The Room : Ben Bernanke

The Room – 06/05/2009

David Galland — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:10:00 GMT

Dear Reader,

Before getting down to the business of trying to make some sense out of the Bizarro World we’ve stumbled into, I want to thank all of you who wrote in response to last week's edition of these musings.

And I want to apologize for the e-mail flub-up that resulted in many of you receiving a rather odd response that had next to nothing to do with the e-mail you sent. Further, I'm sorry to say that this e-mail issue was only discovered yesterday, which means I haven’t had a chance to respond to your many good thoughts.

Quickly scanning the pile of e-mails, however, I was happy to see a lot of them contained high praise for the guest editorial Decline and Fall of the American Empire by James Quinn. I have passed those e-mails on to Jim and let him know we’d love to hear more from him in the future.

Also, since we’re chatting, I’d like to mention that we are considering making The Room a daily, versus a weekly, publication. That would allow us to be more timely and to deliver the content in more bite-size segments, rather than the weekly magnum opus as is currently the case.

What do you think? Drop me a line at David@CaseyResearch.com .

While you're at it, maybe you'd like to suggest a new name for this column/blog/musings thing that better reflects its nature and the fact that it is delivered daily, should we decide to go ahead with that change. (And your input will definitely factor into our decision.)

Finally, before we move on to what's important for the week's news, I’d like to mention our new weekly e-letter, "Conversations with Casey." By now, as a Casey subscriber, you should have received the first edition of this new publication. The genesis of it is simply that, since partnering up with Doug Casey in 2004, one of the great benefits of our association has been that it gives us the opportunity to chat on a regular basis. I can assure you that Doug is as interesting and colorful in casual conversation as he is in the written word or his platform speeches.

And so, thanks to all sorts of wonderful modern technology, we figured it would be a pretty simple matter to record quick discussions with Doug and get them out the door to provide Doug’s latest thoughts on the passing parade and to introduce Doug and Casey Research to a wider audience. If you did not receive your copy of the inaugural issue, check your spam filter, or click here to sign up.

Now, on to the week’s big news, and more… starting with the unemployment data that are getting so much attention as I write.

Unemployment Falls!

“Job Losses in the U.S. Slow, Signaling Recession Is Abating”

(Bloomberg headline, June 4)

For the week ending May 30, it was widely reported, initial jobless claims eased to 621,000 unfortunates, a reduction of 4,000 over the previous week. Let's ignore for a moment that that is an awful lot of people freshly added to the line for unemployment benefits. Let’s focus instead on the fact that the 4,000 improvement was on the revised data put out by the Labor Department.

Originally, for the week ending May 16, the numbers released stated that 623,000 people were newly unemployed – but that number was subsequently revised upwards to 625,000. Should a similar adjustment be made a week or so down the road, and 2,000 people are added to the 621,000 number, the May 30th numbers would bump back up to 623,000 – for an actual improvement of just 2,000, or just 0.32% of the total. Anyone who sees a bottom in those numbers is either delusional or deceitful.

Elsewhere, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the employment stats for the month of May, stats that generated the following comments from our own Bud Conrad…

Housing Market Bottoms!

"US Housing Market: Pending Home Resales Rocket 6.7%”

(BusinessWeek, June 4)

There was also much made this week of the notion that the housing market was bottoming. The most pointed-to statistic was an improvement in the pending sales of existing homes in April. To wit, signed contracts… not actual sales.

Not to be a grouch, but as you can see in the chart here, there is a natural uptrend in housing sales in the March to June period. So the latest numbers are not out of left field but reflect to some extent seasonal patterns.

Even so, the bump in sales of 6.7% was still quick good news and, by historic terms, the logical outcome of low interest rates and sharply falling prices. Even so, it is waaaaayyyy too early to spot a turn in the bend as far as housing is concerned.

In fact, the only real trend in motion at this point, you can see in the chart here. It’s from the National Association of Realtors and shows home sales bouncing along in the basement. As you don’t need us to tell you, rising interest rates will merely increase the pressure on home sales going forward. The odds are good that sales will not fall off a cliff quite as steep as witnessed in 2007. But to expect the opposite – that at any time soon, we’ll see a surge of buying sufficient to chew through close to a year’s worth of housing inventory, and therefore begin to drive prices back to the upside – is to expect the highly improbable.

Another trend in motion can be seen in this chart, showing how the subprime foreclosures are starting to ease, but the larger market of prime mortgages is now heading for even bigger trouble.

So, Why the Stock Market Rally?

Over the last month or so, the stress-tested banks have raised over $84 billion in new capital. Of course, much of this is in response to the fact that now the government is insisting on compensation caps for banks that have received TARP funds. And it is now set to enforce those caps with the help of a soon-to-be-appointed "Special Master for Compensation," who will report directly to Treasury Secretary Geithner.

(Note: the term “Special Master” is not my creation but that of the White House – we truly have moved into a strange new world.)

Not wanting to have to answer to the Special Master, the recipient banks are scrambling to raise the capital needed to pay off their loans and get out from under TARP’s big, fat thumb.

But I also strongly suspect that a key reason these firms are pumping out paper as fast as they can is because they realize that to wait will mean to raise more capital at a lower share price, not a higher one. In addition to a very top-heavy rally, there is the still unresolved fact that the foundations of the nation’s largest financial institutions rest on piles of suspicious paper that, absent the recent rejiggering of the accounting rules, would have them on their knees. If the captains of these enterprises really thought the green shoots were going to grow into golden fields of wheat, they would wait as long as they could in order to get a better price for their shares – rather than shoveling the stuff out the door as fast as they can at these reduced prices.

Likewise, insider selling continues apace. According to Eric Roseman, writing for our friends at The Sovereign Society (sovereignsociety.com)…

“According to InsiderScore.com, officers and directors of publicly traded American companies have increased their selling of company stock since early May to its highest levels since 2006.”
There is a popular saying in poker circles that goes something like, "If after the first half hour, you don't know who the sucker is, then it's you."

In the current scenario, a large percentage of American investors still don't know they're the suckers, or even that there’s a game being played. Unfortunately, the facts of the matter will be revealed to them shortly.

Ed. Note:

Casey Trend Trader

click here

Gold Can’t Be Beaten

The war spending authorization bill that is now working its way through the U.S. Congress originally included a provision to hand the IMF $100 billion to pass along to other countries struggling with the financial crisis. (Hey, what’s $100 billion here and there?) And it also authorized that same institution to sell about 13 million ounces of gold. While those provisions were included in both Obama’s IMF plan and the Senate bill, it was removed from the House bill. The odds are, however, that by the time the legislation passes, they will be put back in, despite considerable Republican opposition.

Perhaps anticipating passage, gold has come under a fair amount of pressure in recent weeks, but each time, it has managed to stage an impressive comeback. The chart here shows gold’s action so far in 2009.

While there’s no question that gold could test the $900 level again, particularly if the IMF sale is approved, there has been a palpable lessening of the voices stridently calling for deflation as the inevitable result of the current financial crisis. Yes, they’ll return, but next time around, as the government unleashes its next wave of monetary inflation in response to the continued downturn in the markets we are anticipating, they’ll quickly be overwhelmed by the circumstances on the ground.

On that front, our own Bud Conrad has just sent over an important piece of work that looks to answer the question, “When will the price inflation reemerge?”

Over to you, Bud…

Debt Collapse and Inflation

By Bud Conrad, Chief Economist, Casey Research

Most of us understand the general idea that if the money supply increases, prices will rise.

Attempting to prove that notion, economists develop elaborate theories and definitions around the various measures of money and try to make comparisons of growth rates of money to increases in prices. Unfortunately, the correlations do not give reliable results. One of the biggest problems is that we don't have a universally accepted definition of money supply.

To give you my perspective, I provide this analysis that goes beyond traditional bank deposits to look at a broader measure of money supply including debt. I then examine what has happened during the credit collapse, to see what the short-term effect has been on inflationary pressure.

The Federal Reserve publishes a narrow measure of money supply called M1, and a broader measure called M2. They used to publish M3 and “L” as even more comprehensive measures of money, but they were both eliminated.

M2 includes most deposits at banks plus the base money supply of M1, which includes all the currency and deposits held by banks at the Federal Reserve. This is obviously an inadequate measure of the debt instruments that can be used to purchase items and grow the economy. For example, mortgage debt is used to buy houses, and corporate bonds are issued for corporations to expand their factories and operations. So the following discussion is an attempt to look at the combined traditional measures of money as provided by the Federal Reserve, as well as other measures of debt, to see what is happening to what may be thought of as a broader measure of money by adding by the following items:

U.S. Treasuries

Agency Bonds

Agency Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities

Non-agency Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities

Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities

Investment Grade Corporate Bonds

High-Yield Corporate Bonds

Asset-Backed Securities

All of the above forms of debt add to the ability of the economy to expand. So, the following analysis demonstrates what has been going on in the quantities of this form of debt outstanding to see whether there are inflationary pressures or deflationary pressures from the expansion or contraction of the quantity of debt.

The starting point is to look at the quantity of face value of debt outstanding. That number is then discounted by price actions and expected loss of value in defaults. Credit Suisse performed an analysis of each class of debt at four points of time, starting from early 2007 through spring 2009. Adding up all this outstanding debt shows that, in total, the amount of debt has been in modest decline, most rapidly in the latter half of 2008.

Drilling down a bit further, though, you can see that whereas forms of private debt have taken a serious drop recently, government-backed debt has been continuing its steady growth. Real estate debt that was not backed by government – for example, jumbo loans – showed the biggest drops in amount outstanding. Corporate bonds also slipped.

Three layers of government-guaranteed debt are the U.S. Treasuries, the agency bonds and Agency Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities. The reason the agency debt is considered strong and not collapsing is that it is guaranteed by the federal government, now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been taken over. The other forms of debt are privately held, and they contain the deflationary seeds from the credit collapse. This debt, when marked to market for the value it could be sold for today, has lost as much as 30% of its face value. Total debt of this set of classifications has dropped from $21 trillion to $18.4 trillion as of the fall of 2008. It recovered to $20 trillion by the spring of ’09, partly by the expansion of government debt.

The chart shows the deflationary collapse of private debt, which occurred into the early part of 2009, as being bigger than the expansion of government-supported debt. Thus we have experienced deflationary pressure.

But look what is already beginning to occur, as the government’s debt expansion gains pace. We already know, because it has told us, that it will issue $2.5 trillion of additional Treasuries to fund its big deficit and bailout programs.

By averaging the growth rate of the sectors from 2007 to 2009 with the growth of the latest quarter, we can extrapolate to a scenario of what the debt might look like in spring of 2010. Government spending will keep the debt expanding. Looking forward, we know that government debt, especially in the form of Treasuries, is likely to expand greatly. It is likely to grow more than the private debt will be collapsing. Therefore inflationary pressures are likely to return.

The value of debt outstanding helps us analyze the pressure toward higher inflation. The size of bad debt collapse being smaller than the expansion of government-supported debt suggests the return of inflationary forces in a year or less.

Worth a Read

David again. Last week, a top Democrat suffered a mental breakdown of sorts when he actually told the truth about who is really running the show down in the smelly swamp of Washington.

blurted out an obvious truth

And…

Goldman Sachs' new top lobbyist was recently the top staffer to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., on the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Frank. Michael Paese, a registered lobbyist for the Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association since he left Frank's committee in September, will join Goldman as director of government affairs, a role held last year by former Tom Daschle intimate, Mark Patterson, now the chief of staff at the Treasury Department. This is not Paese's first swing through the Wall Street-Congress revolving door: he previously worked at JP Morgan and Mercantile Bankshares, and in between served as senior minority counsel at the Financial Services Committee.
You can read the full article here, though I suspect it won’t tell you anything you don’t already know.

Since we’re on the topic of the smelly swamp, here’s a quick update from the place from Don Grove…

Adult Supervision

By Don Grove, Casey Research's Washington correspondent

I have heard that those who have had the dubious honor of being in the immediate presence of the president say there is no doubt that he is the smartest person in the room. Even our own Doug Casey has acknowledged that Obama “is no moron. Far from it.” High intelligence is no substitute for maturity and common sense, however. The guys who ran Long Term Capital Management were geniuses, including two Nobel Prize-winning economists, yet they screwed up royally and it took a Fed-sponsored bailout to stop the hemorrhaging.

The gullible electorate saw Obama as a savior. He’s not. He may be smart, but he lacks maturity and common sense. Only we ourselves can offer the salvation we seek. What we need from the president and Congress is just enough common sense to get out of the way.

Our nation and the world suffer from a popular misconception that smart people in government will solve our problems – and, of course, that they need more money to do it. Not! Revenue measures from speed cameras to requiring licenses for tax preparers and bullying low-tax jurisdictions to catch tax evaders all share a fundamentally flawed underlying assumption: that the government has a legitimate need for more money. That’s ass-backwards. We may choose to squander our scarce resources on government meddling in good times, but when money is tight, such profligacy has to go.

People do amazing things when left to their own resources. For example, our national savings rate has been going up since economic disaster hit. The average person need not be brilliant to know to hunker down in hard times, cut expenses, reduce debt, and set something aside for an even rainier day, conveniently providing capital for new productive enterprise in the process. But our government is still busy giving these sensible people bad advice in hopes of reanimating the lifeless corpse for one more miraculous cycle of spending-driven opulence. Paddles! Clear!

The Fed’s efforts to jump-start a recovery by throwing money at our problems have floundered. Chairman Bernanke testified this week before the House Budget Committee. He acknowledged that interest rates are going up in response to raging deficits, despite the Fed’s efforts to nurture those promising green shoots of recovery. For example, the Fed’s purchase of Fannie Mae bonds briefly prompted a housing refinance boom, but that has now fizzled as rates creep inexorably upward as if they had a mind of their own and owe no fealty to the Fed.

Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) told Bernanke “that there is no free lunch." Ryan noted that “Treasury is issuing debt and the central bank is buying it. It gives the alarming impression that the U.S. one day might begin to meet its financial obligations by simply printing money.” [Aren’t we already there?] Not to worry. Bernanke assured Ryan that: “The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt. Either cuts in spending or increases in taxes will be necessary to stabilize the fiscal situation.” Hopefully the former, undoubtedly the latter.

Should we take comfort from Bernanke’s assurances? No. Bernanke seems to live in a fairytale world immune from the harsh realities real people grapple with every day. According to the Fed chairman:

In this environment, we anticipate that inflation will remain low. The slack in resource utilization remains sizable, and, notwithstanding recent increases in the prices of oil and other commodities, cost pressures generally remain subdued. As a consequence, inflation is likely to move down some over the next year relative to its pace in 2008. That said, improving economic conditions and stable inflation expectations should limit further declines in inflation.
See? It’s all about inflation “expectations,” which, being “stable,” will “limit further declines in inflation.” Now, is that a good thing? Wasn’t that a bad thing a little while ago? Oh, well. Obviously smart people like Bernanke and the president have this figured out, and we all just have to have the right expectations. Still, I have this foreboding sense that the parents have stepped out and unruly children are wasting hot water, leaving doors open, bullying, and may be about to burn down the house.

Mom!

Also from Don…

Don mentioned that he participated in the last Washington DC phyle meeting… so I asked him to do a quick write-up as a way of providing some insight into the value one of these informal meet up groups might offer. (Personally, I've never been to one -- although our Summits seem to me to be larger versions of these smaller events.) Here are Don's notes...

Up to this point, we have done little more than provide communications assistance for the various Casey phyles that have cropped up around the country and in the world. We were discussing getting more involved, maybe by providing some special content for the meetings or helping define the guest speakers -- that sort of thing. If you are currently running one of these groups and would be interested in receiving more help from us, drop us a note at phyles@CaseyResearch.com.

If you're interested in attending one of these groups, drop us a note as well, and we’ll hook you up with the closest organizer.

David again… this just in from the “General,” a British friend now observing his homeland from the comfortable distance of Portugal…

Saving Private Brown

Following the well-publicised expenses scandal, Gordon Brown, the Labour P.M., now has a mutiny in the ranks. In the last few days, eight of his ministers have resigned, of which six are inner-cabinet ministers. This has precipitated a huge cabinet reshuffle, which is still going on as I type this on Friday afternoon. That is not Brown's only problem. Yesterday British voters went to the polls for local government elections. Full results will not be known until this evening; however, early results indicate that the Conservative Party led by David Cameron is already thrashing the Labour Party. On Sunday evening, we will also get the results from the 27 countries that are participating in an election for the European Parliament. Again Labour is expected to be easily beaten by the Conservatives.

On top of all this, British Members of Parliament have put down a motion of No Confidence in the PM for debate this Wednesday. Informed pundits and the media only give Brown a 50/50 chance of surviving next week. Already a number of MPs are circulating a petition forcing Brown to resign. Alternatively, he may be forced to call a general election, which the Conservatives are almost certain to win.

So what is Brown doing tomorrow? Well, he is off to Normandy for the 65th anniversary of D-Day. He will also be meeting there with President Obama and other world leaders. With his troops already mutinying and with so many walking wounded in his regiment, he might be well advised to “hang out” at the Normandy beaches and not return to the UK, where there is an awful lot of shrapnel flying about.

Quote of a lifetime from actor David Carradine, who yesterday was sadly found dead in a Bangkok Hotel, under mystifying circumstances. David was 72. His best-known films were Kung Fu and Kill Bill. He was well known for his sense of humour. My favourite quote of his was: "Never buy anything from someone who is out of breath."

Miscellany

Remember Hill-Bill? This week, someone forwarded me what I thought was a very insightful analysis of how Obama has effectively shifted his former competitors, the Clintons, to the trash heap of history. Well worth a read… linked here.

