Alasdair Macleod: Negative Rates to Overturn Us?

​As we’re being pelted by currency expansion at multiple times what was done during the Lehman crisis, and the futures market is predicting negative nominal interest rates ahead, what will the impact be on our real economy, on gold & silver, and on the lives of ordinary people? 

Alasdair Macleod, head of Research at GoldMoney.com, returns to Liberty and Finance / Reluctant Preppers to answer viewers’ questions on navigating the upside-down world we are entering, and which no one has faced before.

- Source, Reluctant Preppers

Gold is the Ultimate Fiscal and Monetary Discipline on Governments

The inflationists deny that gold should play any monetary role, for the simple reason that it hampers inflationist policies. Being the most likely way of securing a currency, for a gold exchange standard to work will require strict rules-based monetary discipline.

A gold exchange standard is comprised of the following elements. The new issues of state denominated currency must be covered pro rata by additional physical gold, and it must be fully interchangeable at the public’s option. The state is not required at the outset to cover every existing banknote in circulation, but depending on the situation, perhaps a minimum of one-third of the issue should be covered by physical gold at the outset when setting a fixed conversion ratio. The point is that further note issues must be covered by the issuer acquiring physical gold.

Banknotes which are “as good as gold” are a practical means of using gold as the medium of exchange. Electronic money, being fully convertible into bank notes must also be convertible into gold.

A gold exchange standard also requires the state to radically alter course from its customary inflationary financing. The economy, which has similarly become accustomed to future flows of apparently free money, will have to adjust to their future absence. Consequently, the state has to reduce its burden on the economy, such that its activities become a minimal part of the whole; the smaller the better. It must privatise industries in its possession, because it cannot afford to absorb any losses and inefficient state businesses detract from overall economic performance. At the same time, the state must not hamper wealth creation and accumulation by producers and savers as the means to provide investment in production. Government policy must be to stop all socialism, allowing charities to fulfil the role of welfare provision, and let free markets have full rein.

Broadly, this was how British government policy developed following the Napoleonic wars until the First World War, and the proof of its success was Britain’s commercial and technological development, entirely due to free markets. But the British made one important mistake, and that was in the Bank Charter Act of 1844, which in England and Wales permitted the expansion of unbacked bank credit. For this reason, a cycle of credit expansion developed, punctuated by sharp contractions, the boom and bust that led to a series of banking crises. A future gold exchange standard must address this issue, by separating deposit-taking into a custodial role and the financing of investment into an agency function.

It is a common error of neo-Keynesian economists to believe gold is an unsuitable medium for financing modern trade and investment, because, it is often alleged, it lacks an interest rate. Since interest rates existed throughout gold standards, the confusion arises from assuming an interest rate attaches to paper currency. But if a paper currency is fully convertible into gold, then interest rates are effectively for borrowing and lending gold, and do not apply to the currency. The best measure of what savers may gain by lending their gold savings risk-free is the yield on government debt, repayable in gold and realisable in the market at any time. This is illustrated in Figure 1.

Shortly after the introduction of the gold sovereign in 1817, the yield on undated government debt gradually fell to 2.3% in 1898. This reflected a natural decline in time preference as free markets delivered increasing benefits and accumulating wealth for the British population. Following the gold discoveries in South Africa, between the early-1880s and the First World War global above-ground stocks of gold doubled, and the inflationary effects led to a rise in government Consols yields to 3.4%.

The encouragement to investors to provide financial capital for investment in industry and technology was two-fold. A family’s investment in 1824 rose in value due to the long-term fall in Consols yields. By 1898, invested in Consols it would have appreciated by 65%. At the same time, the rise in the purchasing power of gold-backed sterling increased approximately 20%. Saving and family inheritance were rewarded.

Importantly, above ground gold stocks have grown at approximately the rate of that of the global population, imparting a long-term stability to prices in gold. For this reason, it is often said that measured in gold the cost of a Roman toga is not much different from that of a modern lounge suit. Other money-related benefits of gold and gold exchange standards compared with those of pure fiat also follow from this stability.

