Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Nvidia Numero Uno in Count Down to President Donald Pump Election Victory - 5th Nov 24
Trump or Harris - Who Wins US Presidential Election 2024 Forecast Prediction - 5th Nov 24
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24
US House Prices Trend Forecast 2024 to 2026 - 11th Oct 24
US Housing Market Analysis - Immigration Drives House Prices Higher - 30th Sep 24
Stock Market October Correction - 30th Sep 24
The Folly of Tariffs and Trade Wars - 30th Sep 24
Gold: 5 principles to help you stay ahead of price turns - 30th Sep 24
The Everything Rally will Spark multi year Bull Market - 30th Sep 24
US FIXED MORTGAGES LIMITING SUPPLY - 23rd Sep 24
US Housing Market Free Equity - 23rd Sep 24
US Rate Cut FOMO In Stock Market Correction Window - 22nd Sep 24
US State Demographics - 22nd Sep 24
Gold and Silver Shine as the Fed Cuts Rates: What’s Next? - 22nd Sep 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks:Nothing Can Topple This Market - 22nd Sep 24
US Population Growth Rate - 17th Sep 24
Are Stocks Overheating? - 17th Sep 24
Sentiment Speaks: Silver Is At A Major Turning Point - 17th Sep 24
If The Stock Market Turn Quickly, How Bad Can Things Get? - 17th Sep 24
IMMIGRATION DRIVES HOUSE PRICES HIGHER - 12th Sep 24
Global Debt Bubble - 12th Sep 24
Gold’s Outlook CPI Data - 12th Sep 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Dow Jones Crash Shows $700 Billion Bailout an Exercise in Futility

Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis Bailouts Oct 12, 2008 - 04:02 AM GMT

By: Professor_Emeritus

Stock-Markets Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleTroubled Ass Relief Program (Tarp) - As the precipitous drop of the Dow Jones index of industrial stocks to the 8600 level on Thursday shows, the $700 billion bailout is an exercise in futility. The rescue effort administers one wrong medicine after another. Shunting rotten assets to the balance sheet of the central bank is not the way to go. Consolidating banks through forced mergers is not the way to go. Cutting interest rates is not the way to go. These measures make the problem worse, not better.


All the remedies to check the burgeoning credit crisis that have been proposed or put into effect are based on misdiagnosis. This is not a sub-prime crisis or a real estate crisis. It was not caused by loose lending standards, or by the banks recklessly and aggressively increasing their assets.

This crisis was caused by shriveling capital ratios due to the destruction of bank capital through 28 years of falling interest rates. As I have been saying again and again, falling interest rates destroy capital by increasing the liquidation value of debt -- an insidious process that has been missed by all other observers. Ignoring capital dissipation is possible only so long as capital lasts. As soon as capital is exhausted, dissipation stops. There is nothing left to dissipate. The problem at once becomes painfully noticeable.

The term 'liquidation value of debt' is self-explanatory, meaning the lump sum that will liquidate it before maturity, should it be necessary in case of a takeover, merger, shot-gun marriage, bankruptcy, or outright nationalization of the banking system. The point is that when the rate of interest falls , the liquidation value of debt rises . Why? Because the stream of interest payments is now discounted at a lower rate of interest. Therefore at maturity it will fall short of liquidating the debt.

Here is a familiar example. When the rate of interest falls, the market immediately bids up the price of bonds. This is the same to say that the liquidation value of the debt underlying the bond is raised. Debtors wanting to liquidate their bonded debt before maturity are not let off the hook on the same terms. The market demands more than the pound of flesh originally agreed upon for releasing the debtor from his bond. This example clearly shows that a fall in the rate of interest, far from alleviating the burden of debt, aggravates it.

Bank capital is debt, and it has been eaten away by persistently falling interest rates. Impairment of capital has been ignored and, after 28 years of negligence, the global banking system now stands denuded of capital. Those shareholders who can read balance sheets see through the fancy values banks are putting on their assets, and they dump the stock before bank capital goes all the way to zero.

