By Claus Vistesen, on September 26th, 2011
If investors were hoping that the strength of commodities was sign that decoupling, led by Asia and Latam, were running on course to help the global economy expanding, events last week must surely have extinguished such hopes. Indeed, it was always a question of commodities and emerging markets catching up to the ongoing slaughter in Europe.
Indeed, what seems to be main question now is whether the US economy will avoid a recession and, as a consequence, just how bad it has to get before the Fed starts another round of shock and awe QE. In this sense, I also always thought that expectations of emerging market foreign exchange reserves bailing out Europe and/or central banks easing aggressively to support the global economy were pinned on expectations that after all were too high.
(Quote Bloomberg)
The world’s largest emerging economies will not act as a bloc to ease Europe’s financial crisis, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said.“It’s impossible, I’m certain of that,” Storchak told reporters today in Washington. “If the BRICS are going to act to overcome the euro zone’s financial problems, then it will be based on the possibilities presented by working through the International Monetary Fund.”Finance ministry and central bank officials from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa met before this week’s IMF annual meeting to discuss coordinating policy as Europe reels from a sovereign debt crisis and growth slows in the U.S. There is a “high” danger that Greece will not fulfill all of its debt obligations, Storchak said.
As for the EM tightening cycle I think that while we may certainly see an easing of pace or perhaps even a full stop of tightening measures I think a reversal is out of the question. This is especially the case as the recent strong correction in commodities and the global slowdown is likely to make inflation a non issue going forward. However, inflation lags the cycle and if the central banks are fixed on this measure it will take some time before the data allows decisive action unless of course the future is suddenly discounted in a radically different way due to rising downside risks.
In India, the tightening cycle is surely near its end with the yield curve already flat as a pancake, but with sticky inflation and fiscal policy continuously loose, there is limited scope to the central banks’ ability to maneuver.
(Quote Bloomberg)
India’s central bank is close to the end of its record series of interest-rate increases as inflation will probably slow next year, Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn said.“You could say that the cycle is nearing its end,” he said, “given the projection that inflation will start coming down and will continue to move down from December onwards.” He declined to specify when the Reserve Bank of India may stop raising rates.
Worryingly, recent news out of China appears that the country may be turning Indian or at least that the expected easing may not come as expected. Especially, it is bad news for the global economy in the near term (but perhaps good in the long run?) that Chinese authorities seem to be engineering a crack down on property developers which will not only lead to an acceptance of lower growth in order to effectively quell off balance sheet lending.
It seems that investors hoping for emerging markets to drive forward the global economy may, for the moment, be guilty of too high expectations.
By Claus Vistesen, on September 7th, 2011
 One of the stories that caught my attention this week was the Bloomberg piece about how banks in London and New York are starting to jump ship on the old finance hubs due to fear of effects from planned regulatory tightening.
Quote Bloomberg
Banks in Europe are exploring ways to cut costs by routing more of their trades and other business through overseas subsidiaries, a plan that may shift tax revenue away from London and loosen European regulators’ influence over the lenders.Nomura Holdings Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) and UBS AG (UBSN) are among lenders preparing plans to book as much business as possible through legal entities in jurisdictions where tax rates are lower and rules on capital and liquidity are less onerous, the banks and lawyers and accountants working with them say.
(…)
Banks could record as much as 30 percent of the value of their trades through Hong Kong, Singapore and other jurisdictions instead of hubs such as London and New York without running into trouble with regulators, Matten said. Such a move would hurt traditional hubs such as London because assets are treated for tax and regulatory purposes in the country where they are booked. It would also allow banks to sidestep the U.K. bank levy, introduced last year to raise 2.5 billion pounds ($4.1 billion) from lenders operating in Britain, as well as any financial transaction tax imposed by the European Union.
Perhaps this is a sign of the times in the sense that both banks and market participants seem to be looking increasingly outside the boundaries of the developed world for growth, profit and eventually prosperity. Having just moved to the Big Smoke I would not necessarily lament a downsizing of the finance sector even if it is the pond that I also do my fishing for the daily meal ticket. Perhaps, if fast moving financiers chose to go to Singapore instead of London, the residents of the latter would not have to endure paying 300.000 GBP for a studio flat in Canary Wharf [1].
Of course, it may all be a red herring but it could also be part of a number of tentative signs that the locus of global activity on a variety of fronts is moving to new epicentres. Let us hope they do not travel entirely in our foot steps.
More generally, we just put out our monthly report and the outlook is very much wishy-washy. Surely, our leading indicators are pointing down, but after the market puke in August it seems to me that the end of the world had almost been priced in as the S&P500 hit the 1100 marker. In this sense, do not be surprised to see it ticking towards 1250 even if the recent job data were abysmal, but beware. The old range has been broken and we are finding a new lower one. Market prices have a tendency to become “normal” after a period and with global economic activity visibly slowing the fundamentals are not really on the bulls’ side even if they point to the merits of chasing a counter trend rally after a 10% drawdown.
More generally as I noted before, the divergence between respectable analysts is widening which always makes me take a few steps back. On the one hand I see both buy side and sell side analysts rather stubbornly sticking to their year-end S&P500 targets of 1300-1400 while other independent analysts put the fair value of the index at 900-1000. Both will obviously have an axe (or maybe even a book) to grind, but part of my job is to synthesize the consensus into a fairly straight road map for our clients, and it is getting difficult.
I tend to side with the pessimists if only because I find it difficult to see how US corporates can continue to operate as efficiently as they have been doing so far. Gerald Minack had some excellent points on this in his latest report;
A big medium-term uncertainty for DM equity investors is the sustainability of earnings. A decade ago, the big uncertainty was whether valuations could be sustained. They weren’t . The de-rating may have further to go, but clearly valuation is less of a headwind now than at the TMT-inspired peak. Earnings, on the other hand, are very high. Profits are now near an all-time high as a share of global GDP, and the real return on equity has followed . What’s not able, however, is not the cycle rebound, but the elevated level of earnings (and real returns) over the past decade. The forward-looking issue is whether those elevated returns can be sustained. At a global level, the answer may be ‘yes’ – for the simple reason it’s now possible to make profits in places where previously it was not. What’s not clear is the sustainability of high earnings in the developed world.
In particular, I would would point to the contradiction between continuing ultra low unit labour costs and the need to now see growth moving from cost cutting to topline growth. Something does not add up.
Real unit labour costs are now at 60-year lows. This matches the decline in wage share of GDP to a 50-year low. Arithmetically, this is the most important support for high profits. As I’ve discussed in prior reports, it’s not clear how long households can support consumer spending at near 70% of GDP with labour income at multi-decade lows. That’s been possible recently due to massive transfers from the public sector, but that support appears unsustainable.
In my opinion, this is big elephant in the room in relation to the US stock market. It will be difficult for earnings (and margins) to stay at current levels going forward. It follows naturally from the fact that if all companies cut costs and this improves margins this will only work for a limited period time as there are decreasing returns if everyone follows this strategy at the same time. Now we need to see topline sales growth for margins to be sustained, but this is obviously difficult with the current macroeconomic backdrop, so something has to give.
Globally, coincident data is already slowing visibly across the globe with headline PMI readings and trade data coming in steadily lower. In that sense we are up against the wall again only so shortly after the shock of 2008/09 and this time, the ability of policy makers to respond is limited.
However, I would be weary about calling this another 2008. One of the effects of experiencing a balance sheet recession with subsequent deleveraging is that trend growth falls and thus that the economy becomes liable to more frequent recessions. This applies to the US in particular but essentially also to the whole of OECD. This means that we will see more frequent but also essentially shallower recessions. The only qualifier here is really that some parts of Europe are now stuck in a depression locked in a vice of dysfunctional institutions and a lack of willingness and political capability to deal with the problems.
As such, within Europe also lies the potential source a Lehman like shock should the crisis prompt a rapid and violent default of one or more sovereigns and/or financial institutions. Certainly, euro area banks are feeling the pinch as USD funding is getting cut off and if anything it seems to me that the EURUSD is looking a bit too strong for its own good given the backdrop of the mess in the euro zone. As cash levels at euro zone banks are drawn down the currency will adjust to fundamentals not to mention of course the fact that the ECB is slowly but steadily being pushed into full blown QE and monetisation of peripheral debt.
The latest G&F provides a good summary;
(…) The risk of a dollar rally against the euro in coming months is growing. This is because, sooner or later, the ECB will have to reverse its recent insane monetary tightening. Trichet made a start in this direction this week in his usual ponderous manner. Thus, he told the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament in Brussels on Monday that “risks to the medium-term outlook for price developments are under study in the context of the ECB staff projections that will be released early September.” The issue here is whether markets will allow Trichet to save face and not performs an abrupt U-turn before his scheduled departure from the scene on 31 October.
More generally, the recent comments from the IMF that euro zone banks need additional capital is once more a case of stating the almost obviously obvious. The transmission mechanism here is very simple. The market is now effectively pricing in a default of Greece and possibly other peripheral economies and this means that the attention must now turn to the losses that creditors will bear or, alternatively, the size of the bailout if we stick to the old mantra of no losses. As a good friend of mine pointed out recently,
All trough last month’s banking shares’ collapse, I have been thinking that perhaps, equity investors are worried that the recapitalization will be different this time, with either the taxpayer (wrong solution) or the bondholder (rightly, through a bond-for-equity swap), massively diluting the shareholder. Politicians obviously do not have the stomach, nor the muscle for new bailouts.
