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China

by Chris Martenson

In this week's Off the Cuff podcast, Chris and Charles Hugh Smith discuss:

  • Gold is being driven by speculators in lock-step with the yen
  • So is the S&P 500
  • Why labor pricing power is broken and will stay that way
  • The shale oil Ponzi scheme breaks…and defaults are sure to follow
  • China's economic miracle is about to become a mirage

Charles: And it certainly seems that oil is being used as a weapon. But you know, let's also I would like your view on the idea that the world economy is going into recession. It seems sort of obvious to me. Europe is already either in recession or so stagnant that it is the same as recession. The US is stumbling along with fake growth in terms of households. And then China is rolling over. Japan is going down the sinkhole.

So what will that do to oil if demand really craters like we get another 2008 situation where the financing dries up and people stop borrowing because they are afraid and they stop spending and the whole thing that causes recession. I think that is going to have a potentially huge impact on oil and it would hurt everybody that is producing oil the Saudis included. They may be talking bravely, but I believe that their production costs have risen considerably because they have had to run hundreds of miles of pipe and they are injecting carbon dioxide and sea water and stuff into their wells to keep their production up.

Chris Martenson: The old days of Saudi Arabia sticking a straw in the ground and pulling oil out at a dollar or two a barrel those are long gone because if you have ever seen they have a rack of four pipes that stretch, I forget, 100 miles or something going from the ocean to one of their fields. And each one of those pipes is about the diameter of a large room. They are like 14 feet in diameter they are extraordinarily huge. There is four of them and they are just pumping seawater and they are injecting that down into the field at a variety of points. So yea, that's expensive. And worse the rate of inflation in the mining business has been roughly around 10% for the last 10 years. That means that your costs are going to completely double every seven years when you've got 10% inflation. So that is what the mining industry and particularly the petroleum has been putting up with.

Off the Cuff: Bankers On Edge
PREVIEW by Chris Martenson

In this week's Off the Cuff podcast, Chris and Charles Hugh Smith discuss:

  • Gold is being driven by speculators in lock-step with the yen
  • So is the S&P 500
  • Why labor pricing power is broken and will stay that way
  • The shale oil Ponzi scheme breaks…and defaults are sure to follow
  • China's economic miracle is about to become a mirage

Charles: And it certainly seems that oil is being used as a weapon. But you know, let's also I would like your view on the idea that the world economy is going into recession. It seems sort of obvious to me. Europe is already either in recession or so stagnant that it is the same as recession. The US is stumbling along with fake growth in terms of households. And then China is rolling over. Japan is going down the sinkhole.

So what will that do to oil if demand really craters like we get another 2008 situation where the financing dries up and people stop borrowing because they are afraid and they stop spending and the whole thing that causes recession. I think that is going to have a potentially huge impact on oil and it would hurt everybody that is producing oil the Saudis included. They may be talking bravely, but I believe that their production costs have risen considerably because they have had to run hundreds of miles of pipe and they are injecting carbon dioxide and sea water and stuff into their wells to keep their production up.

Chris Martenson: The old days of Saudi Arabia sticking a straw in the ground and pulling oil out at a dollar or two a barrel those are long gone because if you have ever seen they have a rack of four pipes that stretch, I forget, 100 miles or something going from the ocean to one of their fields. And each one of those pipes is about the diameter of a large room. They are like 14 feet in diameter they are extraordinarily huge. There is four of them and they are just pumping seawater and they are injecting that down into the field at a variety of points. So yea, that's expensive. And worse the rate of inflation in the mining business has been roughly around 10% for the last 10 years. That means that your costs are going to completely double every seven years when you've got 10% inflation. So that is what the mining industry and particularly the petroleum has been putting up with.

by Chris Martenson

Executive Summary

  • What is 'deflation?'
  • Why do central banks fear it so much?
  • What falling prices really mean.
  • Commodities are telling us that a global slowdown is already here.
  • China's economic miracle is over.
  • What happens next (please keep your preparations on track!)

If you have not yet read Oil And The Global Slowdown available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

The title of this part says it all. So let's begin with an important definition. What is 'deflation'?

To hear the media and central banks tell it, it is something fearful and that must be avoided at all costs. Confusingly they then point to falling prices as evidence of the horror of which they speak.

The only problem is that you and I like falling prices. If my health insurance cost 10% less next year I’d be thrilled. But the central banks would be horrified.

The difference between these two positions lies in the definition of deflation. While the media always blindly regurgitates the central bank line that falling prices are an indication of deflation they really shouldn't.

The Central Banks Have Lost
PREVIEW by Chris Martenson

Executive Summary

  • What is 'deflation?'
  • Why do central banks fear it so much?
  • What falling prices really mean.
  • Commodities are telling us that a global slowdown is already here.
  • China's economic miracle is over.
  • What happens next (please keep your preparations on track!)

