Axel Merk: Is the Yen Doomed?

In his latest Merk Insight letter, Axel Merk explains the Yen may not be the safe heaven it once was , as the Country has just starting posting current account deficit, which coupled with the stratospheric Japanese debt (>200% of GDP) could see the demise the Yen.

Here's the full analysis:

So many foreign exchange (“FX”) speculators have lost money shorting the yen that the currency earned the nickname the widow maker. Indeed, as the yen has had a weak patch as of late, some are already cautioning the trade might be crowded. But we don’t talk about a trade; we talk about a fundamental shift in the dynamics that might finally be unfolding.

To understand the yen, consider the earthquakes that hit New Zealand and Japan in early 2011: New Zealand’s shaker caused the New Zealand dollar to fall; Japan’s earthquake, in contrast, pushed the yen higher. In the short-term, earthquakes disrupt economic growth; conventional wisdom suggests less growth leads to a weaker currency. However, economic growth and currencies do not correlate as highly as one might expect. Indeed, everything appears backwards in Japan, and there’s a reason: historically, Japan has enjoyed a current account surplus. As a result, Japan does not rely on inflows from abroad to finance its budget deficit. Despite conventional wisdom, note that when there’s a shock to the economy, consumers save more/spend less, a positive to a currency all else being equal (i.e., in the absence of a current account deficit). In contrast, countries like the United States, or New Zealand for that matter, have a current account deficit; in the absence of growth, foreigners are less inclined to invest in the country, potentially depriving the country of inflows needed to finance budget deficits and, in the process, putting downward pressure on the currency. One reason why U.S. policy makers favor growth over austerity is to encourage inflows to finance the deficit. On that note, the lack of growth in the Eurozone, where the current account is roughly in balance, may be bad for employment, but the euro has managed to hold up reasonably well despite the crisis.

In some ways, when a country has a current account surplus, currency dynamics may be counter-intuitive: the more dysfunctional the Japanese government, the stronger the yen appears to have been in recent years. Since 2005, Japan has had seven prime ministers, with another change likely soon. A government with rotating heads suggests a government that doesn’t get anything done. Usually a government that “gets things done” is one that spends money, but Japan could not even get an expeditious rebuilding effort under way after the earthquake struck.

However, Japan's current account has been deteriorating in recent years. Japan is doing its part to accelerate the demise of its current account:

• With one of the world’s highest life expectancies, almost no net immigration and falling birth rates, Japan’s aging population is often cited as the key-long term driver of the country’s deteriorating current account balance. The Japanese retire later than others in developed countries, cushioning the impact somewhat.
• The main “achievement” after the earthquake was announcing to abandon nuclear energy. Increasingly relying on imported energy is bad news for Japan's current account balance.
• Rising tensions with China don't bode we'll for trade. Shinzo Abe, Japan's likely prime minister to be is said to potentially escalate tensions further. If correct, we expect Japan's current account balance to suffer as a result.

Why does this all matter? After all, the US has had a massive current account deficit for years. The size of the current account deficit represents the amount foreigners need to buy in assets (local financial assets or real assets) to keep a currency from falling. With a current account deficit, Japan's debt to GDP ratio of over 200% may suddenly matter, as Japan may need to offer higher rates to attract foreigners to buy local assets (e.g., Japanese government bonds). The trouble is that Japan’s debt might be unsustainable at higher interest rates. To the extent that Japan has a current account surplus, it doesn't matter whether foreigners buy the yen, but those surpluses have fallen to deficits recently and that trend looks set to continue.

Some will argue that it still doesn't matter, as Japan is currently more concerned with negative rates. Our analysis, however, shows that the market does care: in recent years, the yen often appreciated when there was a "flight to safety;" if we use the VIX index, a popular measure of implied volatility of S&P 500 index options, as a proxy for the amount of fear in the market, then the yen should show a high correlation with the index. What the chart shows is that the yen isn't the safe haven it used to be. The yen no longer is the "go to" place when fear is elevated. There might be many reasons for this, but we like to look at it in the context of the current account balance, shown in the previous chart: as the current account has deteriorated, the yen's safe haven status appears to be eroding.

The one thing still going for the yen is that Japanese policy makers often don't execute on their talk. For example, Abe's election rhetoric suggests that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will lose its independence as the government may force it to increase its inflation target of 1% (which it has failed to achieve) to 2 or 3 percent. But the BOJ has failed over and over again to live up to its promises. A side effect of that is that in recent years the BOJ's balance sheet has barely grown (the BOJ has "printed" very little money as one might colloquially say); Japan did its money printing in the 90s.

However, it may matter little what the BOJ is up to once the current account deteriorates further. We don't look at these trends as academic exercises, but rather consider the risk of acting versus not acting. At this stage, we assess the risk of not acting to be high and are putting our money where our mouth is.

6 Ways To Invest in Gold

Merk Investments LLC has published a report entitled "How to Invest in Gold: Six Options to Consider" (PDF) which provides 6 ways to invest in Gold:

• Gold Mining Stocks - They describe Junior and Majors mining including the different risks profile, and the need to clearly understand to company before investing
• Gold Mining Funds - Easier to invest than Gold Mining Stocks, but fund managers charge a management fee. Neither Gold Mining stocks and funds give direct exposure to Gold.
• Paper Gold - ETN are a convenient way to get exposure to Gold, but the risk comes with the issuer creditworthiness. Leverage ETN are risky investment which should only be used by speculators.
• Open-End Gold Trusts - GLD, IAU, and SGOL are part of this category. This type of investment gives you fractional ownership of Gold and expenses are low. However, make sure to read the funds prospectus to check it does not use derivatives and see if it allows physical delivery.
• Closed-End Gold Trusts - You get physical gold exposure, but it can be costly. There may be tax advantages to using this kind of investment.
• Physical Gold - Namely Gold bars and coins.Pain attention to the premium paid (including shipping and insurance costs) . You'll have to find a way to store it safely, and there is the risk of purchasing counterfeit bars and gold. Buying from reputable dealers might help, but it's not a 100% guarantee.

You can read the PDF file for complete details.

Bernanke: To Print or Not to Print…?

In his latest Merk Insight letter, Axel Merk discusses the possible policy actions the federal reserver, via Ben Bernanke, make take, and although unlikely for now, one of the latest tool would be to lower the interest rate the Fed pays on bank reserves to possibly 10 basis points or zero.

Here's the full letter:

Official portrait of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To print or not to print? Odds are that Fed Chairman Bernanke has been contemplating this question while drafting his upcoming Jackson Hole speech. The one good thing about policy makers worldwide is that they may be fairly predictable. As such, we present our crystal ball as to what the Fed might be up to next, and what the implications may be for the U.S. dollar and gold.

First off, we may be exaggerating: on process rather than substance, though. That is, Bernanke isn’t just thinking about whether to print or not to print as he is sitting down to draft his speech. Instead, he considers himself a student of the Great Depression and has been pondering policy responses to a credit bust for some time. Consider the following:

• Bernanke has argued that going off the gold standard during the Great Depression helped the U.S. recover faster from the Great Depression than countries that held on to the gold standard for longer.
• Bernanke is correct: subject to many risks, debasing a currency (which going off the gold standard was) can boost nominal growth. Think of it this way: if the government takes your purchasing power away, you have a greater incentive to work. Not exactly the mandate of a central bank, though.
• Note by the way that by implication, countries that hold on to the gold standard invite a lot of pain, but have stronger currencies. Fast forward to today and compare the U.S. to Europe. While neither country is on the gold standard, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has increased more in percentage terms than that of the European Central Bank since the onset of the financial crisis. Using a central bank’s balance sheet as a proxy for the amount of money that has been “printed”, it shouldn’t be all that surprising that the Eurozone experiences substantial pain, but the Euro has been comparatively resilient.
• Possibly the most important implication: Bernanke considers the value of the U.S. dollar a monetary policy tool. When we have argued in the past that Bernanke might be actively working to weaken the U.S. dollar, it is because of comments such as this one. This is obviously our interpretation of his comments; a central banker rarely says that their currency is too strong, although such comments have increasingly been made by central bankers around the world as those pursuing sounder monetary policy have their economies suffer from competitive devaluations elsewhere.

