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Timothy Geithner is either really stupid or he’s simply lying to buy time.  I left work early today and I heard this quote from Rush Limbaugh on the way home (I used to listen to him regularly, but his shtick is getting old – how long can he blame everything on the Democrats and Clinton?  Bush had power for 8 years, and borrowed as much money as ALL previous presidents combined – I didn’t hear Rush bitching about spending then.)  so I had to look it up.

Rush is right on this one – here’s a quote from a Bloomberg news story: “It will be helpful if Geithner can show us some arithmetic,” he said.

“He” is Yu Yongding, a senior researcher at the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a former central bank adviser. “The Chinese public is worried about the safety of its foreign- exchange reserves,” Yu said in an e-mail.

Yup, that would sure be “helpful”.  I’m still trying to figure out how we (the US) can borrow as much as we collect in taxes this year and next year and still Geithner can state “No one is going to be more concerned about future deficits than we are”. I’d like to see the math on that.

To put it bluntly, Geithner is either really, really dumb, or he’s simply lying. I think he’s lying.

According to a Reuters story about the visit A major goal of Geithner’s maiden visit to China as Treasury chief is to allay concerns that Washington’s bulging budget deficit and ultra-loose monetary policy will fan inflation, undermining both the dollar and U.S. bonds.

That sounds good – I too would like to be reassured that my savings aren’t going to be worthless because of the incredible amount of money being printed.  But guess what?  Words mean nothing – it’s what they actually do that counts.  And what the Obama administration is doing is driving the final nails into the coffin that is the US economy.  Bush dug the hole, and Obama is pushing us into it.

The really sad part of Geithner’s statements is that even the Chinese know that he’s lying.  According to the same Reuters story when Geithner said “Chinese assets are very safe,” it  drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting skepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.

Towards the end of the Bloomberg story, it says “I will, of course, make it clear that we are committed to a strong dollar, that we are committed to bringing our fiscal deficits down over the medium term to a sustainable place, to a sustainable level,” Geithner said in the briefing May 27. “We believe in a strong dollar. A strong dollar is in the U.S. interest.”

That’s pure bullshit and I think Geithner knows it.  He can’t really be that stupid.  No deficit is “sustainable” over the long run – every year simply puts you further and further behind.  At some point you must pay the debt off.  And in order to pay ANY debt off you must have a surplus.  That’s simply not in the cards for the US.  Medicare and Social Security are soon to run huge deficits – and where will we get the money to pay that?

gk

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Today’s Daily Reckoning had a good piece (as usual) from Bill Bonner.  He had an imaginary conversation with Tim Geithner about how to handle the debt bubble.  I wish I would have thought of that, but I’m not known for being original.    Here’s part of the conversation where Tim calls up Bill and asks for Bill’s advice:

“We need to recognize, first, that this is not just a regular recession. So you can forget the usual recession remedies – a few points off the Fed funds rate…a little counter-cyclical fiscal spending. This is much more serious.

“What we have here is a depression. It’s a depression because it requires a fundamental restructuring of the international financial model. You know how it worked during the Bubble Epoch; Asians made things…Americans bought them. Asians made money; Americans spent it. Asians saved; Americans borrowed. And now the Asians have money; and Americans have debts. Not really very complicated, is it?

“Well, these programs of trying to bailout businesses…and the banks…and the economy…you can see how they are all a waste of money. All of these efforts are trying to revive the old model. They’re trying to free up credit so that Americans can buy more! Now, we don’t really have to explain why that won’t work, do we? More debt won’t do Americans any good; more IOUs from Americans won’t do China any good.

“Instead, the model has to be taken apart and reconstructed. China needs to sell more to people with money – its own people, mainly. Americans need to pay down their debts before they can take up serious consumption again.”

“But wait, Bill,” Mr. Geithner interrupted. “Won’t that cause serious disruptions? When Americans save, in order to reduce their debts, they take away the single primary source of demand for the world economy. If they don’t begin buying soon, businesses all over the world will go broke. That’s why I’ve spent so much money trying to bail out the banks. Americans have no money. So the only way they can spend is if the banks provide credit. So, we have to save the banks first…then they’ll begin lending…and then the economy can begin growing again.”

