The Total Collapse » LEAP

Second half of 2011 – Get ready for the meltdown of the US Treasury Bond market

TheTotalCollapse.com — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:21:00 +0000

LEAP 2020 – Beyond its tragic human consequences (1), the terrible disaster that has just hit Japan weakens the shaky US Treasury Bond market a little more. In the GEAB No. 52, our team had already explained how the sequence of Arab revolutions, this fall of the “petro-dollar” wall (2), would translate during 2011 into the cessation of the massive purchases of US Treasury Bonds by the Gulf States. In this issue, we anticipate that the sudden shock experienced by the Japanese economy will lead not only to the halt in US T-Bond purchases by Japan, but it will force the authorities in Tokyo to make substantial sales of a significant portion of their US Treasury Bond reserves to finance the enormous cost of stabilization, reconstruction and revival of the Japanese economy (3).

With Japan and the Gulf States alone accounting for 25% of the total 4.4 trillion USD of US federal debt (December 2010), LEAP/E2020 believes that this new situation which is asserting itself during the first quarter of 2011, against a background of China’s increasing reluctance (holding 20% of US Treasury Bonds) to continue to invest in US government debt (4), carries the seeds for the collapse of the US Treasury Bond market in the second half of 2011, a market that now has only a single buyer: the US Federal Reserve (5).

It is certain that the context of the crisis of US local authority securities (Munis) and European government debt (the entire periphery of the EU, including the United Kingdom) that our team anticipated for this timeframe (see GEAB N°50 ), will only exacerbate the event. Moreover, it is highly significant that PIMCO the world’s largest bond fund manager decided, at the end of February 2011, to liquidate its US Treasury Bond holdings. And that was before the disaster in Japan (6)!

Major holders of US Federal Debt (10/2010) – Sources: US Treasury / Dave’s Manuel

But beyond the Japanese and Arab shocks (see GEAB N°52 ), the process of US Federal debt market implosion in the second half of 2011 is accelerating under the effect of four other events:

. the introduction of budget austerity in the US (as anticipated in GEAB No. 47) which condemns US local authorities to a major crisis in the market for their debt (“Munis”)
. impossible for the Fed to introduce QE3
. the inevitable rise in interest rates against a backdrop of global inflation
. the end of safe-haven status for the US currency.

Of course, these events are related and, characteristic of a major crisis, we are entering a period that will see a mutual strengthening of their effects, leading to this sudden shock in the second quarter of 2011. Incidentally, we could add a fifth event: the complete decisional paralysis of the US powers. The daily confrontation on virtually all subjects, between Republicans (hardened by the “Tea Parties”) and Democrats (demoralized by an Obama administration that has betrayed the substance of its campaign promises (7)), tends to show, a little more each day, that Washington has become a sort of “Ship of Fools “, tossed about by events, without any strategy, without willpower, incapable of action(8); in other words, according to LEAP/E2020, when the US Treasury Bond collapse begins, one cannot expect anything from Washington other than a colossal squawking that will only worsen the crisis.

In this issue’s public announcement, we have chosen to present our anticipation of the Japanese shock on a global scale, in particular in terms of inflation and geopolitics, in more detail. The other events that lead to the collapse of the US Treasury Bond market in the second half of 2011 are analyzed in this issue, where we also set out our recommendations to address the clear worsening of the global geopolitical dislocation process.

The triple disaster that has just hit Japan (earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident) is a crucial event that will accelerate and intensify the global systemic crisis, and in particular the process of global geopolitical dislocation.

The scale of destruction, the direct impact on the energy infrastructure of the third (or fourth) largest economy in the world (9), the severity of the accidents at the nuclear power plants (10), … is one of the major shocks which the current international system is no longer able to withstand as we anticipated in the GEAB N° 51 (“2011: The Ruthless Year “). Japan, already seriously weakened by a chronic economic crisis that has lasted for twenty years and whose government debt is one of the largest in the world, now finds itself faced with the need to both finance a large-scale reconstruction and secure major change over an indefinite period characterized by a limitation of available energy and the disruption of commercial and industrial supply chains. Yet Japan is a fundamental part of the system of global governance of recent decades. Tokyo is one of the world’s major financial centers, one of the three management hubs of the foreign exchange markets (along with London and New York) and the Japanese economy supplies a quantity of electronic components vital to the global economy. Finally, as we have analyzed in past issues, it is, with the United Kingdom, one of the two “floats” (11) that has allowed the US to manage global economic, monetary and financial affairs for over fifty years.

For several years now this “float” has been increasingly attracted to the Chinese sphere of influence, keeping pace with China’s increasing strength and the weakening of the United States. The crisis triggered by the earthquake will, according to LEAP/E2020, greatly accelerate this trend particularly because today, only China has the capacity to provide massive financial aid to Japan (12), while directly helping its economy by opening the huge Chinese market to Japanese business even more (13).

The falling share of the US Dollar in global foreign exchange transactions (first section) and global foreign exchange reserves (second section) Sources: BRI / FMI / Wall Street Journal, 03/2011

As regards global inflation, we can already identity five channels by which the Japanese crisis will reinforce current inflationary pressures:

• the abrupt end to the policy of the expansion of the civil nuclear industry worldwide (14) will rapidly increase pressure on the price of oil (15), gas and coal
• the shortage of many vital electronic parts which will mean higher prices for electronic equipment (from computers to flat screen TVs (16)) because of power cuts that affect plants and transport disruption (17)
• increased pressure on world food and energy prices (18) due to a significant increase in Japanese food imports (especially rice) since the area affected is one of the country’s major agricultural regions (see map below)
• a further decline in the world economy following the global consequences of the near-halt of the Japanese economy, champion of both exports and “just-in-time” delivery (19), which will limit as much the “deflation” effect of globalized trade (20)
• and finally, a double phenomenon of a falling yen due to massive injections of liquidity by the Bank of Japan and the immediate increase in the worldwide “borrowing cost” of money (higher interest rates) because of Japan’s huge needs to carry out its reconstruction.

Japanese land utilization (red: double cropping-mainly paddy rice, with wheat and barley / pink: single crop rice/brown: single crop –mainly wheat, barley and oats/ green-mainly forest with some pasture and wasteland) – Source: Columbia University, 2009

These anticipations obviously don’t incorporate the ultimate disaster scenario that would see the Tokyo region heavily contaminated by radioactivity following an explosion and radioactive fallout at the Fukushima plant (21). Such a situation would, just like Chernobyl, lead to the creation of an exclusion zone affecting this region of more than thirty million inhabitants and which is at the heart of the flow of global basic necessities, and would lead to an historically unprecedented humanitarian disaster and an immediate disruption of economic, global, financial and monetary markets. Quite simply, there is no “plan B” for a “sudden shutdown” of the global intersection that Tokyo and the surrounding region constitutes.

Whist hoping that this extreme situation doesn’t materialize, our team believes that the shock that has taken place will, therefore, result in a sudden worsening of the global systemic crisis and that the US Treasury Bond market will be the first major collateral casualty from the second half of 2011, as we analyze in detail in this issue. Thankfully the worst situation may not happen but, on the other hand, there’s no doubt that it’s very serious.

——–
Notes:

(1) In these tragic circumstances, the LEAP/E2020 team would like to express its solidarity with the people of Japan and in particular with our numerous Japanese subscribers and visitors to our website. We would also like to emphasize that our very “clinical” analysis of the consequences of the catastrophe that Japan has just suffered is not a mark of indifference but simply the respect of our methodology which aims to limit the subjective elements at the heart of our anticipations to the strict minimum likely.

(2) Even the Telegraph of 02/24/2011 now interprets the grassroots Arab revolution as the fall of the Middle Eastern US empire.

