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Use the above link to subscribe to the paid research reports, which
include coverage of several smallcap companies
positioned to rise during the ongoing panicky attempt to sustain an
unsustainable system burdened by numerous imbalances aggravated by global
village forces. An historically unprecedented mess
has been created by compromised central bankers and inept economic advisors,
whose interference has irreversibly altered and damaged the world financial
system. Analysis features Gold, Crude Oil, USDollar,
Treasury bonds, and inter-market dynamics with the US Economy and US
Federal Reserve monetary policy.
The public and investment
community continues to be bombarded with denials as to the importance of the
seemingly endless slide in the USDollar, along with
curiously shallow commentary that the US$
slide seems overdone. The US$ exchange rates could justify a 50% decline from
here, out of sheer principle, not based upon the relative price of milk
cartons or taxi rides. The comprehension of the gold breakout signal seems
equally misunderstood and minimized. To be clear, the people have begun to
sense with alarm the nature of the energy cost problem, but do not detect its
weak currency roots. The USEconomy is soon to
receive a series of cost shocks, starting with another 50 cents higher in
gasoline per gallon. The US$
woes are hedged by crude oil positions, resulting in crude oil leading the USDollar declines. The financial sector has a painfully
clear vested interest to minimize the US$
threat, pointing out the small positive on export business growth. Wall
Street needs a favorable light on the currency
behind all of its financial asset investments, naturally. We are fast
approaching, if not already smack dab in the middle, of a confluence of
powerful negative factors exerting downward relentless pressure on the US$
exchange rates.
A powerful bearish momentum
is driven by three extremely important factors: fundamentals, technicals, and psychology. The US$ fundamentals are miserable,
resembling a Third World
nation, marred by gigantic deficits and emphasis on war. The US$
technicals are miserable,
whose DX index chart reveals a massive generational breakdown below critical
support. The US$
psychology is miserable, accompanied by broad international revolt,
defection, and diversification away from its corrosive losses. Just
today, French President Sarkozy beat some war drums
over the crippled, subprime currency called the USDollar. He stated a warning that the Untied States has
engaged in an economic war to devalue the USDollar
in order to deal with its severe problems. The implication is that the USGovt and financial sector is attempting to renege on
loans (due to devaluation), to export its monetary policy (freezing other
central banks), to render cheaper its exports (while foreigners have their
exports rendered most expensive), and to do so with its usual fare of
fraudulent toxins scattered to foreign lands. Just yesterday, the Chinese
unofficially announced a strategy to avoid weak currencies and embrace strong
currencies. To me this is a bold slam against the USGovt
and ugly offshoot of the trade friction.
It seems almost every day
we find a significant story to paint yet another ugly face on the USDollar ultra-slow motion collapse. It is gaining
downward momentum. No bounce off 78, none off 77, none off 76. We are
witnessing the middle stage shock waves, which in my view will result in the
death of the USDollar. These are strong words. So
are those coming from Asia
out of anger. So are those coming from the Persian Gulf out of a sense of betrayal. So are those coming from Russia
out of outright hostility. The Untied States has
taken foreign credit supply for granted, then engaged in fraud on a grander
scale than ever has been witnessed in all of modern history. The backlash is
reaching a critical stage nowadays, with some expected and some unexpected
reactions. Look for a global boycott of some sort. The main engine
upholding the USDollar is the US$
printing press used by the USGovt henchmen. The
outcome is the plunge of the USDollar, and the
utterly crystal clear COMPETING CURRENCY WARS fully warned and outlined by
Ludwig von Mises. The following factors, concepts,
and stories will be primary features to the November Hat Trick Letter report.
FUNDAMENTALS
The USEconomy
is clearly the weakest among the major industrial nations. It is amazing that
the consensus among enlightened folks paints broad strokes of US
weakness in retail, housing, car sales, manufacturing, home equity
extraction, job growth, but with some glimmer of light by exporters. The banking
distress is nowhere near ended, steadily denied as almost fixed, yet every
passing week it seems yet another new remedy bailout rescue package feature,
as my work forecasted in late summer. The ultimate rescue bailouts will total
$2 trillion, a figure to place on your refrigerator. The recent Structured
Investment Vehicle (SIV) superfund testifies to the breadth of rescues. This
one smells to high heaven as an illicit balance
sheet redemption, at inflated unrealistic prices to boot, for the specific benefit
of connected insider Wall Street firms. The Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, and
Morgan Stanley forced admission of losses is not a mere accounting issue,
without cash being involved. They are gigantic investment losses that the
cute SIV device could not avoid in hitting the balance sheets. All eyes have
turned to balance sheet accounting gimmicks, otherwise called fraud. The
truth might be that losses are twice what are admitted, maybe worse. Each
revision from a so-called informed source seems to be larger than the
previous. The total will inexorably march to $2 trillion, and that figure
might be conservative. Do not expect foreigners to pick up that tab. It will
be financed by the US$
printing press, weighing down the USDollar.
