Posted on 04/10/2010 6:17:30 AM PDT by Rutles4Ever
The sovereign debt crisis has crossed a threshold. It’s no longer about economics. It’s about math and a complex system whose dynamics tell us there is little time to avoid catastrophe and almost no exit. Going forward, elections and policies will matter less as the debt plague takes hold and dictates hard outcomes.
It is the case that real debt cannot be repaid through any feasible combination of growth and taxes. We will soon arrive at the point where it cannot be rolled over. Debt includes contingent liabilities as well as bonds. In the U.S., this means social security, healthcare and housing obligations estimated at over $60 trillion. That does not include unfunded pension obligations of the states whose plans use fanciful 8% growth assumptions to limit contributions. Pension debt grows exponentially; a toxic brew of increased benefits, contribution shortfalls and anemic performance.
Even what we call money is debt. Paper money is a contract between citizen and government. As with any contract, it pays to read the fine print. Embossed on each U.S. bill is the phrase “Federal Reserve Note.” Give the Fed credit for full disclosure; these notes are liabilities. If the Fed’s mortgage assets were marked-to-market the Fed itself would be insolvent. In short, it’s all debt. Wealth is illusory if it involves a claim payable in dollars which are but a claim on an insolvent central bank backed only by its ability to print more debt. The situation is worse in the UK, Europe and Japan. The global financial system is a rope of sand.
If this system is illusory, how has it prospered over centuries? The answer is that for many years governments ran surpluses and at times had no debt at all. Growth was robust providing support to the tax base. Governments had the trust of bond markets to rollover maturing obligations. With some fits and starts, tangible wealth creation outpaced debt creation. And until recently paper money was backed by gold at fixed rates of exchange. Today all four legs of the table – surpluses, growth, trust and gold are gone or damaged.
There is no prospect for surpluses; nations hit the brink of disorder at the mere mention of 3% deficit-to-GDP ratios. Growth prospects are likewise dim given current policy. Obama grew spending on a feed-the-beast theory that forces taxes to rise to match spending. If Obama does not get his way, deficits will be ruinous. If he does get his way, taxes will stifle growth. You cannot tax your way to solvency in a world of low growth and compound interest.
As for market trust, go ask the Greeks. Each bond buyer has a critical threshold where he will not buy another bond. Picture bond buyers as theatre patrons. The image of someone yelling “fire” and patrons rushing out in a panic is familiar. More intriguing is the case in which just a few patrons rush out for no apparent reason. Do those remaining follow suit or stay seated? It depends on their individual thresholds. If high enough, everyone remains seated. But if some thresholds are low, those patrons leave too triggering other thresholds and so on until a cascade of exits empties the theatre.
In markets, the array of individual thresholds is immensely complex. The scale, interdependence and adaptability of market participants today are greater than ever. It would take very little to trigger a wholesale revulsion with sovereign debt.
What about gold? The view is that systems on a gold standard system cannot increase money supply as needed; of course, that’s the whole idea. Increasing money beyond the modest levels at which gold supply grows is the Keynesian remedy. But empirical evidence shows the so-called Keynesian multiplier is fractional and therefore a wealth destroyer. Another attack on gold is that there’s not enough of it to support money supply; but of course there’s always enough gold; it’s just a question of price.
The U.S. has never truly gone off the gold standard. The U.S. gold hoard today has a dollar value equal to about 20% of U.S. M1 money supply – a respectable ratio even in the heyday of the fractional gold standard. A gold price of $5,500 per ounce would comfortably support a broader U.S. money supply on a one-to-one ratio and maintain confidence in the dollar and U.S. sovereign debt.
Is there an exit? One path involves hyperinflation to destroy the real value of debt followed by redenomination and a new paper money game. The other path involves a gold backed currency at a non-deflationary price. This is a choice between denial and frank talk. Sound money leads to sound growth and the creation of real, not illusory, wealth.