More Tech You Like: Sorry, but I can’t find out which of you sent along this tip… but thanks, whoever you are.

“I have been using the free Grand Central (now Google.com/voice) for over a year and it's great. A free phone number, transferred to any or all of your "real" phone numbers, call screening, time-of-day routing, incoming number blacklist, conference calling, voice to text messaging, google 411 integration, call return and more. Worth a look.”
The Kettle Is Now Calling the Pot Black. A couple of subscribers forwarded a commentary that ran on the website of Russia's Pravda news service. It offered a fairly sharp critique of the path America now finds itself on. Considering the source, the comments are pretty eye-opening... Here's an excerpt:

There’s much truth in those words. Regrettably.

Well, that’s it for this week. Sorry that I can’t share any music with you this week. It’s just that none really jumped out at me.

As I put away the tools for the day, and the week, I see that the DJIA has managed to rally by a meager 37 points, while gold has had a bad day, down $25 on the day… and oil is holding strong at $68. Sure, gold could go down a bit… but it’s hardly worth thinking about. The trend for much higher inflation is cemented in at this point.

As always, thanks for reading, and for being a subscriber to a Casey Research publication.

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room - 09/26/2008

David Galland — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:34:16 GMT

September 26, 2008

Dear Readers,

What a world I have returned to from my cloistered retreat at the beautiful Vivenda Miranda, scenically situated on a cliff outside of the quaint port town of Lagos, Portugal.

Everything has changed.

Everything is changing.

The storm we have so long tried to help you prepare for is upon us. At this point, I can only hope you have your sails rigged for the storm now breaking, because time is running out.

The violent volatility I warned of when last I wrote has arrived, with towering waves now rising up and smashing into the economy - and as an unavoidable consequence, our personal portfolios -- from all sides.

Overnight the holders of my mortgage, WaMu, failed, the largest bank failure in history. This week, the golf course that I usually play on was taken over by the government... last week it belonged to AIG.

As you don't need me to tell you, that same government now wants to spend over a trillion dollars to bail out Wall Street and to shore up the money market mutual funds - which have so far flown under the radar screen despite portfolios stuffed to the brim with bad paper.

While no one was paying attention, U.S. automakers used their election year leverage to win approval for $25 billion in low-interest loans.

As you can see in the chart shown here, the monetary base of the U.S. has surged, a topic we'll have more on in The Casey Report, which will be released next week. Even before the bailout, the government has begun doing what it knows best... pumping up the money supply in a desperate attempt to save the economy from the crash it so desperately needs.

According to Reuters, last week the Fed lent nearly $188 billion per day, on average, to banks and money managers.

Last week, as this fiscal prolificacy was underway, gold surged as we expected it to. This week, it has consolidated, holding its gains but not pushing higher yet.

We don't care.

Owning gold right now is the right thing to do, on multiple levels. Others are now quickly coming to that same understanding. This week, I have had two calls from people I haven't heard from in years, asking me how to buy gold. And then there's this...

From a correspondent in Switzerland...

So, we call Bank Cantonale Bern. The Cantonale Banks are like BofA in the States - it's a huge retail banking company with branches in most towns. We learn, yes, they have limited bullion for gold but no silver.

The surprise came when we arrived at the bank this afternoon. The bank has a teller window, segregated off to the side of the others, with a sign above the window that read,

"Change & Gold" (foreign currency and gold coins)

We had to wait in line. I bought the last of the one-ounce bullion they had - Krugerands. And there were people behind us in line. The woman who helped us said that the demand for gold has been so strong that they made it available via front-line employees, rather than through a bank representative in a private, "behind the counter" transaction. And they haven't had silver for several weeks. She said supplies of silver had been sporadic at certain branches in Zurich.

So there you have it. A retail bank where you can conduct business in gold just as easy as Swiss francs. A developing trend? One can only hope.

Just a few minutes ago, my dear friend Mr. Watson, whose birthday it was I went to help celebrate in Portugal, tipped me to this... from the Toronto Star.

Coin dealers from the U.S. to Canada have reported a surge in buying of bullion coins and other gold products as troubles in the financial markets prompt people to seek a safe haven in precious metals.

"Demand has exceeded supply for American buffalo 24-karat gold one-ounce bullion coins, and our inventories have been depleted," the mint said in a note to its dealers. "We are, therefore, temporarily suspending sales of these coins."

The trading herd will follow the physical buyers. The recent $100 surge was just a precursor. The lag in understanding - and action - is understandable. The global economy is in a true paradigm shift. People don't want to believe what their eyes and ears are telling them. And so, at this point the trading herd is standing en masse, eyes wide open, nostrils flaring, muscles twitching spastically, waiting for the news that will tell them which way to bolt for safety.

While they are only to be used by the attentive, and with great caution, I am now using a variety of options and futures strategies to leverage what's coming. I will never risk so much as to put myself in any real financial trouble. But, with that filter, I am now positioning myself for higher gold prices and a falling stock market (I suspect one more dead-cat bounce after the bailout is passed... then watch out below).

Higher interest rates are a sure thing, but there will likely be a lag between now and then as well. Structure things right, and you can ride through any possible downturn, then earn extraordinary returns as things move in your favor. But the key thing to remember is that, like hot chili sauce, a little leverage goes a long way... and a lot of leverage can burn you, badly.

Knowing where your money is has also become very important. In the upcoming edition of The Casey Report, we'll also be presenting a detailed explanation of how to be sure your bank will be one of those still standing after the storm.

Ed. Note

The Casey Report

Try our 3-month no-risk trial now.

Whatever the final form of the bailout, and I am convinced there will be one - the money may not flow in exactly the way that Wall Street wants, but it will flow nonetheless -- in the medium to long term, the die is cast. The hegemony of the U.S. dollar in international trade is coming to an end (more on that momentarily). Given the lack of a tangible alternative, namely one that is not solely faith based, a new currency regime will arise. It's impossible to gauge from this distance what it will ultimately look like, or who will sponsor it (there is talk of the IMF fulfilling the role), but it's safe to assume it will have to include gold and other tangibles.

We live in dangerous, yet exciting, times. We'll continue doing our part to keep you in the know, and on the right side of things.

Moving along, I want to share a front-seat analysis on this week's congressional hearings on the bailout from Donald Grove, our new Washington correspondent.

The Bailout: Behind the Scenes

By Donald Grove

I went to hear Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testify this morning before the Joint Economic Committee (Chairman Chuck Schumer, D-NY), primarily on the Bush administration's capital markets intervention proposal. I thought I would pass on my observations, which will probably be different than what you read in the mainstream press. Bernanke has had it rough lately. He was testifying yesterday with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and SEC Chairman Chris Cox before the Senate Banking Committee (Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn) and was scheduled to testify with Paulson later this afternoon before the House Financial Services Committee (Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass).

Schumer recalled that Bernanke last appeared before the Joint Economic Committee in April, following the narrowly averted collapse of Bear Stearns. He said "Most of us thought we had just witnessed an event that we were likely never to see again in our lifetimes. And yet, here we are, only six months later, and we are discussing a crisis many orders of magnitude greater." Schumer stated, as did others, that "we must act and we must act soon." Those statements were not without reservations, however, and I would add that not acting may be the more prudent course. There seems to be a compulsion on the Hill to do something, even if it's wrong. I guess that's what legislators think their constituents expect - and maybe they do. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told NBC's "Meet the Press" that "nobody knows exactly what they should do, but anything is better than nothing." Not necessarily so - in fact, probably not so. "Expecting Congress to fix the current financial crisis is like expecting an arsonist to put out the fire he started," said Representative John Shadegg (R-Az).

Schumer told Bernanke that "Americans are furious" and that he and probably each of his colleagues have heard "amazement, astonishment, and intense anger" from constituents. No doubt, but why? According to Schumer, "over the last eight years, we were told that markets knew best, that financial alchemy had reduced risk to an afterthought, and that we were entering a new world of global growth and prosperity. Instead, what we have learned is that we now have to pay for the greed and recklessness of those who should have known better." Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I personally recall hearing Schumer in a hearing on the Hill within the last eight years demanding that the less fortunate be given access to home mortgages so they, too, could realize the American dream. He was not alone. The former Fed chairman urged Americans to avail themselves of adjustable-rate mortgages. As was often noted during today's hearing, there is plenty of blame to go around. What worried me was the tendency to lay blame for this debacle on the free market.

As I noted above, I think doing nothing may be the best thing Congress can do right now. In fact, if Congress had done nothing in the past, we might have avoided a lot of these problems. It's never too late to stop meddling. Why not start right now? Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) suggested that we just let the free-market system correct itself. Of course the Fed chairman did not agree. He told Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) that we need to figure out what the price should be on complex securities so that private capital can come in and help buy them up so that banks can reestablish capital to make loans. Ron Paul, in prime form, said that most illiquid assets are illiquid because they are not worth anything. He added that price fixing prolonged the Great Depression, and that is what is being proposed now. He said that messing with prices risks socialism. Paul said the Fed is not smart enough to fix prices. Hear! Hear! Nor, I would add, is the Treasury Secretary or Congress. The free market, however, is uniquely able by its very nature to set prices just right, including, by the way, interest rates - the price of money.

Congressman Paul asked where this $700 billion will come from. Not from taxes or borrowing from China. He said it will come from us, presumably through the insidious tax of inflation. He explained that the downturn in housing is because housing is overpriced. Let housing prices come down, he said. He said, "We can't solve inflation with more inflation." Paul asked the Fed chairman where his authority comes from and noted that only 15% of Americans care about the Constitution or the rule of law - and less than that in Washington, D.C.

Bernanke conceded that price fixing was counterproductive but insisted that we have to somehow "discover" what prices are. Duhhh! That's what the free market is for! As to his authority, he cited the Federal Reserve Act ..... "now if you disagree with the Act...." Well, I do disagree, and I think Ron Paul also believes that the creation of the central bank in 1913 was where a lot of this trouble started. Nevertheless, I don't think the Fed has even been complying with the mandate and constraints of the Act.

Refreshingly, retiring Senator Jim Saxton, ranking member on the Committee (R-NJ), noted that it would be nice if we could go to a safe at Treasury and take out about 5% of GDP to bail out financial institutions, but we can't. We have to borrow it, he said (albeit probably surreptitiously from our unborn progeny). I am always heartened to see that someone on the Hill realizes that. Unfortunately, I suspect that a majority of Americans do vaguely suppose that there is something like a big safe with real money in it that the government taps to pay for things like this - kind of like believing that the Social Security Trust Fund is bundles of hundred-dollar bills stacked up in a cool, dry place.

Vice Chairman Carolyn Maloney (R-NY) asked if this proposal to intervene in the credit markets to the tune of $700 B would affect inflation and wondered if the Fed might have to raise rates. Bernanke said that this was not a stimulus. He said that if it helps the economy grow, the Fed may have to raise rates sooner, but the he did not expect it to have any effect on inflation. I'm speechless! Of course it's inflationary. I also have to wonder whenever I hear a comment like this, whether he actually believes that an expanding economy causes inflation - like some mysterious act of God - and that it is the Fed's role to counter that by raising rates.

He explained that this would not be an expenditure. He said it would be "acquisition of assets." If there is a loss, he said, it would be much less than $700 B. I think I agree with Ron Paul. We are basically trying to pretend that the real estate bubble never popped by saying that the debt instruments based on those inflated values still have value. Several legislators expressed their frustration over the fact that Hank Paulson added other toxic waste to the mix this weekend - car loans, student loans.

Congress is trying to add its own unique signature to this boondoggle. For example, there is talk of coming up with the money by placing a surcharge on those making over a certain amount per year (I think $1M). There is also a move to restrict the compensation of financial institution executives. Amy Klubuchar (D-MN), said, "There should be a limit on what you can make when taking our money." Bernanke said there has to be an incentive for risk taking. "For this to work," he said, "we need a wide range of participation. If we stigmatize institutions that participate, they won't participate." Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) suggested a $200 B tranche with Warren Buffett at the head of the board of some administering organization to "get these institutions functioning again." Bernanke noted that Buffett had invested $5 B in Goldman Sachs and that the Oracle of Omaha had said that we "go over the precipice if Congress does not act."

There was also a bright side to proposals from legislators. Kevin Brady suggested that Congress look at a holiday on the capital gains tax or temporarily lowering repatriation road blocks since taxes now make it too expensive to bring capital home from overseas. He noted that three years ago, $300 B came home when the tax barriers were lowered. Bernanke said these actions alone will not solve the problem. Again, I am not holding my breath - more likely that we will see exchange controls.

Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) noted that although Bernanke says he will be "acquiring assets," he has asked Congress to raise the debt limit to do it and is acquiring the assets because they are toxic waste and we don't know what they're worth. "In Texas," he said, "we say ‘those chickens are coming home to roost.'" Then he thought better of it and said "vultures are coming home to roost." He said we have a bankrupt ideology. I'm not holding my breath waiting for taxpayers to get their $700 B back. Ron Paul later said that after Doggett's comments, he can't tell who the conservatives are.

As is often the case in exchanges with the Fed chairman, there was an emphasis on market psychology, not real sound money practices. The whole concern seems to be for creating the illusion of economic stability as if stability could not actually be achieved, so the illusion is the best we can do. For example, Schumer asked whether a $150 billion installment, with the rest to come later, wouldn't be enough to assure markets that Congress is serious. Bernanke agreed that it is about psychology and said $700 B is what the administration thought it would take to provide psychological reassurance. Representative Carolyn Maloney asked where he got that figure. He said it was not science. It's about 5% of the $14 trillion in outstanding residential and commercial mortgages, on which the loss rate is about 5 %. I couldn't help thinking that returning to the gold standard would certainly show the market that Congress was serious and would allow real financial planning instead of trying to guess at the unintended consequences of clumsy government intervention in the free market.

There was a lot of discussion of the technical aspects of getting banks lending again - putting taxpayers first, strong congressional oversight, enticing financial institutions, including foreign institutions, to participate in the auction of these troubled securities, fire sale vs. hold-to-maturity prices, the Fed paying a premium for them. Senator John Sununu asked if firms would be willing to sell at below book value. Bernanke said (apparently now agreeing with Ron Paul) that "over time there is no way to hide the real value of an asset." I think that was a "yes," but I found myself wondering whether the objective here isn't to pay above-market value for these securities with taxpayer's money. I think it is.

Bernanke said this is the most significant post-war economic crisis for the United States and the world. He noted the hardships for those on Main Street if banks can't lend - consumer credit dries up, car and small business loans are unavailable. Baron Hill (D-IN) asked Bernanke what he should tell his constituents who asked if their stock portfolios and 401(k)s were going to lose value. Bernanke said "yes," they would lose value if Congress does not act. He said the credit system is like plumbing that permeates the economy. He said choking credit takes the life blood out of the economy. That may be, but perhaps it should not be. It occurred to me that there are two components to interest: opportunity cost and risk of lost purchasing power. If you take away the latter, I think the credit system becomes quite simple and we don't have to go through all these contortions, and probably don't need the Federal Reserve. Inconveniently, the government would have to live within its means like the rest of us.

Bernanke said the pain on Main Street would be very significant if Congress does not authorize this plan. He urged Congress to solve this problem now and come back later and look at reforming regulation. As Representative John Shadegg said, however, you can't expect an arsonist to put out the fire he started. There is no way we are going to avoid pain at this point. It seems to me that each time Congress tries to avoid it, the inevitable pain gets worse. Let's bite the bullet and get it over with and for God's sake, no more regulation!

Jim DeMint (R-SC) said that unbridled capitalism is not at fault. He said this problem was caused by the government and its implied guarantee. He said we removed accountability for risk from the enterprise system and that this was a failure of government intervention, not a failure of the free market. Bernanke tried to clarify that he was not talking about heavier regulation, just reformed, smarter regulation - maybe even less regulation. I'm afraid I have evolved from a libertarian into an anarchist and find not the slightest comfort in those words. I was happy to hear DeMint point out that some of the institutions that Bernanke found too big to fail were government-created GSEs. He said that none of these programs support free-market activity. He noted that the Sarbanes-Oxley "monster" chased capital off shore but failed to tell us about Bear Stearns. He concluded that "no amount of government regulation will eliminate corruption if risk is removed." Bravo!

Rep. Phil English (R-PA) was troubled by the extraordinary power this proposal would give to the Treasury Secretary, an unelected official. He suggested that this was the path to "Crony Capitalism." I will add that the next Treasury Secretary will inherit this power and will not only be unelected, he or she has not even been named.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) observed that Bernanke and Paulson went to the White House with this problem last Thursday but had to have known about it before that. He wondered why Congress had been kept in the dark. Bernanke cited efforts taken to correct the problem, including the discount window, CDSs, and the market's natural healing process. Hinchey said he was skeptical in April when Bernanke and Paulson told the Committee that the economy was growing and that our financial institutions were healthy. He said there was motivation to keep this under cover and that we are seeing manipulations and distortions of the mortgage market. Bernanke cited the sharp interest rate cuts in January. Apparently he was still hopeful that they would work in April and did not want to alarm the Committee. He suggested that Congress "should look at substantial regulatory reform." He suggested a "1-2 punch. Stabilize and then fix it so it does not happen again." Again, I say that fixing it will take more than adjusting a few dials or fine tuning some regulations. The overhaul necessary to fix this I suspect no one on the Hill has the guts for except Ron Paul, maybe Tom Coburn.

