Announcing: The Austrian Investor

Visit our new location at www.austrianinvestor.com
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More Wisdom from Peter Schiff

Obama Puts the Economic Cart before the Horse

By: Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital, Inc.

-- Posted Friday, 27 February 2009 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

In his first televised speech before Congress, President Obama asserted that prosperity will return once the government restores the flow of credit in the economy. It may come as a surprise to him, but an economy cannot run on consumer loans. Furthermore, credit stopped flowing in the U.S. for a very good reason: there was no more savings left to loan. Government efforts to simply make credit available, without rebuilding productive capacity or increasing savings, are doomed to destroy what's left of our economy.

The central tenets of Obamanomics appear to be that access to credit will enable people to borrow money to buy stuff, the spending will spur production and employment, and thus the economy will grow. It's a neat and simple picture, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with how an economy works. The President does not understand that consumption is made possible by production and that credit is made possible by savings. The size and complexity of modern economies has obscured these simple concepts, but reducing the picture to a small scale can help clear away the fog.

Suppose there is a very small barter-based economy consisting of only three individuals, a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker. If the candlestick maker wants bread or steak, he makes candles and trades. The candlestick maker always wants food, but his demand can only be satisfied if he makes candles, without which he goes hungry. The mere fact that he desires bread and steak is meaningless.

Enter the magic wand of credit, which many now assume can take the place of production. Suppose the butcher has managed to produce an excess amount of steak and has more than he needs on a daily basis. Knowing this, the candlestick maker asks to borrow a steak from the butcher to trade to the baker for bread. For this transaction to take place the butcher must first have produced steaks which he did not consume (savings). He then loans his savings to the candlestick maker, who issues the butcher a note promising to repay his debt in candlesticks.

In this instance, it was the butcher's production of steak that enabled the candlestick maker to buy bread, which also had to be produced. The fact that the candlestick maker had access to credit did not increase demand or bolster the economy. In fact, by using credit to buy instead of candles, the economy now has fewer candles, and the butcher now has fewer steaks with which to buy bread himself. What has happened is that through savings, the butcher has loaned his purchasing power, created by his production, to the candlestick maker, who used it to buy bread.

Similarly, the candlestick maker could have offered “IOU candlesticks” directly to the baker. Again, the transaction could only be successful if the baker actually baked bread that he did not consume himself and was therefore able to loan his savings to the candlestick maker. Since he loaned his bread to the candlestick maker, he no longer has that bread himself to trade for steak.

The existence of credit in no way increases aggregate consumption within this community, it merely temporarily alters the way consumption is distributed. The only way for aggregate consumption to increase is for the production of candlesticks, steak, and bread to increase.

One way credit could be used to grow this economy would be for the candlestick maker to borrow bread and steak for sustenance while he improves the productive capacity of his candlestick-making equipment. If successful, he could repay his loans with interest out of his increased production, and all would benefit from greater productivity. In this case the under-consumption of the butcher and baker led to the accumulation of savings, which were then loaned to the candlestick maker to finance capital investments. Had the butcher and baker consumed all their production, no savings would have been accumulated, and no credit would have been available to the candlestick maker, depriving society of the increased productivity that would have followed.

On the other hand, had the candlestick maker merely borrowed bread and steak to sustain himself while taking a vacation from candlestick making, society would gain nothing, and there would be a good chance the candlestick maker would default on the loan. In this case, the extension of consumer credit squanders savings which are now no longer available to finance other capital investments.

What would happen if a natural disaster destroyed all the equipment used to make candlesticks, bread and steak? Confronted with dangerous shortages of food and lighting, Barack Obama would offer to stimulate the economy by handing out pieces of paper called money and guaranteeing loans to whomever wants to consume. What good would the money do? Would these pieces of paper or loans make goods magically appear?

The mere introduction of paper money into this economy only increases the ability of the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker to bid up prices (measured in money, not trade goods) once goods are actually produced again. The only way to restore actual prosperity is to repair the destroyed equipment and start producing again.

The sad truth is that the productive capacity of the American economy is now largely in tatters. Our industrial economy has been replaced by a reliance on health care, financial services and government spending. Introducing freer flowing credit and more printed money into such a system will do nothing except spark inflation. We need to get back to the basics of production. It won't be easy, but it will work.

President Obama would have us believe that we can all spend the day relaxing in a tub while his printing press does all the work for us. The problem comes when you get out of the tub to go to dinner and the only thing on your plate is an IOU for steak.

For a more in depth analysis of our financial problems and the inherent dangers they pose for the U.S. economy and U.S. dollar, read my just released book "The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets." Click here to order your copy now.

For a look back at how I predicted our current problems read my 2007 bestseller "Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse." Click here to order a copy today.

More importantly, don't wait for reality to set in. Protect your wealth and preserve your purchasing power before it's too late. Discover the best way to buy gold at www.goldyoucanfold.com. Download my free Special Report, "The Powerful Case for Investing in Foreign Securities" at www.researchreportone.com. Subscribe to my free, on-line investment newsletter, "The Global Investor" at http://www.europac.net/newsletter/newsletter.asp.

-- Posted Friday, 27 February 2009 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

- Peter Schiff C.E.O. and Chief Global Strategist
Euro Pacific Capital, Inc.

FDIC Friday - 2 more banks fail

Security Savings Bank of Nevada and Heritage Community Bank of Illinois failed today and were taken over by the FDIC.

http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html
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Ponzi Scheme in Gold

Moral of the story: Take possession of your gold

This time, a 'golden' opportunity
Commentary: The gold world's Bernie Madoff promised 45% annual returns
By David Weidner, MarketWatch

Last update: 9:38 a.m. EST Feb. 26, 2009

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gold bugs enjoy a special place here on Wall Street.
They're our bizarre-o twins in the world of investing. When our market is up, theirs is down. We trade securities used to assign a value to companies, industries and commodities. They trade a useless piece of rock that people dig up.

We don't understand one another, so we eye each other warily. Sure, some of us may own a little gold, but we only hold it as a hedge -- or as jewelry. The gold bugs may hold some stock, but their hearts aren't in it. And they can't wear it.

Full Story...

FDIC Friday - Silver Falls Bank fails

Oregon bank is 14th failure of 2009
By MarketWatch
Last update: 9:35 p.m. EST Feb. 20, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Silver Falls Bank, of Silverton, Ore., was closed Friday by state regulators and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

It was the 14th bank to fail so far this year and the 39th since the beginning of the current credit crisis.

Citizens Bank, of Corvallis, Ore. will assume all of the deposits of Silver Falls Bank, the FDIC said. Silver Falls Bank had three branches, all of which will reopen Monday as branches of Citizens Bank.

As of Feb. 9, the bank had total assets of approximately $131.4 million and total deposits of $116.3 million. Citizens Bank did not pay a premium to acquire the deposits of Silver Falls Bank, according to the FDIC.

In addition to acquiring all of the failed banks deposits, including those from brokers, Citizens Bank agreed to purchase approximately $13 million in assets comprised of cash, cash equivalents, securities, overdraft loans, and deposit secured loans. The FDIC will retain any remaining assets for later disposition.

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund will be $50 million.

What a tangled web they weave...

I can't blame these investors. They bought these mortgages under certain terms and now the government is changing those terms. Why would anyone want to lend if the government is going to come in and change the terms!?!? No wonder there is a credit crunch! The market must self-correct without government intervention.

True capitalism is based upon the protection of private property and private contracts. When government destroys property rights, capital flees. This is why gold is zooming - it is a vote of "no confidence" and "no trust" in government and it's worthless dollar. If you have an interest in understanding the real cause of the economic crisis I suggest listening to the Austrian Economic Theory audio courses and reading the following two books: An Introduction to Austrian Economics and Understanding the Dollar Crisis.

Mortgage investors may sue on modified loans
However, a bill under consideration on Capitol Hill might take away that right
By Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
Last update: 3:39 p.m. EST Feb. 20, 2009

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The White House plan announced Wednesday to help as many as 9 million homeowners avoid foreclosure was greeted with generally positive reaction by homeowners and mortgage servicers that are responsible for collecting monthly loan payments.
But many private mortgage investors, owners of trillions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities considered to be at the center of the financial crisis, are less impressed. Many are preparing to file lawsuits against the banks and other financial institutions that service mortgages.

Full Story...
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And the Dominoes continue to fall...

Latvia's government collapses amid economic crisis
By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch
Last update: 2:27 p.m. EST Feb. 20, 2009

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Latvia's coalition government collapsed Friday, plunging the Baltic country into political turbulence at a time when its economy is mired in a severe crisis and investors are increasingly concerned about the situation in Eastern Europe.

President Valdis Zatlers said he has accepted the resignations of Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis and his administration, according to media reports.

Godmanis said his position had become untenable after his two main coalition partners failed to support him earlier Friday, the BBC reported. The capital Riga was rocked by protests over economic policy in January, and Godmanis subsequently survived a Feb. 3 parliamentary vote of confidence, according to the report.