• Bernanke has argued that one of the biggest mistakes during the Great Depression was that monetary policy was tightened too early. Here’s the problem: in a credit bust, central banks try to stem against the flow. If market forces were to play out, the washout would be severe and swift. Those in favor of central bank intervention argue that it would be too painful and that more businesses than needed would fail, the hardship imposed on the people is too much. Those against central bank intervention point out that creative destruction is what makes capitalism work; the faster the adjustment is, even if extremely painful, the better, as the recovery is healthier and stronger.
• If the policy choice is to react to a credit bust with accommodative monetary policy, fighting market forces, and then such accommodation is removed too early, the “progress” achieved may be rapidly undone.
• We are faced with the same challenge today: if monetary accommodation were removed at this stage (interest rates raised, liquidity mopped up), there’s a risk that the economy plunges right back down into recession, if not a deflationary spiral. As such, when Bernanke claimed the Fed could raise rates in 15 minutes, we think it is a mere theoretical possibility. In fact, we believe that the framework in which the Fed is thinking, it must err on the side of inflation.

Of course no central banker in office would likely ever agree with the assessment that the Fed might want to err on the side of inflation. But consider the most recent FOMC minutes that read:

• An extension [of a commitment to keep interest rates low] might be particularly effective if done in conjunction with a statement indicating that a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy was likely to be maintained even as the recovery progressed

As the FOMC minutes were released three weeks after the FOMC meeting, many pundits dismissed them as “stale”; after all, the economy had somewhat improved since the meeting. Indeed, it wasn’t just pundits: some more hawkish Fed officials promoted that view as well. But to make clear who is calling the shots, Bernanke wrote in a letter dated August 22 (the same date the FOMC minutes were released) to California Republican Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee: “There is scope for further action by the Federal Reserve to ease financial conditions and strengthen the recovery.” Various news organizations credited the faltering of an incipient U.S. dollar rally on August 24 with the publication of this Bernanke letter.
For good order’s sake, we should clarify that the Fed doesn’t actually print money. Indeed, printing physical currency is not considered very effective; instead, liquidity is injected into the banking system: the Fed increases the credit balances of financial institutions in accounts held with the Fed in return for buying securities from them. Because of fractional reserve banking rules, the ‘liquidity’ provided through this action can lead to a high multiple in loans. In practice, one of the frustrations of the Fed has been that loan growth has not been boosted as much as the Fed would have hoped. When we, and Bernanke himself for that matter, have referred to the Fed’s “printing press” in this context, referring to money that has been “printed”, it’s the growth in the balance sheet at the Federal Reserve. That’s because the Fed’s resources are not constrained; it’s simply an accounting entry to pay for a security purchased; that security is now on the Fed’s balance sheet, hence the ‘growth’ in the Fed’s balance sheet.
Frankly, we are not too concerned about the environment we are in. At least not as concerned as we are about the environment we might be in down the road: that’s because we simply don’t see how all the liquidity can be mopped up in a timely manner when needed. At some point, some of this money is going to ‘stick’. Even if Bernanke wanted to, we very much doubt he could raise rates in 15 minutes. To us, it means the time for investors to act may be now. However, talking with both existing and former Fed officials, they don’t seem terribly concerned about this risk. Then again Fed officials have rarely been accused of being too far sighted. We are concerned because just a little bit of tightening has a much bigger effect in an economy that is highly leveraged. Importantly, we don’t need the Fed to tighten: as the sharp selloff in the bond market earlier this year (and the recent more benign selloff) have shown, as soon as the market prices in a recovery, headwinds to economic activity increase as bond yields are rising. That’s why Bernanke emphasizes “communication strategy”, amongst others, to tell investors not to worry, rates will stay low for an extended period. This dance might get ever more challenging.
In some ways, Bernanke is an open book. In his ‘helicopter Ben’ speech a decade ago, he laid out the tools he would employ when faced with a collapse in aggregate demand (the credit bust we have had). He has deployed just about all tools from his toolbox, except for the purchase of foreign government bonds; recently, he shed cold water on that politically dicey option. Then two years ago, in Jackson Hole, Bernanke provided an update, specifying three options:

• To expand the Fed’s holdings of longer-term securities
• To ease financial conditions through communications
• To lower the interest rate the Fed pays on bank reserves to possibly 10 basis points or zero.

We have not seen the third option implemented, but the Fed might be discouraged from the experience at the European Central Bank: cutting rates too close to zero might discourage intra-bank lending and cause havoc in the money markets.
As such, expect Bernanke to give an update on his toolbox in Jackson Hole. The stakes are high as even doves at the Fed believe further easing might not be all that effective and could possibly cause more side effects (read: inflation). As such, we expect him to provide a framework as to why and how the Fed might be acting, and why we should trust the Fed that it won’t allow inflation to become a problem. For investors that aren’t quite as confident that the Fed can pull things off without inducing inflation, they may want to consider adding gold or a managed basket of currencies to mitigate the risk to the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar.

Related articles

• More QE is on the way - The central banks are digging themselves a deeper hole
• U.S dollar Slides as Fed Keeps QE Dream Alive
• Gold, The Silent Killer: Yellow Metal's Up Big And Could Rally Further
• Investors Looking For More Stimulus Will Probably Be Disappointed By Bernanke This Week
• Many on FOMC Favored Easing if No Pickup in Growth
• Bernanke to spotlight Fed policy options at Jackson Hole

Axel Merk: Gold at ECB: Accident or Strategy?

Axel Merk discusses the relatively constant Gold to Asset ratio at the ECB (15%) in his latest Merk Insight letter and tries to analyze if this is done on purpose.

Here's the full letter:

When the euro was launched, the European Central Bank (ECB) held approximately 15% of its assets in gold. That ratio has remained reasonably stable, giving rise to a variety of chatter, including suggestions that it may displace the U.S. dollar. We pursue the question on whether the ECB’s gold holdings are an accident or strategy.

Let’s look at the numbers. Below is a chart depicting the percentage of gold relative to the ECB’s total assets. As one can see, the percentage has remained reasonably stable despite a significant growth in total assets.

Total assets of a central bank may be considered a proxy for the amount of money that has been “printed”; it’s a crude measure as it does not reflect physical money printed; nor does it reflect money in circulation; neither does it reflect sterilization activities that also show a rise in assets. Still, a central bank balance sheet is often referred to as the printing press as money is literally created out of thin air (by the stroke of a keyboard) when assets are purchased. Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Bernanke has referred to this fiat money feature as the printing press. We like to think of it as super-money, as central bank purchases provide cash to the banking system, allowing them to lend a multiple of the money that has been “printed”. While banks have been reluctant to lend (the velocity of money has been low), the analogy we like to give is that if you give a baby a gun, just because no one gets hurt does not mean it is not dangerous. That said, let’s look at total assets at the ECB:

The interpretation shows that while money can be printed, wealth cannot be created out of thin air: as money is printed, gold has appreciated versus the euro. So while inflation has not shown up in indicators such as the Consumer Price Index, monetary easing is rightfully reflected in the price of gold.

Diving a little deeper to determine how much of this is strategy versus accident, let’s look at the gold holdings at the ECB once more:

The ECB marks its gold holdings to market, i.e. uses market prices for gold. The ECB was selling gold from the inception of the euro until the onset of the financial crisis; since then, the ECB’s gold holdings have remained stable. To understand the motivation, one needs to note that when one refers to ECB gold holdings, one is actually talking about Euro area gold holdings. While the ECB holds some gold, most gold is held by the respective central banks (this is not a discussion of where such gold is physically located):

Relevant is that each nation in the Eurozone pursues its own agenda with regard to its gold holdings. Germany has resisted political pressure within Germany to sell gold, as Bundesbank (Buba) profits would need to be transferred to the government; the hawkish Buba has indicated that it would be considered selling gold to help finance the government’s deficit. Italy, as one can see, has not sold any gold. Conversely, as a percentage of their holdings, the Netherlands had been rather eager to sell gold up until the financial crisis; Portugal, too, was an aggressive seller. As one can see, gold sales are not particularly related to the financial health of a Eurozone nation, but more to the cultural attitude in the respective nations towards gold.

