The Dow slipped a bit yesterday – only 39 points. Everyone is watching. They want to see how far this rally carries on. Many think it is more than a bear market bounce; they think it is for real.

The prevailing opinion is that quick action by the feds avoided a more serious meltdown. Ben Bernanke says he was working to prevent a “second great depression.”

And now that the crisis is past, the economy is slowly climbing out of its hole. The second quarter showed GDP falling at 1% per year in the US… rather than the 6.4% rate recorded earlier in the year. Housing sales have perked up. Oil is trading above $71 – a sign of renewed economic activity. And gold seems to be getting ready for another assault on the $1,000 mark – a sign of growing inflation pressures.

At least… that’s the way the world sees it.

Here at the Daily Reckoning, we look… we squint… we wipe the fog off our glasses and try to tear the scales off our eyes. What do we see? We see a financial world gone mad.

Or, perhaps we should say… a financial world that has still not recovered from the Bubble Madness of 2002-2007.

One bubble begat another. We have previously reported that the bubble era was over. Because the machinery that made it possible – the bubblelized financial industry – was broken. Well, we were only half right. The finance sector has exploded. Bear Stearns was sold for peanuts. Lehman Bros. went broke. Merrill was forced into a shotgun wedding with the Bank of America (NYSE:BAC); with Hank Paulson holding the firearm. JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) is still in business. So is Goldman (NYSE:GS).

But now we know that even Goldman might have gone under if Paulson – ex-Goldman man – had not engineered a stealth bailout. He brought the feds in to save AIG, and in the process he saved his old alma mater too… AIG’s biggest trading partner, Goldman Sachs.

And now Goldman is in the news almost every day. It reported spectacular trading results for the quarter, lifting the entire world stock market. What’s good for Goldman must be good for the whole world economy, investors reasoned.

Then it was reported that Goldman made its money in a variety of ways – none of which had anything to do with providing genuine service to the economy. Goldman made a fortune on the feds’ own money-raising, it came out. And then it came out … Goldman was making billions by trading at lightning speed — clipping investors for fractions of pennies each time a transaction passed through the markets.

The Italians think Goldman runs their country. They’ve got the top three posts in Rome… Premier Romano Prodi is an ex-Goldman guy. So is the headman at the Treasury. And the chief of the central bank too.

They think Goldman is like a cult… a semi-secret society of insiders with the power to rule the country – surreptitiously. Like the free masons… the Jesuits… or the Illuminati.

Goldman has its boys in important posts in the US too – but not at the same level as in Italy. Tim Geithner is not a Goldman graduate. Neither is Ben Bernanke. But both have plenty of in-put from ex-Goldman associates, colleagues and handlers.

We confess an interest – we have relatives working at Goldman. But we doubt that Goldman rules the world. Just look what they said and did over the last couple of years; they had no more idea of what was going on than anyone else. No, they don’t rule the world… but they do manage to persuade it in their direction from time to time…

During the bubble years, they urged consumers, bankers, and investors to borrow… to speculate… and to ruin themselves. Naturally, Goldman made out like… well… like a bandit.

And now Goldman guys urge the government to ruin itself too. Yes, dear reader, the bubble age is not quite over. Now, there’s a bubble in government debt… Here too Goldman makes money like a bandit. The more the feds borrow… the more debt there is to buy and sell. And the more the feds stimulate… the more acts of reckless speculation there are to finance.

And the more money Goldman makes… the more politicians the firm is able to buy. Of course, they welcome campaign contributions.

And of course, Wall Street is spending record amounts in lobbying. But the real appeal is the lure of being able to join Goldman itself… of being able to spend some time in Washington… pushing business Goldman’s way… and then cash in big by joining the firm and getting a piece of the action…

*** There are two big bubbles now. There is the familiar one in federal government debt. The other is the Peoples’ Republic of China.

Andy Xie says China is a ‘giant ponzi scheme’ fed by new investors hoping to get rich. Of course, the China story is an attractive one. China’s growth rate is spectacular. Even in a worldwide financial meltdown… and the biggest depression since the ‘30s… China is still growing at greater than 8% per year – or so the figures tell us. New cities are still being built… at a breathtaking pace.

Stocks on the Shanghai exchange are up 80% so far this year. China has the biggest pile of cash on the planet — $2 trillion worth. And it has more bright, well educated engineers, accountants and economists than anywhere else… In fact, it has so many economists trained at Western universities, it is almost sure to blow itself up…

Maybe this is the Chinese Century. Maybe it is not. Either way, it seems inevitable to us that the Chinese bubble economy is going to pop. Banks are lending 3 times as much as they lent last year. You can’t increase lending at that rate and still maintain credit quality – if there was any in the first place. A lot of buildings are going up that won’t find tenants. A lot of factories are expanding that won’t find customers. A lot of speculations are going on that investors will later regret. That’s just how a bubble works!

Mr. Xie says, for example, that the cost of property in China is about the same as in the US. But wait, the average income in China is only 1/7th what it is in the USA. How can the Chinese afford American prices? Well, they can’t. They’re all betting on the greater fool theory – that they can pay any price, because some greater fool will come along and pay more. Trouble with that is that the Greatest Fool of All finally shows up… and then the whole structure collapses.

*** Barron’s says that “The Greenback is Broken.” True, the dollar has been losing ground as the stock market gains it. Yesterday, it took $1.44 to buy a euro.

“I was amazed at how expensive everything is in Paris,” said son Will. “You go into a shop to buy a few groceries… You expect to pay about $12. Instead, the bill comes to $40. Or, you stop to have a cup of coffee and a croissant. It costs you $10. I don’t know how you can afford to live in Paris…

Will lives in Buenos Aires… with frequent visits to in-laws in Florida…

“You know, it used to be so much cheaper to live in Buenos Aires than just about anywhere. But now, I think the prices are about the same as in Florida. Everything seems so cheap in Florida. And you can make some very good deals on property…

“Remember that house that I bought in 2006. You warned me not to do it. But right after I bought it people were coming to my door asking if they could buy it. One guy offered to write a check for $600,000. Then another guy offered $675,000. I began to think I really had something hot.

“Of course, then the market crashed. Now, I’m thinking of selling it for $300,000 – if I could find a buyer.

“But that’s in South Florida… only about an hour up the coast from Miami. There are places in the US where things are really, really cheap. In Iowa, maybe… Arkansas… Michigan. You can get a nice house for less than you’d pay for a garage in Paris. From that standpoint… the US seems like the place to be. You can live so cheaply. And fairly well… but quality of life is another thing… ”

The dollar is low… America is cheap. Barron’s is probably wrong about the buck. It’s not broken – not yet. Our guess is that it will rise when stocks crash this fall.

*** We’ve thought a lot about quality of life. It is not a constant, fixed thing we conclude…

There are only three main decisions you make in life – what you do; who you do it with; and where you do it. Typically, these decisions are made without much real thinking – which is probably the best way. They are not things that lend themselves to thought… but to feeling. Pity the more man who marries a woman after a prolonged and logical thought process. The poor sap is doomed. His head may be in the game, but his heart will drop the ball. The next thing you know, he will be in divorce court or therapy.

Likewise, the decision about where you live is not one that is readily subject to logical analysis. You like a place because you like it… And you may like it for a variety of reasons that defy analysis. There’s no accounting for tastes, as they say.

Living in rural Iowa probably wouldn’t suit us. We don’t have the stomach for it. We couldn’t draw enough nourishment out of such lean meat. We need more stimulation.

We like Paris for the street scenes. Everywhere we look, we see something we like to look at – people, buildings, shop windows, streets, bridges, river boats… Same thing out here at our summer place. We work in an octagonal office that sits in the park. No matter what window we look out of we see something that pleases us. A stone barn with a red barrel tile roof. Those big limousine cattle grazing in the field. And there’s the house itself… a conglomeration of a fortified farm house from the middle ages with a Renaissance-style faux-chateau cobbled onto it in the 19th century. And there is our grandson… 16 months old… playing in the gravel…

… wait… what’s he doing? Uh oh… he’s eating the gravel…

Gotta run…

Source: Goldman…Goldman…Goldman…

The Dow rose again yesterday – up 33 points, to close at 9,320. We set 10,000+ as our objective for this bounce. We’ll stick with it for a while longer.

Make no mistake though. No one knows how long this rally will last – certainly no one here at the Daily Reckoning vacation headquarters. It will continue until it runs out of gas. That could be tomorrow. It could be months from now.

