All Markets Suggesting Hyperinflation
by Andy Hoffman
After watching the financial markets the past few weeks, it
appears my greatest fear (and expectation), that of unchecked advancement of U.S.
inflation, is coming to be – NOW. Perhaps using the taboo word “hyperinflation”
doesn’t serve my purpose well, much as it hurt Cassandra to speak of “Armageddon.”
But “unchecked advancement of inflation” and hyperinflation are one
and the same, no matter what you call it.
I have been speaking of the increasing likelihood of this event
occurring for the past year, but now I fear the time for analyzing is about to
end, and the time to act NOW.
The majority of people do not even understand the
definitionof inflation, let alone the
events that typically cause it and how to
protect oneself against it. Inflation, pure and simple, means
accelerating growth of the money supply, NOT price increases. The two are
obviously interrelated, but the key item to watch is money supply, as all
inflationary pressures stem from it (outside of product shortage issues, which
unfortunately appear to be the case in nearly all commodities as well).
The U.S. money supply has grown exponentially in the past 30
years (since the day it went off the gold standard in 1971), but nothing in the
1971-2007 period compares with what we’ve seen in the past year since the
“economic crisis” began. Of course, the U.S. government
discontinued the publication of M3, the broadest measure of U.S. money supply,
three years ago claiming to save the U.S. taxpayer $1.5 million of
administrative costs (LOL). But smarter minds than the governments have
extrapolated it out, so the exponential increase is pretty easy to see.
Of course, the aforementioned “economic crisis”
started as early as 2000-02 when the real economy peaked, the China
manufacturing engine exploded (taking all the U.S. manufacturing jobs), and the
Fed’s loose monetary policy (as well as the government’s loose
fiscal policy) went into overdrive. These issues were of course masked by
the resulting credit/housing bubble, both in the U.S. and by the trickle-down
effect of an artificially propped dollar abroad, but not anymore.
Today, the U.S. economy is experiencing a 1930s-style
depression which has only just started, and you can believe all you want about “green
shoots” of recovery, but trust me there are none. It is all
propaganda from the government and banks to try and restore confidence via “behavioral
economics”, in other words trying to influence consumers and businesses’
decisions via improving their confidence. Of course, the fact that economic
numbers have all been proven to be fudged (sorry, massaged) for years now doesn’t
seem to register in the average person’s mind, but the “average
person” hasn’t paid much attention to reality, or even attempted
to, for close to a generation now. Does Cheney’s admission
yesterday that Saddam Hussein had no connection to 9/11 make this point well
enough? Either way, “confidence or not”, if you don’t
have money you can’t spend any money.
Anyhow, back to inflation. The biggest myth about
inflation (and by extension, hyperinflation) is that it is an “economic
event” caused by strong demand, and thus a bullish sign (LOL). Yes,
in selected cases so-called “demand-pull” inflation occurs, but
typically it is isolated to niche markets where supply is in temporary
shortage. By the way, not only are gold and silver rising due to monetary
inflation, but they both ALSO suffer from such shortages!
For the most part, hyperinflation is a “currency event”
caused by the unchecked production of fiat (unbacked) currency by governments
hell-bent on restoring the status quo following difficult economic times by printing
money and placing it in the hands of its citizens. Of course, in the U.S.
the citizens are currently getting none of this money, only the banks that destroyed
the economy via imprudent business decisions (such as subprime lending and OTC
derivative creation) thanks to their enormous lobbying expenditures. But,
in our defense, we do get the bill for paying off the banks!
Hyperinflation has NEVER, EVER, EVER occurred during good
economic times, and NEVER, EVER, EVER will. This is because even fiat-currency
using governments can raise interest rates to protect the currency when times
are good, mitigating inflation while not destroying the economy. But not
now. The U.S. is the world’s largest debtor BY FAR, in fact the largest
debtor BY FAR in the history of mankind, with the amount of its debt rising
exponentially each hour, each minute, each second. Only because the U.S.
dollar has been so widely held by foreigners (the result of the most bastardized
global monetary policy ever, the U.S. dollar as WORLD RESERVE CURRENCY), has it
not crashed to nothing yet.
