The U.S. Debt Has no Future

Frank Trotter, President, EverBank Direct writes: Friends who know that I speak frequently about global economics have been calling to see what I think about the smackdown arguments over spending in Washington. I have surprised them all by saying that it’s really an empty record. Well, I suppose there is some kind of odd entertainment factor in the recent public debates about the U.S. debt ceiling.

Republican politicians and their tea-slurping back-benchers are stridently stating that they are finally holding the line on spending. A press release on Representative Boehner’s website trumpets, “In January, the first week that we were sworn into office, the president asked for an increase in the debt ceiling, and I made clear at that time we there would be no increase in the debt ceiling without significant cuts in spending and changes to the way we spend the American people’s money.”

That’s tellin’ them.

“Republicans are behaving like thugs in debt ceiling debate,” says a letter to the Baltimore Sun, summarizing the feeling many Democrats have about the process. The letter goes on to promote “a plan that starts with some sacrifice by the Wall Street fast money crowd who put the economy in the ditch in the first place.”

Take that, Wall Street. Humpf.

Being a simple country banker, I tend to go straight to the numbers. A trip over to the Congressional Budget Office – the folks with the green eyeshades in charge of translating the mumbo-speak of Congress into something practical – reveals the pearl within the plan. As we have all read many times now, the approved plan calls for $917 billion in “reduction in budget deficits.” Of course there are many qualifiers but one layer down, the appalling figures are written in black and white for all to see.

For the 2012 budget year a total of – wait for it – $21 billion in reductions is proposed, followed by $42 billion and $59 billion in 2013 and 2014. Can anyone guess when the next presidential election will be held?

Now, the CBO made a projection in 2001 (as it does every year). The swing from the projected budget at that time versus the actual outcome resulted in an $11.8-trillion “error.” The CBO had projected a cumulative surplus of $5.6 trillion, and of course over the past ten years we have seen an actual cumulative deficit of $6.2 trillion. Around our shop that might get someone fired, but as the CBO correctly says, “The actual results have differed from those projections because of subsequent policy changes, economic developments that differed from CBO’s forecast, and other factors.”

Guess so.

All of this takes me right back to where I was a month ago, and ten years ago. Déjà vu all over again. Just months after that 2001 CBO projection, we came to believe that the relative U.S. budget situation, monetary policy, and other factors would contribute to a weak U.S. dollar for the foreseeable future. Since then holders of some of our favorites like Australian dollars (+112%), Norwegian kroner (+69%), Canadian dollars (+60%), and even the troubled euro (+62%) have enjoyed excellent returns as the U.S. dollar has sunk (August 1, 2001-August 1, 2011 currency price change only; source is Bloomberg).

There are many troubles around the world, and the global economy is choppy at best. The U.S. isn’t the only country that is fighting a spendthrift past.

If Congress had agreed to a plan to reduce the federal government’s role in the economy from over 25% of GDP today to, say, 10% by 2030 using a combination of outright cuts, elimination of an imperial military, significant privatization, and returning Social Security to the last-ditch plan it was meant to be, I might change my tune. But after this last round of languid Congressional efforts I’ll continue to maintain that we will see the U.S. dollar decline in the intermediate and long term against fortified economies like Norway, Australia, and Singapore.

Stocks Bear, FED about to Make the Mistake of the Decade?

Just as I expected, when the market failed to rally on the debt ceiling resolution, panic set in. As I have been telling people the stock market is not dropping because politicians are debating whether or not to spend more money. They have a long record of raising the debt ceiling whenever it threatened to interfere with their spending spree. So the resolution to the debt ceiling was never in question. We knew from day one that Washington would add another trillion or so to the deficit without any real attempt to cut spending. The market has been in trouble since May because it is starting to price in the next recession.

The S&P has now breached the March intermediate cycle low. In a mature bull market that is almost always a signal that a new cyclical bear market has begun.

I’ve been warning investors since late April that this was coming. Many were fooled by the phony manufactured rally at the end of June. I knew at the time that the Fed’s pitiful attempt to manufacture a momentum move as QE2 came to an end would fail.

All that being said, the market is now moving into the timing band for a major intermediate cycle bottom. My best guess is that the reversal today will probably trigger a weak bounce up to the 200 day moving average, followed by one more leg down. That should mark a more lasting bottom and trigger a 6 to 8 week bear market rally. That rally is going to look very convincing and I’ll tell you why in just a second. But just like the rally in June it is going to fail.

Folks, a recession is unavoidable at this point. The piper is going to have to be paid for printing trillions of dollars and bailing out the financial system. Unfortunately there’s no way around that. The question is will Bernanke make the ultimate blunder and initiate QE3? I’ll explain in a second.

Next we need to take a look at the dollar chart. It’s not a pretty picture. With the market in free fall the dollar should be rallying violently. If May marked the three year cycle low like I originally thought then the dollar should be rising rapidly by now.The fact that it’s not is a very ominous sign.

I’m starting to worry that Bernanke is going to initiate QE3 and he’s going to add a currency crisis on top of the economy sliding back into recession.The combination of both of these at the same time will trigger a collapse much worse than what we went through in 2008.

If the market decides that QE3 is in the cards that would be the trigger for our bear market rally. Unfortunately it would also be the trigger for another spike in commodity prices at the very time that the consumer is least able to withstand them.

What Washington and the Fed don’t seem to realize is that the problem isn’t the size of the dose, it’s that we are using the wrong medicine. We’ve already spent trillions to save the economy and it failed. Let’s pray that the powers that be have enough sense to recognize that more trillions are not going to cure the problem, they are going to exacerbate it.

Unfortunately what no one wants to admit is that there is no cure for our problem. We can’t stop it. It can’t be “fixed”. All we can do is make it worse. We desperately need to face reality and initiate the painful policies that are required to halt the car before it drives off the cliff. Failure to do that will mean that the market will force reality upon us as a major global economic collapse.

Before this is all over and done I fully expect the Keynesian economic model will get tossed into the trash heap where it belongs. If it wasn’t for politicians desire to spend more than they can afford Keynesian policies would have been discarded decades ago.