Or to put it differently, there are no easy solutions left. One solution is the Brady Bond plan which is currently being floated in the case of Greece. The problem as I see is that it is fudged precisely when it comes to the current valuation of the bonds. Basically, there has to be pain today for the creditors, otherwise we are just kicking the proverbial can down the road as recapitalisation is avoided today but made worse for tomorrow. A solution for recapitalising banks today would naturally be for their creditors to accept a swap for equity and thus being moved into the frontline to absorb any losses that the banks would bear on sovereign debt, but that is not popular. Essentially, being degraded to equity holder in a bank with known sovereign assets in the European periphery is equal to taking a haircut on your initial investment, but all this then leaves the inevitable question of who and when someone will step up to take the lead in the debt restructuring.
Of course, the idea of substituting debt for equity is the same principle applied in the case of Greece posting domestic assets (islands, utility companies etc) as collateral for credit. We can then think about this collateral as Greek sovereign equity and as with creditors of banks, it is all good in theory but in practice, not so well.
Elsewhere, the game of Old Maid in global currency markets continue with the SNB still in the spotlight despite already having taken desperate measures to stop the appreciation of the CHF;
Quote Bloomberg
While the Swiss National Bank has so far avoided currency purchases in its latest bid to keep a lid on the franc, it may soon have no alternative but to follow through on its threat to intervene, economists and strategists said.
But what really caught my attention was comments by Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega that lowering interest rates represents an effective antidote against an appreciating currency.
Quote Bloomberg
For “the next two or three years, the conditions will be there for rates to keep falling,” Mantega told reporters in Sao Paulo today. “Falling rates are a good antidote for the gains in the real.”
Allow me to quote myself from the post linked above;
Old Maid is a card game where the simple task is to avoid holding a given card (often the queen of spades) at the end of the game. Even in the company of good friends however, holding Old Maid at the end is not fun. Often, you have to buy the drinks, drop a piece of clothes, or endure other travails. And as it turns out, the global FX market is not unlike this good old game of cards where the Old Maid is proxied by having a strong currency on whose shoulders the correction of global macroeconomic imbalances must invariably fall. In this way, and although one sometimes get the feeling that everyone believes that everybody may actually export their way out of their current misery, buying one country’s currency means selling another and thus, someone (be it an individual economy or a group/basket of economies) must end up holding Old Maid.
The easy investment advice here is naturally to buy the Old Maid which means that just as the global financial punditry searching for clues as to what lies ahead for the global economy and the looming slowdown the SNB et al may have to skint yet awhile for light at the end of the tunnel.
—
[1] – No my dear reader, I am renting and I would never touch these things but they are there and they are being sold.
 Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts
By The Gold Report, on September 6th, 2011
 In March of 2011, Global Resource Investments Founder and Chairman Rick Rule predicted a time of unprecedented volatility. As investors struggle to recover from what, indeed, turned out to be one of the most up-and-down months in history, this special Gold Report from his latest web broadcast outlines his secrets for using volatility as a tool to take advantage of new opportunities.
Scientists define volatile organic compounds as naturally occurring or man-made chemicals with low boiling points, a condition that allows these molecules to easily evaporate into the air, potentially causing irritation and creating an explosive environment. As Global Resource Investments Founder and Chairman Rick Rule predicted last March, man-made volatility has clouded the economic environment for the last month and could continue to do so for the next 12 months, according to his analysis. But volatility doesn’t have to be painful, he says, if you prepare yourself with plenty of cash and courage. “Volatility is like cyclicality. It is really a series of opportunities to buy low and sell high. And, if you understand volatility for what it is and accept it, it could be a tool as opposed to a threat. ”
The Un-Recovery
First, he outlines the reasons for the volatility. Rule doesn’t see a recovery in the United States. “I see government-induced liquidity in the market and I see some recovery in equities prices as a consequence of very, very, very low—make that negative—real interest rates as well as hope on Wall Street and in Washington,” he says. The problem with this paper recovery is that liquidity wasn’t what caused the recession. The issue is that individual and government balance sheets are unbalanced. Many of the assets are ephemeral. Unfortunately, liabilities are almost always real. “As a society, we owe an amount that is unserviceable relative to what we produce,” he says.
By encouraging people to spend more money they don’t have, the government is making the problem worse. Instead, he thinks people should rebalance their balance sheets and invest more in this country. “The idea that we can fix the fact that we owe too much money by encouraging borrowing and spending is an example of the idiocy that comes out of Pennsylvania Avenue and will continue to weigh down the recovery.” He says, “Until we deal with the problems that confront us in society, we are not going to have a U.S. economic recovery.”
Rule points to a war against savers. “The Fed has declared war on productive elements of society in order to distribute the benefits to the less productive elements of society. This is not the key to prosperity.” Drilling down interest rates punishes savers and rewards spenders. “This is perverse, truly perverse,” he says. He equates “quantitative easing” to a fancy way of saying “counterfeiting.” Increasing the nation’s money supply without increasing society’s ability to create utility through the provision of goods and services is simply fraud. You can’t maintain the value of a currency unit if you create it out of thin air far in advance of the society’s ability to generate value. That is true in the U.S. and abroad. “I have always said that the U.S. dollar is the worst in the world except perhaps for all the others,” he jokes. Rule is not alone in his low opinion of paper currency. Casey Research Chairman Doug Casey famously noted that the U.S. dollar is an I.O.U. nothing. The euro is a “who owes you” nothing. “It’s an artificial construct,” Rule says. “Europe truly is the triumph of politics over economics.”
One example of the irrational European economic policy now in fashion is the decision to “bail” Greece out of the trouble it was having servicing debt that was 150% of GDP by requiring the struggling country to service debt that is 165% of GDP. “I defy the European Union to explain to me how by adding a big column of negative numbers they end up with a positive number; very, very, very problematic,” Rule says. And, problems get deeper. “Because of the extremely close ties between the big banks on both sides of the Atlantic with large amounts of primary capital represented by sovereign debt, many of the large private sector banks have multiples of shareholder equity invested in securities by issuers like Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece that are insolvent. This means by real accounting standards most of the big banks in Europe are broke.”
This economic reality doesn’t mean that banks are going to fail any time soon, Rule explains. It simply means that the shareholder’s equity in the bank—the value of assets minus the value of the liabilities—is probably negative if the securities that these banks have in sovereign—as opposed to solvent—issuers were removed. “The test going forward will be the test between those two words,” Rule says. “Sovereign does not make solvent.” He takes issue with the words of the famous CEO of Citicorp, Walter Wriston, who said countries don’t go broke. “That was wrong. Countries do go broke. Countries will go broke. The question in Europe now is whether the savers—Finland, Austria and Germany—will decide that they and their children are going to carry the lifestyle of the rest of the Europe.”
The discussion going on in Europe right now is the same as the one going on in the United States, he says. “Who should benefit from production—the producer or the non-producer?” He points to a war worldwide between these two factions. “Sadly, non-producers outnumber producers and, in a democracy, the war is often won by the non-producer.” He likens democracy to a vote by five coyotes and a lamb over what to have for lunch. “That’s really the nature of the debate that’s taking place in the United States and Europe today.”
Free-ish China
“The good news about China,” Rule says, “is that over the last 30 years the place has become more, as opposed to completely, free. More than 30 years ago, Deng Xiaoping, then leader of the Chinese Communist Party, said ‘to become rich is glorious’ and China has become very glorious as a consequence of that.” Ironically, in this allegedly Communist country, there is no social safety net, meaning that people are on their own in China, Rule says. “As a consequence, savings are extraordinarily high, as much as 40% of a household income. So, China is generating enormous, enormous, enormous savings in direct contradiction to us, of course.”
Rule also points to more capital investment-friendly tax laws in the East. “In the United States if a big producer builds a big piece of manufacturing equipment, it may be required to amortize that equipment for tax purposes over 30 years. In China, that same producer is allowed to expense the equipment, meaning that there is a huge incentive to add the capital necessary to raise the utility of the workers operating that machinery. China is much, much, much friendlier to capital formation. The United States is much, much, much friendlier to consumption.” For these reasons and many more, Rule says “China, India and the frontier markets appear legitimately to be on the road to progress—a very different road than their European and North American cousins appear to have chosen.”
But, all is not bright in China. “Some 10,000 people rule 1.3 billion people and official sector misallocation is always a threat. The government decides what sectors should succeed, what sectors should fail. Expect the road to progress in China to be bumpy,” Rule warns.
The combination of domestic and international challenges on the horizon set the stage for more volatility, Rule concludes. “So many black swan events are looming that they resemble a flock of black swans. The idea that one of those black swans could precipitate an event like the ‘07–’08 liquidity crisis appears to me to be a very, very, very good possibility.” He goes so far as to suggest that in the next 18 months to 2 years, we could see a shut down for some period of time in interbank lending and frozen debt market liquidity. “In that set of circumstances you would want to have some cash,” he warns.
Golden (and Platinum) Opportunities
All of this darkness could shine a light on the metals—gold, silver, platinum and palladium, Rule says. “The most important part of the pricing of these metals is the continued debasement of fiat currencies. Metals prices worldwide are denominated in U.S. dollars. If the value of the denominator itself continues to decline, which I think it will, the nominal price for precious metals should continue to increase.” The increase may not be steady. “I suspect that these prices both up and down will be volatile for a few reasons,” Rule says. “Gold markets in particular, maybe silver markets as well, are determined by both of the primary economic motivators in the world—greed and fear. A raging bull market, which I think we might get into, compels people to buy gold bullion because they are afraid of the depreciation in dollars. This, in turn, stimulates the greed buyer who buys simply because the price went up and he or she understands the thesis. The price escalation in bullion that was driven by the greed buyer reinforces the fears of the fear buyer. And, the prices reverberate higher and higher as fear buyers and greed buyers compete with each other. That’s the market that we saw in 1979–1981—the single strangest bull market that I have experienced in my career. I suspect that we are likely in the early stages of a market that resembles that.”