Let’s cross the Atlantic to see whether the ECB’s gold strategy is undermining the U.S. dollar. The Fed’s gold stock is valued at $44.22 per fine troy ounce. For purposes of the chart below, we adjust the Fed’s gold holdings to market prices:

Note that the chart above starts in 2006, so as to focus on the period of the financial crisis. The Fed has been more aggressive than the ECB in printing money. As such, the percentage of gold in relation to total holdings has declined at the Fed in a more pronounced fashion. There is clearly no perfect relationship between the size of the balance sheet and the price of gold, as other factors also influence the supply and demand of gold; however, increasing the supply of fiat money (dollar, euros) may decrease its value when measured in real assets, such as gold. We have in the past referred to the Fed as the champ in printing money (as measured by the percentage balance sheet growth since August 2008), although the Bank of England has, as of late, taken on that title. But we digress.

From what we see, central banks have been scared into holding gold since the onset of the financial crisis. Beyond that, we don’t see an active strategy at the ECB to keep its gold reserves at 15% of total assets. Instead, the ECB’s comparatively measured approach has simply lead to a reasonably stable percentage of gold reserves. Of course that was before ECB President Draghi said on July 26, 2012, that he shall do “whatever it takes to preserve the euro.” (an interpretation of that may be that more money printing is on the way). For now, the cultural differences in responding to the financial crisis (Europe: think austerity; US: think growth) suggest that the euro should outperform the U.S. dollar over the long term, assuming the not-so-negligible scenario of a more severe fallout from the Eurozone debt crisis won’t materialize.

It may help to keep in mind that historically inflation is the response to a deflationary shock. If market forces were left to themselves, we believe the credit bust of 2008 would have caused a major deflationary shock. It’s the reaction of policy makers that fight market forces that may lead to inflation. Bernanke as of late brushed off such pessimism. As the charts above show, however, gold has been a sensitive – and sensible I might add - indicator to the trigger-friendliness of our central bankers.

Axel Merk: Is Spain Jeopardizing the Eurozone?

Axel Merk published his latest Merk Insights entitled "Spain's Molasses Jeopardizing Eurozone?!". He analyzed the debt structure in Spain, and explains that just shuffling debts around won't fix the debt problem, and guarantees must be removed to solve over-indebtedness. Failing to do so will make the global financial system as a whole at risk.

Here's the full commentary:

Spain's regional government debt is in focus again. Spanish 10-year government bond yields are trading near 7.5% as Spain’s central government is expected to bail out its regions – and in return may ask for a bailout itself. Guarantees don’t make a system safer, quite the opposite: everything is safe until the guarantor itself is deemed unsafe. While the failure of any one business of regional government is a tragedy, providing a guarantee puts the system as a whole at risk.

Spain consists of 17 autonomous regions, whose total debt almost doubled in the past three years. Technically, Spanish law forbids the central government from rescuing regional government (in much the same way that the Maastricht Treaty prohibits bailouts of EU countries). The debate on whether the central government should take more control over regional budgets and provide guarantees/bailouts has intensified since January, when the central government implicitly helped Valencia, one of the most indebted regions, with a €123 million loan repayment to Deutsche Bank:

• Though the central government is prohibited from rescuing regional governments and it denied it has done so, El Pais (Spain's highest-circulation daily newspaper) reported earlier this year that the Spanish Treasury provided implicit guarantee and help to Valencia in repaying the loan to Deutsche Bank. The central government advanced its regular transfers to Valencia by about 10 days to January 3rd. On the next day, Jan. 4th, Valencia was reported to have repaid the loan. It can be viewed as the first implicit bailout from the central government in Spain.

In an effort to impose more control over the spending of regional governments, the Spanish Council of Ministers approved a draft of a Stability and Sustainability Law in late January; one provision is that the central government could oversee the budgets of the 17 autonomous regions and establish penalties for those who do not meet the balanced budget targets (all regions missed the deficit-to-GDP target of 1.5% last year). Not surprisingly, the provision created strong controversy. Socialist-led regions (i.e. Catalonia) criticized the provision harshly, while some conservative-ruled regions (i.e. Valencia) backed the plan. The criticism didn’t stop Catalonia to ask for delays in handing tax payments to the central government.

In May, in a clear sign that troubles for the regions were escalating, Valencia, one of the most troubled regions, was forced to pay what was considered a punitive 6.8% yield to roll over €500 million for six months, more than six times the Spanish Treasury had to pay on the comparable-maturity at the time. By now, the yields have further risen to around 20%.

A highly decentralized budget system

• Spain is divided into 17 autonomous regions due to historical reasons and cultural differences.
• Regional governments have historically been granted significant control over spending. They take charge of education, health and social services, which account for 50% of total government expenditures.
• Regions also have the power to authorize or veto the issuance of public debt.
• The central government has little ability to interfere regional government spending, but is prohibited by Spanish law to bailout regional governments.

Mismatch in regional fiscal autonomy

• While regions enjoy high autonomy on spending, the central government retains effective control over regional government revenue.
• For 15 out of the 17 regions, the central government retains all powers over the collection and regulation of important taxes (i.e. corporate income tax, import duties, payroll taxes). Regional government revenues mainly come from the central government's conditional grants and ceded taxes (set at central level, but collected at regional level). Central grants vary from year to year; they are designed to address regional imbalances. And for some of the ceded taxes, these regions only retain a small share (i.e. 35% for VAT and 50% for personal income tax) after collection.
• Only two regions are close to the maximum fiscal autonomy. They have full powers over a number of major taxes and retain 100% of ceded taxes.

Regional debt accumulation

• As a result of the economic recession and housing market collapse, all 17 regions experienced a significant rise in debt. By 2011, the total debt of 17 regional governments rose to €140 billion, accounting for 13.1% of Spain's GDP. This number is up from 6.7% by 2008.
• 10 out of 17 regions' debt-to-regional-GDP ratio exceeded 10% (versus 2 out 17 by 2008). All regions missed the deficit-to-GDP target of 1.5% last year.
• The most indebted region, Catalonia, recorded a 20.7% debt-to-regional-GDP ratio and 3.6% deficit-to-GDP ratio in 2011. Catalonia’s 10-year bond yield exceeded 14% at its peak in June.
• The 2nd indebted region, Valencia, delayed repayment of a €123 million loan to Deutsche Bank in January. Subsequently, the region's credit rating was downgraded by Moody's to junk and it failed to raise €1.8 billion in a bond auction in March. Valencia is a Mediterranean region with many beach-front properties; its economy collapsed after the housing bubble bust.

Last Friday, Valencia was the first region to say it would contribute into a new Spanish government fund to meet its debt-refinancing obligations, as well as to pay suppliers. With that, the Spanish government is now clearly on the hook for the regions’ debt. Not surprisingly, the market is pricing in that reality. Trouble is that Spain’s central government does not have the credibility that it has sufficient influence to turn the regions’ finances around. Unless the Spanish government can assure the markets that it can deliver sustainable budgets – for itself and now the regions as well – it will simply go deeper into the molasses and risks taking the Eurozone with it. And while Spain certainly tries to advance its structural reform, the headlines coming out from the region suggest Spain might be more interested in the European Central Bank (ECB) intervening to help out Spain’s cost of borrowing. As long as debt is merely shuffled around, the Eurozone crisis won’t be solved. And as long as ever more guarantees are provided – from regional to national governments, from supranational issuers such as the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to the International Monetary Fund, the more the global financial system as a whole may be at risk.