(3) Source: JapanToday, 03/14/2011

(4) According to the German edition of the FT, the Chinese central bank has even been given instructions to not buy any at all anymore. Source : FT Deutschland, 10/03/2011

(5) Before the Japanese disaster, it was estimated that the Fed had become the primary holder of US Treasury Bonds, having already purchased more than 70% of new issue. In the coming weeks this proportion will, step-by-step, approach 90% to 95%. Because, even despite its docility vis-à-vis US pressure, the United Kingdom which each day sinks a little further into the new phase of the crisis, the “double-dip-flation” as our team calls it, can no longer afford to buy US Treasury Bonds: it is too busy repurchasing its own government debt. Moreover, according to Karen Ward, one of HSBC’s main economists, the British government could face hunger riots if food price continue to soar the way they have been doing in the past few weeks. Source: SkyNews, 03/09/2011

(6) In the short term, the flight from stocks (Japanese and others) will benefit US Treasury Bonds, but it’s a temporary event. Source : CNBC, 03/09/2011

(7) The latest is the reopening of the Guantanamo trials whilst he had promised the closure of the prison within a year after his election at the latest, thus drawing millions of voters from the left of the Democratic Party.

(8) France is the other major western country whose leadership finds itself in the same situation.

(9) Depending on whether one considers Euroland as an economy on its own. Yet the March 11 summit that continued to tighten the budgetary and financial integration of Eurozone countries makes the position of wanting to continue to separately count the Eurozone countries’ combined major economic numbers more and more absurd. Thus, with a GDP of €8.4 trillion, Euroland is in second place behind the US (€10.428 trillion) at a current exchange rate of 1 €/$ 1.4, and way ahead of China (€4.1 trillion) and Japan (€3.85 trillion). Sources: Wikipedia,Eurozone, Countries listed by GDP.

(10) Without even mentioning at this stage the risk of partial or complete neutralization of the Tokyo region, one of the key cities of the world in recent decades, due to nuclear contamination.

(11) Like a trimaran.

(12) Keep in mind that Beijing seeks by all means to quickly, but profitably, get rid of its mountain of Treasury Bonds and US Dollars. The cataclysm that Japan is currently suffering will thus offer Chinese leaders a unique opportunity to strategically align Tokyo with Beijing.

(13) Conversely, the highly controversial US troop presence in Japan will materialize in Japanese public opinion, as all the more anachronistic and useless in the face of the current disaster. This is another example, as we have already seen in the case of the Arab revolution, of the growing uselessness of the huge US military machine: in crisis after crisis, it is becoming obvious that it is of virtually no use in enabling the US government to influence events.

(14) It is in fact certain that civil nuclear power has just come to a sudden halt from which it will be very hard to recover, especially because this disaster now joined in the conflict between the elite and public opinion that the global systemic crisis exacerbates a little more on a daily basis. We can already include France amongst the countries that will suffer the full brunt of this “revolution” vis-à-vis nuclear energy which has, for nearly fifty years of civil nuclear energy, made it one of the jewels of its technology and exports. Source: Spiegel, 03/14/2011

(15) One factor that will strengthen the inexorable progression in the Gulf region towards a situation of chaos, even direct conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, between the people of the region and their leaders, between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Sending Saudi troops to Bahrain is an indication of the escalating risks in the region just as the financial implications for the UAE who are trying to urgently alleviate forty years of neglect of entire segments of their population. Sources:AlJazeera, 03/15/2011; New York Times, 03/10/2011; AlJazeera, 03/10/2011

(16) One of the few “bearish” sectors which allowed the soaring price of food and energy at the core of many price indices to be hidden. So even in China and throughout Southeast Asia, the impact of Japanese spare-part shortages is already being felt with immediate price rises as the Japanese electronics industry has massively relocated entire parts of its production throughout Asia while keeping strategic manufacturing in Japan. Source: China Daily, 03/15/2011

(17) Around the world we will experience shortages of Japanese cars and spare parts for them. Given the global importance of the Japanese automobile industry, there will be no solution of an easy alternative which can be implemented. Thus, even in India, yet little dependent on Japanese brands, the impact is already being directly felt with the cancellation of sales and promotion of new models by the major Japanese manufacturers. Source: Times of India, 03/15/2011

(18) Several Japanese refineries have been destroyed. That implies increased Japanese imports of refined products which are already causing petrol price rises in the US. Source: USAToday, 03/14/2011

(19) The Chinese and German export economies (as well as those of South Korea, Taiwan…) will also suffer the negative consequences of this development.

(20) It is important to keep in mind that the decline in the globalization of trade in favor of a focus on regional economic zones endowed with a single or dominant currency (EU, Asia, Latin America …) involves a simultaneous decrease in the need for US Dollars to finance international trade. See previous GEAB issues.

(21) This would also lead to international consequences in terms of radioactive fallout.

Jeudi 17 Mars 2011

Trend Alert: The U.S. and the U.K. Will Both Default on Their Debt by the End of Summer 2009

TheTotalCollapse.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:16:49 +0000

Three rogue waves by H-J Fandrich for LEAP/E2020

As anticipated by LEAP/E2020 as early as October 2008, on the eve of summer 2009, the question of the US and UK capacity to finance their unbridled public deficits has become the central question of international debates, thus paving the way for these two countries to default on their debt by the end of this summer.

At this stage of the global systemic crisis’ process of development, contrary to the dominant political and media stance today, the LEAP/E2020 team does not foresee any economic upsurge after summer 2009 (nor in the following 12 months) (1). On the contrary, because the origins of the crisis remain unaddressed, we estimate that the summer 2009 will be marked by the converging of three very destructive « rogue waves » (2), illustrating the aggravation of the crisis and entailing major upheaval by September/October 2009. As always since this crisis started, each region of the world will be affected neither at the same moment, nor in the same way (3). However, according to our researchers, all of them will be concerned by a significant deterioration in their situation by the end of summer 2009 (4).

This evolution is likely to catch large numbers of economic and financial players on the wrong foot who decided to believe in today’s mainstream media operation of “euphorisation”.

In this special « Summer 2009 » edition, our team describes in detail these three converging « rogue waves » and their impact, and gives a number of strategic recommendations (currencies, gold, real estate, bonds, stocks) to avoid being swept away in this deadly summer.

Duration (in months) of US recessions since 1900 (average duration: 14,43 months) – Sources: US National Bureau of Economic Research / Trends der Zukunft

LEAP/E2020 believes that, instead of « green shoots » (those which international media, experts and the politicians who listen to them (5) kept perceiving in every statistical chart (6) in the past two months), what will appear on the horizon is a group of three destructive waves of the social and economic fabric expected to converge in the course of summer 2009, illustrating the aggravation of the crisis and entailing major changes by the end of summer 2009… more specifically, debt default events in the US and UK, both countries at the centre of the global system in crisis. These waves appear as follows:

1. Wave of massive unemployment: Three different dates of impact according to the countries in America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa

2. Wave of serial corporate bankruptcies: companies, banks, housing, states, counties, towns

3. Wave of terminal crisis for the US Dollar, US T-Bond and GBP, and the return of inflation

World trade shrinks : Chart 1: Year-over-year change in total exports from 15 major exporting countries (1991-02/2009) / Chart 2: Year-over-year change in exports from 15 major exporters between February 2008 and February 2009 (size of circles reflects vo

In fact, these three waves do not appear in quick succession like the « sisters rogue waves ». They are even more dangerous because they are simultaneous, asynchronous and non-parallel. Hence their impact on the global system accentuates the risks because they hit at various angles, at different speeds and with varying strength. The only certain thing at this stage is that the international system has never been so weak and powerless to face such a situation. The IMF and global governance institutions’ reforms announced by the London G20 are at a standstill (7). The G8 becomes more like a moribund club whose utility is increasingly questioned (8). US leadership is the shadow of what it used to be, mostly concerned by desperately trying to find purchasers for its T-Bonds (9). The global monetary system is in a process of disintegration, with the Russians and Chinese in particular accelerating their positioning in the post-Dollar era. Companies foresee no improvement in the business climate and speed up the pace of layoffs. A growing number of states falter under the weight of their accumulated debt created to “rescue banks” and are about to be faced with a welter of failings by the end of this summer (10). And, last but not least, the banks, once they have squeezed money out of naive savers thanks to the market upsurge orchestrated in the past few weeks, will be have to admit that they are still insolvent by the end of summer 2009.

In the United States and United Kingdom in particular, the colossal public financial effort made in 2008 and at the beginning of 2009 for the sole benefit of large banks became so unpopular that it was impossible to consider injecting more public money into banks in spring 2009, despite the fact that they were still insolvent (11). It then became necessary to invent a “fairy tale” to convince the average saver to inject his/her own money into the financial system. By means of the « green shoots » story, overpriced stock indices based on no real economic grounds and promises of « anticipated public funding repayment », the conditioning was achieved. Hence, while big investors from oil-producing and Asian countries (12) withdrew capital from these banks, large numbers of small individual investors returned, full of hope. Once these small investors discover that public funding repayment is only a drop in the ocean of public aid granted to these banks (to help them dispose of their toxic assets) and that, after three or four months at best (as analyzed in this GEAB N°36), these banks are again on the verge of collapse, they will realize, powerless, that their share is worth nothing once again.

Growth in GDP (green) and US debt (red) (Bn USD) – Sources: US Federal Reserve / US Bureau of Economic Analysis / Chris Puplava, 2008

Intoxicated by financiers, world political leaders will be surprised – once again – to see all the problems of last year reappear, all the more severe since they were not addressed but only buried under piles of public money. Once that money has been squandered by insolvent banks compelled to « rescue » even more insolvent rivals, or by ill-conceived economic stimulus plans, problems will re-emerge, further exacerbated. For hundreds of millions of citizens in America, Europe, Asia and Africa, the summer 2009 will be a dramatic transition towards lasting impoverishment due to the loss of their jobs, with no hope of finding new ones in the next two, three or four years, or due to the disappearance of their savings invested in stocks or capital-based pension funds, or in banking investments linked to stock markets or denominated in US dollars or British pounds, or investment in shares of companies pressured to desperately wait for an improvement not coming soon.

Notes:

(1) Not even the « jobless recovery » many experts are trying to make us believe in. In the United States, United Kingdom, Eurozone and Japan, it is a « recoveryless recovery » we must expect, i.e. a pure invention aimed at convincing US and UK insolvent consumers to start buying again and keeping US T-Bonds’ and UK Gilts’ country purchasers waiting as long as possible (until they decide that there is really no future selling their products to the lands of the US Dollar and British Pound.

(2) « Rogues waves » are very large and sudden ocean surface waves which used to be considered as rare, though we now know that they appear in almost every storm above a certain strength. « Rogue waves » can reach heights of 30 meters (98 ft) and exert tremendous pressure. For instance, a normal 3 meter-high wave exerts a pressure of 6 tons/m². A 10 meter-high tempest wave exerts a pressure of 12 tons/m². A 30 meter-high rogue wave can exert pressure of up to 100 tons/m². No ship yet built is able to resist such pressures. One specific kind of rogue wave is called the “three sisters”, i.e. a group of three rogue waves all the more dangerous in that, even if a ship had time to react properly to the first two waves, there is no way she could be in the right position to brave the third one. According to LEAP/E2020, it is a similar phenomenon that the world is about to encounter this summer; and no country (ship) is in a favourable position to face them, even if some countries are more at risk than others, as explained in this GEAB (N°36).

(3) LEAP/E2020 estimate that their anticipations of social and economic trends in the various regions of the world – published in GEAB N°28 (10/16/2008) – are still relevant.

(4) More precisely, in every region, media and stock markets will no longer be able to hide the deterioration.

(5) Our readers have not failed to notice that the same people, media and institutions, considered everything was for the best in the best of worlds 3 years ago, that there was no risk of a severe crisis 2 years ago, and that the crisis was under control a year ago. Their opinion is therefore highly reliable!

(6) As regards US economic statistics, it will be interesting to follow the consequences of the revision of the indexing formula by the Bureau of Economic Analysis due to take place on 07/31/2009. Usually, this type of revision results in further complexity of historical comparisons and favourable modification of important figures. For example, some previous revisions enabled the division of the average level of measured inflation by three. Source: MWHodges, 04/2008.

(7) Except at a regional level where each political entity is organized the way that it wants. For instance, the EU is taking advantage of the political fading away of the UK – mired in a financial, economic and political crisis – and taking supervisory control of the City of London (source: Telegraph, 06/11/2009). It is likely that summer 2009 will be the end of 300 years of the City’s supremacy at the centre of British power. On this subject, it is instructive to read George Monbiot’s article in The Guardian dated 06/08/2009 and take the time to read John Lanchester’s brilliant essay published in the London Review of Books dated 05/28/2009 entitled « It’s finished ».

