Re: Gesucht: Text zu: Fakten, die für eine harte Landung in den USA sprechen

verfasst von R.Deutsch, 23.01.2001, 13:56

>Hallo,
>Ich suche einen möglichst knallharten Text zur Wirtschaftssituation in den USA, hat da jemand letztens was aktuelles gesehen?
>ciao!
>SchlauFuchs


The Privateer

2001 Volume Late January Issue Number 416


GLOBAL REPORT


IT HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN


At the moment, the Greenspan Fed is"re-liquefying" the U.S.
financial system at breakneck speed. This can be seen from
the fact that the U.S. M-3 money stock has increased by
$US 112 Billion in three weeks!

The Investment Company Institute reported that over the
same period, U.S. Money Market Funds reported increases in
fund assets of $US 67.6 Billion, the biggest rate of money
inflows seen in three years. From Trim Tabs came a report
that $US 15 Billion has flowed into equity funds.

It Always Begins With Currencies:

Globally, the most important thing to constantly keep an eye
on is currencies. They often break trends and reverse
direction long before stock markets follow. The U.S. Dollar
has now fallen by 17% against the Euro since November
2000. Just about the only currency the U.S. Dollar has not
fallen against is the Yen.

What comes next is the reaction of the stock market. U.S.
corporate chiefs are now looking at imports (not including oil)
becoming more expensive. After that, having to pay these
higher costs, they will look to raise prices and then they will
look at massive cost cuts to save money fast.

And all of this will inevitably lead to an earnings crash.

The process is already underway, but so far, the cheer squad
from Wall Street has managed to keep most people
(especially Americans) in the U.S. market. Europeans have
seen their currency recover, and are now looking hard at the
prospects of future U.S. earnings and not seeing any. They
have begun to sell out of the U.S. stock markets, but not in
any great volumes - yet.

Giving Credit Where Due:

The Privateer will certainly give credit to Mr Greenspan - for
being the cause and prime mover behind the biggest credit expansion in history. The facts are
these. Between the beginning of 1995 and the end of June 2000, the U.S. financial system
increased its debts by $US 4.15 TRILLION. U.S. corporate and private consumer debts increased
by $US 4.75 TRILLION. In sum, the"private" sector of the U.S. economy increased its debts by
$US 8.9 TRILLION in 5.5 years.

$US 8.9 TRILLION is almost nine MILLION million Dollars. The U.S. Federal government admits to
funded debts of about $US 5.7 TRILLION, accumulated over about 210 years. Now, you can see
where the inflation is REALLY coming from. U.S. stock markets have already fallen. The U.S. Dollar
is next.

The State Of The U.S. Markets:

Back in March 2000, U.S. stock markets stood at a valuation of 181% of U.S. GDP. That can be
compared with where they stood in 1990, which was a valuation of 60% of U.S. GDP. The ratio of
the value of U.S. markets to the U.S. GDP had therefore tripled over a decade. It is this huge
valuation overshoot that Mr Greenspan is now attempting to sustain.

The Wiltshire Index, which is the widest in the U.S., has fallen by 20%. As an aside, spare a small
thought for foreign (specifically European) investors. They have just taken a double hit. The
Dollar has fallen against their currencies and the Euro. Then there is the added pain of a 20% fall
in the Wiltshire Index. If you are an American investor, spare more than a small thought. You can
rest assured that all these foreigners are now standing ready to sell into any rallies.

That means that the Greenspan"re-liquefication" push may lure many Americans to either
re-enter the U.S. markets or (more likely) add to their portfolios, but these American will be
buying shares that the foreigners are now primed to sell. Once that first rotation from foreign
hands into American hands is over, the U.S. stock market stands primed for its next downswing.

The harder Greenspan pushes his"re-liquefication", the easier he makes it for foreign holders of
U.S. shares to hand them to Americans. They can do it without breaking the U.S. stock markets
on the downside. That has two effects. First: As foreign holders sell out of their shares, they will
seriously consider selling out of the U.S. Dollar too.