Axel Merk: The US of E has Arrived!

Axel Merk published his latest Merk Insights entitled "United States of Europe has Arrived!". With lots of talk about a fiscal union, a banking union and a potilical, Merk wonder if we are assiting to the birth of the United States of Europe.

Here's the full letter:

A vision "Towards a Genuine Economic and Monetary Union" has just been published by the European Union. Key components include integrated financial and budgetary frameworks. The goal is to achieve a “strong and stable architecture in the financial, fiscal, economic and political domains.” For a vision to work, it has to be realistic. The budgetary framework calls for “joint decision-making … and … steps towards common debt issuance.” Given that German Chancellor Merkel was quoted as saying Europe will not have shared liability for debt as long as she lives, such goals seem a tad ambitious. Understanding that Merkel is like a mother to the United States of Europe, she should consider nurturing it with vitamins, love and care.

Love

Love has a lot to do with communication. And while it should be so easy, we all know that we sometimes neglect to communicate with our loved ones. Translating that to the Eurozone, take charge, be a leader and communicate! Merkel may not be a Reagan, nor a Thatcher, but it ultimately falls upon her shoulders to frame the discussion. If she does not agree, there is little others can do to move forward. Tough love is okay, too…

Care

Intensive care is what peripheral Eurozone countries are in. Let’s focus on the good news in terms of European integration: those countries that require assistance have yielded sovereign control to the European Commission. Presto! That’s the key element of the union. Those that have proven prudent in managing their budgets don’t need to yield control to Brussels bureaucrats. But those that are not capable do. It may sound like an unbalanced union, where not everyone is ceding control, but given the political realities, policy makers ought to leverage the cards they are dealt.

Regarding the so-called banking union, the same principle applies: countries that have been incapable of cleaning up their own banking system, ought to cede control. Seizing control from national bank regulators, including a European resolution scheme are key; but unlike the proposed vision published by the European Union, such a scheme must start with the more modest goal of first intervening where calls for help have been issued.

Vitamins

The way you leverage on the framework is by providing hope and support to those that succumb to it. Some vitamins, when administered in too high a dose, may be toxic. The European Stability Mechanism, the ESM, has shown such toxic characteristics. Because the ESM subordinates all other debt, it has made such subordinate debt toxic. The ESM is a last resort bailout scheme, not a tool to promote a “strong and stable architecture.” The discussion about the solution must include Eurobonds.

Having said that, vitamins do little good if not accompanied by underlying lifestyle changes. Put another way, as long as policy makers look for evermore creative ways to finance rather than to reduce debt, the underlying disease won’t be cured. Ultimately, debt will need to be reduced. The way it looks, it may be more likely be through default than sustainable fiscal policies.

Squaring the circle

The price for living beyond one’s means and failing to regulate one’s banking system should be the loss of sovereign control over budgeting and regulation. This part is already reality, as evidenced by the various bailout schemes in place.

What is not in place is a mechanism to allow those chronically sick children to get back on the right path, for national governments to conduct policy with enough dignity, so that political backlash won’t tear those countries apart.

The solution must include a tough love support mechanism, one where sovereign debt of the country in need is not de facto labeled as toxic. At the same time it is fully understandable that a country such as Finland wants to receive collateral for loans provided to those that have a proven track record of living beyond their means. Once a check is written, it’s rather difficult to decide on where the money is going to be spent. As such, a basis of discussion for the Eurozone should be:

• Countries that want final control over where bailout money is spent, need to accept the seniority status of IMF and ESM money.
• Eurobonds (without seniority over outstanding bonds) should be issued to finance projects that are directly supervised by the European Commission.

If Spain wants a bank bailout that doesn’t jeopardize its sovereign bonds, it must yield control over its banking system. It must accept that fact that its banking system may be too big, that institutions may be liquidated and management teams fired.

It’s too early to write off Europe. In the short-term, expectations are so low that policy makers will have a hard time disappointing. In the meantime, central banks around the world appear to be hoping for the best, but planning for the worst. That may mean easy money, a weak U.S. dollar, with money flowing into currencies of countries whose central banks can afford to not join the fray. To us, it is no coincidence our analysis of recent market data suggests biases of major central banks towards easing, whereas central banks of smaller countries shift towards tightening monetary policy

Axel Merk: Growth vs Austerity Analysis

Axel Merk, of Merk Funds, analyses both current economic models: Austerity and Growth; he tries to find out which one is more sustainable? Since Merk Funds focus on currency investments, he has a look at the implications on the U.S. dollar.

Here's the full newsletter:

To have budgets sustainable is as simple as matching revenue and expenses. Almost. Politicians have figured out that running a deficit may still yield a stable debt-to-GDP ratio, assuming there is economic growth. When U.S. politicians brag their budget forecasts bring down the absolute level of the deficit, it’s the debt-to-GDP ratio at best that may improve, assuming their rosy projections of economic growth prove correct. In the Eurozone, governments have – theoretically – committed themselves to running no more than 3% deficits, suggesting that such deficits lead to sustainable debt-to-GDP ratios. Not quite. Our research shows that, in order to achieve a long-term debt-to-GDP ratio in the low 50% range, deficits of no more than half of GDP growth may be run. If GDP growth is 3% a year, the deficit ought to be no higher than 1.5%. If 3% deficits are allowed, but GDP growth is only half of that – a more realistic assumption for many countries in today’s environment, the debt-to-GDP ratio will stabilize at above 200%. For a visualization of where the debt-to-GDP ratio will peter out given different growth and deficit scenarios, consider this table:

Average annual deficit	Average GDP growth	Long-term debt-to-GDP
1.5%	3.0%	51.5%
3.0%	3.0%	103.0%
3.0%	1.5%	202.9%

Why do we care about debt-to-GDP ratio? Allowing a high debt-to-GDP ratio is akin to playing with fire. Just look at the housing bust for an illustration as to what’s so dangerous about piling up too much debt: when interest rates are low, life feels great, the standard of living has gone up. But when interest rates move up, those with a higher debt load have to make disproportionate cuts to their standard of living to service their debt. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the U.S. paid an average of 2.2% of GDP in interest from 1972 until 2011. In its “Extended Alternative Fiscal Scenario” that assumes current policies, as opposed to current laws, remain in place, net interest payments will soar to 9.5% of GDP in 2037. In 2011, $454.4 billion in interest was paid in a $15 trillion economy; that is, 3% of GDP was spent in servicing interest payments. If the U.S. were to spend 9.5% of GDP to service its debt rather than 3%, it requires a cut of 6.5% of GDP in other services. It dwarfs the fiscal cliff (the reference to Bush era tax cuts running out coupled with spending cuts, absent of Congressional action) that might put a 3% to 5% dent on GDP. 

The pessimistic CBO outlook assumes what we judge to be an unrealistically low 2.7% average interest rate on debt payments. Should the market demand more compensation – generally referred to as bond vigilantes holding policy makers accountable – financing the deficits may no longer be feasible. Just ask Greece; or Spain.

With 10 year Treasuries yielding 1.6% in the United States, some argue that higher deficits are warranted. As the discussion above shows, the logic behind the view is fundamentally flawed, if not reckless. In the U.S., we differentiate between discretionary and mandatory spending. Mandatory refers to contractual obligations, the entitlements, most notably regarding Social Security and Medicare. Put simply, it may not be realistic in the long run to finance thirty years of retirement with forty years of work. As interest payments take a bigger chunk of GDP, discretionary spending is squeezed out. Be that an infrastructure project at the federal level; teachers at the state level; or firefighters or animal shelters at the local level.

In real life, there are some added complexities: we all fight for our benefits, take them for granted once granted and will fight vigorously to retain them. Also keep in mind that emergencies, such as natural disasters or wars, are typically not reflected in budget forecasts, as they might be considered “one off” items; even if that were correct, emergency spending adds to the deficit.