It will run out of gas sooner or later, and probably this fall. A real, durable bull market would require an economic boom – a genuine recovery. We don’t see that happening…

But people must think it is happening…

“There are signs of a recovery in the US… ” was a popular line at last night’s cocktail party. Several friends mentioned it. Each time, we had the same reply – we wouldn’t bet on it.

Yesterday, the price of oil rose; it ended the day at $71. And the dollar stayed where it was – at $1.44 per euro. Investors are betting on recovery – despite our advice.

And when the recovery turns out to be a clunker, they’ll probably put these trades into reverse. Oil will go down; the dollar will go up.

You want to speculate, dear reader? Sell oil… buy the dollar. Wait for another crash this autumn.

Why will there be another crash?

Because people believe something that isn’t true. People believe that there is a recovery… and that it is the result of stimulus efforts by the feds. The results from the second quarter show the economy still contracting… but at a slower pace, just –1% annually, rather than the -6.4% recorded in the first quarter. This is heralded throughout the world as proof that the crisis is receding.

“It if weren’t for stimulus spending, the contraction [in the 2nd quarter] would have been closer to 4%,” says the editorial in the International Herald Tribune. “The stimulus is helping… and more stimulus would help even more.”

Oh? Would it? Let’s look at stimulus-in-action:

Cash for clunkers is a hare-brained scheme… but that doesn’t make it unpopular. The idea is to stimulate demand by, well, giving people money. But instead of just giving them money and letting them choose what to do with it, the feds decide they need a new car. In order to get the money, people have to buy one.

According to the press reports, the program has been a great success wherever it has been put in place – in France and Germany as well as the US.

If so, why not apply the concept elsewhere? How about cash for houses? Cash for liquor? Cash for newspapers? Cash for trips to Europe?

What’s so special about autos, in other words? And why is it a good thing for people to buy cars?

Oh c’mon, dear reader, don’t pretend you don’t know. The auto industry is huge… with many lobbyists and many organized groups interested in its well-being. It is an old and well-established industry with plenty of political clout.

Tomorrow’s industries, by contrast, have no lobbyists… no organized labor… no pet congressmen… no political action committees. So who gets the money?

Here’s the problem: the meddlers are not only up against tomorrow’s industries… they’re up against tomorrow itself. It’s not as if Americans needed cars. Not at all. They’ve got plenty of wheels already. Three car households are typical. And they’re fairly new cars. Americans were on a buying spree during the bubble era, 2001-2007; they bought new cars along with everything else. So, the goal of the cash for clunker scheme is not to increase the size of the US auto fleet, it’s to make it newer.

People don’t need more cars. They only need to replace cars that get worn out. If they bought a car 5 years ago, they may be ready to buy another one. Or, they could probably wait until next year. Along come the feds with cash… and the buyer decides to replace his car this year rather than next.

This is heralded as a success. The feds have stimulated demand. But what about next year?

We’ll have more to say about this on Friday… but the auto example helps us see what a scam these stimulus schemes really are. They claim to boost demand. But they can’t really increase demand. All they can do is roll next year’s buying into the present year.

Sound familiar? That’s the very thing that has been happening for the last two generations. Consumers didn’t want to wait until they’d made the money to take their vacations or buy their houses. They turned to credit. They borrowed against future earnings. They spent money they hadn’t earned yet… thus bringing forward purchases that should have been made in the future. That’s why we have a depression; now, we’re in the future!

It had to come sooner or later. After drawing consumption forward for decades, Americans had to stop. Time had to catch-up. Homeowners had to pay down debt. Ken Rogoff, Harvard professor of economics, believes it will take them 6-8 years to do so.

But consumers spent more than they could reasonably be expected to pay back. They out-spent the future! They bought a ticket to somewhere beyond the future… to a place where they would never actually arrive. In many cases – especially in the housing market – lenders discovered they couldn’t get their money back, which is what led to the credit crunch and the collapse of Wall Street.

Of the big five – Bear, Lehman, Goldman (NYSE:GS), JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) and Merrill – only two survived intact. And we know now that Goldman only survived because Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman, then Treasury Secretary, arranged a hidden bailout. He had the government step in to save AIG, which owed Goldman $13 billion.

From one scam to another… that’s the way the feds do it. From bailing out Wall Street they now turn to bailing out the entire world economy – in a similarly fraudulent way. Tim Geithner told the Chinese last week that the US would revive thanks to increased private demand. But the feds cannot really increase demand in the private sector. Increasing real demand would mean increasing real wages. And there’s no sign of that. To the contrary, incomes are going down.

Yesterday’s news tells us that personal incomes went down 1.3% in June. . Incomes had gone up in May, by precisely the same amount – 1.3%, thanks to stimulus payments. Then, too, commentators saw it as a sign of recovery. But what the feds gave in May was taken away in June. The future caught up with the Obama administration’s stimulus efforts within 30 days. Net result = zero.

The June number reflected the biggest drop in income in 4 years. It is not surprising. We’re in a depression, remember? Salaries and wages fell 0.4% in June… the 9th drop in the last 10 months.

*** “It looks like there are finally some signs of recovery in the US,” said more than one person we talked to last night.

The occasion was a cocktail party… held on the grounds of a stately chateau. The summer social season is underway in Poitou. We are attending dinners, plays, cocktail receptions, barbecues and weddings.

Last night, waiters in tuxedos passed out champagne, foie gras canapés, and desserts while hundreds of guests milled about and talked.

“You might want to hedge your bets on this recovery,” we told one Daily Reckoning reader. “It’s probably not going to work out.”

“But I’m confused about something,” he continued. “You’ve been urging me to buy gold for years. And now you seem to be changing your mind.”

“No… no… not at all. I’m still a gold bug. It’s just that I expect this rebound to end… and for stocks to go down, possibly down a lot. The dollar is what people want when they are frightened. The dollar is going down now because they think there’s no longer anything to be frightened about. But when this recovery disappoints them, investors are going to be more frightened than ever. Because they’ll realize that we’re faced with a depression… and that the feds can’t do anything about it. They’re going to rush to the safety of dollars… at least for a while. Probably long enough to shake out a lot of gold buyers.”

Source: Cash for Liquor Anyone?

Good day… And a Terrific Tuesday to you! First day back yesterday was a killer for yours truly… Went home, and went to sleep… But, I’m back today, and feeling good. I did something to my left knee on vacation that left me hobbling, and leaning on my cane more than I usually do. But today, it seems a bit better, so I’ve got that going for me!

Yesterday, I left you with the euro popping back and forth over the 1.43 level… But in a wink of an eye, the 1.43 level was gone, and the euro was trading with a 1.44 level, and remained there the rest of the day, reaching 1.4420 for the high… As I turn on the screens this morning, I see that the single unit has gone to popping back and forth over the 1.44 level… You don’t think it will get another sling-shot higher today do you?

I don’t… I was actually shocked to see that move yesterday… But then, I did say that the bias to sell dollars had really picked up steam lately. The piece of data that really pushed the dollar lower yesterday, was actually a “good piece of data” for the U.S. economy… The ISM Index (manufacturing) came in higher than expected and has reached a pre-Lehman Bros collapse level of 48.9… This was a BIG move from the previous month’s 44.8… It’s still below the “line in the sand figure” of 50, which is the indicator of contraction or expansion… I would say given the move from 44.8 to near 49, that expansion is already happening…

And why would that be given the rot on the U.S. economy’s vine? Ahhh grasshopper… Here’s a key ingredient, that I’ve pointed out to you for years now… The dollar… The dollar, measured by the dollar index has lost 13.4%… The dollar index, in case your new to class or have forgotten a previous lesson, is a basket of U.S. trading partner’s currencies. It is heavily weighted toward euros though… And therefore you have one of the reasons I always talk about the euro being the Big Dog… That, and the fact that the euro is the second most liquid trading currency in the world, and… It’s the offset currency to the dollar!

And… So… Here’s a note to the dollar bulls… Mess with this, and you’ll see manufacturing go right back into the dumpster!

But, what about this ISM Index? Pretty strong, I would say, given all that’s going on in not only the U.S. but the world. Going back to yesterday’s discussion about the recession coming to an end. This is one of the key pieces of data that will indicate to me that we have hit bottom and the bounce is on… I know that I have been pretty cynical of the forecasters that were calling for the bounce 6 months ago and so on, but if we get more of this type of data in the coming weeks, I’ll have to put a different cap on…

OK… The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) met last night, and as expected they left their internal interest rates unchanged. The RBA did move their bias for interest rates from easing to neutral, which is a natural progression to the next step of beginning a rate hike cycle. The RBA wasn’t in the mood to go “all in” on the move to neutral though… They hedged their move by saying that, “the present accommodative setting of monetary policy is appropriate given the economy’s circumstances.” That’s Central Bank parlance for “we’re doing this now, but we’re prepared to go back to easing should the economy’s rebound falter”…

So, the A$ was not able to push higher, as would normally be expected if the Central Bank would have gone “all in” on the move higher in bias… The A$ is hovering around 84-cents these days, which isn’t shabby considering that on March 1st of this year it was trading with a 63-cent handle! Still not the “go-go” days of summer 2008, when the A$ was knocking at the door of parity to the green/peachback.

