01-May (The American Enterprise Institute) — Economists Carmen Reinhart, Vincent R. Reinhart, and Kenneth Rogoff (from here on out referred to as R3) have a new study out looking at the economic impact of high debt levels:

– We identify 26 episodes of public debt overhang–where debt to GDP ratios exceed 90% of GDP–since 1800. We find that in 23 of these 26 episodes, individual countries experienced lower growth than the average of other years. Across all 26 episodes, growth is lower by an average of 1.2%.

– If this effect sounds modest, consider that the average duration of debt overhang episodes was 23 years. In 11 of the 26 high debt overhang episodes, real interest rates were the same or lower than in other periods.

[source]

PG View: R3 warn that if we wait to reduce our debt load until higher rates signal danger, it may be too late…

01-MAy (Herald Sun) — The Reserve Bank has conceded Australia’s lending giants have irrevocably broken step, slashing the official interest rate in an attempt to lower “real” borrowing rates.

And the central bank has all but acknowledged that it should have trimmed the cash rate last month as fresh cracks started to emerge in the global and Australian economies, analysts say.

The cut of half a percentage point is the biggest unleashed by the RBA since the financial crisis.

It takes the cash rate to 3.75 per cent – only the second time in the modern history of the central bank that the rate has fallen below 4 per cent.

The first was at the nadir of the crisis.

None of the major banks had declared last night how much of the cut they intended to pass on, although economists and banking analysts broadly warned they were unlikely to pass on more than 40 basis points.

[source]

01-May (SmartMoney) — When will U.S. house prices recover? Likely never. But that’s no reason not to buy.

The latest S&P / Case-Shiller numbers, reported last week, show that prices in 20 major markets declined 3.5% over the year through February. They’re now back to 2002 levels. If we subtract for inflation, they’re back to 1998 levels.

But consider: After subtracting for inflation, prices are also back to 1986 levels. And 1955 levels. And 1895 levels (see chart).

That’s because the natural rate of price appreciation for houses is zero after inflation. Prices will eventually stop falling. They’ll resume rising. But over the long term, they’re unlikely to resume rising faster than inflation.

[source]

PG View: This article suggests that housing is not a terribly efficient inflation hedge. While gold is undervalued as well when adjusted for inflation, it is a significantly more liquid asset.

01-May (USAGOLD) — Gold has been somewhat choppy again this morning; coming in higher initially on a weaker dollar and then selling off on the April ISM beat, only to recover into stable territory. The yellow metal remains firmly entrenched within the broad range defined by the 1920.50 high from September 2011 and the 1522.40 low from December. Yet as my colleagues and I discussed in the latest USAGOLD VideoRoundtable, there may be reason to believe that the protracted period of consolidation may not last through the summer.

Persistent expectations that the Fed will launch additional quantitative measures may ultimately prove to be the catalyst for such a breakout. These expectations have served to put a floor under the market, protecting the low end the range. With the number of double-dipping economies in Europe on the rise, it may be just a matter of time before the entire EU is back in recession. This risks pulling the US back into recession as well, and last week’s US Q1 GDP miss may be a harbinger of just such a reality.

Japan remains a mess with their economy continuing to contract. The BoJ announced additional asset purchases late last week, because the past 20-years of ZIRP and QE have proven so successful (not!) that they may as well keep going to the same well. On top of that, concerns about a hard-landing in China linger, despite some indications to the contrary.

Even commodity based economies are starting to feel the pinch. Canadian GDP for February came in at a weaker than expected -0.2%, dashing hopes for an imminent BoC rate hike. The Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates a larger than expected 50 bps today on rising risks to growth.

More debt. More ZIRP. More QE. More currency printing. And I’m not just talking about here in the US. I’m talking a global reality check. Everything that has taken gold from just over $300 a decade ago to more than $1900 last September is still very much going on, and may be on the verge of accelerating dramatically in the coming months. There is every reason to believe that the present consolidation is simply a pause withing the long-term trend.

• US ISM rose to 54.8 in Apr, above market expectations of 53.0 and weaker whisper, vs 53.4 in Mar.
• US construction spending +0.1% in Mar, below market expectations +0.4%, vs negative revised -1.4% in Feb.
• UK CIPS manufacturing PMI fell to 50.5 in Apr, below expectations of 51.7, vs negative revised 51.9.
• South Korea CPI 2.5% y/y in Apr, vs 2.6% y/y in Mar.
• South Korea Trade Balance-CC (USD) $2.15 bln in Apr, vs upward revised $2.5 bln in Mar.
• China PMI Manufacturing (CFLP) rose to 53.3 in Apr, vs 53.1 in Mar.
• Thailand CPI 2.47% y/y in Apr, vs 3.45% y/y in Mar.
• Indonesia CPI 4.5% y/y in Apr, vs 3.97% y/y in Mar.
• Indonesia Trade Balance (USD) $0.8 bln in Mar, vs upward revised $0.8 bln in Feb.
• RBA cut the official cash rate by 50 bps to 3.75%. A smaller 25 bp cut was expected.

