error you can believe in, it appears.

Long Term Gold Chart Updated (And An Addendum Showing Detail)

The character of this move of the breakout will tell us how far gold will correct when it hits an intermediate top and consolidates or corrects.

Gold is in a bull market. One never gives up all their position in a bull market. Rather, you hold it while the bull is running. If you are an aggressive 'trader' you can buy on support and sell at resistance around a stable position to improve your cost basis, taking some of your own money 'off the table' but letting your profits run.

Otherwise it is better to just hang on and enjoy the ride.



As always, in a general market crash the liquidation will also hit gold and silver, and may set up an exceptional buying opportunity. But do not count on it. Never give up your seat completely on a bull market train while it is running, because it may take an extraordinary act of will to get it back again.

Last Update November 4, 2009

Sept. 16 Addendum: Someone asked for a 'picture of Scenario 1.' Here is what it might look like. With regard to timing, I am expecting gold and the SP 500 to make some sort of a short term top together, and for SP 500 DEC futures to peak out about 1117 before they correct back down to trend support. So you can see my dilemma in trying to synchronize these two views and charts. I think a market 'crash' is off the table unless there is an event, but who can predict something like that reliably?

Money Supply and Demand, and the Monetization of Debt

The growth of the broad short term money supply remains strong for a slack economy, although not quite as robust as when there was a flight to quality out of equities and Ben did his moonshot with the Fed's balance sheet.



Demand for money? What demand? This is something new in the post World War II era.



Relative to the growth of bank credit, the growth of broad short term money as measured in MZM is outsized as the Fed intends it to be.



The limit of the Fed's ability to monetize various debt instruments already in existence is the value of the dollar relative to the purchasing power of the other major fiat currencies.



Do people realize that a monetization of the dollar is occurring? Some do.



As one might expect the velocity of money, which is the ratio of money supply to the aggregate demand for money (GNP), is very low. This is helping the Fed to keep inflation selectively low, because although there is a lot of money relative to bank credit demand, that increased money is not doing much chasing of goods. It seems to be flowing once again into financial assets, which is probably an artifact of where the money has been allocated. How many cars and meals can a wealthy person or corporation consume? They do not create consumption out of their excess, they increase their speculation and the acquisition of the means of future production.

As the velocity of money starts increasing then the Fed will have to change its stance on quantitative easing, which is really nothing more than the monetization of existing debt.

SP 500 Volumes and Cash Flows Fading

They got the Dollar General IPO out the door and a few more deals were done so its "Mission Accomplished" for Wall Street. The SP 500 looks to be completing a hand off to the retail crowd of overpriced paper in this cycle of the price pump. Time to dump the bids and let it drop, with maybe one more push higher at most to suck in a little more money from the productive economy, or at least what is left of it.

Be aware. This rally is a ponzi scheme thinly disguised even by US Wall Street standards. But do not try and get in front of it, to short it prematurely.

The Obama administration is as asleep at the switch and coopted by its masters in New York as was the prior administration's regulators under Chris Cox, and that is a real accomplishment in a failure to reform.

People forget what the markets were like in the late 1970's when the pits were dead and the average person wanted nothing to do with the US equity markets. The creation of 401k's and more gambling tables like the options exchanges helped to perk things up. This latest generation of jokers will not stop until they have trashed the markets once again.

Expect more token reforms like position limits out of this crew in key commodities, with loopholes big enough for a vampire squid to slip through without inconvenience like the other 'reforms' being crafted by Barney, Tim, Larry, and Chris.

America, what are you becoming?

"How are the mighty fallen, and their devices of empire perished..."

Sachs: Obama Has Lost His Way On Jobs

Obama has not lost his way. His team led by Summers and Geithner are making the same mistakes that they did in the formation of the first tech bubble in response to the Asican currency crisis and the Russian debt default. The Obama Administration is serving its employers and contributors on Wall Street.

The banks must be restrained, the financial system reformed, and balance restored to the economy before there can be a sustained recovery.

Here is a perspective from Jeff Sachs of Columbia University.

Speaking of Garish Bling, the US Long Bond Is On Sale Today

Some US institutions are being compelled by new government regulations to buy long bonds to 'match duration' of their obligations per a ruling of a few years ago.

Other than that, anyone buying the 30 year bond, other than for the Fed carry trade, in an time of quantitative easing and free spending government, should be institutionalized.

The Fed bond carry trade is when the primary dealers buy Timmy's bond with Ben's money, and then sell it back to the people's short term debt in dollars via the Fed. It keeps yields on the long end down, and maintains the appearance of stability. The dealers get to front run the buys and short the sells.

It is a pyramid scheme to accomplish a short term objective.

MarketWatch
Treasurys edge up before long bond auction
By Deborah Levine
Nov. 12, 2009, 11:11 a.m. EST

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Treasury prices edged up Thursday as investors anticipated the government would garner sufficient demand for a record amount of 30-year bonds sold during the session.

The $16 billion bond sale follows two major note auctions earlier in the week that were met with plenty of demand from investors.

Traders also pointed to a significant amount of maturing debt and coupon payments when the auctions settles that create a natural bid, as investors may roll that cash into the new securities.

"After the success of the first two offerings, this one is also expected to garner good support too," said analysts at Action Economics. "There remains a lot of cash to invest."

NAVs of Certain Precious Metal ETFs and Funds

Secondary offering in the equity of the CEF fund is pending, although this tends to be a wash less transaction fees because the proceeds are used to expand the base of metals held.

The premiums expand and contract in the funds depending on sentiment on the future course of gold and silver bullion prices. The premiums on the ETFs are relatively stable, representing 1/10 ounce of the metal with a discount to the spot price for management fees. There is no NAV presented because the volume of any metal that might be underlying the price fluctuations varies greatly, and can lag.

