My High Dividend Stocks Blog http://myhighdividendstocks.posterous.com Most recent posts at My High Dividend Stocks Blog posterous.com Sun, 17 Jul 2011 17:08:42 -0700 It Ain't Money If I Can't Print It! http://myhighdividendstocks.posterous.com/it-aint-money-if-i-cant-print-it http://myhighdividendstocks.posterous.com/it-aint-money-if-i-cant-print-it

It Ain't Money If I Can't Print It!
by Peter Schiff

Recently by Peter Schiff: Don't be Fooled by Political Posturing
   
I have been forecasting with near certainty that QE2 would not be the end of the Fed's money-printing program. My suspicions were confirmed in both the Fed minutes on Tuesday and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's semi-annual testimony to Congress yesterday. The former laid out the conditions upon which a new round of inflation would be launched, and the latter re-emphasized – in case anyone still doubted – that Mr. Bernanke has no regard for the principles of a sound currency.


Tuesday's release of the Fed minutes contained the first indication that a third round of quantitative easing (QE3) is being considered. The notes described unanimous agreement that QE2 should be completed, along with the following comment: "depending on how economic conditions evolve, the Committee might have to consider providing additional monetary policy stimulus, especially if economic growth remained too slow to meaningfully reduce the unemployment rate in the medium run." Since the unemployment situation is deteriorating, and by all accounts will continue to do so, the Fed is essentially pledging to keep the spigot turned on. The committee also decided to look only at current "overall inflation" in making their judgments, as opposed to "inflation trends." Since new dollars take awhile to circulate around the economy and raise prices, this means the Fed is sure to be too late in tightening once inflation starts to run away, causing more dislocations in the American economy.

If anyone had lingering faith that Mr. Bernanke actually has a plan to end the US government's addiction to cheap money, the Chairman's semi-annual testimony to Congress should have washed it away. In addition to claiming that his money-printing has helped the US economy, Bernanke told Congress that gold is not money, people buying gold are not concerned about inflation, and the external value of the dollar has no influence on its domestic purchasing power. He even took a moment to stump for President Obama's plan to raise the debt ceiling.

 
By claiming that gold is not money, the Chairman demonstrates his ignorance of much of monetary history. He told Congressman Ron Paul that he had no idea why central banks hold gold, before speculating that it might have something to do with tradition. Yes, traditionally gold is money, which is precisely why central banks hold it. And gold is money because central bankers like Mr. Bernanke cannot be trusted with a paper substitute.

Bernanke further disputes the facts by claiming that the only reason people are buying gold is to hedge against uncertainty, or "tail risks" as he calls them. My advice to the Chairman is to ask the people who are actually buying it. As someone who has been buying gold myself for a decade, I can assure him that my gold buying has nothing to do with "uncertainty." In fact, it's just the opposite. I am buying gold because of what is certain, not what is uncertain. I am certain that Mr. Bernanke's incompetence will destroy the value of the dollar and unleash runaway inflation.

If it were true that people bought gold to protect themselves from market uncertainty, as the Chairman claims, then the metal should have spiked in the midst of the '08 credit crunch. Instead, it fell along with most other assets. People instinctively fled into US dollars and Treasuries because of their long record of stability. What Bernanke doesn't understand is that his irresponsible monetary policy is undermining that faith in US assets, built up over generations. That is what's driving gold: easy money, negative interest rates, and quantitative easing.

 
Finally, by claiming that the dollar's exchange rate has no effect on domestic prices, Mr. Bernanke demonstrates that he probably lacks the competence to be a bank teller, let alone Chairman of the Federal Reserve. A weaker dollar means Americans have to pay more for imported goods. But it also means domestic producers have to pay more for raw materials and imported components, which raises domestic production costs as well. It also means that more domestically produced goods are exported, reducing the supply and raising the price of what is left for Americans to consume. This is Econ 101.

Given the Chairman's confusion on the basics of economics, perhaps it's no surprise that he's put quantitative easing right back on the table, where, despite prior rhetoric, it has been all along. The Fed has always known that QE3 is coming; it's just looking for an excuse to launch it.

 
The problem is that fighting a recession with QE is like fighting a fire with gasoline. As the flames of recession reignite, more QE, while dousing it momentarily, will only produce an even larger economic inferno.

At one point, Bernanke said, "The right analogy for not raising the debt ceiling is going out and having a spending spree on your credit card and then refusing to pay the bill." He's got the analogy right, but his conclusions are completely wrong. Yes, Congress has gone on a spending spree and it's time to pay up. But raising the debt ceiling is like taking out a Mastercard to pay the Visa... it just makes the problem worse. If you or I go out one night, get drunk, and run up a huge credit card bill, we know that the way to fix it is to buckle down and pay it back. We might postpone vacation plans or put off buying a new car, we might cancel our cable TV subscription or gym membership. The point is that we would have to reduce current consumption to make up for the overspending in the past.

Obama claims that raising the debt ceiling is about getting a hold of the federal debt. Have you ever heard of anyone getting out of debt by taking on more debt? Has anyone ever reduced their debt without reducing current consumption? How can the Fed Chairman endorse such a preposterous idea?