As debate rages whether austerity or growth is the solution to the plight of the developed world, keep in mind that there is a history spanning centuries, if not millennia, of governments spending too much money. In the old days, neighboring countries were “taxed” to fill domestic coffers: taxation, as in conquering other countries and taking treasures and slaves. Debt is a modern form of slavery, except that it is voluntary servitude. If history is any guide, don’t get your hopes up too high that these issues will be resolved. But investors may be able to navigate the waters, mitigate some of the risks or even profit from opportunities that arise in this environment.

The growth camp suggests that, with enough growth, a high debt load can be carried. That may be the case if such growth is not financed through debt. In recent years, trillions have been spent to achieve billions in growth – not exactly a recipe for sustainable budgeting.
The austerity camp suggests that, with enough austerity, books can be balanced. Except that, as services are cut, the economy is at risk of entering a downward spiral, increasing, rather than decreasing deficits. 

And while these two ideologies are being discussed, central banks struggle to either keep the banking system afloat (as in the Eurozone) or are helping to finance the government deficit (as in the U.S.). Indeed, the key difference between the U.S. and European model is that U.S. Treasuries appear to be backed by a) the taxing power of Congress and b) a lender of last resort, the Federal Reserve (Fed) with its printing press; whereas European sovereign debt is backed only by the taxing power of the national governments. The European Central Bank (ECB) has made it clear that its role is to support the banking system, not the sovereigns. In contrast, the Federal Reserve (Fed), while not admitting to outright financing of government deficits, has shown a willingness to do so in practice. As such, European sovereign debt is trading more like municipal bonds trade in the U.S., with weak “municipalities” (think Spain) paying a huge premium.

To be fair, the growth camp wants more than deficit spending; and the austerity camp wants more than cost cutting. Indeed, in a recent analysis Saving the Euro, we argued policy makers should instead focus on competitiveness, common sense and communication. Ultimately, both camps believe their philosophies should attract more investment as confidence is increased. In practice, the proverbial can is kicked down the road. By the time the can reaches the end of the road, it may be very beaten up. Indeed, an increasing number of investors are spreading their investments across multiple “cans” – we refer to these “cans” as diversified baskets of currencies, including gold.

What’s different between the U.S. and Europe is that the U.S. has a significant current account deficit. In our experience, countries with current account deficits tend to favor growth oriented strategies as they need to attract money from abroad to finance their deficit and, as such, to support the currency. While a bond market in shambles is a major drag on growth in the Eurozone, the Euro has been able to hold up reasonably well given the fact that the Eurozone’s current account is roughly in balance. A misbehaving bond market might have dire consequences for the U.S. dollar, even if one disregards the odds that the Federal Reserve may make U.S. Treasuries even less attractive by financing government spending (when a central bank buys a country’s own debt by printing money, such securities are intentionally over priced, potentially weakening the currency).

Axel Merk: What’s next for the U.S. Dollar? QE3?

Axel Merk, Merk Funds, has published a new "Merk Insights" newsletter entitled "What’s next for the U.S. Dollar? QE3?" where he discusses the outlook for the US currency.

The dismal U.S. jobs report for May, released last Friday, caused the price of gold to soar as the market appears to be pricing in an ever-greater chance of “QE3” – another round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve (Fed). But given that 10-year government debt is already down at 1.5%, the Fed may dive deeper into its toolbox in an effort to jumpstart the economy. Investors may want to consider taking advantage of the recent U.S. dollar rally to diversify out of the greenback ahead of QE3.

To a modern central banker, it may be very simple: if the economy does not steam ahead, sprinkle some money on the problem. The Fed has done its sprinkling; indeed, the Fed has employed what one may consider a fire hose. But after QE1 and QE2, we continue to have lackluster economic growth, unable to substantially boost employment. Never mind that the real problem the global monetary system is facing is that the free market has been taken out of the pricing of risk:

• When the Fed buys government securities, such securities are – by definition - intentionally overpriced. Historically, when a central bank buys government bonds, the currency tends to weaken, as investors look abroad for less manipulated returns.
• Policy makers increasingly manage asset prices, be that by pushing up equity prices through quantitative easing; artificially lowering the cost of borrowing of peripheral Eurozone countries; or by keeping ailing banks afloat.

Investors increasingly chase the next perceived move of policy makers, thus fostering capital misallocation. Policy makers in Spain may not like paying above 6% for their longer-term debt, but lowering such rates ought to be the result of prudent policies, not because of a game of chicken between the Spanish prime minister and other European policy makers (if we only knew who the other chickens were – they are all hiding!). Similarly, U.S. growth is lagging because – let’s just name a few of the root causes - of ongoing global de-leveraging; the de-leveraging of U.S. households; uncertainty over U.S. regulatory policy; uncertainty over U.S. fiscal policy.
But let’s keep it simple, as it doesn’t matter what we think. What matters is what our policy makers do. Bernanke has indicated that the Fed is willing to provide more support to the economy. The latest unemployment report might provide that impetus, especially given Bernanke’s view that “The central bank should act more preemptively and more aggressively than usual.” This quote comes straight from what may be considered Bernanke’s playbook: his 2002 “helicopter speech” on how deflation can be beaten. Last fall, we browsed through the playbook to pose the question: Operation Twist a Primer for QE3? To recall, Bernanke argues:

• Deflation is in almost all cases a side effect of a collapse of aggregate demand….The best way to get out of trouble is not to get into it in the first place…The Fed should try to preserve a buffer zone: …central banks … set … inflation targets … between 1 and 3 percent, … reducing the risk that a large … drop in aggregate demand will drive the economy far … into deflationary territory

When faced with deflation:

• The central bank should act more preemptively and more aggressively than usual…
• Deflation is always reversible under a fiat money system…the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent) that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost… a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation.

QE1 has come:

• The Fed must expand the scale of its asset purchases or, possibly, expand the menu of assets that it buys.

Operation Twist and a commitment to keeping interest rates low for an extended period is also taken from the playbook:

• One relatively straightforward extension of current procedures would be to try to stimulate spending by lowering rates further out the Treasury term structure – that is, rates on government bonds of longer maturities.
• One approach…would be for the Fed to commit to holding the overnight rate at zero for some specified period.
• A more direct method, which I [Bernanke] personally prefer, would be for the Fed to begin announcing explicit ceilings for yields on longer-maturity Treasury debt. The Fed could enforce these interest-rate ceilings by committing to make unlimited purchases of securities… at prices consistent with the targeted yields... if operating in relatively short-dated Treasury debt [next two years] proved inefficient, the Fed could also attempt to cap yields of Treasury securities at still longer maturities, say three to six years.
• Yet another option would be for the Fed to use its existing authority to operate in the markets for agency debt (for example, mortgage-backed securities [MBS] issued by Ginnie Mae, the Government National Mortgage Association).

We had the MBS purchase program as QE1. We don’t think a targeting of longer-term interest rates is in the cards, as rates are already quite low. To see what may be announced by the Fed in the near future, keep reading (emphasis added):

• Alternatively, the Fed could find other ways of injecting money into the system – for example, by making low-interest rate loans to banks or cooperating with the fiscal authorities
• If lowering yields on longer-dated Treasury securities proved insufficient to restart spending, however, the Fed might next consider attempting to influence directly the yields on privately issued securities… the Fed does have broad powers to lend to the private sector indirectly via banks, through the discount window.
• The Fed could offer fixed-term loans to banks at low or zero interest, with a wide range of private assets (including, amongst others, corporate bonds, commercial paper, bank loans, and mortgages) deemed eligible as collateral.

