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by Chris Martenson

Executive Summary

  • Which countries are next in line to "go Greek"?
  • Which major countries will be hit by deflation next? Which will instead see massive inflation?
  • How individuals should start preparing
  • Why huge massive losses and wealth transfer are inevitable for many

If you have not yet read Part 1: Greece Exposes The Global Economy's Achilles Heel, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

At a high level, the suite of predicaments we face are as obvious as they are serious. 

Perhaps the largest predicament we face is that infinite economic growth on a finite planet is an impossibility and yet that's exactly what our monetary and banking systems require.

Not merely because the bankers and politicians want it, which they do, but because that's how the system itself is designed.  When you loan money into existence, you get an exponential increase of that money over time.  Actually you get an exponential increase in debt too, only at a faster pace which translates into larger quantities.

For as long as debts are growing at an exponential pace, everything is fine with the world, the economy hums along, politicians get re-elected and the big banks churn out profits year after year.

However, when the debt growth stops, financial panic sets in, the banking system threatens collapse, and the fiscal and monetary authorities pull out all the stops in their efforts to prevent these various ills from getting any worse.

What the political and banking folks are desperately seeking to prevent is nothing less than a Great Unraveling.

Their task is impossible.

The Great Unraveling will be a set of related economic and financial crises that end up taking inflated expectations and reducing them to match reality.  Perhaps this process will take years, or maybe it will take decades, or maybe it will take months.  Nobody knows.  But the longer that…

The Approaching Great Unraveling – Are You Prepared?
PREVIEW by Chris Martenson

Executive Summary

  • Which countries are next in line to "go Greek"?
  • Which major countries will be hit by deflation next? Which will instead see massive inflation?
  • How individuals should start preparing
  • Why huge massive losses and wealth transfer are inevitable for many

If you have not yet read Part 1: Greece Exposes The Global Economy's Achilles Heel, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

At a high level, the suite of predicaments we face are as obvious as they are serious. 

Perhaps the largest predicament we face is that infinite economic growth on a finite planet is an impossibility and yet that's exactly what our monetary and banking systems require.

Not merely because the bankers and politicians want it, which they do, but because that's how the system itself is designed.  When you loan money into existence, you get an exponential increase of that money over time.  Actually you get an exponential increase in debt too, only at a faster pace which translates into larger quantities.

For as long as debts are growing at an exponential pace, everything is fine with the world, the economy hums along, politicians get re-elected and the big banks churn out profits year after year.

However, when the debt growth stops, financial panic sets in, the banking system threatens collapse, and the fiscal and monetary authorities pull out all the stops in their efforts to prevent these various ills from getting any worse.

What the political and banking folks are desperately seeking to prevent is nothing less than a Great Unraveling.

Their task is impossible.

The Great Unraveling will be a set of related economic and financial crises that end up taking inflated expectations and reducing them to match reality.  Perhaps this process will take years, or maybe it will take decades, or maybe it will take months.  Nobody knows.  But the longer that…

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…

by Chris Martenson

Executive Summary

  • The data that proves Japan is a ticking time bomb
  • Why the yen may still fall a lot further from here
  • How Japan's contagion can threaten world markets (and yes, the US)
  • Why the contagion is now underway, and what you should do about it

If you have not yet read Central Planners Are In A State of Panic available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Japan, By The Numbers

I completely understand why the Japanese authorities are freaking out and taking enormous risks.  It's because they have no good choices left.  More fundamentally (and worse) they are in charge of a system that is destined to fail.

Exponential money systems have to eventually fail because all paper money is just a marker for real wealth, it is not real wealth itself, and therefore ever-increasing exponential paper claims being stacked up  against a world of real wealth that is growing much less quickly (and someday reversing entirely) is a mathematical formula for a monetary accident.

But it's quite bizarre that Japan, of all places, cannot see through to this math predicament given their very publicly and often discussed demographic decline.

Having peaked at 128 million in 2005, Japan now has 127 million inhabitants and is on its way to 90 million by 2050, and 45 million by ~2100.

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(Source)

This means that..

What Will Happen When Japan Breaks
PREVIEW by Chris Martenson

Executive Summary

  • The data that proves Japan is a ticking time bomb
  • Why the yen may still fall a lot further from here
  • How Japan's contagion can threaten world markets (and yes, the US)
  • Why the contagion is now underway, and what you should do about it

If you have not yet read Central Planners Are In A State of Panic available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Japan, By The Numbers

I completely understand why the Japanese authorities are freaking out and taking enormous risks.  It's because they have no good choices left.  More fundamentally (and worse) they are in charge of a system that is destined to fail.

Exponential money systems have to eventually fail because all paper money is just a marker for real wealth, it is not real wealth itself, and therefore ever-increasing exponential paper claims being stacked up  against a world of real wealth that is growing much less quickly (and someday reversing entirely) is a mathematical formula for a monetary accident.

But it's quite bizarre that Japan, of all places, cannot see through to this math predicament given their very publicly and often discussed demographic decline.

Having peaked at 128 million in 2005, Japan now has 127 million inhabitants and is on its way to 90 million by 2050, and 45 million by ~2100.

 src=

(Source)

This means that..

by Chris Martenson

Recently, an article by Daniel Amerman caught our attention. Titled Is There A “Back Door” Method For The Government To Pay Down The Federal Debt Using Private Savings?, it details the process known as financial repression, where sovereign debts are slowly paid off by syphoning private savings from an unaware populace.

In this week's podcast, Chris discusses the mechanics of the process, as well as its probability, with Dan.

Dan Amerman: Will Our Private Savings Be Sacrificed To Pay Down The Public Debt?
by Chris Martenson

Recently, an article by Daniel Amerman caught our attention. Titled Is There A “Back Door” Method For The Government To Pay Down The Federal Debt Using Private Savings?, it details the process known as financial repression, where sovereign debts are slowly paid off by syphoning private savings from an unaware populace.

In this week's podcast, Chris discusses the mechanics of the process, as well as its probability, with Dan.

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