Morality101.net

by Michael S. Rozeff, original post at LewRockwell.com

November 6, 2009

India’s central bank, Reserve Bank of India, announced on Nov. 2, 2009 a purchase of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF):

“The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has concluded the purchase of 200 metric tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), under the IMF’s limited gold sales programme. This was done as part of the Reserve Bank’s foreign exchange reserves management operations. The purchase was an official sector off-market transaction and was executed over a two week period during October 19–30, 2009 at market based prices.”

By my calculation, the bank disposed of about 2.3 percent of its June 30, 2009 foreign currency assets or about $7 billion worth, expressed in dollars. These assets grew tenfold between 1998 and 2007, and by only 20 percent since then. RBI’s gold reserves, at market value, were 3.85 percent of the total foreign currency assets before the purchase. They jumped by 60 percent. They become about 6.3 percent of the new lower amount of foreign currency assets.

We don’t know how many dollar assets RBI disposed of as compared with pound and euro assets. It’s likely to have been a large amount.

This transaction has a significant meaning that goes well beyond the dollar amounts involved, which are not that large. It means that a major central bank has actually disposed of dollar assets and prefers gold instead. It means that it regarded its dollar holdings as excessive. There are more central banks in the same position. They may do the same. China had been suggested again and again as the potential buyer of the 403 tonnes of gold to be offered by the IMF. India’s purchase was a surprise.

In financial terms, RBI is not simply adjusting its reserve position. It is arbitraging. It has a profit incentive to sell dollars and buy gold. In a recent article, I suggested the following:

“There is another way to arbitrage the difference between the market price of gold and its ZDV [Zero Discount Value] when the market price is less than the ZDV. Other central banks can borrow dollars, buy gold, and then issue currencies against it. With these currencies, backed by gold, they can repay the dollar borrowings and still have a profit. They can gain the arbitrage profits in precisely the same way that the FED might have or that private entrepreneurs might have.”

RBI and other central banks hold dollars whose nominal gold backing is about 15 percent of the FED’s monetary base liabilities (currency plus reserves). RBI sells $1,000 worth of U.S. securities and gets 1 oz. of gold. The $1,000 that it gives up have only $150 worth of gold behind them. RBI profits by $850. The article pointed out that this arbitrage is an economic incentive or force for selling of dollars and buying of gold. RBI has availed itself of this opportunity.

The article observed that foreign central banks and governments, for their own reasons, had spurned this opportunity in the past, thereby maintaining various economic disequilibria:

“MANY foreign central banks have done the opposite. They sometimes have sold gold. They have usually accumulated dollars in substantial amounts in the form of dollar loans. They have not only not competed with the FED and taken advantage of this arbitrage opportunity, they have gone the other way and supported the FED and the U.S. government by their loans. This was one part of the financial side of government-run economic policies.”

RBI’s action signals a change in this behavior. It is a fresh signal, since we already had been given others. The arbitrage between dollars and gold is so large that it is bound to draw further players into it. The dollar is on its way to losing its reserve status.

Does India’s purchase signal a run on the dollar? Does it signal a rapid and widespread attempt by major players to divest the dollar in favor of hard assets? Not at this time. Bear in mind that China has already been accumulating hard assets for a few years now. There is no run on the dollar, but there is a steady movement away from dollars as a reserve asset in the coffers of central banks. A stroll on the dollar has become a brisk walk on the dollar, and there is a threat that this will become a trot on the dollar.

In economic terms, the end of dollar dominance has momentous implications for the world’s political and economic arrangements. Price levels, interest rates, loans, asset prices, production facilities, trade arrangements, and much else all have been put into place based on the dollar as a reserve asset. Domestic political arrangements, promises, taxes, and programs are involved. All of these are in for adjustments. Some serious changes await us. Even if the changes are smooth and gradual, they are likely to be large. Large discontinuous changes cannot be ruled out.

