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Money, Funny-Money, & Crypto

Money, Funny-Money, & Crypto

Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

That the post-industrial era of fiat currencies is coming to an end is becoming a real possibility. Major economies are now stalling while price inflation is…

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Money, Funny-Money, & Crypto

Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

That the post-industrial era of fiat currencies is coming to an end is becoming a real possibility. Major economies are now stalling while price inflation is just beginning to take off, following the excessive currency debasement in all major jurisdictions since the Lehman crisis and accelerated even further by covid.

The dilemma now faced by central banks is whether to raise interest rates sufficiently to tackle price inflation and lend support to their currencies, or to take one last gamble on yet more stimulus in the hope that recessions can be avoided.

Politics and neo-Keynesian economics strongly favour monetary inflation and continued interest rate suppression. But following that course leads to the destruction of currencies. So, how should ordinary people protect themselves from currency risk?

To assist them, this article draws out the distinctions between money, currency, and bank credit. It examines the claims of cryptocurrencies to be replacement money or currencies, explaining why they will be denied either role. An update is given on the uncanny resemblance between current neo-Keynesian monetary inflation and support for financial asset prices, compared with John Law’s proto-Keynesian policies which destroyed the French economy and currency in 1720.

Assuming we continue to follow Law’s playbook, an understanding why money is only physical gold and silver and nothing else will be vital to surviving what appears to be a looming crisis in financial assets and currencies.

Introduction

With the recent acceleration in the growth of money supply it is readily apparent that government spending is increasingly financed through monetary inflation. Those who hoped it would be a temporary phenomenon are being shown to have been overly optimistic. The excuse that its expansion was only a one-off event limited to supporting businesses and consumers through the covid pandemic is now being extended to seeing them through continuing logistics disruptions along with other unexpected problems. We now face an economic slowdown which will reduce government revenues and, according to policy planners, may require additional monetary stimulation to preclude.

Along with never-ending budget deficits, for the foreseeable future monetary inflation at elevated levels is here to stay. The threat to the future purchasing power of currencies should be obvious, yet few people appear to be attributing rising prices to prior monetary expansion. David Ricardo’s equation of exchange whereby changes in the quantity of money are shown to affect its purchasing power down the line has disappeared from the inflation narrative and is all but forgotten.

That the users of the medium of exchange ultimately determine its utility is ignored. It is now assumed to be the state’s function to decide what acts as money and not its users. Instead, we are told that the state’s fiat currency is money, will always be money and that prices are rising due to failures of the capitalist system. Central to the deception is to call currency money, and to persist in describing its management by the state as monetary policy. And money supply is always the supply of fiat currency in all its forms.

That these so-called monetary policies have failed and continue to do so is becoming more widely appreciated. It is the anti-capitalistic attitude of state planners which absolves them from the blame of mismanaging the relationship between their currencies and economies by blaming private sector actors when their policies fail. Instead of acting as the people’s servants, governments have become their controllers, expecting the public’s sheep-like cooperation in economic and monetary affairs. The state issues its currency backed by unquestioned faith and credit in the government’s monopoly to issue and manage it. Seeming to recognise the potential failure of their currency monopolies many central banks now intend to issue a new version, a central bank digital currency to give greater control over how citizens use and value it.

Without doubt, the dangers from fiat currency instability are increasing. Never has it been more important for ordinary people, its users, to understand what real money constitutes and its difference from state-issued currencies. Not only are new currencies in the form of central bank digital currencies being proposed but some suggest that distributed ledger cryptocurrencies, which are beyond the control of governments, will be adopted when state fiat currencies fail, an eventual development for which increasing numbers of people expect.

The currency scene is descending into a confusion for which policy planners are unprepared. Fiat currencies are failing, evidenced by declining purchasing power. Not only is it the lesson of history; not only are governments resorting to the printing press or its digital equivalent, but it is naïve to think that governments desire monetary stability over satisfying the interests of one group over those of another. By suppressing interest rates, central banks favour borrowers over depositors. By issuing additional currency they transfer wealth from their governments’ electors. The transfer is never equitable either, with early receivers of new currency getting to spend it before prices have adjusted to accommodate the increased quantity in circulation. Those who receive it last find that prices have risen because of currency dilution while their income has been devalued. The beneficiaries are those close to government and the banks who expand credit by ledger entry. The losers are the poor and pensioners — the people who in democratic theory are more morally entitled to protection from currency debasement than anyone else.

The true role of money

In the late eighteenth century, a French businessman and economist, Jean-Baptiste Say, noticed that when France’s currencies failed during the Revolution, people simply exchanged goods for other goods. A cobbler would exchange the shoes and boots he made for the food and other items he required to feed and sustain his family. The principles behind the division of labour had continued without money. But it became clear to Say that the role of money was to facilitate this exchange more efficiently than could be achieved in its absence. For Keynesian economists, this is the inconvenient truth of Say’s law.

The division of labour, which permits individuals to deploy their personal skills to the greatest benefit for themselves and therefore for others, remains central to the commercial actions of all humanity. It is the mainspring of progress. A medium of exchange commonly accepted by society not only facilitates the efficient exchange of goods produced through individual skills but it allows a producer to retain money temporarily for future consumption. This can be because he has a surplus for his immediate requirements, or he decides to invest it in improving his product, increasing his output, or for other purposes than immediate consumption.

Whether it is a corporation, manager, employee, or sole trader; whether the product be a good or a service— all qualify as producers. Everyone earning a living or striving to make a profit is a producer.