For the normal yearly price I’m going to throw in three free months. The premium newsletter is published nightly along with a more detailed weekend report. I cover the stock market, dollar index, and commodity markets with special emphasis on the gold and silver market.

The Full Blown Correction Is Underway!

Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2011

Wow! What a ride yesterday! For those of you that read me on a regular basis know that I have been waiting for yesterday since the 1st of July. Let’s face it, “you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.” The market has run up so far and so fast that these last few days were long overdue and I said so in July. I didn’t advise readers to take cash and hide it under their mattress but I did advise that they lithely move in and out of positions in an effort to make a few dollars and build up their cash position for the inevitable sell off. In Thursday’s post I conceded that I was wrong that the S&P would hit 30 as I had steadfastly predicted and told everyone to look to buy slowly into the market as it had breached the 200 day moving average on the Dow and on the S&P.

Well I was wrong. I was a day early. Yesterday the market sold off with a vengeance. The DOW closed down 512 points or 609 points under the 200 day moving average at 11383. The S&P sold off 60 points or 86 points under the 200 day moving average at 1200. The S&P VIX which had baffled me for a month finally acted as scripted, closing at 31.63 and sold the market sold off with a vengeance. So this now begs the question where do we go from here?

Let’s begin with the premise that most investors believed that Congress would extend the debt ceiling at the 11th hour and everything would be just fine. What I believe that most investors missed however is that everything is not fine. We are pressing the envelope and the patient is in intensive care. The fact is that as I have been encouraging my readers to move to the safe havens of Gold and Silver because Uncle Sam is dead broke.

Forecasting the market by gut instinct is sheer folly because its great drawback is that we are all human and therefore we are susceptible to human frailties. The real money doesn’t want opinion or clairvoyance; they want cold hard facts. There are specific criteria or prices that must be met. Using the DOW as an example 12686 was the monthly closing resistance. Until that is broken and held there can be no breakout possible to the upside. In the opposite direction support lies at 11006. A monthly closing below that level focuses our attention on 10810 and a closing below that level warns of a retest of the 2009 6440 low.

Well panic is filling the financial streets. There are institutions so frightened that they are actually depositing cash in the Bank of New York Mellon. So much cash has been deposited that the bank sent out a press release yesterday that it would charge a fee for large deposits of cash fearing that interest rates could go negative. Amazingly, traders are trading on their concept of how things should move. They are buying bonds and moving to cash while they sell equities, yet buying government debt is the epicenter of all of the problems. Sadly this is normal. In times of fear and panic human beings will act in all too human a fashion. To use an example from “The Great Crash of 1929” from 1932 until 1937 the DOW more than doubled as did unemployment. The markets taught us that it was government not corporations that were at risk.

For now August and September look to be very volatile months. The big turning point appears to be next December and January. The trend should begin to change at that time. For now we are confronted by “Black Swans” on so many fronts. If there is anything good about stock market correction it is that it gets Congress to pay attention. Certainly it is not because they care about the people. Rather it is because when they see their own portfolios start dropping they start asking about QE3! Until that happens, they couldn’t care less.

For now it is correction time. It is not the end of the world. Indeed we may look back on this as an opportunity to pick up some names at great valuations. I warn all of my readers not to wade into the water too deeply because while this is the beginning of the correction I have been writing about – it is just the beginning. There may well be more 500 point drops ahead so if ones buying is disciplined and carefully planned I see this as an opportunity. In years to come, we or our children will see the DOW hit 50,000 but that comes with the caveat of continued debasement of currencies. So as I have written and will continue to write I see Gold and Silver as the safe ports in this storm. With the correction now in full blown mode I also see great opportunity to short this market in select areas. As I have written, corrections like this should not be feared but rather embraced. Be very patient and judicious in your buys because we could go lower. Today I plan on watching the parade march by and if there is another 500 point selloff on the DOW I will pick my spots and buy at the end.

Fed Given License To Debase U.S. Dollar Further, Gold Strong Breakout

The US Federal Reserve has no monetary options whatsoever. They have been backed into the corner since 2007. It was coerced to reduce interest rates as the subprime mortgage crisis morphed into an absolute bond crisis, as the Jackass loudly stated during that fateful summer. The US bank leaders claimed it was contained. It was not. The USFed was backed into the corner in 2009, unable to raise interest rates from near 0% (the Zero Interest Rate Policy disease) and put into effect its propaganda theme of an Exit Strategy. The US bank leaders knew the longest period of time for the Fed Funds rate to stick at 0% was nine months, ensuring a future disaster. They saw it. They claimed a move toward normalcy. It did not come.

The Jackass called them liars with a message of deception to manage the USTreasury Bond and stock market. They did not hike rates, as their bluff was called. The USFed looked weak as a result. They began to shed thick layers of prestige. The USFed was backed into the corner in 2010, unwilling to use printed money to monetize USTBonds, giving birth to the second dreaded Quantitative Easing disease. They did anyway. So the ZIRP & QE twin scourges became part of the landscape of ruin. The USFed denied they would embark on QE. The Jackass called them liars with a message of deception. They did embark on QE, then QE Lite, then QE2, all replete with denials. The USFed has lost all its prestige, all its credibility, and all its respect for economic analysis. They are actually a central office for the Syndicate. They are the focal point of the failure of the central bank franchise model.

The unfolding drama on Capitol Hill with the USGovt changed the entire picture, thus putting a toxic icing atop a hemlock pie with arsenic candles giving off deadly gas. In private discussions, my full expectation was for no debt default, not even close, with the debt limit extended, the unfolding American Tragedy saga taking place on a global stage. My call was for a path of least resistance to be taken in consensus, but it would involve decision avoidance and political expedience, if not constitutional cowardice. The players in the USCongress, along with the leader himself, were exposed as pusillanimous, deceptive, polarized, destructive, wayfaring fools. They are as much fully equipped squires for both the banking industry and the military establishment. They avoided a debt disaster in default, but they did not avoid a debt rating downgrade. They have given the system license to debase the USDollar further, as Gold has responded in a breakout. The President is so clueless as to believe patent reform can make a difference. The bigger obstacles are poor education, minimal math & science requirements, tendency to play video games & text messages than studying (even inside school classrooms). Of course the debilitation is compounded by the US lacking a strong industrial base. So better patent protection would mean the US corporations could more effectively protect their offshore jobs, where the majority of jobs are located.