A dollar overhang is a sword of Damocles hanging over the U.S. government and economy. If a surplus of dollar securities exists at current prices, then their prices will have to decline. This will drive U.S. interest rates up. This has many implications. For one thing, it will drive the U.S. budget deficit up even further, which in turn will set off untold political actions and reactions.

Dollar overhang is not a new problem. It goes back to 1971 and earlier. It has never been solved. The problem is now far larger than ever before. If a scramble for new solutions is not already on among economists who are trying to save this system, it will be soon enough. We can expect to hear new ideas broached, each of which is supposed to resolve the problem.

There are only two kinds of solutions: inflationary and non-inflationary. A British pound as good as gold is long gone. A U.S. dollar as good as gold is long gone, but the dollar has hung on for 37 years now. A yuan as good as gold does not exist. A basket of currencies as good as gold does not exist. The inflatable dollar and inflatable currencies are ruling the roost at present. India’s action and some of China’s actions signal that they are inching – really groping – their way back to hard assets and a non-inflationary solution.

China’s IMF proposal indicates a degree of confusion on her part. It is at best an attempt to buy time and gain political influence, but it does not address the international monetary problem. The IMF solution won’t work if the SDR is backed up by paper currencies or is a paper currency basket. There is no way that all the central banks can offload their dollar reserves on the IMF. What good will it do to receive another paper credit, the Special Drawing Right (SDR) in return? It especially won’t work if the IMF is selling gold reserves, for that weakens the backing for its supra-national currency, which is the SDR. RBI’s purchase shows that at least one central bank is not waiting for such a “solution.” It prefers gold.

The world’s State-controlled money system based on the dollar has built up serious and embedded economic imbalances or disequilibria. They are what lay beneath the stock and real estate bubbles and the market crashes of 2008 and 2009. They are just beginning to be unwound. Political and economic statements, trial balloons, conferences, speeches, negotiations, and frictions among the major powers will be the ongoing indications of this process. So will actions like that of the Reserve Bank of India.

Viewed in this context, U.S. fiscal and monetary policies seem grotesquely out of step with reality. Yet another bout of massive inflation and debt creation in order to “create” a buoyant economy does nothing to address the basic political economic issues. While America ponders further socializing health care and further controlling and taxing energy use, it continues to debase its currency. This used to provide U.S. pressure for other countries to inflate their currencies. That situation appears to have changed. It now provides ever-greater incentives to other countries to abandon the dollar and revalue their currencies upwards against the dollar and gold. American legislators have not yet woken up to this fact, which entails serious changes in U.S. domestic and foreign policies.

Michael S. Rozeff [send him mail] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire.

Copyright © 2009 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

The Best of Michael S. Rozeff

This article has been submitted to Digg and Propeller

by Gary North at LewRockwell.com

The governments of every major nation are going to default on their debts. There are two relevant questions: (1) How? (2) When?

Establishments around the world all deny this. They have gained power and wealth by means of the expansion of government. They have justified their success by insisting that the government-business alliance is the only way to establish economic growth and economic security for the masses. This claim rests on a more fundamental claim, namely, that an unhampered free market is destructive of economic stability and will inevitably lead to economic depression.

The Establishments are universally Keynesian. John Maynard Keynes’ book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, was published in 1936. It defended in theory what all Western governments had been doing in practice for at least five years, namely, running huge deficits. Keynes became as close to an academic high priest as any modern scholar ever has. He was the apostle of national government debt. His ideas today are more influential than they were at his death in 1946. We live in the age of Keynes.

Don’t miss the rest of this!

CNSNews.com – Chief Treasury Economist Says White House Economic Forecast is ‘Smoother’ than Can Be Expected in Reality.

(entire article reposted here – please comment!)

Alan B. Krueger, U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy

Tuesday, September 08, 2009
By Matt Cover

(CNSNews.com) – Alan Krueger, assistant secretary for economic policy and chief economist at the Treasury Department, told reporters that the economic projections used by the White House–which foresee a decade of uninterrupted economic growth ahead–are “smoother” than what can be expected in reality.

Even with this smoother-than-reality economic forecast, the administration is predicting that the federal government will run up an additional $905 billion in deficit spending over the next decade, almost doubling the national debt.

