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*Phil*
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Posted: Thu Nov 2nd, 2006 02:47 pm |
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America and the Dollar Illusion
The following essay has been excerpted from the German best-seller "World War for Wealth: The Global Grab for Power and Prosperity" by SPIEGEL editor Gabor Steingart. SPIEGEL ONLINE is publishing a series of excerpts from the book.
The only way to fight a weak dollar is to strengthen it. Many people no longer care whether the US currency still justifies the faith people seem to have in it. The new game, which amounts to playing with fire, works exactly the other way around: The dollar deserves the faith it gets because otherwise it loses that faith. Dollars are bought so they don't have to be sold. The dollar is strong because that's the only thing that can prevent it from growing weak. Reality is ignored because only by ignoring it can the dream come true. Or, to put it still more clearly: Behaving irrationally has become rational behavior.
Of course, those playing this game know that, in the long term, currencies can't be stronger than the national economies from which they derive. Consumption without production, imports without exports, growth on credit - these are all things that can't last in this world. Ken Rogoff, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a man who thinks as clearly as he speaks brashly, recently criticized US economic policy even as he seemed to be praising it: Rogoff said the current boom in the United States is "the best economic recovery money can buy."
But if things have become that obvious, why aren't investors recoiling in fear? Why do foreigners, US presidents of all stripes and even Federal Reserve presidents known for their seriousness allow themselves to get involved in such a risky game, when the risk is that of destroying everything? Why aren't those mechanisms of market regulation functioning that are supposed to represent the advantage of the capitalist system over planned economies?
The answer is terrifyingly simple: Everyone knows how dangerous the game is, but continuing to play it strikes them as less dangerous than quitting. After all, what's to be gained from overreacting? Investors allowed themselves to get caught in the dollar trap years ago, and there's no easy way out. If they start taking their dollar bills and government bonds to the market themselves, they would lose money - either gradually or all at once. They would like to avoid both scenarios, at least for a time. A president who does no more than recognize the situation as an important issue may lose his position as public discontent looks for a vent. Though the governors of the Federal Reserve Bank are under the strongest obligation to tell the truth, they have let the right moment for effective intervention slip by.
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Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
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Corvus
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Posted: Thu Nov 2nd, 2006 03:45 pm |
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That article sounds as though it were written by a Russian . . . who learned to speak Spanish, prior to learning English . . .
Arrg . . .
Are you aware of the Machine Phil, I would be happy to introduce you to it ?
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Roy
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Posted: Thu Nov 2nd, 2006 04:33 pm |
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Please continue this, Phil.
Roy
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Corvus
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Posted: Thu Nov 2nd, 2006 04:53 pm |
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Roy wrote: Please continue this, Phil.
Roy
Yes, I don't understand a word of it . . .  Honestly.
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Roy
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Posted: Thu Nov 2nd, 2006 05:22 pm |
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That, Corvus, is a great comment.
What I understand the article to say is that right now the dollar has a particular worth. So, many people keep their dollars abroad when they earn them.
The reality is that the dollar is really worth less than foreigners say it is. It has been that way for years, but, in the past, the overvaluation came from a German buying or selling something from someone in Japan. They did, as they often still do, that deal in dollars.
That raised the value of the dollar as traders and businessmen bought dollars to do their international transactions.
But the side effect of an overvalued dollar was that when Americans wanted to export something to sell to another country, the price of that good went up.
And, when someone abroad wanted to sell something to us in the US, the cost of that good went down.
So, foreign manufacturers had an advantage over US manufacturers. Their prices were automatically lower and ours higher.
Now so much money pours out of the US in our completely insane balance of trade, that trillions of dollars are held in other countries banks.
If those countries, such as China and Japan, exchanged the dollars they get from selling us goods, the value of their currencies, the Japanese Yen and the Chinese Renmimbi, would go up.
They don't do that because selling their dollars would kill off their competitive advantage over US manufacturers. The goods made in China and Japan would now cost more and goods in the US would cost less in the US and throughout the world.
It has happened already. The Japanese Yen went past a critical mark and the Japanese entered the area where their goods would cost too much.
So, what the article is saying is that foreigners hold onto their money in dollars because the foreigners know that if they start actually exchanging their dollars for other currencies, then immediately the dollar will start to go down.