But it is starting now, as the dollar’s initial
knee-jerk reaction upward last year as billions of dollars were repatriated during
the height of the first stage of market meltdown has passed, and now the
effects of U.S. “quantitative easing” (read money-printing) are
showing themselves in a plummeting dollar and Treasury bond, as well as soaring
gold (and other commodities) again. The level of fiscal and monetary
stimulus continues to rise exponentially, and it simply WILL NOT STOP
despite the fact that governments, central banks, and investors alike are
starting to race for the exits and protect their respective net worths by selling
dollar-denominated instruments and buying commodities, particularly gold and
silver.
In fact, even the stock market has started to rise smartly
(not that many people own stocks anymore due to the 2000-02 stock market crash
and 2007-2009 housing crash), but this itself appears to be signaling
hyperinflationmore than anything real such as “green shoots” of economic
recovery.
You see, even stock markets can go higher during
hyperinflationary periods, as too much money chases too few
real items.
And in most cases, stocks represent claims on
real items. The
problem, however, arises when people realize that even hyperinflated stocks have
not in the past, and will not in the future, achieve
real gains relative
to inflation, as in effect they are still paper instruments. This is
particularly the case with U.S. stocks, as international investors will likely
be turned off by the fact that gains in the U.S. stock markets will likely be
offset by losses in the dollar’s value.
To prove this point, read the link below describing the
action of the German stock market in the 1920s, just before Hitler rose to
power after the German post-World War I economic collapse. The stock
market rose from 126 in 1918 to 26 million in 1923, however the cost of a car
rose to the equivalent of US$3 million as well (in 1920 dollars), meaning any
stock market gains were wiped out by
real losses in value.
http://www.nowandfutures.com/us_weimar.htmlThis is verified by the top chart in the second link below,
showing that the cost of living in Germany rose by 100 million times in those
five years. Multiple today’s average car price of $15,000 by 100
million, and do the math to see what a car would cost today in that
environment. And don’t think this happened only in Germany –
it has happened countless times throughout history, including twice in the U.S.’s
history (the Revolutionary and Civil War periods) and several times in the 20
thcentury (Mexico, Argentina, Zimbabwe, to name a few).
And that’s the gist of it! PURCHASING POWER is
all that matters, and the loss of PURCHASING POWER is what I have long been
warning you to PROTECT YOURSELF from.
http://www.nowandfutures.com/weimar.htmlAnd, oh yeah, check out the the prices of gold and silver in
German Reichsmarks during this period, seen in the third chart down in the link
below. Silver rose from 10 marks/oz in 1919 to 1 trillion marks/oz in 1923,
while during that same period gold rose from 100 marks/oz 100 trillion marks in
1923! In other words, both outperformed rises in the cost of living, and
thus were the only real way to protect Germans from the loss of 99.9% of the
Reichsmarks’ purchasing power over this period. So I wouldn’t
get to excited about the prospect of $1,000 gold, or even $2,000. There
is a real possibility that these kind of numbers will once again come into
play.
http://www.nowandfutures.com/weimar.htmlAnd for those that still want to focus on the rising Dow as
a signal of something
good going on (which, by the way is only rising
because, as always, bankrupted companies such as GM, AIG, and Citigroup are
removed from it), keep in mind that those gains have been equally offset by
declines in the dollar and Treasury Bonds since the rally commenced this
spring. Commodities have been the largest beneficiary of the “green
shoots” rally, particularly, no surprise, gold and silver DESPITE the
largest “commercial” shorting increase ever in the COMEX gold and
silver paper pits (draw your own conclusions).
So when you still have trouble paying the bills, and the
unemployment lines continue to grow, yet interest rates and the price of
gasoline continue to rise (as well as gold/silver), think long and hard about
what is going on around you and then act to PROTECT YOURSELF with the purchase
of
real items of value, particularly gold/silver, food, and living
necessities.
Andy
» Géopolitique USA / Chine: Jacques Attila parlait d'une "grande conversation avec la Chine", il y a déjà plusieurs années...surveillons le dossier on commence avec Steve Bannon
» ALERTE: Les signaux d'achats se multiplient sur un nombre important de mines d'Or et d'Argent
» a quoi joue la Russie ..
» Fondamentaux de l'or
» fondamentaux de l'argent métal / décryptage de la désinformation
» Macron, le chouchou des médias et des banquiers...qui vous beurrent la raie
» 1984 est là ! Nouvelles technologies de flicage des citoyens comme Indect, pire qu'hadopi et ACTA combinés
» Comment l'Union européenne nous prend pour des imbéciles