Krueger, speaking to reporters at a Friday briefing, said that while the administration’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth forecasts were largely in line with private estimates, numerous factors could affect and alter those estimates.

“It’s the nature of forecasting that forecasts typically are smoother than the realizations,” he said. “Your hope is that the ups and downs balance out and, on average, are on the forecasted path.”

What Krueger did not mention is that, while the administration’s projections are close to those of private economists, known as the Blue Chip Consensus, those private forecasts only extend through 2010, while the White House’s extend through 2019.

When asked by CNSNews.com if the fragility of the administration’s projections meant higher budget deficits in the future, Krueger said that deficits were inevitable during bad economic times.

“Deficits are inevitable when you’re trying to recover from such a steep recession,” he said.

Krueger also said that, because of that steep recession, it was impossible for the administration to produce a balanced budget in the short term, saying such an idea was not “advisable” for Obama.

“In fact, it wouldn’t be advisable to have a balanced budget at this point or anything close to a balanced budget at this point,” he said.

In the longer run, however, Krueger said that the administration planned to put the budget back on a path toward fiscal responsibility, saying that the country relies far too much on borrowing and not enough on public investment.

“One has to draw a distinction between the short run and the long run,” he said. “Certainly in the longer run the administration plans to put the budget on a path that’s fiscally responsible.”

“In the U.S., I think that we rely too much on borrowing and short-term consumption at the expense of longer-run investment, public infrastructure,” he said. “The president has said that it’s very important that when we emerge from this recession that we build a stronger foundation, one that’s less susceptible to these kinds of boom-and-bust cycles.”

However, the Obama administration’s projected budgets rely on what Krueger criticizes: borrowing to finance short-term consumption.

For example, the Obama administration projects that, as a result of its 2010 budget, the federal government will run a cumulative deficit of $9.05 trillion by the year 2019. In total, the government plans to spend $43 trillion during the next decade while taking in only $34 trillion in tax revenue.

In no year between now and 2019 does the administration plan to balance the budget. In fact, the smallest single-year deficit Obama plans to incur is $739 billion in 2015, after which time the deficit will begin climbing again until it hits nearly $1 trillion ($917 billion) in 2019.

However, Krueger claimed that it was a “very important” part of Obama’s budget to move the country toward “responsible budgeting” and a “more sustainable” path.

“That’s why it’s very important, in the administration’s budget, that we make the critical investments in human capital and physical infrastructure, responsible budgeting, health care reform, clean energy, to move the U.S. to a more sustainable economic path,” he said.

The US economy is lurching towards crisis with long-term interest rates on course to double, crippling the country’s ability to pay its debts and potentially plunging it into another recession, according to a study by the US’s own central bank.

n a 2003 paper, Thomas Laubach, the US Federal Reserve’s senior economist, calculated the impact on long-term interest rates of rising fiscal deficits and soaring national debt. Applying his assumptions to the recent spike in the US fiscal deficit and national debt, long-term interests rates will double from their current 3.5pc.

The impact would be devastating by making it punitively expensive to finance national borrowings and leading to what Tim Congdon, founder of Lombard Street Research, called a “debt explosion”. Mr Laubach’s study has implications for the UK, too, as public debt is soaring. A US crisis would have implications for the rest of the world, in any case.

More…

Original Author

This article was found as http://seekingalpha.com/article/139650-the-fed-s-balance-sheet,author Tyler Durden.  Good comments on that website.

It was also submitted to digg.com and has good comments there.

We’d like your comments here on morality101, as this seems KEY to further collapse any day now!

Always good to keep things in perspective. The most recent Fed Balance Sheet reading of $2.16 trillion is a doozy and is only getting higher, and a couple hundred bucks away from the highest ever recorded of $2.17 trillion a month ago. This is just the beginning: Bernanke and Co. have committed to monetizing $1.75 trillion of securities this year, of which $1.21 trillion remain to be purchased still. This means that the chart will likely pass the $3 trillion mark at some point over the next 3-6 months. As to the yield on these securities once the total is over $3 trillion, if the current trendline of UST pounding is any indication, look for something north of 5%.