That will mean the rest of their money will be worth less as they won't sell or won't even be able to sell off all their dollars.
So, they hold onto their dollars because they have to. They know the dollars are worth less than what dollars are traded at, but, if they act on that, they will become poorer themselves.
So they collude in maintaining the falsely higher dollar and they help make it harder for us to manufacture and export.
Soon the "machine", the agreed-upon mechanical principles that sustain our present arrangements, will break down.
At some point the dollar will have to undergo a free fall just like the stock market did in 1929.
Now, if we had an energy policy, and if we imposed tariffs on Chinese and other goods, we would actually make the dollar really stronger.
Last point. When the dollar goes down, the price of energy for the rest of the world will go down as well. Our price will go up. That will cause inflation even as we lose economic power causing "stagflation" like we had in the seventies.
Eventually the system could recover, but what a mess will happen. What essential services and stuff of day-to-day life will be cut?
Got it?
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"The force and degree of a man's inner benevolence evokes in others a proportionate degree of ill-will" - Gurdjieff
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." — George Orwell
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Corvus
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Posted: Thu Nov 2nd, 2006 05:26 pm |
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It will not break down . . . because something of another worth will take it's place . . .
Did Rome really fall, or did it evolve . . . 
For things to get better, they must first get as bad as they can . . . then change will come about, that means something . . . We need to earn the change.
Last edited on Thu Nov 2nd, 2006 05:27 pm by Corvus
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Roy
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Posted: Thu Nov 2nd, 2006 05:36 pm |
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Rome fell. I am not saying that we will fall, but we will fall from our present standard of living to something way down on the totem pole.
Only if we get a lot of nuke reactors or something up to get us off oil and dependent on ourselves will we be able to avoid the worst.
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"The force and degree of a man's inner benevolence evokes in others a proportionate degree of ill-will" - Gurdjieff
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." — George Orwell
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*Phil*
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Posted: Thu Nov 2nd, 2006 08:51 pm |
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Roy wrote: Rome fell. I am not saying that we will fall, but we will fall from our present standard of living to something way down on the totem pole.
Only if we get a lot of nuke reactors or something up to get us off oil and dependent on ourselves will we be able to avoid the worst.
The bust is coming...
"Reality is ignored because only by ignoring it can the dream come true."
That is the hallmark sign, if not the definition, of the top of a boom in a boom-bust sequence in financial markets. Participant's reflexive, mutual, self-reinforcing perception reaches maximal divergence from reality and then doubts begin finally to set in and slowly at first then rapidly panic.
Just a few days ago Greenspan said in a speech
"We're beginning to see some move from the dollar to the euro, both from the private sector ... but also from monetary authorities and central banks,"
"We'll get to the point at some point that willingness to finance it [trade] will slow, and if you can't finance it, it won't happen,"
Corvus correctly states that when the old system fails an new one will take its place. Of course the Elites will first move their wealth out of the old system and only after that the proles will learn of the system's demise and rush to save their own IRA's, checking accounts, pensions, etc only to see the banks slammed closed on holiday until further notice. See Argentina for a modern example.
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Roy
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Posted: Fri Nov 3rd, 2006 03:55 am |
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ROMEW FELL BECAUSE IT COULDN'T EVOLVE ANYMORE. THE SAME THING COULD HAPPEN TO US.
Argentina has only 35 million people. The world was still prosperous. I don't know what would sustain us.
I realize we should put a lot of resources in gold. In a panic, gold will retain its value.
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"The force and degree of a man's inner benevolence evokes in others a proportionate degree of ill-will" - Gurdjieff
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." — George Orwell
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*Phil*
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Posted: Fri Nov 3rd, 2006 01:48 pm |
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Roy wrote: ROMEW FELL BECAUSE IT COULDN'T EVOLVE ANYMORE. THE SAME THING COULD HAPPEN TO US.
Argentina has only 35 million people. The world was still prosperous. I don't know what would sustain us.
I realize we should put a lot of resources in gold. In a panic, gold will retain its value.
