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Your Gold Coins.

Your Gold Coins

Gary North

Reality Check (April 12, 2011)

If you did what Bill Bonner and I have been recommending for a decade, you own gold. Bonner began promoting the purchase of gold in the year 2000. I strongly promoted this for my subscribers after September 11, 2001, when the Federal Reserve began pumping up the monetary base in earnest. Neither of us has ever stopped recommending holding money in gold.

I have stressed holding coins, especially tenth-ounce American gold eagles.

I am writing this for those readers who did what I recommended, have quadrupled their money (on paper and in digits), but who may be getting cold feet.

There are good reasons for buying gold. But you should have an exit strategy in mind. You need to consider this.

http://www.garynorth.com/public/7880.cfm

We are told by the mainstream financial media, which never told investors to buy gold over the last decade, that gold is in the final phase of a bubble market. But how can any market be a bubble market when the mainstream financial media are not running report after report on the bubble, telling readers and viewers about how much money people are making.

What mainstream financial outlet warned investors loud and clear, issue after issue, in 1999 that the dot.com market was a bubble? I told my subscribers in February and March of 2000 that it was, and that they should get out. But I published a newsletter. I was not mainstream.

What major outlet warned people in 2006-2007 that the real estate market was a bubble, that wise investors were getting out? I did in November 2005.

Bubbles always continue for months or even years after old timers say they will pop. Old timers have trouble estimating the fear of the buyers at being left out and the fear of lenders at being left out. The two sides -- debtors and lenders -- keep the dance of doom going much longer than old timers can imagine possible. But eventually the dance ends.

I spoke at Lew Rockwell's conference. One of the speakers is a banker. He lives in Las Vegas. He was taught by Austrian School economist Murray Rothbard. He earned a masters degree in economics. Then he went into banking.

As an Austrian School economist, he understands the business cycle. He understands that the Federal Reserve system has pumped money into the economy, creating a housing bubble since 1996. He knows this boom will bust.

He has no illusions about this housing market. Compared to him, I have been Pollyanna. He spoke of the mental outlook of the builders in Las Vegas. They all know it can't go on, but they are determined to party until it does. "Then they will declare bankruptcy and start over," he said. This is their exit strategy.

He was correct. It happened. He lost his job as a Las Vegas banker. He is now a senior staff member at the Mises Institute.

I went on to write the following:

I think a squeeze is coming that will affect the entire banking system. The madness of bankers has become unprecedented. They have forgotten about loan diversification. They have been caught up in Greenspan's counter-cyclical policy of lowering the federal funds rate. Now this policy is being reversed. Rates are climbing. This will contract the loan market. Banks will wind up sitting on top of bad loans of all kinds because the American economy is now housing-sale driven.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north416.html

But I was on the fringes of the investment community. The bubble was about to burst, but the media attracted viewers and readers by staying on the bandwagon. To call attention to what should have been obvious would have reduced the audience. The editors knew better.

So, when I read articles about gold in a true bubble market, I know it isn't. The salaried reporters with no savings, underwater in their homes, and in a dying industry are merely writing what their editors think will sell.

What sells? Articles that confirm what conventional viewers and readers want to hear, namely, that they were not really losers by staying out of the gold market (they were), and that those who buy good now will lose everything (they won't), and that now is a good time to buy stocks and bonds (it hasn't been ever since March 2000).

Mark Faber, who recommends owning gold as a hedge against a declining dollar, recently wrote this: "In my opinion the Fed funds rate should be at 5% . . . That will provide real interest rates. I don't think the Fed will increase interest rates to a positive real rate. So, I'd say to an investor, he should have at least 20 to 30 percent of his money in precious metals."

When asked about his opinion about renewed fears of a bubble forming in the gold market, the student of the Austrian School of economics theory scoffed at the pundits who say the gold trade has become crowded. Faber said he routinely sees less than 5% of attendees at his speaking engagements raise their hands during his casual sentiment polls regarding the precious metals. Sometimes he sees no hands raised, he said.

http://bit.ly/FaberGold

There are many ways to own gold. The ones that most investors choose, and which most investors will rush into during the final phase of the bubble, is in fact not gold. It is a promise to invest in gold. It could be an ETF, which is a form of derivative. It may be a commodity futures contract -- another promise.

But what about gold, in contrast to a promise -- "cross my leveraged heart and hope to die" -- to invest in gold on your behalf?

Gold coins are gold.

WHY GOLD COINS?

The problem with today's economy is that it is built on promises and trust. It is therefore built on debt.

In the United States, the financial promises always come back to these:

1. The Federal Reserve System will remain the lender of last resort. 2. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) will pay off all bank accounts up to $250,000. 3. The U.S government stands behind the FDIC's promise with a $600 billion line of credit. 4. The government can get this money from the Federal Reserve System, if necessary.

The problem with these promises is this: the ultimate insurer -- the FED -- can fulfill its obligations in a deflationary crisis only by hyperinflation. That means that the only sure guarantee against the systemic failure of the American banking system is the destruction of the dollar.

If we get the latter, do you want promises to pay gold, which can be settled legally by the payment of digital dollars? Or do you want coins where you can get your hands on them?

On the other hand, if the FED ever refuses to create money, and if the banking system then begins to implode, do you want promises to pay that were issued by a limited liability corporation, such as a futures exchange?