To the extent that happens, it will put the U.S. currency under pressure and add to the already
established downside momentum. Second: If a renewed demand for shares by Americans is met
by selling by foreigners, then U.S. markets will not rally to any great extent. If this happens, the
point will be reached where the American holders lose patience and sell out. Some will, most
won't. The historical norm is that domestic shareholders hold on ALL the way down.

Always keep this in mind. A stock market valuation of 181% of GDP is not only"unusual", it is
unprecedented. To scale back to the levels of 1990 (60% of GDP) would not be the equivalent of
a"soft" landing (the 1990 recession was a mild one) or even a"hard" one, it would be the
equivalent of a crash.. To scale back this ratio would take a 66% fall in U.S. stock markets from
their March 2000 levels. Even the Nasdaq hasn't fallen that far yet. And the Dow has hardly
moved at all.

Behind The U.S. Debts Lies Money:

Between 1995 and the end of 2000, the U.S. Federal Reserve Inflated the quantity of the U.S.
M-3 money stock by 55%! That is what"inflation" IS! It is always and only a monetary event.
The effects of inflation, and they are many, result from this increase in the stock of money. Price
moves, including the prices of shares, are certainly a result of inflation, but it is the effect of
inflation upon valuations which are often the most dangerous. When an asset increases in
valuation, the potential amount that can be borrowed against that asset also increases. Asset
valuation increases allows money to be borrowed at much faster and more reckless speeds than
do mere decreases in interest rates.

This inflation effect upon collateral seeds the ground for more loans. If, as is the case in many
parts of the U.S., real estate prices are climbing fast, that is an increase in collateral. Home
owners usually decide to"liquify" part of their increased collateral by re-financing their
mortgages. Then, they have more money to spend. For years now, this money has been going
into consumer goods, and shares.

In ten years, the ratio between U.S. stock market valuations and U.S. GDP tripled. Since mid
1995, consumer and corporate debt has increased almost $US 9 TRILLION and U.S. M-3 is up
55%. The result is a GIGANTIC increase in debt, domestic and foreign. A credit expansion is a
DEBT expansion.

The U.S. Dollar - Versus - The Debts:

Greenspan is caught in a cleft stick of his own making. If he again lowers interest rates to enable
the huge internal debts to be more easily carried, he risks the U.S. Dollar. If he doesn't, he risks a
debt crash.

Watch The U.S. Banks:

The U.S. banking sector is a close copy of the Japanese banking sector, circa 1989/90. The
Japanese used the same means to create the same thing - a bubble. Japanese real estate prices
had exploded and the Japanese stock market had soared. In the second half of 1989, the Bank of
Japan raised rates, and waited. They didn't have to wait long. The huge over-valuation of land
and shares continued until the end of 1989 while the economy was already slowing. In 1990,
valuations broke and the slide was unstoppable. The Bank of Japan chased the slump all the way
down with interest rates which fell to 0.0%.

But it was too late. The Japanese stock market had irretrievably crashed. Worse, the land
valuations which had been the collateral foundation for enormous bank loans crashed. Suddenly,
Japan's banks stood with massive loans outstanding and next to no collateral underpinning these
loans. They did not stand with the capital in reserve to deal with any of this. In fact, they were
all just plain flat broke.

This was the Japanese sequence. It is just starting to happen for the U.S. commercial banks,
mainly in the area of commercial loans. What has not yet been seen in the U.S. are some really
BIG commercial loan failures. When these start to surface, then the way is cleared for a U.S.
repeat of the entire Japanese sequence laid out in the above paragraph. There is one last thing
to mention in this regard, and it is a huge difference. The difference is SAVINGS. Even at the
height of their"boom" at the end of the 1980s, the Japanese were huge savers. They still are. It
has been this huge savings pool that has saved Japan, so far. In the case of the U.S., there are
NO private savings at all. The U.S."savings rate" is MINUS 0.8%.