Between countries that use gold and gold substitutes as money, except for short-term settlement differences covered by trade finance, balance of payments imbalances only existed to adjust price levels between different nations. If a country exports more goods and services than it imports, it imports gold or gold substitutes on a net basis. The increased quantity of gold in that country tends to adjust the general level of prices upwards to the general level of prices in countries that are net importers of goods and services, which find the outflow of gold has moved their prices correspondingly lower. The ability to issue unbacked currency has been removed, so net balance of payment flows become a pure price arbitrage. This is in accordance with classical economic theory and has its remnants today in concepts such as purchasing power parity.

In summary, gold retains the qualities that ensure it will always be the commodity selected by people to act as their medium of exchange. It offers long term price stability and is the ultimate fiscal and monetary discipline on governments, forcing them to reduce socialist ambitions, to accept the primacy of free markets, and to permit acting individuals to earn and accumulate wealth. Being fully fungible, gold is suitable backing for substitute coins and banknotes. It is an efficient medium for providing savings for the purpose of capital investment. And the tendency for prices measured in gold to fall over time driven by natural competition and technology ensures a low and stable originary rate of interest.

- Source, James Turk's Goldmoney

The Dichotomy Between Equities and Gold: A Tale of Two Alternate Inflation Universes

The past few months have been a period of extremes in financial markets across the globe. Crude oil future prices went negative, the Fed launched “unlimited QE” and equities have had the fastest crash in history, followed by the steepest recovery.

This latter part seems at odds with the economic environment we are currently in. We are witnessing the most pronounced global economic contraction in history. The US economy contracted 4.8% in 1Q2020 and the second quarter will be substantially worse. Unemployment is rising at a speed we have never seen before. In the US, continuous unemployment claims climbed to 18 million in just 4 weeks, nearly 3 times as much as during the entire financial crisis 2008-2009 (see exhibit 1). We expect this number to rise over the coming months as we will not just see temporary lay-offs from restaurants and coffee shops, but permanent job losses as companies will go out of business.

And the US is hardly alone. PMIs across the globe show unprecedented destruction in business activities. In our view, it is extremely unlikely for business activity to just go back to normal in a few weeks as global lockdowns are lifted. At the absolute best, we are coming out of the lockdown and will be entering a “normal” global recession for the next few quarters.

As a result, earnings expectations have come off substantially. While we think that companies and analysts are still much too optimistic when it comes to forward earnings estimates, they did fall by about 20% for the S&P500 companies. On the other hand, stock prices have sharply recovered from their March lows (see Exhibit 2). The S&P500 index is only down 9.8% year-to-date. The Nasdaq 100 is UP 3% by the time of writing.

So, what are stocks pricing in? In our view, it is clearly the devaluation of the denominator in which stocks are measured: the USD[1]. A few weeks ago, the Fed has launched what is now dubbed as “unlimited QE”. Effectively, the Fed has returned to its post-financial crisis playbook of buying assets and putting them on its balance sheets. Just this time, in a lot more aggressive fashion than ever before. The past 2 months have seen the fastest and largest ever increase in assets held by the Fed, growing by over USD2 trillion since late February (see Exhibit 3). The Fed is hardly alone, central banks around the world are doing the same. The ECB, for example, expanded its balance sheet by EUR650bn since late February. On top of that, we see unprecedented stimulus by governments as multi-trillion-dollar stimulus bills are being passed around the globe.

What the market is currently pricing into equity markets, is that all this money injected into the system will eventually lead to much higher price inflation. Inflation – so the idea – will lead to higher earnings again as prices of goods and services go up. Stock prices should reflect this multiplier in revenues and costs. In other words, investors seem to be buying equities as a protection against future fiat currency devaluations rather than because they are convinced that stocks are cheap, and companies are fundamentally in good shape.

What is at odds though, is that there seems that equities are pricing in vastly different inflation expectations than other asset classes. Breakeven inflation implied from TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities) yields for example, suggest that the market is still pricing in modest inflation over the next 10 years. 10-year breakeven inflation is just at 1%, much lower than what it was before the Fed’s buying frenzy started. Breakeven inflation declined sharply at the beginning of this crisis (similar to 2008). It has since somewhat recovered, but TIPS do not price in that the Feds monetary expansion will lead to high consumer price inflation going forward just yet. Arguably, the inflation for which TIPS investors are compensated is the CPI inflation, which may not accurately reflect true inflation over the next 10 years. This was certainly true for the past 10 years. Moreover, the past 10 years have also shown that central bank interventions have mostly led to asset price inflation, hence, the market’s reaction to buying back into equities, even as breakeven inflation remains depressed, is partially understandable.

