United States Potentially About to Fall

 

The United States is precariously balancing between solvency and being revealed as bankrupt. The United States has mortgaged thousands of acres of virgin lands which hold resources above and below the ground. The resources include but are not limited to coal, uranium, lumber, wheat, grazing lands and potential oil deposits or precious metals etc. There are other questions which are relegated to conspiracy theorists and fear mongers but the fact that China has been purchasing gold and could be said to be hoarding gold for quite some time as the gold buying by China in a graph from 2012 displaying the situation in raw numbers as shown below.

 

 

China Gold Purchases of 2012

 

 

The graph in and of itself is a solid display of a potentially damaging effect on the balance of gold holdings but in all honesty we need to make a confession; the number in metric tons is used as an alarmist shock figure which is a form of deception as taken as a percentage of the total holdings of all nations and one immediately realizes the minor difference eight-hundred-thirty-five metric tons is but three and a third percent of the over well over twenty-five-thousand metric tons owned by all the nations of the world. Perhaps a listing of the top ten nations in gold holdings according to the International Monetary Fund’s records will make a difference and put everything into perspective. Below is a list of the top ten national gold holdings listed below.

 

1) United States   with gold holdings of   8,133.5 metric tons
2) Germany          with gold holdings of   3,391.3 metric tons
3) Italy               with gold holdings of   2,451.8 metric tons
4) France            with gold holdings of   2,435.4metric tons
5) China              with gold holdings of   1,054.1 metric tons
6) Switzerland      with gold holdings of   1,040.1 metric tons
7) Russia             with gold holdings of     937.8 metric tons
8) Japan              with gold holdings of     765.2 metric tons
9) Netherlands      with gold holdings of     937.8 metric tons
10) India             with gold holdings of     557.7 metric tons

 

As can be note, 835 metric tons are a mere drop in the bucket providing these are the sole gold acquisitions made by China. There are claims that China has, as well as bringing in the amounts of gold in the graph through Hong Kong, has also established a surreptitious route through the gold markets in Shanghai and that they have acquired an additional 7,000 metric tons through this untraceable route over the past half a decade making China the largest gold reserve on the planet, providing these claims are valid and not just the ravings of conspiracy mongers living in some basement, likely their own basement, but basement all the same (we are located in a basement free apartment, so we can be trusted, well, that along with our track record of opinions over the past half a decade plus). The main problem with the seven thousand metric tons theory would be that such purchases would exceed the amount of gold available for purchase each year. The only way that China could have amassed that seven thousand metric tons would be if a state holding, or a number of state holdings, were to be being liquidated or transferred to China as payment of debts but being done under the radar through gold merchants in Shanghai, but even then one would expect the trade of such amounts would raise some suspicions and keeping them under wraps would be the best kept secret since the hiding of the Ark of the Covenant, itself constitutes a good amount of gold and things far more valuable than mere gold. That would beg the question as to who might be selling gold in such quantities.

 

This aside, China is on a definite path to acquire as much gold as they are able to buy and mine in efforts to improve its position and possibly having delusions that they could one day exceed the gold holdings of the United States, providing that China has not already cashed in their bank notes and other United States debt holdings, demanding payment in gold and routed this through trusted merchants in Shanghai who are actually Chinese government employees, high level Chinese government employees holding really cushy positions living the life in Shanghai. There was an increase in the interest rates charged by the lenders to top line banks by one-fourth-of-one-percent which some are claiming is a sign that the all but free money supplies are about to be tightened over the next year or so. While this very well may be in the plans, it is not what this tightening was about.

 

 

 

 

We can expect the Federal Reserve to hike the rates again this coming spring by as much as one-half-of-one-percent which will send panic waves through a fair number of investors and exactly the opposite through the other bulk of investors as there are going to be arguments that this is the end of expansion of the stock market and a slowing of business as lending will have become tighter and more expensive. Wrong again. These maneuvers are all being manipulated for political reasons and have absolutely nothing to do with the economy as that picture has not changed. After raising the interest rates the Federal Reserve will drop them announcing a reversal of policy claiming there was a misreading of economic indicators and it has become obvious that tightening the money supply is unwarranted and thus the return to the lower rate or an even lower rate. This announcement will be made about mid-September and will unleash a flurry of activity as stocks will soar, jobs will magically appear, most to deal with the holiday seasonal employment jump plus the coming available jobs held by students over their summer breaks. These replacement workers will demand a slightly higher rate of pay than did the summer employees working for near or at minimum wages. This will show a marked improvement in the jobs rate, lowering unemployment and even bringing some who had been dropped from the employment picture may return making the numbers all around look far better going into the fall campaign season. The improved picture will be claimed by President Obama as validation of his handling of the economy and his approach to growing jobs through government investment in the economy, also known as corporate welfare and crony capitalism. This will also make the Democratic candidates claims that theirs is the correct path to a bright future appear less Pollyannish and the claims that the tightening of the belt on government spending is actually necessary. This has been the path the Federal Reserve has taken ever since President Clinton needed a jobs, finances, and general boost in order to gain reelection and is now being extended when there is no President seeking reelections, more specifically a Democrat President seeking reelection, and the hope is to provide the best possible scenario for the election of another Democrat and keeping the republican Party out of the White House.