Over the many millennia that have elapsed since the end of barter, people dividing their labour settled on metallic money as the mediums of exchange; recognisable, divisible, commonly accepted, and being scarce also valuable. And as civilisation progressed gold, silver, and copper were coined into recognisable units. These media of exchange in their unadulterated form were money, and even though they were stamped with images of kings and emperors, they were no one’s liability.

Nowadays, humans across the planet still recognise physical gold and silver as true money. But it is a mistake to think they guarantee price stability — only that they are more stable than other media of exchange, which is why they have always survived and re-emerged after alternatives have failed. This is the key to understanding why they guaranteed money substitutes, notably through industrial revolutions, and remain money to this day.

Britain led the way in replacing silver as its long-standing monetary standard with gold, relegating silver to a secondary coinage. In 1817 the new gold sovereign was introduced at the exchange rate equivalent of 113 grains (0.2354 ounces troy) to the pound currency. A working gold standard, whereby bank notes were exchangeable for gold coin commenced in 1821, remaining at that fixed rate until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

By 1900, the gold standard had international as well as domestic aspects. It implied that nations settled balance of payment differences with each other in gold, although in practice this seems to have happened relatively little.

Many smaller nations, while having domestic gold circulation, did not bother to keep physical gold in reserve, but held sterling balances which, again, were regarded as being as good as gold. The Bank of England had a remarkably small reserve of under 200 tonnes in 1900, compared with the Bank of France which held 544 tonnes, the Imperial Bank of Russia with 661 tonnes, and the US Treasury with 602 tonnes. But even though remarkably little gold was held by the Bank of England, over 1,400 tonnes of sovereign coins had been minted in Australia and the UK and were in public circulation. Therefore, some £200m of the UK and its empire’s money supply was in physical gold (the equivalent of £62bn at today’s prices).

The relationship between gold and prices

Metallic money’s purchasing power fluctuates, influenced by long-term factors such as changes in mine output and population growth. Gold is also held for non-monetary purposes such as jewellery though the distinction between bullion held as money and jewellery can be fuzzy. A minor use is industrial. The degree of coin circulation relative to the quantity of substitutes also affects its purchasing power, as experience from nineteenth century Britain attests.

The economic progress of the industrial revolution increased the volume of goods relative to the quantity of money and money-substitutes (bank notes and bank deposits subject to cheques), so the general level of producer prices declined, even though they varied with changes in the level of bank credit. That generally held until the late-1880s, when bank credit in the economy expanded on the back of increased shipments of gold from South Africa. Furthermore, a combination of rising demand for industrial commodities through economic expansion of the entire British empire and more currencies linking themselves to gold indirectly via managed exchange rates against pounds and other gold-backed currencies all contributed to reverse the declining trend of wholesale prices between 1894—1914.

Consequently, wholesale prices no longer declined but tended to increase modestly. This is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 also explodes the myth in central bank monetary policy circles that varying interest rates controls money’s purchasing power by “pricing” money.

Demand for credit is set by the economic calculations of businessmen and entrepreneurs, not idle rentiers as assumed by Keynes who named this paradox after Arthur Gibson, who pointed it out in 1923. The explanation eluded Keynes and his followers but is simple. In assessing the profitability of production, the most important variable (assuming that the means of production are readily available) is anticipated prices for finished products. Changes in borrowing rates, reflecting the affordability of interest that could be paid therefore do not precede changes in prices but follow changes in prices for this reason.

While fluctuations in the sum of the quantities of money, currency and credit affect the general level of prices, there is an additional effect of the value placed on these components by its users. History has demonstrated that the most stable value is placed on gold coin, which is what qualifies it as money. It has been said that priced in gold a Roman toga 2,000 years ago cost the same as a lounge suit today. But we don’t need to go back that far for our evidence. Figure 2 shows WTI oil priced in dollars, the world’s reserve currency, and gold both indexed to 1986. Clearly, the dollar is significantly less reliable than gold as a stable medium of exchange.

So long as gold is freely exchangeable for currency, this stability is imparted to currency as well. When it is suspected that this exchangeability is likely to be compromised, coin becomes hoarded and disappears from circulation. The purchasing power of the currency then becomes dependent on a combination of changes in its quantity and changes in faith in the issuer. Bank deposits face the additional risk of faith in the bank’s ability to pay its debts.

In summary, the general level of prices tends to fall gradually over time in an economy where gold coin circulates as the underlying medium of exchange, and when faith in the currency as its circulating alternative is unquestioned. The existence of a coin exchange facility lifts the purchasing power of the currency above where it would otherwise be without a functioning standard. Even when gold exchange for a fiat currency becomes restricted, the purchasing power of the currency continues to enjoy some support, as we saw during the Bretton Woods Agreement.

The distinction between money and currency

So far, we have defined money, which is metallic and physical. Now we turn to what is erroneously taken to be money, which is currency. Originally, the dollar and pound sterling were freely exchangeable by its users for silver and then gold coin, so state-issued currencies came to be assumed to be as good as money. But its exchangeability diminished over time. In the United Kingdom exchangeability of sterling currency for gold coin ceased with the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, though sovereigns still exist as money officially today. They are simply subject to Gresham’s law, driven out of general circulation by inferior currency. The post-war gold standard of 1925-32 was a bullion standard whereby only 400-ounce bars could be demanded for circulating currency, which failed to tie in sterling to money proper.

In the United States, gold coin was exchangeable for dollars in the decades before April 1933 at $20.67 to the ounce. Bank failures following the Wall Street crash encouraged citizens to exchange dollar deposits for gold, and foreign holders of dollar deposits similarly demanded gold, leading to a drain on American gold reserves. By Executive Order 6102 in April 1933 President Roosevelt banned private sector ownership of gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates, thereby ending the gold coin standard and forcing Americans to accept inconvertible dollar currency as the circulating medium of exchange. This was followed by a devaluation of the dollar on the international exchanges to $35 to the ounce in January 1934.