The second set of circumstances Rule identifies as pushing gold prices up over the next year is supply-based. “In classical economics you are taught that higher product prices lead to increased supply. Because mining is a capital-intensive business, the response of the producers to increased commodity prices is not direct or immediate, particularly if interbank lending dries up debt financing needed for the large capital-intensive projects. There will be supply constraints that are, in some fashion, artificial.”
For supply-side reasons, Rule is increasingly attracted to the platinum business. More than 80% of platinum and palladium—PGM metals—come from three countries: South Africa, Zimbabwe and Russia. He cites local political turmoil as a limiting factor in the continued production in these areas. “Increasingly, South African governments are calling for more social rent—higher taxes, government participation in wage negotiations and, in some cases, outright nationalization. This will absolutely constrain the industry from making the investments in increasing production and sustaining their existing production over the five to seven years. Given that South Africa is the most important platinum producer in the world and it’s highly likely that the South African platinum producers will continue to constrain working capital investments, I would suspect that on a five-year going forward basis platinum production will falter.”
Moving north to Zimbabwe, Rule is no more optimistic. “President Robert Mugabe and his associates stole everything in the country that had any value. Now they have decided that about 150 people should control 51% ownership of the platinum mines in Zimbabwe. If you look at the track record of the black political elite in Zimbabwe managing the assets they have stolen over the last 20 years, you will see that the potential impact on platinum supplies as a consequence of their stealing productive capacity will be catastrophic.”
Rule sees Russia as a bright spot. “Russia gets slowly better over time. Yes, there are problems. The place is corrupt. They tend to attempt to mediate commercial disputes by shooting each other. There are problems with alcoholism. But, gradually things are improving in Russia. The difficulty isn’t Russian politics, but the fact that the big platinum and palladium producer there is running into lower and lower grades and having to go farther and farther down in the mines. Its production problems are organic as opposed to political.”
The bottom line for Rule is that there are going to be supply-side challenges in the platinum business at the same time that demand for platinum both as a precious metal for investment purposes and as an industrial metal for auto catalysts continues to increase. Rule acknowledges that a slowdown in the economy in Western Europe and North America will constrain vehicle demand there, but cites exploding vehicle demand in emerging markets, particularly China and India. Western air quality standards being imposed in both of these countries means that auto catalysts using platinum and palladium have kept pace with vehicle sales in those markets. “Strong demand and declining supplies point to very, very, very interesting opportunities in platinum markets,” he concludes.
Disconnected Equities
Good news for commodity prices has not always translated to rising junior mining stock prices. Rule sees four reasons for this disconnect. The first is historical. He credits the dramatic rise in precious metal stocks five years ago to an anticipation of the increase in bullion prices. “Some of the reaction that you might have expected in the equities prices might have occurred before the event took place,” he explains.
The second reason is what he calls “dismal corporate performance” over the last 10 years. “One would expect with the gold price increasing from $260 an ounce (oz.) to $1,800/oz. and silver increasing from $4/oz. to $40/oz. would result in absolutely skyrocketing free cash flows generated from the companies, but that didn’t happen. The operating response relative to the increase in product prices was, to be charitable, anemic.” The financial services industry, which had spectacular cash-generating expectations based on the returns of the 1970s, has been particularly disappointed. “There has been widespread disgust among gold share investors to the cash-generating performance of the companies relative to the escalation in their product prices,” Rule says.
The third factor is sector market-cap explosion. “Issuers—the mining companies and their cohorts in the financial services community—were engaged in inflation in the same way that governments around the world have issued lots of paper. Mining companies have issued billions of shares so that although the share price escalation has not been dramatic, the combined market capitalization of the precious metal sector producer, developer and explorer has grown at an extraordinary pace. There are many more issuers now than there were 10 years ago and every one of those issuers has many, many, more shares outstanding. You have to be very careful when you buy these things.”
The fourth point Rule makes is another cautionary one. “In the junior exploration sector, as many as 90% of market participants have absolutely no value. They are worth nothing. So, the sector as a whole can’t experience dramatic price appreciation when 90% of the paper in the sector is counterfeit or valueless. In fact, the gold shares are suffering from the same type of value depreciation as the U.S. dollar. You need to pay particular attention to defending yourself and your portfolios from these valueless, zombie security issuers.”
Rule stresses the importance of carefully evaluating a portfolio now, before the precious metals equity markets start experiencing price appreciation in the next three to six months. Why now? “Any price appreciation anticipation is over,” he says. “There is no premium built into the metals prices relative to the commodity anymore. In fact, this disparity has been noted. We think for the first time in some time the precious metals equities are reasonably priced relative to the metal itself,” Rule says.
Rule is also more positive on the issue of executive competence. “Corporate performance, which has lagged terribly over the last five years has begun to increase,” he says. For the last two or three years, the industry as a whole has generated about $2 billion (B)–$2.5B a year in surplus cash. This year, he expects the industry to generate between $4.5B–$5B, a clean double in 12 months. “The performance that hasn’t occurred hitherto is beginning to occur now,” he says. This cash on company balance sheets will enable them to do many things—greenfield and brownfield developments in their own portfolios along with mergers and acquisitions.
These are all positives for company prospects, Rule says. “We are now truly in a discovery cycle. For the last nine years the exploration industry has been well funded and well staffed. That spending cycle is beginning to yield discoveries. There is nothing, nothing that adds both liquidity and courage to junior equities markets like discovery.” Rule points to the last discovery cycle in ‘95 and ‘96 when some stocks went from $0.30 to $30.00 in 19 months. “My suspicion is that the underperformance of select precious metals equities for the next three to six months is over. Will it be volatile? It will absolutely be volatile. But, the fact is anticipation is no longer in the market; there isn’t a bullish outlook, which perversely is good. There is liquidity in the system. There is the will and the urge to merge so consolidation will take place. And, all of this will be punctuated by discovery.”
Rule also advises balance when it comes to choosing between seniors and juniors. “For those of you who are investors, for those of you who look at a return on capital employed rather than praying for a return of capital employed, you would go to the senior producers and the senior producers would do well. We particularly favor acquisition strategies that involve buying select seniors and your global broker can help you in that selection. And, then selling puts and calls against core positions. That is, allowing the market to pay you to buy low and sell high or acquiring the position simply by selling a put. We think the seniors are uniquely priced. We don’t think, by the way, that you pile in and build 100% position right now. We think you take a third position or a half position relative to where you want to end up because we are going to experience incredible volatility. But, we think this is the time to begin to establish positions.”
Rule cautions that investors need to be willing to take more risk with juniors. “The volatility will be more pronounced the farther out the quality scale you become. But the potential for reward is outsized too.” He anticipates a lot of mergers with juniors acquiring each other and juniors being acquired by the intermediates and intermediates and juniors being acquired by the seniors. “Given the relative underperformance of the juniors this year to last year, in November and December of this year—during tax-loss selling seasons—could be a once-in-a-decade acquisition opportunity.”
Rule ends by reiterating his words of warning about the volatility in the air. “This will not be stair steps to heaven. This market will not go straight up. The buzz word and I’m going to say it again and again and again in this broadcast is going to be volatility.” Again, he looks to the past to illustrate what could happen in the coming year. “Some of you will remember the 1970s bull market in precious metals when the price advanced from $35/oz. to $850/oz., a truly breathtaking ascent. You need to bear in mind that in 1975, in the middle of that ascent, the gold price fell from $210/oz. to $104/oz., a 50% decline. And the share price decline in the mining shares was even more dramatic. Did it matter over the course of a decade? No. Did it matter to people who suffered through the decline personally? Absolutely. So, while we think the sector is a good place to be don’t think of it as a place without risk.”
Founder and CEO of Global Resource Investments (GRI), Rick Rule began his career in the securities business in 1974 and has been principally involved in natural resource security investments ever since. He is a leading American retail broker specializing in mining, energy, water utilities, forest products and agriculture. Rule’s company has built a sterling reputation for its specialist expertise in taking advantage of global opportunities in the resources industries. Last month, Rule closed a landmark deal with Eric Sprott, another famous powerhouse in the arena. With GRI now a wholly owned subsidiary, Sprott, Inc. manages a portfolio of small-cap resource investments worth more than $8 billion and boasts a workforce of more than 130 professionals in Canada and the U.S. This article is based on Rule’s August 31Global Resource Investments webcast. Listen to the entire webcast.
By Claus Vistesen, on June 16th, 2011
- The Squid goes long on copper and I must say that I agree with them. I think I would be able to build a strong case for a long copper position in the second half of 2011.
- Simon Ward gives us some bad news on China in so far as goes his view that inflation is likely to stay higher for longer (a whiff of India here?) and thus how it is not yet all engines go in the great East. I would have mapped in a relative acceleration in H02-2011, but I might have been too optimistic here
By The Gold Report, on May 25th, 2011
 Economic cycles, like weather, run in seasons. Longwave Group Founder Ian Gordon explains why he believes the world economy is in the “winter” portion of an approximate 80-year cycle and how the financial excesses of the past 60 years are now being wrung out of the system. Ian also explains how investors can prepare to profit from the coming financial storm by positioning themselves in gold and junior gold stocks in this exclusive interview with The Gold Report.