However, the most obvious dichotomy is the one between equities and gold. If expected inflation is the main driver for this massive rebound in equity prices, gold should in our view certainly have outperformed stocks. In a future with weak economic activity but high inflation (stagflation), equities would fare better than cash or bonds, but in real terms, they should still suffer. Gold, on the other hand, will keep pace with inflation, as it has done for centuries, both in world with a gold standard and in a world without.

When we look at the stocks priced in gold, it becomes obvious that either stock prices are too high, or gold prices are too low. Equites and gold seem to be living in two alternate inflation universes.

- Source, James Turk's Goldmoney

Geopolitics Post COVID-19

One thing is for sure: the world will be different when it emerges from the coronavirus crisis. Doubtless, on pain of likely death those over seventy years of age must remain prisoners in their own homes while the younger generations are tasked with the return to normality. All this is meant to be under government guidance of course. Over the coming months governments intend to save swathes of business sectors, such as banking, energy production, utilities and the rest, first by lending the money to pay the bills, and then by rescuing the failures, taking them into public ownership in many cases.

That is what the post-coronavirus environment can be expected to look like, if, as governments hope, the recovery is V-shaped. If not, then greater interventions will be visited on the population to protect it from itself.

While not necessarily intentioned, there has been and will continue to be a dramatic transfer of freedom from individuals to the state, which the state is always reluctant to let go when the crisis passes. The evocation of a war against the virus is to facilitate the transfer of peoples’ freedom to the state, because that is what is required to fight a war. But when it’s over, the bureaucrats’ instincts are never to return freedoms.

In the vast majority of cases, win or lose, following a war it is usual for a nation to retain the measures adopted, dropping none of them. It might be called a transitional economy, kept in place with all the war-time restrictions until an exit path, inevitably to greater socialism, can be devised. And for America there is a war still to be fought against China for global domination, justifying yet more control.

Nanny meets fascist socialism

Welcome to the new post-coronavirus intensified socialism. As individuals we have given the state enormous power over our lives, which will almost certainly be consolidated. The direction of travel is clear. Not only can big brother censor us, but it can now track our movements more effectively than the old KGB. If you leave your home, leave your smartphone behind. Wear a wide-brimmed hat and change your gait, avoiding the cameras. Your money in the bank, or more correctly in your about-to-be-nationalised bank’s money credited to your account, can only be disposed of for state-regulated products by means of traceable transactions instead of old-fashioned cash.

Instead of the soviet, we have the nanny state. Nanny knows best. This is the real world of the 2020s. It is unnatural and will therefore eventually fail. In previous articles I have written about one aspect of its failure, and that is the impending collapse of unbacked state currencies. I have pointed out that central banks, and especially the Fed responsible for the world’s reserve currency, are embarking on an exercise in inflation designed, above all, to uphold the state by maintaining the values of its debt and therefore all other financial assets. If they fail, and they will because the task is too great, the currencies will fail as well, and remarkably quickly. Until then, free markets are a primal threat to the system and must not prevail.

Doubtless, deep state operatives everywhere believe that the threats from their own people can be contained. Taking that for granted, they are now moving on to contain threats from other states that don’t conform to the West’s democratic model. There is now much more propaganda coming out of America and the UK about the evil Chinese than the evil Chinese are disseminating about America and Britain.

The story being managed is of a devious state, somehow stealing our souls by selling us their technology. Mobile 5G puts China into our homes and controls our internet of everything. It will allow the Chinese to control us. What is not explained is why it is in China’s interest to abuse its customers in this way. What is not explained is why we, as individuals, will be better off not having Chinese goods and technology. And when Britain’s GCHQ intelligence and security division took Hua Wei’s equipment apart, they couldn’t find any evidence of Chinese state spyware anyway.

The irony in all this is that our democratic model, the nanny state, is cover for the same internal policies as those deployed by the Chinese, admittedly less vicious; but that is changing. Rather than communist-socialist, both Chinese communism and Western democracies are, properly defined, fascist-socialist. With communism, the state owns your cow and tells you what to do with it. With fascism, you own the cow and the state tells you what to do with it. In these simplistic, but not inaccurate terms, our governments increasingly follow the fascist creed adopted by the Chinese Communist Party after Mao’s death. Give it time and the intense Chinese-style suppression of free speech could become the defining feature of nanny’s management style as well.