In conclusion, I would say it sounds like this bailout may not be a done deal. Constituents are ringing phones off the hook, telling their legislators "don't do it." Many are suspicious that it came up so quickly and that they are being asked to act so quickly. Representative Mike Pence (R-IN) told CNN, "There are those in the public debate who have said that we must act now. The last time I heard that, I was on a used-car lot. The truth is, every time somebody tells you that you've got to do the deal right now, it usually means they're going to get the better part of the deal."

Always the optimist.

Regards, Don

More Views on the Bailout From the Washington Post...

During testimony before the House Budget Committee, Peter R. Orszag -- Congress's top bookkeeper -- said the bailout could expose the way companies are stowing toxic assets on their books, leading to greater problems.

"Ironically, the intervention could even trigger additional failures of large institutions, because some institutions may be carrying troubled assets on their books at inflated values," Orszag said in his testimony. "Establishing clearer prices might reveal those institutions to be insolvent."

In an interview later yesterday, Orszag explained using the following example: Suppose a company has Asset X, whose value is recorded on the books as $100. Because of the current economic decline, Asset X's real value has dropped to $50. If the company takes part in the government bailout and sells Asset X for $50, the company has to report a $50 loss on its books. On a scale of millions of dollars, such write-downs could ruin a company.

Such companies "look solvent today only because it's kind of hidden," Orszag said. "They actually are insolvent" already, he said.

From Ron Paul...

Dear Friends,

Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.

The events of the past week are no exception.

The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress' throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."

That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being told it's unavoidable.

The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!

The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.
Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.
Then there's this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.

There goes your country.

Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don't make me laugh.

Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind - another example of the big choice we're supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they're not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really.

Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we'll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.

The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?

When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media?

Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.

In liberty,

Ron Paul

Quotes from the Quislings

Not to be indelicate, but the working title I had chosen for this next section was "FCUK YOU!"... that, by virtue of my feeling that strong words are in order for the quislings who purport to be free marketers and who have been lined up to support the government's bailout.

Here's my Rogues List...

Laurence Fink

BlackRock Inc

"If this plan works, taxpayers are not going to be out money," Fink, a pioneer of mortgage-backed securities, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

... Based on current prices, buyers of distressed debt, including the government, will earn "strong returns over the next five to seven years," said Fink, who declined to say whether his New York-based company will bid on contracts to manage the proposed Treasury fund.

And there's the well-regarded Mr. Buffett...

"I am betting on the Congress doing the right thing for the American public and passing this bill," Buffett said on cable channel CNBC today. "I certainly have a vote of confidence in Goldman and vote of confidence in Congress."

Of course, Buffett didn't mention how much money his company stood to lose if the government failed to rush into the breach. Or how much extra money he'd make by trading his good name to Goldman for a sweetheart deal that will form a footnote in all future books on financial topics... but only if the bailout goes through. Among other kisses, Buffett's coup includes perpetual preferred shares that pay a 10% coupon. Simply, that means if the U.S.G. bails out Goldman, Buffett will collect $500 million a year on his $5 billion investment, and his payments will come before those sent to any other shareholders. He also gets under-the-market warrants on another $5 billion worth of shares.

Goldman never would have agreed to this deal unless their feet were roasting in the coals of calamity. One can hardly blame Buffett for making his move (it's not like he couldn't withstand the loss of $5 billion, should the worst come to pass), but now that he is so handsomely positioned, his cheerleading should be viewed as the disingenuous self-dealing that it is.

And then there's this, from the Washington Post, quoting mega-bond manager Bill Gross...

"The Treasury proposal will not be a bailout of Wall Street but a rescue of Main Street, as lending capacity and confidence is restored to our banks and the delicate balance between production and finance is given a chance to work its magic. Democratic Party earmarks mandating forbearance on home mortgage foreclosures will be critical as well. If this program is successful, however, it is obvious that the free market and Wild West capitalism of recent decades will be forever changed. Future economic textbooks are likely to teach that while capitalism is the most dynamic and productive system ever conceived, it is most efficient over the long term when there is another delicate balance -- between private incentive and government oversight."

On that last bit, I feel it's worth mentioning that Freddie and Fannie may have "enjoyed" more government oversight than any other two institutions on the planet.

If there is one certainty, and there are several related to this fiasco, it will be that the free market will be made the patsy, and the result will be a public outcry for more, not less government.

In the end, now that the government has broached the topic, the $700 billion is going to get spent... whether it starts by going into the pockets of the Wall Street, or is cycled back into the public pocket through the vehicle of FDIC guarantees, or making the money market funds whole, or giving millions of householders a free ride on their mortgages... or simply writing checks to consumers... it, and a lot more is going to get spent.

For my money, and it is my money (and yours), the best argument for the bailout was offered by none other than President Bush, who succinctly opined in a meeting yesterday of congressional leaders, "If money isn't loosened, this sucker could go down."

Unfortunately this sucker, aka the economy, is going down no matter what they do at this point.

At this point, all we can do is to wait and watch. Focus on liquidity for your personal portfolio and prepare for the worst. It's coming.

About Those Foreigners...

In all of the frenzy, the U.S. Government seems to be largely ignoring the foreign holders of our many trillions of dollars. This is also, as we have repeatedly said would be the case, because foreigners don't vote, and if they do decide to dump their dollars - as we expect they will (and actually are) - they will only hurt themselves. Or, so runs the logic of desperate policymakers, relying on MMAD (Monetary Mutual Assured Destruction) to rationalize their massive unleashing of dollars.

If you've voted for any of the clowns running our country for the last 40 or so years, you might want to take a moment to apologize to your children and, if you have them, your grandchildren as well. (Ron Paul supporters, you can take a pass on this.)

That's because, as I mentioned above, the U.S. Government has managed to squander the unbelievable advantage of being the suppliers of the world's de-facto reserve currency... an advantage made almost miraculous given that it was backed by nothing.

All the bureaucrats had to do was show even modest restraint and occasionally take a few moments to remind themselves of the principles of self-reliance and open opportunity that made this country what it is. Instead, the political class, cheered on by the voting public, fell in love with virtually every perfect-world social program, every new make work, corporate suck-up and pork barrel program waved in front of their snout-bedecked faces these many years. In the process, they have traded away something that no nation will again enjoy... a global blank check.

Bud Conrad is assembling the eye-opening hard data showing the trend reversal in foreign investment in U.S. dollar assets for the next edition of The Casey Report.

In the meantime, the anecdotal evidence is beginning to mount, an example being this item from MarketWatch this week..

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Chinese regulators have asked domestic banks to stop lending to U.S. financial institutions in the interbank money markets to prevent possible losses during the financial crisis, the South China Morning Post reported Thursday. The China Banking Regulatory Commission's ban on interbank lending of all currencies applied to U.S. banks, but not to lenders from other countries, the report added, citing a source.

I don't need to tell you that the Chinese government operates on group-think. For an official arm of the government to take this step is a howitzer shot across the bow of the U.S. ship of state.

Meanwhile, the current administration has managed to almost entirely alienate the Russians with our persistent meddling overseas ("Avoid foreign entanglements," said George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. "Take over the world," answered a succession of modern politicos). Not shy about giving as good as they get, the Putinistas are moving game pieces closer to home ground.

The memorandum was signed on Monday in Caracas, as a Russian Navy squadron, including the heavy cruiser Peter the Great and three escorts, set sail from St. Petersburg to join Venezuelan vessels in the first show of Russian naval power in the American hemisphere for many years.

They have been preceded by the Russian Air Force, which dispatched a pair of long-range bombers to Venezuela for the past week. A Russian naval spokesman told Mineweb the squadron will operate in the Caribbean, and will enter the sea from the Atlantic Ocean.

And the official mouthpieces of the Russian government, this one from the Russian News and Information Agency, are firing torpedoes at the U.S. dollar. This excerpt from an article entitled "Time for a gold rouble" published yesterday...

Second, the Russian leaders might also consider making their own currency, the ruble, convertible into gold. The idea of gold convertible currencies is extremely unpopular among most economists; they dismiss gold as a "barbarous relic" (to use the famous phrase of John Maynard Keynes) and suggest either the present regime of paper currencies or, at best, a link to a basket of commodities.

Both these solutions are highly artificial and based on the same level of state control which has now just so spectacularly failed. Indeed, which is more "barbarous" -- the reintroduction of gold as an instrument of payment, or the practice of amassing huge quantities of the precious metal to keep it locked underground in the vaults of central banks? The contempt of the Keynesians notwithstanding, it is an indisputable fact that gold does remain the ultimate store of value, which is precisely why states own so much of it.

At this point, even our "friends" are starting to make excuses and reach for their coats. This from a Reuters report on the strong words falling out of the mouth of the German finance minister...

In some of the toughest language since the crisis worsened this month, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told parliament the financial turmoil would leave "deep marks" but was primarily an American problem.

"The world will never be as it was before the crisis," Steinbrueck, a deputy leader of the center-left Social Democrats, told the Bundestag lower house.

"The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multi-polar."

It is impossible to fully appreciate, let alone understand, the implications of the loss of the dollar's global reserve status... but it's a topic we'll be digging into. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.

A Musical Interlude

For something a little lighter, I want to share some of the musical recommendations that were sent by readers in response to my recent solicitation.

Before getting to your recommendations, however, I'll tell you that today I have been listening, repetitively, to the soundtrack from "Once," an excellent film we watched earlier this week. Our own Louis James had first recommended it, followed by another friend, and so I thought I should check it out. It is a simple, beautifully executed, romantic little film... overlaid with powerful music.

The track I'm currently listening to is one of my favorites, "When Your Mind's Made Up." You can listen to it and see a scene from the film, compliments of YouTube, by clicking here. It starts slow, then builds to the point where it pretty much blows me away -- just the kind of music I love.

Okay, so that's my entry this week... now here are yours.

Explosions in the Sky

The Birth and Death of the Day

It's Natural to Be Afraid

All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone

My All Time 5 Favorites... Foo Fighters - Pretender - awesome video where they fight the riot police, btw...

KRS1 - Sound of Da Police ...

NWA - F*** Da Police

Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2

Public Enemy - Fight the Power.

As you may have noticed, I like my music with a message... Music to overthrow your government by! Jeff B.

JS Bach's Toccata and Fugue

It is surpassed only by Hector Berlioz's Requiem, scored for full symphony orchestra, a double choir, and a brass band in each of the hall's four corners. Despite its title, it's a rouser! If you have a good sound system, open

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=berlioz+requiem&search_type=&aq=2&oq=berlio

Start with Requiem et Kyrie, and keep going. C V.

First off, the Isley Bros, in general, are hard to beat. For passion and purity of voice you gotta hear (the late, due to cancer) Eva Cassidy, not exactly rockin' music but well worth the listen. I was delighted to actually find recordings of her live performances on YouTube, though her best album was Songbird.

Other mentionables from assorted categories that are worth a listen and whom you may or may not be familiar with (we're about the same age) are Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks (hippie country rock), Zap Mamma (world), (the late due to dying) Shirley Horn (torch jazz), and early John Mayall (blues).

www.generalfuzz.net

Thanks for all the great insights so far. . . James

So here is my must have for you and maybe you are already enlightened... Yo La Tengo. Writing beautiful rock and roll for 20 years. Check Youtube "Today is the day" and listen to the live performance on John McEnroe's show. Then graduate to "Blue Line Swinger" It is a 9 minute song and the first time you hear it, by minute 4 and 20 seconds your foot will be tapping, the second time I think it will be tapping the whole time. John W.

Gypsy Soul

Obsession Confession

Slash

While speaking of songs that get me movin' (and STOP me from working), I might mention one called Orinoco Flow (Sail Away) by Enya. Sounds as if it would be rather staid if you know anything of her, but there again is something about that song... it got airplay at a time when I was training for powerlifting at some ungodly early time in the morning before work. Whenever that song would come on, I would have to wait to start my set, but I was awake and movin' by the end of it.

How about Classical Gas for a movin' song?

Country music provides the bulk of the really good guitar playing (and I honestly am not that impressed by most rock guitar playing). Roy Clark has been my favorite since I was a kid (although I don't really care to have him sing). And if they were to map my DNA, I believe they would discover a Boogie gene.

And on that note, give a listen to an Aussie flatpicking champion named Tommy Emmanuel.

Now back to work (me, not you). Matt B.

A tune that is a favourite of mine and in keeping with the problems at present (Chris Rea's Highway to Hell) (listen carefully to the lyrics) for your entertainment. Chris M.

David again, I have many more... and will try to cycle in your recommendations in future editions. But for now, time is running short and I need to move on. Thanks to all of you who have contributed... my musical horizons have been expanded.

McPalin Is Toast

This week I finally found the time to spend a little time, figuratively speaking, with Sarah Palin (encouraged by an article Doug Casey is preparing for The Casey Report on McCain's surprise running mate).

I have to say, I was pretty shocked. As I think many Americans will be, as they watch the candidate in action in the weeks just ahead.

The following quote is from Palin's interview with Katie Couric, in response to a question on the bailout.

"That's why I say, I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in [fumbling for words to continue] where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh -- it's got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that."

Huh? What?

Listen, I know there are McPalin supporters out there and, I will say it again, strictly from a personal perspective - i.e., I really don't want to pay any more taxes - if I were forced to pull a lever, it would be for McCain (because a victory by him would mean gridlock, that glorious state where the government's power to "do good" is curtailed). So, don't get angry or send me emails accusing me of being some sort of commie-sympathizer or member of the left-wing media conspiracy.

I'm sure Sarah Palin is a perfectly wonderful person, but she is way out of her league here. And, shortly, the boomerang effect of her media appearances is going to smack McPalin upside the head.

If you don't believe me, watch the following excerpt from the Couric interviews, this one on Palin's purported experience in foreign affairs. (You may have already seen this, because it's starting to make the rounds on the net... which is exactly the problem.)

At this point, I can't see any conceivable way McPalin wins. Which means, get ready for a serious asset stripping come next year.

Miscellaney

Phyling On

phyle

In any event, Herb in Jacksonville, FL is looking to start a phyle.

And the next meeting of the Sacramento phyle is scheduled for September 30th with Ron Parratt of AuEx (one of my favorite explorers) as a guest participant.

And the Toronto group, one of the most active, will be held on October 3... with our own Doug Casey sitting in.

For more details on any of these get-togethers, or any of the other phyles now up and running (this is all happening organically, by the way... all we're doing is facilitating the introductions of the new members to the organizers), contact Kristen at phyle@caseyresearch.com.

Well, that's all that time allows for today. It has been a long and immensely interesting week. We are living through a crisis of a magnitude seen only once a century. While one might take satisfaction by being able to say "I told you so" to sundry friends and associates - you know, the ones who have habitually rolled their eyes and parroted the "all is well" mantra of the financial talk show hosts whenever you have tried to warn them about what's coming... the reality is that these are dangerous times. Even for the prepared.

So, be careful. Especially when discussing topics related to wealth and precious metals ownership. Those who "have" could easily become targets for those who "have not" as this crisis unfolds. Mum's the word.

As I sign off, stocks are largely flat and precious metals are up nicely, to $888. If I were to guess what's going to happen next, it will be that an agreement on the bailout will be announced, the stock market will have another dead-cat bounce... after which it is going to start on a sharp slide.

As always, I greatly appreciate you using some of your valuable time to read this column, blog, musings - whatever it is. Your comments and suggestions are always welcomed, and often directly responded to, by writing david@CaseyResearch.com.

A final note. If you have friends who you think might benefit from our service, we would take it as a great favor if you'd tell them about our services and suggest they take us up on our 3-month no-risk trial subscription for The Casey Report. The next three months should be particularly important, so now's the time to act. You'll be doing them a favor, if for no other reason that our analysis is unbiased because it is beholding to no one except you, our subscribers.

As for the money managers and other talking heads now cheering for the bailout versus warning the people who listen to them to run for cover... well...

I'll leave it at that...

Until next week,

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room 09/19/2008

David Galland — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:43:31 GMT

September 19, 2008

Dear Readers,

Hi, I am Olivier Garret, this week’s editor of The Room.

What a rough week out there. My mind wanders as I drive at a crawl (I am not known to be a patient driver) behind a car full of “leaf peepers,” as Vermonters affectionately call the tourists who invade our state every autumn. I wonder how my friend David Galland is doing in Portugal, sipping the local wines with no access to his emails? It may be the worst week to be without market news -- or perhaps not…

Hopefully David is enjoying himself while celebrating an old friend’s birthday with a group of other newsletter editors and industry peers.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke are not exactly having a day at the beach as they try to solve our nation’s problems. By the way, this past week, it seemed to me that Lehman drew the wrong lottery number while AIG appears to have hit the jackpot. I wonder how many other “private enterprises” will be lucky enough to get bailed out at taxpayers’ expense in the next few months: WaMu, Wachovia, and hundreds of other financial institutions, GM, Ford, Delta, United?

Where Is the Bottom of the Markets?

For several years, we have been warning about the emerging crisis in our publications, and during the past few months, The Casey Report has been emphasizing that what started as a subprime mortgage issue is now quickly evolving into a full-scale depression. I actually wish that our analysis had been flawed and that the government officials who had claimed that the subprime crisis was contained and the markets would rebound in the second half of the year had been right.

Unfortunately, the Fed’s quick fixes did not stick and current events are reinforcing our conviction that this is much more than a normal cyclical correction. It seems as though no securities are being spared these days. Of course, the financials are taking a beating as expected, but we are feeling the ripple effect in all sectors of the economy, including commodities and the junior sector.

Recession fears usually negatively affect the commodities market, as investors expect industrial activity and consumption to decline. This time, however, the very sharp correction of recent months in commodities has been amplified by the need for liquidity on the part of many hedge funds and institutional investors.