“Uh…no. That’s not how it works. Even if you make all the banks solvent, whom are they going to lend to? Who’s going to borrow? Americans have too much debt already. Right now, if they get any money, they’re holding onto it…and using it to pay down their debts. They’re not going to start spending just because a bank offers them a loan.

Good stuff!  One thing that Bill left out is the power of savings.  Americans don’t have any savings to speak of, that’s why our government needs to borrow from China and Japan.  When the government ran up huge debts during the Depression and WWII, American citizens were the people who provided that money.  They provided it from savings, and we don’t have the money to do that today.

So when we purchase something made in China (or Germany) we have to effectively borrow that money in order to buy it.  That’s what a trade deficit does over time.  Wealth is extracted from the country with the deficit, and it flows into the country with the surplus.  It’s not rocket science.

Note – I am NOT suggesting that we pass protectionist measures to combat the trade deficit.  The fix to that is to simply live within our means and only purchase what we can afford.  That means paying as you go.  No new debt.  Pay down the old debt and save actual money.  When the debt is gone, people can once again buy more things – as long as they pay for it.

Robert Heinlein wasn’t the first to say it, but he said TANSTAAFL in a way that I remember it.  “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”.  He’s right, and we’re finding that out in the US now.

I’m currently re-reading volume one of The Story of Civilization. “Our Oriental Heritage” and it’s amazing how many times throughout history that government (and people) think they can rewrite the laws of nature.  Supply and demand is one of those laws, and no amount of wishful thinking and no amount of new regulations is going to change it.  The countries that have tried it in the past are gone.

I fear we’re following rapidly down that well trodden path.  I wish that weren’t the case, but idiots keep voting for bread and circuses.  Unless that changes, we’re going downhill.

gk

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I was reading through The Daily Capitalist blog tonight, and I read a post entitled “The Chinese Aren’t As Dumb As the Fed Thought” that reminded me of a news blurb I saw today.  It seems that there was much less interest in today’s Treasury auction of 5 year notes than was expected.

According to MarketWatch, The Treasury Department sold $34 billion in five-year notes to yield 1.849%, higher than traders had expected before the results were announced.

Bidders offered $2.02 for every dollar sold, compared to an average of $2.17 at the last four auctions.

Indirect bidders, a closely watched metric because it includes buying by foreign central banks, bought 30% of the monthly auction, the lowest since December.

I could have sworn that I saw that they were auctioning off $40 billion today, but I must have been wrong because I can’t find it anywhere.  The Treasury press release dated March 19th also says $34 billion.

Anyway, it appears that there’s just not as much interest in loaning the US money as there was a few months ago.  This can be taken in one of two ways:

1. The economy is recovering and people think they’ll get better returns in the stock market.
2. The US dollar is toast and everyone knows it, so fewer people want to invest in US government debt.

I don’t think #1 is the reason.  #2 is much more likely because the Federal Reserve is now directly printing money (buying treasuries with funny money) and what’s the use of buying US debt if it’s soon going to be worth less?  Or worthless?

As I’ve mentioned before, the Chinese aren’t stupid (that’s what The Daily Capitalist post above reminded me of) and they appear to be loaning us less money as well.

Speaking of The Daily Capitalist, the post I linked to above makes some good points regarding the Chinese hinting at a new reserve currency:

I see this as a crack in the dyke so to speak. When a power like China says these things, it’s serious. Things aren’t going to change overnight because of the complications of international trade and the role of currencies. But I see a trend. Last week’s announcement by the Treasury and the Fed that they were going to print a trillion dollars helped the discussion along. The whole world knows that eventually we’ll see inflation and the further devaluation of the dollar.

The consequences to us as a result of being replaced as the world’s reserve currency will be a further depreciated dollar. It will also make our taxes go up to pay the increased interest costs on our national debt as the Treasury finds it needs to make the rates on Treasuries more attractive to foreign investors.

What could replace the dollar? The Chinese and others suggest the IMF issue bonds backed by a basket of currencies—special drawing rights (SDRs). This would in essence, try to replace the dollar as a reserve currency and sort of create a supranational central bank. This is the worst thing that could happen to us. We’d have a group of Keynesian econometricians who are worse than our Keynesian econometricians controlling the world’s currencies and international trade. Trust me when I say we would get the short end of that stick.