Fraud on the Street in the Purchase of 3COM

The fraud is becoming more blatant on all fronts.

Mary Shapiro and the SEC should immediately subpoena the records of options purchases in 3COM and Hewlett-Packard for this week, and look for unusually large purchases. But chances are that they will do nothing, because there is a soft partnership between the government and Wall Street.

Make no mistake. Front running and monetary bubbles are not victimless crimes, anymore than robbing a grocery store at gunpoint is a victimless crime. They take from the many to give to the few.

There are some smokey allusions to 'calendar spreads' being put forward, but this is disinformation, and does not speak to the surge in stock buying and the pattern of insider trading. It was fraud, pure and simple.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The basis of the SP rally on high frequency trading and a liquidity bubble is a fraud, and will be exposed as such when the bottom falls out of the market. And the people know who the primary actors are in this.

The Obama Administration is a disgrace.

Bloomberg
3Com Option Trades May Have Been More Than ‘Luck’ Before Buyout
By Jeff Kearns

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Analysts say good timing alone doesn’t account for trading in bullish 3Com Corp. options yesterday.

Volume in contracts to buy shares of the Marlborough, Massachusetts-based company surged to the highest level since September 2007 before Hewlett-Packard Co. said it would buy the maker of computer-networking equipment for $2.7 billion.

“I don’t believe in that much luck,” said Steve Claussen, chief investment strategist at OptionsHouse LLC, the Chicago- based online brokerage unit of options trading firm PEAK6 Investments LP, and a former market maker at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. “If you’re on the other side of someone buying calls and a takeover is announced, it’s like someone held you up at gunpoint. It’s like you’ve been robbed and you feel violated.”

Call options that convey the right to acquire stock for a given price by a certain date usually offer higher returns to traders speculating on takeovers. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission polices the options market to ensure investors aren’t engaging in insider trading.

More than 8,000 3Com calls changed hands yesterday, 17 times the four-week average. The most active were contracts conveying the right to purchase 3Com for $5 through Nov. 20, followed by December $5 calls. The shares rose 5.2 percent, the most since Sept. 28, to $5.68 in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading prior to the announcement.

Almost 4,000 of the November $5 calls and 3,300 December $5 calls traded, with almost all of the transactions occurring at noon. That compares with a total of six puts giving the right to sell 3Com shares. Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest personal- computer maker, agreed to pay $7.90 a share in cash for 3Com, a 39 percent premium to yesterday’s closing price.

More than 22 million shares of 3Com changed hands in the stock market yesterday, compared with this year’s daily average of 4.85 million and the most since March 2008. Trading was heaviest in the hour after 11 a.m. in New York, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

“Somebody knew something was coming,” said Stefen Choy, founder of Livevol Inc., a San Francisco-based provider of options market data and analytics. “It looks like very unusual call buying. I see this very frequently when there’s a takeover...”

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. advised 3Com on the transaction, while Morgan Stanley helped Hewlett-Packard, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Both banks are based in New York. 3Com has its headquarters in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and Hewlett- Packard is based in Palo Alto, California...

Guest Post: Ralph Cioffi's Acquittal for Fraud - Janet Tavakoli

By Janet Tavakoli of Tavakoli Structured Finance

Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, former hedge fund managers and co-heads of Bear Stearns Asset Management, were acquitted yesterday (November 10) of all six counts in their fraud trial” U.S. v. Cioffi, 08-CR-00415, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).

"I worked at Bear Stearns in the late 1980s and remembered amiable newcomer Ralph Cioffi to be Bear Stearns’ most talented and successful salesman of mortgage-backed securities. He was usually even tempered, always hard working, and thoughtful. I headed marketing for the quantitative group run by both Stanley Diller, one of the original Wall Street “quants,” and Ed Rappa (now CEO of R.W. Pressprich & Co, Inc.), a managing partner. Ralph was a popular salesman with my colleagues and a heavy user of our quantitative research. In gratitude for analytical work that helped him make sales, Ralph presented our group with an $800 portable bond calculator purchased out of his own pocket. When I was lured away from Bear Stearns by Goldman Sachs, Ralph Cioffi tried to persuade me to stay, matching the offer. Around 20 years had passed and since then we occasionally stayed in touch, but we were not close friends.

Among other hedge funds, Bear Stearns Asset Management (BSAM) managed the Bear Stearns High Grade Structured Credit Strategies fund. By August 2006, the fund had a couple of years of double-digit returns. BSAM launched the Bear Stearns High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage fund taking advantage of the first fund’s “success.”

Both funds managed by BSAM included CDO and CDO-squared tranches backed in part by subprime loans and other securitizations (collateralized loan obligations) backed by corporate loans and leveraged corporate loans. In August 2006 when BSAM was setting up the Enhanced Leverage fund, other hedge fund managers (like John Paulson), shorted subprime-backed investments.

Investors in the two funds managed by BSAM had been getting double digit annualized returns on high-grade debt at a time when treasuries were yielding less than 5 percent. In fixed income investments, that usually means investors are taking risk.

Ralph seemed to have similar views to mine on CPDOs, the leveraged product that I had said did not deserve a AAA rating. Ralph told me he thought the AAA rating could “lull the unsophisticated investor to sleep,” and that for the purposes of his hedge funds, if he liked an investment-grade-rated trade he could have the same trade without paying fees and: “easily lever up … fifteen times.” To paraphrase Warren Buffett, if the price of your investments drops, leverage will compound your misery.

