Gene's Footnotes

I have never been impressed by the messenger and always inspect the message, which I now understand is not the norm. People prefer to filter out discordant information. As such, I am frequently confronted with, "Where did you hear that...." Well, here you go. If you want an email version, send me an email.

February 19, 2012

Devaluation Planned

The FED, now, admits to a plan to devalue the dollar, which is a direct stealing of you property.

Recall, the FED not being part of the government, but a collection of banks. Those banks control the president's policy. So much for a national government of the people. It is government by Goldman Sachs. You work for the banks as well as the U.S. Treasury.

This is from way back in 2010:

"...Devaluation is the intention, and devaluation is what is going to happen,” Avinash Persaud, Chairman of Elara Capital told the Forex Forum conference in New York on Tuesday.
We can surely expect the U.S. to deny this, as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did in October, but the truth will be seen in the foreign exchange markets, where the dollar has been falling and will fall further as the year winds down.....

The Red guy is your government


They no longer deny it.

Now, we will all have to understand why someone would buy a negative-yield bond. If you are interested, I am putting together an offer for people to invest in Canada and preserve wealth. Let me know if you want an offer.

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Federal Reserve and Big Banks Are Going to Crush the Dollar … and American Savers

The Federal Reserve’s explicit goal is to devalue the dollar by 33%.
As Forbes’ Charles Kadlec notes:
The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) has made it official: After its latest two day meeting, it announced its goal to devalue the dollar by 33% over the next 20 years. The debauch of the dollar will be even greater if the Fed exceeds its goal of a 2 percent per year increase in the price level.
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The Fed has announced a course of action that will steal — there is no better word for it — nearly 10 percent of the value of American’s hard earned savings over the next 4 years.
While that is stunning, it is actually par for the course for the Fed:
Here’s a chart of the trade weighted US Dollar from 1973-2009.
US dollar Federal Reserve and Big Banks Are Going to Crush the Dollar ... and American Savers
And here’s a bonus chart showing the decline in the dollar’s purchasing power from 1913 to 2005:
Dollar from 1913.gif Federal Reserve and Big Banks Are Going to Crush the Dollar ... and American Savers
The giant banks – through their treasury borrowing committee headed by JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs – are also demanding the issuance of negative yield bonds. 
In other words, the too big to fail banks want Americans to pay to have the luxury of holding their money in bonds. 
American savers – and especially those living on fixed incomes and pensions – are going to get creamed.

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November 28, 2011

Bernholtz Line: we have passed into the danger zone

Readers already know that I am recommending a slow panic on a personal level and activism on the political level.  To my mind, it is certain that we are in for a hard fall that breaks through the floor.

The only way to stop it would be to elect a Tea Party Congress and a President not afraid of using a scalpel. I do not think Messers. Gingrich and Romney are smart enough to be vicious.  Perhaps, I am wrong.  Once that happens and the scalpels are out, then a one-time tax and/or a voluntary contribution would be make sense, but not if the spenders are still in power. Who wants to give money to a junkie?


Peter Bernholz (Professor Emeritus of Economics in the Center for Economics and Business, University of Basel, University of  Switzerland)  seems to be the man to quote these days. His take, see below, is that in the 12 largest hyperinflationary events, the alarms sound when a government crosses the Bernholtz "line" which is when governmental debt is 40% of its expenditures. The U.S. passed that line last year.  We are at 42% and rising. Japan is in its eighth year, the music is about to stop, and there is no chair left. I read an analysis that Japan will have a good 2012 because it is responding to the nuclear disaster. Short sighted. 


In the meantime, the Democrats want to increase taxes so they can increase expenditures. They say the Tea Party people are mean. The GOP elite nod their heads in the back. The dementia of European socialism has hit the U.S. with a powerful force.  It seems the new purpose of government is to pay money to people.  The demented continue on a path even though they see is has never worked. [There is the concurrent argument that collapse is the intent of the left.]


We have a marriage that is going bad. Dad has three jobs and sees the credit card bills exceed his ability to pay, hence the interest rates will go up as his credit worthiness goes down. Mom is mentally ill and spends her life buying things so the kids will like her. She goes to lunch with her friends wearing her new clothes. They all live in a fancy house with a 40% mortgage. Mom hides her credit card bills.  


The children and Mom think Dad is mean and selfish.  There is no solution in asking Mom to show some logic, she is ill.  Children are children. So, Dad has to act boldly even if his actions are hated. Dad is working toward a heart attack and has to deal with the situation.