The Gold Report: Good morning Ian. Thanks for taking the time to bring us up to date with your current thoughts about the economic situation and on specific companies you think our readers might be interested in learning about today. When you spoke with The Gold Report in January, you expressed your thoughts on where things were headed. Can you give us an idea of what you think people should do with their financial investments now in order to protect their assets? What changes do you see, and what do you think now in light of what’s happened since January?
Ian Gordon: I think things are actually getting worse. Basically, the currencies of the world are under fire right now. I’m not sure that the euro will even survive this year. All it will take will be one country, like Greece, to leave it, and then the whole thing will probably collapse like a house of cards. Of course, the U.S. dollar, as the reserve currency, has been under fire, as well. So, I think things are coming to a head here, which is something we anticipated in our own work because it’s based on the Long (Kondratiev) Wave Theory.
In 2011, we see parallels to 1931 because we’re 80 years beyond that time. We believe 20-year cycles are important anniversaries, and this is just four twenties. In 1931, the whole world monetary system effectively collapsed. We’ve been long anticipating a collapse in the current world monetary system based on the collapse of 1931. However, we see that the current collapse is going to have far more significant and devastating implications than the collapse between 1931 and 1933 simply because it’s the collapse of the paper-money system now. Essentially, paper money is credit money. When paper money fails, credit fails. Effectively, the economy will fail on credit.
TGR: So, given what could be a major upheaval in the way the global economic cycle works, if this all comes to pass, what sort of system will we end up with? Are we going back to the gold standard or something similar to it? How is this going to happen, how long is it going to take and what are the implications for investors?
IG: I’m pretty sure that we will go back to a gold standard system. Paper-money systems have never survived throughout history. Generally, they’ve been set around a one-country experiment. And when those have failed, as in France after John Law’s paper-money scheme failed in 1720 or the Assignat failed in about 1798, there was tremendous upheaval. And, following these failures, the country resumed gold as the backing for its currency. So, I think we have to go back to something like that because, in essence, gold enforces discipline on governments. We’ve seen a complete lack of discipline in the paper-money system that’s been ongoing since the 1931 collapse of the world monetary system. Paper-money printing has just gotten out of control; and now, parallel to the paper-money printing is the debt. They go hand in hand.
We’ve built massive debt worldwide, which, in total, is probably well in excess of $100 trillion. In the U.S. alone, the total debt is something like $57 trillion. So, that debt is starting to be wrung out of the world’s economies and everybody is facing a pretty frightening depression.
As investors, we have to protect ourselves as best we can. We’ve long been advocating positions in gold and gold stocks. In fact, we’ve been 100% positioned in both of those—physical and gold stocks—since 2000 because our cycle told us that that’s where we should put our assets. So, that’s what we’ve done. I think investors have to do that and they have to be out of the general stock market because, eventually, the stock market has to reflect the realities of the economy. The current U.S. stock market has been propped up by quantitative easing (QE) with massive amounts of money injected into the banking system. That banking system is not putting that money back into the economy because consumers are completely tapped out; they can’t borrow any more money. So, much of the money the Federal Reserve is putting into the banks is being used for speculation.
TGR: Can we pursue the mechanics of this a bit further before we get into more-specific investing ideas? Given the internationalization of the world economy and money being just electronic numbers on computer systems, how does the world get back on some sort of a hard-money standard without years of turmoil?
IG: When the global monetary system started to collapse in 1931, it began with the failure of the Austrian Creditanstalt Bank in Europe. Everyone was trying to bail out this large bank. The Fed was trying to bail it out, the Bank of England was trying to bail it out and JP Morgan also was in there trying to bail it out. They all knew the implications of the failure of this one bank would cause the bankruptcy of Austria and the failure of many other banks plagued with rotten paper money on their books. So, when this bank collapsed in May 1931, it was the beginning of the end of the world monetary system. A bankrupted Austria was forced out of the gold exchange standard system and was soon followed by Germany. Great Britain was forced out of the monetary system in September 1931, which effectively brought down the entire world monetary system. A new monetary system didn’t evolve until 1944 when the Bretton Woods system was signed into law. It was a long hiatus. The parallels with the current evolving monetary system collapse are pretty plain to see.
After 1931, America was pretty self-sufficient, had all the oil and food it needed and became very isolationist. Great Britain traded within its then-empire. World trade collapsed following 1931 and 2011 may well be a repeat of that tragic year, with the collapse of the euro and the unraveling of the entire global monetary system. It could be a long hiatus before a new system is developed. It goes back to that 20-year anniversary cycle I mentioned. The pure gold standard system that had evolved initially in Great Britain in 1821 collapsed in 1914 because the combatants in World War I couldn’t remain on a gold standard system and print the money they needed to fight the war. So, I would say that we will likely return to a gold standard in 2014—100 years after the gold standard collapsed in 1914.
TGR: So, you’re saying investors have a two- to three-year window to position themselves and their investments to profit from what’s going to happen when this is all turns around.
IG: Right.
TGR: We’ve had all this volatility in the metals prices over the past year and some substantial gains. How is this affecting companies in the mining business?
IG: For the main part, I’ve positioned myself in either new producing companies or companies that have gold assets in the ground. I’m principally more disposed to investing in gold than I am in silver. I think these assets are going to be extremely valuable. I met with one of my website subscribers just yesterday and said it’s quite possible that there won’t be enough physical gold available on the market to supply the demand. We produce only 80 million ounces (Moz.) of gold a year from existing mines. I think, eventually, the demand for gold will become so extreme that the producers won’t want to be paid in paper money because the paper system is collapsing. So, gold may well be taken out of the market, that’s why it is important to get the physical bullion now rather than later. Of course, gold company stocks that produce physical gold are going to be extremely valuable, as well.
TGR: Obviously, you’re quite selective about which companies you decide to invest your own money in and suggest that other people do the same with their money. What criteria do you use in selecting companies for your portfolios?
IG: First, I have to meet with management before I ever put my money into a company. I realize that a lot of investors can’t do that, but they can certainly talk to management. On the junior side, management is usually very disposed to talking with perspective shareholders. It’s just a matter of picking up the phone and asking the president of a company why it is a good investment, and then listening to the answers. I have to feel confident that a company’s management will be able to produce what they say they’re going to produce on behalf of the shareholders.
Another criterion that I use is geopolitical risk. I want to invest only in companies that I am confident are in politically secure jurisdictions. I have been bitten in the past by investing in companies in countries that I thought were politically secure, which became insecure. In Ecuador, the rules changed and mining almost ceased to function in that country. So, I particularly like companies that have assets in Canada, which I think is a very safe jurisdiction. Many of the companies that I’ve selected for my own portfolio have assets in Canada. I also like Mexico.
I think the U.S. is ok, but I’m a bit worried about what might happen when the whole system starts to collapse. After 9/11, I remember when an unnamed Federal Reserve spokesman said in an interview that it looked at many ways to avert a panic. One of the things he mentioned was buying gold mines. If the U.S. doesn’t have the gold it purports to have, it could well be that the country could nationalize gold companies. I do have investments in companies that are exploring for gold in the U.S., but not a lot. I particularly like companies in Canada.
TGR: There was a little fear recently about the possibility that the New Democratic Party (NDP) may be coming back into power in British Columbia. Its administration had a devastating effect a generation ago, when it caused the whole BC mining industry to retrench. I guess that’s probably not going to happen at this point; but if something like that was to happen, would that possibly have a negative effect at least on BC?
IG: Well, it might. If the NDP does win in British Columbia, I think it probably learned from past experience. Under recent governments, there’s been a tremendous amount of exploration and a lot of companies going into production in the Province. It’s going to be very hard to shut those down because they’re all permitted under present mining laws. So, if the NDP was to win in BC, it’s not something that I would be in favor of because I live in the Province and know what negative effect it had on the region’s mining not long ago. I think most of the companies in BC now are sufficiently advanced in terms of their exploration, and some have gone into production like Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. (TSX.V:BGM). So, all the permitting is in place and it’s going to be very difficult to rescind it.
TGR: Can you bring us up to date on some of the companies you’ve talked about with us previously and give us some ideas on others you’re looking at?
IG: I own shares of Fire River Gold Corp. (TSX.V:FAU; OTCQX:FVGCF). I think the company’s put together an extremely strong management team in order to put the Nixon Fork gold mine back into production, and I’m confident that Fire River is going to succeed. Right now, on the basis of the reserves the company’s put together through exploration, it probably has only a three-year mine life. The company is going to continue drilling to expand that resource and will be able to produce 50,000 ounces (Koz.) gold per year.
Barkerville Gold Mines is probably my favorite gold-company investment at this time; I think it’s very undervalued. The company currently produces about 50 Koz./year and will probably more than double that when it brings the second mill onstream. It’s a very large property, which I’ve been on, and I think it has the potential to host a 5 Moz. gold resource. So, I’m very excited about Barkerville, and I think it’s going to do extremely well. I have about 15% of my portfolio invested in BGM.
TGR: Obviously, you’re voting with your money.
IG: What I tend to do, and also advise for my subscribers, is to take large positions in companies that I think are going to do very well and smaller positions in companies where I’m not as confident. But, if those companies really do well, they’ll boost the value of my portfolio. If they don’t, they won’t hurt it that badly either. So, by taking a large investment position in Barkerville, I am confident that the share price will perform very well.