Just as a reminder, the total foreign central bank holdings of Treasuries and Agencies is $2.7 trillion.

Very soon America’s largest creditor will be… America.

This article is quite in line with our thinking

The Ponzi scheme that U.S. Congress has been running, since 1933, is about to collapse the nation. It may take out the world, as well.

What’s the scheme?

It “takes” from taxpayers and “gives” to recipients, while taking a cut of the action for their magnanimous administration of the legalized thievery. And each shortfall is the excuse for deficits (borrowing credit, at usury).

However, this tax scheme is based upon fraudulent consent, via enrollment into Social Security. Since there is no law compelling participation, and no law punishing those who choose not to participate, it is 100% voluntary. If it was compulsory, it would be involuntary servitude and unconstitutional.

Due to the impossible contract (via usury) with creditors, evidenced by the unpayable national debt (in excess of ten trillions), the millions of “Human Resources” are burdened with an obligation that is tantamount to grand larceny on a national scale.

Though the government tries to keep us in the dark about the “voluntary” nature of national socialism, and misleads the nation into believing that “everyone” must have “the number” before they can work in the U.S.A., the law is the law. And you can ask them to produce the constitutional law that obligates all Americans to enroll, but they cannot provide it.

What will happen when 51% of the American people wake up and just say “NO” to (in)voluntary socialism?

If an American is no longer a participant in Social Security, he no longer is obligated to pay the withholding tax (FICA) on his wages, and his employer is also no longer liable.

Without a SSN/TIN, one is not a “person liable” for the individual income tax on wages. (The uniform rate Corporate Income tax is the constitutional excise tax. The Individual Income tax is graduated, and based on a private compact with the Social Security Administration and the Federal Reserve corporation.) Without an account and number, one cannot be held criminally liable for “willful failure to file.” (Again, try and find the law that makes “all Americans” into persons liable for paying a tax on wages, or the law that compels “all Americans” to make a “return of income” and file an IRS Form 1040.)

What will Congress do when 51% of the most productive Americans cease to be “voluntary slaves”? When tax revenues are slashed by 51% or more? What will the creditor do when Congress stops paying the interest on the national debt? What will holders of Federal Reserve Notes do, when their worthless nature is made clear?

Will the government capitulate to the “Will of the People”? Or will it impose martial law, and expose the awful truth of the subjugation of the American people to the foreign corporation known as the “United States”, in Congress assembled, in bankruptcy to usurers?

————- Notes: Pursuant to the Coinage Act of 1792, the national debt computes to an obligation to pay the creditor a sum of gold bullion, stamped into lawful money, that is 99.2 times the total world supply of above ground bullion. That means the national debt is impossible to pay, for all practical purposes. But due to the 14th amendment, the public debt shall not be questioned – no matter how insane it is.

The Social Security Administration’s form letter response to questions about compulsory enrollment states that the sole legal reason to enroll is to participate in the “Entitlement” program.

Congressional Research Service defines “Entitlements” as synonymous with “gifts”. Congress is under no legal or contractual obligation to pay benefits, and anything given is entirely at their discretion. There is no “Insurance contract” nor “Trust Fund”. In fact, the “Trust Fund” consists of IOUs that can only be redeemed by higher taxes in the future. All taxes collected, are spent, as part of the General Fund. (It is a Ponzi bribery scheme, paying present beneficiaries with the indentured servitude of future generations.)

In 2007, Congress borrowed MORE than it paid in debt service. In short, the Congress can no longer afford to pay the interest on the national debt. It is only a short step to the point where it can no longer borrow on the “credit” of the United States.