What about gold? It worked pretty well for the last 6,000 years of human history. It is valued by everyone, it is seen as a monetary metal, it would create a stable medium of exchange, there is plenty to go around, and it takes away the power of the central banks to inflate. I believe, as do most free market economists, that it would serve us well. We’ve heard all the arguments against it and have some pretty good answers. This is not the time for me to expound on gold; I will do that at another time.

Another government engaged in the “quantitative easing” strategy is Britain.  Quantitative easing is the euphemism Keynesian economists like to use instead of “cranking up the printing presses” or “printing money” or “making funny money” or “lets send the whole country to hell in a hand basket – fast!”  I guess they think people won’t understand what they really mean, so they can get away with it.

According to MarketWatch, the British had a failed auction today.  A failed auction is where there aren’t enough buyers for the amount of debt you’re selling.  In the British case, they were trying to borrow a measly 1.75 billion pounds (about $2.6 billion) and they only received 1.63 billion pounds ($2.3 billion) of bids.

The failure significantly limits the scope for further stimulus borrowing, said Nick Stamenkovic, an economist at RIA Capital in Edinburgh. “It’s a warning shot about the fiscal position … It would suggest that the government’s scope for further fiscal easing is extremely limited,” Stamenkovic said. (Fiscal easing is just Stamenkovic’s euphemism for printing money out of thin air and expecting it to actually be worth something.)

Printing money comes eventually dooms every government that’s ever tried it.  History is full of examples like Rome, France, Germany, Argentina, and Zimbabwe.  I wish it were not that way, but we seem to be racing towards that same end as fast as possible.

But a review of expansive monetary practices and the effect on the governments who tried it will have to wait for a later date.  I also need to write about how the Keynesian policies have never worked (that I’ve found), and about how the debt of 1929 compares to day – and the results of a debt bubble.  And about 5000 other things….

gk

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Make note of this date – March 18th, 2009.   100 years from now, historians will point to it as the day the United States of America sealed its’ fate.

Today the United States shifted from a long slow decline into high gear – and nailed the accelerator pedal to the floor.  There are several other dates which may be picked as well, such as the AIG bailout on September 16th, 2008, or even the Bear Stearns bailout on March 14th, 2008, but today is the one that should be remembered.

It should be remembered as the beginning of the end, because today, for the first time, the Federal Reserve announced that it is going to directly purchase US Treasuries.  $300 billion worth – and that’s in addition to $1 trillion in mortgages.  The full text of the Fed announcement is here.

Here’s an important part:  To provide greater support to mortgage lending and housing markets, the Committee decided today to increase the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet further by purchasing up to an additional $750 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities, bringing its total purchases of these securities to up to $1.25 trillion this year, and to increase its purchases of agency debt this year by up to $100 billion to a total of up to $200 billion. [Emphasis mine]

The term “increase the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet” is a euphemism for “create money of out thin air” – or as it’s more commonly known – printing money.

It’s time for a refresher in basic economics – although this isn’t in Econ 101 – but it should be.  In the past, the Federal Reserve served simply as a clearing house for banks.  They would lend money to banks, but they effectively “held the mortgage” on whatever collateral the banks put up.  The collateral was commonly US Treasuries, although it could be almost any asset.  So the Federal Reserve might do something like take $100 million in US Treasuries from Bank of America and in return the Federal Reserve would give the Bank of America $100 million in US dollars. (Hypothetical situation)

They printed up $100 million to loan out, but they received $100 million in assets, so the net effect on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve was zero.  This is important – please re-read that if you don’t understand the process.  No money was created that didn’t already exist.  In the hypothetical example above, the Bank of America gave the Federal Reserve $100 million in the form of US Treasury bills, and the Federal Reserve gave them $100 million in cash in return.  The Bank of America can now loan out that $100 million to others – something they couldn’t do with a Treasury note.