You and I are pretty much left to our own wits and I think savings outside the US Dollar is prudent. The USA does have something the rest of the world absolutely needs: food. Much of the world is beyond its carrying capacity so we export a lot of grains. The world has to have the food and natural resources of North and South America otherwise scarcity everywhere and even famine.
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Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
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Corvus
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Posted: Fri Nov 3rd, 2006 03:54 pm |
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as I have said before, I would take 30 cans of beans or health shakes, over 30 bars of gold . . . if things got to that point, which they never will.
i will not worship the golden cock ring.
Why wear a golden cock ring? Many women feel that a cock ring enhances the appearance of the penis, some men like the feel of having their cock and balls encircled by a cock ring. The right golden cock ring can feel as though someone is holding you in an intimate grip. Cock rings can create larger, harder erections by restricting the blood flow out of the penis. Many men feel that their orgasms are more intense when wearing a golden cock ring.
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"In a person (not Corvus) who is open to experience each stimulus is freely relayed through the nervous system, without being distorted by any process of defensiveness." -C. Rogers
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*Phil*
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Posted: Fri Nov 3rd, 2006 06:46 pm |
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Corvus wrote: as I have said before, I would take 30 cans of beans or health shakes, over 30 bars of gold . . . if things got to that point, which they never will.
So you want to deal? 
SOLD! I'll give you my 30 cans of beans for 30 gold bars! 
You see gold is real money, the ultimate form of payment, it trancends the fortuitious conicidence necessary in simple barter.
The rich and powerful, the world institutions are putting their wealth into gold and a basket of currencies. Gold and Euros, Yen, Swiss franc, they are smart. I follow in the footsteps of giants. 
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Roy
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Posted: Fri Nov 3rd, 2006 07:12 pm |
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Now this is very interesting, Corvus.
What you have to ask yourself (or what I have asked myself) is: how do I know that "things will never get to that point"?
And what does money, especially as gold, mean to you? What feelings do you have about it?
I apologize for the mini-analysis of your comment which is unsolicited, but how did you make that connection of narcissism and phallic display to gold?
Getting back to the first point: since you grasp all too well what idiots our leaders can be and what idiots humans in general can be, on what basis do you think things can't get "that bad"?
I made that comment about the Universe playing itself better than "that deaf, dumb and blind kid" who knows how to play a "mean pinball" because what I think I have learned to see in life is that what Castaneda's Don Juan called intent in his books.
I think I see through the fog of everyday life well enough to see that, especially in our age, all illusions will be tested and exposed for what they are.
The more you are invested in an illusion, the more sucked in you will be to whatever crap shoot you think you will win at.
So Saddam thought he could get away with thumbing his nose at the US and trying to assissinate the elder Bush while we thought we could invade Iraq and all the moderates would take over.
After all, "they" were just like "us". It turns out that our rotten apples are quite a different breed than the rotten apples of the eighth or eleventh century. In other words, our command against our vanity made us multi-culturally "equal" to all other groups when we aren't, even as screwed up as we are.
Something I could have told you from having lived a decade in Italy.
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"The force and degree of a man's inner benevolence evokes in others a proportionate degree of ill-will" - Gurdjieff
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." — George Orwell
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*Phil*
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Posted: Fri Nov 3rd, 2006 07:41 pm |
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When we talk of things getting bad I mean like Argentina where nobody except those who had connections had any money because the banks were closed for months, wages and pensions couldn't even get paid, checks could not get cashed, then when the banks reopened withdrawals were limited to $200 per week - $200 so devalued that could only buy you 1/4 as much as before the banks closed. The price of beans never got close to "bars of gold". Barter towns formed where people could go and trade their jewelry, watches, furniture, labor, and stuff for other things. People even invented their own currency called "scripts" used to facilitate trade. The scripts suffered a set back when the building storing the reserve scripts was looted! LOL Of course junk dealers, pawn shops, and coin dealers did a brisk business in the barter towns.
What is in store for the USA? Difficult to say other than it will probably be different than Argentina siince it is now well studied and part of economics lore. Hyper-inflation or Depression or some whipsaw combo of both could happen.
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Roy
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Posted: Fri Nov 3rd, 2006 10:50 pm |
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Argentines could actually go out and support their families by hunting and fishing because of the vast unpopulated areas just outside of Buenos Aires.
