What does financial repression mean? .. short video explainer by Project M.

“This manipulation of the yield on government debt is the answer for the government, and socially, it is so much more acceptable than the alternatives. Whatever you think of the history of hyperinflation, austerity, default and deflation, they are socially incredibly disruptive, incredibly socially dangerous, and many of those market-driven events have led to warfare or massive domestic social unrest. I think in the grand scheme of things when the government sits down and decides which avenue to pursue, this avenue of repression .. will always be more socially acceptable than the market-driven events of austerity, hyperinflation, deflation, devaluation.”

– Russell Napier, CLSA

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

The 16th annual Geneva Report by the International Centre for Monetary and Banking Studies & written by senior economists including 3 former senior central bankers, predicts interest rates across the world will have to stay low for a “very, very long” time to enable households, companies, & governments to service their debts and avoid another crash .. The report’s authors expect interest rates to stay lower than market expectations because the rise in debt means that borrowers would be unable to withstand faster rate rises .. 
“Global debt-to-GDP is still growing, breaking new highs .. At the same time, in a poisonous combination, world growth and inflation are also lower than previously expected, also – though not only – as a legacy of the past crisis. Deleveraging and slower nominal growth are in many cases interacting in a vicious loop, with the latter making the deleveraging process harder and the former exacerbating the economic slowdown. Moreover, the global capacity to take on debt has been reduced through the combination of slower expansion in real output and lower inflation.”

LINK HERE to the article

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

Great insightful article on financial repression by Daniel Amerman .. questions how the U.S. federal government can pay down its enormous debt .. sees 4 primary options that the government can take:

The essay reminds readers the 4th option is the likely approach, points out the world took this approach in the 1940s through the 1970s to pay down government debt .. “Because of the sheer size of the problem – most of the population must be made to participate, year after year. Financial Repression therefore uses an assortment of carrots and sticks to ensure that investors have little choice but to participate – on a playing field that has been rigged against them as a matter of design – even if they are among the small minority who are aware of what is being done to them.”The essay covers 4 areas of financial repression:

LINK HERE to the 2-part essay

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

Bill Bonner explains why financial repression of interest rates will, without question, wreck the economy ..  “Anything is possible in a NIRP (negative-interest-rate policy) world .. When central banks are resorting to negative interest rates, as the ECB did recently, everything goes topsy-turvy. A trillion dollars here… a trillion there. Pretty soon we’re talking about the end of the world as we have known it .. In Neverland, things are never what they seem. And we never know what they should be. Real prices are not set. They are discovered. Every minute. Every day. We know that today’s interest rates are not exactly on the level. But we don’t know how far off they are. Because the process of discovery has been perverted .. The interest rate you will pay depends on who you are. If you are a well-connected financial insider—say, a member of the Federal Reserve’s banking cartel—you can borrow from the Fed at 0.25% a year .. As Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon observed in the 18th century, when they are handing out free money, it pays to be in the front of the line. That’s because as more dollars are created, each one translates to a smaller slice of all goods and services produced. So expansionary monetary policies constitute a transfer of purchasing power away from those who hold old money to those who get new money.”

LINK HERE to the article

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

In July, Janet Yellen remarked about what seems to be her preferred choice, a topic that has been central to her Chair.

.. efforts to promote financial stability through adjustments in interest rates would increase the volatility of inflation and employment. As a result, I believe a macroprudential approach to supervision and regulation needs to play the primary role.

We are, as Yellen proclaims, in the capable hands of regulators and their “macroprudential” systems and arcana:

The Federal Reserve is stepping up its oversight of high-risk leveraged loans, shifting to a deal-by-deal review after its previous industry-wide guidelines were largely ignored by banks.

Truer words have never been written, as if you were observing the leveraged loan market from afar with little prior experience you would come to the conclusion that there was no such thing as “guidelines” in leveraged loans.

Until now, supervisors collected loan data in an annual survey, and last year told banks they needed better adherence to standards they put forth in guidelines in March 2013. Over the past several weeks, they have shifted tactics and are examining loans as they are made, showing a new urgency in avoiding the kind of overly risky lending that was blamed for igniting the financial crisis.

