In 1971, after President Nixon relieved the U.S. of the burden of the gold exchange-standard he paraphrased Milton Friedman by proudly proclaiming, “We are all Keynesians NOW.” In preparing for the 1972 election, Nixon realized that Keynes provided the ability for a sitting president to throw fiscal responsibility to the side and open up the spigots of fiscal stimulus in order to PUMP PRIME the economy. Keynes is focused on demand management.
Posts Tagged ‘Nixon’
Notes From Underground: Trump Will Channel His Inner Nixon
November 7, 2018Notes From Underground: Better Data Leads to More of the Same
October 3, 2011Global equity markets were battered for another day as investor fears continued to outweigh any desire to add risk to portfolios. All U.S. data releases were better than expected and even auto sales proved to be a million more units above consensus on an annualized basis. The equity markets did try to rally but the attempt was short-lived and by market’s end the selloff was greater than 2.5%. Commodities were soft and the DOLLAR continued to rally on its haven status. The BOND market saw the impact of the “TWIST” as it is now October and the SOMA (SYSTEM OPEN MARKET ACCOUNT) began its work on affecting TREASURY DURATION.
Notes From Underground: 40 YEARS AGO TODAY NIXON CLOSED THE GOLD WINDOW BUT OPENED UP THE FIAT MONEY GUSHER
August 15, 2011Yes, 40 years ago that miscreant Machiavellian, Richard Nixon, took the U.S. off the GOLD EXCHANGE STANDARD and later in the year supposedly proclaimed that we are “ALL KEYNESIANS NOW.” Nixon learned that a fiat-based currency with a compliant CENTRAL BANK can create enough liquidity to promote short-term economic growth. The supposed conservative PRESIDENT forgot the element of Keynes that proscribed acting in an anti-cyclical fashion by running budget surpluses during economic growth times. Once Nixon could pressure Arthur Burns to roll the presses, getting CONGRESS to deficit spend for any purpose was an easy task.
Notes From Underground: How many rumors can sit on top of the media pinheads?
November 9, 2010Today saw an unwinding of some of the more frothy positions that have been built up since the FOMC announcement on SEPTEMBER 21. All asset classes, from stocks to commodities, have been rallying as the FED promised that it would do what it could to insure against the onset of a deflationary spiral. Many news outlets reported that the silver markets broke hard after CME GROUP raised margins on SILVER positions. The talking heads compared this to the Hunt brothers in 1980, which is COMPLETE UNADULTERATED RUBBISH. The margin increase was relatively small and nowhere near the type of actions taken in 1980 when some nearby silver contracts had a margin of 100 percent of the value of the contract. Also, margin rates are relatively low on a value of contract basis and as we also know much of the investment in silver is taking place in the ETF market where the future exchanges have zero influence.