Pursuant to Title 12 United States Code, Sec. 411, every Federal Reserve Note (aka dollar bill) is an obligation (debt) of the Congress to pay face value in lawful money (gold / silver coin) on demand. That promise was repudiated, in 1933, in House Joint Resolution 192. But due to the “Contributors” (obligated parties) who signed up with Socialist InSecurity, the worthless notes became THEIR obligation, and thus legal tender for all debts, public AND private. When 51% leave national socialism, the FRNs will no longer be legal tender for all private debt, and may be objected to – as they have no par value. At that point, the banking / finance system will collapse, and the perpetrators may abandon the country, in fear for their lives.

JG  December 23, 2008

http://tekgnosis.typepad.com/tekgnosis/2008/12/counter-revolution.html

Both Obama and McCain are trying to look reasonable yet dynamic in proposing programs that will KEEP PRICES HIGH. This is because large portions of the voting public think they are rich because they own assets (homes and stocks)that are overvalued….Only if you understand the roots of the crisis will you be able to offer sane solutions.

read more | digg story

Eventually, the current Ponzi scheme is going to go bankrupt, and right now there’s no morally principled reform on the horizon. So one big question is what sort of response to this brewing problem can we expect, given the current political and cultural climate?

Striker: What happens to SS when Gov goes bankrupt?

read more | digg story

Following up on earlier posts America is History and - the Meltdown.

This post has also been submitted to Digg – you may comment here or there.

Back in the 60’s as a much younger man, I became a home-builder, and soon headed west to pursue that love in a more agreeable atmosphere.  It grew nicely until the economy then hit a slump, which cycle repeated about every 7 years, but I didn’t understand why.  The 3rd of such cycles came along, my business hit bottom again and, barely able to survive, I finally went to college and discovered a new love in economics.  Of course we learned of Adam Smith, the supply demand curve, the Federal Reserve and another principle — ignoring Cause can bring only irrational treatment of Effect.  Somewhere in those years, other factors of life came together for me, a foundation of consistency of philosophy which has integrated happily for this long remainder of life.

Which brings us to the latest & greatest calamity of the sub-prime mortgage, in which both the borrowers and the lenders are being blamed while at the same time being the victims!  Therefore we watch the daily futile and insane attempts of our President and Congress to treat Effects with “meltdown bailout”, while studiously avoiding the Cause.

So here is what really happened — the Cause.  Simply put, it was manipulation of our economy, loose money, then tight money, by The Fed with the virtually silent cooperation of Congress.

• The economy seems to be dragging, housing starts are down, soften the interest rates!
• Hmmm, needs a bit more kick in the pants, loosen loan standards!
• Ahhhhh, we got the housing market rolling really good now, arn’t we looking good!
• Oh Oh! The economy is overheating, there’s inflation signs, tighten up the money!
• Oh Oh!  Interest rates are up, we gotta adjust those ARM’s!

Going back to my days in the building business, now we get the picture –It’s “The Seven Year Itch”!  All caused by Congress and it’s pet playmate The Fed.  But this round it has finally crossed the point of no return.  The reason is not Wall Street, it is not deadbeat borrowers, it is not Golden Parachutes.  The much ballyhooed “lack of confidence” is, again, Effect.  Confidence without stability is impossible — cure the instability and confidence will reign.  Too much borrowing, impossible national debt, for war, for socialism, for a hundred immoral efforts to deny the choice and liberty of the people.  Months back, the “Bush Team” knew we were going to hit this crisis point; they drew up their horrid little plan to present when the stick got stuck too deep in the mud, so here we are.  Tonight or Tomorrow the House will vote for the Senate’s latest plan and we will be screwed yet again.

Can you now understand why this long tiresome election campaign never made our economic collapse an issue?  THEY caused it; they don’t know how to fix what they did, therefore let’s just ignore it and hope the problem goes away. Our MSM when right along with their game, when they should have been asking such questions.  Then we have the first presidential debate, at which Jim Lehrer could so easily have asked “What caused this economic crisis, and how do you propose to fix it?”

pseudo-Libertarian Barr blew the golden opportunity to speak and make this case — 163 days before election day, but now is way too late.  Ron Paul made good noises but isn’t a candidate, so now says merely “Vote 3rd Party”, when there are no candidates of ANY party, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, who can win and fix this mess after waiting too long.

