Debt | Of Privilege and Perspective

It bubbles

Posted on January 11, 2013 by bharat2288

Looming unscathed

Today’s global financial markets are comparable to the coasts of the United States and the Philippines right before the onslaught of Sandy and Bopha. Markets world over face a potentially crippling cyclone of their own which threatens to tear the world economy into pieces with its expansive public debt, some $50 Trillion¹, now dancing toe to toe with the gross world product (GWP) sitting somewhere at $70 Trillion². The immediate cause of this next inevitable overhanging financial crisis is called the ‘bond bubble’ and is said to be of catastrophic proportions, biblical for some. This new bubble dwarfs the real estate bubble not unlike the Earth that dwarfs the Moon. Bursting of such bubble will reverberate in most homes between the two poles, unfortunately not just as dinner table conversation.

Collusion

Governments meanwhile can be routinely seen kicking cans down the road, the fiscal cliff is a case in point³, and are too busy colluding with the media in what can be called the mother of all cover ups. US central bankers (or should I say banksters?) have become ever more aggressive (if that is even possible) wooing foreign governments/institutions into buying more of their debt in the form of government bonds thereby artificially increasing bond prices to record highs⁴, providing definite shape to the bubble. How US still maintains a credit rating of AA+ is truly beyond me. To recover from previous crises and set the economy back on the path of recovery banksters indulge in a cabalistic process known as ‘quantitative easing’ (QE). Essentially they print money out of thin air to provide liquidity to the economy (for more borrowing and consumption) by buying government and corporate bonds, further inflating bond prices. This has extensive negative fallout on pensions and exacerbates inflation⁵ (another widely debated topic in economic echelons worldwide). If we go by contemporary economics, US should be facing an escalating level of inflation by now because of the excessive money they’ve pumped into their financial system, however things seem eerily calm at the moment partly because they export their inflation to China and also because most banks are presently hoarding cash pumped in by the Fed²¹(for a rainy day eh?).

The Governments that buy into US debt such as China do so because they sell a lot (of goods and services) to the west and re-invest the dollars they’ve earned in ‘safe’ US treasuries⁶. Of course, they don’t want the US economy to fail or the world economy to crash (as that would affect the value of their very own bond holdings or future earnings). This is why they deliberately keep the Yuan pegged to the US dollar, not letting the price of their exports rise naturally, therefore helping their own economy grow at the expense of their western counterparts, further swelling up the bond bubble, and potentially creating a much bigger mess than necessary. Bonds/debts carry interest liabilities which need to be paid periodically to creditors along with a date of maturity upon which the entire bond value is to be repatriated. Since none of the western economies are producing enough ‘goods’ or ‘services’ to manage this burden (which has primarily been fuelled by US’s consumption of foreign goods and services in the first place), they keep raising their debt-ceiling and allow printing of more money to pay previous debt obligations. Peter Schiff says “it is impossible to pay your bills by going into debt”; what the US is doing to avoid their debt resembles what I do by paying my VISA bill with my MasterCard, except the US uses the same credit card. It doesn’t take genius to see the cyclical counter-productive policies of the Federal Reserve Bank or the US Government and how it’s inescapably driving them and the rest of the world into the deep rut of recession.

What is interesting to note is how the government sells QE to its people along with low interest rates in the name of economic growth and recovery. Present day Keynesian economists like Paul Krugman will have us believe the real problem US tackles today is deflation (a fall in prices) which will result in sustained recession⁷. So, it follows that cheap credit (or low interest rates) have to be maintained to stimulate demand and economic growth. The fear of duplicating the great depression of the 1930s and 40s seems to have diverted US toward the path of a greater depression – a much bigger cliff. Growth based on QE and low interest rates is a deterrent to savers and pensioners and posits the threat of a partial wipe-out to their life savings⁸. The fact that real wages have steadily deteriorated over the past decade⁹ is proof that near zero interest rates and QE haven’t really done the job, haven’t trickled down in the least bit; even the diminutive recovery said to have been made by the US has been hollow. According to Peter Schiff though, recession is exactly what the US economy needs along with a rise in the interest rates. The US is afraid to let the interest rates rise because of its massive debt floating around the globe, which they find impossible to finance even at rock bottom interest rates, how do we expect them to repay such debt at higher interest rates? – we don’t!