What does that mean? Look at Europe’s Long Term Refinancing Operations (LTROs). In Europe, the European Central Bank (ECB) has been providing unlimited liquidity to the banking system, allowing banks to get liquidity in return for a broad range of collateral. While U.S. banks are not in as dire a situation as European banks, Bernanke may be motivated to provide LTROs Fed style because it would allow banks, such as Bank of America, to turn their illiquid mortgage backed securities onto the Fed in return for liquidity. Key differences to QE1 and QE2 are:

• An LTRO is demand driven. Rather than the Fed buying a colossal amount of securities, unsure of what to do with a bloated balance sheet, the LTRO gets the money where it is in demand. A bank that wants increased liquidity – presumably to invest the money in riskier assets – will be willing to participate in the LTRO.
• LTROs are extremely profitable to banks rather than the Fed. Currently, the Fed earns over $80 billion a year: the more money a central bank prints, the more interest paying securities are purchased, thus the more “profitable” the central bank is (never mind the potentially eroded purchasing power as a result of having printed the money). The ECB, in contrast, only charges 1% in return for cash provided on collateral. Given the near zero interest rates in the U.S., expect the Fed to charge only a nominal amount to turn securities held by banks into cash.

What may hold Bernanke back is that he can’t be sure of the impact a U.S. style LTRO might have:

• One important concern in practice is that calibrating the economic effects of nonstandard means of injecting money may be difficult, given our relative lack of experience with such policies.

Indeed, we have been critics of the ECB’s LTRO because over one trillion euros in liquidity will need to be drained within a matter of weeks should the LTRO be closed out. We don’t think this is feasible. However, the reason why these “nonstandard measures” have not caused major inflation is because policies in the U.S. and the Eurozone have not worked – the money doesn’t “stick.” With the U.S. recovery further along than the Eurozone recovery, the risk for Bernanke – and with that to the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar – is that banks will actually use the LTRO to get the economy going. If so, Bernanke claims to be able to raise rates in 15 minutes. We will see about that, especially in the context of his conviction that one of the biggest mistakes during the Great Depression was to raise rates too early. In our assessment, Bernanke must err on the side of inflation if he wants to stay true to his convictions. It’s in that context that he has been willing to commit to keeping interest rates low until the end of 2014; incidentally, by that time, odds are high that much of the foreclosure pipeline will have been worked through thus allowing the Fed to return to more traditional monetary policy. That’s the theory. In practice, little has worked out since the onset of the financial crisis as has been envisioned by policy makers; then again, the Fed is rarely accused of being too far sighted…
In summary, we believe the next major initiative by the Fed will be the announcement of a U.S. style LTRO. Just in case that doesn’t jumpstart the U.S. economy either, we will have to revert back to Bernanke’s playbook to glimpse what else may be in store:

• The Fed can inject money into the economy in still other ways. For example, the Fed has the authority to buy foreign government debt, as well as domestic government debt. Potentially, this class of assets offers huge scope for Fed operations, as the quantity of foreign assets eligible for purchases by the Fed is several times the stock of U.S. government debt.

This policy suggestion demonstrates Bernanke’s lack of appreciation for the political consequences of his actions. In his speech, he tries to address that:

• I want to be absolutely clear that I am today neither forecasting nor recommending any attempt by U.S. policymakers to target the international value of the dollar. Although… it’s worth noting that there have been times when exchange rate policy has been an effective weapon against deflation.

Our read is that Bernanke won’t consider the outright purchases of peripheral Eurozone debt until after the U.S. elections. Even then, such a step may go beyond the bizarre. Then again, what hasn’t been bizarre in U.S. monetary policy in recent years?
Back to the LTRO, such a policy would boost the Fed’s balance sheet yet again. New money would be “printed” to provide the liquidity offered to the banking system. We live in an environment where central banks hope for the best, but plan for the worst. A U.S. LTRO would squarely fit that scheme. In that environment, the U.S. dollar may weaken and currencies sensitive to monetary stimulus may shine yet again. Having said that, we have long argued that there may not be any safe asset anymore and investors may want to take a diversified approach to something as mundane as cash.

Merk G10 Currencies Monetary Score

Merk Funds has recently released a white paper entitled "G10 Currencies: A Monetary Policy Analysis" where they analyzed G10 currencies and gave a "Merk Monetary Score" to each of those.

The Merk Fiscal Score and a Merk Economic Score are aggregated together with the The Merk Monetary Score into an overall Merk Currency Score

In this 7-page white paper, they explains their methodology and the Merk Monetary Policy Score eventually ranks monetary zones as follows:

1. Australia
2. Canada
3. New Zealand
4. U.S.
5. Sweden
6. Euro Area
7. Norway
8. Japan
9. UK
10. Switzerland

The best currencies in terms of monetary policy would then be the Australian dollar and the Canadian dollar and the  worst currencies the British pound and the Swiss franc.

Axel Merk: Eurozone Election Hangover

Axel Merk, Merk Funds, published a new "Merk Insights" newsletter entitled "Eurozone Election Hangover" where he discuss the possible consequence of recent elections in France and Greece for the Euro and other currencies.

 With the hangover from elections in the Eurozone lingering, which answer is correct?

a) A socialist is in charge in France;
b) Nobody is in charge in Greece; or
c) None of the above

The good news about a socialist running France is that his honeymoon shall be rather short. It took the previous socialist President François Mitterrand two years before he shelved his activist agenda and became a moderate. The market won’t be that patient; that’s why we pick answer c) above: the language of the bond market will be the only language policy makers listen to. The bond market is in charge.

What about Greece? It might be possible to put together a minority government of Antonis Samaras “New Democracy” and the former ruling “PASOK” party that is tolerated by the “Independent Greeks.” Panos Kammenos founded Independent Greeks after disagreeing to the terms of his country’s bailout when he was a member of the New Democracy. In the eyes of the Greeks, Germany and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) appear to be in charge; with anger over yielding to demands of those with money, German flags are frequently put on fire during Greek elections. One way to manage Greece’s future would be to give Greece money with no strings attached, except to tell them that no more money will follow suit. That way, the Greek people will own their own problems and can no longer blame others for their plight. In practice, Greece is likely to fall into chaos at some point, as the country has been unable to achieve a primary surplus, i.e. be able to operate before making interest payments; the question in our view is where the resulting anger will be focused.

What does it mean for the euro? The euro is recovering after a dire Monday morning; keep in mind, though, that much of Asia had a holiday and missed digesting the disappointing U.S. unemployment report; liquidity is low, as London is closed for a holiday. Medium term, however, our bigger concern is that big money, such as the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, is taking a step back from the Eurozone. As such, the odds of more liquidity provisions from the European Central Bank (ECB) have increased. We believe the euro will underperform other European currencies; note, though, that the world, including the U.S., will remain awash in money. The rocky road will continue as policy makers hope for the best, but plan for the worst. This should bode well for commodity currencies in the medium term; of these, the Canadian Dollar, Norwegian Krone and New Zealand Dollar are currently our favorites.

Silver and Gold Chart Technical Analysis by Mike Maloney

One way to to protect yourself against a currency crisis is to buy real assets such as Gold and Silver. If you want to time your purchase you can do so with technical analysis.

Mike Maloney, of gold-silver.com,  has done just that for his subscribers in April 2012 and he released the video to the general public today. He sees an inverted head and shoulder pattern both for Gold and Silver which is a buying opportunity. The Gold chart has also gone under its 200-day moving average, which has been a great buying signal for 7 times during the 12-year bull market.

He also advices people not to wait to getting invested in Silver and Gold, as you need to be prepared while the price is still low and the real crisis occur. Of course, he's biased since his company sells precious metals,  but I believe he's a trustworthy person.

Trade in Precious Metals with Heimerle+Meule 1 Gram Gold & Silver Bars

When there is a serious currency crisis (e.g. hyperinflation), people lose faith in the local currency, and often trade in foreign currencies and in some cases gold powder.

In the years ahead, there is a non-zero risk, that people will lose confidence in fiat currencies worldwide and find other ways to trade such as using Gold and Silver. It's quite likely governments raise tax significantly, and trading in precious metals could be a way to reduce taxes to be paid. However, the problem with 1-ounce Gold coins is that they hold too much for daily expenses and Silver coins are usually more appropriate.