Bernanke actually went a step further and warned against reducing current federal spending too sharply, claiming that such a move might impede the "recovery." He apparently believes that it is the role of the Congress to go on spending sprees, and his role to pay the mounting bills with freshly printed dollars. The fact that this formula has produced larger and larger economic crises does not seem to bother him. I guess ignorance is bliss.


July 15, 2011

Peter Schiff is president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets and Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse. His latest book is How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes.

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Thu, 25 Nov 2010 06:29:57 -0800 The Duel Over the FED's Dual Mandate http://myhighdividendstocks.posterous.com/the-duel-over-the-feds-dual-mandate http://myhighdividendstocks.posterous.com/the-duel-over-the-feds-dual-mandate

The Duel Over the Fed's Dual Mandate

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By: Peter Schiff

Given the opposing views of the potentially parsimonious new Congress and the continuously accommodative Federal Reserve, there is a movement afoot among Republicans to eliminate the Fed's "dual mandate." Prior to 1977, the Fed only had one job: maintaining price stability. However, the stagflation of the 1970s inspired politicians to assign another task: promoting maximum employment. This "mission creep" has transformed the Fed from a monetary watchdog into an instrument of social policy. We would do well to give them back their original job.

The imposition of the "dual mandate" was informed by the Keynesian belief that inflation and unemployment don't mix. An economic concept known as the "Phillips curve" postulates that low levels of one cause high levels of the other. But, like many things in modern economics, the curve is a fiction. There is no real reason why low inflation would produce unemployment or full employment would create inflation.

On paper, at least, the Fed has appeared to strike the balance that Congress demands. But this is a fool's errand. The Fed's dual mandate is the equivalent of asking a corporate CEO to maximize shareholder value by giving away as many free products as possible to consumers.

The best way for the Fed to ensure maximum employment is to focus on its one true job - creating price stability. The irony of the dual mandate is that by trying to satisfy both, the Fed ensures that we will get neither.

While it is true that increases in inflation may occur concurrently with drops in unemployment, there is no logical causality that can be implied. Any correlation simply results from inflation lowering the real cost of employment. Put simply: because inflation reduces wages in real terms, employers can afford to hire more people. So it's lower wages, not inflation, that puts people to work.

Inflation does nothing to alter the structural issues that cause unemployment. Like everything else, the labor market is governed by the laws of supply and demand. High unemployment results from a wage structure that is too high relative to demand. Demand for labor is a function of productivity, or more accurately, profitability per worker. Absent higher productivity, which takes time to develop, the only way to clear the imbalance is for wages to fall. However, government and unions typically prevent this from happening. Economists describe this as wages being "sticky" on the downside.

Over-taxation and over-regulation further restrict demand and add to unemployment. On that front, one of the worst offenders is the minimum wage law. It doesn't actually raise wages for anyone, but simply renders unemployable many low-skill workers. By creating inflation, the Fed effectively lowers the minimum wage. Another cause is extended unemployment benefits. Since these payments narrow the disparity between employment and unemployment, and in some cases may even be preferable to accepting a low-paying job, workers are incentivized to reject employment opportunities that they might otherwise accept.

To get around these roadblocks, the Fed lowers the cost of labor through inflation. However, this inefficient solution to a simple problem creates negative consequences for the economy. While wages may go up with inflation, goods prices usually rise faster. The net result offers no benefit for workers. By tricking workers into accepting lower wages, the Fed allows politicians to claim meaningless victories.

In addition, wages are only one cost of employment. Even as inflation lowers real wages, other factors can work to increase employment costs. In the current environment, higher payroll taxes, new health care mandates, economic uncertainty, and the potential for even higher future taxes to fund large budget deficits are all offsetting the "benefits" of lower wages. On top of that, large current budget deficits are crowding out small business credit. The result is that employment costs are rising despite lower real wages. Taken together, these policy mistakes are creating a toxic, job-killing mix.

The other fallacy of the dual mandate is that a fully employed workforce demands higher wages, forcing business to raise prices. More employment increases the supply of goods and services. Yes, employment raises demand, but that demand is satisfied by the additional supply created by a productive economy.

Since wages are the price of labor, wages are themselves prices. To say that rising prices are caused by rising prices makes no sense. Workers cannot demand higher wages unless the increases are justified by higher productivity. If they are, such wage gains will not result in higher goods prices.

The real reason that prices rise, for both goods and wages, is that the Fed creates inflation. This policy undermines the economy by destroying both current savings and the incentives to accumulate future savings. Since savings finance capital investment, lower savings equal weaker economic growth.

So, the best way for the Fed to create maximum employment is to focus on the single mandate of price stability. While a few elected officials seem to be figuring this out, most are just as clueless as the Fed. Unfortunately, even if Congress succeeds in changing the Fed's mandate, there is not much chance that monetary policy will change significantly. Keynesian thinking is so ingrained in Bernanke and his colleagues that they will exploit any wiggle room in their directives to jump back in the driver's seat and send us ever faster toward the edge of an economic cliff.