A year ago, my forecast was
for the US
primary banking system to go underwater, just like the Japanese banking
system did in the 1990 decade, and for the same reason: housing bubble and
excesses in real estate portfolios. The financial engineering nightmarish
stupidity based on greed, fees, and leverage only compounded the problem in
the Untied States. Oh yes, add fraud, with corrupt debt agency ratings, false
prices, and a heavy motive to export subprime slime
to foreign institutions. We now see the backfire. The end result is less
credit available to a credit dependent national economy, which more
accurately is an addiction founded in deep dependence. Here, the drug dealers
are cutting down on supply to an increasingly desperate addict. The distrust
has extended to US banks and suspicion of assets used as collateral by other
US banks. This is the ultimate backfire in fraud.
THE US BANKING
SYSTEM WILL EXPERIENCE REGULAR AND FREQUENT SEIZURES, HELPED BY FITFUL USFED
RESCUE EFFORTS, BUT RETURNING TO CRISIS MODE PERIODICALLY. THE BAILOUTS AND
REMEDIES WILL BE BROAD AND DIVERSE, IMAGINATIVE YET INEFFECTIVE, REQUIRING
FRESH IDEAS, NEW DEVICES, DESPERATE ATTEMPTS, ALL OF WHICH WILL SUCCEED TO
BUY ONLY A MONTH OR TWO OF TIME. THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM IS A BROKEN FINANCIAL
FOUNDATION BASED UPON LETHAL, TEMPORARY, AND DOOMED LEVERAGED STRUCTURES THAT
DO NOT STAND OVER TIME. THE ENTIRE RISK MODEL IS BEING UNWOUND, A PROCESS
SURE TO TAKE A COUPLE MORE YEARS, NOT MONTHS. WITH EACH NEW QUARTER, A NEW
LOG WILL BE PUT ON THE RAGING FIRE CONSUMING THE USDOLLAR. CHECK THE
“BKX” BANKING STOCK INDEX FOR AN INDICATION. CAN YOU SAY PLUMMET ???
Despite what the US Federal
Reserve claims, they will indeed cut interest rates again and again. Their
motive in a deceptive statement of balanced risks for growth and inflation
was intended to prevent a financial market immediately pricing of that next
cut. Anyone who thinks the US housing market decline has
ended is plainly compromised, operating without benefit of wisdom, or totally
divorced from data. Anyone who thinks the US banking problems are merely a subprime slime issue, lacks any depth of understanding to
the commercial paper problem, the unwinding of the entire risk structure with
bonds and credit derivatives, or the disdain (if not early stages of boycott)
harbored by foreigners to continue to hand savings
over to criminals working closely with Wall Street and the USGovt. They enjoy freedom from prosecution. Over 50% of
all interbank collateral in commercial paper is
based upon mortgage bonds. The upshot of the USFed
dilemma is that more interest rate cuts are guaranteed, sure to worsen the
positive bond yield differential which was so important to lifting the USDollar in 2005. The Euro Central Bank and the Bank of
Japan each wants very much to raise interest rates. So the US leans
toward lower rates while foreigners lean to higher rates. This situation will
not be changing anytime soon.
The Current Account deficit
remains deeply in the red, loud big deficits. The C/A deficit has crawled to
under 6% of US Gross Domestic Product. That is good. However, it remains over
5%, long regarded as the key trigger for a 25% decline in the national
currency, here the USDollar. A paradoxical twist
comes with the slowly reducing US trade gap. Rising exports are
a good thing. But the falling imports testify to a domestic slowdown, if not
recession, in the USEconomy. Gradual resolution of
the US
trade deficit comes on the wagon known as recession since structural imbalance
is deeply ingrained. The USGovt has become poor
liars in economic statistics. To be sure, their task of lying has been
rendered more difficult by a deterioration more widely recognized. The GDP
numbers are aided by quarterly changes multiplied by four, called annualized.
The GDP is aided by hedonic nonsense, a mythical set of kooky methods. The
GDP assumes price inflation is running at 3% or so, from the Personal
Consumption Index, another kooky series. The actual price inflation has been
running at 10% or so for almost a full year, as anybody with a freaking pulse
can testify, who lives, breathes, eats, transports, entertains, builds
anything, and uses services in life from day to day. The liars have seen a
gulf grow from their numbers versus reality, with the price inflation lie
running above 6% now. This means all inflation adjusted statistics are
wrong by at least 6%, namely income, economic growth, retail sales, even the
previous peak gold price and previous peak oil price. The travesty of
lies on price inflation deeply affects the Social Security recipients and
federal pension holders and savers. They must accept measly fixed income
lifts. Imagine a person investing in a certificate of deposit earning 5%,
when price inflation runs at 10%. The person loses 5% to inflation, the
hidden tax. Of course, if you do not benefit from a mental pulse, you will
feel good to earn 5% yield against only a 3% officially stated CPI.