The government collapse in Latvia comes only weeks after Iceland's government resigned over the devastating crisis that has wrecked the island nation's economy. In Ukraine, the finance minister quit last week over economic policy disagreements with the prime minister.

Full Story...

Banks kicking you while you're down

Only leave in the bank what you can afford to lose. If you decide to pull your money out of the banks you had better hurry. Fractional reserve banking simply means that they only have about $1 on reserves for every $10 on deposit. If you are not one of the first 10% to pull out your money then you will be screwed.

Here is the story on excessive bank fees.
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Awesome video of Rick Santelli telling it like it is!

Awesome, must see video of Rick Santelli telling it like it is (thanks to EPJ for bringing this to my attention):

Rick Santelli on CNBC

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A Humerous Illustration of TARP

12 slides...very funny...

TARP Slideshow

The End of Swiss Bank Secrecy

UBS to pay $780 million in tax conspiracy case
Swiss bank admits helping US clients avoid taxes; agrees to reveal identities

By Alistair Barr, MarketWatch
Last update: 6:53 p.m. EST Feb. 18, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - UBS AG agreed to pay $780 million for helping U.S. customers avoid taxes, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.

Switzerland's largest bank also agreed to turn over the identities and accounts of some of its U.S. clients to the American government, in an unprecedented move that could shine a light into the country's secretive banking industry, the DOJ added.

Full Story...

First Iceland collapses...now Ireland?

Spreads highlight Ireland fears
By William L. Watts, MarketWatch

Last update: 12:37 p.m. EST Feb. 16, 2009

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Fears that Ireland's banking woes will send the Emerald Isle the way of Iceland has sent the cost of insuring sovereign Irish debt against default to record levels.

Spreads on Ireland's five-year credit default swaps rose to a record 377 basis points on Friday, analysts said. That means it would cost $377,000 a year to insure a notional $10 million of debt against default. That's up from around just $24,000 a year ago.

Ireland's fiscal position has eroded sharply due to a steep economic slump. On top of that, add in the effective nationalization of the country's three largest banks and expectations for further outlays.

Iceland was left virtually bankrupt after its outsized financial sector collapsed under the weight of massive foreign-denominated debt.

Full Story...

You are being watched...

Click on the following link to view the technology that is available. Zoom in on the crowd and then go watch the movie "Enemy of the State". If you are so inclined, listen to the song that the following lyrics go to:

Electric Eye (click on this link)
(song lyrics by Judas Priest)

Up here in space
I`m looking down on you
My lasers trace
Everything you do

You think you`re private lives
Think nothing of the kind
There is no true escape
I`m watching all the time

I`m made of metal
My circuits gleam

I am perpetual
I keep the country clean
I`m elected electric spy
I`m protected electric eye

Always in focus
You can`t feel my stare
I zoom into you
You don`t know I`m there

I take a pride in probing all your secret moves
My tearless retina takes pictures that can prove

I`m made of metal
My circuits gleam
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean

Electric eye, in the sky
Feel my stare, always there
There`s nothing you can do about it
Develop and expose
I feed upon your every thought
And so my power grows

I`m made of metal
My circuits gleam
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean

Thanks to Jim Sinclair for this link.

Job Losses Pose a Threat to Stability Worldwide

February 15, 2009

Job Losses Pose a Threat to Stability Worldwide
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
New York Times

PARIS — From lawyers in Paris to factory workers in China and bodyguards in Colombia, the ranks of the jobless are swelling rapidly across the globe.

Worldwide job losses from the recession that started in the United States in December 2007 could hit a staggering 50 million by the end of 2009, according to the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency. The slowdown has already claimed 3.6 million American jobs.

High unemployment rates, especially among young workers, have led to protests in countries as varied as Latvia, Chile, Greece, Bulgaria and Iceland and contributed to strikes in Britain and France.

Last month, the government of Iceland, whose economy is expected to contract 10 percent this year, collapsed and the prime minister moved up national elections after weeks of protests by Icelanders angered by soaring unemployment and rising prices.

Just last week, the new United States director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, told Congress that instability caused by the global economic crisis had become the biggest security threat facing the United States, outpacing terrorism.

“Nearly everybody has been caught by surprise at the speed in which unemployment is increasing, and are groping for a response,” said Nicolas Véron, a fellow at Bruegel, a research center in Brussels that focuses on Europe’s role in the global economy.

In emerging economies like those in Eastern Europe, there are fears that growing joblessness might encourage a move away from free-market, pro-Western policies, while in developed countries unemployment could bolster efforts to protect local industries at the expense of global trade.

Indeed, some European stimulus packages, as well as one passed Friday in the United States, include protections for domestic companies, increasing the likelihood of protectionist trade battles.

Protectionist measures were an intense matter of discussion as finance ministers from the Group of 7 economies met this weekend in Rome.

While the number of jobs in the United States has been falling since the end of 2007, the pace of layoffs in Europe, Asia and the developing world has caught up only recently as companies that resisted deep cuts in the past follow the lead of their American counterparts.

The International Monetary Fund expects that by the end of the year, global economic growth will reach its lowest point since the Depression, according to Charles Collyns, deputy director of the fund’s research department. The fund said that growth had come to “a virtual halt,” with developed economies expected to shrink by 2 percent in 2009.

“This is the worst we’ve had since 1929,” said Laurent Wauquiez, France’s employment minister. “The thing that is new is that it is global, and we are always talking about that. It is in every country, and it makes the whole difference.”

In Asia, any smugness at having escaped losses on American subprime debt has been erased by growing despair over a plunge in sales among major exporters. On Thursday, Pioneer of Japan said it would abandon the flat-screen television business and cut 10,000 jobs worldwide in response to sagging demand for consumer electronics.

Millions of migrant workers in mainland China are searching for jobs but finding that factories are shutting down. Though not as large as the disturbances in Greece or the Baltics, there have been dozens of protests at individual factories in China and Indonesia where workers were laid off with little or no notice.

The breadth of the problem is also becoming apparent in Taiwan, where exports were down 42.9 percent last month, compared with a year ago, the steepest plunge in Asia.

Chang Yung-yun, a 57-year-old restaurant kitchen worker, was laid off when her employer closed in mid-November. Her son, an engineer, has been put on unpaid vacation for weeks, a tactic that has become common in Taiwan.

“The greatest fear for our people is losing jobs,” Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou, said in an interview.

Calls for protectionism have resonated among a fearful public. In Britain, refinery and power plant employees walked off the job last month to protest the use of workers from Italy and Portugal at a construction project on the coast. Some held up signs highlighting Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s earlier promise of “British jobs for British workers.”

Unemployment in Britain is expected to rise to 9.5 percent by the middle of 2010, from 6.3 percent now, according to Peter Dixon, an economist with Commerzbank in London. Germany’s jobless rate could rise to 10.5 percent from 7.8 percent, he added.

In France last week, President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed to supply low-interest loans of 3 billion euros, or $3.86 billion, each to PSA Peugeot Citroën and Renault in exchange for an agreement not to lay off French workers.

To a greater extent than in past European downturns, highly trained white-collar workers are pounding the pavement, too. Naomi Runquist-Ohayon, a trademark lawyer, has been looking for work in Paris since the beginning of the year, after losing her job in December.

“This is a new experience for me,” said Ms. Runquist-Ohayon, 39, a Swedish native who has lived in Paris and London and speaks fluent English, French, Swedish and Italian. “In London, I never had to really look. Recruiters or headhunters would call me or I would call them. It’s not so easy now.”

Half a world away in Colombia, Jaime Galeano, 40, is in a similar predicament. As a bodyguard in a country notorious for drug-related violence and kidnappings, Mr. Galeano thought his profession was immune until he lost his job last year.

“The conditions for finding a job are terrible,” he said. What is more, his age is now an impediment, with a ministry informing him that only applicants under the age of 32 would be considered for new positions.

“After turning 35, a person is worth nothing,” Mr. Galeano said.

Even India, whose startling rise to the forefront of the global economy was portrayed in the hit movie “Slumdog Millionaire,” has hit a wall. About 500,000 people lost jobs between October and December 2008, according to one recent analysis.

In New Delhi, Tarun Lamba lost the first real job he ever had about a month ago, when he was laid off as a sales manager. Mr. Lamba, 24, said he knew bad news was coming because it had been weeks since he had written a truck loan. If he has to, he said, he could join his father’s business, selling clothes. But he hopes it will not come to that.

“The cycle has to keep running,” he said. “We had a boom period one year ago, now we are in a recession, and after some time the boom will come again.”

Many newer workers, especially those in countries that moved from communism to capitalism in the 1990s, have known only boom times since then. For them, the shift is especially jarring, a main reason for the violence that exploded recently in countries like Latvia, a former Soviet republic.

