The Room

The Room – 07/10/2009

David Galland — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:59:00 GMT

Dear Reader,

In the June edition of The Casey Report, and again in the edition that was put to bed July 2, we warned that the U.S. equities markets were on the edge of the next leg down in the slow-motion crisis now unfolding. (You can read both issues... more here).

While there is no such thing as a sure thing, the idea that the worst could be behind the economy is almost unimaginable, given the deep structural flaws and governments doing what Doug Casey correctly calls the "exact opposite" of what they should be doing.

Namely trying to solve a debt crisis by adding more debt.

Of course, as turmoil returns to the broader stock market, investors will again scramble for "safe harbor" investments, and that spells trouble for commodities and commodity-related equities, which are viewed by many as "recovery" investments.

While it often marches to its own drummer, in June and again in July, we warned that gold, too, will be affected, though more moderately so. Looking over the price charts since June for gold and oil – among other commodities – it seems clear the correction has begun.

Even so, for the record, we see any setback to the "tangible" sector as being relatively short lived. That's because commodities are the actual stuff of life – unlike, say, flat-screen televisions, which you can hold off buying indefinitely. Food for the table, on the other hand...

As prices fall, commodity producers, long accustomed to dealing with price volatility, will reduce output to rebalance the supply/demand equation and stabilize prices at a profitable level. Of course, there are circumstances under which a producer will continue to produce, even with prices below production costs – say, to avoid the cost of shutting down and eventually restarting a mine or a well. Though not for long.

clicking here

But for many commodities today, structural issues already make any further reduction in production a quick ticket to shortages and soaring prices: copper, gasoline, sugar, cotton, and hogs, to name just a few.

Casey's Trend Trader

More about the Trend Trader here

Regardless, we see the potential for a return to a period of increased volatility in pretty much all things – including some of our favorite investments – but soon thereafter, opportunity will present itself at our collective doors.

Opportunity Knocks

Using history as our guide, after running for shelter as the next leg down in the economy unfolds, most investors will then cower there until the experts on CNBC (the same ones that completely missed this crisis in the first place) tell them it's safe to get back in the water.

Of course no one can be blamed for being extra cautious just now, and we urge you to follow the herd on that point. However, we would also urge you to remember that the herd is almost always slow to react... in getting out of fragile markets, and especially in getting back in.

At the same time that the level of risk is rising, there is a big, fat opportunity brewing as well. If you are attentive and willing to take actions that run contrary to the herd.

The source of this opportunity comes from the government's highly predictable reaction to the next wave of bad news. That reaction becomes obvious (at least to us) by asking the rhetorical question, "Confronted with steadily worsening unemployment, collapsing real estate prices, bankrupt state governments, skyrocketing bank failures, what do you think they are going to do?"

Cutting back on the spending? Letting the free market run an unfettered course? Not likely.

Instead, the president will ask the public for more patience, as his administration mans the spending pumps even more aggressively. The straws confirming that view are already in the wind; on July 7, one of President Obama's top advisors called for yet another round of stimulus.

Sure, they'll have to be increasingly clever to avoid an even stronger political backlash, but the squeeze they are now in (and, for the record, not all of it was this administration's doing) is getting tighter by the day. They have painted themselves into a corner.

And so, to use an old poker term, they are reaching the point where they'll feel they have no choice but to either fold or go "all in." You know, shoving all their chips onto the table (actually, they're your chips they are playing with, but hey...).

Given the unacceptable political consequences of folding their hand (i.e., doing nothing) and the simple truth that monetary inflation has been the default mode for handling economic downturns for many decades now, we have little doubt the government will take the "all in" approach, a desperate measure designed to buy time (at least through the next election).

And that sets up the opportunity.

Playing the Bounce

There has already been a sea change in awareness among the trading community about the seeds for monetary damage sown over the last year. And with this awareness comes increased sensitivity to further debasement of the dollar. Thus, each new announcement of stimulus lately has triggered a quicker rebound in gold and other commodities – as well as the resource-related stocks.

To be as succinct as possible, a struggle for me at all times, in the same way that we anticipated the resource sector correcting along with the broader markets, we also anticipate it to bounce back much quicker. Supporting that contention, consider the last three 25%+ corrections in the S&P versus the GDX, a gold stock ETF.

From Sep 19 to Oct 27, 2008, the S&P dropped 32%, but the GDX fell 57%. Deflation was then the watchword of the day.
From Nov 4 to Nov 20, 2008, the S&P lost 25% while the GDX fell slightly less, by a 23%. Is it really deflation we fear, the traders asked, or might this whole doubling-of-the-money-supply thing be signaling inflation?
It was during the slide in the S&P that occurred between January 1 and March 2009 that the changing tide in inflationary expectations became pronounced. During that correction, the S&P 500 lost 26%, but the GDX lost only 14% in the first two weeks of January – then roared back 33% by February 17, while the S&P continued to fall.

