Originally posted by gnk
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It's good when both sides are presented . . . .
Here are some excerpts:
it is possible to have a shortage of money simultaneously with the overworking of the printing presses. Hyperinflation is not the same as the ultimate inflation of the money supply. It is the ultimate depreciation of the currency unit.
People postone buying indefinitely because they expect prices to fall further. This is hyperdeflation. It manifests itself in the ever rising value of the currency unit. It is important to remark that it can happen while some prices are still rising. Other than gold, food and energy are two important exceptions. People have to eat, and they want to keep themselves warm and mobile, no matter what. Paradoxically, this may reinforce deflation. Because of rising food and energy prices people will have that much less to spend on other goods, accelerating price declines in other sectors. This defeats the arguments of Turk and others who try to refute the case for deflation by pointing to high or rising cost of food and energy.
I am not trying to adjudicate between the two schools of thought, one asserting that hyperinflation and the other asserting that hyperdeflation of the dollar is inevitable and imminent. I am merely trying to point out certain facts about deflation that most people areunaware of, or tend to ignore.
All the signs around us point to deflation. The money supply is being pumped up on an unprecedented scale, but all it does is pushing on a string. You cannot make a case, as Turk is trying to do, out of the fact that the price of crude oildoubled as compared to its recent low. Another fact, more startling, is that the price of crude oil has declined 45 percent as compared to its all-time high. We must see the general decline in world prices, even though in some cases they may be disguised as a loss of pricing power of the producers. True, list prices have not declined, but nobody trades them. They are for window-dressing only.
But why is it that the inordinate money creation by the Fed is having no lasting effect on prices? It is because the Fed can create all the money it wants, but it cannot command it to flow uphill. The new money flows downhill where the fun is: to the bond market. Bond speculators are having a field day. Their bets are on the house: if they lose, the losses will be picked up by the public purse. But why does the Fed under-write the losses of the bond speculators? What we see is a gigantic Ponzi scheme. The Treasury issues the bonds by the trillions, and promises huge risk-free profits to the bond speculators in order to induce them to buy.
But why is it that the inordinate money creation by the Fed is having no lasting effect on prices? It is because the Fed can create all the money it wants, but it cannot command it to flow uphill. The new money flows downhill where the fun is: to the bond market. Bond speculators are having a field day. Their bets are on the house: if they lose, the losses will be picked up by the public purse. But why does the Fed under-write the losses of the bond speculators? What we see is a gigantic Ponzi scheme. The Treasury issues the bonds by the trillions, and promises huge risk-free profits to the bond speculators in order to induce them to buy.
People postone buying indefinitely because they expect prices to fall further. This is hyperdeflation. It manifests itself in the ever rising value of the currency unit. It is important to remark that it can happen while some prices are still rising. Other than gold, food and energy are two important exceptions. People have to eat, and they want to keep themselves warm and mobile, no matter what. Paradoxically, this may reinforce deflation. Because of rising food and energy prices people will have that much less to spend on other goods, accelerating price declines in other sectors. This defeats the arguments of Turk and others who try to refute the case for deflation by pointing to high or rising cost of food and energy.
I am not trying to adjudicate between the two schools of thought, one asserting that hyperinflation and the other asserting that hyperdeflation of the dollar is inevitable and imminent. I am merely trying to point out certain facts about deflation that most people areunaware of, or tend to ignore.
All the signs around us point to deflation. The money supply is being pumped up on an unprecedented scale, but all it does is pushing on a string. You cannot make a case, as Turk is trying to do, out of the fact that the price of crude oildoubled as compared to its recent low. Another fact, more startling, is that the price of crude oil has declined 45 percent as compared to its all-time high. We must see the general decline in world prices, even though in some cases they may be disguised as a loss of pricing power of the producers. True, list prices have not declined, but nobody trades them. They are for window-dressing only.
But why is it that the inordinate money creation by the Fed is having no lasting effect on prices? It is because the Fed can create all the money it wants, but it cannot command it to flow uphill. The new money flows downhill where the fun is: to the bond market. Bond speculators are having a field day. Their bets are on the house: if they lose, the losses will be picked up by the public purse. But why does the Fed under-write the losses of the bond speculators? What we see is a gigantic Ponzi scheme. The Treasury issues the bonds by the trillions, and promises huge risk-free profits to the bond speculators in order to induce them to buy.
But why is it that the inordinate money creation by the Fed is having no lasting effect on prices? It is because the Fed can create all the money it wants, but it cannot command it to flow uphill. The new money flows downhill where the fun is: to the bond market. Bond speculators are having a field day. Their bets are on the house: if they lose, the losses will be picked up by the public purse. But why does the Fed under-write the losses of the bond speculators? What we see is a gigantic Ponzi scheme. The Treasury issues the bonds by the trillions, and promises huge risk-free profits to the bond speculators in order to induce them to buy.
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