The Approaching Danger Of A U.S. Hyper-Inflation:

The Japanese have managed to hang on for a decade, sustaining their internal economy with one
HUGE budget deficit after another. The Japanese government could do this because the Japanese
public had left them a huge pool of private savings to draw on. But this process of ever ongoing
budget deficits (the present one is 10% of GDP) has taken government debts to 130-140% of
Japanese GDP. The key here is that U.S. authorities have NO such private savings to draw upon.
They are not there. That only leaves one drastic alternative to a future HUGE debt write-off and
that is - a massive U.S. cash money inflation - a real increase in the quantity of cash U.S. Dollars
or near cash U.S. Dollars. Without any genuine savings, that would be the only way to"cover"
the fast approaching bad debts.

This is the"Latin American" (or"banana republic") solution. Latin America has been using this
"solution" since the late 1970s, when Arab"Oil Dollars" were being recycled there by U.S. banks.
This caused the usual credit expansion there, followed by a share and land boom. That was
followed in turn by a crash in shares and then land, which tore the heart out of the collateral
behind the U.S. banks' loans. The U.S. banks were bailed out by the IMF. The Latin American
nations resorted to the old method of simply printing the currency to cover, forcing interest rates
through the roof and leaving the currencies worthless. After that, they launched"new" currencies
and promised to do better the next time around.

Comparative Score Cards:

In the U.S., the Nasdaq is now merely"over-valued", the rest of the market is still hugely"over
valued". The U.S. real estate bubble is starting to fray at the edges in some places. External
deficits on trade and current account are accelerating, increasing the net external debt of $US
2.2 TRILLION by an annual rate of close to $US 500 Billion. All of this is what the Latin American
nations have been facing for decades.

A Pre-Made Accident Waiting To Happen:

The sudden break and the fast fall of the U.S. Dollar which began in late Nov. 2000 was the first
item in what will be a historical sequence. The Greenspan panic rate cuts of Jan. 3, 2001 were
the second. Now, the world is waiting for more rate cuts to come from the Fed in a fast fire
sequence. The"hope" here is that one of the cuts in the sequence will act to underpin the entire
U.S. financial system and its economy. What nobody seems to be sure of is which one of these
cuts will act to"save" the U.S. financial system.

Understanding The Problem:

The whole world of finance also stood and waited as the Bank of Japan chased the Japanese
economy downstairs with rate cuts all the way down to ZERO. It didn't"work", and expecting it
to"work" now in the U.S. is to entirely misunderstand the real nature of the economic problem.
By its nature, a credit expansion ALWAYS leads to ever larger and more numerous
mal-investments. None of these show themselves to be mal-investments until the wave of
artificial credit starts to ebb away. In the U.S. case, all the mal- investments have already been
made. They are HERE. And being here, there are no means between here and hell with which to
make them into viable economic investments. A re- start of the U.S. credit expansion will NOT do
it. Even a short-lived rerun of the U.S. credit expansion will only cause other sectors of the U.S.
economy to add to their already outstanding mal-investments or start other and new mal-
investments in other areas. Mal-investments are like building bridges in all the wrong places.

These bridges can be engineering marvels and things of artistic beauty, but if people find they
don't want to go where the bridges lead, they are useless. That is true even if it costs these
people nothing or next to nothing (due to the credit expansion and lower interest rates) to pay
to cross them.

If the credit expansion dries up, then the people using the bridge have to pay out of their own
pockets. Most of them will not cross the bridge at all or will find a cheaper alternative way to get
to where they wanted to go so. The bridge is a mal-investment - it stands empty. To suddenly
discover these empty bridges and then to recommend more of the policy that brought them into
existence in the first place is to vehemently insist upon building bridges everywhere - to no
economic purpose.

