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Quantitative easing appears to be the new fad among central bankers including the Bank of England, Japan, Switzerland and the Federal Reserve. Quantitative easing is a tool of monetary policy. The effect is an increase in the quantity of currency without regard to maintaining its quality. This has an effect on quantitative finance.
CANADIAN QUANTITATIVE EASING
Bloomberg has reported that the Bank of Canada Governor ”Carney has pledged to lay out a plan that would flood banks with cash to halt the hoarding of capital and expand lending.” Consequently, the Loonie has been sliding against gold.
GLOBAL QUANTITATIVE EASING
Out of the G-20 meeting came the joint cooperation for global quantitative easing. Here are a few key points: ”To treble resources available to the IMF to $750 billion, to support a new SDR allocation of $250 billion, to support at least $100 billion of additional lending by the MDBs (multilateral development banks), to ensure $250 billion of support for trade finance, and to use the additional resources from agreed IMF gold sales for concessional finance for the poorest countries.”
This creation of an additional $250B of SDR illusions to form the foundational capital for lending will only hasten the evaporation of the current system because the SDR has only limited liquidity and no intrinsic value. This is classic inflation by increasing the illusion supply. Because the SDR is a composite asset, a basket composed of the FRN$, Euros, Pounds and Yen, the effect is simply more chicanery of no economic substance. The IMF gold sales will be like a single piece of sushi appetizer to a starving dragon. The market’s reaction will be: ”That was nice. Seconds please.” But who will these measures help?
MAJOR BANKS AND THEIR VASSAL POLITICIANS
Bloomberg has reported that the Single Digit Midget Bank of America, with a market capitalization of $45B, needs $36.6B in capital to bring it in line with peers. If Bank of America cannot use the new FASB mark-to-market changes as creatively as its peers that enable fair-value lying to poof an extra $36.6B of fake capital onto its balance sheet then it must have serious intrinsic problems. There are places for worthless corporations like these: bankruptcy court.
How many other worthless, or worse than worthless, banks are having trouble conjuring capital onto their balance sheets? How long will it take other banks like Wells Fargo, US Bancorp or Credit Suisse Group with their approximately $14.90, $14.40 and $31.40 share price respectively and below $63B, $25B and $36.5B market cap to report earnings? The Treasury is delaying the reporting of the results of the federal report stress tests until Q1 earnings have been reported. Hopefully it shows up on Wikileaks like a recent whistleblower leak about JP Morgan’s insider trading program.
While fair-value lying may help the stock prices in the short term; the fundamentals are horrific for value investors. Most likely the longer the information is delayed and the less details the Treasury provides then the worse the true results are regardless of the faux official numbers.
The new FASB changes may enable profitability for a quarter, or even a few, but those profits are bogus. What purpose do these FASB changes and bailouts serve? To funnel bailout money through AIG to Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and European banks like Deutsche Bank. After all, Deutsche Bank, assisted by the ECB, has most likely been extremely helpful in perpetuating the gold price suppression scheme.
Why else would the ECB sell 35M ounces of gold the exact same day Deutsche Bank had to deliver 850,000 ounces of gold or risk a failure-to-deliver on the COMEX (Part 1 and Part 2)? The gold and silver markets, along with their shadow of the interest-rate market, are enveloped by the thickest part of the derivative illusion. As securities attorney Avery Goodman observed, “But, simply put, you cannot legitimately or legally hedge against another hedge, which is what the derivatives dealers appear to be doing, and which CFTC seems to be allowing them to do.”
The sociopaths manipulating interest rates, which according to Austrian business cycle theory regulate production over time, has caused and will yet cause catastrophic damage to the world economy and result in tremendous human suffering.
WORLD RESERVE CURRENCY
The world already has a world reserve currency of last resort: gold. Gold has a definition under the periodic table and is not the same as paper gold, derivative gold, problematic ETF GLD gold, or other forms of fools gold. Unlike SDRs and other illusions like the FRN$, Euro, Pound, Yen, etc. gold is a tangible asset, no-one’s liability and not subject to counter-party risk.
