Central Banks

When the world's central bankers speechified in DC, ironies abounded. But off to the side, Turkey had just floated a plan to grab its people’s gold.

Last week, Bernanke's first (of four) lecture at George Washington University was entirely dedicated to attempting to discredit gold and all that sound money stands for. The propaganda machine was so transparent that it hardly merited a response: those away from the MSM know the truth (which, simply said, is the "creation" of over $100 trillion in derivatives in just the first six months of 2011 to a record $707 trillion - how does one spell stability?), while those who rely on mainstream media for the news would never see an alternative perspective - financial firms are not among the top three sources of advertising dollars for legacy media for nothing. Still, for those who feel like the Chairman's word need to be challenged, the following extensive and annotated reply by QBAMCO's Paul Brodsky makes a mockery of the Fed's full on assault on gold, and any attempts by the subservient media to defend it. To wit: "Has anyone asked why so many powerful people are going out of their way to discredit an inert rock? We think it comes down to maintaining power and control over commercial economies. After professionally watching Fed chairmen cajole, threaten, persuade and manage sentiment in the markets since 1982, we argue this latest permutation is understandable, predictable and, for those willing to bet on the Fed’s ultimate success in saving the banking system (as we are), quite exciting.... Gold is no longer being ignored and gold holders are no longer being laughed at. “The Powers That Be” seem to have begun a campaign to discredit gold."

As we pointed out about a month ago, in "While You Were Sleeping, Central Banks Flooded The World In Liquidity" as the world was focused on headlines whether or not the Fed would step up as it always does when the market is sliding, and unleash the monetary floodgates, it was not Ben Bernanke, but eveyrone else that hit CTRL+P and took the place of the Fed, of note the primary central banking peers among the Final Four - the ECB, the BOE and the BOJ. And why not: after all the hope was that since electronic money is electronic money, and can be moved from point A to point B at the push of a button, it would be used primarily to reflate stocks around the world, but mostly where the path has least resistance - the US. What was not accounted for was that money would also be used to inflate commodities such as oil - a key factor when delaying further US-based easing in an election year. However, more than even record for this time of year gas prices, there was one even more important outcome from this chain of events. As the following chart from Willem Buiter shows, in its fake attempt to show monetary restraint, the Fed has gone straight into last place in the "race to debase." Needless to say, in a world with $25+trillion in "excess" debt (debt which would need to be eliminated simply to reduce global debt/GDP to a "sustainable" 180% per BCG), last is a very bad place to be...

The last time a story of Tungsten-filled gold appeared on the scene was just two years ago, and involved a 500  gram bar of gold full of tungsten, at the W.C. Heraeus foundry, the world's largest metal refiner and fabricator. It also became known that said "gold" bar originated from an unnamed bank. It is now time to rekindle the Tungsten Spirits with a report from ABC Bullion of Australia, which provides photographic evidence of a new gold bar that has been drilled out and filled with tungsten rods, this time not in Germany but in an unnamed city in the UK, where it was intercepted by a scrap metals dealer, and was supplied with its original certificate. The reason the bar attracted attention is that it was 2 grams underweight. Upon cropping it was uncovered that about 30-40% of the bar weight was tungsten. So two documented incidents in two years: isolated? Or indication of the same phenomenon of precious metal debasement that marked the declining phase of the Roman empire. Only then it was relatively public for anyone who cared to find out on their own. Now, with the bulk of popular physical gold held in top secret, private warehouses around the world, where it allegedly backs the balance sheets of the world's central banks, yet nobody can confirm its existence, nor audit the actual gold content, it is understandable why increasingly more are wondering: just how much gold is there? And alongside that - while gold, (or is it GLD?), can be rehypothecated, can one do the same with tungsten?

More vertigo-inducing than all of the Eurozone bailout mechanisms combined.

In an interview with Louis James, the inimitable Doug Casey throws cold water on those celebrating the economic recovery. "Get out your mower; it's time to cut down some green shoots again, and debunk a bit of the so-called recovery."