“For the young generation, aged 20 to 24, this is the first time we’ve had this,” said Valdis Zatlers, Latvia’s president.

The ripples from the slowdown in Europe, North America and Asia are also being felt in Africa as migrant workers abroad lose their jobs and find themselves unable to send money home.

Since his last temporary job as a metalworker in Paris ended three months ago, Ignace Abdul has halted the monthly 200 euro payments he had been sending to his wife and three children back in Senegal. “Between 2004 and 2008, I worked nonstop,” Mr. Abdul, 30, said in an interview in a bleak Paris unemployment office. “Right now, there is nothing.”

Reporting was contributed by Keith Bradsher from Taipei, Taiwan; Heather Timmons from New Delhi; Simon Romero and Jenny Carolina González from Bogota, Colombia; and Maïa de la Baume from Paris.

FDIC Friday - 4 more banks bite the dust

FDIC shutters four banks in one day
Oregon, Nebraska, Florida, Illinois bank failures bring year's total to 13

By John Letzing, MarketWatch
Last update: 11:06 p.m. EST Feb. 13, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Loup City, Neb.-based Sherman County Bank, Cape Coral, Fla.-based Riverside Bank of the Gulf Coast, Pittsfield, Ill.-based Corn Belt Bank and Trust Company, and Beaverton, Ore.-based Pinnacle Bank were closed by regulators Friday, bringing the number of U.S. bank failures for 2009 to 13 and 38 total since the start of the credit crisis, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said.

Full Story...

John Williams: $100 Bills Will Become Worthless

Hyperinflation Video

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Buy Gold & Silver

Jim Rogers: Failing banks don't need money

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Buy Gold & Silver

Dr. Marc Faber cracks me up!

Because if I didn't laugh I would cry...




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Buy Gold & Silver

Are you Servant or Master?

This is a great, short video where Rep. Ackerman grills the SEC regarding the Madoff scandal. The point is this: Government doesn't have a clue or the desire to fulfill their duties because there is no accountability. The system itself does not have proper accountability - they take your taxes whether they do a good job or not. There is no real agency relationship (as Lysander Spooner put it so eloquently in "No Treason VI: The Constitution of No Authority"). The system is illegitimate and flawed from its inception. You are not the master because you cannot fire your servant. It is only a matter of time before the masses simply stop paying taxes in revolt - milions already are. Then they will become the Masters again.

Ackerman and SEC Video

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Buy Gold & Silver

The Coming Great Depression. Why Government Is Powerless

Armstrong Economics:

The Coming Great Depression.

Why Government Is Powerless

It is frustrating to read so many comparisons of our current situation with 1929 while watching policy be set-in-motion to create spending on infrastructure. Everyone has their hand out looking for a bailout like a bunch of street burns pleading for money so they can get drunk or stay drunk. Almost nothing of what I have read is close to being accurate. The scary part is depressions are inevitably caused by politicians who may be paving the road with good intentions, but are relying upon analysis so biased, we do not stand a chance.

The stock market by no means predicts the economy. A stock market crash does not cause a Depression. The Crash of 1903 was properly titled – “The Rich Man's Panic." What has always distinguished a recession from a Depression is the stock market drop may signal a recession, but the collapse in debt signals a Depression. This Depression was set in motion by (1) excessive leverage by the banks once more, but (2) the lifting of usury laws back in 1980 to fight inflation that opened the door to the highest consumer interest rates in thousands of years and shifted spending that created jobs into the banks as interest on things like credit cards. As a percent of GDP, household debt doubled since 1980 making the banks rich and now the clear and present danger to our economic survival. A greater proportion of spending by the consumer that use to go to savings and creating jobs, goes to interest and that has undermined the ability to avoid a major economic melt-down.

The crisis in banking has distinguished depression from recession. The very term "Black Friday" comes from the Panic of 1869 when the mob was dragging bankers out of their offices and hanging them in New York. They had to send in troops to stop the riot. A banking collapse destroys the capital formation of a nation and that is what creates the Depression. The stock market is not the problem despite the fact it is visible and measurable and may decline 40%, 60% or even 89% like in 1929-32. But the stock market decline is normally measured in months (30-37) whereas the economic decline is measured in years (23-26). Beware of schizophrenic analysis that is often mutually contradictory or often antagonistic in part or in quality for far too often people think they have to offer a reason for every daily movement.

Our fate will not be determined by the stock market performance. Neither can we stimulate the economy by increasing spending on infrastructure any more than buying your wife a mink coat, will improve the grades of your child in school. We are facing a Depression that will last 23-26 years. The response of government is going to seal our fate because they cannot learn from the past and will make the same mistakes that every politician has made before them. Even if the Dow Industrials make new highs next week (impossible), the Depression is unstoppable with current models and tools.

Stocks & Consumers vs. Investment Banks

Let us set the record straight. The Stock Market is a mere reflection of the economy like looking at yourself in a mirror. It is not the economy and does not even provide a reliable forecasting tool of what is to come economically. We are headed into the debt tsunami that is of historical proportions unheard-of in history. There have been the big debt crisis incidents that have hobbled nations, toppled kings, and set in motion economic dark ages. It is so critical to understand the difference between the economy and the stock market, for unless you comprehend this basic and root distinction between the two, survival may be impossible.

To the left I have provided the Economic Confidence Model for the immediate decline. You will notice I did not call this the "stock market


model" nor a model for gold, oil, or commodities. I used the word "economic" with distinct and clear purpose. I have stressed it does not forecast the fate, of a particular market or even a particular economy. It is the global economic cycle some may call even a business cycle. Please note that what does line-up and peaks precisely with this model often even to the specific day that was calculated decades advance is the area of primary focus. Yet the US stock market reached a high precisely with this model and then rallied to a new high price 8.6 months later. In Japan, the NIKKEI 225 peaked precisely on February 26th, 2007. This is not a very good omen. But there was something profound that turned down with the February 27th, 2007 target - the S&P Case-Shiller index of housing prices in 20 cities. February 2007 was the peak for this cycle in the debt markets - not the US stock market.

The stock market always bottoms in advance of the economic low. In fact, we will see new highs in the now even in the middle of a Great Depression. At least the 1929 cycle was more of a bubble top in stocks than what we have in place currently in the US stock market. We still had the bubble top in the NASDAQ back in 2000, but this illustrates the point. There was a major explosive speculative boom. The bubble burst in 2000 and there was a moderate investment recession into 2002, but there was no appreciable economic decline that was set in motion because of that crash. Currently, we have a major high in 2007, but it was not a bubble top because it was not the focus of speculation. The real concentration of capital that created the bubble top, took place in the debt markets. This is the origin of the economic depression - not stocks and not the displacement of farmers because of a 7 year drought created by the Dust Bowl that invoked the response of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935. Keep in mind the stock market bottomed in the mid summer of 1932 when unemployment was not excessive from a historical perspective. The 25% level of unemployment came after the major 1932 stock market low that was followed by both the banking crisis after the election of FDR and before his fateful inauguration. The Banking Crisis came about because of rumors that Roosevelt was going to confiscate gold. Herbert Hoover published his memoirs showing letters written to Roosevelt pleading with him to make a statement that the rumors were false. He did not.

It’s the Debt Level Stupid

In 1907, the excessive debt was in the stock market. Call Money Rates (the level of interest paid to support broker loans) reached 125%. Even 1929 never came close to such levels. This also illustrates that the capital markets do not have enough money to invest equally on all levels in all segments of a domestic economy or in particular nations. To create the boom-bust, it requires the concentration of capital. A bubble top is formed when the majority of those seeking to employ money to make money are focused in a particular market or even country. The 1907 Crash was a bubble top because capital invested on a highly concentrated basis in railroad stocks. The bubble top in Japan back in 1989 was caused by a concentration of both domestic and international capital that had made Japan the number one market in the World. It is this concentration of capital that creates the boom and bust cycle. If money was evenly disbursed like the socialistic & communistic philosophies argue, we would be back to the dark ages where there was no concentration of capital and no economy beyond the walls of the castle so to speak. That is why communism failed.

It is the overall level of debt that has reached a bubble top in almost every possible area. For example, in 1980, household debt was about 50% of GDP. Going into the February 2007 high, it reached about 100% of GDP. We must also realize that something profound took place back in 1980. Americans would on the first blush seem to be living it up, buying everything they can on credit and have piles of tangible assets to show for it. That is like looking at the statistics for carrots and arguing that they are lethal because every person who has ever eaten a carrot is dead or in the process of a gradual slow death. This absurd example illustrates the bias that can produce the schizophrenic analysis.