In between hyperinflation and a deflationary banking collapse, people can buy and sell promises to pay gold. They can pay 28% on all profits (no capital gains protection). They can become self-conscious speculators. There is nothing wrong with this.

But what if you are speculating against long-term price deflation? Then you want paper money. But paper money leaves you at the mercy of the Federal Reserve System and the commercial banking system. Mass inflation could appear rapidly (up to 20% price increases), followed by hyperinflation (anything from 20% to infinity).

What if you want an asset that will do well in mass inflation or hyperinflation, but which will not do as badly as most other leveraged capital assets in a banking collapse?

I keep getting this answer: gold coins.

BUT WHICH GOLD COINS?

That depends on what you are trying to hedge against.

If you are a national living in a country whose mint produces gold coins, buy those gold coins. If you are ever in an emergency situation where you need gold fast, and you want to barter it for something you really need, the person on the other side of the transaction will recognize the mint's stamp. He will be more likely to barter.

Do you want a one-ounce coin? Not if you are bartering for small items. You want the smallest-weight coin that your national mint produces. On the other hand, if you want gold as an investment, for which you plan to exchange your coins for digits in a bank, you should buy the most common one-ounce coin with the lowest premium: the Krugerrand. This low premium is consistent. You buy low; you sell low.

If you want something in between, buy a one-ounce coin from your national mint.

The tenth-ounce American eagle commands a premium above the one-ounce eagle these days. This could go away in a selling panic. Be aware of this investment threat.

Americans do not have a true free market with coins produced by the U.S. Mint. Ron Paul held hearings on this issue recently. The Mint keeps getting back-logged with orders during panic-driven periods. It sells only to coin dealers. This creates a premium for coins when these logjams occur. You can read about the problems here:

http://bit.ly/TooFewCoins

PROCRASTINATORS PAY PREMIUMS

Most people listen to a story for years before taking action. This has surely been true of the story of gold. When Gordon Brown, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, sold off half of Britain's gold, 1999-2002, he depressed the world price. He sold it at an average price of $276 per ounce.

http://bit.ly/BrownGold

This was a massive transfer of wealth from the British government to other central banks, which bought most of the gold. This kept down the market price, as central banks shifted demand from the private markets to the Bank of England's bars of gold.

This was the last chance for gold speculators to get in on the deal cheap. Not many people did, of course, because not many people ever buy close to the bottom of any market.

So, gold has steadily moved higher over the last decade. Still, the procrastinators procrastinate.

I don't mean Joe Lunchbucket and Tom Temp. The vast majority of Americans have no liquid savings above a few thousand dollars in the bank. Fewer than 50% have pensions of any size, and the money in these tax-deferred accounts are not at their disposal. The funds they can invest in are not related to gold. They are categories that will keep the fund managers from a lawsuit when markets collapse: American stocks, American bonds, and Treasury debt.

Gold is an investment asset. It therefore will not become popular short of an economic collapse -- hyperinflation followed by a depression. The average person owns no gold coins, nor will he anytime soon.

Where would he buy them? How could 100 million households buy a single gold coin per household? This would be impossible. There are only a few small coin stores in any community. They are mostly mom-and-pop outfits. The U.S. Mint could not meet the demand.

When Wal-Mart has a gold coin section in the jewelry department, then we can start talking about a possible bubble in gold. Not until then.

As more people on the fringe of the Tea Party find out about American gold eagles, they will start buying. This will force up the coins' premiums.

As word gets out about the scarcity of small-weight gold coins, there will be more interest in owning them.

As word gets out that the Federal Reserve's exit plan is a myth, they will start looking for hedges. Gold is a hedge against serious price inflation.

The government is working hard for existing gold coin owners. The government clearly cannot bring the budget deficit under control. Congress has no intention of doing so. When the government can borrow $1.6 trillion a year at rates as low as four-one-hundredths of a percent (90-day) to under 3% (7 years), why should we expect Congress to cut spending?

CONCLUSION

If you have yet to buy a single gold coin, buy a tenth-ounce American eagle to get started. That will not bankrupt you. It will get you over the hump.

Most Americans will never take this initial step. Those who procrastinate will pay a high premium when they at last think: "Maybe I really do need some gold." If you don't know where to start looking, start here:

http://bit.ly/GoldEagles

Out-greeking the Greeks. PMCO now betting against U.S. government debt.

The US government shutdown debate is a distraction.  Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer of the world’s largest bond fund, nailed the problem succinctly.  "We are smelling $1 trillion deficits as far as the nose can sniff," if the government fails to address the biggest entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, Gross said in his outlook.  These three programs alone will destroy the U.S. government.  They are immoral, unconstitutional, massive Ponzi schemes that will bankrupt the U.S. government.  And grandma is dependent on them!!

Mr. Gross knows that granny votes and that congressmen fear granny’s wrath at the polls.  Granny will get her Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security until the younger voters outnumber granny.  It will take many years for the younger vote to outnumber granny.  Therefore, he is betting against the U.S. government debt.  Interest rates for U.S. government bonds will rise once the Federal Reserve ends its QE2 program.