I really do not believe that there is any viable solution available now, but let’s brainstorm on this.  (added 3 Oct 08) Since the Fed caused this headache, why not dump it back upon the Fed to fix it?  How?  Just let them loan to the investment bankers whatever they need to unravel the credit crisis.  The system is broken anyway, so what more harm could be done?  Yes, it would be hugely inflationary, but any bailout will be inflationary anyway, so what else is new?  Just maybe inflation will skyrocket enough to make the bad mortgage loans look good again?  If not, hell, they caused it, now let them eat their own manure!  The taxpayers didn’t do this, so why should we eat it?

The insanity of our government has mushroomed our national debt beyond hope of redemption.  The effects of earlier bailouts, this bailout and inevitable future bailout attempts will serve only to further plunge our dollar toward hyperinflation and force America into collapse and a new dark age.

As individuals, we have only the option to courageously resist in all ways possible, and to attend to our survival as best we can.  I initially built this morality101.net website in part to encourage you to go on tax strike, with some success, but the time for that to be highly effective has passed.  We have lost the simple basic morality necessary to return.  There can be no return until and unless we insist that our lives belong to no other.

This is a followup to America is History which I wrote and submitted to Digg last week.  Our government made a surprising move which is delaying the collapse for a short while, but the collapse is beyond avoidable.  This is my attempt to warn you — protect whatever assets you have as best you can, and prepare for a long dark age.

On that day, it appeared certain that WaMu, then Morgan-Stanley, then Goldman-Sachs were going to wipe out, and the domino effect would follow.  However, right after my original post, Bush, Paulson & Bernanke finally emerged from their caves to announce we were in horrible trouble.  Hell, we knew that, and so did they (well not the sheeples).  So Dodd blurted out “meltdown” and Congress, which had surely also known disaster was coming, finally had to go to work – now that’s different!  The bailout solution presented is horrible!   If our 537 elected officials had done anything right before this housing/mortgage crisis began, this whole dilemma may never have arisen.

This I shall elaborate just a tad more.  The trigger which began the housing/mortgage fiasco was NOT caused by greedy anyone, nor by overpaid CEO’s, nor by inadequate regulation.  It was caused by The Fed manipulating interest rates, which caused first the housing boom and then, after millions of ARM’s had been stupidly signed by sheeples, The Fed raised the rates, causing ARM payments to rise to impossible and triggered so many defaults.  Meanwhile our brain-dead Congress just watched the turds roll by, as they’ve done since 1911 when they created The Fed.

By now you should pretty well know all that, but there is at least one action you should take TODAY (because time is fleeting!), an email complaint to your congressmen – this site makes it quite easy and you can/should edit their form prose to say what YOU think!  America is in collapse way beyond recovery, hell we might as well say goodbye now.

Just this morning we got a really shocking revelation started it’s rounds on Digg (if you wish to promote and comment).  THEY KNEW this was coming months ago.  Ahhhhh, NOW we get the news!

Well, Congress is now battling not only about the original language, but also trying to add all sorts of riders to the bill.  Those riders are largely from socialist Democrats, and I heard this woman on the TV insisting on even more dictatorial riders, so I went to see who the hell that was, and sho’ nuf, it was Hillary!  If a bunch of these riders should pass, the $700 billion cost-guess will mushroom to the stratosphere.  Actually, ANY bailout bill will make everything worse, not better.  For those who get hurt in the process, well gee, you did it to yourselves, deal with it!

Every time that Congress spends our stolen tax-dollars, some entity, corporate or person, gets a benefit at the your expense.  They call it transfer payments, aka robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Paul gets the benefit, while Peter gets the shaft. The only moral and Constitutional exception is defense (note that I did not say offense).

Again as I have said often, the root cause bringing our collapse is our failure to insist on basic morality — the right to life and the right to sustain that life and to maximize our happiness.  I hope you will read enough while you are here to grasp how simple it could be!  Maybe you would also like to come back from the dark age?  If there is a next time, this is the foundation to do it right.