From Historically Miserable Level

Dressed in the ominous black of his alter ego (Lewis), Charles reflects on his recent trip to NYC with the same incredulity as we do with our many and varied conversations with equity fund managers - they're long and terrified. The recognition of total dependency on Central Bank manipulation leaves an investing public seemingly believing in miracles. From Europe, where the consensus (media) belief is that 'all-is-now-fixed' or at minimum the can is a long way down the road (though the velocity of deterioration in Spanish spreads this week - largest 2-day widening in over 3 months - has many funds we know greatly concerned) when the reality is a dis-union declining into recession relying on more and greater money printing (while disparaging the Greek bailout and offering some crazy facts on the Greek population); to the US as incomes (and the economy) is growing modestly (very modestly) but the impact of earnings dropping (as margins/profits mean-revert) implied far less buybacks to fund the continued expansion of equities; to Asia where China (and EM implicitly) appears to be slowing. The reality is that in an election year he believes Central Banks will do all they can though warning that at some point in time even Wile.E.Coyote has to fall back to Earth.

And the US fell to second place. Nothing is gradual in modern China.

I know many of you are thinking “the ECB or Fed could just print money.” That answer is wrong. If the ECB chooses to do this, Germany will walk. End of story. They’ve already seen how rampant monetization works out (Weimar). And if the Fed chooses to monetize everything to hold things up, then the US Dollar collapses, inflation erupts creating civil unrest, interest rates rise killing the banks, US corporations and the US economy… all during an election year.

All you need to read.

Goldman screams it is a generational buy, Larry Fink goes all in stocks, Notorious BIGGS is 90% long, anchors on comedy-financial fusion channels are channeling the producer in their earpiece and screaming at the teleprompter to "sell bonds and buy stocks", even as stocks are at their highest in nearly 5 years and... what happens? In the latest week, ICI just reported that domestic equity retail funds just saw another $2.9 billion outflow, the 4th consecutive in a row, and the 23 of out 27 outflows during the entire parabolic blow off top phase the market has undergone since October, and instead put another $9 billion in fixed income funds "soaring" yields be damned. What does this mean? Probably that the stock ramp is about to get uber-parabolic for the simple reason that this is the only thing left in the status quo's arsenal - to keep doing the same old same old, hoping for a different outcome, because this time it's different. Only this time the dumb money either doesn't have the cash to burn, or just doesn't want to participate in a rigged, corrupt, centrally-planned market. Whatever the case, the Primary Dealers and the Fed will just have to keep hoping more central banks pull a Bank of Israel and sell the hot grenade axes to them, since Joe Sixpack is done being the "dumb money."

Yesterday, Ben Bernanke dedicated his entire first propaganda lecture to college student to the bashing of the gold standard. Of course, he has his prerogatives: he has to validate a crumbling monetary system and the legitimacy of the Fed, first to schoolchildrden and then to soon to be college grads encumbered in massive amounts of non-dischargeable student loans. While it is decidedly arguable that the gold standard may or may not have led to the first Great Depression, there is no debate at all that it was sheer modern monetary insanity and bubble blowing (by the very same professor!) that brought us to the verge of collapse in the Second Great Depression in 2008, which had nothing to do with the gold standard. And as usual there is always an other side to the story. Presenting that here today, is Antal Fekete with "The Gold Problem Revisited."

A few days ago we noted that the Fed's propagnda is slowly encroaching into the 8-12 classroom with "Fed To Take Propaganda To The Schoolroom: Will Teach Grade 8-12 Students About Constitutionality Of... The Fed" in which the Fed's appointed class agenda would allow "students to use their knowledge of McCulloch v. Maryland and the necessary and proper clause to consider the constitutionality of the Federal Reserve System." You know - just in case kids get ideas early on. And now that Grades 8-12 are covered, it is time to take the propaganda tour to college. From the Fed: "In March 2012, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will deliver a four-part lecture series about the Federal Reserve and the financial crisis that emerged in 2007. The series begins with a lecture on the origins and missions of central banks, followed by a lecture that will discuss the role and actions of the Federal Reserve in the period after World War II. In the final two lectures, the Chairman will review some of the causes of, and policy responses to, the recent financial crisis, focusing specifically on the actions of the Federal Reserve. The lectures are being offered as part of an undergraduate course Leaving the Board at the George Washington University School of Business." Watch Bernanke as he shifts from the default CTRL+P mode to CTRL+SPIN. Also, we are taking bets on how many times the Chairsatan will use the words "Andrew" and "Jackson" in the same sentence: making a market at zero and under.