GD: Tokyo Plays Hardball, Weakens Yen, Lifts the Nikkei
By Gary Dorsch, Editor, Global Money Trends newsletter
“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. And not one man in a million will detect the theft,” John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1920.
On Dec 12th, a shadowy group of political lackeys, voted 11-1 to launch what’s popularly dubbed as “Infinity QE-4,” – the Federal Reserve’s most radical scheme ever, that’s designed to enable the US-government to continue borrowing as much as $1-trillion per year, for the next several years, if necessary, in order to finance the burgeoning US-welfare state. US-lawmakers are negotiating over the details of the so-called “fiscal cliff,” but are simply nibbling at the edges of $1-trillion budget deficits. Yet US-politicians from both sides of the isle, believe they can stave off significant tax hikes and spending cuts, without having to pay a penalty of sharply higher interest rates, which normally follows such fiscal recklessness.
In an unprecedented step, the Federal Reserve said on Dec 12th, that it would hold short-term Treasury yields near zero –percent until the US-jobless rate falls to 6.5% as it launched a new round of T-bond purchases to inflate the US-money supply. Fed officials committed to monthly purchases of $45-billion in Treasuries on top of the $40-billion per month in mortgage-backed bonds they started buying in September. The new round of government bond-buying dubbed “Infinity QE-4” will be funded by essentially creating new money, and further expanding the Fed's $2.8 trillion balance sheet today, to as much as $6-trillion by the end of 2015.
“The Fed continues to operate an open bar for the fiscal drunks in Washington,” says economist Ed Yardeni, referring to the Fed’s readiness to finance Washington’s massive budget deficits. And since the Fed returns any interest payments on the T-notes, back to the Treasury, the federal government is able to borrow money at no cost. However, there is a cost to be paid by the American people, - a massive inflation tax, that will eventually take effect, when the cost of living in America begins to accelerate at a frightening pace, and the cost of goods and services far exceeds the current levels of US-household income.
The Fed is trying to cloak its mischievous role as the chief financier of the US-government, by arguing that its objective, according to Fed chief Ben Bernanke, “is to help the American middle class. This is a Main Street policy because what we are about here is trying to get jobs going,” Bernanke said at a press conference, where reporters are only allowed to ask softball type questions. “If people feel that their financial situation is better because their 401(k) looks better, their house is worth more, they are more willing to go out and spend and that’s going to provide the demand that firms need in order to be willing to hire and to invest,” the former Princeton professor said, explaining Bernanke’s theory of “trickle down” Economics.
Yet with 10-year US T-Note yields already suppressed at historic lows, and pegged below the US-inflation rate, it is hard to argue that what’s needed is to make credit even cheaper is another $1-trillion of extra liquidity from the Fed. And with $1.5-trillion of excess reserves in the US-banking system, it is hard to believe that the Wall Street banking Oligarchs need more liquidity to bolster their balance sheets. Instead, what Fed is trying to enforce is what’s called “financial repression,” - defined as the “totalitarian control of credit under which Treasury financing can be arranged cheaply in spite of a massive increase in the size of the national debt, thru a system of combined and interconnected open-market policies.”
The Fed, the chief financier of the US-government is now holding $1.65-trillion of US T-notes. It’s also spinning a well-packaged web of lies that’s being sold to the masses, gradually, and if somebody tries to speak the truth about the coming wave of hyper inflation, about to sweep the US-welfare state, the “Boy who cries Wolf,” is made to seem utterly preposterous and a raving lunatic. The US-public is fed information about the rate of inflation, that’s under the control of the apparatchiks at the US Labor department, - now touting new ideas, such as the chained-CPI, that’s designed to eliminate future cost of living increases for entitlements.
Dallas Fed chief Richard Fisher, among the few token hawks at the Fed, laments that with quantitative easing (QE), “Financiers we have become. The US-Treasury is hooked on the monetary morphine we provided, when we performed massive reconstructive surgery during the 2008-09 panic. We have filled the gas tank and then some,” he said. But more morphine is needed. The Fed has been asked by the ruling political elite to buy $40-billion of US-T-Notes each month in the year ahead. The Fed is stepping its QE injections, because America’s biggest lender, - China, - is no longer willing to bankroll the US-Treasury. Beijing was a net seller of $95-billion of US Treasury notes over the 12-months ending October 31st.
As of October 31st, foreign investors, - mainly central banks, were holders of $5.85-trillion of US-T-Notes, up +11% from a year earlier. However, in October, the pace of foreign buying slowed to a trickle- a tiny $4-billion increase, which was far less than the average $50.7-billion of purchases per month, over the previous 11-months.
Without the support of “Infinity QE-4”, US T-Note prices could sink under the weight of an $965-billion of new US-government debt to be auctioned in fiscal 2013. Without QE-4, US-T-bond yields could rise sharply, and deal a major blow to the US-stock markets, where traders are now treating blue-chip companies that pay higher yielding dividends and arrange stock buybacks, as surrogates for fixed income bonds. “I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt,” Thomas Jefferson warned.
Tokyo Prepares to Launch “Big-Bang” QE,
One of the side-effects of the Fed’s QE schemes is to weaken the US-dollar’s exchange rate against other currencies. And that’s a major threat to the economic health of many Asian economies that depend upon a high level of exports abroad. Perhaps no other Asian country has been as badly damaged from the Fed’s ultra-easy money policies, than Japan. Its economy contracted at an annualized -3.5% rate in the third quarter, the worst contraction since last year’s earthquake as exports slumped and consumer spending fell.
Japan’s exports have fallen for six straight months in a row, compared with a year ago. Shipments to China, Japan’s top export market, were -14.5% lower in November than a year earlier, because of a Chinese consumer boycott of Japanese goods. Exports to Europe plunged -20% from a year ago, and were down for a 14th straight month. As a result, Japan’s trade deficit for the first 11-months of 2012, widened to a record ¥6.2-trillion yen ($76.4-billion). Japan’s economy is expected to contract -0.4% in the fourth quarter, meeting the textbook definition of a recession. Nikkei-225 companies suffered a combined drop of -31% in net income in the third quarter compared with a year ago.