On May 9, 2007, Matt Goldstein called and asked me if I had a chance to look at the registration statement for a new initial public stock offering (IPO) called Everquest Financial, Ltd (Everquest). Everquest is a private company formed in September 2006, and the registration statement was a required filing in preparation for its going public. The shares were held by private equity investors, but the IPO would make shares available to the general public.

Everquest was jointly managed by Bear Stearns Asset Management Inc, and Stone Tower Debt Advisors LLC, an affiliate of Stone Tower Capital LLC. I was curious, but I was swamped. I told him no, I was very busy and had not even had a chance to glance at it. He called again asking if I had seen it, and again I said no, “Go away.” The next morning I ignored Matt’s voice mails, but finally took his call the afternoon of Thursday May 10 telling him that I still had not looked at the registration statement and had no plans to do so that day. My first call on the morning of Friday, May 11, 2007, was again from Matt Goldstein. He thought the IPO might be important.

I went to the SEC’s website, and as I scanned the document I thought to myself: Has Bear Stearns Asset Management completely lost its mind? There is a difference between being clever and being intelligent. As I printed out the document to read it more thoroughly, I put aside the rest of my work and said: “Matt, you are right; this is important.” I was surprised to read that funds managed by BSAM invested in the unrated first loss risk (equity) of CDOs. In my view, the underlying assets were neither suitable nor appropriate investments for the retail market.

I did not have time for a thorough review, so I picked a CDO investment underwritten by Citigroup in March 2007 bearing in mind that if the Everquest IPO came to market, some of the proceeds would pay down Citigroup’s $200 million credit line. Everquest held the “first loss” risk, usually the riskiest of all of the CDO tranches (unless you do a “constellation” type deal with CDO hawala), and it was obvious to me that even the investors in the supposedly safe AAA tranches were in trouble. Time proved my concerns warranted, since the CDO triggered an event of default in February 2008, at which time Standard & Poor’s downgraded even the original safest AAA tranche to junk.

The equity is the investment with the most leverage, the highest nominal return, and is the most difficult to accurately price. The CDO equity investments were from CDOs underwritten by UBS, Citigroup, Merrill, and other investment banks.

Based on what I read, Everquest’s original assets had significant exposure to subprime mortgage loans, and the document disclosed it, “a substantial majority of the [asset-backed] CDOs in which we hold equity have invested primarily in [residential mortgage-backed securities] backed by collateral pools of subprime residential mortgages.” Based on my rough estimates, it was as high as 40 percent to 50 percent.

I explained my concerns to Matt in a general way. Among other concerns: (1) money from the IPO would pay down Everquest’s $200 million line of credit to Citigroup; (2) the loan helped Everquest buy some of its assets including CDOs and a CDO-squared from two hedge funds managed by BSAM, namely the Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund that had been founded in 2003 and the Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund (“Enhanced Leverage Fund”) launched in August 2006; and (3) the assets appeared to include substantial subprime exposure.

Matt Goldstein posted his story on Business Week’s site later that day. Initially it was called: The Everquest IPO: Buyer Beware, but after protests from Bear Stearns Asset Management, Business Week changed the title to Bear Stearns’ Subprime IPO. I hardly think that pleased Bear Stearns more.

Ralph Cioffi contacted me about the Business Week article. He said that dozens of IPOs like Everquest had been done—mostly offshore so as not to deal with the SEC. According to Ralph, BSAM’s hedge funds and Stone Tower’s private equity funds would own about 70 percent of Everquest stock shares (equity), and they had no plans to sell “a single share at the IPO date.” They planned to use the IPO proceeds to pay down the Citigroup credit line and possibly buy out unaffiliated private equity investors.

I responded that verbal assurances that there are no plans to sell a share at the IPO date are meaningless. Publicly traded shares can be sold anytime. But even if the funds kept their controlling shares, it was not good news. Retail investors would have only a minority interest which would be a disadvantage if they had a dispute with the managers.

Ralph claimed that subprime was “actually a very small percent of Everquest’s assets.” He reasoned that on a market value basis the exposure to subprime was actually negative because Everquest hedged its risk. Technically, Ralph might have been correct—but the registration statement for the Everquest IPO itself suggested otherwise: “The hedges will not cover all of our exposure to [securitizations] backed primarily by subprime mortgage loans.”

It is fine to talk about net exposure (left over after you protect yourself with a hedge), but one usually also discusses the gross exposure (of the assets you originally bought). Hedges cost money, so they can reduce returns.

Ralph Cioffi said CDO equity is “freely traded and easily managed.” I countered that CDO equity may be easy for Ralph to value, but investment banks and forensic departments of accounting firms told me they have trouble doing it.

I told him that if this were a CDO private placement, it would have to be sold to sophisticated investors and meet suitability requirements, but since it is in a corporation, it can be issued as an initial public offering (IPO) to the general public. It seemed to be a way around SEC regulations for fixed income securities, and it was not suitable for retail investors in my view.

Ralph said he would talk to his lawyers about changing the IPO’s registration statement to add a line about third party valuations. We seemed to be talking at cross purposes, since the registration statement already said that third party valuation would occur at the time of underwriting. The problem with that was that the assumptions for pricing would be provided by a conflicted manager, and assumptions are critical in determining value. Moreover, on an ongoing basis, one had to rely on a conflicted management’s assumptions for pricing.

Ralph did not seem to want to end the discussion, so I asked him if there was something he wanted me to do. He said it would be great if I issued a comment saying I was quoted “out of context,” that my being quoted in Business Week lent credibility to the article and was not helping me, and that I would be “better served” writing my own commentary. I ignored what I perceived to be a thinly veiled threat. I told him that if he wanted me to write a commentary, I would do a thorough job of raising all of the objections I had just raised with him. Ralph seemed unhappy but my thinking he was a hedge fund manager from Night of the Living Dead was the least of his problems."