Is this the end of the commodity bull market? I am convinced that we are actually feeling the effect of a relatively short-lived, albeit very painful correction. As the Fed and the Treasury continue to intervene in the market, they continue to lose ground and credibility, caught between a sharp recession and strong inflationary pressures. In an effort to bail out the financial sector (soon to be followed by the broader insurance, auto, and airline industries), they have no choice but to start injecting hundreds of billions in liquidity into a contracting market place. This, in turn, will contribute to the makeover of a stagflation period of historical proportion that will make the ‘70s look like a tea party.

Is it time to run for the exit? My answer is a definite “No,” but don’t take my word alone for it. I would like to quote a short excerpt from a fascinating interview of one of the most respected players in the resource markets, Rick Rule. You can read the full interview in this month’s edition of BIG GOLD. Here it is:

David Galland

Rick Rule

So Why Are We Still Bullish on Commodities?

In spite of a sharp recession, the rest of the world will not stop (although it may experience downturns for a while). The aspirations of hundreds of millions of emerging middle-class Chinese and Indian citizens will eventually be attained -- they will continue to work hard to see their standard of living climb and will increase their consumption of food, energy and durable goods. This, coupled with the inflation and debasement of the dollar, will inevitably start a new run for tangible commodities long before this crisis is over.

It is hard not to panic in the current environment and not to run for cover. Instead, we believe it is time to adjust our strategy, taking new input into consideration, of course, but generally speaking, stay the course: continue to invest in precious metals, energy, and other commodities, and buy stocks of discounted top-quality producers and juniors. Some reallocations could also be used to minimize tax liabilities for the year.

In the meantime, make sure that if some of your stink bids get filled, you take money off the table as soon as you can on short-term news. Over the last few weeks, we have seen some great stocks get hit hard by redemptions, then rebound somewhat (20%, 30%, or 50% in a few days). The trend could continue downward for a few months before we see a real turnaround in the resource markets; in the meantime one needs to use the current volatility to acquire great stocks cheaply and take some quick profits. Last week, our Casey Energy Confidential alert provided an opportunity for double-digit gains within a couple of days on several stocks. Subscribers were able to recover their initial investment and retain free positions on some great stocks.

More than ever, we believe in gold and quality gold stocks. I would like to share with you an article recently sent by Nicholas Pingitore, one of our readers:

SHUIT Happens!

HUI Index Components
Company Name	Symbol	% Weighting	Market Cap (9/11/08)
Barrick Gold	ABX	15.83%	23.35 billion
Goldcorp Inc	GG	14.98%	17.72
Newmont Mining	NEM	11.91%	16.3
Randgold Resources Ads	GOLD	6.57%	2.45
Iamgold Corp	IAG	6.43%	1.32
Eldorado Gold Corp	EGO	5.80%	2.02
Agnico-Eagle Mines	AEM	5.49%	6.31
Gold Fields Ltd Adr	GFI	5.21%	4.64
Kinross Gold	KGC	4.96%	7.29
Harmony Gold Mining Adr	HMY	4.80%	2.67
Yamana Gold	AUY	4.12%	5.27
Hecla Mining	HL	3.91%	0.54
Coeur d'Alene Mines	CDE	3.54%	0.77
Northgate Minerals	NXG	3.47%	0.32
Golden Star Resources	GSS	2.99%	0.28
TOTAL MARKET CAP			91.25 Billion

The total market cap of the HUI is less than $92 billion. Now compare that figure with the below chart of diversified companies.

Company Name	Symbol	Market Cap (9/11/08)
Johnson & Johnson	JNJ	197.12 billion
Microsoft	MSFT	244.42
Exxon Mobil	XOM	386.07
Intel	INTC	111.49
General Electric	GE	270.98
Proctor & Gamble	PG	219.23

Editor’s note: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG used to be in the above list but we had to write their market cap down to almost $0 and take them out...

the largest un-hedged miners in the world!

http://www.commodity-trading-solutions.com/

Back to Olivier – as I am not a regular columnist for Casey Research, I would like to share a little bit of my personal experience.

Can Our Government Save Us from All Evil?

All of the rhetoric from our politicians on what our government should do to protect its citizens reminds me of a period 18 years ago when I traveled frequently on business throughout what was then Eastern Europe.

I remember arriving in Warsaw about twelve months after the fall of the Berlin Wall in East Germany; the city was grim, dark, and polluted. The best hotel in the city was in a state of disrepair with broken fixtures. Service was poor and the food was horrendous (the hotel was still state-run).

http://www.poloniatoday.com/history13.htm

I traveled around the country to the famous city of Gdansk, seat of the Solidarity revolution and one of the largest ship building ports on the Baltic Sea. On the road, I met a few smoky Trabants, some local versions of Fiats (1960s design), and many horse-drawn carriages (trucks were rare then). Everywhere I went, life was grim. Most enterprises were state-run with large bureaucracies and very low productivity.

Throughout this trip, as well as many prior trips to Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, I remember being horrified by the state of disrepair, sadness, and darkness of the communist bloc societies.

My trip to Poland in 1990 was in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall; in Warsaw, there was suddenly a glimmer of hope in the midst of the darkness. Many locals immediately started to set up “shops” on the sidewalks, trying to sell whatever miserable belongings they could spare in order to trade them for something else they needed.

Over the next 3 years, I returned to Poland several times, and each time I discovered progress in this country’s steady march away from the yoke of 50 years of state dictatorship. With each trip, I saw gigantic state enterprises shutting down with all of the disruption and pain it caused in people’s lives. These inefficient monsters were soon replaced by smaller, more nimble entrepreneurial firms. Streets began to look cleaner and brighter, with new paint on many buildings and new cars parked along the roads. For many people, standards of living were visibly improving; others were still the victims of the harsh transition to capitalism.

In 2006, I returned to Poland after 13 years of absence. I found in Warsaw a modern and vibrant city that could rival many other Western European cities of similar size. It was clean, modern, with signs of new wealth throughout its middle class. Although I am sure there are still some people left on the margins of society, they have become a small minority.

In all, it took 15-plus years of hard work and entrepreneurship to rebuild a modern society out of the destruction brought by 50 years of socialism. The Poles rejected overwhelmingly their central government and adopted many of the free-market ideas that made for the early success of America. Their journey was often painful, but they transformed their country into a better, more prosperous land. They quickly became more successful than their East German neighbors, who were led to believe that their salvation was to come from their fellow West Germans rather than through their own enterprise and hard work.

It is interesting to me that after having “won” the Cold War and having freed Europe, the United States is gradually becoming a centralized state where we abandon capitalism and individual liberties in the name of fear of failure or terrorism. Not all is perfect in Poland, but they have moved in the right direction (at least until their integration into the EU), while capitalism and entrepreneurship are being trampled in the U.S.

Recessions are painful and difficult to deal with, but it is better to poke the bubble early than to prolong the pain. I do not know any other alternative than to let the market correction take its course. Delaying the burst of a bubble only makes the pain worse when it finally explodes.

I spent several years of my working life restructuring businesses. Many people have asked me: How difficult is it to lay off half of the employees of a distressed business? How can you do it? Invariably, my answer is: very easily. I look at the remaining half and know that if I do not make a difficult choice today, the business will close and the other half will lose their jobs as well.

After failures and bankruptcies, people and nations have the opportunity for a fresh start; with innovation and hard work, generations of Americans have managed to better their lives and those of their children. I can’t say I feel we have achieved the same in the last 10-20 years.

Back to what comes next. I have asked our Chief Economist Bud Conrad to share a few comments and a chart that illustrates the dilemma faced by Paulson and Bernanke:

Bud correctly points out that as our domestic consumption slows, China and other exporters to the U.S. will see a decline in their activity that will be accompanied by a corresponding reduction in the financing of our debt. Continued injection in liquidity by the Fed will contribute to further devaluation of the dollar.

Foreign lenders see their U.S. investments being hit by the combination of currency devaluation and write-offs of stocks and bonds. The only possible way for our government to retain and attract foreign funds will be to increase interest rates. This will be a very challenging decision as long as our economy is in a recession. In spite of calls to ease interest rates in the short run, it will be difficult for the Fed to continue to support a policy of negative real rates if it needs to encourage foreign investment.

At the risk of being redundant, I have also asked Louis James to give us his thoughts on current events. Here is what he has to say:

International Speculator

It’s currently the third image down

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwzYtdA6y_U

Boobus Americanus

Casey Investment Alert

International Speculator

Options & Futures

Last month, several attendees to our Chicago Options & Futures Intensive asked me if Casey Research would ever consider launching an Options Alert to complement The Casey Report. At the time, I responded that Doug, David, and I had discussed the possibility of launching such a service within six months but that we would only do so if we found a very experienced editor for this service.

I now have the pleasure of announcing that Sally Limantour, a 30-year veteran floor trader on the Chicago Commodities Exchange, has decided to join our team and launch this new alert service for us. In addition to being a professional options and futures trader, Sally is teaching online intensive training classes for traders and is a talented newsletter writer. I have asked Sally to write a short note to introduce you to her world.

A Ride to the Rescue

Multiple Personalities

Buck Broke Mountain

Especially in these tumultuous times, options and futures provide unique investment opportunities to profit from almost any major trend and to tailor investments to literally any risk/reward strategy. The Casey option alert will be a unique service that will combine both educational and trading advice. We anticipate launching this service during the second half of October and will keep you informed as soon as details are finalized.

And from the Desk of Doug Hornig…

chutzpah

sturm und drang

that’s

Olivier again for the closing remarks.

Panama

At Casey Research, we do not usually announce conferences until we have picked a destination, a topic, and a date. Last month in Chicago, we announced to attendees that we were planning a conference in Panama in November and that details would come in September. Unfortunately, it turned out that we could not finalize all of the arrangements to our satisfaction in order to make it happen for this date, and we will have to delay this event until after the turn of the year. We thank you for your patience and will let you know as soon as we have secured a venue and planned the program. Stay tuned…

TV?

Many of you have had the opportunity to hear Bud Conrad at our conferences, but have you ever seen him on TV? As one might expect, with the developing crisis, the mainstream media are beginning to pay attention to what the Casey Research contrarians have to say. In the past several weeks, it seems that the opinions of Doug Casey, David Galland, Terry Coxon, and Bud Conrad have been heavily sought by Fox Business, CNBC, the Boston Globe, and Dow Jones Newswire (WSJ), to name a few. In case you have missed Bud’s latest appearance on CNBC, I have included the link below.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=852271347&play=1

Before I leave you to take my second son, a high school senior, for a seven-hour drive to New Jersey to visit Princeton University, I wanted to continue David’s tradition and let you enjoy a very appropriate song for these trying times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeo0_3gN190

While it has been a tall order to fill in for David, he will fortunately be back at the helm next week.

Thank you for being our subscribers. It truly is a pleasure to work for such a fine group of sophisticated investors. I look forward to the opportunity to meet many more of you during future conferences or travels to cities where Casey Phyles get together.

Olivier Garret
CEO
Casey Research

The Room 09/12/2008

David Galland — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:14:37 GMT

September 12, 2008

Dear Readers,

In today’s “special” edition of the Room, I want to go somewhat beyond the latest news and observations on same.

Instead, I want to discuss the big picture as it relates to the U.S. and global economy.

I do so because it is growing more important with each passing day to get a solid fix on where things stand and, more importantly, where they are going next and how you can protect yourself. It’s hard to overstate just how unpredictable and dangerous the economic and investment environment has become.

While these are topics we’ll be covering in today’s online event, Casey’s Crisis & Opportunity Update, the situation at this point is moving so fast, and is so highly charged, that it is time to pay very, very close attention to things.

As you should expect, we have been furiously fingering the tea leaves in an attempt to make actionable sense out of the big moves now in motion. While there is much that we know about the unfolding events, there is also much that is unknowable – for instance, how much longer the long-suffering foreign holders of U.S. dollars will be patient.

In our quest for answers, we’ve been digging through the data and comparing notes with others we respect. For instance, earlier this week I spoke with real estate entrepreneur Andy Miller, who recently sat for a very insightful interview for the current edition of The Casey Report. In Andy’s view, the government takeover of Fannie and Freddie was a seminal event in U.S. history, ranking right up there, in his words “… with the Crash of 1929 or even the Civil War.”

We agree.

To set the stage, I want to share a lengthy excerpt from an article we just published, titled “The Biggest Bailout of All Time.” If you’ve already read it, skip to the next section.

The Biggest Bailout of All Time

(Published 9/10/08)

On Sunday, September 7, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, flanked by James Lockhart, the new conservator from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, announced a plan to take over the operation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to guarantee their debt. They cited what we all knew, that they did not have enough capital to continue operating. Their business is to borrow to lend for housing mortgages, and to guarantee half the country’s housing mortgages, about $5.4 trillion. The equity and preferred is all but wiped out as all dividends are suspended and management and the board are fired.
This is the biggest bailout ever. If 10% of the $5 trillion of guarantees must be made good by the government, the payments would be $500 billion. That is the size of the annual U.S. defense budget. The outstanding debt of the U.S. held by the public is the size of the guaranteed mortgages. It is huge.

We from Casey Research have seen this coming for more than a year:

International Speculator

Unusual Aspects

The Treasury will add funding to Fannie and Freddie when their assets are less than their liabilities. The Treasury gets warrants to own 79.9% of the equity. Fannie and Freddie are allowed to expand mortgage lending through the end of 2009 but are required to wind down their $850 billion of debt at 10% per year until they are essentially out of business at only $250 billion debt.

The effect on the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market could be big: there are about $1.47 trillion of CDS on Fannie/Freddie-backed mortgages. The creation of the conservatorship is probably a credit event, triggering the payment of the insurance on the debt. But as we know, the insurers are already weak, and forcing them to pay could eliminate them as ongoing business, thus creating a cascading loss of the value of insurance on other debt they guarantee.

The "New Secure Loan Agreement" that is designed to bail out the debtors of Fannie and Freddie will also be used to bail out the Federal Home Loan Banks. $274 billion additional housing market funding was passed through the FHLB last year, and it is safe to assume there are problems there too.

Who Will Rescue the Taxpayers from Fannie and Freddie?

The U.S. Government has decided to spend an enormous amount of money to prevent the two mortgage giants from defaulting. What will be the real effects?

The rescue won’t resuscitate the housing market. As much as prices have declined, they still haven’t come down enough to make houses affordable. (They only seemed affordable for a while because of the artificially low interest rates the Federal Reserve engineered during the housing boom through its inflationary policies.) Don’t expect the rescued Fannie and Freddie to revive the housing market; the government’s rescue package requires them to shrink their operations.

The rescue won’t end the credit crisis that is pulling the economy into recession. Fannie and Freddie are perhaps the biggest, but certainly not the only, institutions that overcommitted to risky mortgages. Banks, insurance companies, and pension funds are holding billions in the same kind of dangerous stuff. And they still must get through another two years of interest “resets” on subprime mortgages created during the housing boom. As those resets occur, there will be more defaults on mortgages that borrowers can no longer afford – or no longer want because the loan balance exceeds the value of the house.

The rescue helps keep bad decision makers in place. Managers of banks and other financial institutions that invested heavily in Fannie and Freddie paper get let off the hook. They get another chance to make more bad decisions about how to deploy trillions of dollars of capital. And the politicians who passed the laws that encouraged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to take all those wild risks? They’re up for reelection.

Implications for the Future

The complete collapse of the agencies that provided 80% of new mortgages year-to-date is now here. The whole structure of creating mortgage-backed securities and passing them on is gone. There will be no creating new phony tranches of sliced and diced SIV debt, and no CDO and no CDS and no AAA-rated toxic waste. We don’t know what happens to $62 trillion of notional CDS derivatives, but somebody is holding a disaster. This financial crisis is far from over.

By itself, the government might be able to manage some of these problems, but the problems are not isolated: the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) guarantees $4.3 trillion worth of bank deposits… but has only a $50 billion reserve to cover bank failures.

Interest rates are close to 50-year lows, from the Fed cutting the short-term rate, and as a result of the flight to Treasuries as a “safe harbor”… which serves to drive rates down. But the longer-term implication of the bailout is more deficits… and more deficits will weaken the dollar and therefore, in the longer-term, drive interest rates higher -- especially for non-government-guaranteed debt, to cover inflation and increased risk.

There will be many more financial institutions in trouble: perhaps 150 banks will fail, including probably one or two big banks, like Lehman, Citi, or Merrill. FDIC is next to need a bail-out, in our opinion, once a big commercial bank goes under.

The dollar is up in the short term on what we expect is a short covering rally, but that is not consistent with long-term implications, so we don’t expect it to stay up.

Homeowners gain, as Fannie and Freddie are allowed to continue to expand in 2009. But after that, they will be looking for a newly reconstituted system beyond what is in the conservatorships that are being asked to unwind. The long term is unclear.

The U.S. Treasury is now in the mortgage business. The financial future of the world is crumbling, and this is the biggest step in that change.

David Again, With a Public Service Announcement

Before we move on, I would like to pause for a quick public service announcement.

expanding audit program

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s move on to the topic of who is actually in control of monetary policy in these here United States. And for that, I gladly turn the page over to our own Bud Conrad.

The Reason Paulson Panicked

By Bud Conrad, September 11, 2008

Foreigners have been reinvesting their trade surplus into the U.S. The Federal Reserve keeps a custody account for foreign central banks, acting like a broker for them in buying U.S. Treasuries and agency debt. Agency debt is debt issued by agencies, most notably Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Fed publishes the data weekly. It is the most up-to-date source of foreign investment.

The chart below shows what happened monthly. Foreigners broke a record for selling off their holdings at the annualized rate of $280 billion in August.