The entire removal of money from the global currency system was a gradual process, driven by a progression of currency events, until August 1971 when President Nixon ended the Bretton Woods Agreement. From then on, the US dollar became the world’s reserve currency, commonly used for pricing commodities and energy on international markets. But following the Nixon shock, the dollar had become purely fiat.

Unlike gold coin, which has no counterparty risk, fiat currency is evidence of either a liability of an issuing central bank or of a commercial bank. It is not money. The fact that money, being gold or silver coin does not commonly circulate as media of exchange, cannot alter this fact. Since the dawn of modern banking with London’s goldsmiths in the seventeenth century, who deployed ledger debits and credits, most currency entitlements have been held in bank deposits, which are not the property of deposit customers, being liabilities of the banks and owed to them. It started with depositors placing specie with goldsmiths or transferring currency to them from other accounts on the understanding a goldsmith would deploy the funds so acquired to obtain sufficient profit to pay a 6% interest on deposits. To earn this return, it was agreed by the depositor that the funds would become the goldsmith’s property to be used as the goldsmith saw fit.

Goldsmiths and their banking successors were and still are dealers in credit. As the goldsmiths’ banking business evolved, they would create deposits by extending credit to borrowers. A loan to the borrower appeared as an asset on a goldsmith’s balance sheet, which through double-entry book-keeping was balanced by a liability being the deposit facility from which the borrower would draw down the loan. Thus, money and currency issued by banks as claims upon them were replaced entirely by book-entry liabilities owed to depositors, encashable into specie, central bank currency or banker’s cheque only on demand.

Through the expansion of bank credit, which is matched by the creation of deposits through double-entry book-keeping, commercial banks create liabilities subject to withdrawal as currency to this day. That there is an underlying cycle of expansion and contraction of bank credit is evidenced by the composite price index and bond yields between 1817 and 1885 shown in Figure 1 above. But so long as money, that is gold coin, remained exchangeable with currency and bank deposits on demand, fluctuations in outstanding bank credit only had a relatively short-term effect on the general level of prices. And as explained above, the expansion of the quantity of above-ground gold stocks from South African mines in the late 1880s contributed to the general level of prices increasing in the final decade of the nineteenth century until the First World War.

Following the Great War, the earlier creation of the Federal Reserve Board in the United States led to the expansion of circulating dollar currency, fuelling the Roaring Twenties and the Wall Street bubble, followed by the Wall Street crash and the depression. These calamities were the inevitable consequence of excessive credit creation in the 1920s. The error made by statist economists at the time (and ever since) was to ignore what caused the depression, believing it to be a contemporaneous failure of capitalism instead of the consequence of earlier currency debasement and interest rate suppression. From then on, this error has been perpetuated by statists frustrated by the discipline imposed upon them by monetary gold. The solution was seen to be to remove money from the currency system so that the state would have unlimited flexibility to manage economic outcomes.

With America dominating the global economy after the First World War, her use of the dollar both domestically and internationally had begun to dominate global economic outcomes. The errors of earlier currency expansion ahead of and during the Roaring Twenties, admittedly exacerbated by the introduction of farm machinery, led to a global slump in agricultural prices the following decade. And the additional error of Glass Stegall tariffs collapsed global trade in all goods.

Following the Second World War, secondary wars in Korea and Vietnam led to exported dollars being accumulated and then sold by foreign central banks for American’s gold reserves. In 1948, America had 21,628.4 tonnes of gold reserves, 72% of the world total. By 1971, when the facility for central banks to encash dollars for gold was suspended, US gold reserves had fallen to 12,398 tonnes, 34% of world gold reserves. Today it stands officially at 8,133.5 tonnes, being less than 23% of world gold reserves — figures independently unaudited and suspected by many observers to overstate the true position.

The consequences of currency expansion for the relationship between money and currency since the two were completely severed in 1971 is shown in Figure 3.

Since 1960 (the indexed base of the chart) above-ground gold stocks have increased from 62,475 tonnes by about 200% to 189,000 tonnes — offset to a large degree by world population growth.[iv] M3 broad money has increased by 70 times, the disparity in these rates of increase being adjusted by the increase in the dollar price of money, with the dollar losing 98% of its purchasing power relative to gold. By basing the chart on 1960 much of the currency expansion which led to the collapse of the London gold pool in the mid-1960s is captured, illustrating the strains in the relationship that led to the Nixon shock.

The rival status of cryptocurrencies

Over the last decade, led by bitcoin cryptocurrencies have become a popular hedge against fiat currency debasement. Bitcoin has a finite limit of 21 million coins, having less than 2¼ million yet to be mined. And of those issued, some are irretrievably lost, theoretically adding to their value.

Fans of cryptocurrencies are unusual, because they have grasped the essential weakness of state-issued fiat currencies ahead of the wider public. Armed with this knowledge they claim that distributed ledger technology independent from governments will form the basis of tomorrow’s money. It has led to a speculative frenzy, driving bitcoin’s price from a reported 10,000 for two pizzas in 2010 (therefore worth less than a cent each) to over $60,000 today. If, as hodlers hope, bitcoin replaces all state-issued fiat currencies when they fail, then the increase in its dollar value has much further to go.

In theory there are reasons that bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies can become media of exchange in a limited capacity, but never money, the basis that all currencies referred to for their original validity. Indeed, some transactions following the original pizza purchase have occurred since, but they are very few.