To sum up: the leverage lending market had prior guidelines that were supervised (using that term loosely) via an annual loan survey leading to a surge in the kind of “overly risky lending” usually reserved for the bitter ends of cycle peaks; and now, long after all that behavior has been entrenched and hundreds of billions of loans made, macroprudential policy wishes to step up regulatory pressure.

LINK HERE to Article

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

Owner trades Pro Bowler Logan Mankins (2nd highest player on team)

Fans in shock & disbelief – Team paralysed – Sports writers say it makes absolutely no sense?

~Now 15M under Salary Gap

“The Patriots only pay to stay a contender – nothing more – damn the fans!”

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

Financial repression is a term introduced in 1973 by Stanfordeconomists Edward S. Shaw & Ronald I. McKinnon & refers to the collction of economic policies, regulations & capital controls imposed by governments & central banks to facilitate public-sector deleveraging ..Allianz: “Today, with countries across the developed world entangled in debt, financial repression offers a roadmap to fiscal stability and a strong incentive for market intervention. But there are costs. Government intervention can produce market distortions—including today’s artificially low interest rates. In an environment of even moderate inflation, these low rates can result in negative real investment returns. That is why we believe it is critical for investors to understand how financial repression works, why governments choose to use it and what tools are best-suited to protect assets and purchasing power.”

LINK HERE to the article

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

Article highlights the challenges of investing in today’s abnormal environment characterized by financial repression & unorthodox policies of record low interest rates & money printing.

LINK HERE to the article

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

The Wolves now guard the hen house – The full ProPublica story can be found here.

The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes 09-26-14 Michael Lewis Bloomberg

And for those who are time-constrained, and would rather just read the Cliff Notes (the ending should be known to everyone by now), here is Michael Lewis with an op-ed in Bloomberg summarizing the banker-controlled farce the entire US system has devolved to: “The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes”

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

FT Adviser essay considers the factors influencing the financial markets & wealth preservation .. low interest rates have driven investors away from bonds to speculate in stocks in which both the risks & potential rewards are higher .. emphasizes the negative effects of inflation & low interest rates on investments .. “Bonds are nominal assets rather than real assets, so they do not grow their income in order to counter inflation. This fact, along with the prospect of interest rates rising to counter higher expected inflation, will be on investors’ minds. Once investors have moved to high-yield bonds, the step up the risk curve to equities is no longer a million miles away – the advantage being that equities are real assets, and so may be expected to grow in line with, or even ahead of, inflation.” .. highlights the effects of financial repression on keeping interest rates close to 0 to stimulate the economy .. 

LINK HERE to the article

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

Forbes posted essay on the emerging clash between the plans of Alibaba to develop their financial offerings in China & the Chinese state policy of financial repression .. Alibaba’s plans are to expand their offerings in the financial sector include offering loans at 5.5% .. China has a deliberate policy of financial repression forces savers to buy property, buy life insurance or deposit money into a bank account . the savings deposit rates are very low, typically 1% .. inflation is higher than that, so depositors are losing money by depositing .. “Financial repression is not bullying people into giving you their money, it’s restricting options so that interest rates stay low. And as I say this is a deliberate public policy in China, to ensure that interest rates do stay low by limiting those savings options .. All of which makes this a most interesting little scenario. The current financial repression means that if Alibaba is able to continue with its plans then it will have a very successful product on its hands. But of course, there are those who benefit from the current repression and will they allow them to continue? In the long run the end of those limitations upon how the Chinese may save will benefit everyone. And they’ll almost certainly happen as well, in that long run. The question is going to be well, what happens in the short term?”

LINK HERE to the article

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

“The Canadian government has had to warn its citizens not to carry cash to the USA because the USA does not presume innocence but guilt when it comes to money. Over $2.5 billion has been confiscated from Canadians traveling to the USA, funding the police who grab it .. If you are bringing cash to the land of the free .. they are FREE to seize all your money under the pretense you are engaged in drugs with no evidence or other charges .. It costs more money in legal fees to try to get it back so it is a boom business .. only one in six people ever try to get their money back .. Money confiscated is usually allowed to be kept by the department who confiscated it .. This is strangely working its way into funding police and pensions .. This is identical to the very issue that resulted in the final collapse of Rome when the armies began to sack cities to pay for their pensions.”