The simple and fundamental economic fact is that once a credit expansion has run its course,
people by their millions decide to return to the economic choices open to them when paid for by
their own earnings, not their earnings PLUS their borrowings. If many of these people have taken
losses, either on their share investments (as in Japan) or upon the values of their houses (though
the loans against them haven't fallen) then there is no hope this side of hell that such people will
suddenly become big spenders when lower interest rates on new loans are dangled before them.
Even at near ZERO rates of interest, just like the ones in Japan, the powers-that-be simply
cannot get the internal economy going again, because the consumer won't spend. They will
certainly take advantage of the lower interest rates, but they will use them to re-finance their
existing loans. That will cut the lenders earnings to ZERO - just like the rates.

Waiting For The American Consumer:

At this point in the global economic saga, the world is waiting for the American consumer. But if
enough Americans decide that they won't play the borrow-and-spend game anymore, then it is
not only the U.S. economy that is in Japanese territory, so is the entire world. It has been these
American consumers, through their buying of imports, who have sustained most of the Asian
economies. It is only Europe which stands in a different global position because only 2% of its
output goes to the U.S.A.. Asia will be"toast" if U.S. imports decline badly. The 15 European
Union nations will cope.

The global problem is that the U.S. credit expansion has caused the economic equivalent of the
rest of the world building false economic bridges everywhere, but especially to the U.S. These
mal-investments were made because a large part of the U.S. credit expansion flowed overseas to
buy imports. The U.S. trade and current account deficit inundated the world with a huge outflow
of borrowed U.S. Dollars.

The REAL U.S. Economy:

The REAL U.S. economy makes real physical economic goods. It has been getting hammered since
June 2000. The index of manufacturing activity fell sharply in the fourth quarter of 2000. Output
has now been below 50 for three months in a row. U.S. export orders have been declining for
three straight months. This is a very fast contraction and it is clearly accelerating. The
production index has fallen from 49.6 % in November to just 42.4 % in December. Anything below
50 is very real contraction.

Worse, U.S. corporate prices of inputs have risen from 56.6 in November to 61.0 in December.
Worst of all are the input cost increases is energy. Here are just a few examples. Jet fuel has
climbed in price by 59.6% from Nov 1999 to Nov 2000; diesel is up by 53.7%, natural gas by
51%, propane by 45.5%. The only two energy areas not showing huge price increases (yet) are
electricity for consumers and commerce which have climbed over the above time frame by
respectively 2.6% and 2.9%. But these figures do not yet reflect the current electricity crisis in
California. Overall, over the this past period, U.S. corporate energy costs have climbed by an
average of 20%. Consumer prices will react later.

A Mighty Credit Crunch:

U.S. corporations can no longer go to Wall Street and sell some more shares. That avenue is
closed for raising more money. Corporate bonds are VERY hard to sell. The banks have taken their
"welcome mats" for corporate borrowers and hidden them in the basement. Inside, in the back
rooms, U.S. banks are counting up the fast climbing number of business and corporate loans that
are going sour. Over at the junk market for corporate paper, speculative bond yields were 9.4%
higher than matching U.S. Treasury paper. Junk bonds issued by IT outfits, like competitive local
exchanges, are now carrying yields of up to 33% (that is NOT a"misprint"). The sum of all this is
that U.S. businesses cannot get any money.

It Took Intervention To Get To Here:

Interventionism is the disease of governments. It is the obnoxious and deadly dangerous idea
that people in the government can - through their complex manipulations of interest rates, money
quantities, rules and regulations which are constantly changing, and all the rest. - achieve more
than a proper free market held together by clear property rights and sound money and credit.
When the sum of all the accumulated interventions inside the U.S. economy is beginning to show
up clearly - a great danger is arriving - fast!

The"stage" has been set for decades, but it has taken the fantastic credit expansion of
1995-2000 to reach the present point. Now, the REAL crunch is on. And the most certain thing
Americans and the rest of the world can count upon is that to"cure" all these
government-caused economic problems, even MORE interventions will be resorted to! As analysed
earlier in this section, these problems, once caused, exist in physical reality. They are the
mal-investments, the bridges which lead nowhere and which no one wants to cross anymore.
Fundamentally, that is why no amount of additional government intervention can make these
mal-investments economically viable.

