Reserve Currency

Bitcoin has been all the rage lately. The stuff, or lack thereof, runs on peer-to-peer technology, is fully decentralized, has no patents, and is open source. Currently, there are almost 11 million bitcoin units in existence and the maximum amount of bitcoin units that will ever be created by the logic of its design are 21 million. While bitcoins are designed so that they cannot be hyperinflated in name, they certainly can be hyperinflated in substance. There is no doubt that bitcoin is a spontaneous answer to the monetary instability that we see all around us today. On one side of the pond people are worried about the glorified currency peg known as the Euro and on the other about the amount of damage that Bernanke is willing to inflict upon the world’s reserve currency. However, let us not become so enamored of an innovative stateless solution that we forget Austrian economics and hitch libertarianism’s wagon to something heading for a crash.

Whenever discussion over North Korea arises in Western circles, it always seems to be accompanied by a strange mixture of sensationalism and indifference. The mainstream media consistently presents the communist nation as an immediate threat to U.S. national security, conjuring an endless number of hypothetical scenarios as to how they could join forces with Al-Qaeda and attack with a terroristic strategy. In the midst of the latest tensions with the North Koreans, I have found that most people are barely tracking developments and that, when confronted by the idea of war, they shrug it off as if it is a laughable concept. “Surely” they claim, “The North is just posturing as they always have," creating a social and political atmosphere surrounding our relations with the Asian nation that places both sides of the Pacific in great danger. The skeptics argue that we will never get to this point, though, because North Korea has brandished and blustered many times before, all resulting in nothing. We see recent events being far different and more urgent than in the past. All that is needed to instigate an event on the Korean Peninsula are tightened sanctions.

While being distracted by the developments of this insolvent European sovereign or that, coupled with increasingly prevalent episodes of deposit confiscation, is all the rage these days, the fundamental problems summarized by these three simple words, too much debt, remain. And as has been explained over and over, while confiscation of wealth merely shuffles the various dollar (and euro) signs on the table with the spoils going to the wealthiest, there is no resolution of the underlying problems plaguing a world that has tens of trillions of excess debt. As is by now is well-known, there are two ways out of such a conundrum: default, or inflating the debt away. What is also well-known is that as long as the US preserves legacy reserve currency status even by the tiniest of threads, inflation through debt deluge-funded money creation will always be chosen outcome. Just as was the case in Germany in the 1920s. In fact, as the following video shows, the parallels between where the US is now, and where Weimar Germany were just before everything took a turn for the parabolic, are a few too many for comfort. The only major difference so far is that in Weimar, the creation of massive rampant inflation was what economists would call, "successful."

A month ago we pointed out that as a result of Australia's unprecedented reliance on China as a target export market, accounting for nearly 30% of all Australian exports (with the flipside being just as true, as Australia now is the fifth-biggest source of Chinese imports), the two countries may as well be joined at the hip. Over the weekend, Australia appears to have come to the same conclusion, with the Australian reporting that the land down under is set to say goodbye to the world's "reserve currency" in its trade dealings with the world's biggest marginal economic power, China, and will enable the direct convertibility of the Australian dollar into Chinese yuan, without US Dollar intermediation, in the process "slashing costs for thousands of business" and also confirming speculation that China is fully intent on, little by little, chipping away at the dollar's reserve currency status until one day it no longer is.

Synthetic securities based on putrid shipping loans

If we shed our fixation with the Fed and look at global supply and demand, we get a clearer understanding of the tailwinds driving the U.S. dollar higher. I know this is as welcome in many circles as a flashbang tossed on the table in a swank dinner party, but the U.S. dollar is going a lot higher over the next few years. In a very real sense, every currency is a claim not on the issuing central bank's balance sheet but on the entire economy of the issuing nation. All this leads to two powerful tailwinds to the value of the dollar. One is simply supply and demand: as the global economy slides into recession, trade volumes decline, and the U.S. deficit shrinks. (It's already $250 billion less than was "exported" in 2006.) That will leave fewer dollars available on the global market. The second tailwind is the demand for dollars from those exiting the euro and yen. The abandonment of the euro is already visible in these charts.

Bloomberg reported recently that Russia is now the world's biggest gold buyer, its central bank having added 570 tonnes (18.3 million troy ounces) over the past decade. At $1,650/ounce, that's $30.1 billion worth of gold. Russia isn't alone, of course. Central banks as a group have been net buyers for at least two years now. But the 2012 data trickling out shows that the amount of tonnage being added is breaking records. Based on current data, the net increase in central bank gold buying for 2012 was 14.8 million troy ounces – and that's before the final 2012 figures are in for all countries. This is a dramatic increase, one bigger than most investors probably realize. To put it in perspective, on a net basis, central banks added more to their reserves last year than since 1964. The net increase – so far – is 17% greater than what was added in 2011, which was itself a year of record buying. The message from central banks is clear: they expect the dollar to move inexorably lower. It doesn't matter that it's been holding up against other currencies or that the economy might be getting better. They're buying gold in record amounts because they see a significant shift coming with the status of the dollar, and they need to protect themselves against that risk. Embrace the messages central bankers are telling us – the ones they tell with their actions, not their words.