U.S. government bonds are not safe.  They are one of the next bubbles to pop.  You should purchase high dividend stocks with earning power and strong balance sheets instead of bonds.  Many stocks yielding 3-4% right now will become high dividend stocks when the stock market crashes again.

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PIMCO now betting against U.S. government debt

On Monday April 11, 2011, 11:36 am

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The world's largest bond fund began betting against U.S. government debt last month on the expectation that shaky finances will jolt interest rates higher.

PIMCO, through its outspoken co-chief investment officer, Bill Gross, has been raising alarms about a lack of buyers for Treasuries once the Federal Reserve ends its own bond purchase program, also known as QE2, in June.

In February Gross revealed his ultra-bearish view on the United States by dumping all of his fund's U.S. government-related debt holdings.

The portion of PIMCO's $236 billion Total Return Fund held in long-term U.S. government debt, including U.S. Treasuries, declined to "minus 3" percent in March from zero in February and 12 percent in January.

In a short position, an investor sells a borrowed security on a bet it can buy the bond back later at a lower price.

Cash equivalents, including Treasury bills and other debt with maturities of less than a year, rose to 31 percent of the fund's assets from 23 percent in February.

PIMCO also expects the lingering U.S. budget deficit and the Fed's easy monetary policy will fuel faster inflation and hurt the dollar.

PIMCO's vote on the state of U.S. finances comes just as Washington narrowly averted a government shutdown on Saturday after Democrats and Republicans agreed on cutting $38 billion in spending for the fiscal year.

The 11th hour compromise probably had little impact on the investment strategies of Gross, who said in an April newsletter that the U.S. government was "out-Greeking the Greeks," a reference to the out-sized government debt in Greece that forced the country to ask for a bailout.

"We are smelling $1 trillion deficits as far as the nose can sniff," if the government fails to address the biggest entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, Gross said in his outlook.

PIMCO's move mirrors a broader dislike of U.S. Treasuries. Some exchange-traded funds that bet against the Treasury market have seen a jump in volume lately. Volume in the ProShares Short 20+ year Treasury (Pacific:TBF - News), which shorts the Barclays Capital U.S. 20+ Year Treasury Bond Index, on Thursday of last week had its most active session since February 24.

And speculators went net short on Treasuries for the first time in six weeks as of April 5, according to the latest data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

U.S. Treasury yields have moved higher since the Fed began purchases of the securities in its second quantitative easing program in November. Yields on 10-year Treasury notes have risen 80 basis points since then to 3.59 percent.

(Reporting by Al Yoon and Richard Leong in New York, and Kevin Plumberg in Singapore; Editing by Padraic Cassidy)

Link to original article: http://yhoo.it/h7VFpE

Beware the Demon of Inflation.

The Mogambo Guru brings you some horrifying facts concerning price increases reported by several groups that tend to under-report such things.  You need solid high dividend stocks in your stock portfolio because the increase in consumer goods prices are higher than reported.  To get a better understanding of why read this article: http://bit.ly/CPILies
 
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Apr 1, 2011
Beware the Demon of Inflation
from The Daily Reckoning by The Mogambo Guru
The 5-Minute Forecast came to me in an email with the subject line reading “5-Minute Forecast – Everybody Panic.”

Naturally, as a guy who is always on the verge of panic because of the fact that all the monstrously excessive amounts of money that the Federal Reserve is creating will cause inflation in prices, this affected me greatly.

I assume this recommendation to panic is because the monetary base shot up by a whopping $90 billion last week as the Federal Reserve continues its insane over-creation of money so that it can monetize, through the year, a couple of trillion dollars or so in government deficit-spending over the next year, so as to try, try, try to spend our way out of bankrupting debt by creating more debt, to create more money for the government to borrow and spend, all of which will cause prices to rise, rise, rise, which I interpret to mean, “We’re Freaking Doomed (WFD)!”

Well, I was half right in my original conclusions, in that they noted that “Easy money is already having its affect in the US Wholesale prices, which trotted upward in December and January, reached a full gallop in February,” which is when “The producer price index (PPI) rose 1.6%.”

Gulp! This is the rise in prices in one month! And annualized, The 5 calculates it to be 19.2% inflation in prices!

And the bad news is that a 19.2% annual inflation is “for finished goods. If you move further back in the production chain, prices for crude goods rose 3.4% last month.”

My heart was racing at such horrific inflation news, and forcing myself not to start screaming, I instead concentrate on the positives involved here: they did not annualize a compounding 3.4% inflation, and gold and silver will be guaranteed to rise along with the general, roaring inflation, and they will rise even more with a Big Fat Kicker (BFK) from the general sense of panic in the economic/financial world when all those fiat-money chumps will be flooding, in a panic, into the relatively tiny gold and silver markets, bidding the prices of gold and silver to insane levels.

With a subsiding fear, I calmed down enough to read that they went on “And February was no fluke. PPI for crude goods has risen 20.7% over the last six months since February’s gain,” which is so easy to simplistically annualize by merely multiplying 20.7% inflation times 2 to get an annual inflation rate of 41.4% that I am, despite my best efforts, again in a full-fledged Mogambo State Of Panic (MSOP), feeling those familiar crushing pains in my chest and a racing, pounding heartbeat.

Like the kind of stabbing pains and numbness in my left arm I got when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that the US consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.5% last month – which works out to inflation running at a fast 6% annual clip, and rising.