The reasons bitcoin or rival cryptocurrencies are unlikely to be accepted widely as currencies, let alone as a replacement for money, are best summed up in the following bullet points.

  • To replace money, as opposed to currencies, bitcoin would have to be accepted as a replacement for both gold and silver. Beyond the imagination of tech-savvy enthusiasts, making up perhaps less than one in two hundred transacting humans, it is impossible to see bitcoin achieving this goal, because they represent a vanishingly small number of the global population. There can be little doubt that if fiat currencies lose their utility the overwhelming majority of transacting individuals will desire physical money, and not another form of digital media, which currencies in the main and cryptocurrencies have become.

  • Despite the advance of technology not everyone yet possesses the knowledge, media, or the reliable electricity and internet connections to conduct transactions in cryptocurrencies. Remote theft of them is easier and more profitable than that of gold and silver coin. Cryptocurrencies are too dependent on undefinable risk factors for transactional ubiquity.

  • The number of rival cryptocurrencies has proliferated. It is estimated that there are now over 6,800 in existence compared with 180 government-issued currencies. They represent both an inflation of numbers and values, which if unsatisfied already makes the seventeenth century tulip mania look like to have been a relatively minor speed bump in comparison. In only a decade they have grown to $750 billion in value based on an unproven concept stimulating unallayed human greed at the expense of considered reason.

  • By way of contrast, gold’s strength as money is its flexibility of supply from other uses combined with its record of ensuring price stability. As we saw in Figure 1’s illustration of the relationship between prices and borrowing costs, assuming the factors of production are available the stability of prices under a gold standard permits an assessment of final product values at the commencement of an investment in production. There is no such certainty with bitcoin or rival cryptocurrencies because a strictly finite quantity would make it impossible to calculate final prices at the end of an investment in production. Without providing the means for economic calculation, any money or currency replacement will fail.

  • Unless they disappear with their currencies, central banks will never sanction distributed ledger currencies beyond their control acting as a general medium of exchange. This is one reason why they are working to introduce their own central bank digital currencies, allowing them to maintain statist control over currencies while extending powers over how they are used. Furthermore, central banks do not own cryptocurrencies, but they do officially own 35,554 tonnes of gold, having never discarded true money completely.[vi] Events have proved that they are even reluctant to allow monetary gold to circulate, not least because it would call into question the credibility of their fiat currencies. But if there is a fall-back position in the demise of fiat, it will be based on central bank gold and never on a private-sector cryptocurrency.

We should also consider what happens to cryptocurrencies in the event of a fiat currency collapse. The point behind any money or currency is that it must possess all the objective value in a transaction with all subjectivity to be found in the goods or services being exchanged. It requires the currency to be scarce, but not so much that its value measured in goods is expected to continually rise. If that was the case, then its ability to circulate would become impaired through hoarding.

We are left with questioning whether bitcoin can ever possess a purely objective value in transactions. Their potential role as a transacting currency will also evaporate along with fiat because these will be the circumstances where all currencies which cannot be issued as credible gold substitutes will become valueless, because if any currency is to survive the end of the fiat regime it will require action by central banks combined with new laws and regulations which can only come from governments. The nightmare for crypto enthusiasts is that central banks will be forced eventually to mobilise their gold reserves to back credibly what is left of their currencies’ collapsing purchasing power.

We are providing an answer to another question over the fate of cryptocurrencies in the event that central banks are forced to mobilise their gold reserves, turning fiat currencies into credible money substitutes. Admittedly, it is unlikely to be a simple decision with the problem beyond the understanding of statist policy advisers and with competing interests seeking to influence the outcome. But, there can be only one action that will allow the state and banking system to retain control over currencies and credit, which is to back them with gold reserves, preferably with a gold coin standard.

When that moment is anticipated, cryptocurrencies as potential circulating currencies will become fully redundant. They are then likely to lose most of or all their value as replacement currencies. Furthermore, it is hard to find anyone who currently holds a cryptocurrency who does not hope to cash in by selling them at higher prices for their national currencies. They have been bought for speculation and investment with little or no intention of ultimately spending them. Therefore, we can assume that the demise of fiat currencies, far from inviting replacements by bitcoin and its imitators, will also mean the death of the cryptocurrency phenomenon in a general return towards a money standard, which always has been physical and metallic.

The progression towards currency destruction

In last week’s article for Goldmoney I suggested four waypoints to mark the route towards the ending of the fiat currency system. The similarity of current events with those of John Law’s inflation and subsequent collapse of the Mississippi bubble and of the French livre so far is striking, but this time it’s on a global scale. The John Law experience offers us a template for what is already happening to financial assets and currencies today — hence the four waypoints.

Briefly described, John Law was a proto-Keynesian money crank who operated a policy of inflating the values of his principal assets, the Banque Royale and his Mississippi venture, by issuing shares in partly paid form with calls due later. Ten per cent down translated into fortunes for early subscribers as share prices rose from L140 in June 1717 to over L10,000 in January 1720, fuelled by a bitcoin-style buying frenzy. But when calls became due in January 1720 and a scheme to merge the Banque Royale with the Mississippi venture was proposed, shares began to be sold to pay the calls and take up rights to new issues. Law used his position as controller of the currency to issue fiat livres to buy shares in the market to support prices, measures that finally failed in May. Priced in livres, the shares fell to under 3,500 by November. In sterling, they fell from £330 in January to below £50 in September. After October, there was no exchange rate for livres against sterling implying the livre had lost all its exchange value.