The only way this crisis can be resolved is through recapitalizing the banks with gold . Contrary to Keynesian propaganda, gold is not a barbarous relic. It is not for decoration purposes. Nor does gold serve for the purpose of window-dressing in the balance sheet. Gold is unique among financial assets in that it has no counterpart as a liability in the balance sheet of others. It follows that gold, and gold alone, will survive any consolidation of bank balance sheets. Gold will not be netted out like paper assets are in case of mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers, or the nationalization of the banking system.

The fatal weakness of the present rescue effort is precisely this: consolidation of banks, just as consolidation of the derivatives monster, far from stopping the rot, will accelerate it. For example, if you consolidate the derivatives monster, claims and counter-claims through credit-default swaps will cancel out, and all risks will be exposed as being uncovered. Recapitalization with more fiat money will not work. It takes something more solid than irredeemable promises to pay. It takes gold .

Unfortunately our political leaders and policy-makers are lacking the moral fortitude to admit that they have been wrong all along about gold and its role in the financial system. Nor do they have the wisdom to realize that in cleaning up the train wreckage they have to go back all the way to the point where the train was derailed: to the insane decision to discard gold from the monetary system in 1971. Politicians and their academic sycophants will stick to their pet-rock, TARP, the Troubled Ass Relief Program (if you pardon my pun of cutting off the tail of the word ' asset' ). This is their cover-up of the fact that the credit-crisis is their own making.

The first of the Twin Towers, the Derivatives Tower of Babel, has now toppled, although you cannot see it yet as the dust is still settling. The toppling of the second, the Debt Tower of Babel, will follow in due course -- unless banks are recapitalized with gold with all deliberate speed.

The collapse of the Debt Tower of Babel would spell a disaster of the first magnitude, adversely affecting everybody. It would trigger the Great Grand Depression of the twenty-first century, making the Great Depression of the twentieth look mild in comparison.

Calendar of events

New York City, October 16, 2008
Committee for Monetary Research and Education, Inc. , Annual Fall Dinner.
Professor Fekete is an invited speaker. The title of his talk is:
The Mechanism of Capital Destruction.
Inquiries: cmre@bellsouth.net

Santa Clara, California, November 3, 2008
Santa Clara University , hosted by the Civil Society Institute
Professor Fekete is the invited speaker. The title of his talk is:
Monetary Reform: Gold and Bills of Exchange.
Inquiries: ffoldvary@scu.edu

San Francisco, California, November 4, 2008
Economic Club of San Francisco
Professor Fekete is the invited speaker. The title of his talk is:
The Revisionist Theory and History of the Great Depression -- Can It Happen Again?
Inquiries: ifkbischoff@yahoo.com

Canberra, Australia, November 11-14, 2008
Gold Standard University Live , Session Five. (This is the last session of GSUL since our sponsor, Mr. Eric Sprott of Sprott Asset Management, Inc., has withdrawn his support saying that in his opinion the results do not justify the expenditure. Come along and judge for yourself.) This 4-day seminar is a Primer on the Gold Basis -- Trading Tool for Gold Investors, Marketing Tool for Gold Miners, and Early Warning System for Everybody Else.
Inquiries: feketeaustralia@yahoo.com

Canberra, Australia, November 15, 2008
Panel Discussions: The chickens of 1933 and 1971 are coming home to roost and take out bank capital.
Inquiries: feketeaustralia@yahoo.com

By Professor Antal E. Fekete,
Intermountain Institute for Science and Applied Mathematics

"GOLD STANDARD UNIVERSITY" - Antal E. Fekete aefekete@iisam.com

For further information please check www.professorfekete.com or inquire at GSUL@t-online.hu .

We are pleased to announce that a new website www.professorfekete.com is now available. It contains e-books, archives, news about GSUL, and material of current interest

Copyright © 2008 Professor Antal E. Fekete
Professor Antal E. Fekete was born and educated in Hungary. He immigrated to Canada in 1956. In addition to teaching in Canada, he worked in the Washington DC office of Congressman W. E. Dannemeyer for five years on monetary and fiscal reform till 1990. He taught as visiting professor of economics at the Francisco Marroquin University in Guatemala City in 1996. Since 2001 he has been consulting professor at Sapientia University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. In 1996 Professor Fekete won the first prize in the International Currency Essay contest sponsored by Bank Lips Ltd. of Switzerland. He also runs the Gold Standard University on this website.

Antal E. Fekete / Professor_Emeritus Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in