There were, once upon a time, usury laws that generally held any interest rate greater than 10% was illegal. The Federal Reserve under Paul Volker believed that interest rates needed to be raised to insane levels to stop the runaway inflation, which was the first stone that hit the water sending the shock waves that we are having to pay for today. Once the usury laws were altered so the Fed could fight inflation, it set in motion the doubling of household debt, not to mention the national debt. At 8%, the principle is doubled through interest in less than 10 years. The national debt exploded from $1 to about $10 trillion in 25 years and household debt has doubled. Some states now consider usury to be 26%. Historically, these are the interest rates paid by the very worst of all debtors - the bankrupts. In fact, in China, the worst creditors historically paid at best 10%. What we have done is the lifting of usury to fight inflation back in 1980, has resulted in usury now being so high, a larger portion of income of the common worker is spent on interest, not buying goods & services that even create jobs. This is one primary reason why jobs have been leaving as well. The consumer needs the lowest possible price and labor wants the highest wages, and to stay competitive, producers leave taking manufacturing jobs as well as service jobs. The extraordinary rise in interest rates that are historical highs since at least pre-Roman times, could not have been possible but for the lifting of usury laws back in 1980 to fight inflation. This amounted to setting a fire to try to stop a brush fire that failed. Consumers pay the highest rates in thousands of years that feed the banks at the expense of economic growth. Even the National Debt rose from $2. 1 to $8.5 trillion between 1 986 and 2006 with $6. 1 trillion being interest. We are funding the nation on a credit card and destroying the economy simultaneously.

This has been enhanced by the tremendous leverage and false position that were created in the derivative markets causing the banks to just implode. Indeed, this is the origin of the economic Depression we are facing. The $700 billion bailout might have worked if Paulson did what he said he would - buy the debt and take it out of the banks. Had the debt been segregated into a pool and managed independently by a hedge fund manager not an investment banker, we could have mitigated the problem. But that is now too late. The credit implosion is taking place on a wholesale basis around the world. The more the economy declines in housing prices, the greater the defaults, the greater the foreclosures,


and the lower the economy will move. We are now in a downward spiral that cannot be fixed by indirect schemes. As I said, you cannot get your kid's test scores up by purchasing a mink coat for your wife. Everyone will have their hand out begging for infrastructure money. But the theory of just spending money that will somehow make things better, it is like handing Mexico a trillion dollars and arguing that they will buy US goods that will somehow reverse the economy.

The leveraging of debt by the Investment Banks in particular has undermined the global economy. Where household debt has doubled since 1980, the professional financial service sector has seen a rise from 21% of GDP in 1980 to 116% by February 2007. Now consider the debt that they created with the mortgages is already down by 50% and falling, the bailouts will keep coming. To help correct the problem, the commercial banks will tighten credit to make their exposure less, and in fact, their solvency ratios will require it anyway. This we can expect to see not just in business, but housing and car loans that will contract the economy as well.

The Great Depression is not the perfect model for today. It was a complete capital contraction. The stock market basis the now Dow Jones Industrials fell 89% between September 3rd, 1929 and July 1932. The contraction in debt was quite massive. Then too, the leverage in banks collapsed that reduces the velocity of money and therefore the money supply. The banks were the first real widespread failures with 608 in 1930. Between February and August 1931, the commercial banks began to bleed profusely as bank deposits fell almost $3 billion or about 9% of all deposits. As 1932 began, the number of bank failures reached 1,860. The massive amount of bank failures in the thousands took place with the rumor of Roosevelt's intention to confiscate gold. Although he denied that was his policy the night of the elections, he remained silent refusing to discuss the issue until he was sworn in. on March 6, 1933 just 2 days after taking office, Roosevelt called a bank "holiday" closing the banks from which at least another 2,500 never reopened.

All of these events are contrasted by the collapse in national debts in Europe. Other than Herbert Hoover’s memoirs, I have yet to read any analysis of the Great Depression attribute anything internationally other than the infamous US Smoot-Hawley Act setting in motion the age of protectionism in June 1930. It was the financial war between European nations attacking each other's bond markets openly shorting them that led to all of Europe defaulting on their debt. Even Britain went into a moratorium suspending debt payments. This is what put the pressure on capital flows sending waves of capital to the United States that to sane degree was kind of like the capital flow to Japan into 1989. This put tremendous pressure upon the dollar driving it to new record highs that were misread by the politicians who did not understand capital flow. They responded with Smoot-Hawley misreading the entire set of facts. (see Greatest Bull Market In History) (Herbert Hoover's memoirs).

It is true that today we have Keynesian and Monetarist theories to manage the crisis. Sad to say, neither one will now work. Bernanke has responded in force dropping the federal funds rate from 5.25% to .25%. He has also opened the Fed Window and thrown out more than $1 trillion in 13 months. However, as admirable as this may be, he has no tool that will do the job. Milton Friedman was correct! The Great Depression was not caused by the decline in the stock market. The event was set in motion by the credit and banking crisis that resulted in a one-third contraction in the money supply.

Interest rates will do nothing. The flight to quality always takes place so what happens is a two-fold punch. (1) Interest rates collapse because capital seeks preservation not yield and will accept during such times virtually a zero rate of return, and (2) the flight to quality takes more available cash from the private sector because government debt truly does compete with the private sector. We are seeing this even now. Federal debt becomes the place to go so we see higher yields


in both state am municipal bonds because they are not quality and could default like any bank. This contracts the money supply. Opening the window and just throwing buckets of money into the system will never have any impact to reverse the trend.

Furthermore, we are now in a Floating-Exchange Rate system that has made the global economy far more complex than it was in 1929. We all know that China is one of the biggest holders of US government debt. With the contagion spreading to Russia, South America, and China aside from Europe, we see a steeper decline in the China stock market than we do in the United States because that is where capital had concentrated domestically. If China needs money to stimulate its own economy when exports appear to be collapsing by about 50%, then we can see that the Keynesian model is worthless. If the Fed tries to pump money into the system through buying bonds from the private sector, those bonds may be held by aliens who take the money back to their own economies. The Fed cannot be sure it is even capable of stimulating the purely domestic economy. Lower interest rates to virtually zero like Japan did during the 19905, then if capital finds a better place to invest, it can leave for a higher rate of interest as capital did from Japan to the United states, which is why their domestic economy was never stimulated by the' lower interest rates. Leverage during the Great Depression was not even remotely close to what we have to face today. The credit-default swaps are alone worth about $60 trillion. This was a stupid product for it has so tangled the world there may be no way out. This product created the false illusion that you did not have to worry about the quality of the loan because it was insured. We have no way of covering this level of implosion. Add the unfunded entitlements and then the state and local debts who cannot print money to cover their shortfall s, and we are looking at a contraction of debt that is simply beyond all contemplation.

So What Now?

So now that we see it is not Wall Street, again, but the banks, perhaps we can separate the facts from the fantasy. We can now see that there are two separate and distinct forecasts to be made - (1) economy and (2) stock market. Economic Depressions have a duration unfortunately of generally 23 years with an outside potential of 26 years. The 1873 Panic led to a economic depression of really 23 years into 1896. There were bouts with high volatility and injection of major waves of inflation following the major silver discoveries. It was the age of the Silver Democrats who tried to create inflation by over-valuing silver relative to gold. This created a wave of European-American arbitrage where silver flowed into the US exchanging it for gold, which then flowed back to Europe. By 1896, the US Treasury was broke.

The Panic of 1873 marked the collapse of J. Cook & Co, the huge investment bank that was the 19th Century version of Goldman Sachs. They went bust because of excessive leverage in railroad stocks. It matters not what the instrument may be, it is always the leverage, which set the tone for a economic depression that lasted into 1896 where JP Morgan became famous for leading a bailout of the us Treasury organizing a loan of gold bullion. The stock market rallied and made new highs with plenty of panics between 1873 and 1896. The point is, The Panic of 1893 was quite a horrible one. The point is, the stock market is not a reflection of the economy. It often trades up in anticipation of better times, and trades down on those same perceptions of bad times. In both cases, new highs or lows unfold even contrary to economic trends.

We will see new highs in the now long before we see the final low in the economy. The ideal lows on a timing basis for the stock market will be as soon as April 2009 or by June of 2009. The more pronounced lows would be due on a timing basis between December 2009 and April 2010. The most extreme target would seem to be August 2010. The shorter the resolution to the stock market low, the sooner we will start to see much higher volatility.

The low for the Dow would be indicated by reaching the 3,500-4,000 area. A 2008 closing below 12,000 in the cash now Jones Industrials will signal that the bear market is underway into at least 2009 if not 2010. A year-end closing for 2008 below the 9,700-9,800 level, will signal higher volatility as well. The real critical level for the closing of 2008 will be the 7,200 area generally. A year-end closing beneath this general level will signal that we could see the sharp decline to test the extremes support at 3,600-4,000 by as early as April 19th, 2009 going into May /June 2009. If we were to drop so quickly into those targets, this would be most likely the major low with a significant rally into at least April 16th, 2010.

