PART ONE
AN ECONOMY IN TROUBLE
Chapter 1
Doug Casey on Bernanke: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid (Part One)
December 8, 2010
Louis: Thanks for the link to the âhistoricâ Ben Bernanke interviewa. It was breathtaking to hear the man who didnât see the crash of 2008 coming say heâs â100 percent confidentâ he can control the U.S. economy. What do you make of thatâis it hubris or stupidity?
Doug: As 60 Minutes pointed out, itâs rare for a Fed chairman to give an interview; this was only Bernankeâs secondâhereâs a link to his first. Itâs such an unusual thing that I think itâs a sign that the Powers That Be are really quite worried. As they should be. His last interview was at the height of the crisis in early 2009.
L: Bernanke himself looked worried. I was amazed, actually, watching the interview, by just how nervous and stressed he appeared. He stuttered, his lip quivered continuously, and that pulsing vein on his forehead really stood out throughout the interview. He looked like he was flat-out lying and doubted anyone would believe him, but had no choice but to keep lying. It was almost like a cartoon of a liar caught red-handed. Itâs a shocker that the Powers That Be would let such an interview be airedâit would seem to be the opposite of reassuring, to me.
D: I know. Itâd be nice to run that interview through a voice stress analyzer and see what it says. Itâs a question of whether heâs a knave or a foolâneither answer is bullish for the U.S. economy. Heâd be wonderful to play poker against.
Heâs not a skilled or enthusiastic liar, but he is certainly becoming more practiced at it, which is, of course, par for the course of being Fed chairman. That aside, the interview is really interesting, because there are several times in the interview when he really comes across as being scared and warning people: the way he stressed how close to the edge of a precipice the economy was, and how troubled it remains.
L: Well, that was the reason given for the interview. He says the critics of his latest $600 billion shot in the economyâs arm donât understand how serious things are, how dangerous the high unemployment rate is.
D: Yes, of course heâd say that. You know my argument is that âdoing somethingâ is a mistake, if itâs based on incorrect economics. Everything they are doing is not just the wrong thing, itâs the opposite of the right thing.
L: So, do you believe Bernanke was actually lying? Or was he just highly stressed, because heâs the one in the hot seat, and he knows that just because the Titanic didnât sink the moment it hit the iceberg, that doesnât mean itâs out of danger?
D: Perhaps itâs a bit like Hitler in the bunker, who was under great stress, and really wasnât lying when he insisted that the Third Reich could still win the war. In fact, I canât wait to see if someone does one of those âHitler in the bunkerâ spoofs, based on this interview.
L: I wouldnât be surprised to see one posted on YouTube tomorrow. Meantime, Jon Stewart skewers Bernanke admirably in a recent skit on his show.
D: Actually, someone just did one of those âHitler in the bunkerâ spoofs on manipulation of the silver marketâwhich, incidentally, I donât believe is a reality. But it mentions our redoubt at La Estancia de Cafayate. Thereâs a lot of very rich and colorful language, which some people wonât like, but itâs very funny.
L: Warning to readers: That video is not family-friendly. So, lying aside, letâs look at some of the things he said. The first and foremost thing that jumps out at me is that he says the Fed is ânot printing moneyâ and that the Fedâs actions have no significant impact on money supply. How can he imagine they can inject liquidity into the economy, and that it wonât have any impact on money supply?
D: I think he knows better than that. Look, what the Fed has been doing is buying securities. And the way they do that is to credit the account of the seller with dollars. So, of course it creates money. Thatâs why they call it âquantitative easingââbecause theyâre increasing the number of Federal Reserve units in circulation. I really love that term, QE, because itâs so cynically dishonest, like the whole monetary system itself. And itâs amazing that nobody even challenges it. They just accept it instead of calling it what it isâprinting money. Itâs Orwellian.
In any event, creating more currency units by buying government bonds serves several purposes, from their point of view. It raises the prices of bonds, and therefore pushes interest rates downâand they want lower rates because it makes it easier to finance the staggering amount of debt out there that threatens to collapse the system. And they want more currency units out there because that makes people feel richer, consume more, and that props up preexisting economic conditionsâwhich are actually unsustainable. The crash prompted them to buy toxic paper from banks for a while, to keep them from going under. Now theyâre buying U.S. treasuries again, with the latest $600 billion.
Bernanke is taking desperate measures to solve an acute problem. But their consequences will be disastrousâmuch, much more damaging than if heâd done nothing. Of course if he did nothing, the system would collapse through a deflation: bonds would default, banks would close. What will now happen is the currency itself is going to be destroyed, which is much worse. But since itâs put off a bit further in the future, thatâs the course heâs taking.
