debt
by
Gregor Macdonald
Executive Summary
- As goes Japan’s efforts to rescue it’s economy, so will go the U.S. and E.U.
- Japan’s options:
- Outsource its manufacturing base
- Replace as much human labor with automation as it can
- Rush to trade its depreciating currency for hard assets around the world
- What Japan is telling us about the Keynesian endpoint
If you have not yet read Part I: Abenomics’ Dismal Anniversary, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Japan Is Reflecting the Future of Western Economies
While many observers continue to follow Europe as the proxy for post-growth dynamics in the OECD, it’s actually Japan that merits the closest analysis.
Much farther along in its post-growth phase, bloated with government debt and having tried a number of big-bang initiatives over the decades, Japan – not the U.S. or Europe – is leading the way. The country has never really recovered from the gigantic property and stock bubble over twenty years ago.
As proof, just consider the biggest trading story of the past 12 months. Was it the Federal Reserve’s intention to taper? How about the chaos in emerging market currencies in countries like India and Indonesia? Or perhaps the continued economic depression in peripheral Europe, as countries like Spain, Portugal, and Greece re-run the 1930s, with mass unemployment and people burning wood from forests to say warm? No, not even such dramatic suffering in Europe was enough to move markets or the EUR currency much this past year.
Instead, it was Abenomics and the front-running (and then chasing) of wildly huge moves in both the Nikkei and JPY that helped drive liquidity and speculative juices across all markets. It is not a coincidence that the peak of this frenzy in May heralded the peak in many markets.
But Japan has more than a financial problem. Despite the hand-wringing about Japan’s debt, the world has ignored for some time now Japan’s debt-to-GDP, GDP on an absolute basis, and Japan’s low cost of capital. Japan borrows. Japan prints. Japan devalues. But the world doesn’t care.
An issue the world may finally begin to care about, however, is that Japan has failed to launch itself out of deflation and is making very little progress in its struggle now. Indeed, Japan has a demographics problem and a resources problem that far outweigh its financial problems. To this point, instead of launching into recovery, Japan is running with the resources Red Queen, as every step of its currency devaluation is met with rising costs to import the raw materials Japan uses to make its goods…
We’re All Turning Japanese
PREVIEW by Gregor MacdonaldExecutive Summary
- As goes Japan’s efforts to rescue it’s economy, so will go the U.S. and E.U.
- Japan’s options:
- Outsource its manufacturing base
- Replace as much human labor with automation as it can
- Rush to trade its depreciating currency for hard assets around the world
- What Japan is telling us about the Keynesian endpoint
If you have not yet read Part I: Abenomics’ Dismal Anniversary, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Japan Is Reflecting the Future of Western Economies
While many observers continue to follow Europe as the proxy for post-growth dynamics in the OECD, it’s actually Japan that merits the closest analysis.
Much farther along in its post-growth phase, bloated with government debt and having tried a number of big-bang initiatives over the decades, Japan – not the U.S. or Europe – is leading the way. The country has never really recovered from the gigantic property and stock bubble over twenty years ago.
As proof, just consider the biggest trading story of the past 12 months. Was it the Federal Reserve’s intention to taper? How about the chaos in emerging market currencies in countries like India and Indonesia? Or perhaps the continued economic depression in peripheral Europe, as countries like Spain, Portugal, and Greece re-run the 1930s, with mass unemployment and people burning wood from forests to say warm? No, not even such dramatic suffering in Europe was enough to move markets or the EUR currency much this past year.
Instead, it was Abenomics and the front-running (and then chasing) of wildly huge moves in both the Nikkei and JPY that helped drive liquidity and speculative juices across all markets. It is not a coincidence that the peak of this frenzy in May heralded the peak in many markets.
But Japan has more than a financial problem. Despite the hand-wringing about Japan’s debt, the world has ignored for some time now Japan’s debt-to-GDP, GDP on an absolute basis, and Japan’s low cost of capital. Japan borrows. Japan prints. Japan devalues. But the world doesn’t care.