Based on the the budget, Fitch has placed the United Kingdom's AAA taing on Watch Negative (for future downgrade): The RWN reflect the latest economic and fiscal forecasts published by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that indicate that UK government debt will peak later and at a higher level than previously expected by Fitch. GBPUSD snapped 50 pips lower but is reverting a little now - US equities shrug (just another piece of AAA collateral nearer biting the dust).

Years ago we wrote of a not so far off future in which martial law, economic collapse, and the destruction of civil liberties stood imminent.  We related our views on the propaganda rhetoric of the SPLC, and how they were using false association to tie liberty groups to any deviant organization they could think of, including racists and domestic terrorists, in order to condition the American public to react to our message with immediate contempt. It became clear to us then that the SPLC, which had become the propaganda wing of the widely reviled Department Of Homeland Security, was helping set the stage for a paradigm shift in the U.S.  This shift would obviously include economic and social disruption, as well as political turmoil beyond anything our nation has seen for over 150 years.  But most importantly, it would pave the way for certain elements of the American populace, namely those who are awake, aware, and outspoken, to be labeled “enemy combatants” dangerous to the state. The SPLC, of course, has so far utterly failed in their efforts to stop the rise of Constitutional activists.  By their own admission, “patriot groups” have expanded exponentially since 2008, and continue to develop freely even in the face of wildly absurd character attacks taken from the amoral (immoral) guidebook of Saul Alinsky himself.  The truth, once realized, is difficult if not impossible to stop. Unfortunately, the establishment understands this as well...

The markets have begun to wonder whether the Fed (and other central banks) will ever be able to exit from its Quantitative Easing policy. We believe there is only one reasonable exit the Fed can take. Rather than sell its portfolio of bonds or allow them to mature naturally, we believe the Fed’s only practical exit will be to increase the size of all other balance sheets in relation to its own. This “exit” will be part of a larger three-part strategy for resetting the over-leveraged global economy, already underway...

We really hate to beat a dead horse, but we wouldn’t be doing my job for you if we didn’t point out some of the most intellectually dishonest, self-aggrandizing Bernanke-speak to come out of the Fed Chairman’s testimony this week. I know this goes without saying, but entrusting this man with your life savings is a dangerous course of action. I strongly urge you to consider diversifying into precious metals, productive farmland, or even a digital currency like Bitcoin. After all, you know the old saying – it’s time to be very concerned when the politicians and bureaucrats tell you to not be concerned.

The United States’ current fiscal and monetary policies are unsustainable. The US government’s net debt as a share of GDP has doubled in the past five years, and the ratio is projected to be higher a decade from now, even if the economy has fully recovered and interest rates are in a normal range. An aging US population will cause social benefits to rise rapidly, pushing the debt to more than 100% of GDP and accelerating its rate of increase. While the future evolution of these imbalances remains unclear, the result could eventually be a sharp rise in long-term interest rates and a substantial fall in the dollar’s value, driven mainly by foreign investors’ reluctance to continue expanding their holdings of US debt. Investors frequently rely on two key arguments to dismiss the fear of a run on the dollar: the dollar is a reserve currency, and it carries fewer risks than other currencies. Neither argument is persuasive.

Whenever I endeavor to explain America’s current economic situation to a person who likely receives most of his information from skewed mainstream news sources, I try to use two comparisons; the Great Depression, and Weimar Germany, because what we are experiencing is actually a combination of elements from both events. In the end, the madness of debt spending is going to annihilate this country anyway.  Fiat printing and infinite QE will eventually result in the dumping of our currency as the world reserve, causing devaluation and hyperstagflation.  Stimulus and the monetization of government liabilities are crippling us.  The problem is, this nation is irrevocably dependent on such measures.  Cuts will result in almost similar catastrophe, but on a faster time frame and perhaps a slightly shorter duration (depending on who runs the show in the aftermath).  I’ve been saying it since 2008 – there is no easy way out of this situation.  There is no silver bullet solution.  There will be struggle, and there will be consequence.  It is unavoidable.  All we have to decide now is how we will respond when the inevitable disaster comes.

Equities have rallied to all-time highs, sovereign debt is still just off their all-time lows and risk assets have compressed to their benchmarks in ways not dreamed about five years ago. The absence of hyper-inflation, once thought to be the consequence of this type of behavior, is nowhere to be seen and this has befuddled many economist and money manager alike.  In other words, what most people thought would happen has not happened and there is a lesson here which rests upon all of the Central Banks acting in concert.  Money is always put to use, it is never idle because it then earns nothing, but since it cannot be invested off-world it must go into the spaces that are provided and so it has. One can honestly say that the game has been rigged and this is an accurate statement but it makes no difference; this is the game that we have been given to play. Investors get to make all kinds of choices but we do not make the rules and arguing with reality may be an interesting academic exercise but it changes nothing in the end.

And another AAA-club member quietly exits not with a bang but a whimper:

MOODY’S DOWNGRADES UK’S GOVERNMENT BOND RATING TO Aa1 FROM AAA

Someone must have clued Moody's on the fact that the UK is about to have its very own Goldman banker, which means consolidated debt/GDP will soon need four digits. In other news, every lawyer in the UK is now celebrating because come Monday Moody's will be sued to smithereens. Cable not happy as it tests 31 month lows, which however also explains why the Moody's action has another name: accelerated cable devaluation. Those who heeded our call to short Cable when Goldman's Mark Carney was appointed are now 1000 pips richer. Also, please sacrifice a lamb at the altar of Goldman: It's the polite thing to do.