The less volatile outcome would be a prolonged decline into the December 2009 target to about April 16th, 2010. A low at that late date would tend to project out for a high as early as June 2011 or into late 2012. Nevertheless, volatility appears to be very high. Those who were at the 1985 Economic conference in Princeton, may want to review those video tapes. The volatility we were looking at 20-30 years into the future is now. As 3 of the 5 major investment bankers failed, Merrill, Lehman and Bear, the liquidity has evaporated so the swings are going to be much more dramatic.

The major support is 3,600 on the now Industrials.


During '09, the support area appears to be 6,600, 5,000, and 4,000-3,600. Clearly, resistance is shaping up at 9,700-9,800. It would take a monthly close back above the 12,400 level to signal new highs are likely. If we saw a complete collapse into a low by April 2009 or June 2009 reaching the 4,000 general area, this would be the major low with most likely a hyper-inflationary spiral developing thereafter. In that case, the now Jones Industrials could be back at even new highs as early as mid 2011 or going into late 2012.

Gold has decoupled from oil as it should and has been rising on an ounce-to-barrel ratio. Here, the pivot area for 2009 seems to be the $730-$760 area with the key support being still at the $525-$540 zone. The major high intraday was on March 17th, 2008. A weekly closing below $800 warns of consolidation. Only a monthly closing below the $535 area would signal a major high is in place. The more critical support appears to be at about $680 - $705. A weekly closing beneath this area will also warn of a potential consolidation. A major high is possible as early as 2010-2011 with the potential for an exponential rally into 2015 if there is any kind of a low going into 2011.45. The key to watch will be crude Oil. The collapse of Investment Banks has removed the speculation that exaggerated the trend. A year-end close below $40 for 2008 would signal a major high and serious economic decline ahead.


There Are No Tools Left! The Emperor Has No Clothes

It is hard to explain to someone who believe he has power, that he really has nothing of any significance. This becomes the story of the Emperor Has No Clothes. No one will tell him, and if you do, it may be off-with-your-head. This is akin to the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of OZ trying to keep up the whole illusion. After all, why do we vote for people unless we believe that will somehow change our lives?

Interest Rates

When an economy is rising and the stock market is exploding, interest rates always rise because the demand for money is rising because people believe that they can make a profit. Government pretend to be raising interest rates to stop inflation, but they do not create a trend contrary to the free markets. What happened in 1980 was merely that the government over-shoots the differential between expectations and the rate of interest. If you believe the stock market will double, you will pay 20% interest. A rising interest rate does not create a bear market. Only when the rate of interest exceeds expectations of potential profit offering almost a fixed secured return, will capital leave the speculative market and run to the bond market. In a bear market, interest rates always decline because of the flight to quality.


When there is a risk of a .banking crisis as well, then the flight to quality shows that capital is willing to accept virtually zero in return for the privilege to park itself is a secure manner to preserve the future.

In both cases, the government may accelerate the trend, but by no means can they create the trend or alter the trend. Lowering interest rates to zero right now will not reverse the economic decline. People will look out the window and until they feel confident again, they will not come out from behind the castle walls. Japan lowered interest rates to virtually zero for nearly a decade. All it did was fuel the carry trade whereby yen was borrowed at 0.1 % and invested in dollars at 5-8%. There was little opportunity to invest domestically in Japan and the stock market languished in a broad consolidation with flurries the upside every-now-and-again.

Monetary Theory

The Fed has already put into the system about $1 trillion in 13 months. The real problem is they are buying back US government debt injecting cash into the system. But if those bonds are sold to the Fed by foreign holders, there can be no injection of cash into the domestic economy. This amounts to the monetization of our debt in any event. Clearly, buying bonds from the market is not a guaranteed increase in domestic money supply especially when the velocity of money is itself collapsing. Borrowing heavily all these years and depending on foreign investors to buy that debt, altered the course of economics. Of course there has always been the foreign investor, but there has not been the floating exchange rate system. The rise and fall of the dollar itself can now either attract foreign capital with an advance or repel capital with its decline. Like we needed another new variable.

Infrastructure Spending

There really is nothing left in the tool bag that can help even to mitigate the coming Economic Depression. The unemployment rate at the end of 1930 was only about 8.9% - similar to the 1975 recession. Things were very slow back then. Even housing was not moving and people took whatever offers came their way. It was the Dust Bowl that began in 1934 that sent the unemployment rising after the 1932 low in the stock market. About 40% of the work force was agrarian. Hence, Congress could not pass a law to make it rain. The real devastation was that this presented a huge portion of the work force that had to be retrained into skilled labor. It was the Great Depression that finally by force of necessity, created an industrial work force that may have taken another 200 years to unfold by gradual transformation.


The WPA was formed in 1935, 3 years after the low in the stock market (1932). It had a slow and marginal success. At best, if we attribute all improvement to this one program, very unlikely, unemployment was only reduced by about 20%.

1935 20.3%

1936 16.9%

1937 14.3%

1938 19.0%

1939 17.2%

1940 14.6%

Even if we attribute everything to the WPA, all the way into 1940, the most the unemployment declines was by 30%. However, at the end of World War II, we see an Unemployment rate of 1.9% by 1945. Any ideas that we can spend trillions on infrastructure and make it all better, forget it.

Turning to infrastructure in the middle of a debt crisis makes no sense. The idea of just spending money will somehow stimulate the economy, will not work. This is like trying to fight in the desert of Iraq using the same tactics as in Vietnam. There has to be sane connection to what we are doing. Just because FDR instituted the WPA when we had a huge displacement issue in the work force, almost 6 years after the crash began, makes no sense at all for our current problems. As I said, this is like buying your wife a mink coat to somehow influence your kid to get their grades up. The connection is tenuous at best and nonexistent in all reality.

Summary

Unless we attack the debt structure directly, there is no point in counting upon any government to help mitigate the problem and more-likely-than-not, our very future may be recast in so many ways, the level of frustration will rise, and that leads to war because war distracts the people from hanging their own politicians. The oldest trick in the book is to blame the guy next-door down. Unless we are honestly prepared to truly 1) reorganize the structure of government, 2) reorganize the entire debt structure both private and public, 3) regulate leverage, 4) restore usury laws that will free up personal income, and 5) look at just eliminating the federal income tax in combination with 6) establishing a new national heathcare system that will restructure all pension plans public and private, there is not much hope for the future from government. Our definition of money (M1) does not include bonds so we can fool ourselves by issuing $10 trillion in bonds is different than printing the cash. It is still money. Taxes are needed in a gold standard where money cannot be created. Stop competing with the states, control the budget as a percent of GDP, increase the money supply to that degree, and stop the taxing when money is created by leverage and velocity anyway. This will restore jobs and inject huge confidence as in 1964 when the payroll tax was cut permanently. One-offs never work. People save the rebates for a rainy day. We need real honest reform since the states will go broke and seek handouts as well. So, it is time to get real. It is time we restructure the entire system including the banks which always cause the problem. We don't need excessive regulation of things that did not create the problem when the real culprits always escape.

You may send comments directly to Martin Armstrong at ArmstrongEconomics@GMail.com.

January 09, 2009 in Martin Armstrong | Perma

Martin Armstrong: The Coming Great Depression

Armstrong EconomicsThe Coming Great DepressionWhy Government Is Powerless


It is frustrating to read so many comparisons of our current situation with 1929 while watching policy be set-in-motion to create spending on infrastructure. Everyone has their hand out looking for a bailout like a bunch of street burns pleading for money so they can get drunk or stay drunk. Almost nothing of what I have read is close to being accurate. The scary part is depressions are inevitably caused by politicians who may be paving the road with good intentions, but are relying upon analysis so biased, we do not stand a chance.

The stock market by no means predicts the economy. A stock market crash does not cause a Depression. The Crash of 1903 was properly titled – “The Rich Man's Panic." What has always distinguished a recession from a Depression is the stock market drop may signal a recession, but the collapse in debt signals a Depression. This Depression was set in motion by (1) excessive leverage by the banks once more, but (2) the lifting of usury laws back in 1980 to fight inflation that opened the door to the highest consumer interest rates in thousands of years and shifted spending that created jobs into the banks as interest on things like credit cards. As a percent of GDP, household debt doubled since 1980 making the banks rich and now the clear and present danger to our economic survival. A greater proportion of spending by the consumer that use to go to savings and creating jobs, goes to interest and that has undermined the ability to avoid a major economic melt-down.

The crisis in banking has distinguished depression from recession. The very term "Black Friday" comes from the Panic of 1869 when the mob was dragging bankers out of their offices and hanging them in New York. They had to send in troops to stop the riot. A banking collapse destroys the capital formation of a nation and that is what creates the Depression. The stock market is not the problem despite the fact it is visible and measurable and may decline 40%, 60% or even 89% like in 1929-32. But the stock market decline is normally measured in months (30-37) whereas the economic decline is measured in years (23-26). Beware of schizophrenic analysis that is often mutually contradictory or often antagonistic in part or in quality for far too often people think they have to offer a reason for every daily movement.