Excerpted with permission from the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, from Dear Mr. Buffett, What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street , by Janet Tavakoli. © 2009 by Janet Tavakoli.

SP Futures Daily Chart

An obvious reflationary effort that, without serious financial reform and economic rebalancing, will degenerate into another phase of the financial crisis and the ongoing banking fraud in a corrupt partnership with government.

"There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected.
This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny." Franklin D. Roosevelt

Same chart as above, but fitted with curved rather than linear trendlines.

Willem Buiter Apparently Does Not LIke Gold, and Why Remains a Mystery

Dr. Willem Buiter of the London School of Economics, and advisor to the Bank of England, has written a somewhat astonishing broadsheet attacking of all things, gold.

I have enjoyed his writing in the past. And although he does tend to cultivate and relish the aura of eccentric maverick, it is generally appealing, and his writing has been pertinent and reasoned, if unconventional. That is what makes this latest piece so unusual. It is a diatribe, more emotional than factual, with gaping holes in theoretical underpinnings and historical example.

I suspect that commodities such as oil and gold are giving many western economists with official ties to government monetary committees a stomach ache these days. Perhaps this is just another manifestation of statists and financial engineers facing the music, as illustrated by the second piece of news from Mr. Buiter on the US dollar, from earlier this year.

Here are relevant excerpts from his essay, with my own reactions in italics.

Financial Times
Gold - a six thousand year-old bubble
By Willem Buiter
November 8, 2009 6:02pm

"Gold is unlike any other commodity. It is costly to extract from the earth and to refine to a reasonable degree of purity. It is costly to store."

This is inherent to its rarity. It is desirable because it is scarce and useful, and this requires greater protection against theft or accident. Euro notes are far more costly to store than the paper and ink which is used to make them, at least for now.

"It has no remaining uses as a producer good - equivalent or superior alternatives exist for all its industrial uses."

This is an absolute howler to anyone who cares to look into industrial metallurgy. Gold is one of the most malleable and ductile of metals, with excellent conductive properties, slightly less than silver and copper, but is remarkably resistant to oxidation; that is, it does not tarnish. It is widely used in electronic and medical applications for example. What limits its use is that it is scarce, it is expensive, and that there are other competing uses, not that superior solutions have been discovered based on their fundamental merits.

"It may have some value as a consumer good - somewhat surprisingly people like to attach it to their earlobes or nostrils or to hang it around their necks. I have always considered it a rather vulgar metal, made for the Saturday Night Fever crowd, all shiny and in-your-face, as opposed to the much classier silver, but de gustibus…"

Silver is indeed an attractive metal, and had been used for jewelry and coinage throughout history for its unique characteristics. Silver was the metal of the common man, and gold was the metal of kings because of its greater beauty and scarcity.

The garishness and lower class status of gold is of course reflected throughout history, in the funereal artifacts of the Pharoahs, the Ark of the Covenant, the mask of Agamemnon and the adornments of Helen of Troy, the exquisite beauty of the Emperors of China, and the treasure of the Aztecs. Perhaps Willem is merely used to the cheap 'bling' being sold in market stalls, and should occasionally shop on High Street for better goods.

"Because to a reasonable first approximation gold has no intrinsic value as a consumption good or a producer good, it is an example of what I call a fiat (physical) commodity. You will be familiar with fiat currency. Unlike what Wikipedia says on the subject, the essence of fiat money is not that it is money declared by a government to be legal tender.

It need not derive its value from the government demanding it in payment of taxes or insisting it should be accepted within the national jurisdiction in settlement of debt. Instead the defining property of fiat money is that it has no intrinsic value and derives any value it has only from the shared belief by a sufficient number of economic actors that it has that value.

The “let it be done” literal meaning of the Latin ‘fiat’ should be taken in the third sense given by the Online Dictionary: 1. official sanction; authoritative permission; 2. an arbitrary order or decree; 3. Chiefly literary any command, decision, or act of will that brings something about."

This is where Willem's tortured reasoning reaches a crescendo of nonsense. Firstly, we have already shown that gold has many industrial and decorative uses contrary to his misstatements, and has been valued throughout recorded history in its own right in diverse societies and cultures.

By his definition anything that is priced by the market is fiat. It is a broadening of the definition so as to make it completely useless, or a narrowing of the definition to a few 'essentials' by some unstated arbitrary measure so again to make it useless.

The definition of fiat with regard to an instrument of the state is perfectly well known, despite his attempt to distort it. The ruling authority makes a decree, and so let it be done based on that power. Willem seems to confuse a fiat currency with barter, or some traditional custom of value. What is customary is not 'fiat' but a popular convention ordinarily for fundamental reasons.

If a valuation is highly peculiar to a region and time it might be an eccentricity, like tulipmania or ladies fashions. But calling a mania a "fiat" degrades the language in an Orwellian manner, because one comes from the people and is popular, and the other from the authorities and is often embodied in the laws.

If something has universality, the likelihood is that it is well-founded on an essential reasonableness, satisfying some basic need and utility. People desire a store of value that is stable and reliable everywhere and anytime, and not subject to the vagaries of the local ruling elite. And the judgement of the history is that nothing fulfills that desire better than gold, or gold in combination with silver.

If a price is established by law without regard to the market, it is 'fiat.' That is the difference between a decision of the marketplace and a regulation from a ruling authority. No wonder English banking is in such a mess, if this is their conception of valuation. They can no longer see any substantial difference between the will of the people and the diktat of the state.