Growth in lending to euro zone firms and consumers slowed in March as banks scaled up purchases of government bonds, showing that an ambitious funding drive by the European Central Bank has yet to trickle down to the real economy.

Monday’s ECB data offered the first pointer to loan activity since the central bank completed the second of two tenders that flooded the euro zone’s banking sector with more than 1 trillion euros of cheap three-year cash.

The tenders, which ended in February, “have not had a very significant positive effect on loan growth,” said Berenberg Bank economist Christian Schulz.

“They have only averted an imminent credit crunch, but they have not yet had a major positive impact on growth in Europe.” Overall money growth in the currency bloc accelerated faster than expected in March, the data also showed, potentially pointing to a stronger recovery ahead.

[source]

30-Apr (Bloomberg) — A recession in Spain and forecasts of rising unemployment in the 17-nation euro area are amplifying criticism of the German-led austerity agenda in election campaigns this week in France and Greece.

With Spain’s largest unions leading marches involving thousands of protesters in 55 cities yesterday, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government battled to prevent Spain from becoming the next country to seek a bailout. In France, where the presidential-election runoff is set for May 6, Socialist frontrunner Francois Hollande pushed back against German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s focus on deficit reduction.
Spain Needs More Austerity, Fiscal Treaty, Schulz Says

“Watching Spain now is exactly like watching Ireland around October 2010 before Ireland was forced into its bailout,” Megan Greene, a senior economist at Roubini Global Economics LLC, told Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart” on April 27. “The government can’t win no matter what it does.”

[source]

30-Apr (USAGOLD) — Gold has been rather choppy this morning, selling off initially on the slightly better than expected personal income print. However, the robust spending reflected in the February PCE data (upward revised to +0.9%) was not echoed in March, which came in below expectations at +0.3%. Additionally, big misses on Chicago ISM and the Dallas Fed manufacturing index are suggestive of mounting risks to growth. That translates into rising QE3 expectations and gold has recovered much of the earlier losses and is threatening to set new highs for the day.

This morning, the Census Bureau released its Q1 HVS data, showing that the homeownership rate had fallen to 65.4%, down from 66.0% in Q4-11 and the lowest level since the mid-1990s. Last week the S&P Case/Shiller home price index showed a sixth consecutive monthly drop in February and Robert Shiller told Reuters that he’s worried “that we might not see a really major turnaround in our lifetimes”. This has grim implications for the broader economy as rising home values in the years leading up to the crash had such a positive wealth effect. The prospect that home values may continue to have a negative wealth effect for some time to come — and perhaps even an entire generation — is further incentive for the Fed to maintain their super-accommodative policy stance for the foreseeable future, and perhaps launch additional quantitative measures directed specifically at the housing market.

Arguably the global financial crisis — and much of the turmoil that plagues global markets to this day — sprang from the US housing market. It would seem that both fiscal and monetary policy decisions have been largely unsuccessful in removing the dead-weight that is housing from the shoulders of the broader economy. Yet, that probably wont dissuade policymakers from further muddying the market with additional measures.

• Dallas Fed manufacturing index tumbled to -3.4 in Apr, well below market expectations of 8.0, vs 10.8 in Mar.
• HVS homeownership rate fell to 65.4% in Q1, down from 66.0% in Q4-11.
• Chicago ISM falls to 56.2 in Apr, well below market expectations of 60.8, vs 62.2 in Mar.
• US personal income +0.4% in Mar, above expectations of +0.3%, vs upward revised 0.3% in Feb; PCE +0.3%.
• Canada GDP disappoints at -0.2% in Feb, on expectations of +0.2%, vs +0.1% in Jan.
• UK Hometrack House Prices (nsa) -0.9% y/y in Apr, vs -1.0% y/y in Mar.
• Much of Europe closed for Labour Day.
• New Zealand merchandise trade balance NZ$134M in Mar, vs upward revised NZ$202M in Feb.
• South Korea industrial production +0.3% y/y in Mar, vs +14.4% y/y in Feb.
• Singapore unemployment rate (sa) 2.1% in Apr, vs 2.0% in Mar.

The Census Bureau released the Housing Vacancies and Homeownership report for Q1 2012 this morning.