The U.S. housing market and Freddie and Fannie in particular have depended on foreigners buying their debt to fund mortgage loans. The above data show a loss of confidence by foreigners and a reversal from buying $200 billion a year… to selling off their holdings. There were other pressures, including PIMCO’s Bill Gross demanding a bailout before his huge fund would invest. But this foreign investment pullback was undoubtedly a big reason that Paulson had to act over the weekend to keep the whole agency debt market from collapsing.

Think through the implications of the largest bailout in history being dictated by foreign central banks -- I suspect that the Chinese are the main culprit, based on Paulson’s frequent travels there of late. Think through the fact that our monetary/fiscal policy is now essentially being dictated by foreigners. The bottom line is that the U.S. is now in the position of a third-world country because of our debt!

On the topic of the size of the bailout and the likely cost: in my view, a 10% loss on the $5 trillion insured by Fannie and Freddie is entirely plausible. That would mean that the government would have to come up with $500 billion… just to make the operations whole. But that doesn’t do anything to recapitalize their businesses so that they can continue as a successful ongoing enterprise. That would likely require another $300 billion to be credible.

Now where does the federal government get that kind of money… $800 billion? It means no health care program for Obama, or no defense spending or nuclear power initiative for McCain.

One of the risks a new president might face would be if the public catches on to the fact that the U.S. Government is going to have to pay close to a trillion dollars to bail out foreign central bank holders of bad debt from Freddie and Fannie. Given the trade-off – i.e., no new social programs – many people might decide that bailing out the foreign central banks isn’t such a high priority. The conclusion from that is that the bailout and reconstitution may not happen as planned, for financial reasons; never mind, constitutionality, or just because lawmakers feel duped by estimates of $25 billion. What happens if the mortgage defaults reach 20%? It could happen.

This situation is still very fluid and far from resolved.

“On a Scale with the Crash of 1929 and the Civil War”

David again.

When Andy Miller used that phrase in relation to the Freddie and Fannie takeover – and he didn’t use it flippantly – I took notice. As you know, here at Casey Research, we believe the unfolding crisis will be one for the history books… but we are not used to hearing such words from a mainstream business executive.

So, why was the Freddie and Fannie takeover so significant? Simply, it puts the economy even further out into deeply uncharted waters, with the U.S. Government now standing directly behind the organizations that, per Bud’s earlier comments, have year-to-date been responsible for guaranteeing some 80% of all U.S. mortgages.

Because the event is unprecedented, the consequences are also unpredictable.

To make that point, consider that since making the takeover announcement, the situation has continued to evolve. Or, more accurately, devolve… evidenced by the following items:

The problem with this move, and it is symptomatic of the problem with the whole stinky mess, is that if you ignore longer-term funding obligations that cause it to balloon into the stratosphere, total U.S. Government debt now rings in at about $9 trillion. Toss $5 trillion onto that number, and you might just scare the wrong people… i.e., the foreign holders of dollars.

If there is one thing you can count on, it is that the Treasury will try to find some clever way to obfuscate the true cost of the bailout, which will be exponentially larger than the $25 billion they have suggested. (Recall that the cost of the Iraq war was initially estimated by the administration at $50 to $60 billion… current estimates put the total at closer to $3 trillion.)

And then, there’s this…

So, what these fine senators are proposing is essentially a 3-month moratorium on paying mortgage payments for many. Other than a testament to the stupidity of career politicians, it represents a huge step in the wrong direction… for taxpayers. I am as sympathetic as the next guy to the challenges now being faced by homeowners. But whether you give a person a 90-day or a 9-month moratorium, if you can’t afford the home, you can’t afford the home. This sort of legislation only assures that the bills mount or the loans go that much more in arrears. And it assures that once the moratorium is lifted, the process of actually cleaning up the mess will drag out for that much longer.

Meanwhile, many of the homes in question will be deserted, vandalized and stripped down to the sticks. And, as Andy Miller pointed out in his Casey Report interview, the disincentives will mount for private lenders to make mortgage loans. Thus, the housing crisis can be expected to continue, possibly for years, setting up a powerful negative feedback loop, with yet more downward pressure on prices, more defaults, more foreclosures, more debt moving onto the back of taxpayers.

But it gets worse.

Now that the government has made it clear that it is in the bailout business, it will be very hard for them to draw the line on who qualifies.

For instance, as we have been talking about for some time now, Lehman Brothers is about to be folded into someone else’s family. And Merrill Lynch is right behind them. As was the case with Bear Stearns, will the government end up as a party to whatever deal is struck? Probably.

Then there is the whole banking sector, which is in deep, deep trouble. It is looking more likely with each passing day that WaMu, a giant, will fail. They will be far from the last, as the trend of bank failures is far closer to the beginning than it is to the end.

And then there is the matter of faltering industry. This from the Associated Press earlier this week…

I love how the lobbyists have thoughtfully packaged their well-timed pitch for the big bucks in the wrapping of “energy independence.” And that part about the auto industry being an essential component to the “backbone of the U.S. economy” is inspired. Funny, I thought the backbone of the economy was the free-market system that, in its less diluted form, was responsible for making the U.S. the world’s richest economy.

But no worries. No responsible politician would authorize a bailout of this magnitude to a group of car makers who, as friend Porter Stansberry points out, collectively have a market capitalization that is less than half the amount being requested.

Okay, okay, Obama, courting the union workers, might roll for it, but not McCain. At least we can count on that.

Well, not exactly. The AP article continues…

“Democrat Barack Obama has criticized Republican rival John McCain for not supporting the full $50 billion loan program. McCain said last week he supported fully covering the $25 billion loan program in the energy law.”
Oh, well.

In my view, the government is desperate at this point… desperate to do something, anything, other than let the chips fall where they may… and must, if the country is going to move on. Instead, as the crisis gains momentum, the government has shown that it will try to manage things, but what it will really end up doing is rushing from emergency to emergency, stepping in again and again as the lender of last resort.

It is an untenable situation. It cannot end well.

Before continuing, I wanted to share a photo from Casey Researcher and daily correspondent Ed Steer of a bear that I think deserves serious consideration as the new poster child for U.S. industry.

What Does This All Mean to Investors?

Earlier this week, I was interviewed by a news service. As we talked, the notion struck me that the interview format might be useful in addressing some of the concerns expressed in the emails I have received lately. And so, with no other interviewer handy, I decided I’d tackle the job myself.

Me: Thanks for making time available today. I can imagine you’re a bit busy, you know, with everything going on in the markets and all.

David: My pleasure. Yes, things are certainly busy, but I’m taking off for a vacation to Portugal next week, so I’ll probably survive.

Me: What’s that music I hear in the background? I can barely hear you.

David: Sorry about that, it’s Polly by Nirvana. It’s actually one of their more mellow songs. Too bad about Kurt Cobain, the guy had a real talent but he couldn’t handle the success and made a lot of bad decisions, not the least of which was frying his brain with excessive quantities of unhealthful stimulants. His later music was truly horrible, but he still managed to secure his reputation by killing himself.

Me: Pretty morbid, but how about we talk about investments? Let’s start with gold. You’ve been very vocal in your bullishness on gold. But as we speak, gold is trading around $750. Are you still bullish, or are you starting to curb your enthusiasm?

David: I’ve never been more bullish. Now, stop rolling your eyes. I’m serious, and here’s why. When trying to understand where investment markets may be headed in the future, we have to largely rely on a combination of hard facts and observations of cause-and-effect relationships that history has shown to have some correlation.

So, what are the hard facts of the situation today? Well, for one thing, we are in the grips of a truly monumental financial crisis, one for the history books. We have the government essentially taking responsibility for over half of the mortgages in the nation, and by passing “anti-predatory lending” legislation and otherwise messing in the free market, assuring that what few private lenders there are still in the mortgage business will soon exit. We also know that the housing bubble was the largest in history, on the order of $30 trillion. And we know that that bubble, and all the little bubbles that spun off from it, were critical drivers of U.S. consumption which, in turn, was a critical driver of global economic growth.

And we know that the housing bubble is now deflating, quickly, with absolutely no turnaround in sight.

Me: That sounds deflationary.

David: No question. As Terry Coxon put it so succinctly, we now have an economy where lenders are afraid to lend, and borrowers are afraid to borrow. That is not a formula for economic growth but contraction. But it is important to interject the factor of time into this discussion. Is the economy in a downturn? Absolutely. Will investments that suffer in an economic downturn suffer in this downturn? Absolutely. Will the government do everything in its power to try to curb this downturn? Absolutely.

Which is why I remain so bullish for gold. While gold is temporarily out of favor with the trading herd, in this day and age, information moves quickly. As the government redoubles its efforts to fix all the many ails of the U.S. economy – and its only real power comes from the printing press – Mr. Market will take note and the pendulum will shift back towards tangibles.

Me: What about the rebound in the dollar?

David: There is a very high correlation between gold and the dollar…and between gold and oil, which is, of course, priced in dollars. It’s hard to argue with the contention that the U.S. dollar was oversold, and that oil was overbought. So, the U.S. dollar has had a bounce, as was inevitable because trees don’t go to the moon, and no investment moves in just one direction. And oil corrected, for much the same reason. As a consequence, gold took a big hit. But what happens as the crisis continues to unfold and the trading herd remembers that the U.S. dollar is trash? Oh, and so is the euro and the pound and the yen? Where is the money going to go next? The Chinese renminbi? Sure, some of it might… but I have to believe that more and more of it is going to find its way into gold.

I recently commented that the 24-hour trading volume on currency futures contracts is worth about $3.2 trillion. Against that number, gold trades about $26 billion and silver just $4.5 billion. When the currency traders start looking for their next safe harbor, I have to believe that some small percentage is going to head into tangibles. And what’s more tangible than gold?

It may not happen overnight, but it will happen. And when it does, the gold price is heading back toward $1,000 in a hurry.

Me: What about gold stocks?

David: To answer that question, you have to start by separating the gold stocks into two categories; the junior explorers and the producers.

Starting with the latter, I remain very bullish on the big producers. At today’s gold prices, the good ones, such as we follow in BIG GOLD, are throwing off large amounts of free cash. How many other sectors can you say that about these days? But the story is even better, because the stocks have been punished along with the broader market and with gold. Thus, they are selling for ridiculously low valuations, by just about any standards.

Historically, there have been a number of occasions where the gold stocks have initially fallen with the broader markets, but then snapped back relatively quickly and head to new highs. I think we’ll see this pattern repeat, and I don’t think we’ll have to wait overly long for it.

There is one other factor in the favor of the big gold companies, but it’s not particularly good news for investors in the junior exploration companies for the near term. Namely that the cashed-up big gold companies are beginning to pick off the juniors with serious deposits that lack the cash to make forward progress in these challenging times. And, thanks to the current market conditions, they don’t have to pay big premiums for those companies. So, that’s a big plus for the producers, but not so good for some of the juniors.

Me: Speaking of the juniors, seems like you should have seen the meltdown coming.

David: We certainly didn’t foresee the depth of the pullback in the juniors. At this point, the losses on juniors are a similar scale as those suffered by investors in the financials, which we did anticipate. In our defense, we did make a couple of moves relatively early on that I think were important. The first was to recommend selling all our appreciated base metals juniors back in August 2007, locking in big gains. Our rationale back then was that base metals were particularly susceptible to the economic downturn we saw coming, and that made it all the more important for subscribers to take their considerable profits off the table.

The other move, made around the same time, was to begin tightening up the portfolio of our remaining stocks, shifting our focus primarily to the highest-quality juniors involved in advanced stages of gold exploration. That was consistent with our view that gold’s role as a monetary metal would become highly valued in the economic crisis. That view hasn’t changed, but the structural underpinnings of the junior resource sector has taken a major hit, causing even the highest-quality juniors to suffer big setbacks.

Me: What structural damage are you referring to?

David: First and foremost, there has been a flight from risk. And we have never made it a secret that the junior resource stocks are risky – it’s what gives them such wonderful upside – which is why we constantly remind investors to only take positions with a relatively small percentage of their portfolio.

Regardless, in the process of trying to reduce risk, an increasing number of investors began trying to unload their juniors, at the same time that buying interest was drying up. That has effectively kept the lid on most of the stocks, even those that have delivered the drill results needed to confirm they are sitting on a major new deposit.

The situation has been exacerbated by a wave of redemptions by investors in the funds that had moved into the smaller resource plays – RAB Capital being the latest example. To meet those liquidations, the managers have been forced to sell, almost without regard to price.

So, ironically, just when everything should be breaking the way of the juniors, they are struggling.

Me: Is it time to throw in the towel on the juniors?

David: Personally, I’m holding. But I am doing so because the positions I own that actually matter – to wit, those of any real size – are all in companies that used their shareholder capital efficiently to discover and/or prove up significant discoveries.

And, per our criteria for the vast majority of the companies we are following in the International Speculator and Casey Investment Alert services, the companies I own are well cashed up and have proven management teams. It is highly unlikely that the deposits they have found are going to be returned to the former property owners or dumped in a fire-sale… at least not as long as the cash holds out. And they have cash.

So, I think, in the longer run, they’ll come out a lot more than fine. Could they get cheaper in the short term? Absolutely. If a fund is forced to dump everything, then quality is no longer a protection; in the short term, the stock is going down.

Between now and the end of the year, I would only look to invest in very special situations. A recent example was a company we brought to the attention of CIA readers on August 15 that subsequently announced a major discovery, giving readers a quick opportunity to lock in a gain of as much as 75% within a couple of weeks. But, as we expect to see in this market, the stock has since come back a bit, though we’re still well in positive territory.

So, the special opportunities are out there, but they take a lot of work to uncover. Fortunately, hard work doesn’t bother people around here very much.

But returning to something I said earlier, we really can’t know what tomorrow is going to bring. With market conditions as volatile as they are today -- and I expect things to get violently volatile before this is over – who is to say that gold doesn’t do a runner through $1,000 almost overnight? That could be a big game changer, and it is certainly not out of the question given the powerful uncertainty hanging over the global economy just now.

So, personally, I’m maintaining my positions in the juniors and looking to raise cash for the truly amazing opportunities I think the quality juniors are going to offer once things bottom early next year. At the point where there are no more sellers, these stocks are going to explode to the upside. As Rick Rule put it in my recent call with him, and Rick is one of the most successful resource investors ever, he is becoming very, very bullish on the better-quality juniors.

If I was pressed to it, I would say that the companies that we are following in the International Speculator and the Casey Investment Alert are going to do exceptionally well next year. We’ll have to get through this lag between the cause of their finding a major deposit and the effect of getting paid for it, but they will get paid.

I know that many of Aurelian’s shareholders were disappointed by the price that Kinross paid for them – but the number worked out to be about $88 per ounce in the ground. Not really all that bad, given that that ground is located in a very politically unstable place. By this time next year, the premium on good deposits, in good jurisdictions, should rise considerably.

Me: You focused your comments on the quality junior resource companies. What about the other 95%? You know, the paper tigers with indifferent management, small or non-existent mineral deposits, and little to no cash?

David: If you own any stocks that fit any part of that description, I’d be looking to beat the market to the punch by selling as soon as possible. Certainly before any serious year-end tax selling gets underway.

The bottom line is that bad companies will have a very bad outcome, simply because they are not going to find the cash they need to survive.

Me: What about base metals? Still bearish?

David: The world’s manufacturers are not going to all close up shop and go away, no matter how bad things get. Despite the big run-up in the prices of many base metals, copper for example, supply inventories throughout the period have not shot up as you might expect they would. So the supply/demand remains fairly tight, and we expect it will continue that way for the foreseeable future.

Our big concern about the base metals has been a sell-off due to broad concerns about a major economic downturn. Since our sell signal last August, we have seen much of the froth come off the base metals and, in the case of some of the metals, a steep sell-off. As the depth and scope of the crisis become widely apparent, we see base metals becoming oversold. At that point we expect to be buyers, competing for our shares with the end users who actually need the feed for their smelters or for their factories.

Me: What about oil? Given the positive correlation with gold, the outlook for oil seems important.

David: It is. While oil, like base metals, may take a few more hits as recession fears spread, the medium to long-term outlook is very bullish. As we have discussed at some length in Casey Energy Opportunities, on the order of 70% of the world’s production is now in the hands of state-run energy companies. That’s important for two reasons.

The first is that, unlike a private company where management has to be attentive to the expectations of shareholders, a government entity will respond only to the wishes of officialdom. As Rick Rule points out, governments have, for decades, dedicated large percentages of their oil revenues to the task of mollifying their populations with all manner of social programs. That money is not being spent to find and develop new fields. Which, in turn, assures that oil supplies will remain tight, and shortages are a locked-in certainty in the years just ahead.

Similarly, I have written about Jeffrey Brown’s Export Land Model, which shows that Mexico will go offline as an exporter to the U.S. within the next six years. While much of that has to do with geology, there’s no question that a diversion of oil revenues to social programs has limited new exploration.

Then there are the geopolitical aspects. If the big oil-producing countries, which include Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, think the price of oil is getting too low, they have it in their ability to stir things up or organize a cut in production, and loudly announce same, to drive prices back up. There are a lot of geopolitical apples in the air just now, not the least being the very real potential for an Israeli attack on Iran.

And just today, Venezuela tossed the U.S. ambassador out and announced it is withdrawing its U.S. envoy. Despite all his bluster and bravado, Venezuela is still the third or fourth largest supplier of oil to the U.S., depending on the day, so, who knows, maybe this time around Chavez ends up cutting off the U.S. and redirecting the country’s oil elsewhere? If there is one truth about history, it is that anything can happen at any time.