But now a German company (Heimerle+Meule) starts to provide 1g gold bars (about 50 USD at current Gold price) and 1g silver bars (about 1 USD at current Silver price) that would allow to trade goods in Gold and Silver more easily. Those are sold in 50 and 100 pieces set (CombiBars) and each bar is detachable. This could be use to buy things or as gifts.

For details check the Combibar Flyer, and Heimerle+Meule website.

Axel Merk: Recovery – Who are We Kidding?

Axel Merk published a new Merk Insights newsletter entitled "Recovery - Who are We Kidding?", where he explains we are in a period of war between inflation forces (central banks) and deflationary forces (markets), talks about the potential consequence of Ben Bernanke monetary policies and recommend diversifying into hard currencies including Gold on US dollar strength.

The global economy is healing, so we are told. Yet, the moment the Federal Reserve (Fed) indicates just that – and thus implying no additional stimulus may be warranted – the markets appear to throw a tantrum. In the process, the U.S. dollar has enjoyed what may be a temporary lift. To make sense of the recent turmoil, let’s look at the drivers of this “recovery” and potential implications for the U.S. dollar, gold, bonds and the stock market.

In our assessment, what we see unfolding is the latest chapter in the tug of war between inflationary and deflationary forces. During the “goldilocks” economy of the last decade, investors levered themselves up. Homeowners treated their homes as if they were ATMs; banks set up off-balance sheet Special Investment Vehicles (SIVs); governments engaging in arrangements to get cheap loans that may cost future generations dearly. Cumulatively, it was an amazing money generation process; yet, central banks remained on the sidelines, as inflation – according to the metrics focused on - appeared contained. Indeed, we have argued in the past that central banks lost control of the money creation process, as they could not keep up with the plethora of “financial innovation” that justified greater leverage. It was only a matter of time before the world no longer appeared quite so risk-free. Rational investors thus reduced their exposure: de-levered. When de-leveraging spreads, however, massive deflationary forces may be put in motion. The financial system itself was at risk, as institutions did not hold sufficiently liquid assets to de-lever in an orderly way. Without intervention, deflationary forces might have thrown the global economy into a depression.

The trouble occurs when the money creation process takes on a life of its own, because the money destruction process is rather difficult to stop. However, it hasn’t stopped policy makers from trying: in an effort to fight what may have been a disorderly collapse of the financial system, unprecedented monetary and fiscal initiatives were undertaken to stem against market forces. Trillion dollar deficits, trillions in securities purchased by the Fed with money created out of thin air (when the Fed buys securities, it merely credits the account of the bank with an accounting entry – while no physical dollar bills are printed, many – including us – refer to this process as the printing of money).

Will it work? The Fed thinks it might. But nobody really knows. We do know that a depression works in removing the excesses of a bubble. However, the cost of a depression may be severe, both in social and monetary terms. Critics of the “let ‘em fail” argument say that businesses and jobs beyond those that have engaged in bad decisions will be caught by contagion effects and may ultimately be bound to fail too. Fed Chair Bernanke, a student of the Great Depression, frequently warns against repeating the policy mistakes of that era. So does the reflationary argument work, i.e. does printing and spending money help bring an economy back from the brink of disaster? We cannot find an example in history where it has. As Bernanke points out, policy makers have learned a great deal by studying crises of the past. Our reservation comes from the following observation: central bankers at any time have always been considered amongst the smartest of their era, yet – with hindsight – they may have engaged in terrible mistakes. While we certainly wish that Bernanke is right, we nonetheless maintain a degree of skepticism and believe it is any investor’s duty to take the risk that the world does not evolve the way he envisions into account. Our policy makers also might be well served to be more humble, as they are putting the world’s savings at risk. Yet, the reason central bankers are bold, not humble, is because they fear hesitation will lead to deflationary forces taking the upper hand yet again. Bernanke’s contention, that one of the biggest mistakes during the Great Depression was to tighten monetary policy too early, stems from that fear. In its recently released minutes, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) placed that fear in today’s context: “While recent employment data had been encouraging, a number of members perceived a non negligible risk that improvements in employment could diminish as the year progressed, as had occurred in 2010 and 2011, and saw this risk as reinforcing the case for leaving the forward guidance unchanged at this meeting."

In our view, the reason why the Fed is committed to keeping rates low until the end of 2014 is precisely because the Fed does not want to be perceived as tightening too early. Why the end of 2014? Well, because it’s not today or tomorrow. We believe nobody – not even at the Fed – knows whether the end of 2014 is the right date. The problem with that policy will be when the market no longer buys it. The market just needs to see one member of the FOMC turn more hawkish, as a result of improving economic data, to interpret that we may be starting down the road of monetary tightening. Yet, if the market thinks the Fed may tighten, deflationary forces take over, possibly unraveling all the “hard work” the Fed has done.

Will tightening ever be bearable for the economy again? U.S. financial institutions are in a stronger position than they were in 2008. Conversely, governments around the world – not just the U.S. government – are in far weaker positions, given the large amounts of debt they have incurred, in an effort to manage the financial crisis. Many consumers have downsized (read: lost their homes / filed for bankruptcy), but there continues to be downward pressure on the housing market, as millions of homes remain in the foreclosure process and are only slowly making it to the market. Bernanke may have chosen the end of 2014 as the earliest time to raise rates because it represents a date when the housing market may have freed itself from much of the foreclosure pipeline. Indeed, Fed research suggests that residential construction won’t fully recover until 2014. We don’t think that is a coincidence. To Bernanke, a thriving home market appears to be key to a healthy consumer and thus a healthy and sustainable recovery in consumer spending.

Tying monetary policy to the calendar has created alarm with economic “hawks” – not just the Fed itself, with the lone hawkish voting FOMC member, Richmond Fed President Jeff Lacker, openly dissenting. But if one follows Bernanke’s line of thinking, what’s the alternative? The alternative would be to firmly err on the side of inflation, as the Fed thinks inflation is the one problem it knows how to fight. Except that a central bank must never communicate that it wants to induce inflation, as it may derail the markets. So the 2nd best option, from Bernanke’s point of view, may be to commit to keeping rates low until the end of 2014; the “risk” that the economy might perform better than expected (and thus earlier tightening warranted) appears to be shoved aside. Just to make sure the markets behave, the Fed also introduced an inflation target, assuring the markets not to worry, all will be fine on the inflation front.

Unfortunately, we don’t think Bernanke’s plan will work. The reason is that inflation may not be as easily fought as Bernanke thinks. The extraordinary policies that have been pursued have not only planted the seeds of inflation, but have re-introduced leverage into the system. While Bernanke claims he can raise rates in 15 minutes, we believe there is simply too much leverage in the economy to raise rates as much as former Fed Chair Paul Volcker did in the early 1980s to convince the markets the Fed is serious about inflation. Given the increased interest rate sensitivity of the economy, much less tightening would likely be necessary. We are not as optimistic as many current and former Fed officials that it will be possible to engineer a sustainable economic growth while adhering to the Fed’s inflation target. The Fed is ultimately responsible for inflation; however, we have also learned that the modern Fed is unlikely to risk severe economic hardship to achieve its price stability mandate.

What does it all mean for the markets? Deflationary forces have favored the U.S. dollar and been a negative for gold. As indicated, however, we don't think the Fed will sit by idly as the markets price in tightening before the economy is “ready”. As such, a flight into the dollar out of gold might be an opportunity to diversify out of the dollar into a basket of hard currencies, including gold. With regard to the bond market, we are rather concerned that the long end of the yield curve has been extraordinarily well behaved until just a few weeks ago. The reason for our concern is that periods of low volatility in any asset class usually means that money has entered the space that might leave on short notice: we call it fast money chasing yields. We don’t need a crisis for investors to run for the hills in the bond market; we may just need a return to more normal levels of volatility. As such, investors may want to consider keeping interest risk low, i.e. staying on the short-end of the yield curve, both in U.S. dollars and other currencies. With regard to the stock market, it may do well should the Fed think of another round of easing, but let’s keep in mind that the stock market has had a tremendous rally in recent months.

