The only thing that continues to postpone the crisis from swallowing paper MONEY are interest rates more at variance with economic reality than at any time in history. These grotesquely low interest rates have allowed governments, even deeply indebted governments, to go on spending and stimulating without hugely increasing the cost of servicing their existing levels of debt. It is the only thing which has allowed them to maintain the facade that their money was safe behind the “full faith and credit” of government.

The Initial Symptoms:

Ever since the Lehman collapse and global credit lockdown of September/October last year, governments everywhere have been ramping up their borrowing, spending, stimulating and guaranteeing. And for at least six months now, the “developed” nations - whose international proxy is now the G-20 - have been
making noises about plans to start withdrawing all this - when the time is “right”, of course.

The process of slowly breaking away from the money destroying policies which have overwhelmed real economies over the past year in particular has begun. It will widen. It is simply a matter of time before the US is hit. For those nations, the US in particular, which refuse to step back from their intervention, the withdrawal symptoms will hit with a plunging currency and a loss of control over interest rates. . . . .
What is it that is guaranteed to bankrupt the US government if nothing else beats it to it? The US “social safety net”. What is it that has turned the citizens of every nation which has one from savers to spenders? A “social safety net”. What is today the area of government spending that is simply impossible to cut no matter how much the government has to borrow to continue to “fund” it? The “social safety net”.

Because he can no longer stop them no matter how hard he tries (and he has tried very hard indeed), Mr Bernanke is now on record as wanting Americans to “save more”. He knows that the day is coming when the Treasury will not be able to rely on Asia (and the rest of the world) to continue to buy its debt paper and he doesn’t want the Fed to be the only one left to do so. He wants Americans to pitch in too.

Ó 2009 – The Privateer

http://www.the-privateer.com

capt@the-privateer.com

(reproduced with permission)

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