The A$’s rise from the ashes of Feb 2008 is dragging kiwi along. The New Zealand dollar / kiwi saw the same kind of bloodletting the A$ did last fall, so any dragging higher is a welcome sight to kiwi holders. I’m still not sold on kiwi’s ability to maintain the levels it reached last year, given their deficit position… For those of you new to class, the kiwi was able to rise in the fact of a HUGE deficit, because of their interest rate differential to the rest of the world. New Zealand had the highest interest rates in the industrialized world, and those interest rates kept the blinders on their deficit… But, I kept warning folks that once the rates began to drop the Deficit would be as obvious as a man with a hatchet in his forehead!

So… The any dragging is good news to the kiwi holders…

OK… Back in the U.S., the Treasury announced that they would need to borrow less than originally forecast in the 3rd QTR by $109 Billion… They’ll still need to borrow over $400 Billion, and will keep the pace of the total borrowings through the end of the fiscal year (September) at $1.39 Trillion…

The Treasury is borrowing less, because a handful of Big Banks are repaying their TARP loans… That’s a good thing, I guess… But I just can’t get a warm and fuzzy about the stories I keep reading regarding this whole deal of loaning money and buying back their bad assets so they can repay the loans to the Treasury… It’s all mish-mashed folks… But! I’m not going there! I’m keeping my nose to the task at hand, and not veering off course…

The thing to take from this is that the Treasury will still need to borrow $1.39 Trillion in the past year, with the borrowings gaining momentum in the past 6 months… And this total amount of borrowings is what’s weighing on the appetite for Treasuries by foreigners…

Did you see where Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) just issued $1 Billion in bonds but denominated them in yen? Is there a message there? I believe there is a message there, folks… Now, if we begin to see more Corporations doing this, then the message will be loud and clear. These Corporations don’t believe they can sell their debt denominated in dollars, as the world is choking on dollars right now… When and if other Corporations begin to do this, we’ll see the dollar get sold like ponchos on a rainy day at Disney World!

OK… Let’s not go down that road of gloom and doom… Instead let’s talk about a currency that’s moved higher while remaining in stealth mode… The Canadian dollar / loonie… Ever since the Bank of Canada’s Gov. said earlier this month that he was going to do whatever he needed to do to keep the loonie weak… The loonie has taken off on a moons hot! In fact, the loonie just hit a 10-month high VS the green/peachback!

And, not meaning to place the Chuck’s kiss of death on these currencies, but this scene has played out in other places too… In Canada, Switzerland, and Brazil, each respective country’s Central Bank Gov. issued warnings about keeping their currency weak… In all three, the exact opposite has happened. And I have to smile about that, because… You may recall me calling out today’s currency traders as not having the cojones to take on Central Banks, as opposed to the currency traders of yesteryear who would take it as a personal challenge to defeat a Central Banker that put down a line in the sand on a currency’s level…

So… It may all be a coinquidink, that these three currencies are rallying after their Central Bank Governors said they would keep their respective currencies weak… But I doubt it!

I see that Gold and Silver are back on the rally tracks again… Gold is trading over $950 again… And the price of Oil has jumped too ($70.67)… Commodities are all on the rise, once again as risk appetite really begins to grow. The Chinese have ignited the fire on Commodities with their economic growth and demand for the raw materials, and with that thought, commodity traders are jumping on the bandwagon…

I suspect we’ll see some profit taking today in the currencies and commodities though… But that’s OK! Bring them back a bit, give everyone that was sitting on the sidelines waiting for an opportunity to buy, a chance to do so, and then move on to higher ground! That sounds like a plan! And you know what I like to say… I love it when a plan comes together!

Currencies today 8/4/09: A$ .8395, kiwi .6665, C$ .9365, euro 1.4390, sterling 1.6935, Swiss .9410, rand 7.8325, krone 6.0475, SEK 7.1625, forint 185.70, zloty 2.86, koruna 17.95, yen 94.60, sing 1.4330, HKD 7.75, INR 47.71, China 6.8296, pesos 13.13, BRL 1.8250, dollar index 77.66, Oil $70.67, 10-year 3.62%, Silver $14.12, and Gold… $953.50

That’s it for today… I hope you have a Terrific Tuesday!

Chuck Butler

Source: U.S. Manufacturing Is Recovering…

If you need a place to live and want to own a house, why not? Prices in some areas are fairly reasonable. But if you’re speculating, our guess is that you’ll get a better deal if you wait.

Why? For the many reasons we have given you in these Daily Reckonings. House prices may be firming in some areas – that’s what the Case-Shiller numbers seem to show. But nationwide, they are probably headed down for quite a while longer.

Herewith, four reasons why:

First, as you know, this is a depression. It will probably be long. And deep. You wouldn’t know it from looking at the stock market or reading the news. The Dow went up another 114 points yesterday. Oil rose to $71. And the dollar – anticipating inflation – fell to $1.44 per euro.

But that’s what bounces are supposed to look like. They look good enough so that people mistake them for the real thing… and get suckered into more losses.

Depressions drag down asset prices. Typically, prices become much more reasonable. And then they reach UNREASONABLE levels. House prices have become reasonable. Now they will become unreasonably cheap…

Second, waves of resets and foreclosures are still washing over the housing market. As Barry Ritholz told us in Vancouver, we’re only half way through the foreclosure process. There are more than 18 million empty houses in America. A news report yesterday told of a 32-storey apartment building in Florida with only one lonely tenant.

And still coming up are more refinancings… more drowning homeowners … and more people giving up on homeownership altogether. The bubble era created new households at the rate of 1.2 million per year. Practically every one of them wanted to get in on the housing boom. Now, there are only 500,000 new households per year. And few of them still believe that housing is the route to wealth. At the current rate, it will take many years to fill up all America’s empty houses.

Third, incomes are falling. Property crashed because people with average incomes could no longer afford to buy the average house. Now, they can afford even less. Ken Rogoff estimates that the consumer needs 6-8 years to pay his debts down to a more reasonable level. Part of that deleveraging process will mean getting rid of heavy mortgage debt – one way or another.

Fourth, there are too many houses that are too big… and in the wrong places.. Big houses were a status symbol in the bubble years. Now they’re a symbol of extravagance and error. Plus, they’re expensive to own. People will want to dump them – even if they can afford them. There was far too much building in the outlying suburbs of the sand states too – Arizona, Nevada, California and Florida. Those houses may have to be abandoned as people are forced to move closer to where the work is.

There are also a couple of more technical reasons why the Case-Shiller numbers may be erring on the bright side: seasonal adjustments and a changing mix of houses sold. But our guess is that real house prices – adjusted for inflation – will continue going down for many more years.

You want to see deflation? Go to Tokyo City in London. The restaurant chain says it is going to give its food away for free. Customers will pay for drinks plus 2 pounds 50 pence for service.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo itself prices are falling – again. The Japanese have had on-again, off-again deflation for the last 20 years… ever since their stock market crashed in 1989.

Hey, what’s the matter with those Japanese? Don’t they know about stimulus?

Hold on there, pilgrim. What the Japanese don’t know about stimulus ain’t worth knowing. They’ve stimulated their economy so much that their government debt now measures 200% of GDP. And what did they get for all that stimulus? Did it get their economy moving?

Are you kidding? Now, the latest news tells us that they also have the highest jobless rate in 6 years. And the latest figures show the inflation rate NEGATIVE. In fact, never has the inflation rate been lower.

*** Nissan announced an electric car. Shares soared.

*** Jobless benefits are running out for 1.5 million unemployed Americans, says a New York Times report.

*** And here a commentary by David Pauly on what Wall Street is doing about low earnings – lying!

“Stock analysts continue to promote corporate earnings lies, insisting that net income isn’t really what investors need to know… .

“In analyst speak, Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) wasn’t hit with a $1.45 billion fine from the European Union in the second quarter for anticompetitive practices.

“After setting aside funds to cover the fine, which Intel is appealing, the semiconductor-maker had a quarterly loss of $398 million, or 7 cents a share. Disregarding the fine altogether, analysts maintain the company earned 18 cents a share, beating their average estimate of 8 cents.