If investors consider investing in the stock market because of the Fed’s monetary policy, why not express that same view in the currency market? After all, currencies – when no leverage is employed – are historically less volatile than domestic (or international) equities. Currencies may give investors the opportunity to take advantage of the risks and opportunities provided by our policy makers without taking on the equity risk.

Marc Faber: Buy Real Estate To Protect Yourself Against Wealth Destruction

Marc Faber is interviewed on Yahoo Finance on the 9th of April 2012 where he explains that home prices in the south of the U.S., in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and so fourth, are relatively inexpensive compared to other asset prices and recommend people to buy real estate to protect themselves - or as he puts it: "lose the least" - against massive wealth destruction when that happens. He further explains that he does not know when the collapse will happen, maybe when the Dow Jones is at 20,000, 100 millions or 100 billions depending on how much money Mr. Bernanke is ready to print.

He does not recommend buying real estate builder stocks however, as those have increased a lot recently and are likely to correct.

Federal Reserve Dove Hawk Scale

Following the publication of the Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), Axel Merk released a short commentary entitled "Fed - Actions Speak Louder Than Words".

In this commentary, he explains that we are unlikely to see any changes in monetary policy, since the majority of voting members are dovish (for an accommodative monetary policy) and only one if hawkish (for a  tighter monetary policy) as shown in the chart below.

Axel Merk Answers to Bernanke: The Gold Standard is not the Problem, Leverage is.

Ben Bernanke, Vampire Chairman (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

Axel Merk has just published another edition of Merk Insights entitled "Bernanke's Problem with the Gold Standard, where he gives a counterargument to Ben Bernanke's take on the Gold standard and explains leverage is the real issue, not the Gold standard.

Here's the article:

In his new lecture series, Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Ben Bernanke is going out of his way to discuss the "problems with the gold standard." To a central banker, the gold standard may be considered "competition," as their power would likely be greatly diminished if the U.S. were on a gold standard. The Fed, Bernanke argues, is the answer to the problems of the gold standard. We respectfully disagree. We disagree because the Fed ought to look at a different problem.

Bernanke lists price stability and financial stability as key objectives of the Fed. Focusing on the latter one first, the Fed was established to reduce the risk of financial panics. Bernanke points out:

"A financial panic is possible in any situation where longer-term, illiquid assets are financed by short-term, liquid liabilities; and in which short-term lenders or depositors may lose confidence in the institution(s) they are financing or become worried that others may lose confidence."

Bernanke goes on to blame the gold standard for the panics. While he is certainly not alone in his view – indeed, his very lecture to students at George Washington University is promoting that view to a new generation of economists -, we beg to differ.

Banks - by definition - have a maturity mismatch, making long-term loans, taking short-term deposits. As such, banks are prone to financial panics as described by Bernanke. To mitigate the risk of financial panics, central banks can do what the Fed is doing, namely to be a lender of last resort. Alternatively, central banks can focus on the core issue, the structural "problem of banking." Following the Fed's approach, there are inherent moral hazard issues – incentives for financial institutions to increase leverage, to become too-big-to-fail. To address a panic that might happen anyway, the Fed would double down (provide more liquidity), potentially exacerbating future banking panics. After yet another crisis, new rules are introduced to regulate banks. The resulting financial system may not be safer, but it will increase barriers to entry, further bolstering the leadership position of existing, too-big-to-fail banks. With all the government guarantees and too-big-to-fail concerns, banks might then be regulated in an attempt to have them act more like utilities. Ultimately, that might make the financial system more stable, but will stifle economic growth. Financial institutions, as much as we have mixed feelings about their conduct, are vital to finance economic growth, as they facilitate risk taking and investment.

The problem of all financial panics is not the gold standard - otherwise, the panic of 2008 would not have happened. The problem of financial panics is - again - that "longer-term, illiquid assets are financed by short-term, liquid liabilities." Missing from Bernanke's definition is a key additional attribute, leverage. A maturity mismatch without leverage might cause a lender to go bust, but - in our interpretation - does not qualify as a panic when a limited number of depositors are affected. The "panic" and the "contagion" may occur when leverage is employed, as it creates a disproportionate number of creditors (including consumers with cash deposits).

There's a better way. To avoid having financial institutions serve as “panic” incubators, regulation should address the core of the issue. Bernanke shouldn’t use gold, as a scapegoat for all that was wrong with the U.S. economy previously, to justify a license to print money. First, failure must be an option; individuals and businesses must be allowed to make mistakes and suffer the consequences. The role of the regulator, in our opinion, is to avoid an event where someone's mistake wrecks the entire system.

The easiest way to achieve a more stable financial system is to reduce incentives for leverage. A straightforward method is through mark-to-market accounting and a requirement to post collateral for leveraged transactions. The financial industry lobbies against this, arguing that holding a position to maturity renders mark-to-market accounting redundant. Consider the following example, which highlights the implication: assume a speculator before the financial crisis took a leveraged bet that oil prices - at the time trading at $80 a barrel - would go down to $40 a barrel. In the “ideal world” according to the banks, this speculator would not have been required to post collateral and would have been proven right when oil (briefly) dropped to $40 a barrel after the financial crisis. In reality however, as oil prices soared to $140 a barrel before declining, the typical speculator would have been forced to post an ever larger amount of collateral; likely, the speculator's brokerage firm would have closed out the position, as the speculator ran out of money. The speculator lost money because he was unable to meet a margin call; importantly, though, the system remained intact. The speculator might complain: the price ultimately fell to $40! But such whining is futile because the rules of engagement were known ahead of time. As such, the speculator had an incentive to use less (or no) leverage. The bank's attitude, in contrast, incubates panics. In this example, regulated exchanges exist. But even without regulated exchanges or easily priced securities, similar concepts can be developed.

Another way to make financial firms more panic prone is to require them to issue staggered subordinated debt. Rather than relying heavily on short-term funding (retail deposits or inter-bank funding markets), banks should be required to stagger the maturities of their own funding over years. If, say, each year 10% of their loan portfolio needs to be refinanced, then - in times of financial turmoil - it might become exorbitantly expensive for a bank to finance that 10% of their loan portfolio. A bank should be able to shrink its loan portfolio by 10% in a year in an orderly fashion, without jeopardizing the survival of the firm or spreading excessive risks throughout the financial system. Note that this is a market-based mechanism to police the financial system.

These concepts reduce leverage in the system. And that's the point, as leverage is the mother of all panics. The concepts presented above will not solve all the challenges of banking, but blaming "the problem of the gold standard" for financial panics is - in our analysis - premature.

Modern central banking is not the answer to mitigate the risk of financial panics because the cost for this perceived safety is enormous. As a result of responding to each potential panic with ever more "liquidity", entire governments are now put at risk when a crisis flares up.
Beyond that, central banks have done a horrible job in containing inflation. The wisdom of central banking is that 2% inflation is considered an environment of stable prices. At 2%, a level often touted as a “price stable environment”, the purchasing power of $100 is reduced to $55 over a 30-year period. It's a cruel tax on the public. What’s more, in practice, countries with a fiat currency system have generally been unable to keep long-term inflation below 2%.
Bernanke warns of deflation. To the saver, deflation is a gift. Not to the debtor. In a debt driven world, deflation strangles the economy. Governments don't like deflation as income taxes and capital gains taxes are eroded. In a deflationary world, governments would need to rely more on sales taxes (or value added taxes): gradually reduced revenue in a deflationary environment would be okay as the purchasing power of those tax revenues would increase. That assumes, of course, that the government carries a low debt burden -- deflation would be a good incentive to limit spending. Get the picture why governments don't like deflation?

With inflation, people have an "incentive" to work harder, to take on risks, just to retain their purchasing power, the status quo. What about the pursuit of happiness? The idea that if you earn money and save, you can retire and live off your savings? We consider it quite an imposition that unelected officials have such sway over our standard of living.
Bernanke also attacks the gold standard for causing havoc in the currency markets.