Premier Gold Mines Ltd. (TSX:PG) is another great company building an expanding resource. I like the company very much. But I don’t own it because I think it’s expensive and that’s due to CEO Ewan Downey’s past record and reputation. He’s the CEO, president and director of the company and is a real mine finder. I think he’s repeating his past success with Premier.
I like Millrock Resources Inc. (TSX.V:MRO) because I have the utmost respect for Greg Beischer, its CEO and president. He’s put some great properties in Alaska and Arizona into the company, most of which he’s been able to joint venture (JVs) with major companies. Big companies just don’t do JVs on properties that don’t have big potential. So, I think Millrock is a company that, at these prices, is probably undervalued. But it’s a little more grassroots than my other investments.
Timmins Gold Corp. (TSX.V:TMM) is in production at its San Francisco Gold Mine in northern Mexico. I think it will meet the objectives the management team set out for the company, which was producing about 100 Koz. gold/year. Drilling results near the mine show an expanding resource. This company has always been an absolute standout in achieving the objectives its management sets. I still own TMM shares and have done very well.
Another little company I particularly like right now, and own almost 10% of, is called Colibri Resource Corp. (TSX.V:CBI), which has all of its properties in northern Mexico. The company just completed a JV deal with Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. (TSX:AEM; NYSE:AEM) on a big gold property where the geology is fairly complex and very similar to La Herradura, which is a Newmont Mining Corp. (NYSE:NEM)/Fresnillo PLC (LSE:FRES) JV property. The La Herradura property hosts roughly 12 Moz. gold and is only about 12 km. away. Colibri also has a silver property that looks extremely attractive. The company did some percussion drilling in 2006 and got great results, so it’s drilling it again. I’ve got just under 10% of the company. Sprott has just under 20% and Agnico-Eagle has just under 20%. With Sprott and Agnico, Colibri has some very important shareholders.
Another company I really like and own a lot of, and whose share price doesn’t reflect what I think it’s worth, is called Temex Resources Corp. (TSX.V:TME; FSE:TQ1). All of the company’s assets are in Ontario, Canada. It has about 1.2 Moz. gold at surface on its Shining Tree property averaging about 1.5 grams per ton (g/t), so it’s certainly mineable. You’re really only paying maybe $40 per ounce of gold in the ground for this company. So, I think Temex is extremely undervalued. I own a lot of the stock and think it will do very well for shareholders.
Another one I like and have been buying lately is a company called PC Gold Inc. (TSX:PKL). Between my wife and me, we’ve probably accumulated about 1 million shares. PC’s main asset is a past-producing, very high-grade mine on Pickle Lake in Northwestern Ontario. The company has been drilling and producing exceptionally good drill results and probably now has a resource of more than 1 Moz. I think it’s extremely undervalued. I’ve been buying it in the open market and believe it can do very well for investors. So, there are a few more ideas.
TGR: Thank you for those great ideas. Did you have any last thoughts about the future of the economy you’d like to share?
IG: Unfortunately, I’m very pessimistic about the economy. If paper money, which is credit money, collapses, then, essentially, credit collapses and the economy grinds to a halt. Quite a scary scenario could evolve from a collapse in the paper-money system. We almost had a major credit failure in 2008. What happens if credit does that again? Everything stops—trucking stops, the movement of goods stops and it becomes a very difficult time for everyone. I think people have to prepare for the worst.
TGR: We’ve certainly gotten used to a system that is automated and electronic. People press buttons and expect results. If things start falling apart as you predict, we could see some real turmoil—financial and possibly even physical.
IG: Investors need to keep those possibilities in mind and protect their assets as best as they can. I’m a little reluctant to admit it, but one of the things I keep on hand is a one-year supply of food. It’s a relatively inexpensive way of protecting your food source. If the system falls apart, as it could, you won’t be able to run down to the store and get what you want when you need it.
TGR: Thank you very much, Ian, for your valuable insights and recommendations.
IG: Thank you very much.
A globally renowned economic forecaster, author and speaker, Ian Gordon is founder and chairman of the Longwave Group, comprising two companies—Longwave Analytics and Longwave Strategies. The former specializes in Ian’s ongoing study and analysis of the Longwave Principle originally expounded by Nikolai Kondratiev. With Longwave Strategies, Ian assists select precious metal companies in financings. Educated in England, Ian graduated from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. After a few years serving as a platoon commander in a Scottish regiment, Ian moved to Canada in 1967 and entered the University of Manitoba’s History Department. Taking that step has had a profound impact because, during this period, he began to study the historical trends that ultimately provided the foundation for his Long Wave theory. Ian has been publishing his Long Wave Analyst website since 1998. Eric Sprott, chairman, CEO and portfolio manager at Sprott Asset Management, describes Ian as “a rare breed in the investment-advisor arena.” He notes that Ian’s forecasts “have taken on a life force of their own and if you care to listen, Ian will tell you how it will all end.”
By The Gold Report, on May 3rd, 2011
 Economic recovery? What economic recovery? Contrary to popular media reports, government economic reporting specialist and ShadowStats Editor John Williams reads between the government-economic-data lines. “The U.S. is really in the worst condition of any major economy or country in the world,” he says. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, John concludes the nation is in the midst of a multiple-dip recession and headed for hyperinflation.
The Gold Report: Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has given a warning to the U.S. government that it may downgrade its rating by 2013 if nothing is done to address the debt and deficit. What’s the real impact of this announcement?
John Williams: S&P is noting the U.S. government’s long-range fiscal problems. Generally, you’ll find that the accounting for unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other programs on a net-present-value (NPV) basis indicates total federal debt and obligations of about $75 trillion. That’s 15 times the gross domestic product (GDP). The debt and obligations are increasing at a pace of about $5 trillion a year, which is neither sustainable nor containable. If the U.S. was a corporation on a parallel basis, it would be headed into bankruptcy rather quickly.
There’s good reason for fear about the debt, but it would be a tremendous shock if either S&P or Moody’s Investor Service actually downgraded the U.S. sovereign-debt rating. The AAA rating on U.S. Treasuries is the benchmark for AAA, the highest rating, meaning the lowest risk of default. With U.S. Treasuries denominated in U.S. dollars and the benchmark AAA security, how can you downgrade your benchmark security? That’s a very awkward situation for rating agencies. As long as the U.S. dollar retains its reserve currency status and is able to issue debt in U.S. dollars, you’ll continue to see a triple-A rating for U.S. Treasuries. Having the U.S. Treasuries denominated in U.S. dollars means the government always can print the money it needs to pay off the securities, which means no default.
TGR: With the U.S. Treasury rated AAA, everything else is rated against that. But what if another AAA-rated entity is about to default?
JW: That’s the problem that rating agencies will have if they start playing around with the U.S. rating. But there’s virtually no risk of the U.S. defaulting on its debt as long as the debt’s denominated in dollars. Let’s say the U.S. wants to sell debt to Japan, but Japan doesn’t like the way the U.S. is running fiscal operations. It can say, “We don’t trust the U.S. dollar. We’ll lend you money, but we’ll lend it in yen.” Then, the U.S. has a real problem because it no longer has the ability to print the currency needed to pay off the debt. And if you’re looking at U.S. debt denominated in yen, most likely you would have a very different and much lower rating.
TGR: Is there a possibility that people would not buy U.S. debt unless it’s in their currency?
JW: It is possible lenders would not buy the Treasuries unless denominated in a strong and stable currency. As the USD loses its value and becomes less attractive, people will increasingly dump dollar-denominated assets and move into currencies they consider safer. And you’ll see other things; OPEC might decide it no longer wants to have oil denominated in U.S. dollars. There’s been some talk about moving it to some kind of basket of currencies—something other than the U.S. dollar, possibly including gold. This would be devastating to the U.S. consumer. You’d get a double whammy from an inflation standpoint on oil prices in the U.S. because the dollar would be shrinking in value against that basket of currencies.
TGR: Different countries are starting to discuss the creation of an alternative to the USD as reserve currency. How rapidly could an alternative currency appear?
JW: That would involve a consensus of major global trading countries; but just how that would break remains to be seen. Let’s say OPEC decides it no longer wants to accept dollars for oil. Instead, it wants to be paid in yen. It’s done. It’s not a matter of creating a new currency—it’s a matter of how things get shifted around.
TGR: What other commodities or monetary issues would that create?
JW: Again, the dollar’s weakness is doubly inflationary. It is the biggest factor behind the ongoing rise in oil prices. Let’s say you’re a Japanese oil purchaser. Oil, effectively, is purchased at a discount in a yen-based environment due to the dollar’s weakness. Usually, the market doesn’t let such advantages last very long. As the dollar weakens, you see upside pressure on oil prices. If, hypothetically, you’re pricing oil in yen, there’s no reason for anybody to hold the USD. The dollar would sell off more rapidly against the yen and oil inflation would be even higher in a dollar-denominated environment.
TGR: You’ve mentioned that hyperinflation will happen as soon as 2014. If that is true, wouldn’t OPEC want to shift off dollar pricing as quickly as possible?
JW: From a purely financial standpoint, that would make sense. Other factors are at play, though, including political, military and unstable times in both North Africa and the Middle East. Those who are able to get out of dollars, I think, will do so rapidly and as smoothly as possible.
TGR: And how will they do that?
JW: They will sell their dollar-denominated assets. They will convert dollars to other currencies. They will buy gold. Generally, they will dump whatever they hold in dollars and sell the dollar-denominated assets they don’t want. There’s a market for them; it’s just a matter of pricing. As the pressure mounts to get out of the USD, the pricing of dollar-denominated assets will fall, which in turn would intensify that selling. The dollar selling will intensify domestic U.S. inflation, which is one factor that picks up and feeds off itself and will help to trigger the hyperinflation.