“As Wall Street tells it, the employee stock options Google Inc. granted in the second quarter didn’t cost its shareholders $293 million.
“Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), according to generally accepted accounting principles, earned $1.48 billion, or $4.66 a share, in the period. Not enough for Wall Street, which prefers to say the company earned $5.36 a share, leaving out the cost of stock options.

“Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIA.B), an entertainment company, this week reported second-quarter net income of $277 million, or 46 cents a share. Analysts had estimated profit as if money Viacom paid out in severance in the period wasn’t the real thing. On that basis, Viacom earned 49 cents a share, beating the average estimate by 1 cent.

“Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX), a rival of Viacom for entertainment dollars, said it earned $519 million, or 43 cents a share, in the quarter. Analysts insist Time Warner earned 45 cents, excluding, according to Bloomberg data, costs related to litigation and asset sales. Lawyers must work for nothing.

“By similar Wall Street reckoning, the expense of cutting jobs and selling an asset that reduced McGraw-Hill Cos. (NYSE:MHP) second quarter earnings per share by 10 percent was immaterial.

“Analysts also say investors should ignore $129 million that Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT), maker of small airplanes, helicopters and golf carts, charged against net income in the latest quarter. Included was the cost of shutting a plant for an eight-seat jet Textron decided not to build.

“General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE), which makes jet engines and electric power equipment and has a financial services arm, had a second- quarter profit of 24 cents a share. GE and the analysts emphasized earnings from continuing operations, which at 26 cents a share, exceeded their estimate by 2 cents. A $194 million loss from discarded businesses was discarded.”

And so on… and so on…

*** “As You Like It” was as we liked it – lively, bawdy, and raucous. It is not Shakespeare’s finest play – or so the critics say. But it has some marvelous dialogue. “All the world is a stage… ” is the most memorable.

Our hostess had set up a stage on the lawn and put out a hundred or so chairs for guests. But by the time we sat down it had begun to rain. The chairs were wet. A Frenchman gallantly wiped off Elizabeth’s chair. Your editor sat down in a puddle… and the play began…

The rain continued throughout the performance. Some spectators – perhaps those who listened to the weather forecast – came equipped with parkas and anoraks. We had an umbrella, which we held over our heads throughout the performance.

Despite the drippy conditions in the bleachers, a good time was had by all. The English actors who performed the play were real pros. They enlivened the set with music and acrobatics, moving the story forward 4 centuries to the days of Peace & Love and strawberry fields forever. We never quite got the connection… but it seemed to work, somehow.

After the play was over, we retired to a stone barn for soup and dessert. There, we met neighbors whom we only see once a year – in August. Among them was a dear Daily Reckoning reader.

“I’m glad I bought gold when I did,” he said. “It was $600 or so at the time. So I made a gain on the gold. But the important thing was that I wasn’t caught in that sell-off in stocks last year.

“What do you think gold is going to do now?”

“Probably, it will go down,” we replied.

“So, you’re selling your gold?”

“No… we’re holding on… It’s too risky to sell it.”

*** “Of course, that’s the big question,” Elizabeth began on the drive home.

“What’s the big question?”

“About whether the world is just a stage. It’s really a question of free will. About whether we do things because we think them through ourselves, or whether we just play our roles.

“I suppose it’s related to the ‘Great Man’ theory of history… the idea that people actually determine history, rather than play their parts in it… ”

“It’s probably like all the great questions… that is, both true and untrue at the same time. I mean, Louis 14th couldn’t have been Louis 14th if there hadn’t been a Louis 13th… and if France hadn’t been the leading country of Europe… and if it hadn’t been the peak of the monarchic age.

“And Rommel couldn’t have led a Blitzkrieg in WWII if the tank hadn’t been invented in WWI… .

“In both cases, it appears that Shakespeare was right… that the roles were already there, just waiting for someone to play them… ”

“Yes, but I wonder if that is true… or as completely true as it looks. The fellow who took over from Lenin didn’t have to be a monster, did he?”

“I don’t know. If he hadn’t been so ruthless some other guy probably would have purged him out… sent him to the gulag. Once a revolution gets started, the most violent and ruthless groups seem to take over. So, I guess you could say that even there… the role must be played… ”

“Does that apply to our personal lives, too? Are we just playing roles? You are pretending to be my husband. I am pretending to be your wife. We are pretending to love each other. Is that all there is to it?”

“No… no… that’s very different… ”

“How so?”

“I don’t know… but when I say I love you, it comes out of my soul like smoke from a sacred volcano… ”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know… I just like the sound of it… ”

Source: More Empty Houses in America

By August of last year, the price of oil was retreating, and it was a hard slog on the way down. By midwinter, in December 2008 and January 2009, oil prices were in the $30s per barrel – a drop of over 75% within six months. It was a wild ride.

Natural gas had a similar rise and fall last year. In July 2008, the NYMEX price for natural gas was around $13 per mcf (thousand cubic feet). By October 2008, that price was cut in half. In fact, natural gas prices trended down throughout the chilly winter of 2008-2009. The current economic pullback – our Great Recession – means that many industries, as well as the electric power sector, are using less natural gas. Think of the mills, plants, factories and other industrial and commercial sites that have scaled backor closed. They don’t need nearly as much natural gas or electric power.

Thus, energy demand has tumbled in North America. The price of natural gas has fallen, and hard. For a while this spring, gas prices couldn’t find a bottom. It’s only been in the past two months or so that the price of natural gas leveled off at around $4 per mcf.

Right now with natural gas prices under $4 we have an extraordinary opportunity! $4 natural gas is the equivalent of $30 oil – it just won’t last.  Better yet, I’ve got the perfect way to play this trend – a company that could hand you as much as 340%.

But before we get to the company I’m talking about, let’s take a look at what happened to natural gas drilling…

Drilling Activity Dropped Off a Cliff

Along with the price collapse for oil and natural gas, there was a dramatic worldwide drop in the count of drilling rigs. Drilling activity scaled back precipitously, in a tumble reminiscent of the previous hard times in the oil patch back in 1981 and 1982. Here’s a comparison between then and now.

If you want more exact details, here are the most recent rig count numbers from Baker Hughes, the world’s preeminent drill bit manufacturer.

Look at that change from last year! In North America – the U.S. and Canada combined – the rig count just plain fell through the floor to a recent level below 1,000. (It has crept up to 1,065 in the past couple of weeks.)

With low oil prices, there was less drilling in the U.S. and Canada, of course. But look at the international rig count. It’s interesting that the international count didn’t drop off all that much over the past year – only about 10% or so, as opposed to a drop of almost 60% in North America.

Why the difference between North America and internationally? The big pullback in North American activity was in rigs drilling for natural gas. That is, over half the drilling activity in North America is for gas. It’s different in the international arena, where most rigs are drilling for oil.

The bottom line is this…

The low prices for North American natural gas didn’t support drilling, hence the massive North American rig pullback. Also, much of the North American gas drill-out of recent years was financed with borrowed money. And the credit crunch froze almost all of the funds that were going into the North American gas-drilling sector.

So less demand led to lower natural gas prices. Lower prices could not support the financing model for the North American gas-drilling business. The easy money for gas wells dried up. And the rig count plummeted. Now what?

The Rig Count Has Found a Bottom

It looks like the worldwide rig count has found its bottom in recent weeks. In fact, the numbers are creeping up a bit, according to Baker Hughes. What’s going on?

Since February, the price of oil has steadily crept back to the $70 range per barrel. That’s up 100% from the midwinter low. The oil price increase clearly supports more drilling.

Why are oil prices up? Here are a few reasons. Cheap oil last winter led directly to lower fuel prices worldwide. Hence, overall world demand for oil stabilized, and in some areas, fuel demand has actually strengthened. Meanwhile, OPEC has cut oil output by about 5 million barrels per day. There’s less supply hitting the markets. Also, China has been filling its strategic petroleum reserve. And Chinese demand is up, year over year. The Chinese are not only buying new cars, they’re driving them.

As for North American natural gas, the price has stabilized at about $4 per mcf. That’s a low number. In fact, it’s barely enough to keep the industry alive in the short term. Some people call it a “gas glut.” It depends on our time frame. Long term? At $4 per mcf, natural gas is barely on life-support. This situation can’t last and it’s our opportunity to get into the KEY ENABLING TECHNOLOGY of the natural gas market, and do it with very limited risk!

Depletion Still Matters

At the same time, old Mr. Depletion is working his efforts. Hydrocarbons are, of course, depleting substances. Every barrel of oil lifted to the surface is one barrel less down in the hole. Every mcf of natural gas that blows out of the formation is one less mcf down there.