But the net effect on the balance sheet is zero.  No new money was created.  It all existed in some form before the transaction, so the net effect is zero.  You can’t give the local grocer a US Treasury bill for a loaf of bread – you can give him dollars.  That’s what the Federal Reserve effectively did – they provided a liquid form of money (dollars) in exchange for illiquid money in the form of Treasury notes.

Got it?  Ok, read on….

Another part of the announcement says Moreover, to help improve conditions in private credit markets, the Committee decided to purchase up to $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months.

You really need to understand that the Federal Reserve doesn’t actually have any money, so when they “purchase” something – as opposed to normal lending – with what do they  purchase it?  The answer is really simple – they make up money.  They create it out of thin air.  Unlike the example above, this money isn’t backed by anything.  Nodda.  Zilch. Zip.

They simply make a few keystrokes and “create” more US dollars.  This is the electronic way to debase the currency.  The Romans did this by alloying other metals such as lead into their gold coins.  The end result is the same.  Inflation.

When you make each coin (or dollar) worth less, you are expanding the supply of money.  The amount of goods in the economy hasn’t changed at all.  If you read through an earlier post of mine, you’ll see that money is simply a way to facilitate transactions – but all money needs to represent actual goods produced that have not yet been consumed.

When the Federal Reserve buys US Treasuries, they are doing the same thing that the Romans did – causing inflation by debasing the currency.  It’s the law of supply and demand.  The Federal Reserve announcement today directly expanded the money supply by $300 billion.  That’s why gold soared today at the exact time of the announcement.

US Treasuries also soared on the news, but that will prove to be short lived.  It will be short lived because traders will realize Treasuries soared because the Chinese have dramatically slowed down their purchases of US debt – and their initial joy that someone is going to purchase the treasuries will fade when they realize that the purchases are being made with funny money.  The Chinese have made it clear that they won’t sit by idly and watch the value of their investments be debased by US policy.

Here’s a link to a NY Times article with a few different takes on the news.  It’s good, read it.  A few choice quotes are copied here:

• Although the notion of quantitative easing has been much discussed in the past few months, the policy clearly took effect today. Many thought it would never come to pass. In many ways this is a tragedy that could have been avoided. (Joseph Brusuelas, Moody’s Economy.com)
• Today’s announcement that the Fed is committed to purchase more than $1 trillion in Treasury and agency debt is great news for current holders of those instruments looking to bail out, but horrific news for just about everyone else, particularly long-term holders of U.S. dollars-based assets. (Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital)
• But by being the buyer, not just the lender, of last resort, the Fed has laid in a course that can only lead to ruin for the U.S. dollar. (Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital)
• Adding up these programs puts the Fed’s balance sheet somewhere around $4½ trillion before the end of this year… We think the Treasury rally will be short lived and see these purchases as negative for the dollar against foreign currencies and gold. (John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros, RDQ Economics)

If you’ve read this far I congratulate you.  If you read through this looking for advice on what to do with your money, or what the stock market will do, here’s my take.  This advice is free and worth every newly debased penny.  Go long on anything that’s sold in dollars, because as each dollar becomes worth less and less, the value of those items is more and more when measured in dollars.

Buy gold.  Buy silver.  Buy oil. Buy the Euro, the Brazilian Real, the Chinese Yuan – and short the dollar.  The dollar is officially toast.

I’ll end with a note that I REALLY hope I’m wrong.  I hope that the US isn’t headed down the path to inflationary ruin.  But that’s just hope.  My head says that this is the beginning of the end of this brief experiment, and that the United States as we know it will cease to exist at some point in the next 10 to 20 years.  Damn I hope I’m wrong….

gk

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Here’s a bit of an update on the G20 meeting.  It appears that China is getting serious about the US economy, because they want to eventually get the money back that they’ve loaned us.

According to a story on KnoxNews.com

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called on the United States to remain “a credible nation” and not weaken the U.S. dollar with endless government spending on bailouts and stimulus packages.

China gets it.  The US doesn’t.  Government spending – when the government doesn’t have money to spend – causes the currency to weaken relative to other currencies.  (Side note – it doesn’t not cause inflation.  Only increases in the money supply can do that.  But of course we’re doing that too…)

Here’s what Wen said:  “Of course, we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I’m a little bit worried,” Wen said at a news conference Friday after the closing of China’s annual legislative session.

