The Age of Deflation & the Fed
It appears that many people are so married to this wrong idea that INFLATION is created by the Fed expanding the money supply. Sorry – it does not work that way. Others are confused that interest rate increases are bearish and declines are bullish. All you need to do is look at Japan to see that did not work out very well.
The pundits are betting on a Fed rate increase of 25 basis points in September. That is most likely correct, but not for the reasons many suspect. The jobs report came out showing a solid trend of really only a couple hundred thousand jobs in an economy of some 300 million people. That is not what you would call a wild-eyed bullish trend.
Inflation is not the main factor for gold or the Fed. The Fed realizes that the economy is not in crisis and maintaining lower interest rates is highly damaging to the economy for it is creating the next crisis – defaults in pensions both government and private. The entire idea of pensions has been set around the average 8% return in interest rates. But it has been pension funds that are primarily the cause of lower interest rates – NOT THE FED.
The amount of pension funds out there created a bid for long-term bonds and they kept bidding higher and higher because it was presumed that Gentlemen Buy Bonds, as Mellon once said. The lack of skills in fund management and regulation requiring bond investment created a lethal mix. This has contributed to the lowering of interest rates and it was this underlying bid which helped in creating the mortgage crisis for 2007 as investment banks used AIG to guarantee their junk calling it AAA so they could sell this type of paper to pensions.
Add to this bull market in bonds the change in technology and you introduce the opposite trend of the 1970s with still the STAGFLATION result thanks to rising taxation. When we put out our forecast back in 1997 that oil would rise from $10 to $100 going into 2007, many people said we were crazy arguing the world could not sustain such high energy prices. We warned that unless oil rose to $100, new technology would not emerge. Oil had to rise in order to create alternatives. Now that we have warned that oil will move back to retest $35, everyone likewise said we were wrong for the world would not be sustainable at such a low level. This is a wave of Creative Destruction that is part of the whole shift into the technology age just as the railroads altered the 19th century and the combustion engine altered the 20th century. Welcome to the next economic phase transition to the technology age.
We now have solar cars in experimental stage that produce more energy than they consume. Goodbye oil. We have batteries that are efficient that have unleashed electric cars. The hybrid BMW I8 can operate on a combustion engine at 28 mpg that recharges the electric when the gas engine is engaged not requiring you to even plug it in.
The Fed decision is NOT based upon inflation, but economic growth. We need higher interest rates to fend off the next crisis and this is serious. Yes, the stronger dollar will reduce profits of companies selling overseas. However, it will further reduce inflation and perpetuate deflation. So imports will remain reasonable but the high dollar along with FATCA will reduce the world economy as a whole insofar as American participation.
The Fed needs to raise interest rates seriously. They have to get the economy back in the direction of a more normal interest rate atmosphere for they are wiping out the elderly as well. So interest rates will rise and it has nothing to do with inflation. This is all about growth at this point and only higher rates will help to revive economic activity. It will be higher interest rates that helps to revive inflation for the future.
Technology advancement is reducing jobs on the low end and the higher minimum wages the greater the trend toward robotics will emerge for it is not just the hourly wage, it becomes the healthcare costs and taxes on top of that that which will continue to change the demographics of employment. Formal education is a disaster and it is not preparing the youth for the new age of technology.
Gold & The Perpetual Nasty Emailers
Gold closed at 1094.10 holding the Weekly Bearish Reversal at 1084 once again. The nasty emails have come in already – Where’s the bounce? It seems some people hate me so much all they live for is try to prove me wrong I suppose to make them feel better that they are totally out of their minds. Instead of this being a learning experience, all they do is try to turn this into some personal contest.
Let me say this once again. This is not about my OPINION. This is about analysis and it is not about what I would personally like to see and unlike the Presidential Candidates, God does not speak to me every day, once a week, or once in a lifetime about the direction of any market. This is not my OPINION.
There is one golden rule, what does not go up goes down or the other way around. The fact that gold has paused is in fact a BOUNCE. The height of theBOUNCE may not be impressive; yet nonetheless, a bounce is a bounce even if it is a dead-cat-bounce.
Next week is a turning point followed by the week of 08/24 and 09/07. We see oscillating trends every two weeks after Monday unfolding. If this is the best gold can do for a BOUNCE when the trend has turned back up, then what will not rally, will go down hard.
I cannot say this more direct than this – TIME & PRICE are two separate forecasts and if you do not get this through your head, well you are on your own. In this case,TIME has dictated that a uptrend should unfold. This has been correct. PRICE has shown that we indeed paused, but the rally has been more of a dead-cat-bounce than a robust short-covering to any degree. This does NOT speak well for the downside. This warns we may see a more serious decline compressed into a short period of TIME.
We will be sending out the update for those who had purchased the International Precious Metals Report by the end of the month.
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