This report is frequently mentioned by analysts and the media to track the homeownership rate, and the homeowner and rental vacancy rates. However, based on the initial evaluation, it appears the vacancy rates are too high.

The Red dots are the decennial Census homeownership rates for April 1st 1990, 2000 and 2010. The HVS homeownership rate declined to 65.4%, down from to 66.0% in Q4 2011 and at the lowest level for this survey since the mid-90s.

[source]

by Alistair Darling
27-Apr (The Financial Times) — The job as chancellor is a lonely one. You are often the bearer of bad news. Frequently you are depicted as Scrooge. So I do have some sympathy for George Osborne’s position. But it is now three and a half years since the collapse of Lehmans and if I had thought then that Britain would this week plunge into a double-dip recession – and be engulfed in the longest downturn for a century – I would have been appalled. The truth is that austerity is not working.

Almost exactly two years ago austerity was launched as the sure way to recovery. Today that central plank on which the coalition was formed is splintering. The government has defined itself by this central purpose. The evidence is that it is failing, badly. Like first world war generals, it is sticking with an orthodoxy that is not working. The question is whether it will accept the need to change tack.

[source]

PG View: Former chancellor of the exchequer Darling calls for more borrowed stimulus (infrastructure spending) and more QE.

27-Apr (The Financial Times) — In the week when the UK entered a double-dip recession, there is some irony in the fact that the pound has hit its highest level since August 2009 – a development that flies in the face of the government’s attempts to rebalance the economy.

If there has been any theme central to economic recovery in Britain, it has been the role that a weaker currency would play in fixing an economy that has become increasingly out of kilter.

…A weaker pound – engineered in part by near-zero interest rates and monetary stimulus in the form of quantitative easing – has been central to the recovery theme since the crisis began.

[source]

PG View: Too bad a weaker currency is central to everybody else’s recovery theme as well.

30-Apr (CNNMoney) — Spain has fallen into its second recession since 2009 as its economy shrank for the second consecutive quarter, according to a government report Monday.

There are now a dozen European nations that have had their economies shrink for two consecutive quarters, a condition that generally equates to a recession.

The Spanish economy, struggling with the aftermath of the bursting of a housing bubble, has been particularly hard hit by the economic turmoil rolling across Europe. On Friday, the government reported that Spain’s unemployment rate hit record high of 24.4%.

Spain’s economy shrank by 0.3% from the previous quarter in the first three months of 2012, the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica said. The decline matched the 0.3% quarter-over-quarter decline in the fourth quarter of 2012.

[source]

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has an interesting column in this morning’s London Telegraph dealing with the potential effects of a win by Socialist Francois Hollande in the upcoming French election:

“If I am elected president, there will be a change in Europe’s construction. We’re not just any country: we can change the situation,” he [Francois Hollande] said.

European allies are flocking to his cause from left and right, he claims. Not even Austria supports Germany’s austerity drive any longer.

This then is the birth of a Euroland growth bloc with well over 200m people and a commanding majority vote in the European Council, a defining moment in this saga. Mario Draghi at the European Central Bank is quickly bending to the new political dispensation with calls for a ‘Growth Compact’. The Commission – liberated at last – is finding ways to ‘extend deadlines” on fiscal targets.’”

Link (London Telegraph, 4/29/12)

Wall Street Journal poll

MK Question: What if Germany, not Greece or Spain, were the first country to exit the euro? Says Evans-Pritchard, “the epicentre of Europe’s political crisis may soon be Germany itself.”

“That’s why today I want to talk about another cancer breakthrough that epitomizes this new era. It’s found in gold. As it turns out, gold is a natural-born killer of unhealthy human cells. It has distinct properties that make it ideal for linking medical science with the new field of nanotech. . .

A new kind of gold rush has started. And not only can you make money from it – it could also save the human race from the most deadly diseases. . .I predict that by the end of this decade, gold will be used as a lethal weapon in the battle against a wide range of killer tumors.”

Link (Money Morning, 4/29/12)

MK comment: Gold puts on its cape. Saving portfolios. Saving lives.

As many of you already know, I have always appreciated the analysis of James Grant. He not only knows how to analyze an economic scenario, any economic scenario, he also knows how to turn a phrase – a potent combination. By some means, and I don’t know how it came to be, he was asked to address the New York Federal Reserve and offer his critique of the institution. The link provided below yields the result. Grant is Ron Paul’s choice to become head of the Federal Reserve should Paul ever become president of the United States – an occasion that seems increasingly removed from the realm of possibility, though one cannot rule out a third party run. In this speech, Grant mentions a couple of the changes he would make if he were to become chairman of the Fed. The one proposal that sticks in the mind is that he would establish the Fed’s first Office of Unintended Consequences – and what a busy place it would be.