The best way to explain this perhaps is by example. Let us imagine that tomorrow young Tim of the US Treasury announces that the US government will no accept Federal Reserve notes in payment of legal debts, public or private, and that further the US was issuing a new currency called the amero for which Federal Reserve notes would be redeemed at 100 to 1, that is 100 FRNs for one amero.

What would the market price of Federal Reserve Notes around the world do in response to this? Is this outlandish? No it is remarkably common in the history of paper currencies. I witnessed this personally while in Moscow during the collapse of the Russian rouble in the 1990s, and it made a distinct impression.

And what if young Tim decreed tomorrow that the US would no longer accept gold for taxes or provide as payment for its debts? Oops, too late. Nixon did that in 1971. And gold is now at $1,100 per ounce versus about $45 then.

A fiat currency is an instrument of debt, a bond of zero maturity, an IOU. It has a counterparty risk, and is not sufficient in itself.

That, Willem, is what is meant by fiat, the contingency of value upon some official source. If it were possible let Willem and I go back in time to ancient China, or even Victorian England, he with his pockets filled with euros, and mine with Austrian gold philharmonics, and we will see whose definition of value stands the better.

Governments can effect the price of any commodity negatively, by force of law, but its value is not contingent on government backing per se, except in instance of subsidy, but based on the utilitarian decision of the marketplace. Governments do not force people to buy gold, except indirectly through reckless management of the national economy. They do often compel a people to perform their economic transactions in the official currency however, so that it may be taxed, directly by percent, or indirectly through inflation.

Or as George Bernard Shaw put the proposition, "You have a choice between the natural stability of gold and the honesty and intelligence of the members of government. And with all due respect for those gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the capitalist system lasts, vote for gold."

I don’t want to argue with a 6000-year old bubble. It may well be good for another 6000 years. Its value may go from $1,100 per fine ounce to $1,500 or $5,000 for all I know. But I would not invest more than a sliver of my wealth into something without intrinsic value, something whose positive value is based on nothing more than a set of self-confirming beliefs.

It is fortunate indeed that Willem does not wish to argue this point, because his proposition on this score smacks of mere petulance. In the words of financier Bernard Baruch, "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." And he is right, unless you are looking at history with very selective contortions.

There are also historical benchmarks for the value of gold, that being one ounce of gold for a man's suit of fine clothing that holds remarkably well. How then could anyone say that gold is in 'a six thousand year bubble?'

But why such an odd, almost hysterical essay now, with such an outlandish title unsupported by any data?

It is probably simply the rankling irritation that all statists and financial engineers feel when confronted by something that resists their control and manipulation. Or it may be related to some unfortunate decisions made by the Bank of England, or the Bundesbank, to enter into trades with the people's gold on the well-intentioned advice of their economists, a decision which is now coming back to haunt them, causing them to peer into an abyss of public anger.

Who can say. But there is a time of uncertainly in stores of wealth and currency coming. Below is a news article from earlier this year about a European economist named Buiter, who is predicting that the US dollar will collapse. That is because the US dollar is contingent on the actions of the Obama Administration, the Congress, and the Federal Reserve.

And gold is not, unless the US begins to emulate Herr Hitler. "Gold is not necessary. I have no interest in gold. We will build a solid state, without an ounce of gold behind it. Anyone who sells above the set prices, let him be marched off to a concentration camp. That's the bastion of money."

And Willem, if you do not understand that, the principle of the contingency of fiat money, you understand nothing of economics. But I think you do understand it. Perhaps you are merely grumpy and out of sorts today, having eaten a bad sausage, with a case of dyspepsia. It does happen, off days and intemperate remarks, but not to eminent Financial Times columnists and distinguished professors when they wish to be heard on important matters.

It seems as though Mr. Buiter just doesn't like what gold is doing right now, rising in price, and the real story may lie in why he and the brotherhood of western central bankers are so concerned about it.

"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore, at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The U.S. Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K." Eddie George, Governor Bank of England, in a conversation with CEO of Lonmin, September 1999

Financial Times
Willem Buiter warns of massive dollar collapse
By Edmund Conway
5:34PM GMT 05 Jan 2009

Americans must prepare themselves for a massive collapse in the dollar as investors around the world dump their US assets, a former Bank of England policymaker has warned.

"...Writing on his blog , Prof Buiter said: "There will, before long (my best guess is between two and five years from now) be a global dumping of US dollar assets, including US government assets. Old habits die hard. The US dollar and US Treasury bills and bonds are still viewed as a safe haven by many. But learning takes place."

He said that the dollar had been kept elevated in recent years by what some called dark matter" or "American alpha" - an assumption that the US could earn more on its overseas investments than foreign investors could make on their American assets. (I think it is related to a subsidy, a kind of droit de seigneur, granted to the dollar by the central banks as their reserve currency in lieu of a gold standard. And that is the regime that is collapsing with the overhang characteristic of a Ponzi scheme. - Jesse) However, this notion had been gradually dismantled in recent years, before being dealt a fatal blow by the current financial crisis, he said.

"The past eight years of imperial overstretch, hubris and domestic and international abuse of power on the part of the Bush administration has left the US materially weakened financially, economically, politically and morally," he said. "Even the most hard-nosed, Guantanamo Bay-indifferent potential foreign investor in the US must recognise that its financial system has collapsed."

He said investors would, rightly, suspect that the US would have to generate major inflation to whittle away its debt and this dollar collapse means that the US has less leeway for major spending plans than politicians realise..."

Dr.Mishkin or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bubble

Former Fed governor Fred Mishkin distinguishes between bad bubbles, that hurt banks, and good bubbles like the tech bubble, that just hurt investors and distort the economy.

Is the Fed creating a bubble in equities now? Probably.