The Wall Street Journal reported it as, “Energy prices surged 3.4% during the month, while food prices jumped 0.6%.”

Without a soundtrack of kettledrums pounding “boom boom boom” and the sound of ravenous wolves howling close by to tip you off about the sense of terror here, you can still hardly repress a shudder when The Journal goes on, “Even though markets have cooled recently, the rise in commodity prices from recent months is expected to continue making its ways from producers to consumers.”

I love the next part, as it trots out some guy named Alan Levenson of T. Rowe Price saying, “If that holds, by summer this impulse toward higher monthly food-price gains should diminish somewhat,” which appears to mean that prices will keep rising, but not quite as fast for some reason that I cannot imagine, and this makes it OK.

And even with the prices of housing falling, the cost of home ownership (“measured as the cost of renting the home you own”) increased 0.6% y/o/y, which I assume means that although the value of houses is going down, water heaters still need replacing, the television needs updating and there is a leak in the roof over the kid’s head that she is whining about because the stain on the ceiling looks like a werewolf looking at her.

I reassuringly told her that it kind of looks like a werewolf, alright, but it’s better than resembling the horrible demon of inflation getting ready to eat us alive, gobbling the guts out of me, her, and everybody she loves, when prices rise so high because the evil Federal Reserve keeps creating more and more money to buy up government bonds so that the government can try to spend its way out of bankruptcy by going farther into bankruptcy.

“And besides,” I said, “Werewolves are mythical creatures, and don’t really exist, while the devouring demon of inflation is very, very real.”

So she said, “So it is better that it resembles a werewolf?”

I said, “Yes, it is! And even the horrible monster of inflation is easily defeated by merely buying gold and silver. So we are covered both ways, my little darling, so that neither werewolves nor the horrible Federal Reserve can harm us!”

That’s when I asked her, “Can you say ‘Whee! This investing stuff is easy!’”?

Reassured, she closed her eyes, her face radiant with a cute little smile as she said, in a voice almost a whisper, “Whee!” before she fell fast asleep.

The Mogambo Guru
for The Daily Reckoning
 
Link to original article: http://bit.ly/fl8CHD

Marc Faber says gold headed higher long term.

Swiss hedge fund manager, Marc Faber, says gold is going much high in the long run.  Central bankers around the world continue to print massive quantities of money.  All that money will be converted into the M1 measure of the money supply through the fractional reserve banking process.  I agree with him.  Therefore, you should have 20-30% of you net worth in precious metals.

I recommend that gold coins should make up 80% of your PMs and silver coins should make up the remaining 20%.

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INTERNATIONAL. Marc Faber the Swiss fund manager and Gloom Boom & Doom editor says it is a big error to print money because it rarely flows into the assets central banks aim to boost. He says more people have already sold their gold than have increased their positions and he doesn’t think gold is in a bubble.

Speaking from Mexico City to Matt Miller and Carol Massar on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart" on Wednesday ahead of a speech titled "When everything else fails, policy makers can always be sure of immortality by making spectacular errors" Faber said: "A big error is to print money. I think it doesn't help in the long run. It can give a temporary boost to economic activity but it doesn't lead to sustained economic growth."

"In fact it creates a mispricing of assets and goods & services and has negative implications on the pricing mechanism," he added

Printing money is the easy part of it, knowing where it will flow to is trickier he noted, adding that money printing in the US hasn't flown into the assets the Federal Reserve wants to boost, namely housing. Instead it created other bubbles overseas and in commodities.

Does he expect further easing?

"For sure there will be QE3, but not right away", Faber said, suggesting the Fed would like to see a correction of up to 20% in equities and then" to have an excuse for QE3".

"My view is there will be QE3, QE4, QE5, QE6......until QE26, until the whole system breaks down," he said

Faber, who turned bearish shortly before the 2007-2009 bear market, says QE2 is fully discounted in the markets. He expects some seasonal strength in April, perhaps a new high, but then we will have a more "significant setback in May, June".

What would be the impact of the Fed stopping QE2 today on the market?

The market will go down,  however "the market is designed to go up and down. That is the purpose of having a market economy," he said.

He went on noting that the marginal impact of printing money diminishes, "so every times you need to print more money to push the markets higher".

Faber said the US economy is already out of control and he sees a need for every interest group in the US to make sacrifices.

In the latest edition of the Gloom Boom & Doom report he writes: A level-headed, knowledgeable, and intelligent American friend of mine (she has been buying gold for years) recently observed that, “Only when the American people insist that sound business practices and moral standards be brought back will we be able to give the people of this country a future.” Unfortunately, I believe that the ongoing moral decay among US politicians and the business elite, the irresponsible fiscal and monetary policies, the decline in educational standards and infrastructure, the trade and current account deficit, the weak US dollar, and the heavy- handed and ambiguous meddling in foreign affairs by US officials, are all pieces in a puzzle, which when assembled reads: Failed State.

Where would he suggest investors put their money at this point?

In general terms, Faber recommends real estate, equities, commodities and precious metals.

"An investor should have at least 25%-30% in precious metals," he suggested as he doesn't think the Fed will increase rates to a positive real rate.

Faber also warned precious metals could correct but remain poised to go much higher in the long run and suggested buying the dips.