I taught ESL to some formerly wealthy Argentines in Italy. They had to leave because they had essentially lost everything. So I got to hear a lot of what went on as well.
The last time workers went in an reopened factories and got them to work, but some "workers" stole! 
Was a scandal on the left.
____________________
"The force and degree of a man's inner benevolence evokes in others a proportionate degree of ill-will" - Gurdjieff
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." — George Orwell
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*Phil*
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Posted: Sat Nov 4th, 2006 03:43 am |
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Ah yes, a scandal on the Left. Its always been a dream of politicians to be able to pay for everything the masses want. Fiat currency fits the bill long enough to achieve the short term tasks at hand but history shows that everytime the end result is failure. So Nixon, economists, and the Banks believed that modern theory and techniques can prevent the failures. But this is an experiment a real-time experiment testing theory and practice. Nobody should be suprised if the experiment proves yet again fiat currency is, contrary to politician fantasy, unsustainable in the real world.
Jung noticed that when something is produced by the unconscious ( the gold ) the first thing to come up is infantile material that that has been long lost to conscious memory. Naturally traces of infantile interest to the anal, oral, genital linger on in the adult. The lowest value allies itself with the highest. Jung gave examples of fairy tales were for example the Crusaders used to anoint themselves with the excrement of the Pope to become more formidable. The alchemists sought their prima materia in excrement from which would emerge the filius philosophorum. Poop and gold are always associated in folklore according to Jung.
So we may unconsciously venerate our poop and phallus but that is because behind them is the gold.
Last edited on Sat Nov 4th, 2006 06:47 am by *Phil*
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Galactic Signature: Blue Self-Existing Monkey
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Corvus
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Posted: Sat Nov 4th, 2006 07:11 am |
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Phil,
How many gold bars/coins do you have in your possession ?
When one invests in gold, do they physically have possession of the gold . . .
Ahh that's what I thought . . .
Such a nifty illusion.
When world banks collapse, do you really think that gold you have invested in is going to find it's way to your house . . . or those papers entitle you to some sort of financial security. If the economy collapses or the dollar shrinks to nothing, what will those gold bars entitle you to . . . status ??
If you were an Aztec king and had possession of the gold . . . I would think about this a little differently . . . but as things stand here in modern times . . . well . . . all I can do is laugh at such notions.
A sound investment would be buying guns made of gold . . . lol
At some point the dollar will have to undergo a free fall just like the stock market did in 1929. -Roy
How can you be sure . . . the machine has accounted for this, trust me . . .
401k's have forced people into the markets . . . and financial advisors always give the advice to ride it out . . . sure we will have dips and the dollar will fall, but people are bound to the machine for better or worse.
This is why we have to invest over seas . . . to build new little material robots to purchase crap, that we in the US no longer really need, to an extent. If we did this properly we would tax those companies and consumers of our goods in those new nations we build . . . and filter that money back into retirement programs and such here in the US. The problem is, this money made over seas is pocketed by the rich. What we really need to fear is people waking up to the reality that material possessions mean nothing . . . and they stop buying . . . then the illusion is dead and the dollar means nothing. Until that time, money does indeed grow on trees. The machine realizes that if we created goods that lasted, people would be out of manufacturing jobs, so we continue to build crap that has a life spine.
It's all an illusion . . .
I am surly babbling now . . . but all I know is either Rome will fall hard through war (and at that point gold will be the last thing that determines wealth or power from a survival stand point) . . . or this stagnation will continue for years. Have faith in the machine . . .
Last edited on Sat Nov 4th, 2006 07:29 am by Corvus
____________________
"In a person (not Corvus) who is open to experience each stimulus is freely relayed through the nervous system, without being distorted by any process of defensiveness." -C. Rogers
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*Phil*
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Posted: Sun Nov 5th, 2006 02:51 pm |
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Hi Corvus, you ask a good question that everyone who wishes to own some precious metal have to ask themselves. It just so happens that this week-end Jim Puplava inteviewed serveral experts on the subject. Here is the link to the very informative audio recording
5 Ways to own Bullion
It is widely advised that for optimal portfolio performance one should have allocated 10% - 15% into precious metals. The general advice by the experts for building the precious metal portion of your portfolio is establish a base of the physical in hand then add some paper forms such as e-gold or mining company stock on top.