Worse, the players on the global debt debate stage exposed the USGovt as Greece times one hundred. The veil of ruin and arrogance has been lifted for all to see, the deep blemishes and skin cancer visible for all to see. The USGovt borrowing costs are near 0% for the same reason that the Greek borrowing costs are at 30%. BOTH NATION’S FINANCES ARE BROKEN. To cap it off, the tombstone on the US Republic will feature a Super Committee to recommend the most difficult of budget decisions. Such fanfare without proper label. The committee is a formalization of the Politburo process, a perverse interwoven political stranglehold fabric that takes the worst of the Weimar Republic and melds with the worst of the Fascist Business Model. Slowly forming is the Fascist Dictatorship that follows logically from nationalization of Fannie Mae and AIG, the home mortgage cesspool and the derivative black hole. The growth of czars will grow dangerously. Look in the near future for a wave of office shutdowns. The USGovt is required to pay its creditors. But it will act with negligence and shut down offices. See the Federal Aviation Agency, which must contend with 70,000 job cuts. It has lost its funding, while the USCongress went on its August vacation. An improvement would have come if the cut in budget came to the Transportation Security Admin (TSA) to alleviate the public from airport assaults that draws tears from old ladies, anger from defiant citizens, and consternation from most everybody. By the way, the planned date for the Super Committee to convene and make its recommendations is in the middle of the Presidential Primary season next summer. Expect a circus.

EFFECT & PREPARATION

Speaking of spineless and pusillanimous, Moodys and Fitch call the debt deal with the USGovt a good first step. They maintain the AAA rating. The brave Lancelot might be Standard & Poor which has delivered a louder firmer threat of debt downgrade if not significant progress to reduce the budget deficit. They all three seem more like boys cracking whips without threat of anything substantial. Their offices might be Oslo’ed if they actually downgraded. The USGovt debt deal accomplished nothing but to raise the debt limit, which means THE USGOVT IS PERMITTED TO DEBASE THE USDOLLAR CURRENCY FOR ANOTHER YEAR OR MORE. It is actually quite funny to watch and listen to hacks on the tube, as their share their shaman wisdom. They told the public that when the debt limit was extended and the crisis was averted, the Gold price would probably subside and relax downward. What nonsense! The Gold demand would continue from free rein to create more money to cover more permitted debt. They know nothing about gold. They seem to find no relevance or importance that the US money supply is rising exponentially, without benefit of even economic flatline stability. The inefficient usage of new money is a story for the ages, a symptom of the ruin in progress. This point is made in the Hat Trick Letter in detail.

The Gold market correctly interpreted the vacant gutless debt pact, a deal to make a future deal, a decision to make future decisions. The Gold price rose on Tuesday by $40 and the Silver price rose the same day by $1.50 per ounce. The damage is more hidden than what is seen in nominal price. The short covering process has begun. The defended $1600 barrier has been breached, smashed, and overrun. Those who recklessly placed their short positions at that level did not anticipate the power of this bull market, or recognize the strong attack from all four flanks. The $40 barrier is also being overrun. Gold will continue to fight the political battles, to bust the cartel phalanx, and to enable the harsh light of truth to shine on the wrecked USDollar and ponzi ridden USTreasury Bond. Silver will continue to run impressive breath-taking strides through the opened pathways. Expect a run past the $50 mark within the next two months, likely sooner. Things always seem to happen more quickly these days. The clock is running faster with all the fever and ruin.

Prepare for continuation in the long drawn out economic deterioration, business squeeze, financial depletion, and systemic failure. The USGovt debt default process is one for the history books, part of a bold Jackass forecast made in the wake of the Lehman, Fannie Mae, and AIG visible disaster in September 2008. At work was the more important but less visible destruction of the US banking industry. It has not recovered since the Lehman engineered bust kill job, fully exploited by Wall Street. Expect in the next couple years economic martial law, deep rationing, and economic implosion. Protect from lost life savings, forfeited wealth to the USTreasury Bond monster, and the fast pace of toxic paper spoilage. The answer is Gold & Silver, if not commodity stockpiles and energy deposits. For the small investor, the safest is precious metals with no paper securities and thus no counter-party risk. The GLD & SLV funds are both fraudulent, to be revealed in time, if not already for those with discerning eyes. They should be avoided, unless the investor wishes to miss the climax runup in price. The precious metals Gold & Silver have received zero positive press by the corrupted financial media, as well as very little respect despite being the best performing asset in the last decade. Ignore their deceptive messages, and climb aboard the Gold ship with Silver cabins, and watch the unfolding disaster from the heat tempered windows. The Fiat Paper locomotive has already gone over the cliff. The debt deal only defined a lower crash point in the abyss far below.

THE BIG HIDDEN BOND LEVER

The USGovt has the wonderful benefit of Interest Rate Swap contracts. They produce leveraged magnificent artificial demand for the 10-year USTreasury. Despite huge uncontrollable bond supply for USGovt debt, contrary to standard myopic finance theory promoted in universities (see USFed-funded chairs), the bond yield continues to decline. In no way does migration from stocks to bonds justify the move under 2.60% on the TNX yield. Every time some negative USEconomic news is released, and plenty of such lousy data has come in the last several weeks, a big bond rally comes. It is aided with a vast under-current of Interest Rate Swaps. Between 80% and 86% of the total derivative market is IRSwap contracts. That market was measured at $243 trillion by the Office of Comptroller to the Currency in its 1Q2011 report of the Top25 commercial banks and trust companies. Shockingly, Morgan Stanley increased to $51 trillion their derivative book in the first quarter alone, with zero coverage by the sleepy intrepid lapdog financial press. Let the reader decided if $9.1 trillion in added notional value spread over three months would have much effect on USTreasury Bonds.