James G. Rickards is a director of Omnis, Inc. and former general counsel of Long-Term Capital Management. Follow him at twitter.com/JamesGRickards.
Today’s dollar = tomorrow’s dime.
That's a lot of people waiting for their "government checks."
yikes!
And when the fan becomes soiled, paper money can't be eaten, worn, or used to heat your house, either. But at least gold will have economic value, unlike the paper stuff in your pocket. You don't eat the gold anymore than you would eat a $5 bill. It's what the gold will BUY.
bump
If it takes so little to unravel, how come endless doom screeched by half the world for centuries hasn't made the slightest impression?
The reality is government credit stands on government power to tax very wealthy and growing economies, and remains as strong as ever.
The reality about the supposed horror of unfunded liabilities is they are not debts, and only cost something if someone also receives them.
A further reality is that debt service is not a loss but about the most justified government expenditure imaginable, right up there with national defense, and practically everything else governments do is less defensible.
As for the dreams of a gold standard, it never worked as advertized when we had one and it died of natural causes, definitively. It is a horrible idea. And no, a commodity money doesn't prevent government spending or even currency debasement - the term "debasement" itself ought to tell anyone that.
The modern capitalist world is rich and will remain so, is not built on sand, and a gold bug telling you otherwise is no more plausible than a communist telling you otherwise. They've all been predicting the immediate demise of capitalism for as long as there has been capitalism and they are all idiots.
Why don't you think US dollars won't?
The reality is, US dollars will, and everyone pretending they are imaginary is insane.
It’s not a matter of whether gold or paper will buy something or NOT buy something. It’s a matter of how much. But, on second thought, you’re probably right. I’m insane.
The main wisdom behind owning gold and stocking up now is to have something to use to..."get back in the game".
After the whole mess crashes...when cash is useless in any amount less than a truckload...and we're all living off of what our wits told us to stockpile in the basement, there will come a time when the economy returns to form and you will need to rebuild your assets. That is when you would release your gold for other assets. You are right. It's not for buying food and water when the SHTF.
Between 1979 and 1983 a dollar went from the 1978 value to around 30 cents. Todays apprx. $1000 oz of gold might go to $3000 in that situation. We’re currently printing more money faster...
(round numbers here guys...)
Please read and consider Au ownership.
I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation in the event of remonetization - and remonetization is the only real alternative to hyperinflation FOLLOWED by remonetization.
But, if and when gold is remonetized after the collapse of the Fed, to allow the Treasury to issue banknotes again, you can bet there will be a ferocious G-20 wide attempt to outlaw private buying and selling of gold. As in the USSR, it could easily become a capital offense.
Your gold and silver, IOW, may work in a Mogadishu situation - but if the government uses gold again, it will become VERY difficult to convert yours into New Dollars, or Ameros, or whatever they call it.
Presidential Commission to explore restructering voluntary retirement funds; some of the items are the disparity of savings between minorities and the distribution of the savings. When they say the distribution they mean taking your savngs and then promising to pay you back social securiy type payments.
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/publications/2009ACreport1.html
Yep, exactly.
That is their plan.
“Ultimately, every penny of very debt must be paid – if not by the borrower, than by the lender.” so said CV Meyers
Another article I saw put the deflator from 1950 through 2007 at exactly 10:1, so that a 2007 dollar was worth one silver FDR dime of 1950.
Then there's been some inflation and deflation since 2007, only I haven't seen a number. I'm guessing about 15%.
No, fiat money isn't backed by anything.
You're describing a fractional reserve currency, such as what we were circulating in 1955-1965, when e.g. silver certificates were still freely exchangeable for silver "cartwheels" at the Federal Reserve.
I.e., "social justice". Black voters used their 95% solid-bloc votes to command government employees to take your work and your value from you, for "social justice" or "reparations" in the form of AFDC, food stamps, welfare, workfare, and just plain transfer payments.
And they won't be saying "thank you".
Greenspan.
Which means thermonuclear war. Which means that that is not going to happen.
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