Posts Tagged ‘deflation’

Notes From Underground: The Story of Two Doctrines

January 5, 2023

Happy New Year! We’re starting 2023 with a podcast I recorded with Richard Bonugli and Marc Faber. We didn’t make any forecasts (in traditional CNBC fashion), but just discussed potential outcomes in the macro global financial situation.

Critical to the discussion was what I am calling the two doctrines: Paul Volcker and Ben Bernanke. The Volcker Doctrine is based on wringing inflation out of the economy when it begins to boil, while the Bernanke Doctrine is focused on preventing deflation from gaining a foothold. In the last five decades the US and Europe have not experienced DEFLATION as the central banks and fiscal authorities have PREEMPTED the onset of such an outcome. In DEBT-PLAGUED economies DEFLATION is the worst potential outcome. Remember, Volcker confronted a 39% DEBT-TO-GDP ratio while today Jerome Powell confronts a 106% ratio and even much greater private/corporate debt. Enjoy the PODCAST with a strong libation or sugar-free drink for too much stimulant will not be advised.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Notes From Underground: Cui Bono? (Who Stands to Gain?)

November 28, 2022

When it comes to making sense of the global financial system I always have to ask the question who is benefitting from monetary policy? The recent podcasts from the Financial Repression Authority has provided a good backdrop to understanding the importance of debt markets — and by default the significance of the US DOLLAR as the bulwark of the financial system. The mobility of money or what serves the process of globalization has revealed many of the fragilities of the DOLLAR as a funding vehicle because of the FEDERAL RESERVE’S policies, which allowed all the other world’s central banks to sustain a prolonged period of zero and even NEGATIVE NOMINAL RATES.

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Notes From Underground: Where Do We Go From Here?

January 3, 2021

In 2020, the entire world endeavored to smooth out a new wrinkle in the global macro landscape as the covid pandemic spurred fears of a global depression as economies shuttered to stem the virus’s spread. The FED stepped in to ensure that the global system had access to enough dollars as corporations and individuals rushed to sell assets in an effort to meet a potential economic contraction. The U.S. central bank did its best to reduce the fear of deflation by opening dollar swap lines to more foreign central banks, as well as pushing U.S. interest rates back to the lower zero bound. The huge amount of liquidity thrust upon the financial system stopped a global selloff in its tracks.

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Notes From Underground: The Economic Consequences of President Trump

May 17, 2020

(NOTE: The following post is not political in any sense, but just a criticism of a major ill-conceived POLICY.)

This is a story of two pivots.

The first is Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in January 2019. The second is President Donald Trump in May 2020.

Powell’s pivot away from interest rate increases and balance sheet shrinking created a significant rally in equity and asset prices. Trump’s pivot on the DOLLAR will have disastrous results that are manifested in the GLOBAL DEFLATION that central banks have been trying to prevent. What is the reasoning behind the President’s recent shift away from a weak dollar to promoting the positive outcomes of a strong currency?

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Notes From Underground: May Day or Mayday Mayday Mayday?

May 3, 2020

On Friday the world “celebrated” May Day, when the red flags of the world’s workers united in solidarity are traditionally unfurled. The fall of the Berlin Wall unleashed the rush for economic development and a plethora of workers in search of capital to lift its productivity. And for the past 30 years have capital and wages have been elevated for the emerging economies yet stagnant for the developed region. It has been capital that has been the recipient of increased profits as global capital went to the lowest wage regions.

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Notes From Underground: The Importance of Being Lighthizer

May 24, 2018

The plot thickens as the media is filled with one leak after another in regards to tariffs or threats to embark on a road to perfidy by invoking section 232 of the 1962 Trade Act: Using the broad cover of national security to justify increased import duties on autos. [In a hat tip to A. Limey] It is time to acknowledge that the “brain” of President Trump’s trade team is Robert Lighthizer.

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Notes From Underground: Laboring to Comprehend Gary Cohn’s CNBC Interview

September 3, 2017

CNBC promoted its interview with Gary Cohn for a couple of days so the head of the White House Economic Council could not have been caught off guard by any questions from the interviewers. Cohn was giving the recent unemployment data a positive spin, but that’s part of his job description. MY PROBLEM WITH COHN’S INTERVIEW WAS HIS PUSH TO CUT CORPORATE TAX RATES AS AN ANSWER TO FLAT WAGE GROWTH. His analysis that lower tax rates equals higher wages is preposterous and reflects the thought process of a Wall Street account executive. In response to David Faber’s query about the tax cut benefiting middle class workers COHN replied: “How does it not benefit the worker?” Cohn answers his own question by building the straw man argument: Any repatriation of foreign profits would boost equity prices as would any cut in domestic corporate taxes. For who owns most of the equity in the world today (another Straw Man by Cohn)? We know the biggest pool of owned equity are the pension funds, especially the public pension funds (fire, police, teachers municipal workers], “… thus we are helping Americans by delivering returns back to them.”

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Notes From Underground: The Washington Redskins Should Change Its Name to the 37ers

September 20, 2015

Readers of NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND are aware that one of my major themes during the past six years has been Ben Bernanke’s pledge to Milton Friedman at MILT‘s 90th birthday. I’m paraphrasing, but Bernanke vowed the Fed would not make the mistakes of 1937 and raise rates in a period when fiscal policy was tight and monetary policy needed to be loose to sustain its velocity. In 1937 the combined policies of the FED and the Henry Morgenthau Treasury tightened together, which led to a renewed recession of the U.S. economy and a severe bout of renewed DEFLATION. It is the FED‘s and other central banks main thrust: To prevent a deflationary cycle taking hold. Bernanke is the ultimate 37er. For the FED, “whatever it takes” means inflation running hot so as to prevent any possibility of the LIQUIDATIONISTS and DEFLATION gaining a foothold in the economy.