If you have not yet read Oil And The Global Slowdown available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

The title of this part says it all. So let's begin with an important definition. What is 'deflation'?

To hear the media and central banks tell it, it is something fearful and that must be avoided at all costs. Confusingly they then point to falling prices as evidence of the horror of which they speak.

The only problem is that you and I like falling prices. If my health insurance cost 10% less next year I’d be thrilled. But the central banks would be horrified.

The difference between these two positions lies in the definition of deflation. While the media always blindly regurgitates the central bank line that falling prices are an indication of deflation they really shouldn't.

by charleshughsmith

In early September, I made the case for a rising U.S. dollar. Since then the dollar has continued its advance, and is now breaking out of a downtrend stretching back to 2005—and by some accounts, to 1985.

So what does this mean for the global economy?

 

The Consequences of a Strengthening US Dollar
by charleshughsmith

In early September, I made the case for a rising U.S. dollar. Since then the dollar has continued its advance, and is now breaking out of a downtrend stretching back to 2005—and by some accounts, to 1985.

So what does this mean for the global economy?

 

by charleshughsmith

Executive Summary

  • Understanding the two different ways money flows into the US dollar
  • How currency crises elsewhere can send the dollar skyrocketing
  • Why yen, yuan and euro printing are not the same as dollar printing
  • How these accelerating money flows are creating the next global crisis

If you have not yet read The Consequences of a Strengthening US Dollar available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

In Part 1, we surveyed the key dynamic that is playing out across the globe: the problems revealed by the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008-2009 were not addressed; they were in effect shifted into the foreign exchange (FX) market. Now the risk bubble is in the FX market.

The complexity of the feedbacks into the FX market is nothing short of mind-boggling, and rather than attempt a comprehensive survey, I’m highlighting the dynamics that hold the greatest risks of triggering instability, not just in finance but in geopolitics, trade and commodities.

Two Kinds of Dollar Flows

Let’s start by differentiating between the two kinds of money flows into the dollar:

  1. Money converted from periphery currencies into dollars to pay back loans denominated in dollars
     
  2. Money flowing out of periphery economies and into dollar-denominated assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate and dollar-denominated bank accounts.

Broadly speaking, both of these capital flows are “risk-off,” but they have different effects.

In the first case, money borrowed on the cheap in dollars and invested in high-yield periphery bonds earned a tidy profit as the dollar weakened. The trader picked up a double profit: the arbitrage on the interest rates (borrow at .25% and earn 4+%) and the FX profit from the rise of the periphery currency and the decline of the dollar.

This currency-arbitrage profit reverses when the dollar starts rising, and it quickly wipes out the entire interest-rate profit as it leaps higher.

The carry trade is “risk-on” because money is being borrowed to speculate in interest-rate arbitrage. Deleveraging this trade is “risk-off” because the only way to stem the potential losses as the dollar strengthens is to…

Why The Strengthening Dollar Is A Sign Of The Next Global Crisis
PREVIEW by charleshughsmith

Executive Summary

  • Understanding the two different ways money flows into the US dollar
  • How currency crises elsewhere can send the dollar skyrocketing
  • Why yen, yuan and euro printing are not the same as dollar printing
  • How these accelerating money flows are creating the next global crisis

If you have not yet read The Consequences of a Strengthening US Dollar available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

In Part 1, we surveyed the key dynamic that is playing out across the globe: the problems revealed by the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008-2009 were not addressed; they were in effect shifted into the foreign exchange (FX) market. Now the risk bubble is in the FX market.

The complexity of the feedbacks into the FX market is nothing short of mind-boggling, and rather than attempt a comprehensive survey, I’m highlighting the dynamics that hold the greatest risks of triggering instability, not just in finance but in geopolitics, trade and commodities.

Two Kinds of Dollar Flows

Let’s start by differentiating between the two kinds of money flows into the dollar:

  1. Money converted from periphery currencies into dollars to pay back loans denominated in dollars
     
  2. Money flowing out of periphery economies and into dollar-denominated assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate and dollar-denominated bank accounts.

Broadly speaking, both of these capital flows are “risk-off,” but they have different effects.

In the first case, money borrowed on the cheap in dollars and invested in high-yield periphery bonds earned a tidy profit as the dollar weakened. The trader picked up a double profit: the arbitrage on the interest rates (borrow at .25% and earn 4+%) and the FX profit from the rise of the periphery currency and the decline of the dollar.

This currency-arbitrage profit reverses when the dollar starts rising, and it quickly wipes out the entire interest-rate profit as it leaps higher.

The carry trade is “risk-on” because money is being borrowed to speculate in interest-rate arbitrage. Deleveraging this trade is “risk-off” because the only way to stem the potential losses as the dollar strengthens is to…

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