This week's decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve to buy Treasuries in an effort to prop up borrowing is further proof that the economy is worse off than policymakers would have us believe. But more than that, the Fed's Treasury purchase plan is just one more reason for investors to anticipate inflation and take steps to protect their money from it.
In case you missed the news, here's what happened...
The Federal Reserve on Tuesday announced that instead of allowing proceeds from maturing mortgage bonds to disappear from its balance sheet, the central bank would take the "modest" step of using them to invest in new Treasuries.
In plain English, that means that the Fed is reinvesting into U.S. Treasuries the money it would otherwise bank from maturing mortgages.
Its goal is very simple: to keep long term interest rates from rising.
[mm-toolbar] Many economists have pointed out that the consequences of the Fed's Treasury purchase plan will be minimal. And I agree. A mere $200 billion or so in such securities - out of the Fed's $2.3 trillion portfolio -mature yearly as homeowners pay off or retire their mortgages. So we're only talking about 8.69% of the total here.
But it's the Fed's read-between-the-lines implication that is really scary.
By taking this step, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hopes to reassure global traders, and presumably the American public, that he is prepared to take even more drastic steps should the recovery grind to a halt. Chief among the Fed's options would be to buy more mortgage debt, which Bernanke believes would help keep down inflation.
Bear in mind, though, that at the height of this financial crisis, the Fed purchased a staggering $1.42 trillion in mortgage securities and some $300 billion in Treasuries to prop things up. And mortgage rates fell less than half a point. So much for that theory.
Something stinks here.
Bernanke either knows something about the state of the recovery that he's not telling the public, or he's trying to telegraph something he believes is inevitable.
Maybe it's both. But this isn't good news either way.
I have got to believe that it's finally dawning on Helicopter Ben that deficit spending and the Keynesian formula for consumer stimulation - upon which the Fed has based its entire recovery plan - don't work. (Something I argued in a recent report to Money Map Report subscribers - click here to sign up and get your copy.)
The housing market still stinks, mortgage rates are still falling despite being the lowest they've been in decades, and consumers have no money. Furthermore, the consumers that do have money are facing tighter credit standards and don't want the debt.
Frankly, I think that's actually a good thing because it represents a huge psychological change in our nation's reckless spending habits. However, from the Fed's point of view, it's a problem because its policies presuppose that government spending makes up the difference in consumer demand until demand can once again overpower the deficits induced in the effort.
But here's the real problem with the Fed's policy: By propping up the mortgage market, and by implication Treasuries, the Fed is only temporarily staving off inflation, while further selling out the dollar long-term.
The fact is that inflation is as inevitable as the sun rising tomorrow and there are now some $12.4 trillion reasons why. And so the problem isn't the mortgage market or even the manipulation of rates, but the eventual evisceration of the dollar.
Regardless of government statistics that suggest inflation is under control, the reality is that inflation is already well underway to the tune of 10% or more in this country. You know that as well as I do by what happens with your wallet every day. The costs of education, medicine, and groceries are all up, up, up. Apparently, the government bean counters are the only ones who aren't feeling the squeeze.
The other thing to consider is that by propping up Treasuries in an effort to keep inflation low, the Federal Reserve is undermining any semblance of a strong dollar policy. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner may talk a good game, but the reality is that money flows to where it is treated best. And that doesn't bode well for the dollar in the long-term.
Once the dust starts to settle, i nternational traders will move away from the greenback absent higher interest rates that compensate them for their investment. In fact, they've already begun doing just that. I know the dollar rose overnight following Tuesday's announcement but that's more in reaction to a short term flight to quality than a long term reflection or judgment of the dollar's staying power.
If it were, we would not have seen the dollar fall below 85 to the Japan Yen - a 15-year low - at the same time.
And don't forget about China. By propping up U.S. treasuries in an effort to keep interest rates from rising, the U.S. government may be trying to force the Chinese to revalue their Yuan more quickly than that government wants. This will go over like a lead balloon in Beijing, which holds nearly a $1 trillion of U.S. government paper in the form of short-term obligations.
So what we can do to profit from the situation?
Of course you could also take the easy way out and simply short the U.S. stock market as a whole...but then you risk fighting a government that rightly or wrongly doesn't know when it's been beaten and refuses to give up.
[Editor's Note: For more than two decades the noted author, investor and commentator Keith Fitz-Gerald has worked in, traveled throughout and actually lived in the Asian markets that so many others now claim to be "experts" on.
But as the preceding essay underscores, having immersed himself in the Asian investing and business venues that he now writes about and invests in for more than 20 years, Fitz-Gerald not only has insights that few others possess, he has the kind of contacts that few others can rival.
Investors can benefit from these insights. In his advisory service, The New China Trader, Fitz-Gerald makes those years of insights and global contacts available to his readers. For more information, please click here.]
News and Related Story Links: