The Beginning of End for USD The Reserve Currency

I still can't believe it happened just like that. It's so unceremonial, it's a huge anticlimax.

I'm talking about the Fed announcement of the plan to purchase up to $1.5T debt. That's the last bullet in their clip. Lowering the rates further would be like firing from an empty gun, mathematically sound but a bit tricky technically. So the dollar tanked (makes sense), gold shot up (makes sense), treasuries shot up (what?), and stock market shot up (WHAT? Oh, ok, shot-term).

I suspect that, looking back 10 years from now, we'll realize this is the beginning of the end of USD's reserve currency status. Yes, people have been talking about the demise of the dollar for years. But so far everything else -- budget deficit, total debt, trade deficit -- has been gradual, and reversible at least in theory. This is the ominous turn of events that pushes it beyond the point of no return. Even if Fed miraculously manages to shrink its balance sheet back down in the future, which would require just too much political will and independence short of a Second Coming of Volcker++, the cherry is already popped. The confidence in US monetary restraint is gone. So much of what defines US and the world order hinges on the dollar's reserve currency status, I don't even want to speculate what'd happen when it changes.

But the announcement shouldn't be a surprise, though. The downside I mentioned above is long-term. Humans, indeed most animals, are evolutionarily conditioned to consistently overweigh short-term risk and underweigh long-term risk. Yes, the short-term risk is grave. But the short-term risk the government sees is not the real risk, but rather the pain it'd take to fix the real problem. So they did exactly the things they lectured, with condescension and moral superiority, Japan and IMF rescuees on not doing.

Ever seen a kid kicking and screaming, refusing to go to the doctor and go under the needle? That's what the government has been doing throughout the crisis.

But even for the short-term, I doubt the benefit will last. EUR and GBP are up, along with most other currencies. But hey, naughty girls need inflation, too. Chances are that Fed has more than just popped their own monetary cherry, they've started a new lifestyle of monetary promiscuity with abandon. Everybody goes monetizing their own debt, lending from the right hand to the left hand and, whoala, currency stops going up and wonderful, wonderful inflation everywhere.

But is this the real solution, I mean, even in the sense of superficial, short-term fix of symptoms? It is most certainly not. It's inflation for inflation's sake, which achieves nothing except stealing from the future generations. It's a race to the cliff.

I still can't believe it happened just like that.

It's time to buy gold and TIPS, maybe commodities, too.

Supply and Demand Have Little Relevance to Commodities Price

Commodities price is driven by supply and demand. This is as true as the law of risk and reward.

Except the law of risk and reward hardly applies for the last few years. As such, so does the law of supply and demand since the commodities bubble started last year (arguably earlier) and ended a few months ago. If you need any proof, here're two pieces of news, randomly selected sources from a blind google search (not intending to target the sources in any way), to illustrate my point:

1. On 04/29/2008, disruption in Nigeria causes oil price to surge $1.50 to a then-record of $119.93. Hmmm...how interesting.

2. On 07/18/2008, disruption in Nigeria causes oil price to drop $5.31 to $129.29. Hmmm...how interesting...wait, WHAT?

The oil run-up of last year bothered me a great deal. So I decided to make an effort in making sense of it. Back then everybody was talking about supply and demand, peak-oil production, Saudi's exaggerated oil reserve, etc. etc. But I couldn't understand how these slow-moving variables could possibly cause the insanely fast-moving price. Then I read about how a new breed of speculators have joined the market and driven up price. That makes perfect sense, just as explaining why water boils by saying the temperature is 100C -- it provides absolutely 0 information. Why did all those speculators all of a sudden swamp into commodities?

Then somewhere along it hit me. Real negative interest rate. When the real interest rate is negative, it doesn't make economic sense to hold cash. Real assets that people need have a much better chance of holding value through inflation. (I know, I can't be even the millionth one realizing this.) With real estate out of question last year, commodities was a logical place to park your money. And it's a self-fulfilling proposition and yet another positive feedback -- the higher the commodities price, the higher the inflation pressure, and therefore the higher the commodities price...ad nauseam.

