With the advent, then the continuation of the Quantitative Easing exercise in hyper-inflation and capital destruction, the US Federal Reserve has perhaps taken its deeply damaged reputation as a central banker and decimated it into shreds. They have lost the respect of the world, more so outside the nation’s borders than inside. The financial sector and politicians seem unable to stop showing deep reverence for the post, even licking the Chairman’s boots whenever he appears before the USCongress. Recent hints of contempt in Washington DC are encouraging. He has not made a single correct forecast on major items.
The USFed in short has lost control. See the rising bond yields, which torpedo the housing ship, badly listing as a derelict vessel. The USFed seems thoroughly content to rescue the big US banks, whose wretched condition cannot possibly be rectified, even if such a rescue results in global price inflation and revolts. The decision made after recognition that a recent QE chapter has failed is clearly to repeat it. When QE2 is exhausted or deemed a failure, expect QE3 at the doorstep. This behavior exhibits insanity. The February package of Hat Trick Letter reports includes a special report entitled "USFed as Agent of Destruction" that elaborates on the deep damage.
The USFed balance sheet reads like a Fannie Mae lookalike, with perhaps $1 trillion in negative value, if priced to market. No wonder they altered their rules for a major dump on the USDept Treasury. The next chapter should see a default in USGovt debt, as it spirals out of control, supported mainly by the monetization engines, the stuff of hyper-inflation. Meanwhile, back at the inflation farm, a widening array of economic mythology has sprung up, replete with nonsense and deep deceptions like shallow walls to defend the monetary press. The new myths extend from the standard Second Half Recovery dupe, the Jobless Recovery insult, the Green Shoots absurdity, and the Exit Strategy refrain that ushered in QE2. The inflation engineers must defend their craft, which has destroyed the USEconomy and rendered its banking system insolvent, as well as households. By the way, Ben aint no Atlas, holding up the world. He aint no Poseidon, controlling the oceans and all their liquidity. He sure aint pretty like Aprhodite neither, even though his bust might serve as a fine pin cushion. Hey! Don’t mention pins when standing near the USTreasury Bond bubble!
CLIMAX GRAND DECEPTION
The Hat Trick Letter has warned fully and repeatedly. The price inflation that has begun to show itself in clear terms will be passed off with pure economic deception, and extreme statistical fraud. The effect of higher prices will be called economic growth. The price inflation within the adjustment process with full motive will grossly under-estimate the actual rising price rate. Therefore, the adjustment off the nominal economic activity will be grossly inadequate. The 10% to 12% price inflation will be called 3% to 4%, and thus a 6% to 9% error in the Gross Domestic Product will be made. The consequence will be that a powerful recessionary surge downward will be called a positive 4% to 5% GDP growth. Credit goes to the stat rats who betray my field of expertise. The deception will calm public fears on the highly destructive effects of Quantitative Easing #2 and its price inflation side effects. Actually it is more like direct effects. No longer are the QE1 effects isolated to excess bank reserves held by the USFed. They were not excess anyway, since US banks simply held their loan loss reserves at the USFed.
The main point is that price inflation will rise sharply, called economic growth, a process already begun. The USGovt and Wall Street handlers will ignore it, under-state it, and herald the return of growth as success of policy. The reality will be less growth, in a deeper decline into recession. It has been my contention for the entire seven years of the Hat Trick Letter that the topic of inflation has been the most egregiously misunderstood and most common used deception device used against the American people, as the USEconomy has deteriorated in grotesque fashion for 20 to 30 years. They have been told to hedge against that inflation by home ownership, which has backfired in a national catastrophe. The underlying cause of the deterioration is massive monetary inflation and price inflation, manifested structurally as an over-priced US labor market that has sent jobs to Asia since the first migration phase to the Pacific Rim in the 1980 decade. The seminal event was the Vietnam War, which urged the broken Bretton Woods accord.
