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Are We There Yet?

With the US$ sinking and Gold setting new highs every few days those, like me, who have been waiting for the final collapse of the current $ based international financial system have one question on our minds- “are we there yet?”

“Not yet. But we’re getting very close.”

This past week the US electorate, in a fit of justified pique over Democratic failure to fix the broken (at least from the perspective of the majority of US citizens) economy, put Republicans back in charge of the House of Representatives. Big Finance must have viewed election results with glee. Gridlock, as we Americans lovingly refer to government divided and thus incapable of passing radical legislation, means the Volcker Rules (or other meaningful financial reforms) have an even slimmer chance of becoming law.

Coincidentally, the Federal Reserve announced plans to buy, during the next 9 months, $600B of long dated US Treasuries- a policy they refer to as “quantitative easing”. I prefer “monetizing debt” to avoid confusion.

While Big Finance in the US celebrated the return of Gridlock and the gift from the Fed, our foreign financiers most likely took a less sanguine view of the policy changes. US banks will soon be free to take even bigger risks while the Fed actively drives the value of the US$- the ultimate “asset” our financiers are promised- ever lower.

The wonderfully apt, in this case, phrase, “thick face,” no doubt crossed many Chinese minds as they pondered US Treasury Secretary Geithner’s proposed current account targets to “accelerate global rebalancing” in the context of US debt monetization and ever more impotent regulation of the big banks who have led the world to the current impasse.

To wit- Cui Tiankai, a deputy foreign minister and one of China’s lead negotiators at the G20, said on Friday, “We believe a discussion about a current account target misses the whole point,” he added, in the first official comment by a senior Chinese official on the subject. “If you look at the global economy, there are many issues that merit more attention – for example, the question of quantitative easing.”

It seems to me a sign of the times that Mr. Geithner didn’t respond to current concerns over the declining $ as Nixon’s Treasury Secretary, John Connally once did, i.e. the US$ “is our currency, but your problem.” The swagger of US policy makers evident in decades past is now shrouded in sophisticated euphemism- but the effects will be similar.

“But, are we there yet?”

“Not yet.”

There is, in my view, one last road sign before we reach our destination. When the US Bond Market begins to “fight the Fed”- a strategy normally as wise as spitting into the wind- we will begin the end stage of our journey to a new system of international finance. When US Bond prices fall despite Fed intervention (better yet, when bond prices fall on news of increased intervention) the excrement will be about to hit the fan in international finance.

We must, however, be getting close. I noticed the Fed established the Office of Financial Stability and Research this past Thursday. Talk about closing the barn door after the horses have all escaped.

Originally posted at Dude… Where’s the Dharma Thanks to the Dude for permission to repost!

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