Category Archives: Currencies

The Top 3 Reasons the US Has Entered the Inflation Death Spiral, by Nick Giambruno

Mostly because there are so many people out there who want something for nothing. From Nick Giambruno at internationalman.com:

Inflation Death Spiral

Rapidly rising food, housing, medical, and tuition prices are squeezing Americans, and many do not understand the real cause of their falling living standards.

That confusion opens the door for opportunistic politicians who promise supposed freebies to ease the pain of inflation. Many, unfortunately, succumb to this siren’s call.

Perverse as it is, the policies offered to people suffering from inflation create even more inflation. In other words, inflation has a way of perpetuating itself, much like a heroin addiction.

We are already seeing cockamamie schemes in the US, like “inflation relief checks,” which attempt to solve the problems of inflation by creating more inflation.

The political-inflation cycle follows a clear pattern:

Step #1: In a fiat currency system, the government will inevitably print an ever-increasing amount of currency to finance itself.

Step #2: This makes prices and living costs rise faster than wages.

Step #3: The average person feels the pain but doesn’t understand what’s happening.

Step #4: More people support politicians who promise freebies to relieve the pain inflation causes.

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CBDCs — The good, the bad, the ugly, by Alasdair Macleod

The good is not all that good, the bad is very bad, and the ugly is extremely ugly. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

There has been much comment over the likelihood that central bank digital currencies will be introduced. I conclude they are unnecessary — a red herring. But it does allow us to discuss their possible relevance to a new Asian super-currency.

Earlier this month, the Bank of England in partnership with the UK Treasury produced a white paper on the subject, which waters down the objectives identified by the Bank for International Settlements considerably. The British proposal is a bad idea because it is pointless and I explain why. 

In this article, I describe how a new gold-backed currency can do away with the US dollar for trade settlements and commodity purchases entirely between participating nations in the Russia China axis. Some informed commentary on the topic suggests that a blockchain will be involved, and Sberbank, the Russian state-owned lender has already issued a gold-linked fund designed to be available to the public by being compatible with ethereum. Perhaps it is front-running developments…

The ugly side in our title is found in the BIS’s dystopian proposals, which sees CBDCs as an opportunity to allow central banks to double down on their attempts to manage economic outcomes while restricting personal freedom. 

Messing about with fiat currency alternatives such as CBDCs could end up revealing the formers’ fragility.  CBDCs will take years to implement in any major currency anyway, during which fiat currencies led by the dollar are likely to fail anyway.

Introduction

It is not clear what encouraged central banks to think about introducing their own digital currencies, other than possibly a feeling that if they didn’t do something, then private sector money could threaten their monopoly. 

Initially, bitcoin was touted as sound money with a hard stop of 21,000,000 coins and proof of ownership recorded on a blockchain. Bitcoin’s strength was to be the opposite of fiat currency weakness, whose expansion is the primary means by which a central bank stimulates an economy. But if central banks think that bitcoin could overturn fiat currencies, they merely exposed their own ignorance about the nature of money and credit.

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The Inflation and Tax Assault on the American People, by Ron Paul

Much more tax extortion coming for the American people, mostly ordinary working stiffs. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

According to the January report of the Consumer Price Index, price inflation increased by 0.5 percent last month. This follows a 0.1 percent increase in December. The total increase over the last 12 months is 6.4 percent. The official government statistics, which are manipulated to understate the true rate of price inflation, show even greater increases in some costs. Over the last 12 months, food prices increased by 10.1 percent, energy prices increased by 8.7 percent, and shelter costs rose by 7.9 percent.

The government’s figures also record a 0.2 percent decline in real wages in January and a 1.8 percent decline from a year earlier. Keep in mind that actual real wages losses have been larger because the government’s real wage numbers are calculated using the government’s understated price inflation numbers. The Federal Reserve-caused decline in purchasing power disproportionally harms middle- and lower-income Americans, many of whom were already living paycheck to paycheck before the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented money creation caused especially large increases in price inflation.

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Inflation Up, Balloons Down, More War, by David Stockman

David Stockman gives the balloon episode the derision it deserves. From Stockman at antiwar.com:

Well, at least we are starting to get some clarity. America is not being attacked by aliens and probably not by the Red Chinese, either. However, it is definitely being bombarded by inflation, war fever and, apparently, the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB).

Let us unpack.

Last week’s media frenzy about intruders in the skies has gone stone cold silent on the likes of CNN and in The New York Times. Maybe that’s because Sleepy Joe himself has now assured us that the last three intruders shot down with half-million dollar Sidewinder missiles were not sent by the Chicoms, after all.

“The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation, or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research,”

Then for good measure, the White House’s always risible press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, assured that they weren’t the spawn of extraterrestrial aliens, either.

“I know there have been questions and concerns about this, but there is no – again, NO – indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns.”

Whew! Good to know.