Below, is a good starting point:
...The first question anyone will ask is: why doesn't the US simply cut spending? While this is probably the correct solution, it is the least politically desirable. As we've witnessed throughout Europe, austerity leads to massive social unrest. Any politician who takes money away from special interest groups and government departments is putting a target on his/her back. [So, we need to put one on their back if the refuse.]
The chart below is the kingpin of this article in that it demonstrates the growing connection between votes and government spending. Fully 60% of government spending is a form of social welfare that is paid to the individual citizen. In other words, the government needs to keep making more and more of these payments to keep constituents happy. The US government has backed itself into a corner.
Hyperinflation is a political issue. It happens when a government is forced to spend money it doesn't have. And when it can no longer borrow to fill the gap, it turns to the printing presses. Once the cycle has started, it becomes self-reinforcing. Based on research by Peter Bernholz we are dangerously close to that tipping point:
There have been 28 episodes of hyperinflation of national economies in the 20th century, with 20 occurring after 1980. Peter Bernholz (Professor Emeritus of Economics in the Center for Economics and Business (WWZ) at the University of Basel, Switzerland) has spent his career examining the intertwined worlds of politics and economics with special attention given to money. In his most recent book, Monetary Regimes and Inflation: History, Economic and Political Relationships, Bernholz analyzes the 12 largest episodes of hyperinflations – all of which were caused by financing huge public budget deficits through money creation. His conclusion: the tipping point for hyperinflation occurs when the government’s deficit exceed 40% of its expenditures.
Hyperinflation is the child of fiscal policy, and monetary policy is the plug that fills the fiscal holes. The hyperinflationary wheels are set in motion, but it's not too late to change course. I think that until restraints on spending are evident the bull case for gold (and other metals such as silver (SLV), platinum (PPLT) and palladium (PALL)) remains intact.
Bottom line, when a government can't control spending the risks of hyperinflation rise and the case for owning gold strengthens.

The there is a difference to the current challenges. The GDP can no longer overcome the governments taxation and regulation, so the massive jump in Gross Federal Debt is met with an inverted GDP, not a rebounding one. Why?  One reason is that the governmental expense is to buy votes with social programs, not feed the economy. One result it the government hands out money then immediately acts to water it down.  [Yes, prices inflation is rampant, though the government does not track food and fuel so it reports everything is fine.]


Bretton Woods agreement - when Nixon ended the gold standard. This enabled the US to run budget deficits to pay for wars and growing entitlements.
History has repeatedly shown that when politicians have few restrictions they will spend until a country is bankrupt. Today, one of every three dollars that is spent by the US government must be borrowed.

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February 28, 2010

A screaming alert to the wise




Bernanke is now joining Rosenberg, Ferguson and Faber, Edwards, Grice and many others in warning that the debt crisis rearing its head in Greece may spread to America, causing  U.S. interest rates to climb.
As the Washington Times wrote yesterday:
With uncharacteristic bluntness, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned Congress on Wednesday that the United States could soon face a debt crisis like the one in Greece, and declared that the central bank will not help legislators by printing money to pay for the ballooning federal debt.

Recent events in Europe, where Greece and other nations with large, unsustainable deficits like the United States are having increasing trouble selling their debt to investors, show that the U.S. is vulnerable to a sudden reversal of fortunes that would force taxpayers to pay higher interest rates on the debt, Mr. Bernanke said.

"It's not something that is 10 years away. It affects the markets currently," he told the House Financial Services Committee. "It is possible that bond markets will become worried about the sustainability [of yearly deficits over $1 trillion], and we may find ourselves facing higher interest rates even today."
I know I repeat myself, but THE SKY IS FALLING.  Some ideas, please add any:

1.  Get out of all bonds, anything that has a fixed dividend.  Just do it.

2.  The market and metals will go down when interest starts.  Eventually, metals will return to favor.

3.  Buy all the stuff you can, now.  If you are not scared, but on a fixed loan.  Even a fixed home mortgage will be an investment, as long as you can pay it.

4.  Get ready to grow food, might as well get into it.  If you can store food, buy it now.

5.  I think there is another clunker for crap program, to buy energy equipment.  If you need anything, get it now.  Get the clunker benefit, beat inflation, and lower your energy use.

Any ideas?  

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Note the Washington Times reported on this.  Where are the leftists?  What are they thinking?  We can ignore reality and make Obama look good?
 

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