The Next Danger:

That danger arrives on January 20. Knowing that the U.S. economy is in dire straits, the new
Bush Administration is almost certain to try to act to"save" the economic situation. Their only
means with which to do that is MORE government interventions in the U.S. financial system and
economy.

This is the fundamental problem with Interventionism. All nations have indulged in it. But only one
nation, the U.S., has yet to pay the price for it. The"cure" for old interventions has always been
"new" interventions - on top of the old ones. As long as the U.S. was seen to be"booming", the
"cure" was seen to be working. When the U.S. is seen to have stopped"booming", the crisis of
intervention is at hand.



INSIDE THE UNITED STATES


STEPPING INTO THE PRE-MADE WRECKAGE

When President Bush steps into the Oval Office, he will also be stepping into the greatest
economic mess any President has stepped into since President Hoover. Only one central
economic fact is needed to both validate and justify this statement. Here it is: Between 1925
and 1929, the (Benjamin) Strong Fed inflated the U.S. stock of money by 10%. Between 1995
and 2000, the Greenspan Fed inflated the U.S. stock of money by 55%. All economic historians
know what happened in 1929, but it takes valid economic theory - such as the Austrian Theory
of the Trade Cycle - to look into what will happen now.

Obviously, based upon the 10% inflation of the '20s money stock and the 55% inflation of the
'90s money stock, the problem now is at least 5 times bigger than the monetary mistakes made in
the lead up to 1929. As to the massive mal- investments made in the U.S.A. and especially in
Japan and across Asia, there is really very little that can be done. A lot of these plants and their
equipment will have to be shut down. After that has regrettably been done, new investments
must be made in new plant and equipment that actually do have an economically valid consumer
demand behind it - and not borrowings.

That means that a"transitional" RECESSION is required.

A transitional recession is one where, as mal-investments are written off and new investments
entered into, the economy goes through a period of transitional unemployment and lowered living
standards and the financial system goes through a period of writing-off the bad loans.
Governments, standing before this otherwise normal economic event, can in principle do only two
things. They can cut government expenditures to the bone and lower taxes to match. This will
free up the cash flows of private individuals and all the affected businesses and enable them to
SAVE. They can then use the savings to pay down most of the outstanding loans, and then
stand with the means in hand to make new and valid investments.

The other thing a government has to do is to set interest rates free. Under no circumstances
must any attempt be made by a government to hold interest rates lower than where a free
market in SAVED and lendable funds would have placed them. It is high interest rates that
attract savings, not low ones. Along with setting interest rates free, a government must
deregulate - FULLY.

If the above economic principles are adhered to, the U.S. economy could work itself into the
clear in three to five years. If they were adhered to in Asia, then Asia could emerge from the
wreckage too.

It Won't Happen!

None of the above will happen, or it will happen to a woefully insufficient degree. This is because
American politicians are by now too scared of the illusions in the minds of the American public
which they themselves have so vigorously fostered over the last eight years. These illusions are
fundamentally based upon the idea that endless borrowing was and is the yellow brick road to
endless wealth.

When politicians stand forward and promise"prosperity", they have to"create" it. But there never
has been a stock of consumable goods and new plant and equipment (capital) in some well
hidden warehouses behind the Treasury. Politicians, in fact and in reality, CANNOT create either
wealth or prosperity.

Having already"bought the basic premise", President Bush is regrettably certain to act with great
vigour to maintain"prosperity", which in economic reality will mean that he will try to keep viable
all the many mal-investments that now clutter up the U.S. economy. That is simply to act in
utter defiance of the economic facts. More money, created either directly or through lower
interest rates, won't make unviable investments viable. Nonetheless, Mr Bush is certain to try
even more intervention and money creation.



INSIDE JAPAN


THE ACCELERATING DESCENT OF JAPAN'S ECONOMY

Overview:

For close to ten long years, Japan's political powers-that-be have tried, in vain, to sustain the
mal-investments which Japan made during the boom of the late 1980s. Japan's fundamental
economic problem is that it never attempted to get rid of these mal-investments, it simply tried
to perpetuate them. Most of them are still here, cluttered with huge corporate debts.

