by ilene - October 31st, 2009 7:08 pm
Courtesy of John Mauldin at Thoughts from the Frontline
I have been in South America this week, speaking nine times in five days, interspersed with lots of meetings. The conversation kept coming back to the prospects for the dollar, but I was just as interested in talking with money managers and business people who had experienced the hyperinflation of Argentina and Brazil. How could such a thing happen? As it turned out, I was reading a rather remarkable book that addressed that question. There are those who believe that the United States is headed for hyperinflation because of our large and growing government fiscal deficit and massive future liabilities (as much as $56 trillion) for Medicare and Social Security.
This week, we will look at the Argentinian experience and ask ourselves whether "it" – hyperinflation – can happen here.
The Ascent of Money
I will be quoting from Niall Ferguson’s recent book, The Ascent of Money. I cannot recommend this book too highly. In fact, I rank it up with my all-time favorite book on economic history, Against the Gods, by the late (and sorely missed) Peter Bernstein. There are very few books I read twice. There are too many books and not enough time. This book I will have to read at least three times, and soon, and I have a lot of underlines and mark-ups in it already.
If there were one book I could require every member of the Congress to read, it would be this one. As I read it, I am struck again and again by how fragile and yet resilient our economic systems are. Fragile in the sense that governmental policy mistakes, no matter how well-intentioned, can destroy the wealth of a nation, and resilient in that it doesn’t happen more often.
In his introduction Ferguson writes, "The first step towards understanding the complexities of the financial institutions and terminology is to find out where they came from. Only understand the origins of an institution or instrument and you will find its present day roles much easier to grasp."
As is often said, those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it. If you want to understand what is happening in the economy, what the consequences of our choices could be, then I strongly suggest you get The…
Tags: Argentina, Argentinian Disease, Congress, Dollar, GDP, hyperinflation, inflation, John Mauldin, massive budget deficits, Niall Ferguson, printing press, Recession, the Federal Reserve
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by ilene - August 19th, 2009 2:44 pm
Courtesy of Jan-Martin Feddersen at Immobilienblasen
Not quite an "Exit Strategy"……. This Cartoon on "Green Shoots" is spot on….. As long as the pound & gilts are not crashing this will continue…..I´m pretty sure Bernanke is watching the market reaction very closely…. Especially with the Fed running low on ammo….. Read A 300-year-old example of quantitative easing…. John Law, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke… via The Mess That Greenspan Made as a reminder what can happen……
The governor’s insatiable appetite for QE FT Alphaville
The Governor invited the Committee to vote on the proposition that:
Bank Rate should be maintained at 0.5%;
The Bank of England should finance a further £50 billion of asset purchases by the creation of central bank reserves, implying a total quantity of £175 billion of such asset purchases. The Bank should seek to complete the additional purchases within the next three months.
Six members of the Committee (Charles Bean, Paul Tucker, Kate Barker, Spencer Dale, Paul Fisher and Andrew Sentance) voted in favour of the proposition. Three members of the Committee (the Governor, Tim Besley and David Miles) voted against, preferring to increase the size of the asset purchase programme by £75 billion to a total of £200 billion.
Yep, Mervyn King, together with Besley and Miles wanted the rate of monetary stimulus increasing, not just extending at the current rate of £50bn-a-quarter. That was good for half a cent off sterling versus the dollar and a third of a cent v the euro on Wednesday morning. Gilts, of course, spiked higher.
Somebody stop me Alice Cook from the great blog UK Bubble
The extraordinary thing about UK monetary policy today is how close it is shadowing fiscal policy. This year, the Bank of England printing presses will produce roughly the same amount of new money as this year’s fiscal deficit. Or to put it more bluntly, the private sector have, on a net basis, stopped lending money to the government.
The Casey Report
> The estimated issuance is based on this "optimitic" forecast…. Especially compared to the IMF, OECD, Bloomberg
…
Tags: "quantitive easing", boe, british pound, competitive devaluation, exit strategy, fiat money, gilts, Gold, inflation vs deflation, Monetary Policy, printing press, UK
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
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