The story goes on to give a little background by saying Chinese investment in U.S. Treasuries for years has helped finance U.S. budget deficits, keep interest rates low and buoy the dollar. It is all the more important as the U.S. takes on a deficit in excess of $1 trillion to fight its recession.

As I’ve said many times before, if China doesn’t loan us money, the US is quickly screwed.  Of course if China does loan us money, we’re still screwed – but the ultimate collapse will be delayed.

China appears to fear that overspending on stimulus by the United States could ignite inflation and send interest rates climbing.

It doesn’t look like Chinese Premier Wen believes in Keynesian policies.  At least one member of the G20 is not lacking in common sense.  Isn’t it ironic that a communist country understands economics better than we do?

gk

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I mentioned this a couple of times before, here, and here, but it’s escalated a bit this week.  Bloomberg (and a bunch of other places) has a story on it today.  According to Bloomberg, The US is pretty much reduced to pleading with China to keep us afloat.

“There’s no safer investment in the world than in the United States,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday at a briefing in Washington.

Gibbs was responding to comments from Wen that China, the U.S. government’s largest creditor, is “worried” about its holdings of Treasuries and wants assurances that the investment is safe. “I request the U.S. to maintain its good credit, to honor its promises and to guarantee the safety of China’s assets,” Wen said at a press briefing in Beijing.

“Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets,” Wen said after an annual meeting of the legislature. “To be honest, I am a little bit worried.”

China is right to be worried.  And Obama is right to be worried that China won’t keep giving us their money.  The US will have to resort to printing even more money if China won’t loan it to us.

President Barack Obama is relying on China to sustain buying of Treasuries amid record amounts of U.S. debt sales to fund a $787 billion stimulus package and a deficit this year forecast to reach $1.5 trillion. Investors abroad own almost half of all U.S. debt outstanding, and China last year overtook Japan as the biggest foreign buyer.

The US seems to be counting on this: “China won’t sell the U.S. debt now as that will only drive down Treasury prices, hurting not only the U.S. but also the value of its own investments,” said Shen Jianguang, a Hong Kong-based economist at China International Capital Corp.

But look at it from the Chinese point of view – why should they throw good money after bad?  To them, the US is becoming a bad investment, and at some point every investor has to cut their losses and salvage whatever they can from a bad investment.  Think Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.  Or Citi and Bank of America.  Or AIG or GM.  The list is long.

I doubt that the Chinese will simply dump their current holdings, but what if they simply stop buying more bonds?  Without their deep pockets buying up the US debt (loaning us money) the price of treasuries will drop, causing interest rates to surge.  Which only increases the need to borrow more money simply to pay the increased interest on the debt.

The US effectively has an “option ARM” from the Chinese right now.  We’re not making enough to pay the interest – much less reduce the principal.  So the amount we owe goes up every day.  When it becomes clear that we’ll never pay that debt, the Chinese will stop making our interest payments.  When that day comes – and it will come someday -  look out, inflation will soar.

Buy gold.  I don’t see anything else that will protect you from hyper inflation.  Maybe the Yaun. 

gk

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I mentioned this just yesterday, and it looks like it’s quickly becoming a major issue.  According to a story from Reuters today, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said “Whether we will buy more U.S. Treasury bonds, and if so by how much — we should take that decision in accordance with China’s own need and also our aim to keep the security of our foreign reserves and the value of them.”

In other words, China is concerned that their holdings of dollars isn’t going to be worth much, and they (understandably) will be cautious in loaning us money- buying US bonds.

The Reuters story also says Concerns that China may lose its appetite for buying Treasuries have helped depress U.S. government debt prices, along with worries about the slew of bonds that will be needed to finance the next U.S. economic stimulus package.

Analysts fear the escalating currency row, if it results in China buying fewer Treasuries, will make it more expensive for the United States to service its long term debt.

If China stops loaning us money, who will?  This irresponsible government spending will eventually stop – either voluntarily or it’ll be forced on us.  I say we should voluntarily stop it now to avoid the crisis that will ensue when we’re forced to stop.  This may be our last chance to head off hyper-inflation.

gk

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