So, the outlook for oil remains strong. At least until we get the inevitable breakthrough in technology, I think it will be solar, that changes the entire game. But before that happens, the odds are high we’ll see $200 a barrel.

Me: What about other opportunities?

David: Now you’re talking. In a time of great crisis, there is also great opportunity. It’s all a matter of orientation. Being aware of the scope of the problems now challenging the global economy – and a surprising number of investors are still unaware of just how serious this situation is -- gives you a real leg up in positioning your portfolio to profit. In fact, it is getting hard to keep up with all the many ways to profit from this crisis, though we’re certainly giving it a good try in The Casey Report. Shorting regional banks with portfolios stuffed to the gills with condominium mortgages, or anticipating the inevitability of rising interest rates, or shorting financials, or buying more gold at today’s low prices, or buying natural gas companies on the cheap… and… and.

In the final analysis, I am sorry to say that the common man is going to take a serious hit here. But for the uncommon man, and by that I mean anyone actually willing and able to act decisively at the right time in the right sectors, the potential to earn investment fortunes in the next year or two is very real.

We see it as our job to keep our readers up to date on the unfolding situation and on the ways to play it. It’s a job we take seriously, even though we do sometimes talk to ourselves.

Taunting the Tiger

You may recall the tragic tale of the teenagers, encouraged by the liberal application of pot and alcohol, who thought taunting the tiger at the San Francisco zoo last year was a good idea, a notion that changed quickly when the tiger jumped the fence and expressed his displeasure in that special way only angry tigers can.

I recalled that story when reviewing the following story emanating, as usual, from that towering bastion of hijinks and stupidity, Washington D.C.

Now, rules are rules and all that, but at this particular moment, Congress might want to look the other way on new legislation to tax foreign investors in the U.S.

After all, should the IRS succeed in its endeavors in this regard, it might, just might, make the U.S. less attractive as a place for foreigners to park funds. And right now, I think the U.S. probably needs all the investment capital it can get.

Why, no sooner had those words rolled onto the screen than the following popped up in an email from the ever reliable Mr. Steer…

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-09/12/content_7020656.htm

I suspect, but can’t know, that given the general environment where bonds will soon look like a really, really bad idea, and stocks won’t look much better… at least not those in the U.S., given the proposed IRS enforcement, coupled with that whole collapsing financial markets thing… the Chinese and others in Asia will see some wisdom in adding some more precious metals to the portfolio mix. It wouldn’t take much more than a percentage point or two of $4 trillion to do some pretty amazing things to the price of gold.

A Very Useful New Service

Last week, I finally found time to do something I have been meaning to do for years but have always put off: I sent off a bunch of my old VHS tapes to be transferred to DVD.

The tapes, from my youth and my family life, have been gathering dust and slowly degrading.

Well, anyway, I finally got around to researching the best way to handle the transfer and settled on the Photo Archival Company. I don’t do a lot of product endorsements, but the service was so excellent – including changing my delivery instructions over the weekend – the prices so reasonable (about $10 a tape) and the quality of the transfer so good, I highly recommend them.

I was particularly amazed that they were able to successfully transfer, and retain the quality of the initial recording, of one tape that was almost 25 years old, of a very strange adventure I was involved with in Africa.

In any event, as I suspect you probably have old VHS tapes or Super 8’s, whatever, lying around, you may find this service as useful as I have. Check it out.

Miscellany

Good perspectives on gold. Frank Holmes, the top-performing gold fund manager, often comes across interesting facts and insights, which he shares on his website (you can read some of his recent postings by clicking here). Recently Frank co-authored an excellent book on gold investing, titled GoldWatcher. It’s quite well done and well worth the price, even though it’s not available on Kindle yet.
Orange County phyle starting up. If you live in Orange County, California, we have a subscriber who is willing to organize get-togethers. Drop us a note at phyle@caseyresearch.com.
Doug takes on James Carville and Fred Thompson, live… The annual New Orleans Investment Conference is coming up, Nov. 13 – 17. It has become something of a tradition for the organizers of this long-running event to put Doug Casey up against all manner of opposition in a debate format. This year’s challengers should be particularly interesting, especially Carville, who is famous for his rapier wit. Can Doug prevail against this media slick? Only one way to find out… be there. More details on the conference can be found here.
Music makes the world go round. I was thrilled to get so many emails with so many great songs I have never heard – and reminders of many great old songs I have. I was going to do a compilation of all your recommendations in this edition but ran out of time, so I will save that for the edition after next, when I am back from Portugal. Until then, thanks to all of you who took the time to write with your favorites!

And Finally…

And with that, I will sign off for this week… and for next as well, as I’ll be visiting with friends in Portugal. As I sign off, gold is trading up at $753, and the U.S. stock market isn’t open yet… I started quite early today. But a glance at the news suggests another rough day... with retail sales falling further and Lehman teetering.

One item of interest to gold investors, a group I am happy to belong to, has it that U.S. Producer Prices fell 0.9% in August. At first glance, that might seem a reversal of last month’s robust gains. But scratch at the data a bit, and you find that producers paid 9.6 percent more for goods in August 2008 than they did in August 2007. And, taking out food and energy, you find that the gain in “core” prices in August was 3.6%, the biggest year-over-year increase since 1991.

Even so, you can expect the pundits to point to the data as a sign that the inflation has been tamed, giving the government yet more license, as if they needed it, to belly up to the money bar.

Which brings me to one final item before I sign off.

The days ahead are going to try the mettle of most people and the quality of our lives will, in the end, be determined by how well we cope. It is important to keep things, good and bad, in their proper perspective. There’s more to life than money, and we as a species are truly resilient.

In that regard, I think the photo here, from Ireland during a recent flood, strikes a resonant chord.

Next week Olivier Garret, our hard-working CEO, will be writing this column.

And so, until the week after next, thank you for reading and for being a subscriber.

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC

The Room 8/22/08

David Galland — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:43:32 GMT

August 22, 2008

Dear Readers,

Summer weather, at least that of the preferable sort, has finally returned to the corner of the globe where your correspondent sits listening, too loudly, to Michael Franti’s Yell Fire!. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7WASrQFg8o) For those of you unfamiliar with Franti and his band Spearhead, his genre is what might be termed “Revolution Rock”… as in taking it to “the man.”

While I don’t agree with many of his lyrics, which skew far left, I do like the music and his thematic focus on peace and, paradoxically, burning things down. Regrettably, in his view the rebuilding would be of a socialist paradise.

It is, of course, deeply ingrained in human nature to want everything wrapped up in a nice utopian package. Problems arise, however, because one person’s idea of utopia is another’s idea of hell. And, inevitably, even utopia’s champions awaken one morning in full agreement that their vision was hell… just ask Robespierre or Trotsky.

In the end, no one gets their utopia because the entire notion is merely a dangerous fiction that, in the attempt, leads only to the disenfranchisement of one group or groups in favor of another. And, in time, of everyone.

In that light, I think it is safe to predict that, within a year of taking the White House, the Obamians, initially imbued with a perceived mandate for change and the power to nurse their perfect world vision will quickly learn three things.

First, attempting to “manage” a country as big and complex as the U.S. is, in the best of times, far more complicated than they now imagine. Second, after a series of failed experiments and a resulting sound thwacking about the ears, they’ll learn to embrace the same well-worn path of compromise, deceit and vote buying used by Republican and Democrat predecessors alike over the last century or so. And, third, as they find themselves assailed on all sides -- the economy in ruins -- they’ll finally learn that their particular vision of utopia is a fantasy.

The same would hold true for the McCainians, should the fates smile on them this November.

But either way, it will be the long-suffering taxpayers of the economy – you and I, to be specific – that will be strapped into the traces and forced to provide the muscle required to pursue the reigning utopian whimsy.

While I’m not planning to go down the revolution path, taking up residence in Galt’s Gulch seems more attractive to me with each passing day.

Fiat Finale

In last week’s edition of The Room, I shared some thoughts about the fall in the euro and the concomitant rise in the U.S. dollar. At the time, my marginally younger self wrote…

“If you think the thing through, precedent to the global monetary crisis, the euro first had to stumble. Well, it now has. The next stage -- and given the volatility of the situation, I don’t think we’ll have to wait long for it – will be the realization that there is no safe fiat currency. It is at that point that the massive hurricane, a crisis of confidence in the entire fiat system, will begin ravaging the global economy in earnest.”

This week, the trading herd quickly came to the conclusion that, by running back to the dollar, they had run back into a burning house and, singed hair smoking, many came running back out.

While some of the hot money flowed, reluctantly, one has to assume, back into the mortally wounded euro, some of it also made its way into the yen, which is being touted as a new “safe harbor” for money looking to avoid the worst of the currency storm. In my mind, that is a sure sign of how desperate things are becoming, given that yen-denominated instruments offer next to no yield and are linked to an economy entirely dependent on imported oil. And if that is not enough, Japan has also seen a steep reversal in its GDP, threatening a return to its two-decade-long economic meltdown.

More importantly, looking at the price of gold this week, it becomes clear that money is also finding its way back into gold, helping the yellow metal bounce well off last week’s low of $786.

While the finale for fiat currency will take time to unfold, and requires as prerequisite the masses developing a “felt need” for a reliable “it’s-not-a-fiat-currency” play… the quick rebound in gold this week is certainly a step in the right direction.

During a far-too-rushed 9 holes of golf before the opening of business yesterday, a friend asked me if gold’s recent stumble had worried me. Paraphrasing my response…

“One should never be complacent or overly certain that any investment trade they are making will work out as planned. As such, the setback in gold caused me to reflect upon my base case scenario.

“On doing so, I can’t see that there have been any fundamental changes in the economy or in the outlook for the economy. Has the government decided to let the chips fall where they might in the housing market? Have they announced a decision to link the dollar to gold or some other tangible, or to cut taxes, or to dial back the massive government programs that require those taxes? Has the Treasury told Freddie and Fannie they are on their own? Nope. None of it. In fact, the only change is that gold has gotten cheaper. So, I’m not worried…”

What I think I actually said was, “What has fundamentally changed that should make me optimistic about the U.S. dollar, or pessimistic about gold? Nothing. So, fuhgeddaboudit. Now, how about making the putt.”

But that was what I meant…

Deflation? Don’t Bet on It.

There has been analysis presented here and there suggesting the government of these United States is not inflating the money supply in response to the truly unprecedented economic conditions now holding sway. In fact, some of the analysis has it that the U.S. money supply is actually contracting. This is a fairly complicated discussion, and time and space don’t really allow for it here. But I will repeat our core thesis that, with the controls of the proverbial printing presses never far from the hands of the powers that be, there is almost no chance that they will not use those controls over and over, and to whatever degree they feel is needed, to avoid an economic crash.

When Bernanke made his oft-repeated comment about dropping dollars from a helicopter, should the need arise, he wasn’t just being glib… he was stating a truth.

While the Fed and the Treasury have shown a noteworthy amount of creativity in the succession of plans they have shoved into the arena, each one doomed to fall under the gladiatorial trident of a hostile Mr. Market, they are quickly running out of options not involving a helicopter. The almost certain failure of Freddie and Fannie, the logical consequence of which will be, essentially, the U.S. government stepping into the role of the world’s largest provider of mortgage financing, is simply not tenable and will require not just helicopters but C-130 cargo planes on an unprecedented scale. Of course, they’ll do their very best to obfuscate the reality of the situation, but that won’t change the reality one bit.

But back to the topic of whether or not the money supply is or is not expanding, the folks at ShadowStats.com put out a note this week that sheds some helpful light on the topic…

Monthly July M3 Gained $81 billion. In the last several days, I have received a large number of subscriber requests for comment on monthly M3 growth, given a popular-media story of a private estimate out in the U.K. of a $50 billion monthly contraction in July U.S. M3 money supply. Based on my regular estimation of ongoing M3, no such contraction took place in the series as traditionally defined by the Federal Reserve (methodology discussed in the August 2006 SGS Newsletter); to the contrary, monthly M3 increased by roughly $81 billion.

…While interesting, month-to-month money supply changes can be misleading, given the vagaries of Fed reporting. Year-to-year change, as discussed in the August 3rd Money Supply Special Report, provides more-reliable, long-term indications of monetary trends.

On a year-to-year basis, annual M3 growth slowed to around 15.4% in July, from 15.8% in June and was down from the all-time high annual growth rate of 17.4% seen in April. Nonetheless, the current M3 annual growth remains highly inflationary, rivaled outside the current period only by the events preceding Richard Nixon’s closing the gold window and imposing wage and price controls in August 1971. The current pattern of slowing annual growth appears to be an artifact of the still-deepening banking solvency crisis, which likely will see still further Fed accommodation and liquidity expansion in the near future.

Could the Fed and the Treasury make a mistake and put their hands in their pockets and keep them there as Freddie and Fannie fail, joined soon thereafter by a meteor storm of failing banks and financial institutions? Will they resist “doing something” or even “whatever it takes” to try and turn around the free fall in home prices – that key driver of the economy? Unlikely, in the extreme, we say. Meanwhile, watch what happens to Freddie and Fannie… because that will provide hard evidence as to which way Washington is going to skew.

Inflation, What Inflation?

The pundits, including Bernanke (no bias there), are spouting off hopefully about inflation moderating, now that the prices of oil and commodities have come off somewhat. I suppose they think by merely talking about lower inflation, they can lower inflation… don’t hold your breath. Confirming that sentiment, the Producer Price Index, a leading indicator, rang in at a stunning new high this week. This from our own Bud Conrad…

Here is today's data:

Producer Price Index
Weight		July 2008	June 2008
Total finished	100.00%	1.2%	1.8%
ex food & energy	57.05%	0.7%	0.2%
Total intermediate	100.00%	2.7%	2.1%
ex food & energy	72.70%	2.0%	1.3%
Total crude	100.00%	4.2%	3.7%
ex food & energy	16.37%	3.4%	-0.2%

1.2% for the month is 15% a year
4.2% is over 50% a year

The foolish idea that there is no inflation because of recession or some such excuse is just not matching reality.

Bud

It is worth recalling, per Terry Coxon’s excellent article “Eats & Heats” in The Casey Report, that without an open-ended supply of new money, the price of a select basket of commodities can’t create inflation. Instead, people, forced to pay more for a necessity, say, oil or food, will simply cut back on non-essentials.

The widespread price increases we are now seeing are a clear sign that the chickens spawned by years of fiscal prolificacy are coming home to roost.

Got Gold? Lucky You…

There is clear evidence that a gold price of anywhere near $800 is now considered cheap. Nothing underscores that more than the surge in demand for one-ounce American Eagle coins, the increasingly popular way for citizens to express their preference for hard money over the fiat dollar.

As you don’t need me to tell you, this week the U.S. Mint suspended shipments of the American Eagle due to the fact that it miscalculated rising demand and simply ran out of coins. While some will, and have, read all sorts of implications in this development, to me it is a straight-up sign that the dollar’s credibility is crumbling.

Humans reflexively equate scarcity with value. It’s why large diamonds command such a premium over the common piece of glass. Or why the best way to privately sell a used car is to “accidentally” schedule a viewing of two prospects at the same time. One car, two buyers, the demand-meter goes up.

Viewed from that perspective, the widely spread news of the Mint suspending sales of the American Eagle, albeit temporarily, one assumes, will only help to further cement gold’s desirability in the minds of the many.

Here’s a story that broadcast the story to a mass market, from the Wall Street Journal…

The Eagle Has Been Grounded

Mint Halts Gold-Coin Sales
After Supply Depleted Amid Price Drop

By IANTHE JEANNE DUGAN
August 21, 2008; Page C1

As gold prices tumbled from their highest level ever, investors and collectors loaded up on one-ounce "American eagle" gold-bullion coins. The buying spree came to an abrupt halt this week after the U.S. Mint stopped selling the coins for the first time since production began 20 years ago.

[Ed Note: Not so… the Mint has suspended sales of Eagle coins in the past, most recently in September of 2007.]

"Due to the unprecedented demand... our inventories have been depleted," the Mint -- part of the U.S. Treasury Department -- told its dealers Friday. "We are therefore temporarily suspending all sales of these coins."

The move shocked sellers and collectors of the coins, which are the most widely traded in the U.S. Suppliers became angry as they turned away customers. Theories about the decision's underlying cause ran rampant -- from investors in gold futures to Russia's invasion of Georgia.

…The Mint says it simply was wiped out. It has sold 311,000 ounces of the coins this year -- about 50% more than in all of 2007. In the first few weeks of August alone, buyers snapped up 63,500 ounces.

Meanwhile, our friends and partners on KitcoCasey.com, Kitco.com confirm the shortage by posting the following on their much trafficked website.

IMPORTANT NEW NOTICE: Demand for bullion products has increased significantly in recent days. As a result, we may experience delays in supply and possibly delays in processing and shipping by our vaults.

No question, this is a friendly trend for those of you who have placed a bet on gold as a safe harbor in the monetary storm we see coming.

As an aside, there is an interesting historical antecedent to this situation… in 1970 when, among others, France under de Gaulle rushed to the then-open U.S. gold window to exchange dollars for gold, per the terms of the Bretton Woods agreement. Of course, the outcome of that bit of geopolitical theater was that Nixon closed said gold window.

Wonder what the government will do when the tide of the U.S. populace trading their dollars for gold reaches a flood stage? Maybe suspend the American Eagles permanently?

More on Gold’s Shortage

Steady correspondent Ed Steer passed on along the following email. I suspect many of you have seen it, but I am reprinting it here for those of you who did not. It offers an insiders perspective of the gold shortage from a large physical gold-trading operation.