So each day of hydrocarbon production brings every well one day closer to the end of its useful life. And with most modern wells, the output curves are falling off pretty steeply in the first year or two. It’s counter to what a lot of people think, but it’s reality.

Wells don’t just produce large volumes of oil and gas year after year. Indeed, it’s a rare well (at least in North America, which has been drilled like a pincushion) that produces strongly after even one year. Most wells just plain slack off and output drops after the first few months or so. Sure, a well eventually will settle in at some level of output. And that level might last for many years. But in almost EVERY case, it’s a much lower level than in the first few months of the well’s existence.

We Need to Drill Wells

The only way around depletion is to drill more wells. In a broad sense, you have to look at well drilling as a long-term industrial process. The energy industry needs a pipeline (so to speak) of thousands of drilling prospects that get drilled on a regular basis. Break the process – with wild swings in the pricing mechanism, for example – and you’ve got trouble. We just plain need to drill wells.

But with the rig counts way down in the past year, a lot of those wells we need to drill have not been drilled. Thus, the energy process is derailed. The future is NOT now. In fact, the energy future is now moving out of our immediate control. The U.S. could be looking at serious depletion-induced natural gas shortages within a year to18 months. So the drilling cycle needs to kick back into gear.

Sooner or later – and I believe sooner – the rig count HAS to head back up. On the oil side, prices can support most drilling at this point.

Until we meet again,
Byron King

Source: Prepare for the Rebound in Drilling

Oil rose $2.50 on Friday…to $69. Gold rose $18 to $953. The Dow was up 18 points. And the dollar fell to $1.42 per euro.

And governments are still doing the wrong thing…trying to increase demand. It’s not possible…for reasons we describe below…

Well, it’s August…and we’re on vacation. But just because we’re on vacation doesn’t mean the world stops turning. It just doesn’t turn quite so fast.

“Why don’t you just stop writing for a while?” our mother asked this morning. She is visiting for the summer.

“I don’t know how you write every day anyway. You must say the same thing…”

Richard Russell has given a Dow Theory bull market signal. When you get a signal, he says, you don’t argue with it; you go with it. Stock prices are going up.

We don’t doubt it. The Dow would have to clime to about 10,300 just to give us a classic 50% bounce.

But we are in a depression. We don’t gamble on stocks in a depression. It’s too risky. Instead, we go with the flow. And the flow over the next 10 years or so is probably going to be down.

By our reckoning the Dow hit its high in January of 2000. Adjusted for inflation it’s been running downhill ever since. Investors have made nothing for their trouble. And if we’re right, they won’t make anything in the years ahead either. Instead, they’ll have to wait until stocks are cheap again.

You know, dear reader…investing is really very simple. Buy low. Sell high.

Okay…now that we got that figured out…let’s move on…

Sticking with the basics, what we notice is that stocks, bonds and commodities move in broad patterns that last for many years. Not to put too fine a point on it, but they go up and then they go down. Or vice versa. Just looking at the last 50 years, stocks were very expensive in 1966. Then, they dilly dallied around for a couple of years…and headed down. This bear market continued until August 1982. That was when BusinessWeek magazine declared that stocks were not merely ailing, they were dead: “The Death of Equities” was the cover story that month. Naturally, equities got up from their deathbed the very next month and entered the marathon. They ran for the next 18 years.

Well, you know the rest of the story as well as we do. It’s not complicated. The problem is that it takes patience to see it…to understand it…and to take advantage of it. The way to make money in stocks is to buy them when they are very cheap. But you may have to wait for 15-20 years. They’re not cheap towards the end of the bull cycle. Since you never know exactly when it’s going to end you don’t want to buy anywhere near the top. So you wait…and then stocks keep getting more and more expensive. Finally, the top arrives…and then you have to wait another decade or more until they reach bottom.

“Well, why don’t your write The Daily Reckoning once every 20 years?” mother wanted to know. “Just tell them when to buy…wait 20 years…and then tell them when to sell.”

But we’re going to ignore our dear, sweet momma this morning. She just doesn’t understand the complexity of the financial world!

For the last nine years, stocks have been going down (albeit with a major countertrend to the upside). We’ll probably have to wait another few years before they are cheap enough to buy. And when the end comes, stocks will be very cheap – between 5 to 8 times earnings.

When will that day come? Probably around August 15, 2018. Don’t forget to read The Daily Reckoning that day!

Stock market cycles tend to coincide, more or less, with broad trends in the credit cycle. When people borrow and spend it causes business profits to grow. The businesses then expand; they hire more people; they build more capacity.

Then, when the credit cycle turns, everything goes in the other direction. People stop borrowing and begin paying back. Sales decline. Unemployment grows. Profits fall. Credit contracts.

We are now in the early stages of a major credit contraction. This is not a pause in a credit expansion; it is a change of direction, a credit contraction with all that goes along with it – joblessness, bankruptcies, foreclosures, and so forth.

Bloomberg tells us that the numbers have already been revised – downward. “Worst recession since the Great Depression,” says its headline.

It is the worst recession since the Great Depression because it’s not a recession at all; it’s a depression. And the government is doing its level best to make it a great one.

The key to understanding a depression – or the downswing of the credit cycle – is that demand contracts. Consumers have less to spend. For a very simple reason: they already spent it.

Listen up, because this is important. When you borrow in order to consume, what you are really doing is consuming something today that you would have normally consumed in the future. You spend money you haven’t earned yet on something you’re not really ready to buy. You’ve heard the expression, ‘time is money.’ That’s why borrowing money is really borrowing time. Later, you have to make it up. You have pay off the debt. When you do, you take money out of current consumption; you’ve already consumed it!

This is what economists refer to as “demand destruction.” It’s what happens in a depression. People are replacing what they took from the future. They’re can’t consume because they’ve already spent their money in the last boom. Demand collapses.

We’ve seen that happen in the last two years. Savings rates went from zero to 7%. Sales have declined (the latest revisions show them off more than was previously thought.) Profits are shrinking.

This is, of course, a completely natural and necessary adjustment. You can’t take things from the future without putting them back eventually. The future won’t stand for it. But the feds, in their benighted confusion, fight the problem like a farmer who plows backwards to fool the crows. They think the problem is too little demand. So, they try to add demand…with tax cuts…spending programs…low rates…easy credit…cash for clunkers and other fixes. What do these policies achieve? Do they really increase demand? No, they can’t do that…that would require a richer population with more money to spend. What they try to do is to move demand forward.

The problem, of course, is that too much demand has already been moved forward. But they’re nevertheless trying to steal even more of it…taking away demand that would normally show up two, three, four…ten years from now. That car that you might buy next year, for example. With the ‘cash for clunkers’ program, you might make the purchase now instead of waiting until you actually have the money. Or, that new parking lot behind the town hall. We won’t really need it for a few years, but heck, if they’re giving away money now… Or how about that trip to Europe? With a big tax rebate check, you might decide to take it on your 20th wedding anniversary, rather than wait ’til your 25th.

Real demand increases only when real wages increase. Then, people have more purchasing power. Trying to increase demand by borrowing – or stealing – from the future is a scam at best. Even if it works now, it fails later.

Our gardener, Damien, came over yesterday…carrying a big wheel of cheese and a huge loaf of bread.

“Finally…you are back,” he said.

“Yes, it’s been a long time. But it’s August again…so we’re back…”

We explained how we had followed the annual bicycle migration out of Paris on Friday night. On the last day of July, Parisians load their bicycles on racks behind their cars and head for the country. We followed the bicycles out of town. The highways were jammed…traffic was start and go for hours.

“Look, I was just down in the Auvergne,” Damien continued, “so I brought you some cheese and bread. These are specialties from the region. They’re very good…

“And now that you’re back, let’s celebrate…let’s have a drink. How about some pineau?”

“Sorry Damien,” Elizabeth interrupted. “He’d love to, I’m sure…but he has another engagement. We’re going to the Berry (about 45 minutes East…where Georges Sand lived) to attend a play. Shakespeare…in English.”

“But who’s going to understand it,” Damien wondered. “The French can’t understand Shakespeare…”

“Even native English speakers have a hard time following Shakespeare,” we added.

But there was not time for a drink…we were off to see As You Like It performed at a friends house by an itinerant English group…

And so…the summer vacation begins…

Until tomorrow,

Bill Bonner

Surce: Sticking With the Basics

Everything is working out just like we thought it would. The stock market is performing as expected. The economy is on track. Even the politicians are doing what they thought they would.