(8) Who cares any more about G8 final statements, such as that following the June 13th G8-Finance meeting (source: Forbes, 06/13/2009), at a time when each player in fact plays by his own rules: Americans on one side, Canadians and Europeans on another, British and Japanese in the middle, while the Russians play a complete different game?

(9) US Treasury’s Secretary of State, Timothy Geithner, recently suffered a very embarrassing experience whilst giving a speech in front of Beijing University students: his audience simply burst into laughter when he reassured that the Chinese government had made the right choice investing their holdings in US T-Bonds and Dollars (source: Examiner/Reuters, 6/02/2009)! There is nothing worse than arousing irony or ridicule when you are an established power because that power is nothing without respect (on the part of both friends and enemies), especially when the one mocking is supposed to be “trapped” by the one mocked. According to LEAP/E2020, this laughter is worth a thousand explanations of the fact that China does not feel at all « trapped » by the US dollar and the Chinese authorities know exactly what tracks greenbacks and T–Bonds are following. This kind of situation was unthinkable only 12 months, maybe even 6 months ago, first because the Chinese were still naive, second because they thought it was in their interest to make everyone believe they were naive. Obviously, on the eve of summer 2009, this situation has vanished: no need to pretend anymore, as highlighted by this survey of 23 famous Chinese economists, published on the first day of Timothy Geithner’s visit to Beijing, and revealing that most of them deem US assets « risky » (source: Xinhuanet, 05/31/2009). This student burst of laughter will continue to echo for many months to come…

(10) Not only in the US will shareholders be systematically prejudiced by the state under the pretext of higher common interest, as in the case of pension fund and bondholder losses related to the Chrysler and GM bankruptcies, or when the US government and Federal Reserve pressured Bank of America to hide the calamitous state of Merrill Lynch from its shareholders at the time of the latter’s takeover. Sources: OpenSalon, 06/10/2009 / WallStreetJournal, 04/23/2009. In the UK, Europe and Asia, the same causes will produce the same effects: the « raison d’état » has always been the simplest excuse to justify large-scale plundering … and severe crises are perfect times to call in the « raison d’état ».

(11) Germany has a similar problem due to next September’s national election. After the election, the country’s banking problems will be in the headlines, as several hundreds of billions of risky assets on the balance sheets of a number of banks, mainly regional ones, will need dealing with. It is far from the scope of US and UK banking problems, nevertheless Berlin will probably be faced with a number of potential bank failures. Source: AFP/Google, 04/25/2009. In the United States, the banks bailed out by the federal state have simply lowered the amount of loans granted when they are supposed to do the contrary. Source:CNNMoney, 06/15/2009

(12) Sources: Financial Times, 06/01/2009; YahooFinance, 06/04/2009;StreetInsider+Holdings/4656921.html, 05/15/2009; Financial Times, 06/01/2009

Trend Alert: Total Economic Breakdown Is Underway!

TheTotalCollapse.com — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 18:57:55 +0000

GEAB N°34 is available! Summer 2009: The international monetary system’s breakdown is underway

- Public announcement GEAB N°34 (April 15, 200) –

The next stage of the crisis will result from a Chinese dream. Indeed, what on earth can China be dreaming of, caught – if we listen to Washington – in the “dollar trap” of its 1,400-billion worth of USD-denominated debt (1)? If we believe US leaders and their scores of media experts, China is only dreaming of remaining a prisoner, and even of intensifying the severity of its prison conditions by buying always more US T-Bonds and Dollars (2).

In fact, everyone knows what prisoners dream of? They dream of escaping of course, of getting out of prison. LEAP/E2020 has therefore no doubt that Beijing is now (3) constantly striving to find the means of disposing of, as early as possible, the mountain of « toxic » assets which US Treasuries and Dollars have become, keeping the wealth of 1,300 billion Chinese citizens (4) prisoner. In this issue of the GEAB (N°34), our team describes the “tunnels and galleries” Beijing has secretively begun to dig in the global financial and economic system in order to escape the « dollar trap » by the end of summer 2009. Once the US has defaulted on its debt, it will be time for the « everyman for himself » rule to prevail in the international system, in line with the final statement of the London G20 Summit which reads as a « chronicle of a geopolitical dislocation », as explained by LEAP/E2020 in this issue of the Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin.