Subject: UBS Metals Daily: 20/08/08: "Busiest in My Career"

We had a long conversation with our physical gold specialist in Zurich yesterday as he wanted to update us on what had gone on in the market over the past few weeks. Erwin, who has traded our physical book for 20 years, reports that over the past two weeks our vault staff have been the busiest he can remember across his career with demand for all types of gold from all sorts of clients. The only time we were as busy as this was in the first half of 2005, when rampant demand from India bought all the gold we could supply. Recent demand has been as strong as this, but more geographically spread: the Middle East, some parts of Europe and other Asia (ex India) have also seen very good buying, with refineries struggling to supply their customer needs. We have heard anecdotal evidence of Indian kilobar premiums above $2/oz, much higher than the usual 60-80c, and other premiums are also extremely strong both in Switzerland and in the important gold-consuming markets. The demand we have seen is strongly suggestive of an evaporation of scrap supply, something that has been a large part of the gold market over the past year, which is another important sign.

As the largest clearer in Switzerland, we can say with confidence that the physical gold market has demonstrated that it collectively considers gold to be attractively priced between $780 and $820/oz. The last time we saw strong (but not this strong) gold demand was in August 2007 with gold around $660/oz. We had estimated that gold would have to get down to $700-750/oz to stimulate demand, but this proved too pessimistic: after a year of dull fundamental demand, the gold industry can wait no longer and has had to pay up to $800/oz, a much higher price than we expected.

So why, in the face of this very strong physical demand, has gold fallen? The answer is simple: long liquidation by investors and speculators trading on the OTC and futures markets. The accompanying chart shows how Tocom open interest fell has declined over the past couple of months: we showed the COTR for Comex gold on Monday in the daily. Gold ETF holdings have held up pretty well so far with no sign of the frantic liquidation seen in the Platinum ETF. But a combination of speculative liquidation and new short selling was enough to counter the strong physical demand, and gold sank lower. Another way of looking at the impact of the strong fundamental demand is in gold's performance relative to other precious metals. As we noted in yesterday's Metals Daily, gold has greatly outperformed silver, platinum and palladium and we attribute this to the much greater proportion of price elastic demand for gold than for the other precious metals.

The final point to consider is that the recent transactions have been between fast money, selling; and sticky money, buying. A large amount of gold has moved into the hands of longer term holders. And while the frantic demand of the past two or three weeks will probably soon slow, that won't matter: long positioning is now greatly reduced. Any shorts looking to cover may find fewer sellers than they expect considering the strong hands that now hold gold. We hold our one- and three-month forecasts for gold at $850 and $900/oz respectively. All that stands in the way of an impressive tactical gold rally is a correction in the dollar. If you are confident that EURUSD has seen its low for the near term, buy gold now.

Other short-term precious metals forecasts adjusted.

Following the sell-off across the precious metals markets that has seen all metals fall, we have adjusted our short-term precious metals forecasts, something that we did not do when we cut our short-term gold price forecasts a couple of weeks ago. In line with our view in gold, we see some upside in one month for all precious metals and further upside over a three-month period. We now forecast that platinum will trade to $1550/oz in one month and $1700/oz in three months; we see palladium at $300/oz and $350/oz in one and three months respectively; we expect silver to increase to $14.70/oz in one month and $16.40 in three months; and we see some recovery in the rhodium price from current levels just above $4000/oz, although we do not recommend investors trade rhodium due to the illiquid, opaque nature of this market.

Coming Events

In addition to the collapse of Fannie and Freddie, and the fire sale of what’s left of Lehman, there are a couple of coming attractions I wanted to bring to your attention.

The first is our Crisis & Opportunity Update, Casey Research’s first-ever online event, which will be broadcast Friday, September 12.

The genesis of the idea comes from a 2004 meeting between Doug Casey, Bud Conrad, Terry Coxon and myself in a San Francisco Starbucks.

It was the first time that we all sat down as a group. In the wide-ranging discussion that followed, we found that we agreed, unanimously, that the U.S. was on a one-way path to a serious monetary crisis. From that meeting, we rigged the proverbial sails for many of the forecasts and recommendations you have subsequently read in our publications.

The same group is reconvening for an unrehearsed, in-depth discussion on the global crisis now unfolding, and, as importantly, how you can protect yourself and profit. As this is something of an experiment for us, we are going to make the online event available free of charge.

As a Casey reader, you’ll be sent an email, probably next week, on how to sign up and participate. It should be, I believe, very timely and very worthwhile. More soon.

The second thing I want to bring to your attention is the upcoming edition of The Casey Report, due out September 2, the primary focus of which is the housing market.

For the upcoming issue, I did a long interview yesterday with real estate entrepreneur Andy Miller, the quintessential pro whose daily labors involve transactions valued in millions of dollars. A longtime acquaintance of Doug Casey’s, Andy gave what most considered the best of many stellar presentations at our Scottsdale Summit earlier this year.

What he has to say about the implications of what’s now going on behind the scenes in real estate is essential to your well-being… not to mention your pocketbook.

If you have not yet signed up for a subscription to The Casey Report, now is the time to do so… taking advantage, of course, of our no-questions-asked, 100%, three-month money-back guarantee.

I guarantee you’ll find this next edition of The Casey Report worth every penny you pay for your entire subscription… times ten… or you get all your money-back. Learn more and sign up now, you’ll be extremely glad you did.

OBAMA!

If pushed to it, I would probably favor McCain being elected… but only, and I use that word deliberately, because having a Republicrat in the White House with a Demopublican-controlled Congress would mean gridlock, the best possible outcome.

But the tea leaves continue to point to Obama taking the prize, an outcome that was made more likely by McCain’s latest gaffe: not being able to remember how many houses he owns in a media interview, kicking the blocks out of his whole subtheme of Obama as an elitist out of touch with the common man.

In any event, make no mistake that I have a strong philosophical difference with the noise coming out of the Obama camp on their utopian plans for managing the economy. The litany of proposed solutions to the current economic problems coming out of the Obama camp, none of which involves encouraging the entrepreneurial class, are increasingly revealing a serious new-age socialist agenda. This week, Obama tried to kill two or even three birds with a single shot by talking of creating millions of union jobs in alternative energy. (Adding an extra layer of butter to the unions, he also stated that, upon election, he’ll end tax breaks for companies with overseas operations.)

I could go on, but my friend and occasional golf adversary, Porter Stansberry, did such a good job in an essay he published this week in his SA Digest, that I asked him permission to share it with you. Here it is…

Speaking of the utter corruption of our national politics... OBAMA! proposes to take things to a new level of absurdity and perversion. His "tax plan" has nothing to do with taxes. It's simply a plan to redistribute incomes according to his idea of "fairness."

Not surprisingly, OBAMA! thinks it's "fair" to take money from a small minority of citizens and give the cash to millions of other citizens, who will surely constitute a majority at the polls. What a concept! Just buy the election using the tax code!

Specifically, OBAMA! wants to make income taxes "refundable." What he means is, even if you don't pay taxes, you will still get cash from the government. For example, his "Savers Tax Credit" would match 50% of the first $1,000 people save – if they earn less than $75,000 per year. What about the fact that a couple earning $75,000 a year doesn't pay federal income taxes at all? No matter – instead of getting a tax credit, they'll simply get a check. The same goes for 50% of the first $6,000 poor families spend on health care. OBAMA! also wants to give $1,000 to each working couple and pay 10% of poor families' mortgages – all on a "refundable" basis.

What OBAMA! intends to do is create an entirely new class of working poor, all of whom will be utterly dependent on the government dole.

How will OBAMA! pay for this "fairness"? He can't, of course, without raising taxes significantly on the middle class. But he's still going to raise taxes on the upper income earners, even though he admits doing so won't increase total tax receipts. Why? Because he wants to promote "fairness."

Oh... one more thing. OBAMA!'s plan to "save" Social Security relies on raising the payroll tax by 32% for families earning more than $250,000 per year. Will this actually work? No. Every time you raise marginal tax rates on the rich, you decrease revenues because rich people can defer income or simply stop working.

But according to OBAMA!, even though these policies won't work, they're more "fair." OBAMA!'s plan represents the classic, ultimate problem of an unlimited democracy. It is always in the best interest of the majority to vote itself the rights and the property of the minority. But doing so destroys the fabric of the society, as incentives are perverted and respect for the law evaporates. You can eat the rich... but only once.

Now, those of you who are Obamians may take some umbrage at Porter’s sentiments, or at me for republishing them. Typically, I would receive emails (which you are welcome to send to me at David@caseyresearch.com) admonishing me to stick to investments and leave the politics alone.

Don’t be overly miffed… as investors, it is not just important but critical that we get a sense of what’s on the horizon, politically speaking. If I seriously thought McCain had a chance, which I don’t (sorry, McCainians, but I just don’t), then I would dedicate much more ink to his proposed policies.

For the time being, however, it’s Obama we have to understand in order to prepare. In the way of illustration, I might mention the fact that Obama has made no bones about his intention to raise capital gains taxes as an early order of business. So, what action do you think investors with said capital gains might take in November, should Obama prevail?

Can you say, “sell”?

In order to give you a fighting chance to cope, and even profit, from what’s coming, we are currently working up a special report on Obama’s likely policies as they will likely affect investment markets. It’s no easy task: if you credit his campaign rhetoric, he has big plans… not the least of which are universal healthcare (who wins, who gets hurt?) and a new era of green energy initiatives (who gets the subsidies?), etc., etc.

I’m not sure yet how we’ll distribute it, but will let you know once it’s finished in a week or so.

(And, of course, if the odds begin to swing in John McCain’s favor, then we’ll do an analysis of his proposed policies as well. )

Miscellany

I.O.U.S.A. The folks at Agora have produced a documentary, I.O.U.S.A., which is getting a lot of attention. I have to hand it to Addison Wiggin and the others at Agora behind this project, as they are actually making a credible attempt to wake Americans up to the facts on the ground about the historic debt now burdening the country at all levels. It’s still uncertain how many theaters will carry it in a general release, but you can view a trailer and learn more by following this link: www.agorafinancial.com/iousa.html
Russia vs. the U.S.A. ( er… I mean, “Georgia”). A number of you wrote in response to my comments last week on Russia’s invasion of Georgia. Yes, you are right that Georgia started it… but that they were bombing their own citizens, an apparent given right of nation-states, and had not crossed any borders to do so… not the case with the Russians, technically made Russia the aggressors. But, my key point, that by going into Georgia, the Russians were drawing a line in the sand for further U.S. moves in neighboring states, holds water. On that topic, Ed Steer sent along an interesting essay from Pat Buchanan that you might find of value. Read it here. http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=13323
Book Recommendations. Subscriber and correspondent Magnus W. wrote asking for some recommendations on good history books. I shot the request out to the team, and here are a few of the responses.
- From Bud Conrad: History is not my specialty, but here is one in our field -- Manias, Panics and Crashes, A History of Financial Crisis by Charles P. Kindleberger.
- From Louis James: For simplicity and density of information, you can't beat the The Encyclopedia of World Facts and Dates : For those who like a spoonful of fictional sugar to make their history go down, I found Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle ( The Baroque Cycle - First Editions - Volume One - Quicksilver, Volume Two - The Confusion, and Volume Three - The System of the World ) to be the best historical novels ever written.
- From Doug Casey: Gibbon (author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Modern Library Classics) ) is actually not at all hard or intimidating. He's actually an unrecognized comedian, a laugh riot. Rather than a book, I recommend courses from the Teaching Company, particularly Rome and the Barbarians: The Dawn of a New World and Van Der Veers Iliad and Odyssey boxed set . All their courses are superb, however.
- From me: Among my personal favorites are… Lessons from History by Will and Ariel Durant… Intellectuals by Paul Johnson… Peter the Great by Robert K. Massie… The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. For lighter fare, in the category of Historical Fiction, any and all of the Flashman novels and any and all of the Sharpe novels.
Phyles, Phyles Everywhere. Kristen Aja, who helps support the various phyles of Casey Research subscribers cropping up here and there, thought it would be a good idea to recap where these meetings of like-minded individuals are now regularly taking place. If you live in or near one of these areas and would like to be connected with the local organizers, drop Kristen a line at phyles@caseyresearch.com.

Here’s the current list of active, or pending, phyles. In the process of forming: Montreal; DC/Baltimore; Annapolis, MD; Bahrain, Saudi Arabia. Already existing: Atlanta; Dallas; London; Ohio (Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton); Silicon Valley/Palo Alto; Portland, OR; Sacramento; Toronto; New River Valley, VA; Los Angeles; Denver; Princeton, NJ.

That’s It for This Week!

There is so much more to cover but so little time… and so I must sign off. As I do, I note that the inattentive have driven the DJIA up by 181 points this Friday, and gold is trading in the spot market at $822, a modest retracement from yesterday’s close, despite a strong down move in oil of over $6.00, and a modest uptick for the dollar against the euro.

So, it’s largely business as usual as I bid you farewell this week. Unfortunately, business as usual these days is anything but usual.

As always, thanks for spending some of your valuable time reading this week’s edition, and for being a Casey subscriber.

Speaking of which, if you aren’t yet a subscriber to The Casey Report, don’t forget to sign up today in order to receive the pivotal next edition on real estate and much, much more, when it is published on September 2. Learn more here…

Sincerely,

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC

The Room 3/3/08

David Galland — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:52:08 GMT

Dear Readers,

It's getting to the point where even the most determined optimist is having a hard time finding a good reason to roll out of bed.

Among just the smattering of news that crossed the lens this week...

Producer prices rose 7.4 percent in January from a year ago, coming on the heels of the news last week that the Comedic Politicized Inflation (CPI) index has risen over the last 12 months at the highest year-over-year rate in decades.
The National Association of Purchasing Management's business barometer has fallen to the lowest level since 2001, beginning to reflect a knock-on slowdown in consumer spending.
And, according to the U.S. Commerce Department today, what modest growth in spending there is, is now coming from inflation and not from confident consumers mobbing local electronics shops to load up on the latest and greatest.
On that latter point, consumer confidence in the U.S. is reliably reported to have grabbed its chest and slumped to the ground, or at least to levels last seen only in 1992.

And no wonder, given that housing prices, the single most important component of the net worth of so many people, are crashing; in December they fell by the most on record, off 9.1% from the year before.

(During a cross-country ski slog over the weekend, a friend who is a housing contractor by trade told me he has not seen a slowdown like this in his 20 years in the business. He knows of only one new house on the flight path to be built in these parts. The property holder has six different contractors scraping it out in a bidding war to get the job, assuring that the victor ultimately receives as a reward a dry and meatless bone at best.)

If the housing sector slowdown with its rising foreclosures and defaults isn't enough to keep our optimist abed, he would have to do no more than flick on the morning news to learn of soaring food prices, a crashing dollar and a tumbling stock market.

No sooner had a trembling hand secured a double dose of Advil, topped off with a cold compress, then he would hear a report of hundreds of millions and maybe even billions of dollars worth of new and unexpected losses being suffered by municipalities, banks, and sundry financial institutions on purportedly "safe" instruments concocted in earlier, more positive times. This week, for instance, we hear that the supposedly invincible Goldman Sachs may take it in the chops for as much as $11 billion due to "variable interest entities," a form of conduit, our faltering optimist learns as he falls back on his pillow in a fatalistic swoon, that holds close to $800 billion in assets, some significant percentage of which are now considered suspect.

At this point, the only folks able to view the unfolding carnage with any casualness are the super-rich for whom almost any conceivable loss would still leave them the requisite funds to live like the royalty of old... and the relatively small handful of investors who've been smart enough to have moved assets out of harm's way and into gold and other commodities early on (a group that I continue to hope includes you, with the help of our various services).

Interestingly, this week it was revealed that the California Public Employees' Retirement System can be counted among the few that have been seeing the nature of the unfolding crisis in the right light, and has at least begun to act appropriately. Calpers, according to Bloomberg...

...the largest U.S. pension fund, may increase its commodities investments 16-fold to $7.2 billion through 2010 as raw materials prices surge to records.

Calpers, which has about $240 billion in assets, agreed at a Feb. 19 board meeting to hold between 0.5 percent and 3 percent of its assets in commodities, spokesman Clark McKinley said. The Sacramento, California-based fund last year put $450 million into commodities, its first such investment.

The agreement is the fruit of Chief Investment Officer Russell Read's efforts since joining in 2006 to boost returns by shifting funds into raw materials and markets such as China and India. Oil has soared above $100 a barrel, wheat breached $13 a bushel for the first time, and gold and platinum climbed to the highest ever since Calpers began investing in commodities.

"We plan on ramping up the program by hiring additional staff," McKinley said by phone yesterday. "We are excited about commodities, which have performed exceptionally well for us."

To which we say, welcome aboard! Better late than never, so hats off to the obviously competent Mr. Read.

Of course, as the pension funds, like the hedge funds, mutual funds and institutional funds in general tend to run in packs, this news can only help solidify the base under our current favorite investments.

Listen and you can almost hear the chat around the polished-wood-encased water coolers strategically positioned around finely appointed pension managers' offices worldwide.

"Did you hear, Calpers got into commodities last year?"

"Yeah, smart buggers. And here we are with our bonuses slashed -- slashed, I say! -- to only $2 million, just because we invested in AAA bonds!"

"Well, if commodities are good enough for Calpers, who are we to argue, eh?"

"Race you to the trading desk!"

Pile on in, we shout enthusiastically, daydreaming about selling our appreciated resource stocks to the stampeding herd a ways down the road.