By injecting cash into investing institutions in return for government bonds, central banks are following a remarkably similar policy today. Quantitative easing by the US’s central bank, which since March 2020 has injected over $2 trillion into US pension funds and insurance companies to invest in higher risk assets than government and agency bonds, is no less than a repetition of John Law’s policy of inflating asset values to ensure a spreading wealth effect, while ensuring finance is facilitated for the state.

Last night (3 November) the Fed was forced to announce a phased reduction of quantitative easing to allay fears of intractable price inflation. The question now arises as to how many months of QE reduction it will take to deflate the financial asset bubble. And what will then be the Fed’s response: will QE be increased again in a repetition of the John Law proto-Keynesian mistakes?

There comes a point where the prices of goods reflect the increased quantity of currency in circulation. Increases in the general level of prices inevitably lead to rising levels for interest rates, and the creation of credit in the main banking centres begin to go into reverse. John Law found that share prices could then no longer be supported, and the Mississippi bubble burst in May 1720; a fate which equity markets today will almost certainly face, because price rises for goods and services are now proving intractable.

The outcome of Law’s proto-Keynesianism was a collapse in Mississippi shares, and the complete destruction of the livre. The similarity with the situation in financial markets today is truly remarkable. There are now no good options for policy makers. Hampered by similar neo-Keynesian errors and beliefs, central bankers and politicians lack the resolve to stop events leading inexorably towards the destruction of their currencies. The first waypoint in last week’s article for Goldmoney is now being seen: a growing realisation that major economies, particularly the US and UK, face the prospect of a combination of rising prices accompanied by an economic slump, frequently diagnosed as stagflation.

Stagflation is a misnomer. Monetary inflation is a con which in smaller doses provides the illusion of stimulus. But there comes a point where the transfer of wealth from the productive economy to the government is too great to bear and the economy begins to collapse. While it is impossible to judge where that point lies, the accumulation of monetary inflation in recent years now weighs heavily on all major economies.

The conditions today closely replicate those in France in late-1719 and early 1720. Prices were rising in the rural areas as well as in the cities, impoverishing the peasantry and asset inflation was running into headwinds, about to impoverish the beneficiaries of the bubble’s wealth effect as well.

Conclusion

If central banks decide to protect their currencies, they must let markets determine interest rates. With prices rising officially at over 5% in the US (more like 15% on independent estimates) the rise in interest rates will not only crash all financial asset values from fixed interest to equities, but force governments to rein in their spending to eliminate deficits. This will involve greater cuts than currently indicated, because of loss of tax revenues. Indeed, mandatory spending will put socialising governments in an impossible position.

But even these measures are unlikely to protect currencies, because of extensive foreign ownership of the US dollar. Foreigners hold total some $33 trillion in financial assets and bank deposits, much of which will be liquidated or lost in a bear market. Long experience suggests that funds rescued from overexposure to foreign currencies will be repatriated.

Alternatively, attempts to continue the inflationary policies of Keynesian money cranks will undermine currencies more rapidly, but this is almost certainly the line of least policy resistance — until it is too late.

It has never been more important for the hapless citizen to recognise what is happening to currencies and to understand the fallacies behind cryptocurrencies. They are not practical replacements for state-issued currencies and are likely to turn out to be just another aspect of the financial bubble. The only protection from an increasingly likely collapse of the fiat money system and all that sails with it is to understand what constitutes money as opposed to currency; and that is only physical gold and silver coins and bars.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/13/2021 - 09:20

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“I Can’t Even Save”: Americans Are Getting Absolutely Crushed Under Enormous Debt Load

"I Can’t Even Save": Americans Are Getting Absolutely Crushed Under Enormous Debt Load

While Joe Biden insists that Americans are doing great…

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"I Can't Even Save": Americans Are Getting Absolutely Crushed Under Enormous Debt Load

While Joe Biden insists that Americans are doing great - suggesting in his State of the Union Address last week that "our economy is the envy of the world," Americans are being absolutely crushed by inflation (which the Biden admin blames on 'shrinkflation' and 'corporate greed'), and of course - crippling debt.

The signs are obvious. Last week we noted that banks' charge-offs are accelerating, and are now above pre-pandemic levels.

...and leading this increase are credit card loans - with delinquencies that haven't been this high since Q3 2011.

On top of that, while credit cards and nonfarm, nonresidential commercial real estate loans drove the quarterly increase in the noncurrent rate, residential mortgages drove the quarterly increase in the share of loans 30-89 days past due.

And while Biden and crew can spin all they want, an average of polls from RealClear Politics shows that just 40% of people approve of Biden's handling of the economy.

Crushed

On Friday, Bloomberg dug deeper into the effects of Biden's "envious" economy on Americans - specifically, how massive debt loads (credit cards and auto loans especially) are absolutely crushing people.

Two years after the Federal Reserve began hiking interest rates to tame prices, delinquency rates on credit cards and auto loans are the highest in more than a decade. For the first time on record, interest payments on those and other non-mortgage debts are as big a financial burden for US households as mortgage interest payments.

According to the report, this presents a difficult reality for millions of consumers who drive the US economy - "The era of high borrowing costs — however necessary to slow price increases — has a sting of its own that many families may feel for years to come, especially the ones that haven’t locked in cheap home loans."

The Fed, meanwhile, doesn't appear poised to cut rates until later this year.

According to a February paper from IMF and Harvard, the recent high cost of borrowing - something which isn't reflected in inflation figures, is at the heart of lackluster consumer sentiment despite inflation having moderated and a job market which has recovered (thanks to job gains almost entirely enjoyed by immigrants).

In short, the debt burden has made life under President Biden a constant struggle throughout America.