The hacks who operate at the bond desks have pathetically little knowledge of their own sector. Most bond traders actually believe the IRSwap application has no practical effect on the USTreasury market, with no end product. They are at best stupid and at worst corrupt. As friend and colleague Rob Kirby points out, the IRSwap contract has a real actual end demand in a USTreasury Bill or Note or Bond. Typically, they sell a short-term USTBill in order to buy a long-term USTreasury, like a 10-year note. This is all within the structure of the IRSwap contract. Thus the fast move below 2.60% from 3.00% on the TNX yield.

THE BIG LIE

The USEconomy is stuck in a recession that worsens each quarter. The current recession is measured between minus 5% and minus 6%, is in progress, and is intensifying. The USGovt runs a devious stat lab shop. It uses every scummy trick known to the stat rats. The Jackass is a refined furry stat rodent, not a rat. Consider an honest method with integrity, which is actively avoided. A simple method is to take the nominal data (raw untreated numbers) for a full year and compare them to the nominal data for the previous full year, then adjust by a legitimate reasonable price inflation index. The Shadow Govt Statistics folks do a fantastic job in honest economic estimation, the best on the planet in my opinion. The SGS Consumer Price Inflation was about 9% in 2010 and currently runs about 10%. Anyone with half a brain can attest to the validity of their CPI estimate. The honest assessment of the USEconomy performance is minus 7.5% recession in 2010, much worse for 2009, seen in the red circle. Let’s be conservative and call the valid CPI at 7% last year and 8% this year. Then the recession of 2010 would have been recorded at minus 5.5% last year and worsening in the current year.

The above graph is utterly shocking and calls the entire USGovt stat team liars. Notice how in 2009 (green circle) the nominal GDP growth was minus 2%. Apply any CPI index to register something worse. That bears repeating. The unadjusted economic growth data for full year 2009 was negative, without inflation adjustment. Anything positive for price inflation would mean a worse recession in 2009 than minus 2%. The quarterly method used by the Bureau of Economic Analysis is corrupt and deceptive, intentionally so. They measure quarters in sequence and apply a raft of absurd adjustments led by the hedonic quality lifts, then multiply their gross error by four to annualize. Even Goldman Sachs realizes the economy is sliding into reverse. Even Martin Feldstein must see the poor taste of federal pork on the plate, as he has given a 50-50 chance for a recession reversal. He must not know much about economics, since the recession is in its fourth year.

USFED WITHOUT OPTIONS

The USFed realizes to their dismay that debt monetization does not stimulate the USEconomy. They will be pushed into purchase of USTreasurys for a simple reason. Another big lie of past Quantitative Easing motivated to stimulate the USEconomy has come to light from direct exposure. The QE process will become an integral part of the monetary policy. The purpose for its continuation has been and will continue to be to prevent USTreasury auction failures which would paint a global billboard sign of USGovt insolvency, ruin, and default. The events from this week have profound meaning. The deliberations over the lifted debt ceiling were interwoven in toxic fashion with the budget debate. USGovt expenditures and taxation issues were hotly debated, enough to produce a stalemate that clearly continues. The main message behind the imminent new budget & debt limit deal is that the USGOVT IS GIVEN FREE REIN TO DEBASE THE USDOLLAR CURRENCY, while nothing has been done to reduce the $1.5 trillion deficit. The USGovt debt should lose its AAA rating due to chronic $1.5 trillion deficits, whose lethal continuation was forecasted by the Jackass in 2009. At that time, most people were suffering from deep shock. They were told by captains on the Titanic Helm that the next annual national budget deficit would be under $1 trillion. The Jackass warned of consecutive calamitous $1.5 trillion forecasts. That was a correct call. One third of the $14.3 trillion cumulative USGovt debt is from war adventure. War spending for Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 has totaled $1.3 trillion. An almost hilarious partial solution was offered by the bold Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge, so on point and so sensible as to be funny. Shut down 15% of the USGovt offices and save $150 billion per year, save $1.5 trillion in ten years. My suggestion is to disband the USCongress by referendum, and to replace it with a group of city mayors and county leaders who would block lobbyists to their offices. Let the House of Representatives represent the people from where they live and work, and not represent the banks and corporations whose lobby budgets are huge.

INSOLVENCY PLAGUE

The last two years have proved convincingly that treating insolvency with liquidity solves nothing. The ineffective blunt tool wielded by the USFed has resulted in a rise in the cost structure globally, not just in the United States. The deceptive message promulgated has been to engineer a lower USDollar for the stated purpose of stimulating the US export trade. This is a great lie! They wish to support the big US banks in unending fashion, until the end marred by systemic failure. The USEconomy has inadequate critical mass in the industrial base (see Chinese Foreign Direct Investment since 2002). The excess capacity in factories and workers does not prevent cost inflation (great irony, since lost base), as the clueless cast of US economists has insisted erroneously. The US bank sector is insolvent, heavily reliant upon naked USTBond sales and narco money laundering. The story broke in 2009 that the Wall Street firms had over $1 trillion in undelivered USTBonds sold to clients and funds. They are chronically not delivered after 30 days, because they were sold naked illicitly by Wall Street. They are formally called Failures to Deliver. But the good news (at least to Wall Street) was that it was a fertile source of liquidity and revenue generation when investment banking hit the wall. Imagine selling lemonade at a stand but not providing a cup of the tasty product. The money laundering of dirty ‘Agency’ funds through Wall Street is uniformly applied across its pillars to the Syndicate. The process and criminality is out in the open. The laughable part is that no felony charges are ever filed, since deals are cut. Last year Wachovia completed a plea bargain, paid a fine, and walked away. The details escaped the sleep US financial press. Wachovia paid a mere 1/30-th of one cent per dollar of illegally laundered funds. The funds entered from Mexico. Chalk up a small business cost, a very small cost indeed. This is not a new story.

Back to the mainstream. The housing market is a guaranteed two-ton millstone to depress both households and banks by the neck. My annual forecast is for two more years of housing bear market decline. That always sounds better and more credible than a permanent bear market, which was the private Jackass forecast made privately in 2007. Read: permanent. Each year strong factors such as heavy new home supply and continued job loss make obvious another two years of powerful home price declines. The ugly joke in the bank industry is 3 million homes lie on bank balance sheets, 3 million homes stand in foreclosure, and 3 million line up in default. The overhang is staggering, enormous, magnificent, disastrous, and crippling. To claim the US housing market is in recovery is the most egregious of lies. The additional hidden supply of homes makes impossible the clearing within the market. The bank balance sheets are still growing, despite their recent decisions to send the REO bank owned homes for sale in the open market. That has resulted in the resumption of the visible price decline, noticed by the dumb slow and half blind analysts who fail to apologize for a skein of wrong forecasts.