Let’s begin with the stimulus/bailout/boondoggle/BS plan. As anticipated, it has failed. That is, the economy is getting worse, not better. It has failed the test set for it by its own creators. Back when the Obama Team was arguing for a big bailout bill, it warned that without a bailout unemployment would rise above 8% in 2009. ‘Pass this bill today,’ said Ben Bernanke, or words to that effect, ‘or there may not be a tomorrow for the US economy.’

Congress dutifully bent its back to the task of adding boondoggles to the bill and then okayed the measure. And here we are in the middle of 2009 and the unemployment rate is already at 9.4%.

It was obvious, even at the time, that the hacks in the administration had no idea what was going on. They were just guessing about the economy and taking advantage of the situation to pass out more money that taxpayers hadn’t even earned yet.

As predicted, the spending didn’t make the situation better; if anything, it probably made it worse – by delaying the process of destruction and hence retarding the process of creative reconstruction too.

We recall our other forecast too: when the bailout doesn’t work, they’ll pass another one. And so, in yesterday’s New York Times, there is David Leonhardt urging the pols to even bigger acts of absurdity:

“The economy really may need more help,” he says.

Yes, it will need more help. Especially if it keeps getting the kind of help it’s been getting.

The stock market is acting more or less as we thought it would too. The big bounce began on 9 March. It’s been almost 4 months now… and the bounce should be getting near its peak… and beginning to fall again. Just look at a chart of the Dow since March. You’ll see exactly that. Like a cannonball, it went up… and now it seems to be arching over for its fall to the ground.

Yesterday, the markets seemed to hang in mid air… The Dow was up 57Oil stayed at $69. Only gold seemed to know where it was going – rising $13.

As stocks roll over, the economic news rolls over too.

In the USA Today yesterday was a report that said small businesses are going broke faster than expected. Small businesses are supposed to be the survivors. Like mammals in the Ice Age, they replace the dinosaurs.

In a recession, big, costly, inflexible companies are supposed to get hit the hardest… leaving niches for small, nimble, low-cost competitors to slip into. These small businesses establish toeholds during the recession… hire people… and then scale up to the peak of commerce when the boom comes.

But this time it’s different. Small businesses are collapsing along with big ones. In April, for example, more than small 8,000 businesses went broke and filed for Chapter 11.

In addition to the business bankruptcies are the personal bankruptcies. According to the Los Angeles Times, the rate of personal bankruptcy is soaring in Southern California.

In April, according to David Rosenberg at Gluskin Sheff, the feds added $121 million (at an annual rate) in total stimulus to the consumer economy – including tax reduction and increased benefits. In May, the total stimulus rose to $163 million. How come so many bankruptcies when the feds were giving away so much money?

The answer, says Rosenberg, is that consumers didn’t spend the money; they saved it. Consumer spending rose just $1 billion April – despite $121 billion of stimulus. In May it rose $25 billion – despite a ‘stimulus’ 6 times that amount.

Meanwhile, the saving rate, which had been only 0.2% in March of 2008 exploded to nearly 7% in May 2009.

No consumer spending, no sales. No sales, no revenues. No revenues… no staying in business.

No small businesses. No new jobs. No new jobs, no economic recovery.

No economic recovery and the meddlers are back on the Hill asking for more power and money.

Depressions take time. Bankruptcy rates don’t rise overnight. First, it takes businesses a while to realize their sales are falling. At first, they think it might be a fluke. Then, they talk to friends and read the papers. And then, the next month confirms the story.

Then, it takes time for them to react. They have to figure out where they can make cuts. Typically, this involves layoffs and job losses. Employees who will be let go need to be identified. Then, they actually have to be sent home.

Then, the employee collects benefits. He looks for another job. He draws down savings. It takes time for him to react too. He watches. He notices that it is hard to find another job. He realizes his resources are running out. He begins to cut back. Unnecessary expenses are eliminated. Then, he broadens his definition of ‘unnecessary.’

Finally, he lacks the money for the essentials. The mortgage goes unpaid. Credit card deadlines are missed. This provokes an inevitable response – warnings, more warnings, official action, and finally… defaults, foreclosures and bankruptcy filings.

We expect unemployment and bankruptcy filings to edge up throughout the summer months. Then, by the autumn, asset prices should be going down again.

*** We came back to Paris last night to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. It wasn’t much of a celebration… just a simple dinner for two in a simple restaurant in the old Palais Royale.

It was a hot day in Paris. We sat outside in the galleries of the old palace. Near to us was another couple. Middle-aged, they seemed like people who were getting together for the first time, not a couple who had been married for a long time. The man reminded us of John Malkovich. The woman? She was not an especially attractive woman, with straight gray/black hair cut as short as a man’s. They held hands. They looked into each others eyes. They seemed to be making plans for a happy future.

When you’ve been married for a long time, on the other hand, you have to wonder if your happiness is not more past tense than future. You can recall the happy times you spent together… how the children were when they were little… how much fun you had when you were poor and starting out in life… and all you went through together to get to where you are now. But when you look ahead, your weary eyes fail. You may feel as though you’ve said all you had to say – and agreed to disagree. You may feel as though the grand adventure of your lives has peaked out – like a bull market – with nothing but the downward slope left for you.

You may feel that the great mystery of coupling has been revealed. Getting to know someone and getting together… even fusing your flesh, blood and spirit to form fully new human beings… is there anything left to discover? Are there more surprises coming?

Inevitably, the conversation turned towards the sovereign state of South Carolina. The poor state has a jackass for a governor. Mark Sanford has become a laughingstock for the entire nation. Not because he had an illicit dalliance and lied about it – who can honestly say he hasn’t done that? – but because he is a cad. And the worst kind of cad – the kind who pretends to be sensitive and caring.

He’s found true love, he says, with an Argentine beauty. But rather than dump his wife and fly to his heartthrob… he dumps the love of his life and tells his wife that he will try to fall back in love with her. The bonehead betrays them all – his wife, his lover… and love itself. He’s even given romance a bad name.

Meeting a woman who looks like Penelope Cruz on a dance floor in South America has an undeniable romantic appeal. When the story broke, there must have been hundreds of lonely middle-aged men in America booking their tickets and looking forward to tango. The Mark and Maria affair might have made the history books of star-crossed love, along with Tristan and Iseult, Antony and Cleopatra, Brad and Jennifer. But now, a week later, we know what kind of man Mark really is. Cancel the tickets. Any man who falls in love from now will feel like a sap.

As for us, we’ve been saps all our lives. Eventually, we’ll head for the romance of Buenos Aires too. But we’ll take our main squeeze with us, just to see what happens next.

Source: When the Bailout Fails, the Feds Will Pass Another One

Summer begins in 3 days. We can hardly wait. We predict it will be a killer.

Several interesting things are likely to happen this summer.

1) Unemployment rates will go up.

2) Rising joblessness will increase rates of defaults, foreclosures, and bankruptcies. Not just at the consumer level – but throughout the system… including banks, states, businesses, as well as households.

3) The stock market will take a dive as earnings fall and investors realize that there will be no quick recovery.

Oh… and one more thing: US bonds could collapse. But watch out; here’s where it gets tricky. Another swoon in the stock market could send investors running for the smelling salts in the bond market. A collapse of bond prices, on the other hand, could send them helter-skelter into stocks.

Yesterday, the Dow rose 7 points. Oil held at $71. The dollar lost a little ground – to $1.39 per euro. And gold added 3 bucks.

It is impossible to predict what will happen – or when – in the markets. So let us turn our attention to the real economy. Here, we see the picture more clearly: We’re in a depression. We write depression with a small ‘d.’ We’re saving the big one for later.

Few economists or analysts will tell you we’re in a depression. They’re looking at “green shoots” and rising trendlines. They’d do better to read a little history. Such as the history of the Great Depression.

Martin Wolf in the Financial Times (reporting the results of a study by two American professors):

“First, global industrial output tracks the decline in industrial output during the Great Depression horrifyingly closely. Within Europe, the decline in the industrial output of France and Italy has been worse than at this point in the 1930s, while that of the UK and Germany is much the same. The declines in the US and Canada are also close to those in the 1930s. But Japan’s industrial collapse has been far worse than in the 1930s, despite a very recent recovery.

“Second, the collapse in the volume of world trade has been far worse than during the first year of the Great Depression. Indeed, the decline in world trade in the first year is equal to that in the first two years of the Great Depression. This is not because of protection, but because of collapsing demand for manufactures.

“Third, despite the recent bounce, the decline in world stock markets is far bigger than in the corresponding period of the Great Depression.

“The two authors sum up starkly: “Globally we are tracking or doing even worse than the Great Depression … This is a Depression-sized event.”