I was interested to see James Sinclair’s assessment of Fed policy since the 2008 financial crisis in his interview with Futures magazine. In it he said that we should not blame chairman Ben Bernanke for flooding the economy with money in the wake of the events of late 2008, early 2009. “Anybody who says Bernanke is a dope or didn’t react properly is a fool. He did what he had to do,” says Sinclair. I go along with him on that, but just the same, our collective economic futures might be the first casualty to be dragged before Grant’s Office of Unintended Consequences.

People are surprised when I tell them I could live with or without a gold standard. What Greece, Spain and the rest are experiencing right now is akin to what would happen to the United States if it were to return to the true gold standard. Iceland has its own currency and with it printing rights – something of which it has availed itself. Greece does not. Iceland is coming back. Greece is sinking further. As long as individuals can own gold and put themselves on the gold standard, so to speak, that is all most of us really need. After all, it’s not like waving a magic golden wand: Put the country on the gold standard and all our problems vanish. Now there is much talk of a return to the gold standard, and most people say that this should make me feel vindicated. At the same time, though I believe the standard has its advantages, it also has its drawbacks.

As for the printing of paper money, like most other outcomes, it too has its unintended consequences – read inflation – even if you dress the policy up, as Grant puts it, “under the frosted-glass term ‘quantitative easing.’” In lieu of printing money when the situation calls for it, we are likely to experience an economic depression should the economy go to pieces. We live in an imperfect world, full of unintended, and totally unforeseen consequences — even by the greatest minds among us. Isaac Newton, one of the greatest scientists to ever live, lost the equivalent of $1 million when the South Seas bubble burst in 1720. John Maynard Keynes, the leading economist of his times and advisor to prime ministers and presidents, lost a fortune in the crash of ’29. There are other examples, but I will stop with the two.

Perhaps that is why I remained a gold broker and advocate most of my adult life. My advocacy however does not stretch to the political realm. It stays strictly at the level of individual action. In short, I believe the best remedy for our periodic plunges into economic misery, be they inflationary or deflationary, comes in the form of gold coins and bullion – the most reliable palliative to the human economic condition.

At any rate, here is the link to James Grant’s extraordinary speech titled “Piece of My Mind.” Mr. Grant advocates the gold standard. My apologies if it has been posted before.

Link

____________

Address your comments, questions and analysis to:

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For further posting to this page.

I look forward to hearing from you.

MK

I just finished watching the latest USAGOLD-TV Video Roundtable and it offers something very special to our current and prospective clientele: A look at current events from the gold perspective and that is something you cannot readily find elsewhere. This video makes the case that we might very well be at a watershed for the price after a long period of consolidation. This year, we might be in for some fireworks later this spring and during the usually quiet summer months.

Find out why here . . . . . .

Link

MK

I came across an interesting article buried in this morning’s weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal that I thought I would pass along. It had to do with an announcement that China had just completed the sixth largest single purchase of corn from American farmers in history — 1.44 million tonnes. Corn Friday jumped 4.6% on the news to $6.53 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade. According to the article, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports recent sales of 2.84 million metric tonnes of corn to China, or “unknown buyers.” The CRB, a general index of commodities, was up over 2% on the week.

Over the past several months, gold’s rangebound behavior has been blamed, among other things, on an economic slowdown in China which would in turn affect its appetite for commodities. This corn purchase is one of the first signs that China’s loss of appetite for commodities might have been overstated. It could be too why gold suddenly decided to go higher last week even though the news from the Federal Reserve was not overly gold friendly.

In this case, what is good for the corn market might very well be good for the gold market.

MK

27-Apr (Financial Times) — When Mariano Rajoy was elected prime minister of Spain last autumn, it looked like a silver lining had appeared in the dark clouds over the eurozone. Despite his repeated support for austerity, Mr Rajoy had sent the people of Spain a message of hope for the future. His big election win suggested significant popular support for his reform agenda.

Five months on, this sense of hopefulness has all but disappeared in Madrid. With unemployment approaching 25 per cent and yields on 10-year bond rates stuck near 6 per cent, politicians’ rhetoric has changed too. Speaking on the radio this week, the foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, admitted the government’s near-despair when he said that “Spain is undergoing a crisis of enormous proportions”.

[source]

François Hollande is predicted to win France’s presidential election, but his victory could endanger the euro zone’s carefully negotiated fiscal pact. He also wants to water down the European Central Bank’s statutes, forcing it to lend more to promote economic growth. But his plans would do little more than borrow time — and they could be very dangerous for Germany.