"I think they [Precious Metals] could also correct," because the breakout in gold above the November-January high is not convincing, "but in the long run with Bernanke at the Fed and Mr. Obama maybe another six years at the White House, gold will go substantially higher," he said.

The price of spot gold for immediate delivery ended March at a new monthly-close record of US$1,439 per ounce at the London Fix.

Thursday saw the Spot Gold Price in Dollars complete its 9th quarterly gain in succession – the longest run since 1979 according to Bloomberg data.

Faber said the number of people owning gold is much lower than many believe.

"Calm down about everybody being long precious metals" he told the Bloomberg anchors. More people have already sold their gold than have increased their position.

"I don't think gold is in a bubble," he stressed.

In fact, "gold is very cheap in comparison to the money and the credit that has been created and in comparison to the size of financial assets in the world," Faber added.

The price of gold slumped 1.4% lunchtime Friday in London, falling back from its highest-ever monthly close as the Dollar jumped on news of stronger-than-expected US jobs hiring in March.

"What we have to see now is how gold fares in an environment of rising interest rates, where holding a non-yielding asset goes against you," reckons RBS commodity strategist Nick Moore, speaking to Reuters.

Note:  Dr Marc Faber was born in Zurich, Switzerland. He went to school in Geneva and Zurich and finished high school with the Matura. He studied Economics at the University of Zurich and, at the age of 24, obtained a PhD in Economics. Between 1970 and 1978, Dr Faber worked for White Weld & Co in New York, Zurich and Hong Kong.

Since 1973, he has lived in Asia. From 1978 to February 1990, he was the Managing Director of Drexel Burnham Lambert (HK). In June 1990, he set up his own business which acts as an investment advisor and fund manager.

In 2000 Faber decided to spend more time writing his newsletters as well as growing his advisory business. He moved back to his home in Chiang Mai, Thailand, maintaining only a small administrative office in Hong Kong.

Dr Faber publishes a widely read monthly investment newsletter 'The Gloom Boom & Doom Report'  which highlights unusual investment opportunities, and is the author of several books.

Link to original article: http://www.bi-me.com/main.php?id=51976&t=1&cg=4 

Printing Money to Save the World.

Printing Money to Save the World

by Bill Bonner
Daily Reckoning

Recently by Bill Bonner: No Hope for a Consumer-Driven Economic Recovery

 

 

 

The Dow rose 50 points on Friday. Gold rose too.

As we ended the week, the Dow was over 12,000…gold was over 1,400…and oil was over $100.

And all seemed to be headed up.

But there’s trouble afoot.

Housing in the US, the foundation of most household wealth in the country, has gone into a double dip…which could drag millions more homeowners underwater.

In other words, the speculative markets are moving one way. The economy is moving the other. The markets are going up. The economy is going down.

Oh…and you can imagine what this does to the poor householder. He’s caught in the middle. The real economy pushes the value of his main asset down…while the feds push up the cost of his most important supplies – food and energy.

“Don’t worry about it,” says Bernanke, Geithner et al. The economy is recovering. But is it?

Nah…

It’s going to turn out very, very badly.

As predicted here, the feds’ easy money is making things much harder for most people. It’s pushing up costs…and prices. The feds can tell American households that the inflation rate is under 2%, but the poor consumer knows better. He knows that his real cost of living is going up at a rate probably more than 5%. Maybe, as John Williams tells us, more like 9%.

So, thanks to the feds’ pro-inflation policies, the consumer can’t buy as much stuff…so stores don’t sell as much stuff…and the economy weakens. And then, what do the feds do? They push even more inflation into the system.

This is not going to end well. Inflation is increasing…while inflation expectations are still low. Sometime in the future…inflation expectations will get ahead of inflation. And then, the Fed, if it is to get control of the situation, will have to put rates up above the real rate of inflation. In other words, the Fed will have to get ahead of inflation.

Is that going to happen? Not likely. Not in an economy that is slumping.

And along the same line…

We love Japan. Yes. Count on the Japanese to do things that are both great and horrible at the same time.

To put the following news item in perspective, the Japanese are in even worse straits than Americans, at least in some ways. Their government debt equals 220% of GDP. Savings rates are falling to zero. The annual government budget dwarfs tax receipts. And the Japanese face a huge bill for rebuilding after the earthquake, the most expensive natural catastrophe in history.

Where are they going to get the money?

Well, there are two possibilities. The first is bad for Japan. The second is bad for the US.

Like the US, Japan can print its way out of the problem. Some Japanese officials are all for it. Others aren’t. Bloomberg has the report:

Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa is under fire for refusing to consider 1930s-style purchases of government bonds to fund reconstruction from the nation’s record earthquake.

Shirakawa repeatedly attempted to quash direct buying of government debt, a step allowed in extraordinary circumstances with the permission of the Diet, in appearances before lawmakers this week. The policy would undermine confidence in the yen and provoke a surge in consumer prices, he said at parliamentary fiscal and finance committee hearings.

“If this isn’t a special situation, what is?” Kozo Yamamoto, a Diet member with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, said in an interview this week. Yamamoto advocated a 20 trillion yen ($247 billion) reconstruction program funded by BOJ debt purchases. A group of ruling-party lawmakers submitted a similar proposal to Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda on March 18, according to a web log posting by DPJ member Yoichi Kaneko.