Did supply and demand have anything to do with the equally dramatic burst of the commodities bubble since July? No more than the run-up. I have a theory on why but it's off-topic so I'll leave it out. And the last leg of plunge was no doubt a part of the Great Unwind by hedge funds and banks, primarily triggered by Lehman CDS settlement.

It's primarily inflation, both real and expected (but probably not the nominal, systematically understated CPI), in relation to interest rate. Similar commodities bubbles driven by negative real interest rate have happened before. But this time it's amplified by the massive amount of concentrated capital, from individuals, corporations, and governments, created through years of internationalization, as well as the dramatic increase in capital flow and leverage through fantastic progress in capital markets and regulations such as securitization and Basel II.

Over the longer term, years and decades, there's no reason to believe the law of supply and demand will break down. But in the shorter term, in a market swamped by speculators who never intend to take delivery, supply and demand have little relevance.

In the very short term, minute-to-minute and day-to-day, supply and demand will have relevance, but only in a nominal and deceiving way. Imagine a fallen autumn leaf in water, a very smart one with a PhD in fluid dynamics, with access to a massive cloud of blades running Linux and models coded in A+. She can explain every minute movement from the molecular level up. Supply and demand. But there's a problem. When demand goes up 1%, sometimes the price goes up 0.1%, sometimes 10%, and sometimes even -1%. She doesn't understand. But Reuters reporters call her anyway and dutifully report on how supply and demand drove the price in their obligotary end-of-day headline.

Enough with cynicism. What will happen to commodities?

On 10/3, right after the passage of the Bailout Pork package, I said commodities would have another long-term run-up. On 10/13, I said the market would have an intermediate-term bottom "before or around 10/21". In retrospect, I was a bit early on both accounts, as I am usually. I didn't see the delay effect of the Great Unwind of forced hedge fund liquidation and bank deleveraging. But I wasn't too far off.

I still stand by them today, only with more conviction. Bernanke's Fed has totally lost its mandated independence from politics. He'll be bullied by Washington and Wall Street into keeping the interest rate below real inflation. The next President, no matter who, will probably not have the political will to call Uncle Ben to tackle inflation until it's too late (this is a change from what I said in my 10/3 article), unless the economic appearance improves drastically in the next few months (unlikely). So we'll have yet another asset bubble, in commodities, and commodities-driven inflation, starting from somewhere between yesterday and mid-2009.

The inflation driven by housing bubble in the last few years was stealth. Those who hitched a ride, the homeowners, didn't complain. Those who missed out, the homeless and the renters, complained but were completely drawn out by the party noise. But commodities-driven inflation will be direct and apparent. So my hope is it wouldn't last too long. And that would be a good thing for society.

Until the good thing happens, enjoy your ride on commodities.

Resession Will Not Be Deep

In Aladin, Lago, Jaffar's sidekick parrot, has one of my favorite cartoon slapstick bits: Why am I not surprised? I think I'll have a heartattack from not being surprised!

News came out today that Bernanke thinks there'll be a recession. And it's supported by retail sales number. The market had a heartattack from not being surprised.

I mean, is it news to anyone that we'll have a recession? We've been in one for a year. And we surely haven't seen its end yet.

But all this talk of DEEP, WIDE recession is nonsense. Human intuition is based on linear extrapolation. Gloom and panic are always at the height just before the bottom. But in the height of panic people have forgotten one key difference: the government finally got it this time.

Bloomberg had an interview saying "Bailout Is Big, Bad, Ugly, the Only Answer: Jane Bryant Quinn". I agree with Jane on everything except the "only" part. NONE of the government rescue efforts since last August was the only choice, especially the massive liquidity injection of the past few weeks, the $700B bailout and the latest comedy of banks being forced to accept government money for peanuts in return. But, be it as may, this latest mafia drama will break the logjam because it finally stumbled on one of the root problems. It will take some time for the massive liquidity and capital to flow down the money supply chain. But it will. It must. Banks need to make money, even if they're not allowed to fail.

The other root problem, housing price, has been helped by several give-away legislations, and will no doubt continue being helped by the new president and congress. These bailouts are equally morally suspicious and objectionable as the bank bailouts. But, again, they will work. As a result, housing price may still go down somewhat, but much slower than withoutthe help.

Government supported housing price plus government supported banks. Everybody is riskfree! It's a riskfree world! How can banks not lend and buy risky assets as long as there's no chain reaction on 10/21? In a few months, as the money flows down the pipe and banks begging everybody to borrow (they would do a Paulson if they could), how can companies not hire and expand?

And, remember the $400B write-downs by US banks and $300B by European banks? They're write-downs, paper loss. As soon as the housing price stabilizes and CDO market volume recovers, $350B of it will become write-ups. Bank quarterly numbers will go up so fast and furious, it'll feel like the good'ol times again.

This recession will be anything but deep.

So will we get out of this mess without paying any price? Of course there's a price. The price is prolonged inflation and massive debt for future generations.

Inflation will be mostly driven by commodities bubble, credit bubble, and housing bubble. Yes, we may very well have yet another housing bubble in front of us.

But what's the problem if we can keep the bubble going in perpetuity?

The only problem is we can't. At some point people will stop buying our debt and stop using our currency to settle trades. Sure, Saddam threatened to settle his oil in Euro and look where he is now. But unfortunately we got in so much trouble in Iraq, the lesson we intended to teach others has turned into encouragement, for Chavez at least. Yes, people have no alternatives since Euro is in even worse shape now. But desperate people find desperate solutions. Just as we've been doing unimaginable, desperate things to avoid the crisis, the world will find unimaginable, desperate alternatives if necessary. You can only count on others being suckers for so long.

The fantastically flawed and effective bailouts we've seen in the last few weeks have hastened the day of reckoning, or at least made it much harder to avoid or delay.

But that's our children's problems. For now, enjoy the new, riskfree world. Be bubbly.

Bailout Pork Effect: Short-Term Rally, Long-Term Disaster

Defeat of the Paulson bailout plan in the house last week was nothing short of a remarkable victory of democracy. All of our political leaders were for it, future ones included, showing more unity than the Chinese Communist Party. The mainstream media were so politically aligned with the Government, they put Xinhua to shame. Yet individual voter-tax-payers, with hardly any meaningful organizing effort, fought for their self-interest and won against all odds. Wow.

If only we had done it five years ago on Iraq war and the Patriot Act, today's American citizens would be hailed as a shining example of independent citizenry of a strong democracy for centuries to come.

Unfortunately, we hardly had time to throw a party before the Senate pulled an old political trick and forced the hands of the House and the voter-tax-payers on the same plan. Only with $170 billion added pork to punish the rebelion act. That ought to teach the citizenry a lesson about respecting the Leaders.

There's no doubt SOMETHING must be done, and quickly, to stop this financial crisis from spreading to the wider world and becoming an economic crisis. The question is what that SOMETHING is. There've been many ingenious ideas floating around the internet. The Leaders have supposedly even considered some of these alternatives. Yet they chose the most costly (to tax payers) possibility and gave us two choices: are you for action or gridlock?

It's the same false choice as the one five years ago: are you for freedom or terrorism?

I used to pull this trick on my kids sometimes: who would you like to wash your hands, mom or dad? They started realizing the Possibility Universe is far larger than what I presented, somewhere around six years old. And I actually felt a bit guilty.

The Leaders have been doing this to us. And we never have the intellectual and/or political capacity to see through the same old trick. And they never have any guilt, I'm afraid.

But, we have to face reality at the end of the day -- would that be Friday?

If the Bailout Pork Package is passed, I'm willing to go with the conventional wisdom that the markets (stocks, bonds, derivatives, USD, commodities, gold) would have a broad rally, with the only exception being the treasuries as money exits the bunker and goes to work. Not too shabby huh?