"I’m making the most money I've ever made, and I’m still living paycheck to paycheck," 40-year-old Denver resident Nikki Cimino told Bloomberg. Cimino is carrying a monthly mortgage of $1,650, and has $4,000 in credit card debt following a 2020 divorce.

Nikki CiminoPhotographer: Rachel Woolf/Bloomberg

"There's this wild disconnect between what people are experiencing and what economists are experiencing."

What's more, according to Wells Fargo, families have taken on debt at a comparatively fast rate - no doubt to sustain the same lifestyle as low rates and pandemic-era stimmies provided. In fact, it only took four years for households to set a record new debt level after paying down borrowings in 2021 when interest rates were near zero. 

Meanwhile, that increased debt load is exacerbated by credit card interest rates that have climbed to a record 22%, according to the Fed.

[P]art of the reason some Americans were able to take on a substantial load of non-mortgage debt is because they’d locked in home loans at ultra-low rates, leaving room on their balance sheets for other types of borrowing. The effective rate of interest on US mortgage debt was just 3.8% at the end of last year.

Yet the loans and interest payments can be a significant strain that shapes families’ spending choices. -Bloomberg

And of course, the highest-interest debt (credit cards) is hurting lower-income households the most, as tends to be the case.

The lowest earners also understandably had the biggest increase in credit card delinquencies.

"Many consumers are levered to the hilt — maxed out on debt and barely keeping their heads above water," Allan Schweitzer, a portfolio manager at credit-focused investment firm Beach Point Capital Management told Bloomberg. "They can dog paddle, if you will, but any uptick in unemployment or worsening of the economy could drive a pretty significant spike in defaults."

"We had more money when Trump was president," said Denise Nierzwicki, 69. She and her 72-year-old husband Paul have around $20,000 in debt spread across multiple cards - all of which have interest rates above 20%.

Denise and Paul Nierzwicki blame Biden for what they see as a gloomy economy and plan to vote for the Republican candidate in November.
Photographer: Jon Cherry/Bloomberg

During the pandemic, Denise lost her job and a business deal for a bar they owned in their hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. While they applied for Social Security to ease the pain, Denise is now working 50 hours a week at a restaurant. Despite this, they're barely scraping enough money together to service their debt.

The couple blames Biden for what they see as a gloomy economy and plans to vote for the Republican candidate in November. Denise routinely voted for Democrats up until about 2010, when she grew dissatisfied with Barack Obama’s economic stances, she said. Now, she supports Donald Trump because he lowered taxes and because of his policies on immigration. -Bloomberg

Meanwhile there's student loans - which are not able to be discharged in bankruptcy.

"I can't even save, I don't have a savings account," said 29-year-old in Columbus, Ohio resident Brittany Walling - who has around $80,000 in federal student loans, $20,000 in private debt from her undergraduate and graduate degrees, and $6,000 in credit card debt she accumulated over a six-month stretch in 2022 while she was unemployed.

"I just know that a lot of people are struggling, and things need to change," she told the outlet.

The only silver lining of note, according to Bloomberg, is that broad wage gains resulting in large paychecks has made it easier for people to throw money at credit card bills.

Yet, according to Wells Fargo economist Shannon Grein, "As rates rose in 2023, we avoided a slowdown due to spending that was very much tied to easy access to credit ... Now, credit has become harder to come by and more expensive."

According to Grein, the change has posed "a significant headwind to consumption."

Then there's the election

"Maybe the Fed is done hiking, but as long as rates stay on hold, you still have a passive tightening effect flowing down to the consumer and being exerted on the economy," she continued. "Those household dynamics are going to be a factor in the election this year."

Meanwhile, swing-state voters in a February Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll said they trust Trump more than Biden on interest rates and personal debt.

Reverberations

These 'headwinds' have M3 Partners' Moshin Meghji concerned.

"Any tightening there immediately hits the top line of companies," he said, noting that for heavily indebted companies that took on debt during years of easy borrowing, "there's no easy fix."

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 18:00

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Sylvester researchers, collaborators call for greater investment in bereavement care

MIAMI, FLORIDA (March 15, 2024) – The public health toll from bereavement is well-documented in the medical literature, with bereaved persons at greater…

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MIAMI, FLORIDA (March 15, 2024) – The public health toll from bereavement is well-documented in the medical literature, with bereaved persons at greater risk for many adverse outcomes, including mental health challenges, decreased quality of life, health care neglect, cancer, heart disease, suicide, and death. Now, in a paper published in The Lancet Public Health, researchers sound a clarion call for greater investment, at both the community and institutional level, in establishing support for grief-related suffering.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Memorial Sloan Kettering Comprehensive Cancer Center

MIAMI, FLORIDA (March 15, 2024) – The public health toll from bereavement is well-documented in the medical literature, with bereaved persons at greater risk for many adverse outcomes, including mental health challenges, decreased quality of life, health care neglect, cancer, heart disease, suicide, and death. Now, in a paper published in The Lancet Public Health, researchers sound a clarion call for greater investment, at both the community and institutional level, in establishing support for grief-related suffering.

The authors emphasized that increased mortality worldwide caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, suicide, drug overdose, homicide, armed conflict, and terrorism have accelerated the urgency for national- and global-level frameworks to strengthen the provision of sustainable and accessible bereavement care. Unfortunately, current national and global investment in bereavement support services is woefully inadequate to address this growing public health crisis, said researchers with Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and collaborating organizations.  

They proposed a model for transitional care that involves firmly establishing bereavement support services within healthcare organizations to ensure continuity of family-centered care while bolstering community-based support through development of “compassionate communities” and a grief-informed workforce. The model highlights the responsibility of the health system to build bridges to the community that can help grievers feel held as they transition.   