The debate parallels discussions last year in the US and Europe, where the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank adopted bond-buying programs.

The report mentions how Japan paid for its military build-up in the ’30s. It printed money! Eventually this led to runaway inflation…and economic as well as military disaster.

But what’s the choice?

Well, there’s another option: Japan should dip into its “rainy day fund,” say economists Carmen and Vincent Reinhart. While the Japanese bought Japanese government debt, the Japanese government bought the debt of other governments – primarily, the USA.

Now, it has about a trillion dollars’ worth of it. Why not just sell some of it in order to rebuild the country?

Well, yes… But then, you see the problem, don’t you, Dear Reader? What happens to the price of US government debt? It goes down, right?

And then the US has a hard time funding its deficits.

But wait. It can print money too.

Oh joy…we’re saved!

Reprinted with permission from The Daily Reckoning.

March 29, 2011

Bill Bonner is the author, with Addison Wiggin, of Financial Reckoning Day: Surviving the Soft Depression of The 21st Century and The New Empire of Debt: The Rise Of An Epic Financial Crisis and the co-author with Lila Rajiva of Mobs, Messiahs and Markets (Wiley, 2007). Since 1999, Bill has been a daily contributor and the driving force behind The Daily Reckoning.

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The Adjusted Monetary Base: February 2010 to Early March 2011. No More Exit Strategy.

There is no news on my favorite high dividend stocks, so let's see what the evil Federal Reserve chairman is up to.  See the charts below to examine the Fed's adjusted monetary base.  Ben Bernanke has been very busy counterfieting US dollars to purchase US government treasury bonds.  Government bonds are a bubble.  When interest rates rise bond prices will go down making current bonds worth less.  I wouldn't and don't own bonds in this financial environment.
 
The Adjusted Monetary Base: February 2010 to Early March 2011. No More Exit Strategy.
 
Gary North
March 24, 2010

Look at the adjusted monetary base over the last year.

Bernanke tried to get off the tiger's back. He began his much-heralded exit strategy in February 2010. He climbed back on the tiger's back in January 2011.


 

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Why Interest Rates Will Rise. Why AGNC Will Lose.

Conditions are optimal for American Capital Agency Corp. (AGNC) to produce profits; however, those conditions are temporary.  The people who operate AGNC  are Keynesians.  Some of the senior officers used to work for Fannie Mae and/or Freddie Mac.  You must believe in the Keynesian mantra to work at those two government-sponsored enterprises.  Interest rates will rise and destroy AGNC's profitability.  Read the article from Gary North for a detailed explanation of why interest rates will rise.  This is the Austrian economics perspective.  Ignore it at your own peril if you own AGNC or any other mortgage REIT.

Why Interest Rates Will Rise.

by Gary North

Recently by Gary North: Milton Friedman's Contraption

 

  

The world is on a Keynesian spending spree. Western central banks are inflating as never before in peacetime. Western governments are running massive budget deficits.

The European Union in 1997 established a Stability and Growth Pact, which set guidelines for fiscal policy: an annual deficit of no more than 3% of GDP and a total government-debt-to-GDP ratio of no more than 60%.

The West is far beyond both limits. In a March 20 speech by a senior IMF official, we read the following.

In advanced economies, reducing unemployment is a priority. At the same time, however, public debt is piling up to unprecedented heights, creating worries in many advanced countries about fiscal sustainability. In fact, IMF analysis indicates that advanced economy fiscal deficits will average about 7 percent of GDP in 2011, and the average public debt ratio will exceed 100 percent of GDP for the first time since the end of World War II.

As is increasingly obvious, such a fiscal trend simply is not sustainable. While expansionary fiscal policy actions helped to save the global economy from a far deeper downturn, the fiscal fallout of the crisis must be addressed before it begins to impede the recovery, and to create new risks. The central challenge is to avert a potential future fiscal crisis, while at the same time create jobs and support social cohesion.

He is a standard Keynesian economist. He stated without qualification that "expansionary fiscal policy actions helped to save the global economy from a far deeper downturn." He assumed that his listeners would agree with him. This has been the Keynesian party line ever since 1936. It is not questioned. But now the acceptance of the Keynesian party line has removed all resistance to fiscal deficits on an unprecedented peacetime level.

"The central challenge is to avert a potential future fiscal crisis, while at the same time create jobs and support social cohesion." This is like saying, "Governments need to pursue policies of black and white – no gray." According to Keynesians, the fiscal crisis can be overcome by economic growth. But governments still pursue massive deficits, and central banks inflate. No Keynesian is willing to say, "Enough is enough. The economy is now on a path to self-sustained recovery. It is time to implement an exit strategy for both the deficits and monetary expansion." On the contrary, they call for extending the deficits. They praise the central banks' willingness to buy the IOUs of national governments.

The speaker was straightforward in his assessment of what must be done. The problem is, there is no major political party that will do this.

The immediate fiscal task among the advanced countries is to credibly reduce deficits and debts to sustainable levels, while remaining consistent with achieving the economy's long-term growth potential and reducing unemployment. Achieving the fiscal adjustment alone is no small task: The reduction in advanced economies' cyclically adjusted primary budget balance that will be needed to bring debt ratios back to their pre-crisis levels within the next two decades is very large – averaging around 8 percent of GDP – although there is considerable variation across countries. Large gross financing requirements – averaging over 25 percent of GDP both this year and next – only add to the urgency of creating credible medium-term fiscal adjustment plans.