But that, fellow travelers, is about the only golden lining to be found in the chaos now gripping the world. And while a good investment brings a warmth not unlike a crackling fire and a hot toddy on a cold day, the toddy loses much of its flavor when one considers the impact that the unfolding crisis will have on our less well-prepared friends, family and fellow countrymen (and women, as the case may be).

Commenting on the news in an email exchange from New Zealand this morning, Doug Casey had this to say...

"My own feeling is that by the time this cycle is over, people are going to be shocked by how high gold goes. But it will be a sideshow compared to the circus the Greater Depression will put on."

Unfortunately, however, the news for the unprepared gets much, much worse. There are two areas that I would like to comment on in a bit more depth, starting with Bernanke's testimony.

Bernanke Pushes the Button

Yesterday, while engaged in my periodic physical exertions, or more specifically, while I was clinging to the handles of a medieval masochistic device sternly labeled the "Stair Master" down at the local facility for such things, I managed to snake out a finger to the television monitor to tune into Chairman Ben's testimony in front the House Financial Services Committee.

It was, I noticed when the camera pulled back from Bernanke's oddly detached countenance, a sparsely attended affair. In fact, it seemed to my sweat-filled eyes as if there were no more than five or so members of elected officialdom in the gilded chamber.

(But, hey, why should members of Congress be interested in anything to do with the economy? It's not like there's anything going on these days. Whether or not Roger Clemens is doping - now THAT is worth packing the chambers for!)

In all seriousness, however, Bernanke's testimony yesterday was far more important than most people understand, least of all those now doing "service" in government. Far be it from me to be critical of the pandering class, but I was appalled at how unbelievably, well, stupid the questions were that were pushed toward Bernanke by the handful of Congressmorons who bothered skipping the brunch put on by the American Lawyers Association down the hall in order to be present.

Bernanke's testimony was important because in it he made it abundantly clear that the Fed - and by extension the U.S. government - was coming down firmly on the side of inflation.

Those of you who have been with us for any length of time know that we have been calling for things to arrive at a location loosely identified as "between a rock and a hard place." It has been our consistent belief that the Fed would inevitably be forced to make a decision between letting the economy collapse under the weight of its many debts and obligations, or letting the dollar collapse by shifting into default mode. Which is to say, trying to inflate the country out of trouble.

The specific quote from Bernanke's testimony you want to pay attention to was this...

"The Federal Open Market Committee will be carefully evaluating incoming information bearing on the economic outlook and will act in a timely manner as needed to support growth and to provide adequate insurance against downside risks."

Note the lack of reference to run-away-inflation that is already making itself known here, there and everywhere.

The news that the Fed is again opting for inflation, while coming as no surprise to us, caught the gold bears flat-footed by sending gold sharply higher, to over $970 as I write.

Speaking from an entirely personal basis, I am, of course, cheered by the rise in gold, thanks to a long-held position in a gold ETF and a portfolio stuffed to the gills with the higher-quality gold exploration and energy stocks of the sort followed in our International Speculator and Casey Energy Speculator services. But there is a real risk arising... a true tipping point... that I am not so sure I'll be happy to see.

While there are many factors that might push the economy over the edge, the one to watch closely now are the foreign holders of the U.S. dollar. As we have mentioned more than once, the amount of U.S. dollars in the hands of foreign holders is at historic levels. In fact, the level of holdings, estimated at as much as $16 trillion, is unprecedented by an order of magnitude.

At this point in the game, we would expect to see wealthy foreign individuals cashing in their dollars for all manner of alternatives, including other currencies, tangible property and, of course, gold and other tangible assets. Given the price of tangibles at this point, that trend is likely well underway.

Diversification out of the dollar by institutional holders is likely also underway. But after that, if pushed to it, will come the big kahunas: the foreign governments and their many trillions.

Up until this point, that they have been reluctant sellers can be understood in much the same way you can understand the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction when discussing the pros and cons of launching nuclear strikes against your similarly armed adversaries. At what point, however, do the foreign governments come to the conclusion that the other side has already "pushed the button"?

Watching Ben Bernanke, there is a reasonable chance, were I a foreign holder, that I might come to the conclusion that he has done the equivalent of just that.

Regardless, the pressure is growing daily on the economies of the Middle East and Asia, which have to date helpfully reinvested the money they have received in exchange for their goods into U.S. Treasury securities. And, by doing so, effectively imported our inflation back home. Even if they wish to continue avoiding the nuclear option, they will at some point be forced to it by the U.S. pursuing a monetary policy one could correctly term "Everyone for themselves!"

Make no mistake that once the tipping point is reached -- and if the Fed makes yet another steep cut at its next meeting on March 18, that could do it -- then things have the potential to shift from crisis to catastrophe almost overnight.

What impact would a true collapse in the dollar have on the global economy? It is a topic we'll continue to poke at here and in our various publications. But for now, keep your eyes wide open and your head down.

I'll touch on the second serious development this week, but the lunch bell has just rung, so I'm going to pass the baton over to Bud Conrad, who has sent over a couple of items he thought you'd find of interest...

Bud on Bernanke

In alarming testimony to the House Financial Services Committee, this week Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke declared: "We have a problem ... the spreads between the Treasury rates and lending rates are widening, and our policy is essentially, in some cases, just offsetting the widening of the spreads, which are associated with signs of illiquidity."

I said at the Denver Summit, and since in articles, to watch out when the Fed cuts and long-term rates don't drop.

It means that the rate-cutting process of printing money to buy Treasuries in an attempt to provide liquidity to lower rates is failing. The confidence in the ability of Bernanke, or anyone else, to stop the collapse is lost when people become aware that printing money makes it worth less. The Fed action becomes the fear, rather than the solution. At this point further cuts won't help the economy, because long-term and riskier rates will reflect that loss of confidence.

(Ed. Note: Bud Conrad recently gave a wide-ranging interview for the Gold Report on where the economy, gold, energy, food and interest rates may be headed. You can view it by clicking here.)

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Our own Terry Coxon sent along a link to a video of Richard Nixon announcing the end of gold convertibility, pointing out that I would especially enjoy the reference to "international speculators."

You can see Nixon make the announcement by clicking here.

The canceling of convertibility was, of course, a seminal event as it left the world with a pure fiat monetary system, an experiment which has subsequently resulted in the steady deterioration of all paper currencies, among other ill effects (including unchecked growth in government, thanks to the removal of any real obstacles to spending).

Will the whole house of cards implodes some day, forcing a return to a gold standard or some other system that forces fiscal restraint? If I was a betting man, I would place large sums that the answer is "yes"... it is inevitable.

In fact, the collapse may have already begun.

Energy Chart of the Week

By Chris Gilpin, Contributing Editor, Casey Energy Speculator

[click to enlarge]

Gasoline prices are comprised of several costs: transportation of oil (usual from some distant corner of the globe), refining costs and profits, more transportation of gasoline (to get it from the refinery to the gas station), taxes from every level of government, and the cost of buying the crude it all started from. This last cost has mounted, and now oil prices hold a greater and greater influence over gasoline prices.

In 2004, oil prices rose 50% from $30 to $45 roughly, and this created a corresponding 26% rise in gasoline prices. In other words, gasoline prices increased half as fast as oil prices did.

As oil prices have risen, the oil cost of gasoline has begun to dwarf all other components. Now when oil prices go up, it will cause a much steeper rise in gas prices. If oil were to make another 50% jump from $100 to $150 - which we think is quite possible in the next year or two - gasoline prices would rise at a rate closer to 35%. The U.S. average for regular-grade gasoline hovers around 310 cents per gallon right now with oil near $100; a 35% increase would lift it to 419 cents per gallon.

The rogue factor in all these calculations is refining capacity. Last spring, a spree of unplanned refinery outages pushed gasoline prices higher when oil had retreated to $60. By the time refining capacity came back online, oil was marching to $100. By having one major cost replace the other, gasoline prices have stayed between 280 and 310 cents per gallon since April 2007.

This may have created a false sense of security among motorists, who saw oil move up twenty or thirty dollars without much of a corresponding rise in gasoline prices. This spring refineries have scheduled their normal outages to switch from winter to summer-grade gasoline, but how many unplanned outages will occur? The U.S. oil-refining infrastructure is outdated and badly in need of replacement, but permitting a new refinery in the Lower 48 has proven to be a near impossible task. It's reasonable to expect a growing number of unplanned outages at refineries in the years ahead, and if any of these correspond with another jump in oil prices, then prices at the pump would roar to new heights.

As a motorist, it's all very annoying. The best tactic is to hedge your rising fuel costs with energy stocks that will benefit from higher oil prices - or trade in your car for one of those Flintstone vehicles. But I hear they can be rather hard on the feet.

[Ed. Note: If you are looking to profit from energy, you owe it to yourself to check out the Casey Energy Speculator. And it couldn't be easier, given that subscriptions come with a 3-month, no-questions-asked, 100% money-back guarantee. Check out the current profit-packed edition by clicking here now.)

The Other Important News of the Week

Last week I pointed to the breaking news Fitzroy MacLean of our Without Borders publication tipped me to, about German intelligence officers paying a Liechtenstein bank employee US$5.9 million to steal a disk containing the names of all the German account holders.

In writing this news up, I posited that the Germans likely also got the account names of non-Germans, "...giving the German government a very nice trading card."

It didn't take long for my intuition to be proved right, as it was announced this week that the Germans were now cooperating with friendly governments around the world so they, too, could corner tax miscreants.

Confirming the point, one of our subscribers sent along a news item from New Zealand about how that country's Internal Revenue Department is offering anyone with an offshore account, especially of the Liechtenstein variety to, in essence, come out with your hands up or else. If you are a New Zealander with assets in the pilfered bank, I have no doubt you are sweating bullets.

Here in the U.S. of A., the Internal Revenue Service is also working hand in glove with the Germans to hunt down the tax cheats.

This is a trend firmly in motion, with serious implications.

First, now that executives and even lower-level employees of banks in tax havens with the right levels of access have seen the going market price for client names, and that rather than being brought up on criminal charges for breaking confidentiality agreements, they will be saluted by officialdom around the world, there will be a rush to capitalize. All that the person needs to do is to grab the list, download the file, or whatever, and make it past the front door to collect on the waiting riches.

In addition to the considerable personal problems this will cause the account holders, it effectively spells an end to the idea of financial privacy.

And that is an important battle to be lost by anyone who values individual freedom. Look at it this way, until recently countries knew that if they squeezed too hard, money would begin slipping across the borders to undeclared safety. With that escape route closed, they can now squeeze ever harder.

Even so, human nature being what it is, you can expect the same people - at least those not in jail following the global witch hunt that will soon extend to the Caymans, Andorra, or any other jurisdictions where the bankers have been accommodative to privacy seekers - to look for other ways of hiding wealth.

Of course, gold, diamonds and other readily portable and fungible assets will find favor. Setting the stage for the battle in the war of the state against the individual: a new round of government confiscations of gold and other such assets, "in the public interest."

I can't see this happening imminently, and we should be able to see it coming, but the threat that it could happen in the next decade, along with foreign exchange controls and similar acts of desperation by the tax farmers, is real.

Now let me be clear. I am not in favor of tax cheating. Per the fresh example from Liechtenstein, the risks are too high and, in my view, always have been. But that doesn't mean that I can't lament the fact that the system is moving closer and closer to the point where you won't be able to enjoy any level of privacy in relation to your financial affairs.

Visa's $19 Billion IPO a Scam?

During the course of dinner with a highly positioned financial services executive the other night, he told me that Visa and MasterCard had lost a major lawsuit related to hidden charges, and that it will cost them a lot of money and force them to change their business in a number of detrimental ways.

Almost immediately thereafter I read that Visa was planning a $19 billion IPO. Coincidence, I wondered?

Curious, I decided to dig a bit. I hadn't gotten very far when I came across a very coherent analysis on the situation by Mish Shedlock. You can read it by clicking here.

Could the broader investment community catch on to the true intent of the IPO, dooming it and by doing so, maybe, lead to yet another giant stumbling? While that remains an outside possibility, it is by no means out of the question given the impact of the lost lawsuit, and that the credit card companies are almost certain to be next to feel the pain of consumer belt tightening.

I suspect most people wouldn't be unhappy if the credit card companies took it in the neck.

On that theme, years ago I interviewed a senior credit card company executive and over the course of our meeting, I mentioned to him that I had recently caught a charge for "lost credit card insurance" on my bill. It was for something like $46 a year - for nothing, as far as I could tell. Indignant, because I hadn't approved the charge, I called the service center and no sooner were the words of complaint out of my mouth than the representative said, "No problem, sir. That charge will be removed." In other words, no questions or pushback at all.

"Oh, that!" my new acquaintance, the credit card executive, commented, a smirk on his face. "That was the idea of the guy in the office next to me. We were running behind on the quarterly numbers and he came up with the idea to bump the revenue."

"You mean," I asked, a somewhat stunned look on my face, "that you simply hit all the credit cards with a $46 charge?" (And we're talking about hundreds of thousands of accounts.)

"Yep. It was a big winner, because most people don't look very hard at their bills."

"But that must be illegal," I said dismayed.

"Probably," he said with a dismissive shrug.

He didn't get the job.

Of course, the flip side of Visa running into trouble will be yet another form of credit that gets tighter... and more costly.

Miscellany

Lines of Lawyers. As predicted, lawyers armed with thick briefcases and high-digit display calculators are increasingly jostling each other in the long lines that are starting to form at the doorsteps of the wounded financial service industry behemoths.

This week, HSH Nordbank, a German sector public bank (translation, they have clout), announced it was going after UBS bank for "hundreds of millions" in subprime losses. As the piling on grows, we'll start to see the major bank failures that our own Bud Conrad has been forecasting these past months. Followed, natch, by the helicopters' worth of bailouts, courtesy of taxpayers.
High-Stakes Shell Game. In a classic shell game, the banks are trying to prop up the AAA ratings of the insurers standing behind the hundreds of billions of dollars of toxic waste now eating away at their portfolios. While cost effective -- $3 to $5 billion is a lot cheaper than the carnage that will follow a downgrade -- the odds are high that they'll invest the money, the insurers will get downgraded anyway, costing them their investments and the value of their portfolios. Unless, of course, the same helicopters show up with yet more taxpayer largess to keep the insurers intact. It would not surprise me in the slightest to see, even, the de facto nationalization of a failing rating agency.
In the "Remember, We're All Only Human" Department ... I came across another anecdote about another of the esteemed members of the judiciary, one Robert Somma, a federal bankruptcy judge appointed by President Bush in 2004. It appears he has stepped down from the bench after police found that he had crashed his Mercedes into another car while drunk and wearing a dress, fishnet stockings and heels, and carrying a purse. "He's a highly respected member of the bar," said a fellow judge, "and remains so." I don't care about his dress code, live and let live, I say... but next time, take a cab.
Look Before You Leap. There was news out this week that Norilsk, the Russian mining giant, was ordering a fleet of super icebreakers to take advantage of the melting of Arctic ice, opening up new routes across the top of the world. Someone might want to tell them not to place their deposit yet, because the Arctic ice hasn't just re-formed, it's thicker than ever. Here's the reference.

That's It for This Week

Major developments are afoot, with the term "We live in interesting times" barely covering it.

While we expect things to continue in a similar vein, and to likely grow steadily worse for some months and maybe even years to come, the best approach at this point is to assure that you and your family come out okay.

It's like the warnings that the flight attendants give during their briefings on the topic of what one should do should yellow oxygen masks start falling on your head while in flight. If you don't first take care of yourself, before turning your attention to the less well positioned, you could find yourself wiped out and of no use to anyone.

As I close my weekly musings, I see that gold is solidly planted at $971, oil is parked over $101 and the long-suffering DJIA is off yet another 295 points.

Wall Street types like to look down their nose at people who invest in gold, silver and other commodities... but they may have to revisit their prejudice, given that the broader U.S. stock markets have been essentially flat over the last 5 years... which means, adjusted for inflation, their favorite sector has been a loser for half a decade now. Decidedly not the case for the precious metals, energy and other commodities.

Until next week, thanks for reading and for subscribing...

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC

The Room : Ben Bernanke

The Room – 06/05/2009

Unemployment Falls!

Housing Market Bottoms!

So, Why the Stock Market Rally?

Gold Can’t Be Beaten

Debt Collapse and Inflation

Worth a Read

Adult Supervision

Saving Private Brown

Miscellany

The Room - 09/26/2008

The Bailout: Behind the Scenes

More Views on the Bailout From the Washington Post...

Quotes from the Quislings

About Those Foreigners...

A Musical Interlude

McPalin Is Toast

Miscellaney

The Room 09/19/2008

Where Is the Bottom of the Markets?

So Why Are We Still Bullish on Commodities?

S*HUI*T Happens!

Can Our Government Save Us from All Evil?

Options & Futures

And from the Desk of Doug Hornig…

Panama

TV?

The Room 09/12/2008

The Biggest Bailout of All Time

Unusual Aspects

Implications for the Future

David Again, With a Public Service Announcement

The Reason Paulson Panicked

“On a Scale with the Crash of 1929 and the Civil War”

What Does This All Mean to Investors?

Taunting the Tiger

A Very Useful New Service

Miscellany

And Finally…

The Room 8/22/08

Fiat Finale

Deflation? Don’t Bet on It.

Inflation, What Inflation?

Got Gold? Lucky You…

The Eagle Has Been Grounded

More on Gold’s Shortage

Coming Events

OBAMA!

Miscellany

That’s It for This Week!

The Room 3/3/08

Bernanke Pushes the Button

Bud on Bernanke

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Energy Chart of the Week

The Other Important News of the Week

Visa's $19 Billion IPO a Scam?

Miscellany

That's It for This Week

SHUIT Happens!