Quarterly Chinese foreign exchange reserves growth – Source: People’s Bank of China / New York Times, 04/2009

Behind London’s « fools’ game », where everyone pretended to believe that an event of « historical » international co-operation (5) took place, the G20 summit in fact revealed major divisions. The Americans and British (followed by a compliant Japan) desperately tried to preserve their capacity to maintain control over the global financial system, freezing or diluting any significant reform granting more power to the other players, but in fact no longer powerful enough to enforce their aims. The Chinese, Russians, Indians, Brazilians,… strove to change the balance of the international monetary and financial system in their favour, but were unable (or maybe, deep down, unwilling (6)) to impose their reforms. The Europeans (the EU without the United Kingdom) proved incapable of making up their minds between the only two options available: duplicating US and UK policies and sinking along with them, or questioning the very roots of the current monetary and financial system in partnership with the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians and the Brazilians. Today the Europeans have avoided following Washington and London in their endless reproduction of failed past policies (7), but they do not yet dare to prepare for the future.

The ongoing collapse of world trade growth cannot be explained by past relationships – Quarterly growth rates annualized – Source: OECD, March 2009

The Europeans can be held accountable if, in the remaining small window of opportunity (less than 6 months now), they fail to undertake the necessary steps to avoid a 10 year-long tragic crisis (8). Indeed they have the technical know-how that can help to create an international currency based on a basket of the world’s most important currencies, and they know which political approach is required to best combine the various strategic interests of a group of countries whose currencies would comprise the new international reserve currency. Unfortunately, EU leaders (namely Eurozone ones) clearly seem unable to face their responsibilities today, as if they preferred to let the Western system break down (though claiming the contrary) rather than fight to turn it into a bridge leading to a new global system. It may be a choice (LEAP/E2020 does not believe so); it may also be the result of the pusillanimity of EU leaders selected on the basis of their docility (vis-à-vis Washington and major European financial and economic players). In any event, this neutrality is dangerous for the world because it prevents the launch of an effective process to avoid a decade-long tragic crisis to unwind (9).

In this issue of the GEAB, our researchers anticipate the different forms a US default will take at the end of summer 2009, a US default which can no longer be concealed concealable from this April (most taxes are collected in April in the US) onward (10). The perspective of a US default this summer is becoming clearer as public debt is now completely out of control with skyrocketing expenses (+41%) and collapsing tax revenues (-28%), as LEAP/E2020 anticipated more than a year ago. In March 2009 alone, the federal deficit has nearly reached USD 200-billion (way above the most pessimistic forecasts), i.e. a little less than half of the deficit recorded for the entire year 2008 (a record high year) (11). The same trend can be observed at every level of the country’s public organisation: federal state, federated states (12), counties, towns (13), everywhere tax revenues are vanishing, suffocating the whole country with spiraling debts that no one can control anymore (not even Washington).

US tax receipts on corporate income (1930 – 2009) – Sources: US Department of Commerce / Saint Louis Federal Reserve (Q2-Q3 2009 projection by EconomicEdge)

In this issue of the GEAB (N°34), our researchers focus on how to explain the « mystery of gold price ». Indeed, our seekers (of information, not gold) identified a number of interesting leads to understand why (14) the price of gold has been fluctuating around the same level for months when the number of gold buyers is constantly increasing and demand for coins and bars far exceeds available supply in many countries.

Finally, our team gives recommendations on how to prepare for the crisis in the coming months, with particular regard to savings and life-insurance.

———
Notes:

(1) Total Chinese foreign exchange reserves amount to USD 2,000-billion, of which USD-denominated assets are 70 percent maximum, equal to USD 1,400 billion. The remaining 30 percent mainly consists of EUR-denominated assets.

(2) Most of the time, the same « experts » predicted that global economy would benefit from banking deregulation, that the Internet economy was opening up an era of endless growth, that US deficits were a sign of strength, that US house prices would always go up, and that taking on debt was the modern way to get rich.

