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
Stocks, Bitcoin and Crypto Markets Breaking Bad on Donald Trump Pump - 21st Nov 24
Gold Price To Re-Test $2,700 - 21st Nov 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks: This Is My Strong Warning To You - 21st Nov 24
Financial Crisis 2025 - This is Going to Shock People! - 21st Nov 24
Dubai Deluge - AI Tech Stocks Earnings Correction Opportunities - 18th Nov 24
Why President Trump Has NO Real Power - Deep State Military Industrial Complex - 8th Nov 24
Social Grant Increases and Serge Belamant Amid South Africa's New Political Landscape - 8th Nov 24
Is Forex Worth It? - 8th Nov 24
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

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Inflation- Central Banks Making Sure It Happens Everywhere

Economics / Inflation Mar 20, 2009 - 09:55 AM GMT

By: Adrian_Ash

Economics

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article"Gold and the Euro just hooked up together again. But for how long depends on central-bank policy..."

SO BEN BERNANKE SAYS the United States has plunged into a deflationary depression.


Really, that's what Wednesday's Fed announcement said, shouting it loud and shouting it proud.

Because Bernanke's deflation-prevention policies have failed. So he's gone to applying the cure instead.

"The US government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost."

So said the Maestro's apprentice when still merely a governor, rather than chairman, November 2002, speaking to the National Economists Club in D.C.

You may recall that Consumer Price Inflation, on the official measures at least, had just sunk to a 38-year low, hiking the cost of living barely 1.0% per year. The asset-price deflation hitting tech stock investors, meantime, had just found its floor (not that anyone knew it) some four-fifths below the peak of 31 months before.

Looked at both preventing deflation (target inflation above zero, say from 1-3% per year; ensure financial stability, by lending freely to banks whenever trouble hits; act "preemptively and more aggressively in cutting rates when inflation is already low and the fundamentals of the economy suddenly deteriorate) as well as curing it.

"Deflation is always reversible under a fiat money system," Bernanke announced, claiming that his conclusion "follows from basic economic reasoning." To wit, "a little parable may prove useful:

"Today an ounce of gold sells for $300, more or less. Now suppose that a modern alchemist solves his subject's oldest problem by finding a way to produce unlimited amounts of new gold at essentially no cost. Moreover, his invention is widely publicized and scientifically verified, and he announces his intention to begin massive production of gold within days.

"What would happen to the price of gold?"

Fast forward six-and-a-half years, and it's not gold which Ben Bernanke has produced in unlimited amounts at no cost, but US Dollars. But given his obsession with the Great Depression – and given that money was gold seven decades ago – you get the point.

"Presumably, the potentially unlimited supply...would cause the market price...to plummet. Indeed, if the market is to any degree efficient, the price would collapse immediately after the announcement of the invention, before the alchemist had produced and marketed a single ounce."

Look at the chart, and you can see what the Fed chairman meant. It shows what he did for gold and the Euro with Wednesday's $1.25 trillion devaluation of the greenback. Both shot higher on the news. Neither has given back too much of their jump yet.

But while the Euro had already been ticking higher, the Gold Price vs. the Dollar had been falling. Looking back over the last seven year, in fact, the nine weeks starting mid-Jan. were something of an aberration. The Euro and gold moved in opposite directions. Whereas, seeing how committed to dollar devaluation the Federal Reserve clearly remains – especially now deflation avoidance has failed – both should really move together.

"As I have stressed already," Bernanke explained back in late 2002, "prevention of deflation remains preferable to having to cure it. If we do fall into deflation, however, we can take comfort that the logic of the printing press example must assert itself, and sufficient injections of money will ultimately always reverse a deflation."

Trouble is, if the Dollar falls then other currencies must rise. We've already had clear devaluations from the UK, US and Swiss authorities. The Japanese can't be far behind; they sold their own currency all through mid-decade, desperate to apply Bernanke's "deflation cure" vs. the Dollar.

Once the Bank of Japan fires up its "quantitative easing" again, that would leave only the Euro still to devalue.

Maybe gold and the single currency will soon diverge again.

By Adrian Ash
BullionVault.com

Gold price chart, no delay | Free Report: 5 Myths of the Gold Market
City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning in London and a regular contributor to MoneyWeek magazine, Adrian Ash is the editor of Gold News and head of research at www.BullionVault.com , giving you direct access to investment gold, vaulted in Zurich , on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.

(c) BullionVault 2009

Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.

Adrian Ash Archive

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


Comments

Ajisco
24 Jun 09, 15:53
Element of Banking

define the term inflation


Post Comment

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