TGR: The U.S., even in recession, is still the largest consuming economy. If the U.S. continues in, or goes into a deeper, recession, doesn’t that impact the rest of the world?
JW: If the U.S. is in a severe recession, it will have a significant negative economic impact on the global economy. That doesn’t necessarily affect the relative values of other currencies to the USD. If you look at the dollar against the stronger currencies, a wide variety of factors are in effect—including relative economic strength. The U.S. is probably going to have an economy as bad as any major country will have, with higher relative inflation. The weaker the relative economy and the stronger the relative inflation, the weaker will be the dollar. Relative to fiscal stability, the worse the fiscal circumstance in the U.S., the weaker is the dollar. Relative to trade balance, the bigger the trade deficit is, the weaker the currency. As to interest rates, the lower the relative interest rates in the U.S., the weaker will be the dollar.
Part of the weakness in the dollar now is due to the way the world views what’s happening in Washington and the ability of the government to control itself. That’s a factor that may have forced S&P to make a comment. So, even having a weaker economy in Europe would not necessarily lead to relative dollar strength.
TGR: If the U.S. experiences a continued, or even greater, recession, doesn’t that impact spill over into Canada?
JW: The Canadian economy is closely tied to the U.S. economy, and bad times here will be reflected in bad times in Canada. However, I’m not looking for a hyperinflation in Canada. Its currency will tend to remain relatively stronger than the U.S. dollar. Canada is more fiscally sound; it generally has a better trade picture and has a lot of natural resources. Keep in mind that economic times tend to get addressed by private industry’s creativity and, thus, new markets can be developed. For instance, you’re already seeing significant shifts of lumber sales to China instead of to the U.S.
TGR: What about the effect on other countries?
JW: The world economy is going to have a difficult time. You do have ups and downs in the domestic, as well as the global, economy. People survive that. They find ways of getting around problems if a market is cut off or suffers. I view most of the factors in Canada, Australia and Switzerland as being much stronger than in the U.S. Even when you look at the euro and the pound, they’re generally stronger than in the U.S. Japan is dealing with the financial impacts of the earthquake. There’s going to be a lot of rebuilding there. But, generally, it’s a more stable economy with better fiscal and trade pictures. I would look for the yen to continue to be stronger. Shy of any short-term gyrations, the U.S. is really in the worst condition of any major economy and any major country in the world and, therefore, in a weaker currency circumstance.
TGR: Then why are media analysts talking about the U.S. being in a recovery?
JW: You’re not getting a fair analysis. There’s nothing new about that. No one in the popular media predicted the recession that was clearly coming upon us, and the downturn wasn’t even recognized until well after the average guy on Main Street knew things were getting bad. We have some particularly poor-quality economic reporting right now. The economy has not been as strong as it advertised. Yes, there has been some upside bouncing in certain areas, but it’s largely tied to short-lived stimulus factors.
Let’s look at payroll numbers and the way those are estimated. In normal economic times, seasonal factors and seasonal adjustments are stable and meaningful. What’s happened is that the downturn has been so severe and protracted it has completely skewed the seasonal-adjustment process. It’s no longer meaningful, nor are estimates of monthly changes in many series. The markets are flying blind—it’s unprecedented, in terms of modern reporting.
Are we really seeing a surge in retail sales? If so, you should be seeing growth in consumer income or consumer borrowing—but we’re not seeing that. The consumer is strapped. An average consumer’s income cannot keep up with inflation. The recent credit crisis also constrained consumer credit. Without significant growth in credit or a big pick-up in consumer income, there’s no way the consumer can sustain positive economic growth or personal consumption, which is more than 70% of the GDP. So, you haven’t started to see a shift in the underlying fundamentals that would support stronger economic activity. That’s why you’re not going to have a recovery; in fact, it’s beginning to turn down again as shown in the housing sales volume numbers, which are down 75% from where it was in normal times.
TGR: But we were in a housing boom. Doesn’t that make those numbers reasonable?
JW: Housing starts have never been this low. Right now, they are running around 500,000 a year. We’re at the lowest levels since World War II—down 75% from 2006—and it’s getting worse. I mean the bottom bouncing has turned down again. We’re already seeing a second dip in the housing industry. There’s been no recovery there.
In March, all the gain in retail sales was in inflation. Retail sales are turning down. You’re going to see a weaker GDP number for Q111. The GDP number is probably the most valueless of the major series put out; but, as the press will have to report, growth will drop from 3.1% in Q410 to something like 1.7% in Q111.
TGR: You’ve stated that the most significant factors driving the inflation rate are currency- and commodity-price distortions—not economic recovery. Why is that distinction important?
JW: The popular media have stated that the only time you have to worry about inflation is when you have a strong economy, and that a strong economy drives inflation. There’s such a thing as healthy inflation when it comes from a strong economy. I would much rather be in an economy that’s overheating with too much demand and prices that rise. That’s a relatively healthy inflation. Today, the weak dollar has spiked oil prices. Higher oil prices are driving gasoline prices higher—the average person is paying a lot more per gallon of gas. For those who can’t make ends meet, they cut back in other areas. The inflation of Q410, which is now running at an annualized pace of 6%, was mostly tied to the prices of gasoline and food.
You also have higher food prices. It’s not due to stronger food or gasoline demand—it’s due to monetary distortions. Unemployment is still high, even if you believe the numbers. I’ll contend the economy really isn’t recovering. At the same time, you’re seeing a big increase in inflation that’s killing the average guy.
TGR: Why isn’t there more pressure on the U.S. government to reduce the debt deficit?
JW: When you get into areas like debt and deficit, it’s a little difficult to understand. The average person, though, should be feeling enough financial pain that political pressure will tend to mount before the 2012 election; but whether or not the average person will take political action remains to be seen. I don’t think you have until 2012 before this gets out of control and there’s hyperinflation. It could go past that to 2014, but we’re seeing all sorts of things happening now that are accelerating the inflation process.
TGR: Like the dollar at an all-time low.
JW: If you compare the U.S. dollar against the stronger currencies, such as the Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and Swiss franc, you’re looking at historic lows. You’re not far from historic lows in the broader dollar measure.
TGR: In your April 19 newsletter, you stated, “Though not yet commonly recognized, there is both an intensifying double-dip recession and a rapidly escalating inflation problem. Until such time as financial market expectations catch up with the underlying reality, reporting generally will continue to show higher-than-expected inflation and weaker-than-expected economic results.” What do you mean by “until such time as financial market expectations catch up with the underlying reality?”
JW: A lot of people look closely at and follow the consensus of economists, which is looking at (or at least still touting) an economic recovery with contained inflation. I’m contending that the underlying reality is a weaker economy and rising inflation. I think the expectation of rising inflation is beginning to sink in. Given another month or two, I think you’ll find all of a sudden the economists making projections will start lowering their economic forecasts. Instead of looking at half-percent growth in industrial production, they’ll be expecting it to be flat; if it comes in flat, it will be a consensus—and the markets will be pleased it wasn’t worse in consensus. But the consensus outlook will have shifted toward a more negative economic outlook.
TGR: Do you think economists will shift their outlooks before we get into hyperinflation or a depression?
JW: In terms of economists who have to answer to Wall Street, work for the government or hold an office like the Federal chairman, by and large, they’ll err on the side of being overly optimistic. People prefer good news to bad news. If Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said we were headed into a deeper recession, it would rattle the market. People on Wall Street want to have a happy sales pitch. What results may have little to do with underlying reality.
TGR: In your April 15 newsletter, you mentioned that a signal of an unfolding double-dip recession is based on the annual contraction of the M3, which was the Fed’s broadest measure of money supply until it ceased publishing it in 2006. Recent estimates show that the annual contraction of M3 went down from 4.3 in February to 3.6 in March. Is this good news?
JW: No. It doesn’t have any particular significance as a signal for the economy. You do have recessions that start without M3 going negative year over year. In the last several decades, every time the M3 went negative, there followed a recession—or an intensifying downturn—if a recession was already underway. If you tighten up liquidity, you tend to tighten up business conditions. Again, though, you’ve had recessions without those signals. When it goes positive, it does not signal an upturn in the economy. It doesn’t make any difference if it continues negative for a year or two, or if it’s negative for three months. The point is—when it turns negative, that’s the signal for the recession.
We had a signal back in December 2009, which would have indicated a downturn sometime in roughly Q310. We already were in a recession at that point. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the defining authority in timing of the U.S. business cycle, the last recession ended in June 2009. So, this current recession will be recognized as a double-dip recession. The Bureau doesn’t change its timing periods.
I’ll contend that we’re really seeing reintensification of the downturn that began in 2007. Although it’s not obvious in the headline numbers of the popular media, you’ll find that September/October 2010 is when the housing market started to turn down again. That is beginning to intensify. We’ll see how the retail sales look when they’re revised. When all the dust settles, I think you’ll see that the economy did start to turn down again in latter 2010. Somewhere in that timeframe, they’ll start counting the second or next leg of a multiple-dip recession.
TGR: Does M3 have anything to do with calculating potential inflation or hyperinflation?
