Federal Reserve Bank

Fed officials are well aware that stocks have become totally disconnected from reality. However, they cannot simply come out and discuss ending stimulus efforts outright because it would cause a market collapse. Remember, the single most important role for the Fed post-2008 is to maintain confidence in the system. So they cannot risk any explicit statement that they will be pulling the punchbowl.

All Capitalist Systems Have Some Inequality.  We Don’t Want To Prevent All Inequality … Just Economy-Wrecking Levels

Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Lexington Partners; Tudor Investment, Brevan Howard, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Bank of Korea; BNP Paribas, Fidelity Investments, Deutsche Bank,, Freeman and Co., Bank America, National Bureau of Economic Research, FDIC, Interamerican Development Bank; 4 hedge funds, BTG Pactual, Gavea Investimentos; Reserve Bank of Australia, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Einaudi Institute, Bank of Italy; Swiss National Bank; Pension Real Estate Association; Goodwin Proctor, Penn State University, Villanova University, Shroeder’s Investment Management, Premiere, Inc, Muira Global, Bidvest, NRUCF, BTG Asset Management, Futures Industry Association, ACLI, Handelsbanken, National Business Travel Association, Urban Land Institute, Deloitte, CME Group; Barclays Capiital, Treasury Mangement Association, International Monetary Fund; Kairos Investments, Deloitte and Touche, Instituto para el Desarrollo Empreserial de lat Argentina, Handelsbanken, Danske Capital, WIPRO, University of Calgary, Pictet & Cie, Zurich Insurance Company, Central Bank of Chile, and many, many more.

How Many Constitutional Freedoms Do We Still Have?

The Federal Reserve's policy of targeting unemployment is based on a curious faith that low interest rates and lots of liquidity sloshing around the bank system with magically lead employers to hire more workers. I say this is a curious faith because it makes no sense. In effect, the Fed policy is based on the implicit assumption that the only thing holding entrepreneurs and employers back from hiring is the cost and availability of credit. But as anyone in the actual position of hiring more staff knows, it is not a lack of cheap credit that makes adding workers unattractive, it is the lack of opportunities to increase profit margins by adding more workers. If the economic boom of the mid-1980s proves anything, it is that the cost of credit can be very high but that in itself does not restrain real growth. What restrains growth is not interest rates, it is opportunities to profitably expand operations.

Currency War ... Trade War ... Hot War

The fact that Evans, a man who has called for nothing but more stimulus for more than two years, is now stating point blank that the Fed may end QE before it reaches its target for unemployment is a major warning sign. Do not ignore it.

 Underneath the veneer of goodwill and the occasional necessary coordinated intervention, tensions are rising between Central Banks. When the US debases the US Dollar it pushes the Euro higher. This hurts German exports which in turn angers the Bundesbank.

The purpose of asset purchases by the Fed might no longer be improvements in the real economy, but rather a more subtle financing of U.S. government deficits. However, in the long run, expanding the money supply inevitably leads to inflationary pressures. Luckily for the Fed and the U.S. government, there is so much slack in the labour market that inflation might be years away. And, if we are right about the long run unemployment rate being structurally higher, then the Fed has all the room it needs to continue Quantitative Easing (QE) to infinity. This might allow them to continue to hide the true financial position of the government for many years to come. Nonetheless, the rising GAAP deficit and the sheer size of the U.S. Federal Government’s liabilities to its citizens makes it clear that one day or another, services (health care, social security) will have to be cut. Financial alchemy can hide reality, but it does not provide any tangible services. Europe’s (unresolved) experience with its debt crisis provides an insightful window into the future. Austerity measures in Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece have caused tremendous pain to their citizens (25% unemployment rates) and wreaked havoc in their economies (double digit retail sales declines). Are we going to ignore the obvious?

This objective report concisely summarizes important macro events over the past week.  It is not geared to push an agenda.  Impartiality is necessary to avoid costly psychological traps, which all investors are prone to, such as confirmation, conservatism, and endowment biases. 

