Quantitative Easing

Folker Hellmeyer, the chief analyst with the Bremer Landesbank, gives an exclusive interview to chaostheorien.de on his take on the global currency wars and China's role in the global economy moving forward.

Boasting? Lying? Or just blind?

CNBC last week quoted an HSBC analyst's note pointing out that California California currently consumes more crude oil than China. It is hard for me to fathom California even belongs in the same sentence with China on any economic measures, and decided to do some research.

For those wondering why the market leaked higher in the last hour, it is because someone got an advance copy of the transcript (or advance notice) that in this Sunday's latest attempt at faux transparency on 60 Minutes, the bearded mutant-cum-supreme genocidal overlord says that more QE is coming. From Reuters: "The euro rose to a session peak against the dollar in late afternoon New York trade on Friday after a report on the CBS website that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke did not rule out buying more than $600 billion of bonds in further quantitative easing." It also explains why the euro is back to 1.34, and is right in line with our expectations that the EURUSD is only weak so long as the market realizes that much, much more QE is coming. How much? See the chart below for our ongoing expectation of what the Fed's balance sheet will look like soon. And yes, the $7 dollar jump in gold late in the day may be multiplied 10-20x on Monday after the world realizes that the US economy is as fucked as always.

In my article "Something Is Happening" I noted a glimmer of positive economic data. I was cautious to not call it a "recovery" yet because there isn't a clear trend. I still feel that way. The Fed and the federal government may yet blow up a recovery. But ... I can't ignore positive signs. I read the same data as other free market oriented blogs out there, I am just about the only one seeing this. "Believe what your eyes see, not what you want to believe."

In a speech which on the surface is meant to convey the skepticism of the Charles Plosser over QE2, the Philadelphia Fed president admits that much more QE may ultimately be needed. "If the economy grows more quickly than I currently anticipate, the purchase program will need to be reconsidered and perhaps curtailed before the full $600 billion in purchases is completed. On the other hand, if serious risks of deflation or deflationary expectations emerge, then we would need to consider whether expanded asset purchases should be used to address these risks." And much more deflation will eventually emerge especially for large scale purchases which rely on credit procurement (coupled with increasing inflation in commodities which are first degree liquidity derivatives): after all, the collapse in the shadow banking system, and the M3, are all the matter, and the Fed has no control over these (now that European greater fool securitized investors are extinct). It is precisely the Fed's QE3 response that should start being factored in. As everything else is noise, we will immediately present the latest meltdown in the shadow economy when the quarterly update is posted at noon on December 9.

I would like to feel sorry for Ben Bernanke because of his bumbling and confusion about what to do about the economy, but I can't. Every time he turns around he does the wrong thing. Can you say "cognitive dissonance?"

Yet another odd letter comes from under Bill Gross' pen, in which he continues to bash "The Ben Bernank's" Ponzi policies ("policymakers at the Fed write trillions of dollars’ worth of checks under the guise of quantitative easing, a policy which takes Charles Ponzi one step further by purchasing the government’s own paper in a last gasp effort to support asset prices") while making it all too clear that the only beneficiaries are "Newport Beach mega-millionaires." Has Warren Buffet-style self-flagellation become trendy among the billionaire jet set? Lastly, Gross makes it clear that the American economy is doomed in the long-run absent a "policy revolution" in DC: "Unless developed economies learn to compete the old-fashioned way – by making more goods and making them better – the smart money will continue to move offshore to Asia, Brazil and other developing economies, both in asset and in currency space. The United States in short, needs to make things not paper, but that is not likely unless we see a policy revolution in Washington DC. In the meantime, our unemployed will continue to fill out forms and stand in line." And the Newport-beach mega-millionaires will continue to front-run the Fed. Nothing ever changes indeed.

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen. … the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

"The federal government is subsidising state and local debt servicing costs with their BAB program. The Fed is subsidising the federal government’s debt servicing costs with “security purchases” (aka QE2). While the US political and financial establishment is desperately trying to distract Americans with as many overseas “crises” as they can contribute to, the fiscal situation in the US careens towards the cliff." William Buckler, with his Privateer report, once again establishes that in the pantheon of newsletters, he and Kiril Sokoloff are untouchable at the very top. In his latest piece, Buckler deconstructs geopolitics, finance, economics and explains the plutocrats' behavioral modeling in a way fre else seem capable of doing. For anyone confused what all the recent events out of Korea, China, Europe, and the US mean, read the following.

The next play in this soap opera will see “uncertainty” emigrate from the US to Europe, sending the dollar off to the races and the Euro in for rehab. Lindsay Lohan, eat your heart out. (FXE), (EUO).

With a 25% increase in poverty among Canadians 65-plus, there is no pension conundrum...

If you are looking for guidance and clarity from the Federal Reserve, your trust will be misplaced. The recently released minutes of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee's (FOMC) November meeting reveal a deeply divided Fed with no clear consensus on the effectiveness of their policies.

Even as economics has taken to back seat a geopolitics and a market uncharacteristically lacking in euphoria, Rosie once again provides the daily dose of must read economic summary sans the Kool Aid.

While Bernanke was putting the finishing touches on QE2 in DC, 50 global financial regulators met at the New York Fed to discuss regulation of world's largest market. Instead of financial reform measures, what is being created is simply a massive new power center headed by the CFTC from which those at the top will vainly attempt to manipulate market prices and entrench favored institutions within the new framework.