Urgency? What urgency? There is no sense of urgency. The deficits climb, the debt-to-GDP ratios climb, and politicians show no sign of being willing to reverse this.

Low interest rates have saved Western economies from suffering serious restraints on fiscal policy. This will not last much longer, he thinks.

This combination of rising debt but stable debt service payments is not likely to continue for long, however. Higher deficits and debts – together with normalizing economic growth – sooner or later will lead to higher interest rates. Evidence suggests that an increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio of 10 percentage points is associated with a rise in long-term interest rates of 30 to 50 basis points.

He identified the #1 problem: spiraling costs for government-funded medicine. The problem is, this is politically untouchable. He knows this. He failed to mention it. Instead, he merely described it.

To be credible, any advanced economy fiscal consolidation strategy must deal with the cost of entitlements that are a if not the key driver of long-term spending pressures. Of course, health care-related spending reforms will have to form a central part of any budget strategy. New projections by IMF staff show that for advanced economies, public spending on health care alone is expected to rise on average by 3 percent of GDP over the next two decades. Thus, for any budget consolidation plan to be credible, it must deal with the reality of rising health care costs. Inevitably, successful reforms in this area will include effective spending controls, but also bottom-up reforms that will improve the efficiency of health care provision.

Credibility is as credibility does. Western governments are doing nothing to bring these deficits under control. By this standard, the promises and assurances of politicians in the West are incredible.

This is the elephant in the living room. An IMF official at least mentioned its presence. He of course offered no suggestions as to how the elephant should be removed, or who will attempt to remove it. That is for politicians to decide.

Politicians have decided to let the elephant occupy the living room indefinitely.

Voters are unaware of the problem. They think that this elephant can be dealt with. But elephants must be fed, and their waste must be removed. By whom?

MEDICARE

Medicare for years has been running a deficit. This deficit has been funded by the general fund. The trustees expect this to continue. But they offer hope. The system will not be busted until 2029. By "solvent," they mean that the Trustees will not run out of nonmarketable IOUs to sell back each year from the Treasury, which has to come up with the money to buy these IOUs, year by year.

The trustees also make a major assumption. The legislation of 2010 will reduce Medicare costs, as promised. This was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (the "Affordable Care Act" or ACA).

Much of the projected improvement in Medicare finances is due to a provision of the ACA that reduces payment updates for most Medicare goods and services other than physicians services and drugs by measured total economy multifactor productivity growth, which is projected to increase at a 1.1 percent annual rate on average. This provision is premised on the assumption that productivity growth in the health care sector can match that in the economy overall, rather than lag behind as has been the case in the past. This report notes that achieving this objective for long periods of time may prove difficult, and will probably require that payment and health care delivery systems be made more efficient than they are currently.

Anyone who believes that passing that law is going to reduce Medicare costs probably also believes that the elephant in the living room will soon go away of his own accord. The trustees know better, so they covered their backsides: "This report notes that achieving this objective for long periods of time may prove difficult." May prove difficult! Indeed!

The handwriting is now on the wall, written in red ink. No one seems to notice. The king does not call for a modern-day Daniel to translate. The message is in a foreign tongue: digits. The king does not call in the accountants to translate, because he knows what they will say. The message is much the same as it was in Daniel's day: MENE, MENE, TEKEL UPHARSIN. TEKEL means the same: "You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting."

Any politician who openly says, "It's time to cut back on Medicare," will find himself out of a job after the next election. The insurance companies welcomed Medicare as a way to get high-risk oldsters off their rolls. They kick you off when you turn 65. They will not pay for anything that Medicare would pay for. You can stay on the rolls by paying high premiums, but you will not be paid.

There is no way to go back. The elephant will remain in the living room. He will grow. He will consume more. The pile of dropping will increase.

Everyone in high places knows how this will end: in default. No one is willing to say the form that the default will take.

Some think it will end in hyperinflation. But that does not end the program. It will still be there on the far side of T-bill repudiation.

Some think it will be the unwillingness of central banks to buy government debt. They will cease inflating That will cause Great Depression 2.

Some think the oldsters will finally be cut off and returned to their children for medical care. At today's Medicare costs, that will be $11,000 per year of added insurance fees, which private companies will refuse to insure for people with existing conditions.

Someone will pay to get the elephant out of the living room. The taxpayers will not bear the costs of Medicare indefinitely.

RE-THINKING KEYNES

John Maynard Keynes wrote in the depths of the worldwide depression. His most famous book was published in 1936: The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, soon captured the minds of younger economists. A decade later, Keynes died. At the time of his death, it was clear that his explanation of the Great Depression would become dominant.

In 1948, the first edition Paul Samuelson's Economics textbook appeared. It became the dominant textbook in the West. It was called neo-Keynesian. That is, it was only partially incoherent, unlike Keynes' General Theory, which is totally incoherent. (Skeptics who think I am exaggerating have either never read The General Theory or have spent years reading textbooks to prepare them to believe they understand The General Theory when they read it after they have received their Ph.Ds in economics.)