NO MONETARY POLICY OPTIONS

The USFed has no monetary options whatsoever. The USFed realizes debt monetization does not stimulate economy. But it does prevent USTreasury auction failures. The painful direct impact of USFed response to crisis and taken action is a uniformly rising cost structure. Price is determined by Supply & Demand, but also the USDollar. The current budget patch deal will result in further dampers. The termination of extended jobless benefits, part of the latest debt deal, has a direct obvious effect. The Austerity Pills have begun to come to the US throats. The low USTreasury yields mean the Interest Rate Swap machinery is working overtime. The low bond yields force low saving yields for certificates of deposit at banks. The result is a damper effect on the USEconomy, not a stimulus. The only stimulus is to the stock market, which has become heavily reliant upon the Working Group for Financial Markets, which does its work at 10am and 3pm in the form of miraculous market index recoveries. The propaganda continues in mindless fashion. The public is told that the policy is in place, it needs time to work, and the second half recovery is to be expected. We are not morons!! The second half of 2011 will feature a massive powerful headline Gold & Silver breakout rally that reflects the broken USDollar, the broken USGovt finances, the broken USEconomy, and the broken USFed leadership. The rally will capture global attention and encourage additional investment demand. Even the USMint badly aggravates the Silver shortage domestically.

GOLD FACTORS

The gold price is driven by certain immutable principal themes, each powerful in its own right. Combined, they form the basis for a global Paradigm Shift in wealth transfer. Gold has run roughshod over the $1600 supposed barrier. When it reaches $1700, it will make quick strides and long strides in a sudden move to $2000. The overriding themes are:

ultra-low interest rates, the 0% scourge that urges asset protection
lost faith in sovereign bonds, ruined on periphery, moving to core
exploding government deficits, made worse each year.
Most every Gold bull market has been triggered by ultra-low interest rates. The term is Negative Real Rates, which means the prevailing interest rate is way below the prevailing price inflation rate (in the real world). Since 2009, the USFed has held the Fed Funds rate near 0%. It is a signal of ruin, not stimulus, verified by its chronic continuation. All major currencies will fall together versus Gold, as in the USDollar, the Euro, and the British Pound. The Hat Trick Letter in the last two months has shown vivid detail of the broad Gold bull market breakout. A contrary wind is also detected. The Swiss Franc, the Japanese Yen, the Aussie Dollar, and the Canadian Dollar have risen versus the more broken major currencies. What they have in common is grand mineral and resource wealth. Their still fiat paper currencies are indirectly supported by the commodity riches, making them much more favorable to FOREX traders. The best that central banks can achieve is stability among the major currency exchange rates. This theme is their next propaganda plank of deception. They can claim stability while ignoring the resumed rising cost structure. The mantra must be recognized. Inflate or die means more rising costs, without benefit of increased wages.

Nothing changed since the COMEX ambush of naked shorting in early May, the avalanche that prompted the parade of deceptive analysts to proclaim the end of the Gold trade, the end of the Anti-US$ trade. They were wrong, loud wrong, and we called them wrong. Mark Twain defined ‘dogmatic’ as wrong at the top of the voice. How true! How appropriate! Nothing changed on the endless spew of debt, the endless spew of bank welfare, the endless spew of budget deficits, the endless spew of wrecked toxic sovereign bonds, the relentless rise of costs, the relentless lost job security, the relentless assault on households. The debt crisis has moved into new ground, with the USGovt debt moving onto the same stage as Greece, Portugal, and Ireland. The next broken legs to walk on stage will be Italy and Spain. The biggest surprise will be the entry on stage by France, which looks much more like a PIGS nation than the others. A simple cluster analysis (nifty multi-variate statistical technique) would reveal France as part of the PIGS pen easily. See the debt ratio charts of the past for a basic pattern. They might lead the PIGS in a Mediterranean Central Bank with a common devalued Latin Euro currency. It would be devalued at least 30%, maybe 50%. A split is coming to the Euro Monetary Union, since the PIGS nations cannot carry such Euro currency in their tortured insolvent tattered wallets any longer. The July Hat Trick Letter covered the split in detail. My belief is firm that France will remain with Germany, since the German financial firms own 95% of French Govt debt, a dirty secret that never is mentioned. The Germans will need squires to carry their bags to meetings.

After the EMU split occurs, look for 20 Lehmans to go bust in Europe, as their large banks are badly exposed and heavily damaged. The key is Italy, and tethered Spain. The cross-border debt exposure is magnificent. Bear in mind that Italy is the #8 biggest economy in the world. Italy is responsible for 17% of all European sovereign debt. The practical implications are immediate, as the Italian Treasury must roll over 69 billion Euros in August and September. The Italian Govt debt due between July and end 2011 totals 175 billion Euros, whose financing simply will not happen. Italy must find buyers for a staggering 500 billion Euros in new securities by the end of 2013. Italy will break the Euro, period! A massive Gold Rush will come when money flees supposedly safe haven sovereign funds. The big European banks will drop like wrecked pillars.

WOW ON JAPANESE YEN

Check out the Japanese Yen currency breakout. This was forecasted by the Jackass in April as a paradox concept. The Japanese financial institutions, insurance firms, and central bank are selling USTreasury Bonds in order to pay for grand Reconstruction costs. The J-Yen blew through the 130 level this week. It translates to under 76 on the Dollar/Yen index. That prompted Bank of Japan action, but it will prove futile. They called 78 a line in the sand to defend. It was overrun. The Japanese financial firms are selling USTreasurys on a massive scale. As reported in the Hat Trick Letter two months ago, sale of USTBonds is a better alternative than more fiscal deficits or more debt monetization. Instead of prompting more domestic price inflation, they will take their risk with a rising Yen exchange rate, and watch the export damage. Never overlook the rampage of Yen short covering, as the Yen Carry Trade continues to shut down after 20 years of abuse. The USEconomy will import price inflation from Asia, a diverse effect. See Wal-Mart already on this factor. My view is that the next pact (just like in April with the hasty G-7 Meeting) to halt the J-Yen rise will be the guts of GLOBAL QE. The central banks in the next several months will drop their transparency initiative. Hyper monetary inflation is not a message they wish to provide gory details for.