The whole ghastly process is now set in motion. Not just for Chancellor Angela Merkel, but also for anyone who still had a modicum of hope that the worst of Europe’s debt crisis had already been overcome.

The opinion pollsters were right — François Hollande won the first round of the French presidential election last Sunday. According to all the polls, he will also win the runoff vote on May 6. If he wins, he would become the second Socialist president of the Fifth Republic, following in the footsteps of François Mitterrand.

For France’s neighbors and the fight against the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, that will set everything back to square one.

[source]

26-Apr (Reuters) – Standard & Poor’s on Thursday cut its credit rating on Spain by two notches, citing expectations the government finances will deteriorate even more than previously thought as a result of a contracting economy and an ailing banking sector.

The ratings agency, which downgraded Spain to BBB-plus from A, also put a negative outlook on the credit and said Spain’s situation could deteriorate further unless ambitious measures were taken at European level.

[source]

27-Apr (USAGOLD) — Gold has pushed to new highs on the week, buoyed by the BoJ’s pledge of an additional ¥10 trillion in asset purchases and another uptick in QE3 expectations here in the States as well. While the yellow metal remains narrowly confined within the recent range, upside pressures seem to be mounting.

Fed chairman Bernanke very clearly indicated earlier in the week that the Fed stands ready to initiate “additional balance sheet actions if necessary”. The central bank has maintained of late that the launching of additional quantitative measures is data dependent; well if the Fed’s finger is hovering over the switch to the printing press, today’s weaker than expected Q1 GDP print likely made them flinch. Taken in conjunction with recent misses on durable goods orders, housing data, employment data, among others, arguably the odds of QE3 have risen significantly in recent weeks; the Fed’s own rosier outlook on the economy not withstanding.

While ¥10 trillion ($124.3 bln) is not exactly chump change, the market was quick to realize this was no big bazooka. With inflation currently around 0.2%, it’s going to take a lot more than ¥10 trillion to get inflation up to the 1.0% target. In his press conference, BoJ Governor Shirakawa acknowledged that the central bank was taking a gradual approach to raising prices amid worries of a destabilizing overshoot saying, “Recklessly easing without taking into account that lag effect would destabilize price moves.”

With the Japanese economy contracting, the UK back in recession, moribund growth in the US, persistent worries of a hard-landing in China and Europe back on the brink of turmoil, I’m not sure global markets will have much tolerance for monetary prudence. In fact, I would expect calls for reckless abandon on the monetary policy front to grow louder and louder as oppressive and growing debt loads continue to weigh on growth.

The markets and economies of the world are addicted to cheap and easy money, withholding that now is going to result in a fierce case of the DTs world wide. As with an addict, withdrawal is a necessary process that must be endured if there is any hope of resuming with a more normal and worthwhile existence. But in the worse case scenarios, if the addiction is so great, the withdrawal process can kill the patient.

I don’t believe we’ve reached that point yet, but the continuation of über-easy monetary policy, liquidity measures and other accommodations certainly push us ever-closer to that point.

• University of Michigan sentiment (final) revised higher to 76.4 in Apr, above market expectations of 75.7, vs 75.7 initially.
• US Q1 ECI +0.4%, below market expectations of 0.5%, vs 0.5% in Q4-11.
• US Q1 GDP +2.2%, below market expectations of +2.5%, down from 3.0% in Q4-11.
• Germany GfK consumer confidence fell to 5.6 for May, below expectations of 5.9, vs 5.9 in Apr.
• Germany import price index +0.7% m/m in Mar, below expectations of 1.0%, vs 1.0% in Feb; +3.1% y/y.
• Switzerland KOF Leading Indicator rose to 0.40 in Apr, above expectations of 0.13, vs upward revised 0.09 in Mar.
• France PPI +0.5% m/m in Mar, below expecations of +0.6%, vs negative revised 0.7% on Feb; +3.7% y/y.
• Italy retail sales (sa) +0.6% m/m in Mar, vs positive revised +1.1% in Feb; +0.1% y/y.
• Japan housing starts +5.0% y/y in Mar, vs +7.5% y/y in Feb.
• Japan construction orders -0.3% y/y in Mar, vs -1.8% y/y in Feb.
• BoJ holds steady on Target Overnight Call Rate at 0.10% max. Increases asset purchases by ¥10 trillion.
• Taiwan Leading Economic Index +1.2% m/m in Mar, vs upward revised +1.2% m/m in Feb.
• Malaysia M3 +15.0% y/y in Mar, vs +15.9% y/y in Feb.