Keynes' publisher, Macmillan, had published Lionel Robbins' excellent book, The Great Depression, in 1934. It was short, readable, and theoretically accurate. It is online for free here.

In 1937, Macmillan published another book on the causes of the depression, Banking and the Business Cycle, by three economists. It is online for free here.

If these two books had carried the day in the economics profession, the West would be far richer today, if we assume that decisions made by private property owners are more efficient than decisions made by politicians and central bankers, none of whom can be held personally economically accountable for the outcome of their decisions. These two books were coherent, accurate, and committed to the free market. They are forgotten today. Were it not for the Mises Institute's program of online posting and physical reprinting of out-of-print books on free market, they would probably not be available.

The world's economists are allied to the politicians. They defend massive government deficits as necessary to avoid recessions and unemployment. But unemployment is higher than anything since the Great Depression. The policies have clearly failed. Nevertheless, apologists use the familiar argument from counter-factual history: the rate of unemployment would be much higher today if it had not been for the deficits and central bank inflation. This needs to be proven. They do not attempt to prove it.

The Keynesians have been given a free ride by non-Austrian School economists. While economists gripe about this or that minor technical detail about the deficits and the central bank inflation, there is no full-scale critique of these policies by mainstream economists. They have bet the farm on the positive outcome of the policies.

The rise of commodity prices testifies to a growing problem. Price inflation apart from energy and food has remained low. Energy and food prices are dismissed as irrelevant in the medium-term, because they are volatile. They go down, too. But when price categories do not go down, as these two have not ever since late 2008, the statisticians are supposed to incorporate them into their statistical model. Government statisticians are resisting this.

As the rise in prices forces a rise in interest rates, debt will become a major drain in consumer spending. Consumers respond to rising monthly expenditures by cutting back on borrowing. Governments do not. They call on the central bank to intervene and buy bonds with newly created money. This cannot go on much longer. The inflation premium in the bond market will increase.

Government is absorbing the savings of Americans. The sink holes that constitute the Federal government's constituencies will absorb the money that would otherwise have gone to finance businesses. Economic growth will slow. Then it will become contraction.

CONCLUSION

The IMF bureaucrat ended his speech with this.

In sum, there is no doubt that given the evolution of the recovery, countries are grappling with increasingly-complex and increasingly-diverse challenges. This is certainly true of fiscal policy. But to move toward a future of strong, sustainable, and balanced growth, these fiscal challenges need to be addressed urgently. The time for action is now.

Thank you for your attention.

The problem: no one in power is paying attention. The time for action is now, he said. Salaried economists have been saying this for years. But no one takes any action.

Government debts will increase until rates go up. Then lenders will still lend. Private capital will suffer. It will be crowded out at the governments' low rates.

The Federal Reserve System is buying most new Treasury debt today. The monetary base is rising. Monetary inflation is increasing. Price inflation is increasing. This is why interest rates will be going up.

If you are in debt for anything on a floating-rate basis, you are in trouble.

March 24, 2011

Gary North [send him mail] is the author of Mises on Money. Visit http://www.garynorth.com. He is also the author of a free 20-volume series, An Economic Commentary on the Bible.

Copyright © 2011 Gary North

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Bernanke's Inept Sidekick.

Superheroes aren't the only ones with sidekicks. Evil central bankers like Ben Bernanke have them too. Meet Ben's evil sidekick.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig12/tamny4.1.1.html Note: Safe Bulkers (SB) CEO presented at an industry conference yesterday, but the slides in PDF format aren't available on their website yet. I will write about them once they become available.

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This Emperor Has No Clothes And We Can See Him.

Read this short article on a very important emperor with no clothes. http://www.lewrockwell.com/murphy/murphy177.html

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US Inflation Worse than Zimbabwe?

03/17/11 Baltimore, Maryland – If you live in the United States, your cost of living – even by official stats – is rising twice as fast as in Zimbabwe.

$100 Trillion Zimbabwe Note

Yes, Zimbabwe…the country where at its worst $100 trillion is worth about 30 of the US variety…and good for four loaves of bread.

Yesterday, the Zimbabwe National Statistical Agency announced that consumer prices slowed last month to an annualized 3%.

But this morning, here in the good ol’ USA, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced the US consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.5% last month – which works out to a 6% annual clip.

Congratulations.

Of course, most of the increase in CPI was driven by higher energy costs and, to a lesser extent, higher food costs. So for Washington policy wonks and central bank honchos alike, the rise in prices doesn’t count.

Food and energy costs are “volatile” and not reflective of “underlying trends” as detected by such farseeing folk:

  • Gasoline up 4.7% (56% annualized)? Doesn’t matter
  • Public transit up 1.9% (23% annualized)? Statistical noise
  • Food consumed at home up 0.8% (10% annualized)? What part of “volatile” don’t you understand?

Thus the “core” CPI, for people who only eat iPads, rose a scant 0.2%. That’s an annualized 1.2%, on the low end of the Fed’s inflationary sweet spot. Print away.

Addison Wiggin
for The Daily Reckoning

Read more: US Inflation Worse than Zimbabwe? http://dailyreckoning.com/us-inflation-worse-than-zimbabwe/#ixzz1GvAMSdwl