TECHNICALS
The charts simply do not
lie. The USDollar is seeing lows for an entire
generation. To say the US$
is oversold and due for a rise is naïve. The major global institutions
are giving up on the current world reserve currency, even as they struggle to
find a replacement. Technicals have given way to
psychology, so not much can be cited on the chart. Sure, stochastix
show profound weakness on cyclicals. Note the dive
in the 20-week moving average. The difference is widening between the 20-wk
MA and the 50-wk MA. The hardest part about reading the US DX chart is
determining where technical support lies. IT IS NOWHERE !!! My forecast is for the DX index to
generate a bounce off the 75 level for no other reason that it ends with a
five number. The bounce will be feeble, pathetic, only to expose the
desperate situation. Some say the DX will react to 72 or 73 as support, but
one must wonder if guesswork is the basis of such forecasts. My best guess is
that a mammoth central bank effort in coordinated intervention will determine
the next support level. But its support will fritter away in a month.
The US DX index, goony as
it is, since it in no way reflects trade weighting whatsoever, is the lowest
in three or four decades. The Asians are giving up. The Arabs at one time
this autumn were giving up. The Europeans are beginning to give up. A global
revolt has taken root, a movement, which is spreading each month to more
corners, and extending deeper within each corner. From across the entire
globe, key institutions are selling US$-based securities, hoping to limit
their exposure to a collapse. The only loyal (but shaky) ally is the Arab
tent of sheiks, who realize their military security depends upon the USMilitary. There are some benefits to the bizarre war on
terrorism, and the huge troop and equipment presence in the Persian
Gulf region. Can you say Protection Racket ???
The foreign currencies are
running with alarming power. The euro hit 147. The Canadian Dollar actually
hit 110 in
a spurt but is settling at 107. The British pound sterling hit 211. The
Aussie Dollar hit 94 and is settling at 92. It is safe to say the entire
FOREX currency world has been turned upside down. The USDollar
is finding its true value. The US DX might settle around the 65 to 70 area by
late 2008.
PSYCHOLOGY
Everybody hates the USDollar except Secy Treasury
Henry Paulson. But then again, he works for a corrupt organization, and used
to head an equally sleazy organization at Goldman Sachs. Everybody sees the USDollar as heading down hard. Everybody is attempting to
protect from the downside risk, whether governments, institutions, companies,
investors, or households. The fact that the majority finds the US$ trend as
miserable and getting worse is no reason to be a contrarian.
The confidence level in the USDollar is another key element. USFed
Chairman Bernanke said something truly stupid
today, easily refuted by a good college student. He said that US export prices are rising (a good thing),
but US
import prices are not rising (a lie). If the US$ exchange rate affects
export prices, it also affects import prices, that is unless a different
exchange rate is used for the right hand than the left hand. Nonsense,
deception, lies, the main devices of the USGovt and
financial sector, where the quintessential institutional structural
ingredient is DISHONESTY. Bernanke listed the key
factors for US$ support. 1) strong USEconomy, 2) strong US trade balance, 3) openness to US
financial markets. The USEconomy is teetering,
despite the recent lie of strong Q3 GDP, a statistic which flies in the face
of all component statistics. The trade gap continues as huge, despite a mild
reduction. Openness of US financial markets is a benefit if what is sold is
not laced with fraud.
Hey, let’s be really
clear, Ben Bernanke looked scared today before the
Congressional Banking Committee. He claimed the “USDollar
is sound in the medium term” which sounds half as baseless and
empty as the parroted Paulson claims that “A strong USDollar is in our national interest.” Laughter
would be warranted if the situation were not so desperately dire and
dangerous.
When US-based pundits and
talking heads continually spout nonsense with a bias, the confidence erodes
further. Today, one could hear that the problems in the bank sector will
eventually result in a big lift to stated earnings just like 1992 and 1993
after the Savings & Loan problems cleared up. They pointed to unclear
values for asset-backed bonds (read mortgages), certain not to be as bad as
current priced. With the ABX mortgage bond indexes showing big losses for the
AAA and AA types, one should expect more, not less, writedowns.
