The Federal Reserve has pumped trillions of dollars into the economy through its quantitative easing programs. This has generated a surge of inflation. But there are other less obvious impacts from the Fed’s extraordinary monetary policy. It conceals risk. Everybody sees a “booming” economy and assumes everything is fine. But underneath, the entire thing is rotting from the inside.
GDP for Q2 came in far below expectation at an annualized rate of 6.5%. But despite being a big miss, 6.5% growth is still pretty solid — until you consider what it took to buy that growth.
As economist Daniele Lacalle pointed out, the Fed and the US government rolled out the biggest fiscal and monetary policy in history. All we got from it was a momentary sugar high.
After a briefly shrinking for two months thanks to IRS tax collections, the US government budget deficit ballooned again in July, hitting the third-highest number of fiscal 2021.
The July budget shortfall was $302.05 billion. The only months with bigger deficits in fiscal 2021 were February ($310 billion) and March ($600 billion).
While the CPI numbers came in around expectations in July, the producer price data came in hotter than expected for the seventh straight month, putting a damper on the notion that “transitory” inflation might be cooling.
Economics 101 – incentives matter.
But politicians often seem to forget this. Or simply ignore it. “Generous” unemployment benefits provide the perfect example. With the US government handing out enhanced unemployment checks, we ended up in a bizarre situation with high unemployment even as job openings hit record levels.
Fifty years ago this week, President Richard Nixon slammed shut the “gold window” and eliminated the last vestige of the gold standard.
Nixon ordered Treasury Secretary John Connally to uncouple gold from its fixed $35 price and suspended the ability of foreign banks to directly exchange dollars for gold. During a national television address, Nixon promised the action would be temporary in order to “defend the dollar against the speculators,” but this turned out to be a lie. The president’s move permanently and completely severed the dollar from gold and turned it into a pure fiat currency.
I learned a new term this week – crypto gangster.
I have to confess — it sounds kind of cool.
“What do you do, Maharrey?”
“I’m a crypto gangster. So, don’t mess with me.”
Gold and silver tanked after last Friday’s job report. But both metals have rallied a bit since the July CPI numbers came in right at expectations. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey looks a little deeper at jobs and CPI. Then he goes off-script and addresses some listener comments.
The US government ran yet another massive budget deficit in July. The shortfall was particularly larger on a month-on-month basis with tax season ending and the flow of money into the Treasury slowing. The following analysis puts digs deeper into the numbers and puts them into some historical context.
When it comes to precious metals investing, gold tends to hog the spotlight. But silver is also important to investors, both as an industrial and a monetary metal.
In this Gold Exchange interview, host Mike Maharrey chats with Silver Institute Executive Director Michael DiRienzo about the current state of the silver market and where it’s going in the future.