These unviable corporate debts are the nightmare of Japan's commercial banks. After all, they
made all these loans back in the booming 1980s. When Japan's real estate values crashed,
Japan's banks stared at the collapse of the collateral foundation underpinning an even larger
amount of loans. Now, after ten long years, Japan's economy is again sliding backwards towards
a new recession, this time led by a decline in exports to the, so far, insatiable U.S. economy.
Again, the currency is leading events. Japan's Yen is now falling fast against the U.S. Dollar and
even faster against the EU's Euro. Japan's program clearly is to let the Yen fall as fast, or faster,
than Japan's exports to the U.S.A. are falling, all this done in an attempt to sustain the only part
of Japan's industry that is functioning - exports.

The Effect Upon The Rest Of Asia:

But as Japan's Yen falls against the U.S. Dollar, all the rest of the Asian economies will
increasingly see their exports to the U.S.A. decline. It cannot be long before most of these
smaller economies also start their own currencies downwards! And then, a race will be on and the
"winner" will be the nation which can make its currency fall farthest against the U.S. Dollar. The
problem is that these falling currencies will again cause a huge capital flight, just like the one
that happened during the crisis of 1997-99.

At some point in this old sequence of competitive currency devaluations, China will have to act.
If it does not do so, it will lose an ever larger part of its share in the export market to the U.S.
economy. But, once China devalues, the rest of Asia will be thrown for a loop. This is because
the last time that China did, in early 1998, the Asian Crisis escalated into a global financial crisis.

The First Asia Crisis Re-Visited:

When the first Asia Crisis exploded across the world's headlines at the beginning of 1998, the
central thing never made mention of was that all these Asian economies stood with huge
mountains of foreign exchange reserves. It ought to have been the most natural thing in the
world for these nations to use part of their reserves to defend their currencies and re- liquify
their financial systems. But they did not do so. Instead, the IMF and World Bank stormed in with
multi- billion bail-out packages. The end result was that few, if any, of these vast holdings of
foreign exchange reserves were thrown on the market. And that leads straight to the question:
What are the"foreign exchange reserves" held by the Asian nations?

They are hundreds of Billions of U.S. Dollars worth of U.S. TREASURY DEBT PAPER.

Obviously, if huge amounts of U.S. Treasury debt paper had been sold, the U.S. bond market
would have fallen, and that means that U.S. market rates of interest would have climbed. When
all the U.S. Dollars acquired from such sales were also sold, the U.

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gesamter Thread:

• Gesucht: Text zu: Fakten, die für eine harte Landung in den USA sprechen - SchlauFuchs, 23.01.2001, 13:32
  • Re: Gesucht: Text zu: Fakten, die für eine harte Landung in den USA sprechen - R.Deutsch, 23.01.2001, 13:56
    • Fakten für eine harte Landung in den USA - genau das hab ich gesucht. - SchlauFuchs, 23.01.2001, 14:55
      • Nur zu... - Bodo, 23.01.2001, 17:43
      • Re: Fakten für eine harte Landung in den USA - tofir, 23.01.2001, 17:46
        • Re: Fakten für eine harte Landung in den USA - SchlauFuchs, 23.01.2001, 17:57
        • Re: Danke, tofir, für den Super Link, unbedingt lesen (insbes. zu Japan!) oT - Baldur der Ketzer, 23.01.2001, 18:30
    • Re: Gesucht: Text zu: Fakten, die für eine harte Landung in den USA sprechen - André, 23.01.2001, 17:34
  • Re: Gesucht: Text zu: Fakten, die für eine harte Landung in den USA sprechen - JüKü, 23.01.2001, 14:08
    • Fakten, die für eine harte Landung in den USA sprechen - Danke JüKü - SchlauFuchs, 23.01.2001, 14:57
  • Re: Gesucht: Text zu: Fakten: harte Landung in den USA - interessanter Link! - André, 23.01.2001, 22:15