The Center for the Advancement of Bereavement Care at Sylvester is advocating for precisely this model of transitional care. Wendy G. Lichtenthal, PhD, FT, FAPOS, who is Founding Director of the new Center and associate professor of public health sciences at the Miller School, noted, “We need a paradigm shift in how healthcare professionals, institutions, and systems view bereavement care. Sylvester is leading the way by investing in the establishment of this Center, which is the first to focus on bringing the transitional bereavement care model to life.”

What further distinguishes the Center is its roots in bereavement science, advancing care approaches that are both grounded in research and community-engaged.  

The authors focused on palliative care, which strives to provide a holistic approach to minimize suffering for seriously ill patients and their families, as one area where improvements are critically needed. They referenced groundbreaking reports of the Lancet Commissions on the value of global access to palliative care and pain relief that highlighted the “undeniable need for improved bereavement care delivery infrastructure.” One of those reports acknowledged that bereavement has been overlooked and called for reprioritizing social determinants of death, dying, and grief.

“Palliative care should culminate with bereavement care, both in theory and in practice,” explained Lichtenthal, who is the article’s corresponding author. “Yet, bereavement care often is under-resourced and beset with access inequities.”

Transitional bereavement care model

So, how do health systems and communities prioritize bereavement services to ensure that no bereaved individual goes without needed support? The transitional bereavement care model offers a roadmap.

“We must reposition bereavement care from an afterthought to a public health priority. Transitional bereavement care is necessary to bridge the gap in offerings between healthcare organizations and community-based bereavement services,” Lichtenthal said. “Our model calls for health systems to shore up the quality and availability of their offerings, but also recognizes that resources for bereavement care within a given healthcare institution are finite, emphasizing the need to help build communities’ capacity to support grievers.”

Key to the model, she added, is the bolstering of community-based support through development of “compassionate communities” and “upskilling” of professional services to assist those with more substantial bereavement-support needs.

The model contains these pillars:

  • Preventive bereavement care –healthcare teams engage in bereavement-conscious practices, and compassionate communities are mindful of the emotional and practical needs of dying patients’ families.
  • Ownership of bereavement care – institutions provide bereavement education for staff, risk screenings for families, outreach and counseling or grief support. Communities establish bereavement centers and “champions” to provide bereavement care at workplaces, schools, places of worship or care facilities.
  • Resource allocation for bereavement care – dedicated personnel offer universal outreach, and bereaved stakeholders provide input to identify community barriers and needed resources.
  • Upskilling of support providers – Bereavement education is integrated into training programs for health professionals, and institutions offer dedicated grief specialists. Communities have trained, accessible bereavement specialists who provide support and are educated in how to best support bereaved individuals, increasing their grief literacy.
  • Evidence-based care – bereavement care is evidence-based and features effective grief assessments, interventions, and training programs. Compassionate communities remain mindful of bereavement care needs.

Lichtenthal said the new Center will strive to materialize these pillars and aims to serve as a global model for other health organizations. She hopes the paper’s recommendations “will cultivate a bereavement-conscious and grief-informed workforce as well as grief-literate, compassionate communities and health systems that prioritize bereavement as a vital part of ethical healthcare.”

“This paper is calling for healthcare institutions to respond to their duty to care for the family beyond patients’ deaths. By investing in the creation of the Center for the Advancement of Bereavement Care, Sylvester is answering this call,” Lichtenthal said.

Follow @SylvesterCancer on X for the latest news on Sylvester’s research and care.

# # #

Article Title: Investing in bereavement care as a public health priority

DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(24)00030-6

Authors: The complete list of authors is included in the paper.

Funding: The authors received funding from the National Cancer Institute (P30 CA240139 Nimer) and P30 CA008748 Vickers).

Disclosures: The authors declared no competing interests.

# # #


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Copper Soars, Iron Ore Tumbles As Goldman Says “Copper’s Time Is Now”

Copper Soars, Iron Ore Tumbles As Goldman Says "Copper’s Time Is Now"

After languishing for the past two years in a tight range despite recurring…

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Copper Soars, Iron Ore Tumbles As Goldman Says "Copper's Time Is Now"

After languishing for the past two years in a tight range despite recurring speculation about declining global supply, copper has finally broken out, surging to the highest price in the past year, just shy of $9,000 a ton as supply cuts hit the market; At the same time the price of the world's "other" most important mined commodity has diverged, as iron ore has tumbled amid growing demand headwinds out of China's comatose housing sector where not even ghost cities are being built any more.

Copper surged almost 5% this week, ending a months-long spell of inertia, as investors focused on risks to supply at various global mines and smelters. As Bloomberg adds, traders also warmed to the idea that the worst of a global downturn is in the past, particularly for metals like copper that are increasingly used in electric vehicles and renewables.

Yet the commodity crash of recent years is hardly over, as signs of the headwinds in traditional industrial sectors are still all too obvious in the iron ore market, where futures fell below $100 a ton for the first time in seven months on Friday as investors bet that China’s years-long property crisis will run through 2024, keeping a lid on demand.

Indeed, while the mood surrounding copper has turned almost euphoric, sentiment on iron ore has soured since the conclusion of the latest National People’s Congress in Beijing, where the CCP set a 5% goal for economic growth, but offered few new measures that would boost infrastructure or other construction-intensive sectors.

As a result, the main steelmaking ingredient has shed more than 30% since early January as hopes of a meaningful revival in construction activity faded. Loss-making steel mills are buying less ore, and stockpiles are piling up at Chinese ports. The latest drop will embolden those who believe that the effects of President Xi Jinping’s property crackdown still have significant room to run, and that last year’s rally in iron ore may have been a false dawn.

