Since they know nothing about plumbing, it isn’t long before the boys have connected the water pipes to a conduit and water is pouring out everywhere. Of course, the party is ruined and the house is wrecked.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is Moe, Larry and Curly all rolled into one, and his efforts to stop the leaky economy have been as successful as the boys’ efforts were in fixing the dripping pipe. Bernanke’s latest effort of quantitative easing — known as QE2 — is running out, and the bubble he created is deflating faster than one of the Stooges’ helium-filled cakes.
Last week, a Chinese ratings house accused the United States of defaulting on its massive debt by allowing the dollar to weaken against other currencies — eroding the wealth of its creditors, the biggest of which is China.
China holds $1.145 trillion of U.S. Treasury securities. That is down from its peak of $1.175 trillion in October, according to a story by the AFP news service.
China, the No. 1 holder of U.S. debt, is now a seller of U.S. Treasuries. Japan, the second largest holder of U.S. Treasuries, may soon be a seller as well. It needs money to repair infrastructure following this year’s earthquake and tsunami.
The stock market was down six weeks in a row before last week, when it finally finished a week on an up note. According to The Economic Collapse blog, that hasn’t happened since the dotcom bubble burst in May 2001.
The false euphoria created by QE2, which propped up Bernanke’s Wall Street buddies by driving money into the market, has worn off. Investors realize this, and they are looking for new places to put their money.
Meanwhile, once again, John and Jane American are watching their meager retirement funds dry up. Unemployment is up (the true unemployment rate, which includes discouraged workers, is 22.3 percent, according to the National Inflation Association), manufacturing and consumer confidence are down and one in seven Americans is on food stamps. Millions of Americans receive some sort of government assistance.
The price of everything is increasing. According to NIA: “90% of sporting goods manufacturers have seen their input costs rise substantially this year and 41% of them have already announced major price increases for athletic apparel, footwear, and sports equipment. As the 8,000 toy manufacturers in China are forced to raise the wages they pay their employees, Toys R’ Us is now beginning to see major wholesale price increases for their products, which they will have to pass on to U.S. consumers. Hasbro recently raised prices on all of their products by 6% to 7%. Mattel recently imposed an across the board high single digit price increase after reporting a 33% decline in quarterly profits (despite sales surging by 8%) due to skyrocketing raw material costs.”
May sales reflected what consumers thought of the rising prices. Retail sales fell for the first time in 11 months. The drop in sales hit autos, electronics, appliances, furniture, groceries, sports retailers and department stores.
Bernanke said he wanted inflation. He got his wish. Now the question is: Is it getting out of hand?
With no one to buy U.S. Treasuries, Bernanke is going to have to buy them. He’ll do this by printing more money. That’s a recipe for hyperinflation.
Bernanke is said to be a student of history and well-versed on the Great Depression. If so, he knows how depressions are cooked up. So either he’s not as smart as he thinks he is or he thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.
Either way, it’s a recipe for disaster.
In April, Standard & Poor’s put a “negative” outlook on the U.S. credit rating, citing rising budget deficits and debt.
“We believe there is a material risk that U.S. policy makers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013. If an agreement is not reached and meaningful implementation does not begin by the year 2012, this would in our view render the U.S. fiscal profile meaningfully weaker than that of peer ‘AAA’ sovereigns.”
This is comical! These are the same rating agencies that put AAA ratings on the subprime garbage that collapsed the U.S. economy in 2008. This is meaningless and for public consumption.
Note that there is no mention that the U.S. is already bankrupt and the rule of law has become a political cesspool. Standard & Poor’s outlook is more of a cover-up than a revelation.
The supposedly developed world, including the U.S., is drowning in debt, and the only solution the powers that be in Washington have is to print more trillions in fiat paper money.
Above the whole mess, a world currency war is going on. There is a race to the bottom of worthless currencies, with the U.S. dollar leading the way.
Imagine that in this muddy chaos, it is the most worthless currency that is the most desirable until the final collapse.
Where is our reasoning? Governments and central banks, the creators of worthless fiat, are seductively impoverishing all who hold and save paper money. This is total war for survival, yet not one in 10 million even suspects that anything is wrong. So we await the deluge like cattle waiting for slaughter. But we don’t have to wait long, because the collapse is now visible and in progress.
The great sovereign deception is now full-blown, led by the name brand rating agencies like Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, etc. These are the people who took payoffs to rate the great masquerade of collateralized mortgage scams as “investment grade.”
The U.S. Bond market fits squarely into the Ponzi scheme of the ages.
We are in the center of the world debt crisis, and there is no solution except collapse and a slate wiped clean.
When the homeowners discovered the wreckage the Stooges had wrought, they chased them from their home. When Bernanke is done with his work, there won’t be a home left to chase him from.
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