JW: It does; but when you start looking at the inflation picture, you also have to consider that we are dealing with the world’s reserve currency and the volume of dollars both outside and inside the U.S. system. Right now, M3 is estimated at somewhat shy of $14 trillion. You have another $7 trillion outside the U.S., which is available for overnight liquidation and dumping into the U.S. markets. It’s not easy to measure how much is out there, but that has to be taken into account to assess the money supply related to inflation. Again, that’s where the Fed chairman’s policies come into play.
Efforts have been afoot to weaken the U.S. dollar. Usually with the weakening of the U.S. dollar, you see increased repatriation of dollars from outside the system. If everyone is happy holding the dollars, the flows can be static; but when they start shifting and the dollars are repatriated, you begin to have currency problems. That’s when you have the money supply and the inflation problems we’re beginning to see.
TGR: This has been very informative, John. Thank you for your time.
Walter J. “John” Williams has been a private consulting economist and a specialist in government economic reporting for 30 years, working with individuals and Fortune 500 companies alike. He received his AB in economics, cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1971 and earned his MBA from Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business Administration in 1972, where he was named an Edward Tuck Scholar. John, whose early work prompted him to study economic reporting and interview key government officials involved in the process, also surveyed business economists for their thinking about the quality of government statistics. What he learned led to front-page stories in the New York Times and Investor’s Business Daily, considerable coverage in the broadcast media and a joint meeting with representatives of all of the government’s statistical agencies. Despite a number of changes to the system since those days, John says that government reporting has deteriorated sharply in the last decade or so. His analyses and commentaries, which are available on his ShadowStats website have been featured widely in the popular domestic and international media.
By Bron Suchecki, on April 22nd, 2011
I consider comments like these below from a high profile business executive (as reported by The Australian) as significant. You can be sure the smart money is now positioning itself. THE world economy is on “life support”, living beyond its means, with the threat of a cataclysmic shock within the next eight years, ABC chairman Maurice Newman warned yesterday. The former chairman of the Australian Securities Exchange, who is also a director of the Queensland Investment Corporation, said the Australian economy was better placed than many others to withstand the potential major shock to the world trade and financial system. But he warned that Australia had only a few years to get its economic house in order …
“We are nearing an endgame, which I put at no more than eight years away, possibly less,” he said. He warned that policy failures of governments, rising social costs and financial market volatility would “create a crisis” that would trigger “widespread trade and capital market dislocation”. …
But investors needed to prepare for the crisis by de-risking their portfolios and cleaning up their balance sheets. Australians needed to press their political leaders to make the economy more competitive.
Mr Newman predicted that the coming financial crisis could trigger an end to the role of the US dollar as the reserve currency of the world. He said it could be replaced by a system of International Monetary Fund drawing rights, which could be made up of a basket of currencies including the Chinese renminbi and gold.
By Claus Vistesen, on June 23rd, 2010
One of my good friends who runs a small investment boutique pointed me towards today’s chart of the day from Bloomberg showing the flight phoenix of US corporates’ profit margins.
I know that the chart is difficult to read but you only really need to look at the trend and thus the fact that profit margins recently have defied gravity. However, the old tale of Icarus may turn out to be cautionary here and the coverage by Bloomberg (and the reason my friend put it forward) also flags the fact that the current level of corporate margins essentially is a lagging indicator and the real issue is that profit margins tend to be mean reverting over time.
(quote Bloomberg)
Profit margins for U.S. companies are likely to tumble from last quarter’s record, a decline that will lead to much lower earnings than analysts expect, according to economist Andrew Smithers. “The corporate sector’s outlook is extremely bad,” Smithers, founder and chairman of the investment-advisory firm of Smithers & Co., said last week in an interview. “I can’t see any way out of it.”
As the CHART OF THE DAY shows, profit before interest, taxes and depreciation — accounting adjustments for wear and tear on buildings and equipment — amounted to 36.4 percent of U.S. corporate output in the first quarter. The calculation was based on data compiled by the Commerce Department. The percentage was the highest since the department’s quarterly data started in 1947, as the chart depicts. Smithers, whose firm counsels more than 100 clients on international asset allocation, included a similar illustration in a June 18 report.
So, what is the problem here? Well it makes sense if you think a little about it that profit margins might be in for a correction since much of the gain in the past 1 1/2 years has been due to cost cutting. Market pundits have had this debate before as stock markets soared in 2009 while unemployment kept on climbing. In this sense, the underlying point is quite simple. The first leg of the recovery for corporates (and thus in some sense their stock value) came through trimming the cost side and now, the second leg should start to kick in in the form of increasing final demand to beef up margins , but If the underlying demand is not there, well; herin lies the rub.
In this way, it was always going to be an issue as to where final demand would come from once government stepped back its spending binge and companies had exhausted their initial trimmings on the cost side. As such, we are only now returning to “normal” where we will see what the cruising speed of our economies (in this case the US economy) really is and what Mr. Smithers really points to here is that this implies a much slimmer margin on earnings and thus, strictu sensu, a lower stock price. Personally, I don’t expect a double-dip in the US in 2010, but there might well be one in 2011 which would square off nicely with the points made above. The meta theme I am working with here is that we are going to experience lower trend growth and higher volatility of growth going forward which, by definition, means more frequent moves into negative territory. Coming back to the issue of mean reverting profit margins, my friend makes the following remark;
I think the process has to do with the fact that companies did slash costs right away, faster than selling prices. Now reality catches up. Either final demand does not recover enough and companies are forced to lower prices and compete with little further room for cost cutting or demand recovers and companies have to replenish part of their cost.
Now, based on this argument and coming back to the main rule of thumb, profit margins should start to trend down on mean reverting alone and this remains a very strong empirical fact to think about in this context. Recently, Edward Harrisson made a similar point worth pointing out in the context of a slowdown or perhaps even a recession in 2011.
Long-story short: high margins mean-revert as do P/E ratios. That means share prices will be doubly under pressure in the next recession. Moreover, with households also likely to pull back given still high debt levels, there is a lot of downside for shares going into that downturn which I believe could begin as early as 2011.
Not very comforting this and as a final perspective on this topic I thought that I would mention a recent report by Fitch (login required) in which the rating agency is much less sanguine about a record low high yield default rate in 2010 attributing it to much of the same reasons above.
Fitch Ratings finds that fundamental and rating trends support the contraction in defaults, but the extent to which defaults have fallen is also a product of other dynamics. These include the timing of the recession’s impact on corporate credit quality; the strong demand for yield product in a low interest rate environment which has greatly benefited corporate borrowers seeking to refinance debt; and the deliberate and quick action on the part of U.S. companies to cut costs and boost liquidity in response to the downturn and deep fears of a prolonged period of sluggish growth.
The perspective from credit markets is interesting since it remains one transmission through which mean reversion of profit margins would materialize. In the end then, it seems that while profit margins for now may be defying gravity they, like the proverbial apple, will eventually come down to earth with a corresponding effect on stock prices.
By Claus Vistesen, on April 15th, 2010
With so much going on at the moment and so many themes fighting to claim the main market discourse, I am in the mood for some random shots. First of all and to my continuing regret I have never actually got to thank Niels C. Jensen from Absolute Return Partners for the nice coverage I got way back in October 09 when Mr. Jensen discussed my thoughts on demographics and the life cycle.
So, let me repay by pointing towards Jensen’s recent two monthlies which form the basis for this round of random shots. Both are very much worth reading and in some sense they go together to form a common narrative, but especially the second one where Niels is blowing echo bubbles is mandatory reading I think. The themes taken up by Niels are well known and so is the underlying narrative, but this does not mean that it is not worth repeating; I will Niels set the scene;
In last month’s letter I looked at the challenges confronting the world’s baby boomers based on the assumption that we are in a structural equity bear market, which implies below average returns for equity investors for several more years to come. Central to this forecast is my expectation that household de-leveraging, which is now underway on both sides of the Atlantic, has much further to run. In other words, we are in a balance sheet recession. When that happens, debt reduction becomes the priority. Savings rise and consumption falls at the expense of economic growth.
Please note that this forecast is predicated on a 5-10 year time horizon. Within a structural bear market – which is characterised by falling P/E ratios – it is certainly possible to have cyclical bull markets, so it is by no means one-way traffic. As you can see from chart 1, since the 1982-2000 structural bull market came to and end, we have enjoyed two powerful cyclical bull markets; however, global equity prices remain at 2000-levels.
(…)
However, this is not the same as saying that it will always be a losing proposition to invest in equities. Equities can, in fact, do quite well for long periods of time despite the negative undercurrent. This is what the perma-bears do not understand. They assume that structural bear markets equal negative returns and that is not necessarily the case.
Thus and to clarify, what is referred to here as an echo bubble is the rally we have seen since March 2009 and thus evidence that while structurally, deleveraging and low trend growth will be the main driving force, that does not mean that equities cannot and will not perform extraordinarily well for long passages of time. I mean, who wouldn’t wish that they bought with everything they got back in March (I know I myself feel a bit peeved over not piling in).The broader issue of course is that while smart money may very well learn to navigate such an environment the smart dumb money (i.e. those who buy and holds the market) may realize that the reward from such a strategy may turn out to be less than splendid. And since this is basically a proxy for the return on savings, it means that permanent income will fall which means that consumers will need to save relatively more to compensate, and then we get the problem of a lack of consumption and aggregate demand and … on and on we go!