L: Agreed. In spite of what Bernanke says, whatever the sellers of the securities do with the new dollars deposited to their accountsâeven if they leave them on deposit with the Fed because the Fed is now paying interest for excess reservesâit still frees up other money the sellers can now use for other purposes. And because of the fractional reserve system, thereâs a multiplier effect on the added liquidity. Bernanke says that all heâs doing is keeping interest rates down to stimulate the economy, but the way heâs doing it adds to the money supply.
D: Exactly. Weâre beyond the time when you have to cut down trees to print up hundred dollar bills. Itâs just a keystroke, now. But playing with the amount of currency doesnât create new wealthâit actually makes real wealth creation much harder.
So as the situation gets more serious in the months and years to come, you can expect ever more ad-hoc measures from the government. Theyâll probably try capital controls, to keep people from transferring wealth outside the U.S. Those will be popular because only âunpatrioticâ people would do such a thing, as well as rich peopleâand itâs now time to eat the rich. Theyâll likely require all pension plans to buy a certain amount of government securities. Theyâll have restrictions on the amount you can spend on foreign travel. Theyâll probably even try price controls, like Nixon did in the early 1970s. Theyâll increasingly limit what can be done with cashâlike the new requirement that all transactions of any type above $600 must be reported on 1099sâbecause digital money is much easier to control. New government bureaucracies will be set up to enforce all these things, and many more.
L: Scary. Does it mean anything for Bernanke to say that the $600 billion came from the Fedâs âown reservesâ? Where would the Fedâs reserves come from, if not from electronic dollars newly created at the stroke of a computer key?
D: No. Thatâs a cynical lie. I think what he was trying to stress was that the money was not coming directly from taxes. The Federal Reserve is a misnomer. There is no reserve, as there was in the days when the gold at Fort Knox backed the dollar. Now, the dollar isnât backed by anything, so thereâs nothing to reserveâthey can and do create as many dollars as they want, as ledger entries, which they can and do use to pay banks and others, who can and do use them to pay others, and so forth.
Itâs not a âreserve,â and itâs not âfederal.â Although the Fed is a creature of the government, itâs not, technically speaking, part of it. Itâs really controlled by the large banks, who benefit primarily through âfractional reserveâ banking. In the past, when banks were just ordinary businesses that warehoused money and acted as brokers for loans made with savings, keeping a fractional reserve was a fraudulent practice that would eventually result in bankruptcy, followed by criminal charges. The creation of central banks, like the Fed, facilitated it as common practice; in effect, debt became a form of money. This isnât the forum to explain the subject in detail; Iâve done that in my books. But weâve now reached the inevitable consequence of the system, which is a financial cataclysm. Bernanke is trying to forestall the inevitable, and in the process is making it worse. As Louis XV correctly observed, âAprès moi, le dĂŠluge.â
L: Deluge indeed. You can see the out of control growth of what they are doing in any M2 money supply chart.
Ancha Casey [Dougâs wife]: Mfmmmf mmmfmf.
L: Hi AnchaâI didnât catch that.
Ancha [Leaning closer to Dougâs mic]: Hi Lobo. That growth of money supply erodes purchasing power. One peso here in Argentina today is worth one trillionthâliterallyâof its value at the beginning of the twentieth century.
D: Yes. It really amounts to an indirect form of taxation: As more dollars are created, they dilute the purchasing power of the dollars already in existenceâthough we call it inflation. The first organizations and people to get those dollars are able to spend them at their old value. And, of course, the governmentâwhich is not the country or the people, but a group with its own identity and interestsâgets to spend as many as it wants on what it wants. And now the numbers are moving into the trillions. Obama may soon have to ask his science advisor what comes after âtrillion.â Itâs all a charade.
L: Inflation is taxation through dilution. But most modern economists donât think inflation is the result of excess at the printing press, so whether Bernanke is lying, or just doesnât see the danger of what heâs doing, it doesnât look good.
D: Thatâs right. Most economists blame inflation on the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick maker raising their prices for other reasons than the loss of purchasing power of the currency. They attribute inflation to âgreedâ on the part of producers and workers.
The problem is a totally fallacious basic theory of economics. Almost all the âeconomistsâ coming out of school today arenât actually economists. An economist is someone who describes the way the world works. But these peopleâBernanke being a perfect exampleâarenât interested in describing the way it works. Rather, they want to prescribe the way they want it to work, and then get the state to enforce their views on society. The state, of course, welcomes such advice when it serves its agenda.
Bernanke has a high IQ, but heâs just an uninteresting and unoriginal suit. He grew up with the reigning orthodoxy, got his PhD in it, taught it, and has been rewarded with the leadership of the worldâs largest central bank. But heâs not an economist. Heâs a political apologist. And, I suspect, heâs now a very confused and scared one. Perhaps he can see that the ridiculous theories heâs grown up believing in are more phony than a Federal Reserve note. But he doesnât dare admit it.
L: Maybe we could buy one of the thousands of mirrors in Mugabeâs house in Zimbabwe and send it to ...