An issue the world may finally begin to care about, however, is that Japan has failed to launch itself out of deflation and is making very little progress in its struggle now. Indeed, Japan has a demographics problem and a resources problem that far outweigh its financial problems. To this point, instead of launching into recovery, Japan is running with the resources Red Queen, as every step of its currency devaluation is met with rising costs to import the raw materials Japan uses to make its goods…
by
Chris Martenson
For years we've preached the From the Outside In principle of markets: When trouble starts, it nearly always does so out in the weaker periphery before creeping towards the core.
We saw this in the run-up to the housing bubble collapse, as sub-prime mortgages gave way before prime loans, and in Europe, as smaller economies like Greece, Ireland, and Cyprus have fallen first and hardest (so far). We see this today in accelerating food stamp use among poorer U.S. households. In each case, the weaker economic parties give way first before being followed, over time, by the stronger ones.
Using this framework, we can often get several weeks to several months of advance notice before trouble erupts in the next ring closer to the center.
Which makes today notable, as we're receiving a number of new warning signs. The periphery is giving way.
The Periphery is Failing
by Chris MartensonFor years we've preached the From the Outside In principle of markets: When trouble starts, it nearly always does so out in the weaker periphery before creeping towards the core.
We saw this in the run-up to the housing bubble collapse, as sub-prime mortgages gave way before prime loans, and in Europe, as smaller economies like Greece, Ireland, and Cyprus have fallen first and hardest (so far). We see this today in accelerating food stamp use among poorer U.S. households. In each case, the weaker economic parties give way first before being followed, over time, by the stronger ones.
Using this framework, we can often get several weeks to several months of advance notice before trouble erupts in the next ring closer to the center.
Which makes today notable, as we're receiving a number of new warning signs. The periphery is giving way.
by
Chris Martenson
Executive Summary
- What Detroit tells us about continuing the status quo
- The shocking true size of the real U.S. debt
- Why time is our most valuable – but scarcest – asset
- Where your efforts need to be placed to address the big picture
If you have not yet read Part I: Why We All Lose If the Fed Wins, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
If we can't even have an honest conversation six years into this failed experiment about its core aspects, then it is little wonder that there's virtually no appetite for the bigger burning questions of our time, such as where do we want to be in twenty years and what do we need to do to get there?
Instead, the focus is simply on preserving the status quo and doing everything possible to maintain it. Never mind that the status quo is obviously failing in many key regards and needs some serious adjustments. All that the Fed and D.C. have in mind here is more of the same.
And this is why we will lose the war.
The Detroit Harbinger
If we want to know what happens when we ignore reality and just soldier on, we need look no further than Detroit to see how that works out. For years, that city mismanaged its finances, continually banking on the idea that eventually jobs and opportunity would return. They continued to offer – yet failed to fund – lavish pension promises to municipal employees, even though anybody with a pocket calculator could work out that the plans were not viable.
But the plans were offered, and the union reps on the other side of the table accepted the terms, even though at some point it would have made sense for someone to raise the obvious by noting that the plans were utterly insolvent and almost certain to stay that way.
Right now, the pensions in Detroit are underfunded by $3.5 billion, according to official figures. But those same officials are assuming an 8% rate of return on current pension assets, a rate that nobody is actually achieving in the pension world – thanks, in large part, to Bernanke's 0% interest rate policy.
Here's how they got to this point:
The Real Story to Focus On
PREVIEW by Chris MartensonExecutive Summary
- What Detroit tells us about continuing the status quo
- The shocking true size of the real U.S. debt
- Why time is our most valuable – but scarcest – asset
- Where your efforts need to be placed to address the big picture
If you have not yet read Part I: Why We All Lose If the Fed Wins, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
If we can't even have an honest conversation six years into this failed experiment about its core aspects, then it is little wonder that there's virtually no appetite for the bigger burning questions of our time, such as where do we want to be in twenty years and what do we need to do to get there?
Instead, the focus is simply on preserving the status quo and doing everything possible to maintain it. Never mind that the status quo is obviously failing in many key regards and needs some serious adjustments. All that the Fed and D.C. have in mind here is more of the same.
And this is why we will lose the war.