Yesterday, we proposed two sine qua non for a new boom. Either the feds revive the old economy – by getting people to borrow and spend more money. Or, the mistakes of the past must be corrected… whereupon new investment and growth can take place. While the free market is busy working on the latter, central banks and national governments all over the world are trying to stop it. They’ve got the voters and campaign contributors to answer to, none of whom wants to get what he deserves. Instead, they’re hoping to revive the Bubble Epoque. Citizens are already up to their necks in debt; but the feds raise the water level!

This flood of fed liquidity seems to be raising boats and animal spirits among speculators. But it is doing nothing to revive the real economy.

“Consumer Costs Fall Most in Six Decades,” reports Bloomberg. Europe is already in deflation. America is not far behind. We had a hard time following the Bloomberg report. It said consumer prices were 1.3% below those of 12 months ago. We don’t believe that’s true. What we think Bloomberg meant to say was that prices are increasing at the slowest pace in 6 decades… but, for the moment, inflation is still (barely) positive.

With prices falling, the last thing the feds are worrying about is inflation. Except that there isn’t any. And they’re going to worry a lot more over the summer, when the hot sun beats down on a lifeless economy and it becomes obvious that their revival efforts have failed.

Meanwhile, Theo Casey’s predicting it the other way. He’s predicting an “H-Bomb” ahead… “H” for hyper-inflation.

And more thoughts for the summer ahead:

*** Global commerce has fallen in line with the Great Depression. That means producers don’t need to produce so much… and don’t need so many people to produce it. Jobs are lost. And then the people who lose their jobs don’t go out to restaurants and malls so much… so more jobs are lost.

These job losses take time to show up. And then they take time to “ripen.” People tend to have a little something set aside for a rainy day – or at least, unemployment compensation. But after a few weeks of stormy weather, the reserves are exhausted. Then… they have to cut back much more.

USA Today asked people: “If you lost your job, how long could you afford to pay for your own health insurance?” More than 65% of respondents said they could only manage for 6 months or less.

In America “there hasn’t been a shock like this since the de-mobilization of millions of soldiers following WWII: something like 3 million unemployed people are going to fall out of the safety net in the third quarter. With their families, that’s about 10 million people who will sink suddenly into deep poverty,” says GEAB a private research service headquartered in Paris. The group anticipates a “Very Great Depression” coming to the US.

More than three million jobs have been lost in the US during the last 5 months. As these out-of-work cases ripen, there will be some rotten fruit falling to ground.

There are also the millions who are working fewer hours and earning less money. In fact, the number of hours worked per week has fallen to a record low.

Where do people without jobs, without incomes, without savings – and without benefits – shop? What money do they spend? How does a consumer economy launch a boom when consumers have less money to spend?

These questions have obvious answers and obvious implications: there ain’t going to be any consumer spending boom in the USA… not this summer… and probably not for many summers to come. Martin Wolf explains why:

“Robust private sector demand will return only once the balance sheets of over-indebted households, overborrowed businesses and undercapitalised financial sectors are repaired or when countries with high savings rates consume or invest more. None of this is likely to be quick. Indeed, it is far more likely to take years, given the extraordinary debt accumulations of the past decade. Over the past two quarters, for example, US households repaid just 3.1 per cent of their debt. Deleveraging is a lengthy process.” .

If we assume that debt levels need to go back to where they were before the Bubble Epoque… well, let’s say to 200% of GDP just to make the maths easy… that means 170% of GDP worth of debt needs to be paid off. That’s $20 trillion, in round numbers – or about 40% of the total. At 6% per year, even if households kept paying off debt at the current rate it would still take nearly 7 years to get household debt down to pre-bubble levels.

Then, of course, there is the government debt – now expanding faster than ever. The US has the biggest deficit – even as a percentage of GDP – of any serious country in the world. The US deficit is 12% or 13% of GDP. Compare that to Russia at 2.6%…. Spain at 6%… France at 5%… Brazil at 1.3%…. Even Argentina has a much smaller deficit than the US – only 3.6% of GDP.

(More on the pampas tomorrow….)

But don’t worry about it. The ‘Committee to Save the World, Part II’ is on the case. Geithner, Bernanke and Summers are staying in the office throughout the hot months. They kept us out of trouble so far, didn’t they?

So enjoy the beach!

*** The US has entered the Third Stage of a great nation. The Political Stage.

In the late 20th century, power and money moved from the banks of the Monongahela to the banks of the Hudson. Now they’re moving again – to the banks of the Potomac. Washington calls the shots.

“Obama Blueprints Deepen Federal Role in Markets,” says a headline in yesterday’s Washington Post.

Of course, this change didn’t happen overnight. George W. Bush was a trailblazer – turning ‘conservatives!’ into big spending activists. And the business community – particularly the banks – saw it coming and got ready.

In 2001 the banking industry spent $5 million on lobbying in Washington. The total went up every year. By 2008, they were spending $20 million. Campaign contributions from bankers increased too… from only $4 million from the bankers’ political action committees in 2000 to $8 million last year.

Judging from the bailouts given to Wall Street last year, this investment paid off handsomely.

Source: Killer Summer Ahead

You see, on my recent trip to Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail, one thing stuck in my mind: TAXES. I was utterly shocked when I heard what the distillery tour guide was saying about a $13.50 per gallon tax on any distilled bourbon. That’s over $700 of taxes per barrel. And that’s before the bourbon even gets to the bottle. For me and you, fellow Whiskey Shooter, there’s another tax when we get to the counter—somewhere around 6%.

So what’s the total bourbon tax?

According to the Kentucky Distillers’ Association, around 53% of the cost of the average-priced bottle goes to local, state, and government taxes.

I guess that’s why the tour guide took the time to tell us about the taxes. That way we wouldn’t be bitter when we paid $30 for a bottle of “corn juice.”

So the tour went on and our group wandered through the rest of the distillery — tasting the freshly distilled 160 proof grain alcohol, feeling the corn mash and playing in the gift shop…

But wait. Isn’t this taxation that same kind that created rebellions?

My tour group, and Americans in general, have been lulled to sleep, as if Uncle Sam slipped us a Mickey. Last I checked, the U.S. isn’t an alcohol supplier. Nor is it a real estate agent. Nor is it a car lot. But it seems like the current administration wants to get its hands on everything.

And the way things are going, who knows what’s next…

The Latest Nickel-and-Dime “Tax”

You gotta give it to ’em: At least Washington came up with an appropriate nickname for its latest cash grenade. It’s called “cash for clunkers,” and last week the House approved the bill — with your money!

It simply amazes me that something this poorly thought up could pass so quickly through the largest legislative body in the U.S. Just think about it: 435 well-paid pairs of eyes took a look at this bill. And a majority OK’d it!

In case you haven’t heard of the latest clunker of a bill, let me give you the rundown…

It’s a $4 billion plan to subsidize sales of new cars with better mpg. Essentially, if you have a car that gets less than 18 miles per gallon and you “upgrade” to a new car that gets at least four more miles per gallon, you’re eligible for at least a $3,500 tax credit.

I love the well-accepted term “tax credit.” Does everyone on the Hill think we’re that easily swayed by bills that contain such positive-sounding phrasing?

Here at the Whiskey Bar, we aren’t that easily fooled. This “tax credit” is a simple euphemism for free money — money that you and I as U.S. taxpayers are providing. Simply put, it’s taking money from our pockets and giving it to new car buyers in an effort to jump-start new car sales.

I don’t know about you, but paying for my neighbor’s car wasn’t on my agenda today.

But let’s dig a little deeper, since we could be footing the bill…

The bill, as it stands, is less likely to be affecting normal car owners — so this is for our SUV/truck-driving neighbor. Because even if you bought a 1990 Chevy Cavalier or Ford Taurus, you’re still probably getting well above 18 mpg.

So obviously, this bill is almost strictly for those non-Peak Oil-thinking, overzealous SUV or truck buyers. These folks have roughly the same restraint and foresight as those who purchased houses that they couldn’t afford.

This bill is almost comical. But frankly, where does the spending stop on Capitol Hill? Combine this with the latest auto bailouts and it’s really starting to look like our nation has turned into a new and used car lot.

Things are getting scary ’round these parts.

Government Spends, You Save…

Those dollars in your pocket aren’t looking as great as they once did. And as I see it, with an overburdened and overspending government, the dollar could be in for a crude awakening.

That’s because one thing is for sure: Over the next few years, the world is going to spin, the U.S. government is going to spend, and all of this will be running on the same fuel: oil.

As I wrote a few months back, the price of gasoline is going to rise. And that mainly stems from the rising price of crude oil.

As you know, the world’s commodities (most notably oil) are priced in U.S. dollars. As the dollar weakens, and as the Earth still spins and demands more energy, the price of oil is going to rise.