Our fate will not be determined by the stock market performance. Neither can we stimulate the economy by increasing spending on infrastructure any more than buying your wife a mink coat, will improve the grades of your child in school. We are facing a Depression that will last 23-26 years. The response of government is going to seal our fate because they cannot learn from the past and will make the same mistakes that every politician has made before them. Even if the Dow Industrials make new highs next week (impossible), the Depression is unstoppable with current models and tools.

Stocks & Consumers vs. Investment Banks

Let us set the record straight. The Stock Market is a mere reflection of the economy like looking at yourself in a mirror. It is not the economy and does not even provide a reliable forecasting tool of what is to come economically. We are headed into the debt tsunami that is of historical proportions unheard-of in history. There have been the big debt crisis incidents that have hobbled nations, toppled kings, and set in motion economic dark ages. It is so critical to understand the difference between the economy and the stock market, for unless you comprehend this basic and root distinction between the two, survival may be impossible.

To the left I have provided the Economic Confidence Model for the immediate decline. You will notice I did not call this the "stock market model" nor a model for gold, oil, or commodities. I used the word "economic" with distinct and clear purpose. I have stressed it does not forecast the fate, of a particular market or even a particular economy. It is the global economic cycle some may call even a business cycle. Please note that what does line-up and peaks precisely with this model often even to the specific day that was calculated decades advance is the area of primary focus. Yet the US stock market reached a high precisely with this model and then rallied to a new high price 8.6 months later. In Japan, the NIKKEI 225 peaked precisely on February 26th, 2007. This is not a very good omen. But there was something profound that turned down with the February 27th, 2007 target - the S&P Case-Shiller index of housing prices in 20 cities. February 2007 was the peak for this cycle in the debt markets - not the US stock market.

The stock market always bottoms in advance of the economic low. In fact, we will see new highs in the now even in the middle of a Great Depression. At least the 1929 cycle was more of a bubble top in stocks than what we have in place currently in the US stock market. We still had the bubble top in the NASDAQ back in 2000, but this illustrates the point. There was a major explosive speculative boom. The bubble burst in 2000 and there was a moderate investment recession into 2002, but there was no appreciable economic decline that was set in motion because of that crash. Currently, we have a major high in 2007, but it was not a bubble top because it was not the focus of speculation. The real concentration of capital that created the bubble top, took place in the debt markets. This is the origin of the economic depression - not stocks and not the displacement of farmers because of a 7 year drought created by the Dust Bowl that invoked the response of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935. Keep in mind the stock market bottomed in the mid summer of 1932 when unemployment was not excessive from a historical perspective. The 25% level of unemployment came after the major 1932 stock market low that was followed by both the banking crisis after the election of FDR and before his fateful inauguration. The Banking Crisis came about because of rumors that Roosevelt was going to confiscate gold. Herbert Hoover published his memoirs showing letters written to Roosevelt pleading with him to make a statement that the rumors were false. He did not.

It’s the Debt Level Stupid

In 1907, the excessive debt was in the stock market. Call Money Rates (the level of interest paid to support broker loans) reached 125%. Even 1929 never came close to such levels. This also illustrates that the capital markets do not have enough money to invest equally on all levels in all segments of a domestic economy or in particular nations. To create the boom-bust, it requires the concentration of capital. A bubble top is formed when the majority of those seeking to employ money to make money are focused in a particular market or even country. The 1907 Crash was a bubble top because capital invested on a highly concentrated basis in railroad stocks. The bubble top in Japan back in 1989 was caused by a concentration of both domestic and international capital that had made Japan the number one market in the World. It is this concentration of capital that creates the boom and bust cycle. If money was evenly disbursed like the socialistic & communistic philosophies argue, we would be back to the dark ages where there was no concentration of capital and no economy beyond the walls of the castle so to speak. That is why communism failed.

It is the overall level of debt that has reached a bubble top in almost every possible area. For example, in 1980, household debt was about 50% of GDP. Going into the February 2007 high, it reached about 100% of GDP. We must also realize that something profound took place back in 1980. Americans would on the first blush seem to be living it up, buying everything they can on credit and have piles of tangible assets to show for it. That is like looking at the statistics for carrots and arguing that they are lethal because every person who has ever eaten a carrot is dead or in the process of a gradual slow death. This absurd example illustrates the bias that can produce the schizophrenic analysis.

There were, once upon a time, usury laws that generally held any interest rate greater than 10% was illegal. The Federal Reserve under Paul Volker believed that interest rates needed to be raised to insane levels to stop the runaway inflation, which was the first stone that hit the water sending the shock waves that we are having to pay for today. Once the usury laws were altered so the Fed could fight inflation, it set in motion the doubling of household debt, not to mention the national debt. At 8%, the principle is doubled through interest in less than 10 years. The national debt exploded from $1 to about $10 trillion in 25 years and household debt has doubled. Some states now consider usury to be 26%. Historically, these are the interest rates paid by the very worst of all debtors - the bankrupts. In fact, in China, the worst creditors historically paid at best 10%. What we have done is the lifting of usury to fight inflation back in 1980, has resulted in usury now being so high, a larger portion of income of the common worker is spent on interest, not buying goods & services that even create jobs. This is one primary reason why jobs have been leaving as well. The consumer needs the lowest possible price and labor wants the highest wages, and to stay competitive, producers leave taking manufacturing jobs as well as service jobs. The extraordinary rise in interest rates that are historical highs since at least pre-Roman times, could not have been possible but for the lifting of usury laws back in1980 to fight inflation. This amounted to setting a fire to try to stop a brush fire that failed. Consumers pay the highest rates in thousands of years that feed the banks at the expense of economic growth. Even the National Debt rose from $2. 1 to $8.5 trillion between 1 986 and 2006 with $6. 1 trillion being interest. We are funding the nation on a credit card and destroying the economy simultaneously.

This has been enhanced by the tremendous leverage and false position that were created in the derivative markets causing the banks to just implode. Indeed, this is the origin of the economic Depression we are facing. The $700 billion bailout might have worked if Paulson did what he said he would - buy the debt and take it out of the banks. Had the debt been segregated into a pool and managed independently by a hedge fund manager not an investment banker, we could have mitigated the problem. But that is now too late. The credit implosion is taking place on a wholesale basis around the world. The more the economy declines in housing prices, the greater the defaults, the greater the foreclosures, and the lower the economy will move. We are now in a downward spiral that cannot be fixed by indirect schemes. As I said, you cannot get your kid's test scores up by purchasing a mink coat for your wife. Everyone will have their hand out begging for infrastructure money. But the theory of just spending money that will somehow make things better, it is like handing Mexico a trillion dollars and arguing that they will buy US goods that will somehow reverse the economy.

The leveraging of debt by the Investment Banks in particular has undermined the global economy. Where household debt has doubled since 1980, the professional financial service sector has seen a rise from 21% of GDP in 1980 to 116% by February 2007. Now consider the debt that they created with the mortgages is already down by 50% and falling, the bailouts will keep coming. To help correct the problem, the commercial banks will tighten credit to make their exposure less, and in fact, their solvency ratios will require it anyway. This we can expect to see not just in business, but housing and car loans that will contract the economy as well.

The Great Depression is not the perfect model for today. It was a complete capital contraction. The stock market basis the now Dow Jones Industrials fell 89% between September 3rd, 1929 and July 1932. The contraction in debt was quite massive. Then too, the leverage in banks collapsed that reduces the velocity of money and therefore the money supply. The banks were the first real widespread failures with 608 in 1930. Between February and August 1931, the commercial banks began to bleed profusely as bank deposits fell almost $3 billion or about 9% of all deposits. As 1932 began, the number of bank failures reached 1,860. The massive amount of bank failures in the thousands took place with the rumor of Roosevelt's intention to confiscate gold. Although he denied that was his policy the night of the elections, he remained silent refusing to discuss the issue until he was sworn in. on March 6, 1933 just 2 days after taking office, Roosevelt called a bank "holiday" closing the banks from which at least another 2,500 never reopened.

All of these events are contrasted by the collapse in national debts in Europe. Other than Herbert Hoover’s memoirs, I have yet to read any analysis of the Great Depression attribute anything internationally other than the infamous US Smoot-Hawley Act setting in motion the age of protectionism in June 1930. It was the financial war between European nations attacking each other's bond markets openly shorting them that led to all of Europe defaulting on their debt. Even Britain went into a moratorium suspending debt payments. This is what put the pressure on capital flows sending waves of capital to the United States that to sane degree was kind of like the capital flow to Japan into 1989. This put tremendous pressure upon the dollar driving it to new record highs that were misread by the politicians who did not understand capital flow. They responded with Smoot-Hawley misreading the entire set of facts. (see Greatest Bull Market In

History) (Herbert Hoover's memoirs).