About the author: Peter Schiff
Peter Schiff picturePeter Schiff, President & Chief Global Strategist of Euro Pacific Capital (http://www.europac.net), is one of the few non-biased investment advisors (not committed solely to the short side of the market) to have correctly called the current bear market in U.S. dollar denominated assets...


Be seeing you!

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Wed, 29 Sep 2010 22:43:44 -0700 Why the Meltdown Should Have Surprised No One | Peter Schiff http://myhighdividendstocks.posterous.com/why-the-meltdown-should-have-surprised-no-one http://myhighdividendstocks.posterous.com/why-the-meltdown-should-have-surprised-no-one
Here is the link to the Peter Schiff video mentioned at the end of the previous post.
 
 
Be seeing you!

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Wed, 29 Sep 2010 22:27:38 -0700 Be Very Afraid: The 'Experts' Are Running the Economy http://myhighdividendstocks.posterous.com/be-very-afraid-the-experts-are-running-the-ec http://myhighdividendstocks.posterous.com/be-very-afraid-the-experts-are-running-the-ec

Be Very Afraid: The 'Experts' Are Running the Economy
by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

Recently by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.: Some Americans Distrust Authority

When Young Americans for Liberty at Indiana University first invited me to speak last year, the group ran into resistance from the university administration. Having consulted the economics department, the relevant university office declared that I was "uncredentialed," and that perhaps a professor from IU’s economics faculty could give a nice lecture instead. I was uncredentialed, presumably, because my education at Harvard and Columbia was in history, not economics.

The student group refused to take this lying down, and made such a stink in the local media, pointing to my bio and the reception of my book Meltdown – including the friendly coverage it received from mainstream outlets like Barron’s, CBS.com, and UPI – that the university not only reversed its stance but even partially funded my appearance, which took place on September 21 of this year.

 
The Indiana Daily Student (circulation 15,500) offered me a 600-word guest column in the wake of my appearance. Here’s what I wrote, which they published verbatim (complete with a comments section). ~ Tom Woods

 
The free market did not cause the financial crisis, and the Elmer’s glue and Scotch tape our wise leaders have applied to the economy are only prolonging the agony. That’s the thesis of my 2009 New York Times bestseller, Meltdown.

That’s not a popular thing to say in Bloomington, I learned several months ago.

When Young Americans for Liberty at IU hit a bureaucratic stone wall in trying to invite me to campus – a problem I can’t say I’ve run into at any other university – the local media took notice. But it was the comment sections that were a particular hoot. It was as though I had insulted Stalin in the old Soviet Union. Who does this idiot think he is? How dare he speak of our wise overlords that way! Why, they’re just looking out for the good of the people! And so on, as if I’d stumbled into some kind of cliché competition.

Then, when the university reversed itself and even helped fund my appearance, the comments switched to, "If I had time, I’d go over there and set this guy straight!" Uh-huh. The large crowd that came to hear me a couple weeks ago couldn’t have been friendlier.

What I explained at IU was that asset bubbles, like the housing bubble we’ve just lived through, do not occur spontaneously. If people bought lots of houses on the free market, interest rates would rise as the banks’ loanable funds were depleted. That would put an end to speculation in real estate.

 
But thanks to the Federal Reserve System (or simply the "Fed"), which is no part of the free market, large infusions of money created out of thin air kept interest rates low, and thus perpetuated the bubble. During an asset bubble, demand for the asset in question rises, as does its price. Where would people get the money to keep buying an increasingly costly asset if the government’s officially approved money machine weren’t there to flood the economy with cash?

 
It was this interference with interest rates, pushing them well below where the free market would have set them, that set in motion the classic boom-bust cycle we’ve just witnessed. F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how central banks like the Federal Reserve, by interfering with interest rates and not allowing them to tell entrepreneurs the truth about economic conditions, divert the economy into unsustainable configurations that inevitably come undone in a crash. (Hayek belongs to a tradition of free-market thought called the Austrian School of economics.)

None of this has anything to do with the free market.

Adding fuel to the fire was the so-called Greenspan put, the unofficial policy of the Greenspan Fed that promised assistance to private firms in the event of risky investments gone bad. What kind of incentives do you suppose that created?

The point of being in college is to learn how to think beyond clichés. Forget the quacks who told us, cluelessly, that everything was fine with the economy in 2007. Look instead to modern spokesmen of the Austrian School like Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, and Jim Grant. You know, the people who, unlike your professors (who, by the way, tried to keep a dissident voice from speaking on campus), predicted the recent crash to a T.

Want to know what really happened to the economy, and why your job prospects are so bleak? Watch Peter Schiff’s YouTube "Why the Meltdown Should Have Surprised No One." That’s the first step toward becoming the independent thinker that four years at IU are supposed to make of you.
 

September 30, 2010

Thomas E. Woods, Jr. holds a bachelor's degree in history from Harvard and his master's, M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He is the author of ten books, including the just-released Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century, and the New York Times bestsellers Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. Visit his website and blog, follow him on Twitter and Facebook, and subscribe to his YouTube Channel.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

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