 

I can hear the skeptics already writing their comments screaming for us to quit with all of the conspiracy craziness and return to planet Earth. The problem is this has gone from crazed theory to actual reality as the economic health of the Western world depends on there never coming to fruition the exploding of the debt bubble. What the Western world, especially Europe and almost as deeply indebted United States, are facing is a huge and unpayable debt which has gotten to the point that there are no longer any credible sources of funding. This has caused these governments to do something which is euphemistically called Quantitative Easing which is where a loop is invented where one party loans funds they do not presently have to the government and then buy that money from the government in order to repay their debt but instead the monies are instead invested by distributing it to banks to lean and thus stimulate the economy. This might have functioned far more efficiently if the Federal Reserve had not already lowered the interest rates to where any corporate venture could be financed almost fee free thus there was no demand for these funds and the banks saw no upside to lending the funds anyways. Thus these funds which have come from a series of Quantitative Easings have basically sat in the larger banks vaults collecting electronic dust as these funds exist solely in the computers which run the economic system. This is known as stagnation of funds and means that the cash has no velocity, simply put the cash is not flowing through the system and thus has had absolutely no effect on the system which is good for keeping inflation low as had these funds been forced into the system then prices would have risen commensurate to the amount of increase is available monies for purchasing of goods and services.

 

So, when will these funds enter the system and what will be their effects? Well, they will come into play when the interest rates rise sufficiently that it becomes advantageous to the banks holding these funds to let them flow into the lending market. The situation will come about most likely when the prime interest rate set by the Federal Reserve reaches around four-and-a-half to five-percent which will mean rates of anywhere from six percent on up depending on one’s credit rating, the amount borrowed and whether the loan is backed by hard goods as in a mortgage or many business loans or if it is unbacked as are investment loans and purchases. There is a side problem which does not often figure into your or my daily life, and that is the Federal Debt which has about exceeded five-trillion dollars for the United States and a similar level in Europe which will only grow worse as more countries end up like Greece where the money flows in but nothing ever comes back including payments on these debts, they have become economic black holes where they take in but even small change cannot escape their borders. Once the IMF along with the Federal Reserve increase the interest rate it will effect an enormous upward jump in the short term interest rates which nations and the European Union all use to finance their debts and this will mean a jump in the interest payments, the minimum payment required for solvency.

 

The current rate is around one-half-of-one-percent for the best rates nations to probably two-percent for the riskiest of nations say Greece. Should the rate on these loans increase as expected for each level of increase in the prime rate, then the best rated nations could be looking at four or even five-percent and the worst risk nations clearing ten percent. Imagine if the United States, as a prime example, faced a change in their interest rates. Currently they receive a generously low rate, let us say one percent to make the numbers easy. Should the rate increase to one-and-one-fourth the United States would see their interest payment on their debt increase accordingly by one-quarter-of-one-percent, something easily handled. But what if the rate increased to around five-percent? Currently the United States uses approximately fifteen percent of their budget to pay their interest on the debt. Should that increase five-fold they would be spending seventy-five-percent of their budget on paying interest on their debt and thus they would reach the point of no return as this could not be sustained and still pay the salaries of the Federal Employees nor could they pay for the vast majority of programs and the military would be necessarily decimated to such an extent as to being unable to even be capable of protecting the mainland from attack. This would be the end of the United State and along with them the world economy as Europe would crash and the only way out for the world would be a total reset. The other definition for a total reset is a world war at whatever level of destruction required allowing for a complete restarting of all economies and the cancellations of all debts. The individual nations would then be dependent on their gold reserves to demand their seating as viable powers in this new world and this may be behind China, Russia, India and Brazil all buying gold and other precious metal and gems at a dizzying rate. Perhaps they know something the rest of us would be wise to note and understand.

 

Beyond the Cusp