Still, we now learn that there is even more good news. According to a report from Aviation Week, at least one of the objects may have been a hobby balloon reported missing by a club in Illinois that launches small balloons with tracking devices that are capable of traveling the globe at high altitudes.

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Gold’s return as money, by Alasdair Macleod

Tired of fiat currencies and ceaseless debasement, much of the world may adopt a currency or currencies tied to gold. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

The consequences of Russia and her Asian allies embracing gold backing for their currencies are poorly understood in western capital markets. This move could lead to the destruction of the global fiat currency system.

According to evidence which is widely ignored in western capital markets, a move by Russia to put a new trade settlement currency and possibly the rouble as well onto a new gold standard is becoming a certainty. As a weapon of mass fiat currency destruction, the timing is probably bound up in on-the-ground military considerations, which are already showing signs of escalating in Eastern Ukraine.

As well as using gold to undermine the western currency system, a return to a credible gold standard has significant advantages for Russia and for her allies in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Union, BRICS+, and all their commodity suppliers beyond Asia. At the same time, it would destroy the west’s fiat currencies and financial system.

This article explains how one part of the global economy can thrive while the other collapses.

Introduction

Recently, I have written about the signals emanating from Russia that President Putin is minded to re-adopt sound money by returning to some sort of gold standard. We do not yet know the details, but consider what he said at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in June last year:

“Caught in the inflationary storm, many nations are asking, why bother exchanging goods for dollars and euros when they are losing value right before our eyes? Indeed, the economy of imaginary wealth is being inevitably replaced by the economy of real valuables and hard assets.

“According to the IMF, today’s global foreign currency reserves contain 7.1 trillion dollars and 2.5 trillion euros. And this money is depreciating at an annual rate of about 8%. Moreover, it can be confiscated or stolen at the whim of the US if it disapproves of something in a country’s policy.

I think this has become a very real threat for many countries that keep their gold and foreign exchange reserves in these currencies. According to objective expert analysis, in the coming years a conversion process of global reserves will get under way. Reserves will be converted from weakening currencies into tangible resources like food, energy, commodities, and other raw materials. Clearly, this process will further fuel global dollar inflation.”

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The CDS Market Reveals How To Profit From the Coming Collapse of Fiat Currency, by Nick Giambruno

Bitcoin is a call on a generalized currency collapse. From Nick Giambruno at internationalman.com:

Profit from Collapse

As told in the movie The Big Short, a group of hedge fund managers who saw the housing crash coming used Credit Default Swaps (CDS) to make a fortune.

These exotic financial instruments conveyed information crucial to seeing the 2008 financial crisis in advance. That knowledge allowed astute speculators to get positioned for massive profits as the crisis unfolded.

In the coming crisis—which has already started—I expect CDS will again play a key role in telegraphing important information shrewd speculators can use to their advantage.

A CDS is a contract between two parties. Think of it like an insurance policy against a borrower—typically a large company or a government—defaulting. One party underwrites the insurance policy, and another buys it. If the borrower defaults, the CDS issuer pays out the CDS buyer.

CDS trade in the open market and reflect investor expectations of the default probability of a particular borrower. The more likely the underlying entity is to default, the more expensive the insurance (CDS) will cost.

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The Dreaded D-Word, by Joel Bowman

In a free market economy on a gold standard, deflation is the general course. It is not something to be feared under these circumstances. From Joel Bowman at bonnerprivateresearch.com:

(Source: Getty Images)

Joel Bowman, surveying the situation today from Buenos Aires, Argentina…

Welcome to another Sunday Session, dear reader, that time of the week when we gather at the virtual saloon to solve the world’s problems, one copa de bonarda at a time…

We jest, of course. It takes a humble public servant to actually believe he/she/they can make the whole world a better place… and to do so at everyone else’s expense.

The best we mere citizens can hope for is to put one pant leg on at a time and one foot in front of the other. Small victories. Speaking of which, we hear our American readers are readying for the big game later today, baking quail egg cookies and such, if we understand Dan correctly…

We have no idea who’s in the match, what the pitch conditions are like, or which team is favored to score the most runs, but we wish everyone a fair contest all the same. (Just kidding. Go team!)

Meanwhile, the cost of this year’s Super Bowl party might come as something of a shock. Analysis by the serious-sounding team at GoBankingRates.com warns us to “get ready for the spending equivalent of being sacked for a 15-yard loss.”

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This Was Another Big Week for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), by Nick Corbishley

Like some sort of oozing putrescence, CBDCs keep seeping into the global financial infrastructure. From Nick Corbishley at nakedcapitalism.com:

Another G-7 economy took a big step toward adopting a central bank digital currency (CBDC). At the same time, the first largish economy to have launched a CBDC, Nigeria, descends further into financial chaos.