(3) The message on the necessity to switch international reserve currency, sent out by Beijing to the world – to US authorities in particular –, on the eve of London’s G20 Summit, was not intended to merely test the waters nor was it some vague attempt with no hope of success. The Chinese leaders had no illusion on the chances for this topic to be actually addressed in the G20 Summit, but they wanted it to be discussed in the backrooms, because they wanted to send an unofficial signal to all the players of the international monetary system: in Beijing’s mind, the Dollar system is over! If no one wishes to prepare for a common alternative system, the alternative system will be built some other way, knowing that the actions the Chinese are currently taking corroborate this intention. For instance, precisely these days (random political schedule is rare in Beijing) a book is being published, entitled « Unhappy China », arguing that Chinese leaders should stand up and impose their choices on the international arena. Source: ChinaDailyBBS, 03/27/2009

(4) This link gives the figures to the last cent: ChineInformation.

(5) Angela Merkel was closest to the truth about the G20 summit when she called it « an almost historical event ». The word “almost” is emblematic of what happened in London: the G20 leaders “almost” created a framework for a joint action programme, they “almost” launched new stimulus plans and new international financial rules, they “almost” banned tax-havens, and they “almost” convinced everyone that it would happen. “Almost” but not “really”, will make a big difference for the next stages of the crisis.

(6) In the previous issue of the GEAB (N°33), our team explained this dilemma for the “international system” today. At some point, it is in the interests of new players to simply wait for the current system to break down in order to build a new one, rather than strive to reform it, and suffer a long period of uncertainty.

(7) In particular, outrageous government borrowing – also called « economic stimulus » in Washington and London.

(8) The decisions taken at London’s G20 summit directly contribute to the long-term crisis scenario.

(9) As regards the EU, LEAP/E2020 emphasizes the inanity of all those economic and political « analyses », produced by leading economists and experts close to the American Democrats, and circulated by all the largest international mainstream media, blaming the Europeans for not following in Washington’s footsteps. Paul Krugman in mind for instance, these « very good friends » of Europe, who like it so much that they think they know better than Europe what is best for it (and what it should become, as indeed the same experts usually advocate its extension to Turkey, see Israel and Central Asia), whereas they would be best giving some quality advice to their own party and their new President to prevent their own country from collapsing, as this is what is really at stake today. It is beyond belief that a panel of experts, who, in all these years, sang the praises of a system which is today collapsing under everyone’s nose, still dares give lessons to the rest of the world. Basis decency suggests only one course of conduct worldwide: silence. In Europe, this position, despite the fact that it still enjoys its usual academic and media support, is too outdated to be accepted. LEAP/E2020 believes it is necessary and legitimate to cast a critical eye on the EU, its leaders and its policies; but doing so on the sole criteria of its conformity or otherwise with Washington’s (or London’s) stance is no longer acceptable. In the same way as financiers and business leaders obviously failed to understand that times had changed regarding their stock-options and “golden parachutes”, a number of intellectuals and politicians have not yet fully understood that their points of reference, values and theories now belong to the past. They should think of the elites of the Soviet bloc and they would understand how and how fast a thought system can become obsolete.

(10) Besides collapsing tax revenues, a protest movement has started in the US against using taxes to save Wall Street and against further deficits, blaming the country’s entire leading class. Sources: USAToday, 04/13/2009; MarketWatch, 04/16/2009

(11) Sources: USAToday, 04/11/2009; MarketWatch, 04/10/2009

(12) In California for instance, the first days of April suggested revenues far lesser than the worse forecasts, likely to result in multiplying two-fold California’s debt anticipated a few months ago. A similar trend is under way at the federal level, making it possible to imagine that the annual federal deficit reaches above USD 3,500 billion, i.e. 20 percent of US GDP. Source : CaliforniaCapitol, 04/08/2009

(13) Some towns, like Auburn near Seattle for instance, are compelled to ban trucks from their major freight routes by lack of maintenance financial means. Source: SeattleBusinessJournal, 04/10/2009

(14)Thus enabling to anticipate upcoming trends.