I am sorry to tell you that whatever door that had been opened is now closed. America has turned the corner from the self-sufficiency of an individual to a new ideology for this country which is that incomes and life-styles should be equalized by taxes in the name of patriotism and for the greater good. The Socialism of much of Europe has arrived at our shores and spread from sea to shining sea and the safety net of decades past for our less fortunate citizens has been raised to a harmonization of social/governmental benefits regardless of hours worked or income earned. Stock markets rise, Treasury yields decrease, other bonds compress because there is no place off-world to invest money and it must be put somewhere. We are living in a fantasy world of the voters’ making and, I predict with some certainty, that we will all suffer the consequences of our decisions. The problem is extremely serious, answers are frustrating and aggravating and great care must now be exercised because this cliff is exceedingly steep.

Whether the repatriation of only some 20% of Germany's gold reserves from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Banque of Paris back to Frankfurt manages to allay German concerns remains in question.  Especially given that the transfer from the Federal Reserve is set to take place slowly over a seven year period and will only be completed in 2020. The German Precious Metals Association and Germany's ‘Repatriate Our Gold’ campaign said that the move by the Bundesbank did not negate the need for a full audit of Germany's gold. They want this to take place in order to protect against impairment of the gold reserves through leases and swaps. Indeed, they have called for independent, full, neutral and physical audits of the gold reserves of the world's central banks and the repatriation of all central bank gold - the physical transport of gold reserves back into the respective sovereign ownership countries. It seems likely that we may only have seen another important milestone in the debate about German and global gold reserves.

• Obama's Gun Curbs Face a Slog in Congress (BBG)
• Euro Area Seen Stalling as Draghi’s Pessimism Shared (BBG)
• China Begins to Lose Edge as World's Factory Floor (WSJ)
• EU Car Sales Slump (WSJ)
• Fed Concerned About Overheated Markets Amid Record Bond-Buying (BBG)
• Australia Posts Worst Back-to-Back Job Growth Since ’97 (BBG)
• Abe Currency Policy Stokes Gaffe Risk as Amari Roils Yen (BBG)
• Japan Opposition Party Won’t Back BOJ Officials for Governor (BBG)
• Fed Reports Point to Subdued Economic Growth (WSJ)
• China Set to Exit Slowdown by Boosting Infrastructure (BBG)
• Greece not out of woods, must stick to reforms: finance minister (Reuters)
• Russian Rate Debate Flares Up as Cabinet Seeks Growth (BBG)

In what could be a watershed moment for the price, provenance, and future of physical gold, not to mention the "stability" of the entire monetary regime based on rock solid, undisputed "faith and credit" in paper money, German Handelsblatt reports in an exclusive that the long suffering German gold, all official 3,396 tons of it, is about to be moved. Specifically, it is about to be partially moved out of the New York Fed, where the majority, or 45% of it is currently stored, as well as the entirety of the 11% of German gold held with the Banque de France, and repatriated back home to Buba in Frankfurt, where just 31% of it is held as of this moment. And while it is one thing for a "crazy, lunatic" dictator such as Hugo Chavez to pull his gold out of the Bank of England, it is something entirely different, and far less dismissible, when the bank with the second most official gold reserves in the world proceeds to formally pull some of its gold from the bank with the most. In brief: this is a momentous development, one which may signify that the regime of mutual assured and very much telegraphed - because if the central banks don't have faith in one another, why should anyone else? - trust in central banks by other central banks is ending.

• Guess who doesn't believe in the "great rotation out of bonds and into stocks": Abe Aids Bernanke as Japan Seen Buying Foreign Debt (BBG)
• AIG Sues Federal Reserve Vehicle in Dispute Over Lawsuit Rights (WSJ)
• JPMorgan Said to Weigh Disclosing Whale Report Faulting Dimon (BBG)
• Ugly Choices Loom Over Debt Clash (WSJ)
• Credit Suisse to cut bonus pool by 20 percent (Reuters)
• Brazilian Bikini Waxes Make Crab Lice Endangered Species (BBG)
• EU redrafts plan for bank rescue funding (FT)
• JCPenney stock plunges after bad holiday (NY Post)
• Regulator Comments Buoy Shanghai Stocks (WSJ)
• Japan voters back PM Abe's efforts to spur growth, beat deflation (Reuters)
• Cameron averts row over Europe speech (FT)
• Swatch Buys Harry Winston Jewelry Brand for $1 Billion (BBG)