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Notes From Underground: Santelli Exchange — A World Awash In Reserves

March 31, 2015

Yra With Rick Santelli on CNBC, March 30, 2015Click on the image to watch Rick and I discuss Janet Yellen’s March 27 speech.

Notes From Underground: The Even-More Complex Map of Currencies and Politics

March 29, 2015

On Friday afternoon Chair Janet Yellen delivered a speech at a conference sponsored by the San Francisco Fed, titled “Normalizing Monetary  Policy: Prospects and Perspectives.” Many analysts will delve into the speech to find a possible nugget of “forward guidance” in the predisposition of Chair Yellen’s desire to raise rates. After a second read and reviewing several pages of analysis, I am left with the same outlook of President Harry Truman: Please bring me a one-armed economist. The speech is filled with a back and forth on the desire to raise rates to a level of “NORMALIZTION” but with the headwinds facing the U.S. and global economies caution is to be maintained. The headwinds prevailing in the U.S. and acting as a drag on economic growth are:

  1. Tighter underwriting standards;
  2. Continued household balance sheet reduction;
  3. Contractionary fiscal policy at local, state and federal levels;
  4. Lack of capex for lack of robust demand; and
  5. Recent appreciation of the dollar is likely to weigh on U.S. exports.

Chair Yellen opines that if the FOMC waits too long it could result in higher than targeted inflation levels. The Fed Chair cites the recent experiences of Japan and Sweden as a reason to be cautious “… in removing accommodation until the Committee is more confident that aggregate demand will continue to expand in line with its expectations.” Also, with “… an already large balance sheet. For example, the FOMC might be concerned about potential costs and risks associated with further asset purchases.” It seems it is better to err on the side of what Fed President Dudley has referred to as the economy running “hot,” which is inflation being sustained above the 2 percent level.

In a post-Yellen comment, Rick Santelli noted that during the brief Q&A session the Fed Chair said unequivocally, “Cash is not a very convenient store of value.” Santelli said this is the bogeyman of deflation and Gillian Tett picks up the argument in the weekend Financial Times with a piece, “How Deflation Gave Lower prices A Bad Name.” Readers of Notes from Underground have known that I refer to Ben Bernanke as a ’37er: An economist grounded in the belief that the early moves by the FED and the U.S. Treasury to prematurely tighten fiscal and monetary policy in 1937 led to a stifling of incipient growth and a renewed recession. “Cash is not a very convenient store of value” certainly signals that the Yellen Fed will keep rates as low as possible in order not to abort economic growth.

It has been my argument that the reason GOLD maintains its long-term strength is because of the fear of deflation and the policies employed by central banks to curb the possible threat of falling prices. In a continual effort to combat DEFLATION the world is awash in reserves, which presently support global equity markets. (It appears as if stocks are presently a better store of value than gold.) But as Tett wrote in her piece, falling prices are not always the BOGEYMAN of capitalism. Deflation is only a grave concern when an economy has accumulated for too much debt and then the fear of asset deflation brings about the asset liquidation of the 1930s and all the societal pain.

I believe the Bernanke Fed was correct in employing the first round of QE for it forestalled a massive round of asset liquidation in a very fragile financial environment. It is the continued use of QE that has created potential problems for the FED. Yes, I know as Senator Schumer proclaimed, “You are the only game in town.” I guess after reading the Yellen speech it appears that the Fed will remain data dependent but, more importantly, an aggressive easing of fiscal policy might be the real impetus for the Fed to raise rates. The ’49ers play in San Francisco while the ’37ers  dominate the Washington monetary scene.

***Global Politics — The news from the Middle East last week sent momentary scares into oil, precious metals and stock markets. The military response by the Saudis and a possible Sunni coalition of armed forces to recent events in Yemen was seen as a precursor of a new flash point in the already tense ME. By Friday, the oil markets sold off and the precious metals were in retreat as the conflict in Yemen was seen to be contained. IN MY OPINION THIS MOVE BY THE SAUDIS IS NOT TO BE MINIMIZED. WHY? If you look at a map of Yemen and its relationship to Saudi Arabia, and, of course Iraq, you will notice that both countries border the House of Saud. The Saudi family controls something greater than oil reserves. It controls the Islamic Holy Sites of Mecca and Medina.

The desire by Isis to rebuild the Caliphate necessitates the need to control the pivotal centers of the Muslim religion. While Isis is Sunni  the rebels in Yemen are a sect of SHIA and it is their Iranian support that causes the Saudis and other Arab states to militarily act to counter the perceived threat to the Saudi homeland. I have long believed that Mecca and Medina are the desired targets of any group or nation desiring to control the center of Islam. Those believing that Yemen is only about the control of Mandab Strait or Bab el Mandeb are fooling themselves. Yes, a choke point of oil transport is important. More than 3 million barrels of oil daily flow through the strait as crude moves to the Red Sea and out to the Mediterranean by way of the Suez canal. Yet there are also important elements in play in the struggle between Sunni and Shia.

In Friday’s FT, Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote: “There are other reasons to predict limits to what the Saudis can be expected to do in Yemen. They lack much in the way of capable ground forces. Saudi arabia also has to worry about the home front. It is only a matter of time before it faces direct challenge from groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant who will see ousting the government that controls the two holiest cities of Islam as essential to their ambitions.” If you believe the world is getting easier to decipher, think again. You need more than an MBA to know which way money will flow. The world is caught in the imbalances of 2+2=5.

***NOTE: I will be on with Mr. Santelli tomorrow morning at 9:40am Chicago time. I don’t know the topic but as my readers know, we’ll be prepared to go many places.