In my opinion, over the next three months to five years, oil is going to rocket — even more so than the price of gold. We got a taste of what can happen when oil spiked last year to $147 per barrel. And from my standpoint, it’s inevitably going to be back to those levels, or higher.

My best advice for protecting your hard-earned dollars over the next five years is simply to invest in all facets of the oil industry: oil service companies, oil holding companies, oil technology companies, and the commodity itself (through ETFs or commodity options).

Sure, the Obama administration wants to improve mpg, but one thing is for sure: We’re still going to be burning oil for decades to come — more and more every year. And although we may hit some rough patches for demand, the overall trend line is going to be UP.

By investing in oil, you’ll protect your wealth and profit at the same time.

After all, we all want to be able to afford our next bottle of bourbon.

Stay ahead of the curve,
Matt Insley

Source: Taxing to Better Mileage?

Yesterday was beautiful in London. We wandered along the banks of the Thames and crossed Waterloo Bridge over to Covent Garden. Everywhere, people were sitting out on the grass… standing outside pubs… walking hand in hand. Everyone had the same idea – to take advantage of the nice weather before it goes away.

Last year, London had a beautiful summer too. But we were gone that week and missed it.

Alas, many of the best things in life are fleeting. And thankfully, so are the worst things.

What put us in such a reflective mood were yesterday’s news reports. The Dow rose again – up 19 points this time. Gold edged closer to the $1,000 mark – at $984. Oil traded at $68. And the dollar fell to only $1.43 against the euro.

These trends – not to mention the broad rise in commodities and stocks worldwide – lead many investors to think that the fair weather is back, permanently. Asset prices are rising. Investors are less afraid of risk. Hallelujah – a dove with a sprig of green in its beak!

Of course, it may be true. But our advice, dear reader, is to take an umbrella with you anyway. As far as we can tell, nothing has happened to disturb the major weather pattern that began developing two years ago. Anyone could see it coming years in advance. ‘You gotta expect trouble when the average house is more expensive than the average person can afford,’ we kept saying.

But it was only when high winds hit the housing market that the newspapers took notice. Then, for 40 days and 40 nights the rain came down.

First, the house flippers were caught off guard. They were in the middle of flipping condos when all of a sudden the wind shifted and sent their contracts aloft. Mortgage rates were rising and buyers disappeared. The flippers lost their deposits and walked away from empty buildings.

Then, resets and higher rates blew the roof off the sub-prime market.

Then, the whole housing sector was getting knocked down – builders, suppliers, and financers.

Next came the credit crunch… when major lenders and investment banks realized that they were in heavy seas. Their ships were swamped with mortgage-backed debt and derivatives… and their captains were morons. Lehman went down. Wall Street abandoned ship. And the feds sent out rescue planes.

By late in 2008, everyone was taking shelter. Businesses were cutting payrolls. Banks were squeezing their reserves. Consumers were staying at home. And GM was hiring bankruptcy lawyers.

Everything was falling in price – houses, office buildings, stocks, commodities… practically everything except the US dollar, US bonds, and gold. These three were seen as the only safe refuges for storm-tossed investors.

But on March 9, 2009, came a lull. Reluctantly, investors came out of their storm shelters. The skies lightened…the sun shined. Oil has gone up 53% since then. Stocks worldwide are up about 30%.

And now…people say “the worst is behind us.”

We meteorologists here at the Daily Reckoning watch the skies like everyone else. But we also read reports from big storms of the past. And what we notice is that this doesn’t look like the passing storms of the ‘80s or ‘90s. It looks to us like a major change in weather patterns. To be more precise, it looks to us like the Great Storm of the ‘30s. Do you remember that one, dear reader? No? Well, we don’t either, but we’ve read the histories. It was a doozy. And it began… well… just like this one.

In 1930, six months after the initial storm front passed world output was down about 15%. Today, it is down about 15% too. Stock markets were only down about 20% in mid-1930. Today, they’re down about 35%. And world trade slipped about 15% in the six months following the onset of the Great Crash of ’29. Today, it is down 25%.

One thing you notice is that like the Great Depression, this downturn is global. A collapse in world trade followed the Crash of ’29. It is usually blamed on two protectionist bumblers in Congress – Smoot and Hawley. But in a real depression trade falls anyway. World commerce needs to readjust to new realities… whatever they are. That’s happening again now.

The other thing you notice is that this adjustment takes time… and takes the losses much further… much deeper… than anyone expects. The actual bottom in the ‘30s didn’t come until 2 to 3 years after the crash. And it took stocks down all over the planet to about 65% below their peaks. World output eventually fell to only about 2/3rds of what it had been in the late ‘20s.

It took two decades and a major world war before the world was back on its feet.

More news from Manraaj Singh on emerging markets….

“Over the last four weeks $12 billion in new money has flowed into the emerging markets. That has triggered the biggest rally in the benchmark MSCI Emerging Markets Index since it was set-up in 1987. It’s up by 61% since February. That brings us right back to where markets were before they tanked.

“No one in their right mind honestly believes that the global economy is going to return to the pace of growth that we saw before the crash anytime soon. Not even Alastair Darling. But it’s all a matter of timing. I believe that the emerging markets offer the best value over the long-term. That’s why I am now looking at India and China for our next investment plays. But investors who pile-in right now risk getting badly burnt.

“You see, analysts are viewing the short-term outlook for the emerging markets right now through rose-tinted specs. They have hugely over-estimated how much emerging markets companies will earn this year. Figures for the first three months of this year show that analysts’ estimates were 41% above what the companies actually earned.

“There may still be one more surge in the emerging markets before the correction. We seem to be reaching the point when every money manager without a clear idea of what’s going on jumps on the bandwagon. You can bet that many of them are going to be in tears before the leaves turn gold.

“An extreme fund flow like this is a contradictory indicator. It points to a coming market drop rather than a sustainable rise. The crash in emerging stock markets is on its way. I’ll let you know when it is time to get in.”

Publisher’s note: Manraaj Singh is chief investment strategist of Profit Hunter, which looks to profit from special situations around the world. To learn more about his service and discover his latest investment recommendation, click here.

And more thoughts…

*** “Treasuries Tumble,” announced a cover of Barron’s recently. Oh my. Long bonds are down 20% since January.

Pity the poor Chinese. They’ve got $768 billion worth of them.

And pity poor Tim Geithner. He’s over there right now on a fool’s errand, lying to the Chinese:

“Geithner Tells Chinese its Holdings Are Safe,” says the Washington Post.

Reuters went on to report:

“His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting skepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.”

More about this later in the week… *** “Those people did not become French in the last five months,” says Mitch Daniels, Republican governor of Indiana.

He was referring to the people who re-elected him. His point was that Americans are not necessarily in favour of socialism. They may be fed up with what they see as the failures of capitalism. But they’re not ready to vote for Nicholas Sarkozy.

But the country has clearly moved towards more government intervention in the economy. In 1986, 40% of Americans thought government regulated the economy too much. Now, 40% think it doesn’t regulate enough. And get this. The Economist reports the results of a worldwide poll. Asked “are people better off under free markets,” 75% of Indians say ‘yes’ and so did about 72% of Chinese. But put the question to Americans and only about 69% think so.

Even Italians are more in favour of free enterprise than Americans. Go figure.

The Economist passes along the thoughts of an American lawyer to explain it: “The disaster in the housing and mortgage markets shows that free markets don’t always get incentives right or generate the information people need to make wise decisions. There may be times, he adds, when government is better suited to giving people the information they need.”

Ha. Ha.

Information? What information was it that people didn’t have? All the information was not only available – it was free. We reported it here at the Daily Reckoning – for free. Day after day… we read the headlines and passed along the statistics. What was hidden from view? What was unknown?

This information was available to the government too. Its thousands of regulators, representatives, researchers, and consumer advocates had computer terminals and newspaper subscriptions. They even had thousands of Ph.Ds in economics whose JOB IS TO STUDY THE ECONOMY!

If government were really able to give “people the information they need,” you’d think that one of these earnest meddlers would have whispered to Secretary of the Treasury… or maybe to the head of the Fed: ‘Hey… better tell the voters to watch out… this thing is getting out of control.’

But do you remember a word from the Secretary of the Treasury… from the Fed… from the SEC… from the other busybody parasites who live on the public payroll? We don’t. All we remember is how they told us to “buy an SUV” and how derivatives “spread the risk to those who are able to bear it” and how “sub-prime mortgages help increase home ownership.”

The government does a better job of running the economy? Ha. Ha.

Source: A Storm on the Horizon