Do they care, are they concerned? No, not according to ex Fed governor Fred Mishkin.

We find that there is an odd framing of the question, which seems rather binary. Either there is a bubble, or no recovery, because the Fed must tighten and risk a new recession.

There are other things the Fed and the Treasury might do to ecourage banks to lend, rather than to engage in market speculation in imitation of Goldman Sachs, the trading bank with no depositors or borrowers.

Here is why Fred Mishkin has learned to stop worrying and love irrational exuberance fueled by reckless monetary expansion and financial engineering.

There is also the little detail, by the way, of the kinship between the credit bubble, created by the Fed, in response to the collapse of the tech bubble, which was also created by the Fed. Fred seems to think the credit bubble had a virgin birth.

So, preserve your precious bodily fluids while you read this, and be on the lookout for economic preverts and their quantitative preversions.

Financial Times
Not all bubbles present a risk to the economy
By Frederic Mishkin
November 9 2009 20:08

There is increasing concern that we may be experiencing another round of asset-price bubbles that could pose great danger to the economy. Does this danger provide a case for the US Federal Reserve to exit from its zero-interest-rate policy sooner rather than later, as many commentators have suggested? The answer is no.

Are potential asset-price bubbles always dangerous? Asset-price bubbles can be separated into two categories. The first and dangerous category is one I call “a credit boom bubble”, in which exuberant expectations about economic prospects or structural changes in financial markets lead to a credit boom. The resulting increased demand for some assets raises their price and, in turn, encourages further lending against these assets, increasing demand, and hence their prices, even more, creating a positive feedback loop. This feedback loop involves increasing leverage, further easing of credit standards, then even higher leverage, and the cycle continues.

Eventually, the bubble bursts and asset prices collapse, leading to a reversal of the feedback loop. Loans go sour, the deleveraging begins, demand for the assets declines further and prices drop even more. The resulting loan losses and declines in asset prices erode the balance sheets at financial institutions, further diminishing credit and investment across a broad range of assets. The resulting deleveraging depresses business and household spending, which weakens economic activity and increases macroeconomic risk in credit markets. Indeed, this is what the recent crisis has been all about.

The second category of bubble, what I call the “pure irrational exuberance bubble”, is far less dangerous because it does not involve the cycle of leveraging against higher asset values. Without a credit boom, the bursting of the bubble does not cause the financial system to seize up and so does much less damage. For example, the bubble in technology stocks in the late 1990s was not fuelled by a feedback loop between bank lending and rising equity values; indeed, the bursting of the tech-stock bubble was not accompanied by a marked deterioration in bank balance sheets. This is one of the key reasons that the bursting of the bubble was followed by a relatively mild recession. Similarly, the bubble that burst in the stock market in 1987 did not put the financial system under great stress and the economy fared well in its aftermath.

Because the second category of bubble does not present the same dangers to the economy as a credit boom bubble, the case for tightening monetary policy to restrain a pure irrational exuberance bubble is much weaker. Asset-price bubbles of this type are hard to identify: after the fact is easy, but beforehand is not. (If policymakers were that smart, why aren’t they rich?) Tightening monetary policy to restrain a bubble that does not materialise will lead to much weaker economic growth than is warranted. Monetary policymakers, just like doctors, need to take a Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm”.

Nonetheless, if a bubble poses a sufficient danger to the economy as credit boom bubbles do, there might be a case for monetary policy to step in. However, there are also strong arguments against doing so, which is why there are active debates in academia and central banks about whether monetary policy should be used to restrain asset-price bubbles.

But if bubbles are a possibility now, does it look like they are of the dangerous, credit boom variety? At least in the US and Europe, the answer is clearly no. Our problem is not a credit boom, but that the deleveraging process has not fully ended. Credit markets are still tight and are presenting a serious drag on the economy.

Tightening monetary policy in the US or Europe to restrain a possible bubble makes no sense at the current juncture. The Fed decision to retain the language that the funds rate will be kept “exceptionally low” for an “extended period” makes sense given the tentativeness of the recovery, the enormous slack in the economy, current low inflation rates and stable inflation expectations. At this critical juncture, the Fed must not take its eye off the ball by focusing on possible asset-price bubbles that are not of the dangerous, credit boom variety.

Peak Oil: WhistleBlower at IEA Claims Oil Production Statistics Are Manipulated

Here's one for the peak oil crowd, and those who suspect that the US and others have been manipulating certain market information for their own purposes, to promote a hidden agenda, to manage public perception.

Skeptical as always for now, but let's see what happens with this story.

Guardian UK
Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower
Terry Macalister
9 November 2009 21.30 GMT

Exclusive: Watchdog's estimates of reserves inflated says top official

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.

The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies.

In particular they question the prediction in the last World Economic Outlook, believed to be repeated again this year, that oil production can be raised from its current level of 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels. External critics have frequently argued that this cannot be substantiated by firm evidence and say the world has already passed its peak in oil production.

Now the "peak oil" theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. "The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. "The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this.

"Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources," he added.

A second senior IEA source, who has now left but was also unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organisation was that it was "imperative not to anger the Americans" but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been admitted. "We have [already] entered the 'peak oil' zone. I think that the situation is really bad," he added.

The IEA acknowledges the importance of its own figures, boasting on its website: "The IEA governments and industry from all across the globe have come to rely on the World Energy Outlook to provide a consistent basis on which they can formulate policies and design business plans."

The British government, among others, always uses the IEA statistics rather than any of its own to argue that there is little threat to long-term oil supplies...

SP Futures Daily Chart and the Triumph of the Swill

It looks like the bulls want to take this squeeze up to the 1105 trendline, with six bull days under their belt since the tag on the lower trend line last week.