Well, with $700B you'd expect more. Much more, and much more long term. But long term will be ugly.

First of all, the government has totally abandoned fiscal discipline. Well, it's abandoned it for a long time but now the world cannot pretend it didn't know any more. Foreign investors will have to stop playing suckers and buying the treasuries. They wanted to sustain the pretend game as much as we do. But now we finally killed the chance. Even a pretend game has a limit, beyond which the players simply cannot pretend any more. With the double whammy of hugely increased debt and higher interest, maybe CDS on US is not such a dumb idea (nah, it's still a dumb idea for, if...when US defaults, whoever sold you the CDS will not be around to pay).

Secondly, whereas inflation was a strong possibility in summer 07, now it's a certainty. Excess liquidity (credit) is easy to suck out as long as the Fed is determined to (which they weren't when they had a chance to deflate the housing bubble). But what the Bailout Pork Package puts into the economy is not just liquidity, but a massive amount of capital. Excess capital will stay around in the system for much longer. Capital chases return. Excessive capital chases excessive return. Excessive return at the macroscopic level can come from only two sources: asset bubble or inflation. In this case, it will be both.

Which leads to the third long-term effect: commodities bubble (yes, again, the real one) driven by negative real interest rate. The only reason that can explain the commodities bubble until a couple months ago is negative real interest rate. Supply and demand may have the right sign during some periods, but cannot possibly account for the magnitude of the surge. Amount of speculative money is an ontologically flawed argument since it by definition cannot explain why there were so much of it. When the real interest is negative, it does not make sense to hold cash (and cash there will be a lot of it now).

Real assets is one of the best places to park this massive amount of capital windfall, especially through continuously rolled futures since you don't pay the storage cost. What kind of real asset? Housing (mortgage) was the obvious choice when real interest rate became negative during Greenspan years, and especially after the massive rate cuts in 01. But now people will be careful touching mortgages for at least a few years. The only outlet left is commodities -- gold, oil, metals, rice, corn, who cares what it is. Never mind that there will only be so many taking actual delivery, demand will only increase so much and supply will only decrease so much by the mot exaggerated estimates. The $1T+ excess cash must be parked somewhere and earn some return.

While the effect of the housing bubble on inflation could be indirect and delayed, the impact of commodities is direct and immediate, as we learned with pain earlier this year. As I mentioned above, it will be commodities bubble and inflation.

Early in the year I expected the first thing the new president, whoever it may be, will do is to call up Uncle Ben and tell him to raise rates and kill off inflation. Yes, there will be short-term pain. But he could always blame that on his predecessor, however well deserved it may be, and take credit for the long-term benefits to the economy. I believe this is the main reason why the bubble contracted in the last two months.

Now, however, no matter how much the new president wants to play the game and Uncle Ben wants to be a good political lapdog, they cannot possibly do enough to kill the pending inflation without causing another crisis.

Yes, taxpayers may make money when the $1T+ toxic asset the Leaders will be buying for us matures or gets sold. But only before inflation adjustment.

Five years ago, the Leaders of both parties committed this once-great country to the Iraq war, with unspecified amount of lives and money for unspecifiedlength of time. "Imminent! Danger! We must act! Now! Don't ask questions! We don't have time for that! Just give me the power and money! Trust me!" Even if future Leaders were willing and capable, they cannot escape the commitment.

Now, the same Leaders will commit this country to years of inflation and generations of massive debt. "Imminent! Danger! We must act! Now! Don't ask questions! We don't have time for that! Just give me the power and money! Trust me!" Even if future Leaders were willing and capable, they cannot escape the commitment.

I'm still holding out hope that this Bailout Pork Package will somehow miraculously be defeated and some better alternatives will be considered with sincerity.

Nah, we don't have time for that. Let's just trust the Leaders. It's not like we have any other choice.

Don't we?