Meanwhile, as Bloomberg notes, on Friday there were fresh signs that weakness in China’s industrial economy is hitting the copper market too, with stockpiles tracked by the Shanghai Futures Exchange surging to the highest level since the early days of the pandemic. The hope is that headwinds in traditional industrial areas will be offset by an ongoing surge in usage in electric vehicles and renewables.

And while industrial conditions in Europe and the US also look soft, there’s growing optimism about copper usage in India, where rising investment has helped fuel blowout growth rates of more than 8% — making it the fastest-growing major economy.

In any case, with the demand side of the equation still questionable, the main catalyst behind copper’s powerful rally is an unexpected tightening in global mine supplies, driven mainly by last year’s closure of a giant mine in Panama (discussed here), but there are also growing worries about output in Zambia, which is facing an El Niño-induced power crisis.

On Wednesday, copper prices jumped on huge volumes after smelters in China held a crisis meeting on how to cope with a sharp drop in processing fees following disruptions to supplies of mined ore. The group stopped short of coordinated production cuts, but pledged to re-arrange maintenance work, reduce runs and delay the startup of new projects. In the coming weeks investors will be watching Shanghai exchange inventories closely to gauge both the strength of demand and the extent of any capacity curtailments.

“The increase in SHFE stockpiles has been bigger than we’d anticipated, but we expect to see them coming down over the next few weeks,” Colin Hamilton, managing director for commodities research at BMO Capital Markets, said by phone. “If the pace of the inventory builds doesn’t start to slow, investors will start to question whether smelters are actually cutting and whether the impact of weak construction activity is starting to weigh more heavily on the market.”

* * *

Few have been as happy with the recent surge in copper prices as Goldman's commodity team, where copper has long been a preferred trade (even if it may have cost the former team head Jeff Currie his job due to his unbridled enthusiasm for copper in the past two years which saw many hedge fund clients suffer major losses).

As Goldman's Nicholas Snowdon writes in a note titled "Copper's time is now" (available to pro subscribers in the usual place)...

... there has been a "turn in the industrial cycle." Specifically according to the Goldman analyst, after a prolonged downturn, "incremental evidence now points to a bottoming out in the industrial cycle, with the global manufacturing PMI in expansion for the first time since September 2022." As a result, Goldman now expects copper to rise to $10,000/t by year-end and then $12,000/t by end of Q1-25.’

Here are the details:

Previous inflexions in global manufacturing cycles have been associated with subsequent sustained industrial metals upside, with copper and aluminium rising on average 25% and 9% over the next 12 months. Whilst seasonal surpluses have so far limited a tightening alignment at a micro level, we expect deficit inflexions to play out from quarter end, particularly for metals with severe supply binds. Supplemented by the influence of anticipated Fed easing ahead in a non-recessionary growth setting, another historically positive performance factor for metals, this should support further upside ahead with copper the headline act in this regard.

Goldman then turns to what it calls China's "green policy put":

Much of the recent focus on the “Two Sessions” event centred on the lack of significant broad stimulus, and in particular the limited property support. In our view it would be wrong – just as in 2022 and 2023 – to assume that this will result in weak onshore metals demand. Beijing’s emphasis on rapid growth in the metals intensive green economy, as an offset to property declines, continues to act as a policy put for green metals demand. After last year’s strong trends, evidence year-to-date is again supportive with aluminium and copper apparent demand rising 17% and 12% y/y respectively. Moreover, the potential for a ‘cash for clunkers’ initiative could provide meaningful right tail risk to that healthy demand base case. Yet there are also clear metal losers in this divergent policy setting, with ongoing pressure on property related steel demand generating recent sharp iron ore downside.

Meanwhile, Snowdon believes that the driver behind Goldman's long-running bullish view on copper - a global supply shock - continues:

Copper’s supply shock progresses. The metal with most significant upside potential is copper, in our view. The supply shock which began with aggressive concentrate destocking and then sharp mine supply downgrades last year, has now advanced to an increasing bind on metal production, as reflected in this week's China smelter supply rationing signal. With continued positive momentum in China's copper demand, a healthy refined import trend should generate a substantial ex-China refined deficit this year. With LME stocks having halved from Q4 peak, China’s imminent seasonal demand inflection should accelerate a path into extreme tightness by H2. Structural supply underinvestment, best reflected in peak mine supply we expect next year, implies that demand destruction will need to be the persistent solver on scarcity, an effect requiring substantially higher pricing than current, in our view. In this context, we maintain our view that the copper price will surge into next year (GSe 2025 $15,000/t average), expecting copper to rise to $10,000/t by year-end and then $12,000/t by end of Q1-25’

Another reason why Goldman is doubling down on its bullish copper outlook: gold.

The sharp rally in gold price since the beginning of March has ended the period of consolidation that had been present since late December. Whilst the initial catalyst for the break higher came from a (gold) supportive turn in US data and real rates, the move has been significantly amplified by short term systematic buying, which suggests less sticky upside. In this context, we expect gold to consolidate for now, with our economists near term view on rates and the dollar suggesting limited near-term catalysts for further upside momentum. Yet, a substantive retracement lower will also likely be limited by resilience in physical buying channels. Nonetheless, in the midterm we continue to hold a constructive view on gold underpinned by persistent strength in EM demand as well as eventual Fed easing, which should crucially reactivate the largely for now dormant ETF buying channel. In this context, we increase our average gold price forecast for 2024 from $2,090/toz to $2,180/toz, targeting a move to $2,300/toz by year-end.

Much more in the full Goldman note available to pro subs.

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 14:25

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