Posted on 10/31/2014 5:33:11 PM PDT by Sean_Anthony
Federal Reserve is losing control. They cannot keep interest rates low forever. Nobody can. And when rates rise, the results will be devastating
In the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando) utters, “the horror, the horror,” on his deathbed. He might as well have been talking about the U.S. dollar.
Central banks maintain a nation’s currency. As the world’s largest central bank, the United States Federal Reserve, or “Fed,” sets the rate of interest in worldwide lending. It also has major influence on monetary policy. For instance, the Fed’s $85 billion per month in asset purchases, known as Quantitative Easing, or “QE,” caused other banks to do the same. This is a bad thing. What’s worse is keeping interest rates artificially low for long periods of time. The Federal Funds rate has been at zero since 2008, and QE is one of the tools they use to hold rates down.
“We’re not going to allow our American friends to melt the dollar,” said Brazil’s finance minister Guido Mantega in 2011, obviously frustrated over the rise in the real due to speculative capital inflows. The European Central Bank and Bank of Japan have also embarked on asset-buying to keep pace with America’s easy-money, while the Swedish krona hit a four year low versus the dollar on Tuesday after that country’s central bank cut rates to zero. “The Fed is exporting this lunatic policy worldwide,” says former U.S. Congressman David Stockman. “Central banks all over the world have been massively expanding their balance sheets and as a result of that there are bubbles in everything in the world. Asset values are exaggerated everywhere.”
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
Ah cannae hole ‘er much longer, Captain!
The big secret to economics is that any fiat currency, especially a virtual fiat currency, is not worth the paper it isn’t printed on.
When it has an association with anything, even tulip bulbs, it can harm that thing. But when it has no association with anything, it is just number on a computer.
So, let’s say the US has $100 trillion in “assumed” debt. The congress can just transfer almost all of it to an alternative currency called “Obama bucks”, then allow that alternative currency to collapse.
The only problem with this, which actually isn’t a problem, is that nobody will be willing to credit the US for any more debt. Like California, its credit rating will be in the basement.
No more debt, no more profligate spending. The dollar will be worth exactly the revenue brought in with taxes. Not a penny more.
The U.S.A. had a nearly $22 billion trade deficit with Canada at the end of August. Before long, we won’t be buying anything at all from the north because of the default—default caused by balance of payments deficits (trade deficits with many other nations). Raise your loonie, Guido. Cut some lumber. Pump some oil. Do some mining.
“The Fed is exporting this lunatic policy worldwide,” says former U.S. Congressman David Stockman. “Central banks all over the world have been massively expanding their balance sheets and as a result of that there are bubbles in everything in the world. Asset values are exaggerated everywhere.”
Russian roulette in tandem with musical chairs. Murder & mayhem. Plunder and death. Dancing with deceivers and their derivatives.
http://www.constitution.org/cmt/freneau/republic2monarchy.htm
6. But the grand nostrum will be a public debt, provided enough of it can be got and it be medicated with the proper ingredients. If by good fortune a debt be ready at hand, the most is to be made of it. Stretch it and swell it to the utmost the items will bear. Allow as many extra claims as decency will permit. Assume all the debts of your neighbors - in a word, get as much debt as can be raked and scraped together, and when you have got all you can, “advertise” for more, and have the debt made as big as possible. This object being accomplished, the next will be to make it as perpetual as possible; and the next to that, to get it into as few hands as possible. The more effectually to bring this about, modify the debt, complicate it, divide it, subdivide it, subtract it, postpone it, let there be one-third of two-thirds, and two-thirds of one-third, and two-thirds of two-thirds; let there be 3 percents, and 4 percents, and 6 percents, and present 6 percents, and future 6 percents. To be brief, let the whole be such a mystery that a few only can understand it; and let all possible opportunities and informations fall in the way of these few to cinch their advantages over the many.
7. It must not be forgotten that the members of the legislative body are to have a deep stake in the game.
“Congress shall have the power to COIN money..”
Have you read Stockman’s book, The Great Deformation?
It’s incredibly depressing....and likely accurate....
I have not. Thanks much for the recommendation.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Thanks for that link. It looks very good (speed-reading ch1 & 2). I’ll get that one.
You may need a major dose of Prozac afterwards...it’s not pretty...but as I said it’s likely very correct.
Eventually the grim reaper of debt has to be reckoned with.
Bump!
The world banks and bankers know the only way out of the mess they created with the government debts and welfare spending is to inflate the currency to wipe out the savings of the middle class. the poor will always get their handouts and lose nothing. The rich are insulated by being the first to benefit from monetary policy. The middle class can’t do all that much as their savings melt in to nothingness to bail out Obamabanks.
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