FIRST STRONG DOLLAR & NOW WEAK DOLLAR

The Strong Dollar Policy of the 1990 decade resulted in a gutting of US industry. Many jobs were sent off-shore. The primary emphasis became the clean industry behind the financial sector, whose size grew markedly, leading up to the 2000 tech telecom bust. Then came the housing bubble then bust, and the deadly aftermath of insolvency that plagues the nation. The Weak Dollar policy engineered in the last two years as part of the Quantitative Easing programs has resulted in more gutting of US industry. The great majority of households and businesses are suffering from a uniformly rising cost structure, but not rising wages. The support of the banker largesse bailouts and USTreasury Bond debt monetization has lifted the entire cost structure. What is missing clearly is a Sound Fair Dollar Policy. But the Gold Standard is considered a third rail with heavy electric current to kill anyone who touches it. The standard will emerge from the ruins that befall the United States in its economy, its financial structure, and its political morass.

QUICK CONCLUSION

Gold rises from threat of chaos amidst debt default. Gold rises from continued debasement of the USDollar and other major currencies. Gold rises from the powerful current of price inflation. Gold rises from strong investment demand, side by side with Silver investment demand amidst chronic annual deficits. Gold rises from the increasingly recognized ruin of sovereign bonds. Where are the stooges who shot their mouths off in May?? Do they merely preach as spokesmen for the Syndicate on the financial news channels?? Bring them back to explain where they went wrong. Start with two hacks named Dennis Gartman and Nouriel Roubini.

A Toothless Debt Deal Won’t Stop a U.S. Credit-Rating Downgrade

It’s often said that the sign of a good compromise is that both parties walk away dissatisfied – but that’s not necessarily true of the debt deal Congress is close to passing.

To be sure, both parties are dissatisfied with the outcome of this contentious battle. Progressive Democrats are disappointed that planned cuts to government spending won’t be augmented with tax increases, while fiscally conservative Republicans are angry that the cuts to spending haven’t gone far enough.

But the truth is, regardless of their party allegiances, all Americans should be disappointed in their policymakers for the same exact reason: After months of political kabuki theater, the debt deal that’s working its way through Congress is toothless, ineffectual and will do little or nothing to prevent a crushing blow to the markets and the dollar.

“The deal does not put the U.S. fiscal position on a sustainable path and will not prevent the U.S. from losing its AAA credit rating,” Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics, told MarketWatch. “The only question is whether S&P and the other rating agencies pull the trigger this week or wait a little longer.”

Standard & Poor’s has taken the hardest line, but both Moody’s Corp. (NYSE: MCO) and Fitch Ratings Inc. have signalled that they too are prepared to slash their ratings on U.S. credit.

S&P last week suggested that it would require a deficit-reduction agreement of around $4 trillion, along with convincing signs that it could be enforced, to affirm its AAA rating on the United States. The ratings agency in April downgraded its outlook for U.S. debt to “negative,” from “stable.”

Moody’s Investment Service issued a warning last month, as well, saying the United States would have to deal with its debt problem – regardless of whether or not a compromise was reached on the debt ceiling.

“The outlook assigned at that time to the government bond rating would very likely be changed to negative at the conclusion of the review unless substantial and credible agreement is achieved on a budget that includes long-term deficit reduction,” Moody’s said.

The Unanticipated Aftermath of a U.S. Credit Downgrade
In the best-case scenario, a lower credit rating simply means the government will have to pay higher borrowing costs. And if that’s the case, every American should consider themselves lucky, because the alternative scenarios paint a much darker picture.

“After studying everything that could happen due to a downgrade of the United States’ top-tier AAA credit rating, and the potential default on its debt, we found a scenario that would result in forced asset sales that are so widespread that global stock-and-bond markets would plunge – and economies around the world would crash,” said Money Morning Contributing Editor Shah Gilani.

As premise for his argument, Gilani points to the fact that U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds currently are considered “risk-free.” But if that ceases to be the case, financial firms will have to recalculate their net capital positions to accommodate the added risk.

Worse, many of those firms have already leveraged their Treasury securities to borrow more money to buy more government bonds and other – more-speculative – investments. So if these firms are made to take a serious “haircut” on federal debt obligations, their lenders could demand additional security on the loans they’ve made.

“This could actually result in a kind of ‘global margin call’ – kicking off a worldwide de-leveraging scenario that could sink global markets and torpedo world economies,” said Gilani.

Equally disconcerting, is that the fate of the dollar is intrinsically connected to Treasuries, which means the greenback itself could be in line for a bulldozing.

“The dollar is also almost certain to drop if the vast U.S. budget deficit causes a crisis in the Treasury bond market,” said Money Morning Contributing Editor Martin Hutchinson.

According to Hutchinson, the dollar has already been done in by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s expansive monetary policy and increasingly competitive emerging economies. But a credit rating downgrade will be the final nail in the greenback’s coffin.

How to Protect Yourself from a Debt-Rating Downgrade
The U.S. economy may be in for a rude awakening, but there are steps you can take to prepare yourself and preserve your wealth.

To begin with, you may consider the Rydex Inverse Government Long Bond Strategy Fund (NYSE: RYJUX), which will rise as long-term Treasury bonds lose their value.

Secondly, to preserve your wealth against the dollar’s inexorable decline you could simply invest in gold via the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (NYSE: GLD). Gold prices dipped yesterday on the news of a debt deal, but rebounded as soon as investors realized no real progress had been made on U.S. debt. The long-term trajectory for gold prices is upward.

Additionally, Martin Hutchinson recently outlined four currency investments that could help you benefit from the dollar’s demise.

A Few Things You Need to Know About the U.S. Economy

David Galland, Managing Director, Casey Research writes: At any point during the recent negotiations in Washington over the debt, did you seriously think for even a second that the U.S. was about to default?