SCATTERED SUPPORTING DECEPTIONS
The justifications, explanations, and clever deceptions have been and will continue to be widespread. They are many, like singers in a chorus, each with voices like Sirens leading men and their ships to the rocks and a watery grave. Destruction awaits those attracted by their siren tones. My ear is tuned to detect them and to record their many deceptions. Let’s touch on the wrong messages made on the US Public Address systems one at a time and dismiss them. They are trumpeted by the USGovt, by the Wall Street bank staffers, by the USFed Chairman and most Board members, by the US Financial press, by the market mavens, and by numerous others, all of whom did not foresee the wreckage and charred ruins like the burning of Troy. To be sure, the principal player was Alan Greenspan, whose charisma and eloquence made him the Helen of Troy for our modern day. Both his visage and utterances more resembled Mr Magoo.
A) Rising prices are proof that the USEconomy can handle the higher costs. Not true! They are an indirect effect of massive monetary inflation, as surplus loose money sloshes until it makes higher-priced items. A direct effect comes from a falling USDollar in whose terms commodities are priced.
B) Rising commodity and material costs mean more profits all around. Not true! The exact opposite is the case, since profit margins are being squeezed. Businesses are making this statement openly.
C) Rising prices mean the USGovt and USFed stimulus applied is finally working, as the system is coming alive. Not true! It signals the arrival of the nightmare, in the form of price inflation that the banking leaders said would not arrive. They boasted a year ago that the monetary inflation would not have a spillover effect. That spillover effect is precisely broadly rising prices, most evident in food & energy. Witness the spillover.
D) Rising prices mean final demand has arrived, which is pushing up the prices. Not true! Final demand remains weak. Businesses do not anticipate a big rush of new demand, as their business investment is modest to non-existent. Consumers are strapped with weak income and no more home equity to raid.
E) The USEconomy is least vulnerable to price inflation effects, since strongest and most resilient. Not true! The chief export in recent years from the United States had been mortgage bond fraud, along with the usual fare of USTreasury Bond empty paper. The chief export in the current period is commodity price inflation. The USEconomy remains a major importer, and thus will import the price inflation, a process already begun with both commodities and finished products. The US is the originator of massive monetary inflation. Since its economy is deteriorating and stifled, the resilience is born of weakness. Its back door will usher in that price inflation.
F) The housing decline has kept prices in check from powerful deflation effects. Not true! The housing decline has guaranteed that the rising cost structure cannot be handled by the entire system. With the resumption in housing price decline, the insolvent banks will grow deeper in insolvency, while the households will fall more broadly into insolvency. Demand will not meet the higher prices required by corporations to even remain in business. Watch more job cuts and business shutdowns, since they must but cannot pass along the higher costs to customers.
G) Higher prices in the stock market is prologue and harbinger for the growth of the USEconomy and corporate profits. Not true! The massive monetary inflation has spewed new phony money into the system. It leaks through an array of sieves. It finds paths of least resistance. Almost no resistance exists toward the stock market, especially with the Working Group for Financial Markets openly pushing up stocks, no longer in hidden fashion. The USDept Treasury finally admitted as much.
H) Being a food producer, the USEconomy does not see rising food prices. Not true! For five years, the USEconomy has turned into a net importer of food products, although only slightly. The farm sector has seen their costs from diesel and other energy sources rise uniformly. The farm end product prices (like corn, wheat, soybean, cotton) are controlled on the commodity exchanges, not by farmers. So higher product and costs mean much higher prices at the US dinner tables.
I) Rising producer costs is obvious. The miracle of not ending up in final product prices results in success of the system. Not true! If final products cannot have higher costs passed on, that means the businesses suffer important profit margin squeeze. In parallel, the lack of job or income growth means that households suffer important squeeze also on discretionary spending. The squeeze is systemic, not a success, resulting in lower demand and business layout cutbacks.
J) Jobs will come eventually. Not true! This propaganda mantra is losing its mojo totally. Be prepared for a brief rejoice followed by the horrors of recognition that the USEconomy is suffering from broadbased price inflation and continued powerful deterioration. Monetary inflation destroys capital, a concept our clueless cast of economists cannot seem to conceive. In response to failure from monetary inflation, they order more in higher volumes. Prepare for QE3.