This rally is being accomplished on thin volumes, thick liquidity, and weak regulations dominated by trading programs, with obviously fabricated and highly overstated fundamental underpinnings.

As Lloyd Blankfein would characterize it, the Wall Street banks are just "doing God's work," or at least the work of some power and principality with a favorable inclination to greed, pride, and deception, if these masters of the universe were to acknowledge any power greater than themselves.

No doubt there are some good intentions in the government behind a desire to manage the markets higher. After all, a rising stock market is a sign of wealth and prosperity to the superficial elite based on their own personal portfolios. Especially if one ignores all the jobless, homeless, and suffering people being victimized in their highly exclusive empire of the ego.

But who can stop a people determined to be rich without productive labor, with a self-obsession capable of subordinating even heaven to their personal greed and vanity? This will end in an ocean of tears.

The banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, and balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustained recovery.

Outlook for US Natural Gas Supplies and Demand

For now natural gas supplies in the US are above average, and the Energy Information Administration is forecasting a slightly warmer winter than last year in the US Midwest, and slightly colder in the West. The Midwest is the primary consuming region for natural gas and propane, with heating oil in the northeast.

There is some speculation this week that Hurricane Ida may enter the Gulf of Mexico, the first to do so for this remarkably light storm season, and speculators have been given some cheer in the oil and nat gas markets because of this.

Oil may be justified, but barring a selectively devastating storm, natural gas looks to be well supplied. This is the time of year in which we will typically look to place bull positions in the natural gas markets. So far that does not seem to be justified, but perhaps later, just on seasonal variance.

The energy bulls should hope for an abnormally cold winter in the US midwest. Their government does not think that they will get it.

"EIA projects average household expenditures for space-heating fuels to be $960 this winter (October 1 to March 31), a decrease of $84, or 8 percent, from last winter. This forecast principally reflects lower fuel prices, although expected slightly milder weather than last winter will also contribute to lower fuel use in many areas. The largest expenditure decreases are in households using natural gas and propane, projected at 12 and 14 percent, respectively. Projected electricity and heating oil expenditures decline by 2 percent (see EIA Short Term and Winter Fuels Outlook slideshow).

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) most recent projection of heating degree-days, the Lower-48 States are forecast to be 1 percent warmer this winter compared with last winter and 1 percent milder than the 30-year average (1971-2000). However, heating degree-day projections vary widely between regions. For example, the Midwest, a major market for propane and natural gas, is projected to be about 4 percent warmer than last winter, while the West is projected to be about 4 percent colder.

EIA expects the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil to average about $70 per barrel this winter (October-March), a $19 increase over last winter. The forecast for average WTI prices rises gradually to about $75 per barrel by December 2010 as U.S. and world economic conditions improve. EIA’s forecast assumes U.S. GDP grows by 1.8 percent in 2010 and world oil-consumption-weighted GDP grows by 2.6 percent.

Energy prices remain volatile, reflecting uncertainty, or risk, in the market. To measure this uncertainty, EIA is tracking futures prices and the market’s assessment of the range in which those futures prices might trade (see STEO Supplement: Energy Price Volatility and Forecast Uncertainty). The Outlook will now report confidence intervals around the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) crude oil and natural gas futures prices using a measure of risk derived from the NYMEX options markets known as “implied volatility.”

Natural gas inventories are expected to set a new record high at the end of this year’s injection season (October 31), reaching more than 3.8 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). The projected Henry Hub annual average spot price increases from $3.85 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) in 2009 to $5.02 in 2010."

Source: US Energy Information Administration

This chart shows the divergence between the Natural Gas ETF and the Crude Oil ETF in the US. The reason for this is founded in the fundamentals.



This is merely a linear version of the first chart shown above, the annual build and depletion of natural gas inventories over time. This tends to illustrate the big swings that are possible, and over a longer timeframe.

Krugman Declares "Mission Accomplished," Maginot Line Completed

The triumph of financial engineering based on an analysis of the past.

Conscience of a Liberal
The story so far, in one picture
By Paul Krugman
November 3, 2009

World industrial production in the Great Depression and now:

Jesse here. This chart is a bit deceptive because it compares two periods of time based on the start of the crisis. It would be interesting to compare the two crises from the start of the Fed's expansion of the monetary base. As I recall, the early 20th century Fed did not react this way until 1931 and did so in two stages. Ok, Ben was quick out of the starting gate with a massive quantitative easing. Score one for the Fed. They are quick on the draw when it comes to monetization.

And there is little hazard that Ben will tighten prematurely out of fear of inflationary forces, having learned at least that lesson from what might prove to be a simplistic historical comparison.

It would be unjust not to note that the 1930's Fed struggled a bit with the difficulties of an entirely different type of commercial banking structure and regulatory structure, and the restraints of a gold standard.

But at the heart of it, the comparison may be irrelevant. The genuine challenge in this era of fiat currency will be to avoid the 'zombification' of the economy, the appearance of vitality with none of the self-sustaining growth.

It may be discovered that the key to coming out of a crisis permanently is not how quickly and dramatically one inflates the money supply, or even how long one maintains it, and how many stimulus programs one can create, but rather how quickly and capably a country can reform, can change the underlying structures that caused the problem in the first place.

Japan has been doing it slowly because of its embedded kereitsu structure and government bureaucracy supported by a de facto one party system under the LDP. In the 1930's the impetus for reform was overturned by a strict constructionist Supreme Court and an obstructionist Republican Congress. The story of our time might be the perils of regulatory and political capture.
Before this Administration declares "Mission Accomplished" and high fives its victorious recovery, they may wish to consider that they have done the obvious quickly in one dimension, but have done very little to change the dynamics which created the crisis in the first place, choosing instead to support the status quo to a fault, partly out of ignorance and to some extent because of a pervasive and endemic corruption of the political process.