Of course, in time the U.S. government (along with many others) will default. However, they are highly unlikely to do so by decree or even through the sort of legislative inaction recently on display. Rather, it will come about through the time-honored tradition of screwing debtors via the slow-roasting method of monetary inflation.

Yet most people still bought into the latest drama put on by the Congressional Players – a troupe of actors whose skills at pretense and artifice might very well qualify them for gilded trophies at awards banquets. Instead, rather than glittering statuettes, these masters of the thespian arts settle for undeserved honorifics and the pole position at the public trough. Followed by lifelong pensions.

But to the heart of the current matter, do I think that the latest antics out of Washington will have any more lasting effect on the trajectory of the economy than what I had for breakfast this morning (raw oats with a dab of maple syrup, milk, a sprinkling of strawberries, and half of a banana, sliced)?

Absolutely not. Sorry to say, but the trajectory of the economy at this point is well established, and closely resembles that of a meteor streaking through the night sky. What’s left of the solid matter of the nation’s accumulated private wealth is fast being burned off by an unstoppable inferno of government spending, inevitably leading to an earth-shaking crash.

I make this dire prediction not out of an aberrant psychology (I hope), or in an outburst of self-promotion for Casey Research because the big-picture scenario we have so long warned of is unfolding according to script, but rather due to certain fundamental truths about our current situation.

And that brings me to the five things you need to know about the U.S. economy (much of which also applies to the other large developed nations)…

1. The U.S. remains in the grip of a debt-induced depression. While personal levels of debt have eased somewhat since the crash, most of the improvements have come at the expense of debt repudiation, and are offset by the steep decline in housing prices that have left something like 50% of mortgages underwater. Meanwhile the debt on the balance sheets of the U.S. government and the country’s largest financial institutions remain at record highs – and much of that debt is toxic.

So, what’s the one thing that the heavily indebted – individual or institution – most fears? Answer: Rising interest rates.

2. Interest rates can’t stay low. Despite the debt, interest rates remain near historic lows – which is to say, well below the norm. At some point they have to at least revert to the mean, which would push the 10-year treasury rate north of 5% from current rates below 3%. But in reality, the levels of monetary inflation, the nature of the debt, and mind-numbing scale of the government’s other financial obligations – in total upwards of $70 trillion – all but guarantee that interest rates must go much higher than 5%. That in turn torpedoes the half-sunk real estate market and risks kicking off a debt death spiral as higher interest payments suck the financial juice out of the economy and causes debtors to demand even higher rates. Say hello to Doug Casey’s Great Depression.

The last time the U.S. economy found itself in such dire straits was back in the 1970s, when the problem was raging price inflation. Back then, though, the debt levels were considerably lower than they are now. Then, Fed Chairman Paul Volcker had the latitude to raise rates and by so doing helped to choke out inflation. By contrast, today the Fed is virtually helpless. Rates certainly can’t be pushed lower by any appreciable amount, and the Fed sure as hell doesn’t want them to go up. While the Fed has been a primary factor in controlling interest rates up to this point in the crisis, in the near future the direction of interest rates – particularly long-term rates – will increasingly be determined by skittish market participants. Specifically, the sovereign and institutional buyers whom the U.S. Treasury so desperately needs to keep showing up at their auctions.

To use a metaphor, the situation today is akin to a bunch of gunfighters facing off in a dusty street, hands poised over their six-shooters, eyes nervously shifting this way and that – to the eurozone, to the housing markets, to the situation in Japan, to the U.S. government spending, to the crumbling balance sheets of the banks, to the Fed. Everyone is anxiously watching, waiting for someone else to start making the first move. The standoff can’t last – and when the lead starts flying, there will be few places to hide.

3. There is no non-disruptive way to resolve the debt. I can’t stress this point enough. Simply, there is no magic wand that can be waved in order to make the debt go away. In order for this crisis to end, someone’s ox has to be gored, and gored badly.

Yet, because we live in a democracy, where any politician wanting to be re-elected has to cater to their constituency – and politicians make their careers by being re-elected – it is considered business as usual for the denizens of Washington to hand out bread and put on circuses. It is this situation that has brought us to this place in the first place.

But it is the flip side of that equation that provides a clear signal as to where things are headed. Namely that politicians will jump through every possible hoop in order to avoid making politically unpopular decisions – even if they know that failing to act will have serious and lasting negative consequences for the nation. The trick is to make sure that those consequences only become acute during the next guy’s watch.

The key point is that there is no easy fix, and there is no politically convenient time to take the draconian measures needed to rebalance the budget and get the nation’s finances in order. To actually take the measures needed to curb the deficits, let alone reduce the debt, would be political suicide.

So despite a lot of talk blowing out of Washington, if you have to make a bet, bet on the crisis continuing and getting worse. Greece provides a reasonable look at how things are likely to unwind. And the problems in Greece – problems which will increasingly include social unrest – are far from over. As I write, lenders are starting to pressure Italian bond yields up, clearly indicating the eurozone’s problems are only going to worsen, as will those of the US as we move toward systematic breakdown.

4. The monetary system is irretrievably broken and will be replaced. For a recent edition of The Casey Report I interviewed monetary scholar Edwin Vieira, who pointed out that every 30 to 40 years the reigning monetary system fails and has to be retooled. The last time around for the U.S. was in 1971, when Nixon cancelled the convertibility of dollars into gold. Remarkably, the world bought into the unbacked dollar as its reserve currency, but only because that was the path of least resistance. But here we are 40 years later, and it is clear to anyone paying attention that the monetary system is irretrievably broken and will fail.

What will replace it is still unclear, but I suspect that when the stuff really hits the fan and inflation rages the government will try the approach taken by the Germans to end their hyperinflation back in the 1920s, coming up with the equivalent of the Rentenmark – a dollar that is loosely linked to some basket of commodities and financial instruments. It won’t be convertible, because it would be impossible for bank tellers to exchange your dollar for a cup of oil, and a coupon off of a bond, and a chip of gold, or whatever makes up the basket – but it might restore some semblance of confidence in the currency. That’s one option. Another is that some government decides to make its currency convertible into precious metals; but that will only happen when all other less fiscally restraining systems have been floated and failed. Simply, at this point we can’t know what will replace the current monetary system, or when. All we can know is that the status quo cannot and so will not survive this crisis.