– Martin Armstrong

LINK HERE to the article

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

WallStrForMainStr Interviews Gordon T Long:

“We have over 250 interviews with top guests in discussion. The Gordon T Long discussion is over an hour long and one of the best ones we’ve done all year.”

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

American Thinker posted essay on the fusion of government & major corporations we have come to call “crony capitalism” .. the essay takes the position that crony capitalism evolves as the private sector’s creative powers gradually decay amidst a government intent on the confiscation & redistribution of wealth .. “As the political state is incapable of creating wealth, as wealth can only arise in the private sector, the very act of confiscation and redistribution of that private sector wealth severely inhibits the investment that sustains the private sector’s creation of it. The result is that the private sector’s creative powers gradually decay. The source of new wealth cut off, wealth depletes. This degradation can only be delayed, not abated, by some sort of crony capitalism in which the state attempts to force private investment either by mandates and penalties or giving special subsidies; by picking winners .. I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter how far left the political philosophy that guides political decisions, the net depletion of economic wealth to be distributed will always lead to some sort of crony capitalism. As wealth depletion continues from weak private investment, confiscatory taxation, restrictive labor laws and the like, the welfare state relies ever more heavily upon coercion, both social and legal, and upon economic subsidies to favored firms to sustain itself .. France exemplifies this system.”

LINK HERE to the article

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

“The G20 Central Bankers and Finance Ministers met in CAIRNS, Australia, Sept 21st, 2014. This Summit reflects the attitudes about manipulating the economy where they just do not get it .. I warned what Obama was up to with the pension funds in trying to create an Infrastructure Fund ….. Calpers,California pension fund, is selling off $4 billion of hedge funds to divert that money to be wasted in Obama’s dream project – the infrastructure fund .. This idea was floated and endorsed at CAIRNS ..  These are being called Public Private Partnerships (PPP), and will be extremely critical in the future for here lies the final destruction of the pension funds precisely as Japan bankrupted the Japanese Postal Saving Fund using that private money for political purposes to try to stimulate the economy, which failed. With PPP, public funds will be sold to the public as being a highly professional long-term investment that will further shrink economic growth and liquidity. They cannot possibly work .. How do pension funds make money on repairing infrastructure? Toll booths will pop up everywhere.”

– Martin Armstrong

LINK HERE to the article

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

Special Guest: Mike (Mish) Shedlock – MISH’S Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish Shedlock talks Financial Repression with Gordon T Long.

FINANCIAL REPRESSION

“Financial Repression is a set of fiscal & monetary policies for the express benefit of the ruling class – the politicians, the banks, and the already wealthy at the expense of everyone else”

THE GOAL

“It is about coercing the government into doing things that are in the express interest of the ruling class. The already wealthy are the ones who gain the most”

MISH ON “WAR”

“War is another example of Financial Repression. Who benefits?  The war mongers – the banks, politicians and wealthy. You can’t even get elected if you don’t support war because the whole Military-Industrial Complex is behind it and you will be labeled ‘weak on defense’”

THE COMING CURRENCY CRISIS

Mish believes a currency crisis is coming which is most likely to start outside the US in likely Europe or Japan.

“This environment fosters banks and the wealthy to speculate. When it ends badly and we have to bail them out the average guy on the street is going to pay for it – again”

FINANCIAL BUBBLES

“Financial Bubbles are a direct result of all these policies for the benefits of the banks and wealthy …. That is what the Fed does. That is what central banks do. They blow bubbles over time for the benefits of banks and wealthy”

MISH ON KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS

“No one has gone back and proven how idiotic it all is. This idea that you can pay to dig a ditch and then have someone else fill it back up and this will add economic benefit is lunacy! Yet the average Keynesian believes that. A sixth grader would find in inherently ridiculous!”

MISH’S VIEW ON HOW INVESTORS CAN PROTECT THEMSELVES

“Don’t participate in bubbles!! Get out of the financial markets. Buy some Gold and wait.”