This week, two big things happened in the CBDC arena. One of the world’s oldest central banks, the Bank of England, and the British government jointly confirmed that a digital pound would probably be necessary at some point in the none-too-distant future. While they were saying that, lengthy queues were forming at ATMs across Nigeria, the first largish economy to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC), as most Nigerians struggle to access physical money following the government’s disastrous demonetisation campaign.

A New and Trusted Way to Pay”?

Let’s begin with the UK, whose latest Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt this week described CBDCs as potentially “a new and trusted (state-backed) way to pay” that is likely to emerge some time this decade. John Cunliffe, Deputy Governor for Financial Stability of the Bank of England (not to be confused with the creator of the children’s books and animated TV series, Postman Pat) said:

Our assessment is that on current trends it is likely that a retail, general purpose digital central bank currency — a digital pound — will be needed in the UK.

With cash usage in rapid decline in the UK, a digital pound would perform the “anchor function” which cash currently carries, allowing the holder access to Bank of England money, Cunliffe said. It would also counter the risks posed by so-called “stable coins”, which are relatively new forms of cryptocurrency that are pegged to the value of a fiat currency (e.g, the dollar or the euro), while also ensuring that certain tech firms are not able to monopolize areas of the online market with their own coins.

These are all classic justifications for launching a CBDC. But not everyone in the UK’s political establishment agrees that they constitute sufficient cause. For example, the former governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King said in January, 2022: “By far the most important question is what is the problem to which a CBDC is the solution?” King said a number had been proposed but “none of them were terribly convincing”.

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Operation Choke Point 2.0 Is Underway, And Crypto Is In Its Crosshairs, by Nic Carter

They’re trying to cut the cryptocurrency industry off from banking. Where’s a civil libertarian like Justin Trudeau when we need him? From Nic Carter at Pirate Wires via zerohedge.com:

What began as a trickle is now a flood: the US government is using the banking sector to organize a sophisticated, widespread crackdown against the crypto industry. And the administration’s efforts are no secret: they’re expressed plainly in memos, regulatory guidance, and blog posts. However, the breadth of this plan — spanning virtually every financial regulator — as well as its highly coordinated nature, has even the most steely-eyed crypto veterans nervous that crypto businesses might end up completely unbanked, stablecoins may be stranded and unable to manage flows in and out of crypto, and exchanges might be shut off from the banking system entirely. Let’s dig in.

For crypto firms, obtaining access to the onshore banking system has always been a challenge. Even today, crypto startups struggle mightily to get banks, and only a handful of boutiques serve them. This is why stablecoins like Tether found popularity early on: to facilitate fiat settlement where the rails of traditional banking were unavailable. However, in recent weeks, the intensity of efforts to ringfence the entire crypto space and isolate it from the traditional banking system have ratcheted up significantly. Specifically, the Biden administration is now executing what appears to be a coordinated plan that spans multiple agencies to discourage banks from dealing with crypto firms. It applies to both traditional banks who would serve crypto clients, and crypto-first firms aiming to get bank charters. It includes the administration itself, influential members of Congress, the Fed, the FDIC, the OCC, and the DoJ. Here’s a recap of notable events concerning banks and the policy establishment in recent weeks:

  • On Dec. 6, Senators Elizabeth Warren, John Kennedy, and Roger Marshall send a letter to crypto-friendly bank Silvergate, scolding them for providing services to FTX and Alameda research, and lambasting them for failing to report suspicious activities associated with those clients

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Prepare to Be Bled Dry by a Decade of Stagflation, by Charles Hugh Smith

We can hardly wait. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

Our reliance on the endless expansion of credit, leverage and credit-asset bubbles will have its own high cost.

The Great Moderation of low inflation and soaring assets has ended. Welcome to the death by a thousand cuts of stagflation. It was all so easy in the good old days of the past 25 years: just keep pushing interest rates lower to reduce the cost of borrowing and juice credit expansion ((financialization) and offshore industrial production to low-cost nations with few environmental standards and beggar-thy-neighbor currency policies (globalization).

Both financialization and globalization are deflationary forces, as they reduce costs. They are also deflationary to the wages of bottom 90%, as wages are pushed down by cheap global labor and stripmined by financialization, which channels the vast majority of the economy’s gains into the top tier of the workforce and those who own the assets bubbling up in financialization’s inevitable offspring, credit-asset bubbles.

To keep the party going, central banks and governments pushed both forces into global dominance: hyper-financialization and hyper-globalization. Policy extremes were pushed to new extremes: “temporary” zero-rate interest policy (ZIRP) stretched on for 6 years as every effort was made to lower the cost of credit to bring demand forward and inflate yet another credit-asset bubble, as the “wealth effect” of the top 5% gaining trillions of dollars in unearned wealth as asset bubbles inflated pushed consumption higher.

Corporate profits soared as credit became essentially free and super-abundant and globalization lowered costs and institutionalized planned obsolescence, the engineered replacement of goods and software that forces consumers to replace their broken / outdated products every few years.

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