NO WAY OUT: A 50% DOLLAR DEVALUATION
by Robert McHugh, Ph.D.
January 14, 2007
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/mchugh/2007/0114.html
Artificial Economics, the brainchild of the Master Planners, has
focused on building an economy where debt — not income — pays
for goods and services. The emphasis upon debt instead of income
via hyper-inflating the money supply in stealth fashion, has
destroyed the dreams of millions of Americans. Artificial
Economics is a silent economic disease. A coming significant
devaluation of the dollar is a likely and necessary consequence.
The use of hyper-inflated money supply to postpone a recession
over recent years has served to create an imbalance between
income and assets. Debt covered the gap for a while, but now
debt is extreme, with a limited useful life. With high paying
jobs being exported, and a limit to what is essentially slave
labor from illegal immigrants, future productivity gains which
translate into income are almost entirely technology dependent.
If technology fails us, then the debt-to-income imbalance, then
the asset-to-income imbalance must be reckoned with.
Undoubtedly, that reckoning will either be a nasty
recession/depression — where asset values drop below debt
levels, leaving us with an imbalance between both assets and
debt, and income and debt — or a significant and sudden
devaluation of the dollar.
What is accomplished by a significant and sudden dollar
devaluation? It is a way to pay off debt with
suddenly-more-available dollars; cheaper dollars. We have been
witnessing a slow meticulous devaluation of the dollar over the
past two decades, with an acceleration over the past decade.
This has come from an increase in the money supply via the
credit creation route — debt. But that has served to replace
income, and postpone a recession, at the great cost of
hyperinflation of real estate, related taxes, and just about
everything you buy. The result is debt. Once the debt creation
train stops, then there will be no way to pay for things; no way
to pay off that debt. There will soon be a point of no return,
with an inevitable sudden and significant dollar devaluation as
the only solution. It would require the Treasury printing an
amount of money equal to the current entire money supply, more
than 11 trillion dollars, and literally handing it out to each
household so that the broadest spectrum of people have the
ability to payoff their debt. Debt does not rise in value as the
dollar devalues. It is a contracted amount in
former-dollar-value, notional terms. Thus, if we suddenly hand
several hundred thousand dollars to each and every household, a
dollar will become worth 50 cents in real terms, but in debt
terms, it will still be worth a dollar, and folks will have more
of them.
Dollar devaluation would require mandated cost-of-living wage
increases, but also would require issuance of a brand new
currency. Call it the liberty instead of the dollar. If you tied
the liberty to gold, the U.S. currency could keep its world
reserve status and survive the dollar devaluation tsunami. It
would require a liberty to be worth the equivalent of two
dollars, where there was only one dollar in circulation before
the fifty percent devaluation event. A gold-backed liberty would
stabilize inflation, and bring monetary stabilization back, but
in a new economic order where debt is substantially reduced,
both private and government. Government debt would be reduced as
folks are required to pay taxes on the dollar-devaluing
household-handout. Of course, this means Gold would have a
bright future. I don’t see any other way out. Thank Artificial
Economics for this — the economics practiced for the past decade
in this nation that wasn’t mentioned in your child’s college
economics textbook.
The Fed is sending out hints that it isn’t planning to drop
interest rates any time soon. Chicago Fed chief Michael Moskow
stated this week that inflation risks were his major worry. He
oughtta know, the Fed is causing inflation, which is why it hid
M-3. Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn said, “There is no guarantee
that core inflation will continue to ease.” Chairman Bernanke
felt the need this week to address the Fed’s role in crises,
citing the benefits of the Fed’s regulatory supervisory role.
They know the problem, are likely in denial, but inevitably, the
“buck stops here” decision must be made — devalue the dollar in
half. We believe that decision, if it hasn’t been made already,
will be.
M-3 remains hidden by the Fed, so that We the People can’t know
what the Federal Reserve is up to. Where’s the transparency Ben?
Check out this monster in the chart above — It tells you all you
need to know about what the Fed has been doing with M-3.
First of all, let’s examine the pattern. It is a Head and
Shoulders top. These patterns are highly reliable. It is not yet
a “confirmed” pattern, meaning until prices drop below the
neckline decisively, say below 80.00 to 77.00 or so, the
probability of the minimum target of 40.00ish being hit is not
as great. However, should we see the Dollar drop down to
77.00ish, we are in a high risk situation of a devaluation of
the dollar all the way down to 40.00. Not all at once, but over
the course of several years. Perhaps all at once, should the
government elect to flat-out issue an edict that a dollar is now
worth 50 cents. Would they? Maybe. Why? Again, it is a way to
repudiate half of all the debt in the United States. Why would
they want to do that? Perhaps if a recession became a
depression, or the risk thereof. Perhaps if housing was to
absolutely dive into the tank. It would be a way to relieve
mortgage holders of a huge chunk of their obligations in lieu of
mass foreclosures.
The pattern is ominous as far as its size, its timeframe, and as
far as its downside implications. This pattern is textbook. No
flaws. In fact it carries a rare added textbook feature of a
weaker right shoulder than left. That is not good. This is right
in line with the Fed’s decision to hide M-3, enabling them to
hyper-inflate the economy with too much money for secret
purposes (The Working Group’s minutes are secret, their market
buying intervention activities are secret, the quantity of M-3
being created is secret). Any auditor worth his salt will tell
you that secrecy breeds mischief, often with dire consequences.
The founding fathers established accountability in our
constitution, and the Federal Reserve and the Working Group
(a.k.a. Plunge Protection Team) are managing M-3 in violation of
that spirit.
© 2007 Robert McHugh, Ph.D.
Editorial Archive and Bio
“But the Lord was pleased
To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.
As a result of the anguish of His soul,
He will see it and be satisfied;
By His knowledge the Righteous One,
My Servant, will justify the many,
As He will bear their iniquities.”
Isaiah 53: 10,11
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