There are two braod categories of gold investor types: those who who want a safe haven to hedge disaster and those who want to make a profit. Me personally I have split my precious metals investment into two approximately equal halves: Physical bullion in my possesion as the safe haven, I can hold it in my hands, and the other half in mining and exploration company stocks for profit. My precious metals allocation is something north of %20 of my portfolio totals.
And let's face it: women love gold. To hold, count, and fondle it. I figure it comes with their nesting instinct. Like a home gold is bedrock.
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*Phil*
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Posted: Thu Nov 9th, 2006 05:39 pm |
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I read an interesting newsletter the other day where the author discusses Ecuador...
8><snipped from a much longer piece><8
In an ideal world, rapid turnover of rulers wouldn’t be important, because government would have little to do, and everyone would laugh if it tried to invent work for itself. A government might have an army (for parades and to discourage other armies), a police force (to discourage violent criminals) and a court system (to give the aggrieved an alternative to pistols and the unsportsmanlike use of baseball bats). For today’s governments, however, those three functions are only sidelines, and no government does them very well. The city-states of Hong Kong, Singapore and Monaco and some of the island tax havens, like the Caymans, however, do better than most. But there’s really no substantial place in South America—or North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australasia, for that matter—where the nose of the State doesn’t poke into everything.
A lot of state control inevitably leads to a lot of corruption—the need to pay people in government to do their job or, in some cases, not to do it. People say corruption is bad. It certainly isn’t pretty. But when the state is involved in everything, it’s an absolute necessity. It gives bureaucrats an incentive to let things happen. Thus, in countries where nothing can happen without multiple licenses, multiple permits and multiple reviews by multiple government agencies, corruption is, perversely, the key to progress. Playing by the book in such a place means paralysis.
That’s why the rapid turnover in governments in places like Ecuador is problematical. The laws—or their implementation—can change unpredictably. When that happens, the money you spent to grease the wheels with the ancien regime and the goodwill it bought are gone. Past generosity won’t help you with the new guys, and it may even hurt.
For Americans, however, all this is supposedly academic, because the U.S. Government’s self-righteous laws prohibit Americans from crossing any public servant’s hand with silver. Of course, those laws only make a U.S. passport an albatross and leave Americans looking like hypocrites. In the Third World, corruption is fairly overt and straightforward, a matter of quid pro quo. Fee for service. In the U.S., corruption is more subtle; the money moves by indirection. Bill Clinton, who not so long ago claimed he couldn’t pay his Monica legal bills, now rakes in 50 or so extra-large per year from speaking fees, book contracts, consulting and directorships. Hillary, who once was slipped $99,250 (whatever happened to the other $750?) by a political ally and beneficiary, cast the money as dumb luck profits from trading cattle futures. Cheney got his payoff for retailing his connections in the form of a $40-million CEO job with Halliburton, largess he has now repaid many, many times over. Whatever the country, people who deliver expect to get paid. Personally, I think Third World-style corruption smells better than the variety made in the USA.
A case can be made that rapid turnover in government is a virtue—like term limits. This might seem especially so in places (almost everywhere) where politicians strive for office mainly to enrich themselves and their supporters. A short, unpredictable tenure allows less opportunity to figure out how best to loot the treasury.
So every election here in the USA lets vote the bums out of office. Never them them settle-in and become profe$$ional politician$.
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Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
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Corvus
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Posted: Fri Nov 10th, 2006 07:44 am |
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I am glad to read that you actual have physical possession of gold . . . that I can agree is smart.
Wouldn't a smarter investment be in the private renewable energy sector . . . to own a dam that generates electricity?
I just can't understand why gold still has worth in our society . . . outside of being a excellent conductor in AV applications . . . what is it really used for outside of physical enhancement.
I would rather invest in a good acoustic guitar than a bar of gold. I just see that quality guitar as being more of a powerful barter than a gold coin. What is going on with me that I don't see gold as having worth. I don't see diamonds as having worth either. I must be from another planet.
____________________
"In a person (not Corvus) who is open to experience each stimulus is freely relayed through the nervous system, without being distorted by any process of defensiveness." -C. Rogers
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