It is true that today we have Keynesian and Monetarist theories to manage the crisis. Sad to say, neither one will now work. Bernanke has responded in force dropping the federal funds rate from 5.25% to .25%. He has also opened the Fed Window and thrown out more than $1 trillion in 13 months. However, as admirable as this may be, he has no tool that will do the job. Milton Friedman was correct! The Great Depression was not caused by the decline in the stock market. The event was set in motion by the credit and banking crisis that resulted in a one-third contraction in the money supply.

Interest rates will do nothing. The flight to quality always takes place so what happens is a two-fold punch. (1) Interest rates collapse because capital seeks preservation not yield and will accept during such times virtually a zero rate of return, and (2) the flight to quality takes more available cash from the private sector because government debt truly does compete with the private sector. We are seeing this even now. Federal debt becomes the place to go so we see higher yields in both state am municipal bonds because they are not quality and could default like any bank. This contracts the money supply. Opening the window and just throwing buckets of money into the system will never have any impact to reverse the trend.

Furthermore, we are now in a Floating-Exchange Rate system that has made the global economy far more complex than it was in 1929. We all know that China is one of the biggest holders of US government debt. With the contagion spreading to Russia, South America, and China aside from Europe, we see a steeper decline in the China stock market than we do in the United States because that is where capital had concentrated domestically. If China needs money to stimulate its own economy when exports appear to be collapsing by about 50%, then we can see that the Keynesian model is worthless. If the Fed tries to pump money into the system through buying bonds from the private sector, those bonds may be held by aliens who take the money back to their own economies. The Fed cannot be sure it is even capable of stimulating the purely domestic economy. Lower interest rates to virtually zero like Japan did during the 19905, then if capital finds a better place to invest, it can leave for a higher rate of interest as capital did from Japan to the United states, which is why their domestic economy was never stimulated by the' lower interest rates. Leverage during the Great Depression was not even remotely close to what we have to face today. The credit-default swaps are alone worth about $60 trillion. This was a stupid product for it has so tangled the world there may be no way out. This product created the false illusion that you did not have to worry about

the quality of the loan because it was insured. We have no way of covering this level of implosion. Add the unfunded entitlements and then the state and local debts who cannot print money to cover their shortfall s, and we are looking at a contraction of debt that is simply beyond all contemplation.

So What Now?

So now that we see it is not Wall Street, again, but the banks, perhaps we can separate the facts from the fantasy. We can now see that there are two separate and distinct forecasts to be made - (1) economy and (2) stock market. Economic Depressions have a duration unfortunately of generally 23 years with an outside potential of 26 years. The 1873 Panic led to a economic depression of really 23 years into 1896. There were bouts with high volatility and injection of major waves of inflation following the major silver discoveries. It was the age of the Silver Democrats who tried to create inflation by over-valuing silver relative to gold. This created a wave of European-American arbitrage where silver flowed into the US exchanging it for gold, which then flowed back to Europe. By 1896, the US Treasury was broke.

The Panic of 1873 marked the collapse of J. Cook & Co, the huge investment bank that was the 19th Century version of Goldman Sachs. They went

bust because of excessive leverage in railroad stocks. It matters not what the instrument may be, it is always the leverage, which set the tone for a economic depression that lasted into 1896 where JP Morgan became famous for leading a bailout of the us Treasury organizing a loan of gold bullion. The stock market rallied and made new highs with plenty of panics between 1873 and 1896. The point is, The Panic of 1893 was quite a horrible one. The point is, the stock market is not a reflection of the economy. It often trades up in anticipation of better times, and trades down on those same perceptions of bad times. In both cases, new highs or lows unfold even contrary to economic trends.

We will see new highs in the now long before we see the final low in the economy. The ideal lows on a timing basis for the stock market will be as soon as April 2009 or by June of 2009. The more pronounced lows would be due on a timing basis between December 2009 and April 2010. The most extreme target would seem to be August 2010. The shorter the resolution to the stock market low, the sooner we will start to see much higher volatility.

The low for the Dow would be indicated by reaching the 3,500-4,000 area. A 2008 closing below 12,000 in the cash now Jones Industrials will signal that the bear market is underway into at least 2009 if not 2010. A year-end closing for 2008

below the 9,700-9,800 level, will signal higher volatility as well. The real critical level for the closing of 2008 will be the 7,200 area generally. A year-end closing beneath this general level will signal that we could see the sharp decline to test the extremes support at 3,600-4,000 by as early as April 19th, 2009 going into May /June 2009. If we were to drop so quickly into those targets, this would be most likely the major low with a significant rally into at least April 16th, 2010.

The less volatile outcome would be a prolonged decline into the December 2009 target to about April 16th, 2010. A low at that late date would tend to project out for a high as early as June 2011 or into late 2012. Nevertheless, volatility appears to be very high. Those who were at the 1985 Economic conference in Princeton, may want to review those video tapes. The volatility we were looking at 20-30 years into the future is now. As 3 of the 5 major investment bankers failed, Merrill, Lehman and Bear, the liquidity has evaporated so the swings are going to be much more dramatic.

The major support is 3,600 on the now Industrials. During '09, the support area appears to be 6,600, 5,000, and 4,000-3,600. Clearly, resistance is shaping up at 9,700-9,800. It would take a monthly close back above the 12,400 level to signal new highs are likely. If we saw a complete collapse into a low by April 2009 or June 2009 reaching the 4,000 general area, this would be the major low

with most likely a hyper-inflationary spiral developing thereafter. In that case, the now Jones Industrials could be back at even new highs as early as mid 2011 or going into late 2012.

Gold has decoupled from oil as it should and has been rising on an ounce-to-barrel ratio. Here, the pivot area for 2009 seems to be the $730-$760 area with the key support being still at the $525-$540 zone. The major high intraday was on March 17th, 2008. A weekly closing below $800 warns of consolidation. Only a monthly closing below the $535 area would signal a major high is in place. The more critical support appears to be at about $680 - $705. A weekly closing beneath this area will also warn of a potential consolidation. A major high is possible as early as 2010-2011 with the potential for an exponential rally into 2015 if there is any kind of a low going into 2011.45. The key to watch will be crude Oil. The collapse of Investment Banks has removed the speculation that exaggerated the trend. A year-end close below $40 for 2008 would signal a major high and serious economic decline ahead.

There Are No Tools Left! The Emperor Has No Clothes

It is hard to explain to someone who believe he has power, that he really has nothing of any significance. This becomes the story of the Emperor Has No Clothes. No one will tell him, and if you do, it may be off-with-your-head. This is akin to the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of OZ trying to keep up the whole illusion. After all, why do we vote for people unless we believe that will somehow change our lives?

Interest Rates

When an economy is rising and the stock market is exploding, interest rates always rise because the demand for money is rising because people believe that they can make a profit. Government pretend to be raising interest rates to stop inflation, but they do not create a trend contrary to the free markets. What happened in 1980 was merely that the government over-shoots the differential between expectations and the rate of interest. If you believe the stock market will double, you will pay 20% interest. A rising interest rate does not create a bear market. Only when the rate of interest exceeds expectations of potential profit offering almost a fixed secured return, will capital leave the speculative market and run to the bond market. In a bear market, interest rates always decline because of the flight to quality. When there is a risk of a .banking crisis as well, then the flight to quality shows that capital is willing to accept virtually zero in return for the privilege to park itself is a secure manner to preserve the future.

In both cases, the government may accelerate the


trend, but by no means can they create the trend or alter the trend. Lowering interest rates to zero right now will not reverse the economic decline. People will look out the window and until they feel confident again, they will not come out from behind the castle walls. Japan lowered interest rates to virtually zero for nearly a decade. All it did was fuel the carry trade whereby yen was borrowed at 0.1 % and invested in dollars at 5-8%. There was little opportunity to invest domestically in Japan and the stock market languished in a broad consolidation with flurries the upside every-now-and-again.

Monetary Theory

The Fed has already put into the system about $1 trillion in 13 months. The real problem is they are buying back US government debt injecting cash into the system. But if those bonds are sold to the Fed by foreign holders, there can be no injection of cash into the domestic economy. This amounts to the monetization of our debt in any event. Clearly, buying bonds from the market is not a guaranteed increase in domestic money supply especially when the velocity of money is itself collapsing. Borrowing heavily all these years and depending on foreign investors to buy that debt, altered the course of economics. Of course there has always been the foreign investor, but there has not been the floating exchange rate system. The rise and fall of the dollar itself can now either

attract foreign capital with an advance or repel capital with its decline. Like we needed another new variable.

Infrastructure Spending

There really is nothing left in the tool bag that can help even to mitigate the coming Economic Depression. The unemployment rate at the end of 1930 was only about 8.9% - similar to the 1975 recession. Things were very slow back then. Even housing was not moving and people took whatever offers came their way. It was the Dust Bowl that began in 1934 that sent the unemployment rising after the 1932 low in the stock market. About 40% of the work force was agrarian. Hence, Congress could not pass a law to make it rain. The real devastation was that this presented a huge portion of the work force that had to be retrained into skilled labor. It was the Great Depression that finally by force of necessity, created an industrial work force that may have taken another 200 years to unfold by gradual transformation.