Alarm bells

How banksters have conned entire countries into full blown sovereign debt crises and insolvency is also an intriguingly well kept secret; Jeff Nielson explains it quite brilliantly in his ‘Economic Rape of Europe Nearly Complete’¹⁰ articles. Each day new cases of banker fraud and complete inaction against them are unearthed; HSBC is deemed ‘too big to jail’ after its head honchos admit to money laundering for drug cartels and some of its clients are proven to have terrorist ties¹¹. Barclays along with many other banks has been found guilty of fixing LIBOR, which is considered one of the most crucial interest rates in finance¹². It will no doubt be fined a couple of billion dollars a fraction of what it would’ve wrongfully gained, but what of the real damages inflicted on ordinary people because of what Max Keiser calls ‘financial terrorism’? How will the people be repaid? The first signs of pension defaults are beginning to show in the US, where San Bernardino, a city in California has failed to make pension payments for its employees to CalPERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System)¹³ – I am guessing it won’t be the last.

Every financial expert who predicted the debilitating crisis of 2008 (Max Keiser, Peter Schiff, Gerard Celente to name a few) has thrown up his arms, for all such rhetoric falls on deaf governments, banks and people. Banks are too busy convincing the world of their socially responsible practices and ‘we are recovering’ platitudes, whilst still managing to pay themselves hefty bonuses¹⁴. Now we also know what happened to TARP¹⁵(the bailout). The question is: are these doomsayers wrong when they question US’s ability to pay back its debt with its diminishing manufacturing and all its consumerist spending? I would think not. The day when the Fed can’t print more to repay its obligations is nearing which is why most countries are running around hoarding and holding all the gold they can possibly get their hands on¹⁶, contrary to what they did 40 years ago when gold was dumped onto the markets to crash its price. This is also probably why there are now talks of minting a trillion dollar coin!? dear lord! While Republican Ron Paul questions the very existence of US gold reserves in Fort Knox¹⁷ and forces the ‘Grand Old Party’ to mull returning to the gold standard, the Queen of England is witnessed visiting the vault of Bank of England to reassure herself of her bullion¹⁸.

Truth from what I gather

Why this sudden gold rush? They obviously know something we don’t and fear the worst form of market and currency crash, which may send the US economy in a hyper-inflationary spiral, devastating the global economy. How it will pan out according to the doomsayers is as follows – a sudden spike in the price of an essential commodity, like oil, will force the governments, banks, corporations, institutions holding US treasury bonds to sell these bonds in order to buy further into the spiked commodity and make a killing in the perceived bull run; the Fed will be forced to buy these treasuries in order to stabilize bond prices and not let them drastically fall. Since the bond-bubble rhetoric is already doing rounds, other holders of such bonds will want to cash out while the going is good and while the Fed is still buying. Those who are able to get out of the fire-sale early will seek to park their cash in ‘safer’ commodities such as precious metals, food, consumables, oil, thereby rapidly increasing the price of such commodities. This will trigger market panic and mass bond sell-out, the Fed will have to print trillions of more dollars it doesn’t have to buy bonds which will debase and destabilise the dollar further making goods expensive still. The fiat dollar will rapidly lose its intrinsic value and send the US economy into hyperinflation. Losses will be incurred across the board; the rest of the holders of US bonds, who aren’t able to exit like China and Japan, will receive their payment in worthless fiat dollars; their earnings will evaporate sending panic throughout global markets causing every single one of them to crash.

In the face of such an incapacitating predicament, where silver and gold may prove to be the only real refuge, the US has advised India to stop buying gold in order to reduce its current account deficit¹⁹ (I wonder why?). What’s worse is that India’s listening; RBI is planning to impose heavy import duties on gold in budget 2013-14²⁰. I fail to comprehend why we always have to fetch.

The only country that has defied all odds, gone completely against the natural order of bail-outs and 100 cents on the dollar payments to bond holders, and put people before banksters has been Iceland. And where has that led them after being nearly wiped out in 2008? – To an impressive economic recovery²² only because they didn’t consider their banks ‘too big to fail’.

We should also remember how US is based on a fiat currency system and is also the reserve currency of the world (meaning it is perpetually in demand for trading goods and services in the global market by every globalised nation). Therefore, it can go on printing money into oblivion without having to worry about causing inflation as it will always have foreign buyers for its currency. But even this is only true till the time the world considers US credit-worthy and capable of repaying its debt. From where I stand, that trust is falling. The real worry will begin once the world realises that US doesn’t really intend to pay its debt with anything that’s worth any value. A currency is only as good as the amount of goods/services it can buy. Paper currency backed by air has zero intrinsic value. So, even though I have full faith in the ability of our leaders to delay the inevitable and avert crises, Chidambaram and co. don’t fool me; a crash is coming and you better fasten your seat-belts, we’re in for a rocky ride! It’s not a matter of if it’s a matter of when.

Eagerly I wait for the day I can paint a brighter picture of the global financial-economic scenario.

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Image source: http://www.123rf.com/photo_16565003_gold-bars-with-dollar-stamp-3d-rendered-image.html