The next round of derivative shocks may come from a bankruptcy of the condemned General Motors triggering massive credit default swap payments. This will likely be a very stressful event for the banks and may result in tremendous solvency pressure.
Investors are becoming increasingly aware of risk and as the system continues evaporating the importance of seeking the safest and most liquid assets, with physical gold and silver at the tip, becomes increasingly desirable. While the price of gold and silver fluctuates their value does not and both gold and silver will still be there for the next credit expansion. That assertion cannot be made for the Z$, Bear Stearns or GM stock, money market accounts, the SDR or FRN$ and other places where capital was or is allocated. Carney and his fellow miscreants will not succeed in trying to force capital up the liquidity pyramid because the great credit contraction has begun.
Disclosures: Long physical gold and silver with no position in WFC, BAC, C, USB, GM, GLD, SLV, GS, JPM and CS.
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An adjunct to this topic that suggests a method to stimulate the U.S. credit base, and thus the economy, without inflating our monetary base, is the recent article by Ellen Brown at http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/bernanke.php, which is entitled, “THINKING POSITIVELY ABOUT MONETARY POLICY: HOW ‘QUANTITATIVE EASING’ COULD BE HARNESSED FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD,” and is worthy of your review.
If this idea has merit, and is given serious consideration by pundits in the banking world, I may have some gold and silver available for sale at a reasonable price.
I think she misses the point. Sure her argument that it would be better for Congress to have the ring of power than a bunch of vampires cloaked in the shadows has merit. But this quote shows that despite being somewhat knowledgeable on the topic she completely misses the point:
“A public banking system headed by a truly federal central bank could provide all the credit we need. To prevent corruption and abuse, this system of money and credit would need to be made subject to the sort of public monitoring and control provided by the checks and balances built into the Constitution.”
Gold and silver are not merely commodities but *essential checks and balances* built into the political machinery. Tinkering with the system with an additional cog, such as a federal central bank, will upset the delicate balance. The market will provide all the credit the market needs; a public banking system will only result in less efficiency. The monetary powers and disabilities in the Constitution are sufficient (Article 1 Section 8 Clause 5 and Article 1 Section 10 Clause 1).
The enforcement of embezzlement and fraud statutes, which violate the agency of another, should be enforced. Legalizing embezzlement and fraud, which is what fractional reserve banking is, will only exacerbate the problem and eventually land us in the same position we are currently in.
Thomas Jefferson warned against this and I quoted him in The Great Credit Contraction, Chapter 3, endnote 9.
“The [Bank of the United States] is one of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution. The nation is, at this time, so strong & united in its sentiments that it cannot be shaken at this moment. But suppose a series of untoward events should occur sufficient to bring into doubt the competency of a republican government to meet a crisis of great danger, or to unhinge the confidence of the people in the public functionaries; an institution like this, penetrating by its branches every part of the Union, acting by command and in phalanx may, in a critical moment, upset the government. I deem no government safe which is under the vassalage of any self-constituted authorities, or any other authority than that of the nation or its regular functionaries.”
Today is Thursday and I am Not very happy about the Silver down turn since I have most of my money in Silver. I had heard on Major TV that Silver was going to correct at around 50 dollars. I called the company that holds the account and asked the broker if Silver was going to correct now and he didn’t think so. I accepted his ideas and continued the day. But at this point I am not too convident and most of the money is in a IRA Account and that was some of the reason he may not have wanted to sell per low flexibity .
Are brokers helping the client or themselves or are there other underlying reason for lackability? This seems to be a constant though out the investment community.
Well, there is a reason they are called brokers; because they are broker than you are. If they were good at their job then they would be managing their own money. At the end of the day, you have to take responsibility and manage your own money. It is the uncertainty of the future prices that makes financial markets and those who correctly and accurately prognosticate the trends profit. That is one reason for diversification, using call and put options, etc. But what would you do if silver was at $40/ounce and trending up and you asked him and decided to sell and then silver went to $50/ounce? There is always 20/20 hindsight and trading, particularly day trading, is very volatile and can be financially dangerous but also very rewarding. This is one reason I recommend discerning the long-term trend and then positioning oneself through provident living principles and taking advantage of the trend. There will always be ups and downs.
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