The Detroit Harbinger
If we want to know what happens when we ignore reality and just soldier on, we need look no further than Detroit to see how that works out. For years, that city mismanaged its finances, continually banking on the idea that eventually jobs and opportunity would return. They continued to offer – yet failed to fund – lavish pension promises to municipal employees, even though anybody with a pocket calculator could work out that the plans were not viable.
But the plans were offered, and the union reps on the other side of the table accepted the terms, even though at some point it would have made sense for someone to raise the obvious by noting that the plans were utterly insolvent and almost certain to stay that way.
Right now, the pensions in Detroit are underfunded by $3.5 billion, according to official figures. But those same officials are assuming an 8% rate of return on current pension assets, a rate that nobody is actually achieving in the pension world – thanks, in large part, to Bernanke's 0% interest rate policy.
Here's how they got to this point:
by
charleshughsmith
Executive Summary
- Understanding the Fed's ability to impact (or not) health & education, pensions, and inflation
- What you can do to insulate yourself from the impacts of the Fed's financial interference
- Mindset
- Major expenses
- Debt
- Resilience
- Income
If you have not yet read Part I: The Fed Matters Much Less Than You Think, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part I, we found that the supposedly omniscient Federal Reserve is irrelevant to the engine of real wealth creation (innovation) and actively inhibits the allocation of capital and labor to innovation by incentivizing speculation and malinvestment.
In Part II, we’ll look at what else matters that the Fed either negatively influences or does not control, as well as specific actions we can take as individuals to insulate ourselves from the collateral damage caused by misguided central bank policies.
Health and Education
We all know health and education are vital to individuals and the economy, and like everything else that matters, the Fed’s influence is limited to financial repression of interest rates that enables the Federal government to avoid the sort of healthy fiscal discipline that higher rates would demand. In other words, the Fed has widened the moat around government spending, protecting it from the hard choices that would accompany massive deficits and bond issuance in a free-market economy.
Public and Private Pensions
By at least one measure, the Fed’s repression of interest rates (designed to recapitalize the banks at no direct cost to the Fed or government) has cost savers $10.8 trillion in lost income. Since the majority of savings in the U.S. are in public and private pension plans, 401Ks, and IRAs (individual retirement accounts), the Fed’s repression of interest rates has pushed these income-security savings into risky speculative asset bubbles in stocks, bonds, and real estate, and critically undermined the financial health of pensions by radically reducing their low-risk, safe returns.
How You Can Limit Your Exposure to the Fed’s Financial Interference
PREVIEW by charleshughsmithExecutive Summary
- Understanding the Fed's ability to impact (or not) health & education, pensions, and inflation
- What you can do to insulate yourself from the impacts of the Fed's financial interference
- Mindset
- Major expenses
- Debt
- Resilience
- Income
If you have not yet read Part I: The Fed Matters Much Less Than You Think, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part I, we found that the supposedly omniscient Federal Reserve is irrelevant to the engine of real wealth creation (innovation) and actively inhibits the allocation of capital and labor to innovation by incentivizing speculation and malinvestment.
In Part II, we’ll look at what else matters that the Fed either negatively influences or does not control, as well as specific actions we can take as individuals to insulate ourselves from the collateral damage caused by misguided central bank policies.
Health and Education
We all know health and education are vital to individuals and the economy, and like everything else that matters, the Fed’s influence is limited to financial repression of interest rates that enables the Federal government to avoid the sort of healthy fiscal discipline that higher rates would demand. In other words, the Fed has widened the moat around government spending, protecting it from the hard choices that would accompany massive deficits and bond issuance in a free-market economy.
Public and Private Pensions
By at least one measure, the Fed’s repression of interest rates (designed to recapitalize the banks at no direct cost to the Fed or government) has cost savers $10.8 trillion in lost income. Since the majority of savings in the U.S. are in public and private pension plans, 401Ks, and IRAs (individual retirement accounts), the Fed’s repression of interest rates has pushed these income-security savings into risky speculative asset bubbles in stocks, bonds, and real estate, and critically undermined the financial health of pensions by radically reducing their low-risk, safe returns.
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