Mortgage rate resets and home foreclosures are nowhere near ended. With the
debt ratings agencies continue with debt downgrades, this trend will
continue, not abate. The fraud from subprime
slime export has not resulted in clean accounting, but rather grotesque
attempts to create SIV tools, to prevent losses to appear on balance sheets,
to lie about insolvency, to create a new ‘Type 3’ asset for
worthless assets, to solicit USGovt assistance in
over-priced asset redemptions, and for executives to sell stocks. Nowhere
is honest accounting and coming clean in sight. The Untied States cannot
afford honesty. This erodes foreign perceptions of confidence. The fish rots
from the head down. Look to the USGovt, with its phony federal deficit statements, its war costs off the
balance sheet, its endless increases in the official legal national debt
limit, and pervasive bankrupt characteristics. This is a Third
World nation with a powerful military, used to offer support to
the USDollar. As conditions turn more desperate and
unsustainable, look for more war, not less. Look for presidential candidates
who seek a new fresh path to be marginalized, smeared, even
removed.
GOLD & CRUDE OIL
The gold price made mince
meat of the 800 barrier, running over it like a HUMMER through a ranch front
gate entrance complete with fat fence posts. The move to 900 will take your
breath away. The move to 1000 will attract daily attention from all corners
of the financial world. No charts will be supplied, since technicals mean little anymore. Psychology has
taken over. Some humorous shallow commentary has come from pundits
and charlatans alike. They say the gold upleg has
been four times as strong as the US DX downleg. That
ignores the entire concept of short covering in massive price cap futures
contract positions. That also ignores the mammoth money supply inflation
orchestrated by desperate central bankers across the globe. The gold price is
rising in all three major continental currencies. My guess is that the cast
of corrupt Wall Street criminals (in three piece suits, well coiffed, sporting
perfect diction, nice tanned complexions, sporty Rolexes, and enviable
Rolodexes) have so so so
much trouble with proving to stock holders (like Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Tatal) that their
icon Wall Street firms are not bankrupt, that they cannot prevent the gold
price from seeking its true value. Another key factor is that even the
Chinese are raising prices. Domestic manufacturers and vendors will raise
prices in kind. The sixteenth big ugly secret on Wall Street is that the USFed might have difficulty in cutting interest rates at
their December FOMC meeting, since the CPI might be on the rise. Do not fear
as a gold investor. An official USFed rate cut will
send the USDollar down, good for gold. No official
rate cut would be coincident with a higher price inflation statistic, good
for gold. The USFed dilemma is great for gold.
In fact, the USDollar is not central to the gold
bull anymore. THE DRIVING FORCE IS GLOBAL MONETARY INFLATION, PUSHED BY
CENTRAL BANKERS. The money supply growth is over 14% and rising with each
passing quarter. In a two-week period in August, the US$ money
supply grew at an annual rate of over 50%. Call you say WEIMAR ???
Also, the crude oil price
will not stop at the 100 price level. Some shallow commentary came this week
that the oil price is overbought, and that a correction is coming when 100 is
indeed hit. Probably true, but the correction might last a couple days and
send the oil price down to 98. The forces behind the push to 100 are all
gaining strength, not abating, and no remedy is in sight. Look for crude oil
to head next to 110 before January is too far along. By then with gold and
oil making headlines, the bandwagon for the bear trades on the USDollar will become a national nightmare, urging a
national solution. Unfortunately, the same corrupt banksters
will be asked to design and formulate the remedy. So look for the Ruling
Elite to take care of itself, just like in 1998 when the LongTerm
Capital Mgmt fiasco brought about the largest public bailout of aristocrats
in modern history. This one will be one to two orders bigger. The LTCM
bailout had a secondary motive to prevent a gold price explosion. This
bailout will have a similar secondary motive, but it will fail!
A final note on the
shortcoming even in the gold community to properly state what the previous
800 price peak means in today’s price terms. They employ the fallacious
Consumer Price Inflation index probably out of habit, or out of
indoctrination, or out of intimidation. The CPI is wrong by a factor of three.
The old 1980 gold peak price is equivalent in my book to about a 3000. Why?
Because the exact sounding 1550 figure quoted, using the CPI,
is clearly wrong in its lift by a factor of at least two, conservatively. That
is correct, the gold peak 27 years ago is equal to
at least $3000 now. We are heading to a 3000 gold price in conservative
terms, since the problems in the Untied States are insurmountable, unfixable,
without any remedy. The only real life solution will be a more visible
totalitarian state complete with rationing. If you believe rationing will not
happen, just look at the crack spread, the difference between the oil price
and gasoline price. It is rising dangerously, crimping energy firm profits.
Unless the gasoline price rises by 50 cents, we are certain to face
shortages, lines to buy gasoline, and fights. Next come riots. In fact, job
loss, home foreclosure, food prices, gasoline shortages, and bank runs will
likely be the basis of social chaos in the next two years. One will not be capable of recognizing
the US
landscape in ten years, maybe five years. The whole world will be watching.
These factors will be
primary features to the November Hat Trick Letter report.
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By : Jim Willie CB
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Jim Willie CB is
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