Here we must note a fundamental truth. Socialists of either extreme do not see free markets as a rival, because they believe they are useful for progressing socialism towards desired ends. The true rival to your socialism is someone else’s socialism. Newly energized Western state socialism is to be pitted against Chinese state socialism. The World is about to get more dangerous.

- Source, Alasdair Macleod via James Turk's Goldmoney

How the ending of the gold derivative scam started

In the past, bullion banks always managed to put a lid on open interest, returning it from an overbought 600,000 contracts to under 400,000 contracts, in the process getting an even book or exceptionally going long, ready for the next pump-and-dump cycle. But then something changed. Last year, the pump-and-dump schemes of the bullion banks’ trading desks went awry, with open interest rocketing to nearly 800,000 contracts by January this year. After several failed attempts, in June 2019 gold had broken above $1350, which encouraged the speculators to chase the price up even further. The interest rate outlook then softened along with the global economy, and by early September, with open interest threatening to rise above the historically high 650,000 level, the Fed was forced to inject inflationary liquidity into the US banking system through repos. At its peak on 23 January 2020, the sum of all short positions on Comex was the equivalent of 2,488 tonnes of gold, worth $125bn. The suckers were finally breaking the banks, who held the bulk of the shorts. This can be seen in the chart below of Comex open interest

It was imperative that the position be brought under control, and accordingly, it appears that central banks, presumably at the behest of the Bank of England, arranged for gold to be leased to the bullion banks to ease liquidity pressures. And then trading desks were hit by a perfect storm.

The coronavirus put large swathes of the global economy into lockdown, disrupting payment chains in industrial production. This meant that formerly solvent businesses now face collapse and are turning en masse to their banks for liquidity. The bankers’ natural instinct is no longer the pursuit of profit, but fear of losses, and they now have an overwhelming desire to contract outstanding bank credit. In a panic, the Fed cut the Fed funds rate to the zero bound and promised unlimited liquidity support in a desperate attempt to avoid a deflationary spiral. Meanwhile, our swaps traders in gold futures were caught record short, the worst possible position for them given the evolving situation.

The coup de grâce has now come from their banking superiors. Despite the efforts of the Fed to persuade them otherwise, bankers in their lending have become strongly risk-averse and know they will be forced to commit bank credit to failing corporations against their instincts. For this reason, they are taking every opportunity to reduce their balance sheet exposure to other activities. One of the first divisions to suffer is bound to be bullion bank desks running short positions, synthetic in London and actual on Comex, which are wholly inappropriate at a time of massive monetary inflation.

It is this last pressure that has led to an unusual combination of collapsed open interest, shown in the chart above, and rising gold prices, accompanied by a persistent premium of $40 or more over the spot price in London. Clearly, there is good reason for the LBMA and the CME to panic. If the gold price rises much further, there will be bullion desks, managing shorts on Comex and fractionally reserved positions in London, at risk of bankrupting their employers.

The Comex contract, which anchors itself to physical gold through the option of physical delivery at expiry, will face enormous challenges when the active June contract expires at the end of next month. At expiry, the speculators have a chance to obtain delivery. Normally, when the spot price is lower than the future, only the insane would insist on delivery at the higher price. But with very low availability of bullion and price premiums for delayed delivery common, London is being rapidly drained of physical liquidity as well. It is like a good old-fashioned one-two boxing combination: first the Comex market is delivered a body-blow, and then the LBMA gets an uppercut.

Many central banks who have stored their earmarked gold at the Bank of England will be unhappy as well, having leased their gold in the expectation it would stabilise the bullion market. They will not do it again for an interesting reason: gold leasing rates have turned strongly negative, with the two-month rate currently minus 3.7%.[ii] No sensible entity is going to pay a lessor to lease its gold and will want leased gold returned instead. Therefore, the availability of gold for leasing is now cut off and gold already leased will need to be returned if delivered to the lessors, or unencumbered if it remained in the Bank of England’s vaults as is the normal leasing practice.

Gold liquidity in London will then disappear entirely, at which point those with a claim to custodial gold will hope that their property rights remain protected.

- Source, Goldmoney