The WPA was formed in 1935, 3 years after the low in the stock market (1932). It had a slow and marginal success. At best, if we attribute all improvement to this one program, very unlikely, unemployment was only reduced by about 20%.

1935 20.3%


1936 16.9%

1937 14.3%

1938 19.0%

1939 17.2%

1940 14.6%

Even if we attribute everything to the WPA, all the way into 1940, the most the unemployment declines was by 30%. However, at the end of World War II, we see an Unemployment rate of 1.9% by 1945. Any ideas that we can spend trillions on infrastructure and make it all better, forget it.

Turning to infrastructure in the middle of a debt crisis makes no sense. The idea of just spending money will somehow stimulate the economy, will not work. This is like trying to fight in the desert of Iraq using the same tactics as in Vietnam. There has to be sane connection to what we are doing. Just because FDR instituted the WPA when we had a huge displacement issue in the work force, almost 6 years after the crash began, makes no sense at all for our current problems. As I said, this is like buying your wife a mink coat to somehow influence your kid to get their grades up. The connection is tenuous at best and nonexistent in all reality.

Summary

Unless we attack the debt structure directly, there is no point in counting upon any government to help mitigate the problem and more-likely-than-not, our very future may be recast in so many ways, the level of frustration will rise, and that leads to war because war distracts the people from hanging their own politicians. The oldest trick in the book is to blame the guy next-door down. Unless we are honestly prepared to truly 1) reorganize the structure of government, 2) reorganize the entire debt structure both private and public, 3) regulate leverage, 4) restore usury laws that will free up personal income, and 5) look at just eliminating the federal income tax in combination with 6) establishing a new national heathcare system that will restructure all pension plans public and private, there is not much hope for the future from government. Our definition of money (M1) does not include bonds so we can fool ourselves by issuing $10 trillion in bonds is different than printing the cash. It is still money. Taxes are needed in a gold standard where money cannot be created. Stop competing with the states, control the budget as a percent of GDP, increase the money supply to that degree, and stop the taxing when money is created by leverage and velocity anyway. This will restore jobs and inject huge confidence as in 1964 when the payroll tax was cut permanently. One-offs never work. People save the rebates for a rainy day. We need real honest reform since the states will go broke and seek handouts as well. So, it is time to get real. It is time we restructure the entire system including the banks which always cause the problem. We don't need excessive regulation of things that did not create the problem when the real culprits always escape.

You may send comments directly to Martin Armstrong at ArmstrongEconomics@GMail.com.

U.S. Debt Default, Dollar Collapse Altogether Likely

U.S. Debt Default, Dollar Collapse Altogether Likely
by: James West February 03, 2009
SeekingAlpha.com

The prospect of the United States defaulting on its debt is not just likely. It's inevitable, and imminent.

The regulatory black holes into which sanity and reason disappear on a daily basis are soon to collapse under the mass of their sheer size. The circle jerk going on among G7 governments has to end – the steady advance of gold, even in the face of a managed price, exposes the real value of the U.S. dollar, as opposed to its apparent value expressed in the dollar index.

Is 2009 the year that the United States formally defaults? And with that, will the dollar collapse be rolled back ten for one or more?

There are a lot of reasons to support that theory. To Wall Street economists, such an event is heresy and therefore unthinkable. Yet Wall Street is the very La-la-land that bred the idea of a perpetually indebted nation in the first place.

Number one among the indicators favoring this scenario is what is happening in the U.S. Treasuries auction market.

Last Thursday, an $30 billion auction in five-year notes failed to stir the interest of traditional primary dealers. The auction itself was saved by an anonymous “indirect” bid.

Buyers are discouraged by the prospect of what is expected to amount to $2 trillion total issuance for the full year of 2009. The further out the maturities on notes, the more bearish the sentiment towards them. The only way to entice buyers is through the increase in yields.

But with yields at 1.82 per cent, five-year notes were met with a demand for 1.98 times the amount offered - the lowest bid-to-cover ratio since September. A sell-off in treasuries began in earnest upon the conclusion of that auction.

The U.S. Federal Reserve suggested last week that it was going to step up its treasury-buying activity, and the mainstream media interprets this as a form of market support. What it actually is evidence of growing anxiety and desperation on the part of the Fed as the realization dawns that demand for treasuries is progressively evaporating.

The increased demand for gold as an investment witnessed throughout the last two weeks that has pushed gold to a 4 month high is further evidence that investors across the board are gravitating more towards gold and away from U.S. debt.

So what is the catalyzing event that will precipitate outright capitulation?

I think the spin-controlled version of events will make the collapse of the derivatives market the red herring that facilitates the aw-shucks-we-have-no-choice shoe-gazing moment possible, and that’s exactly the parachute the government needs to retain a veneer of credibility - at least in its own delusional mirror.

The announcement that the CFTC was about to become the target of a regulatory overhaul supports this theory. Consistent with his unfortunate proclivity to hiring foxes to guard chickens, Barack Obama’s choice for CFTC commissioner Gary Gensler was the undersecretary of the U.S. Treasury when the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 was passed, and is one of its architects. This was the piece of legislation that was put forth to appease the opposition to “dark market” trading in certain OTC derivatives first noisily derided by CFTC commissioner Brooksley Born in 1998.

Ignoring Born’s admonishments with this act, it exempted credit default swaps (CDO’s) from regulation, resulting in the somewhere between 58 and 300 trillion dollars in value presently under threat if the positions were to be unwound. Because of their unregulated status, counterparties in the largest transactions can simply “roll forward” contracts, instead of the losing party in the transaction covering their loss with a transfer of money. It is this massive “nominal” value that could be the Achilles heel of what’s left of the U.S. banking system, and by extension, the U.S. dollar.

I don’t arrive at this conclusion because I like making catastrophic outlandish predictions. Its merely the result of following certain logical paths to their most likely outcome based on what has happened in the past.

In discussions on this topic with editors of top tier financial publications, such speculation is dismissed out of hand, and the argument to refute the likelihood of such outcomes is never brought forward.

Gold exchange traded funds (ETFs) are now the largest holders of physical gold, and as a proxy for investors who don’t want to be encumbered with taking delivery of the physical, provide a simple way to participate in the gold market.

United States citizens should bear in mind, however, that should the banking system be brought down completely by the collapse of the futures market, proxies for gold such as ETF’s and bullion funds could theoretically be targeted by a government desperate for possession of value. The risk from security in holding physical bullion is matched by the risk of confiscation by government in these volatile times. Don’t forget, the government confiscated and outlawed private ownership of gold in 1933 in support of an ill-conceived gold standard, which to some extent, was that era’s spin to halt the flight of gold (and real value) from U.S. soil.

Don’t think for a minute such drastic events are outside the realm of possibility. If somebody had told you in 1998 that a bunch of angry crazy pseudo-Muslims were going to fly jetliners into the World Trade Center, what would you have said?

Correction: 3 banks closed last Friday - not 2

Two banks in California, 1 in Georgia are closed
By John Letzing, MarketWatch
Last update: 4:41 p.m. EST Feb. 8, 2009


SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Regulators shut two banks in California and one in the Atlanta area on Friday, bringing the number of U.S. failures this year to nine, while marking the 34th collapse since the recession began.

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United States Progresses Down the Path to Depression

A very important article to consider:

United States Progresses Down the Path to Depression
By Lawrence Tout
Sunday, February 8th 2009

What’s in a Depression?

Is the USA in a Depression yet? It’s a question that a lot of us are asking currently. Well it’s rather hard to tell because it seems that no one really knows how to define a depression. It appears there is no formal definition to be had with attempts ranging from the ‘not very helpful’ to the ‘how the heck did you arrive at those figures’ types. The vague to the more specific range of definitions basically run from “a prolonged and severe downturn in economic activity” to “a decline in real GDP exceeding 10% or a recession lasting 3 years or more”.

Does it really matter you may well ask? To which I would reply – I wish Mr. Bernanke had the foresight to manage our deflation expectations as well as he managed our inflation expectations. When you are dealing with rigged casinos rather than free markets; when whole economies teeter on a knife-edge, and when two thirds of GDP are derived from wanton consumption, consumer confidence and expectations are key.

In the absence of a sound formula therefore, it is more apt to rely on popular consensus. So can we confidently say we are in a Depression when enough Main Stream Media (MSM) economists use the ‘D’ word or maybe when it seems that ‘all-things-economic’ have gone to hell in a hand basket. Until then we will just have to read more saner commentary (try here and here), read the signposts along the way and try to make up our own minds. Interestingly enough it seems that the ‘D’ word is even sinking deep into the psyche of world leaders. Gordon Brown’s (Freudian?) slip of the tongue recently made UK headlines.

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