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

Special Guest: Douglas E. French – Author, Past President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and noted Casey Research Contributor

“The biggest bubble we have is US Treasuries. The believe you can’t get hurt is a quality you always see in a bubble. The idea that lending an entity, that is $17T and going to $18T and beyond in debt, and will never be able to pay that back and the idea that you will get 2.5% for 10 years and it is ‘return free risk’ is certainly bubble territory!“

FINANCIAL REPRESSION

“You have PhD’s at the Fed trying to create economic growth with inflation and low rates. The repression is that people like you and I won’t ever be able to retire because we won’t be able to get any return on our money so we can prop up the government and keep it in business.”

This is the overall Macro Strategy of the government but central planning has never worked! ….. They are essentially trying to print their way out of a jam! ……. Because of Financial Repression almost ¾ Trillion dollars has gone to the government that should be in private hands!!!”

FRENCH WARNS INVESTORS

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

The Ponzi Economy (from John Hussman)

The central point is this. The U.S. economy has shifted course from one of productive capital accumulation to a reliance on continuous expansion of debt in excess of the economic ability to repay it. Call this the Ponzi Economy.

The U.S. Ponzi Economy is one where:

1. Domestic workers are underemployed and consume beyond their means;
2. Household and government debt make up the shortfall;
3. corporate profits expand to a record share of GDP as revenues are sustained by household and government deficits;
4. Local employment is replaced by outsourced goods and labor;
5. Companies refrain from productive investment, accumulate the debt of other companies and issue new debt of their own, primarily to repurchase their own shares at escalating valuations;
6. Our trading partners (particularly China and Japan) become our largest creditors and accumulate trillions of dollars of claims that can effectively be traded for U.S. property and future output;
7. Fed policy encourages the yield-seeking diversion of scarce savings toward speculation in risky securities; and
8. As with every Ponzi scheme, everyone is happy as long as nobody seeks to be repaid.

LINK HERE to the article chart taken from

HUSSMAN: Though a certain amount of disruption resulting from overvalued financial markets, compressed risk premiums, and excessive debt issuance is baked-in-the-cake, there is also a ray of hope. Regardless of the point the U.S. economy has arrived to, there is room to improve matters by making each next decision well. Those next decisions should include ……

“an abandonment of financial repression by the Federal Reserve and a gradual normalization of interest rates that would increase savings, discourage speculative yield-seeking, and allow the markets to signal supply and scarcity without distortion“

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

Austrian School Economist & Director of International Development withEuro Pacific Capital firm Dickson Buchanan compares the relative safety between the so-called safe-haven investments of government bonds versus the “barbarous relic” of gold .. sees the government bond market as being under endless interest rate suppression (financial repression) .. “Today we live in the monetary madhouse erected by our central banks. Distortion and irregularity prevail, not clarity and stability. Instead of private investors looking for win-win profit opportunities in a free market for money and credit, we have central banks using ‘forward guidance’ to dictate where capital should flow. Today’s bond market and the giant balance sheet of the Fed are a direct result of their intervention .. Government debt is simply not a safe play in today’s markets. It’s either speculative or it’s suicidal. On the other hand, there is no speculation about gold. The yellow metal’s value has remained relatively stable for thousands of years without a government’s promise. Gold is no ‘barbarous relic’ – it’s our financial salvation.”

LINK HERE to the article

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.

Bloomberg article highlights how reckless derivative speculation is in big banks which are being supported by the government .. Danielle Park comments on this article: “When we don’t learn, we are doomed to keep suffering…the investment banks are still backed by the public purse today and are now bigger and bolder in concentrated risk bets than ever before.” ..Bloomberg notes that Citigroup now has the largest stockpile of interest rate swap derivatives – a type of derivative that can swing in value when central banks raise rates: “More than 92% of the bank’s derivatives don’t trade on exchanges, making it harder for regulators to spot dangers in the market .. financial repression of interest rates is making it harder to profit from interest rate swap derivatives: “Reduced volatility associated with Fedpolicies to suppress interest rates is making it harder to profit from swaps.”

LINK HERE to the article

Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed in this blog post may or may not be representative of the views or opinions of the Financial Repression Authority.