On this, I agree that deflationary v inflationary forces will feature a tug-of-war for many years to come and, like Niels, I tend to favor the former. However, when pointing to Japan as an example of how continuous attempts have failed to spur inflation (and is still failing) I do think it is important to qualify that this goes strictly for domestic inflation. In this sense, what has become known as the Yen carry trade (and recently USD carry trade perhaps?) is merely a proxy for much broader and structural tendency which signifies how central banks have lost control over where the liquidity they provide is applied. This goes in both direction. In Japan, the liquidity create slips through the back door and ends up e.g. in Brazil or New Zealand who, in order to combat domestic inflation, are busy increasing interest rates only to that it sucks in more liquidity (or, if you will, purchasing power).
Clearly, with US rates stuck at near zero this provides a huge push for global liquidity and even though I think that the US (and the UK) will eventually succeed in getting inflation (and quite possibly, a lot of it), the fact that these economies may withdraw liquidity slower rather than faster represents strong sheet anchor for excess global liquidity and thus although we may be in a structural bear market, it is also a market with a high level of volatility.
This leads me to the following three themes I am following at the moment inspired not only by Niels’ thoughts but also by the recent themes laid out in Variant Perceptions monthly (which is sadly not available online).
1. I accept the idea of a structural bear market but interpret it as investment lingo I guess for broader macro reality that we are now in a situation where we need to delever and that will be deflationary in domestic OECD economies (i.e. this is German austerity writ large). This, I would assume, is tightly connected to lower trend growth. In this sense, demographics (which I tend to focus on) and the defacto excess leverage (regardless of underlying capacity) serve as a ball and chain and it represents a structural break both in terms of behaviour by part of economic agents but also in terms economic growth.
2. Higher volatility. Why? Because just as Japan may fail in creating domestic inflation and just as the US/UK may find it hard to create domestic inflation (although at some point they will, for sure!) they may all create inflation and bubbles elsewhere. Please do read this again if you did not have the chance.
I guess it goes back to the premise that while we may in a situation where growth and equity returns (beta!) are sluggish, we will still see bull markets that lasts (well the current one is running on a year now no?) and more importantly; there will be economies who are able to suck up excess liquidity but they are outnumbered by economies with a desire of excess (external savings) and this is what leads to volatility in asset markets and the real economy.
3. Who is running the deficits? This is an old time hobby horse of mine, but still one which is extraordinarily important. In short; where will bubbles form and why? Emerging markets seem certain. But more importantly and using demographics as a yardstick the equilibrium is changing. Thus, we are all ageing, so we are all moving towards the same “preferences” for a high level of desired external savings as well as more and more economies will struggle with domestic deflation. How this ends is still an open question and it is also the straight line my theoretical work draws into the real world.
Lastly, and now moving with some truly random shots, I think Niels has some interesting points on investors and commodities and how these markets are not really suited for the kind of activity they are seeing. This is of course a direct effect of all those who really think that we are heading to hell in an express elevator and that the fiat system is collapsing etc. You all know the story I guess. Yet, after having looked recently at Chile and thus copper, I am sure that here is a metal which looks very, very bubble prone! Finally, Niels touches on China and the fact, as we have talked about, that as China moves into a trade deficit would a freer Yuan actually appreciate? Or would it in fact depreciate? Well, we will see soon enough I guess since it turns out that Niels was right here. Consequently, news has just come in off the wire that China posted its first trade deficit in six years in March as the trade print came in at a $7.24 billion deficit. Q1-10 is still a surplus but is this the first signs of true and real rebalancing? Well, color me (very) skeptical here that China will be pulling the global economy anywhere through a trade deficit that is not based e.g. on stockpiling of base metals and other commodities, but the ball is in my court as a skeptic with these latest numbers I fully accept this.
By Thersites, on February 11th, 2010
Though I have written extensively about the Recession of 1920, it is worth revisiting it per Glenn Beck’s show last night. Beck rightly pointed out that the policies of decreased taxes and decreased government spending implemented by both Harding and Coolidge paved the way for the dramatic economic growth of the roaring 20s. What Beck didn’t mention was that prior to this period of unprecedented economic expansion, President Warren Harding had inherited one of the worst recessions in American history. This Recession of 1920-21 is another one of the dirty secrets glossed over in the Progressive history books.
By late 1919, America was facing inflation in prices as measured by CPI of 20%. Between 1920 and 1921, unemployment doubled from 5.2 to 11.7%. During this same period, from their peak in June of 1920, prices declined by 15.8% on a year-over-year basis, a 50% greater deflation in prices than during ANY 12-month period during the Great Depression. So what was Harding’s proposal to deal with this mess? To understand how to get out of recession, Harding looked towards how we got into it in the first place.
For America was coming out of World War I. Government was controlling huge swaths of the economy, as it had mobilized land, labor and capital towards war production and away from normal commerce as dictated by consumer demand. In addition to the mass of resources that needed to be reallocated according to market forces, the economy had been further distorted due to the policies of the Federal Reserve which had inflated the money supply by 71% from 1913-1919 (while the physical volume of business had only increased by 9.6%), and whose policies had led to an increase in prices of a staggering 234% between 1914 and 1920. Prices needed to readjust according to the reallocation of resources. In addition, not surprisingly, due to the costs of war, the federal budget had grown to $18.5bn.
One will note the parallels to our economic situation today. Just as war led resources to be allocated away from where an unfettered economy would have directed them, so too did the artificial boom fueled by the Federal Reserve and various government policies lead resources to be misallocated towards assets such as houses and stocks during our most recent boom and bust cycle. While unsustainable businesses and concomitant rises in prices developed in the private sector, the government too drastically increased.
Harding understood the root cause of recession. As he noted in his inaugural address:
The economic mechanism is intricate and its parts interdependent, and has suffered the shocks and jars incident to abnormal demands, credit inflations, and price upheavals. The normal balances have been impaired, the channels of distribution have been clogged, the relations of labor and management have been strained. We must seek the readjustment with care and courage…All the penalties will not be light, nor evenly distributed. There is no way of making them so. There is no instant step from disorder to order. We must face a condition of grim reality, charge off our losses and start afresh. It is the oldest lesson of civilization.
And so what was his big Keynesian stimulus plan to bring the economy back from the abyss? He argued during his Republican nomination speech:
Gross expansion of currency and credit have depreciated the dollar just as expansion and inflation have discredited the coins of the world. We inflated in haste, we must deflate in deliberation. We debased the dollar in reckless finance, we must restore in honesty. Deflation on the one hand and restoration of the 100-cent dollar on the other ought to have begun on the day after the armistice, but plans were lacking or courage failed. The unpreparedness for peace was little less costly than unpreparedness for war. We can promise no one remedy which will cure an ill of such wide proportions, but we do pledge that earnest and consistent attack which the party platform covenants. We will attempt intelligent and courageous deflation, and strike at government borrowing which enlarges the evil, and we will attack high cost of government with every energy and facility which attend Republican capacity. We promise that relief which will attend the halting of waste and extravagance, and the renewal of the practice of public economy, not alone because it will relieve tax burdens, but because it will be an example to stimulate thrift and economy in private life.
And so, shockingly Harding practiced what he preached. Regarding deflation, the Federal Reserve jacked up interest rates from 4.75% in January 1920 to 7% in June 1920, and held this rate through the aforementioned major drop in prices through May of 1921. Harding slashed the federal budget from $18.5bn in 1919 to $6.4bn in 1920 all the way down to $5.1bn in 1921. Meanwhile, the government actually ran surpluses during these years, allowing them to pay down the debt by $300mm from 1920-21. The Chief Economist of Chase National Bank of the era, Benjamin Anderson summed Harding’s philosophy and his attack on the recession as follows:
The idea that a balanced budget with vast pump-priming government expenditure is a necessary means of getting out of a depression received no consideration at all. It was not regarded as the function of the government to provide money to make business activity. It was rather the business of the US Treasury to look after the solvency of the government, and the most important relief that the government felt that it could afford to business was to reduce as much as possible the amount of government expenditure, which had risen to great heights during the war; to reduce taxes—but not much; and to reduce public debt.
Nor did the government increase public employment with a view to taking up idle labor. There was a reduction in the army and navy in the course of these years, and there was a steady decline in the number of civilian employees of the federal government. This policy on the part of the government generated, of course, a great confidence in the credit of the government, and the strength of the gold dollar was taken for granted. The credit of the government and confidence in the currency are basic foundations for general business confidence. The relief to business through reduced taxes was extremely helpful.
According to Anderson, how did the recession end?
…we took our losses, we readjusted our financial structure, we endured our depression and in August 1921 we started up again. The rally in business production and employment that started in August 1921 was soundly based on a drastic cleaning up of credit weakness, a drastic reduction in the costs of production, and on the free play of private enterprise. It was not based on governmental policy designed to make business good. (See Benjamin Anderson’s Economics and the Public Welfare or his gratis “The Return to Normal“)
Now we can debate fiscal and economic policy all day, but across the spectrum, it should be clear to all that a government that intervened and created the conditions for economic crisis will not be able to solve it. If government’s can create prosperity when the private sector is imperiled, then why would Americans be against government central planning when all is rosy? Do the rules of economics not apply during downturns?
If we can agree that recessions are the result of resources being improperly allocated, then we can also agree that the only way to return to economic health is to allow for their reallocation according to the market. This involves allowing nonproductive business ventures to go belly-up, prices to naturally fall where they have unjustifiably risen and reduction in the size of government allowing resources to be released to entrepreneurs to reverse the ills of the artificial boom and spur growth. All measures that impede the natural cleansing of an economy will only ensure pain and suffering like that witnessed over the last few decades in Japan. Harding had things right and it would do our lawmakers good to follow his lesson: central planning and government control creates problems; innovative Americans are the only ones who can solve them.
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