Between now and the point in time where the Fed throws in the towel on today’s fiat monetary system, you would have to be naïve in the extreme not to expect volatility, uncertainty, and wholesale financial dislocations.

5. The government is not your friend. Another simple truth is that the politicians, being just average humans, will always look after themselves first. They are well aware how difficult it is becoming to kick the can down the road and are only growing more desperate. And as the economy worsens and cries from the masses grow for the government to do “something,” the politicians will grow more desperate still.

As should now be clear to anyone, today’s political apparatuses are not operating based on any core principles – other than getting members of the government re-elected, that is. Thus the government of the U.S. and all the highly indebted Western nations are free to do almost anything in the name of the “public good.” Exchange controls? Higher taxes on the productive elements of society? Deliberate debasing of the currency? Outright confiscations for regulatory infractions? All of that – and literally anything else that helps mollify the masses and continue the charade – is likely.

Ironically, the worse the situation gets – and today’s GDP data again confirm the weakness in the economy – the greater the demands will be from the public for the government to do more, even though the government was mostly responsible for bringing us to this place. And so the government’s reach into your private affairs, and especially your finances, will only grow.

As this coincides with the rapid deployment of new monitoring technologies and procedures that allow the U.S. government in particular to cast its Sauron-like eye into every nook of the globe, the free flow of capital and legal avoidance of whatever new taxation schemes are passed will become increasingly challenging.

Summing up…

Unless and until the deficits and the debt are tangibly dealt with, expect things only to worsen and prepare accordingly. As there will never be a good time to deal with the debt, the situation will continue to deteriorate until there is a systematic breakdown.

Inflation remains the only politically viable way to continue the charade. Pretty much anything tangible will help offset the coming inflation, though the monetary metals of gold and silver will likely do better than most.

There is a lot of cash floating around. As equities are representative of a tangible (i.e., a share in an operating company), selective equities – especially those that provide essential services – will probably do okay, even if only keeping up with the inflation. Those of precious metals companies should do much better than that, but again, being selective is key because a lot of these companies actively pursue policies that are not advantageous to shareholders, most importantly steadily diluting existing shareholders by regularly issuing large swaths of new shares. While we expect volatility, and probably even sharp sell-offs, these should be considered as potential opportunities to fill in your portfolio with high quality resource companies.

Diversification across two or more political jurisdictions also makes a lot of sense to me. There is no place you can invest which doesn’t entail taking some risk at this point, but that fact only adds weight to the argument for spreading your assets around.

Finally, it’s important to remember that, as far as we know, you only live once. In some ways the transition we are going to live through is going to be pretty exciting. Perilous, certainly, but exciting as well. If you take the right steps, you should come out much better than most.

Don’t Look Now but the National Debt Could be $23 Trillion by 2021

There was a lot of back-patting in Washington this week after U.S. President Barack Obama signed a debt-ceiling deal that he and members of Congress claim will reduce the national debt.

But here’s the truth: This deal does nothing to reduce America’s debt burden. In fact, the $14 trillion we owe now could every easily exceed $23 trillion by 2021.

That’s a 62% increase.

It only takes a little bit of number crunching to see what I mean.

The deal brokered by Congress cuts spending by just $917 billion over a 10-year period, with a special congressional committee assigned to find another $1.5 trillion in deficit savings by late November.

Even if you round up, that $2.5 trillion in “savings” over a 10-year period is inconsequential when you consider that President Obama added nearly $4 trillion to the national debt in just a few short years in office.

How can you make any progress on the debt front when you’re adding $4 billion in new liabilities every day?

And the story is even worse than that: According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), even the $2.5 trillion the government claims to be saving is quickly vaporized by inflation and lost economic output.

CBO: Contrary to Barack Obama
The CBO in January estimated that a 0.1% reduction in growth rates would increase the deficit by $310 billion over the next 10 years, while a 1% increase in inflation rate would increase the deficit by $867 billion.

The CBO projects the average growth rate from 2011 to 2016 will be 3.25%, and the non-partisan group has the average rate of inflation pegged at 1.55% over that same period.

However, growth in the first half of 2011was 0.8% and the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation index – the type of inflation the CBO looks at – was 3.5%.

So let’s do the math.

If growth and inflation statistics magically revert to CBO expectations – which would be a long shot considering how much they’re already off – then the budget deficit over the next 10 years would rise by $928 billion. That alone is more than enough to wipe out the $917 billion of initial savings in the debt-ceiling bill.

.Worse, if the U.S. economy’s malaise continues to 2013, with lower growth and higher inflation than the CBO projects, then the deficit in 2012-21 will increase by $2.784 trillion.

You may argue that over three years the economy ought to do better than 0.8% growth. But with recent reports underscoring how much the economy has weakened in the past few months, I wouldn’t gamble on a stronger recovery taking hold. And given the actions of the administration and the U.S. Federal Reserve over the past couple years, I’m fairly confident that we’ll see inflation in excess of 3.5% during that same period.

If we’re really out of luck, and 2011′s first half represents a new long-term reality, then the deficit runs completely out of control.

Theoretically, it would surge by $9.17 trillion from 2012-21. But in practice, debt would spiral, the U.S. credit rating would go to hell, and an economic collapse would be inevitable.

Still, even that gloomy scenario doesn’t account for a possible increase in interest rates.

What would that look like?

Well, the CBO says a 1% increase in average interest rates over the next decade would add another $1.3 trillion to the 10-year deficit.

Of course, there is a solution to all this, but it involves a lot of bitter medicine. We’re talking about much higher interest rates, meaningful spending cuts and the closure of every available tax loophole. No more ethanol subsidies, no more mortgage interest tax deduction, and no more charitable deductions.

At this point, even this solution – unlikely as it is – would have to wait until 2013 at the earliest.

So the message is clear for investors: Invest in emerging Asia and the better-run countries of Latin America, and keep a decent chunk of your money in gold.

You’re going to need it.