There are three traits that make a nominal bounce in production fueled by a record expansion in the monetary base a success: sustainable growth without subsidy, sustainable growth without subsidy, and sustainable growth without subsidy. And this can only be achieved by changing the game, reforming what was wrong with the system in the first place, if this is what caused the crisis.

Our forecast is that Ben and Team Obama are failing badly because they are fighting the last war, in the almost classic style of incompetent generals who lost the early stages of the Second World War because they were using the game plan from the First. And plans for a Vichy-style government establishing l'état financière seem to be well underway, in a general surrender of the goverance of the nation to the econorati.

For all its flaws, at least the Clinton Administration used to conduct polls to see which way the public was leaning, and took its cues from that. The Obama Administration blatantly ignores public outrage, and takes its calls from Wall Street, literally, and forms its policy and laws around what they want, or at most, will grudgingly accept.

A Reader Asks "How Did 558,000 People Lose Their Jobs When Only 190,000 Jobs Were Lost?"

Here is an excerpt from today's Bureau of Labor Statistics Non-farm Payrolls report.

"The unemployment rate rose from 9.8 to 10.2 percent in October, and nonfarm
payroll employment continued to decline (-190,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics reported today. The largest job losses over the month were in con-
struction, manufacturing, and retail trade.

Household Survey Data

In October, the number of unemployed persons increased by 558,000 to 15.7
million. The unemployment rate rose by 0.4 percentage point to 10.2 percent,
the highest rate since April 1983. Since the start of the recession in
December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million,
and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3 percentage points...

The civilian labor force participation rate was little changed over the month
at 65.1 percent. The employment-population ratio continued to decline in
October, falling to 58.5 percent."

An astute reader noticed that the BLS press release says that 190,000 jobs were lost from payroll employment, but the number of unemployed persons increased by 558,000. What's up with that?

The BLS report consists of two independent data samples. BLS has two monthly surveys that measure employment levels and trends: the Current Population Survey (CPS), also known as the household survey, and the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey, also known as the payroll or establishment survey.

There is the "Establishment Survey" which is based on responses from a sample of about 400,000 business establishments, about one-third of total nonfarm payroll employment. The headline payroll number, the job loss of 190,000, is based on this data.

Then there is the "Household Survey" which is a statistical survey of more than 50,000 households with regard to the employment circumstances of their members, which is then applied to the estimates of the US population to obtain the unemployment number. This survey was started in the 1950's and is conducted by the Census Bureau with the data being provided to BLS. It is from the household survey that more detailed information is obtained about employment statistics within population groups like gender and age, wages, and hours worked. It is this study that is responsible for the unemployment rate of 10.2%.



So which survey is correct? Neither. The truth is somewhere in between.

The most obvious reason for the discrepancy is that job creation in the US seems to be centered in the smaller business and the self-employed areas in recent years. These sectors are not polled by the BLS and their impact would only be obtained by the Household Survey's interviews.

The BLS does have a way to account for this called the "Birth Death Model" which is supposed to estimate jobs created by smaller businesses. That model is a bit of a joke actually since it almost always follows the same pattern of adding jobs, with two big corrections in January and July of each year when it will do the least damage to the headline number. Any model that does not reflect the job declines that started in 2007 can most certainly be called a statistical joke. Small business is not immune to business cycles.



The payroll survey for October will be revised several times in the short term, with each release of monthly data, and even larger revisions will be done periodically, every year or so, to correct the whole series and sometimes dramatically.

The household survey is not revised per se, but the data against which it is statistically evaluated, the census data of the population, will be revised and this will change the representation of the monthly samples. Let's hope that lowering of the population is only done by revision of the numbers, and not the more draconian things practiced throughout the earlier part of the 20th century.

There was a famous joke that the Household Survey and the Establishment Survey were synchronized under George W. Bush by getting rid of people, by lowering the estimates of the population that is, which is something his pappy did when he was the president. In the states there will be a new Census conducted in 2010 as you yanks may already know, so we will have to see if the census bureau's population estimates are lowball or highball.

So what are we to conclude from this?

First, that Wall Street and the government use the monthly jobs data as tools to achieve their particular ends, to justify programs, to buy and sell, to promote certain ideas and behaviours in the public. Secondly, people will believe what they wish to believe to suit their biases if they are not fact-based in their thinking.

The truth is more clearly demonstrated in the long term trends, the averaging of the data over time. It does not seem that the long term data is as manipulated as the Consumer Price Index information which has become a statistical disgrace with its hedonic adjustments.

So what do we do, the average person with too little time and too many other priorities, at times seemingly held captive by the flows of information from the mainstream media? As always, we must sift what the government and business tell us, with a keen eye for deception which is an unfortunate part of human nature especially when things are not going well and it is easy to rationalize many things, and do what seems to be the right thing based on our own judgement and a broader analysis of all the news.

Perspective: SP 500 Rally From the First Bottom of the Financial Crisis

Here is a longer term chart of the SP 500 showing the decline with the unfolding financial crisis, and the rally from the first major market bottom in equities. The rally has been a nearly perfect 50 percent retracement.



Here is the same view of the SP 500 but deflated by the Euro. This puts the rally into a slightly different perspective, which is not nearly so dramatic, about a 38.2% retracement which is a decent bounce.



Again the same chart of the SP 500, this time deflated by gold. The rally is stripped of the monetary inflation supplied by the Fed, and appears to more accurately reflect the 'jobless recovery.'

Warren Pollock: Game Change for Zombie Banks