Subsequently, as the S&P rallied 36% between its bottom on March 9 and July 1 due to the (false) sightings of green shoots, the resource stocks added to their head start, rallying 50%.

In other words, natural resource investors who can keep their heads about them will be able to win in both scenarios: the one where the economy is falling and the government is stimulating (a certainty on both fronts), and the one where the economy begins to recover – or the masses come to believe it is.

The only scenario, in fact, that will disadvantage natural resources is if the government adopts a posture of steely-eyed free marketers that step aside and let the worst come to pass. We would contend that to be highly improbable.

Thus, the way to play things just now, as we see it, is to be cautious, but with the full expectation of aggressively buying up resource bargains before the crowds venture back out of their safe harbors. It might take a month or two (or maybe three), but it's unlikely to be much longer than that.

Investments can be made in certain physical commodities (gold and silver bullion), leveraged commodities positions (using strategic combinations of options and futures), or in selected resource equities, especially those of deeply undervalued and well-positioned companies in the precious metals and energy sectors.

In fact, the biggest challenge you'll face will be choosing between all the many opportunities we see materializing just over the horizon. But if you begin planning now, you should be ready to act when the time for action arrives.

Of course, all of the Casey Research specialty publications will make it a point to help you prepare for the next leg up in our favorite sectors. Of these, the services most dedicated to elephant hunting – namely bagging the really big returns – are Casey's International Speculator and, for especially active investors, our premium Casey's Investment Alert.]

Speaking of Unemployment

As you can see from the chart here, compliments of the monthly Data Farm feature in The Casey Report, the trend in unemployment remains solidly intact. Unemployment is now reaching a point so dire that soon it won't be reported on as further evidence of the economic slump but rather as a driving force (among many) in the ongoing collapse.

As recently as January, the government predicted that, thanks to the stimulus, the unemployment rate would top out at 8%. Despite energetic attempts to conceal the actual numbers, the official rate has still shot up to 9.5%... but the actual number is running closer to a depression-era level of 16%.

Ed. Note:

Worsening unemployment is one of those "important" things people should be paying close attention to. That's because the duration of the crisis – and sadly, the government's many exertions will result in it going on for much, much longer – means that the clock on receiving regular unemployment benefits is running out for more and more of the unemployed.

And, other than rely on the kindness of family members and friends, once the unemployment benefits dry up, what is a person to do? Well, for starters, sign up for special extended unemployment programs. Those programs are seeing a large increase in recipients. Quoting the Washington Times on the topic...

"... there were major jumps in two federal jobless programs. Workers collecting payments from the extended-benefits program increased by 65,000 to 347,000 for the week ending June 20. States also reported that 2.52 million persons were collecting Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits, reflecting an increase of 81,000.
And this from Bloomberg...

average duration

benefits

This is a trend in motion that will stay in motion and worsen. Which means that the cost of maintaining the social safety net will only grow with each passing day. And, of course, unemployed people, no matter how willing, eventually run out of savings and have to let their debt payments – credit cards, auto loans, home equity, mortgages, etc., etc. – fall by the wayside.

In addition to exacerbating the economic downturn and, by extension, deficits, persistent and growing unemployment will soon lead to social pressure as desperate people begin to do desperate things. Riots in the streets are not out of the question.

And confronted with desperate people doing desperate things, the government will again react predictably – ginning up yet more and larger quantities of bread and circuses.

From where I sit, anything other than letting the situation self-correct in a quick and brutal crash so we can get this over and done with will result in a protracted, torturous death spiral, a negative feedback loop that will last longer than any of us can imagine.

You know what I hope? I hope I'm wrong.

Wicked Game

you can listen to it here

What Really Makes the World Go Round
(and How to Profit from It)

Understandably, people tend to think about energy in terms of the cost of gasoline at the pump or the electricity bills they get each month.

But energy is much more than that. It's the very juice that allowed humankind to graduate beyond being just another dumb animal. Without exaggeration, it's the critical component in most human endeavors, touching everyone and virtually everything that makes up the modern life.

Further, a solid case can be made that each discovery of new and more efficient energy sources coincides with humankinds most stunning advances: in food production, population growth, health, transportation, technology.

Case in point, consider that the rise of nearly unlimited oil and natural gas as mass energy sources began in earnest in the 1860s (unseating whale oil, which was quite limited). At that time the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) was fought by men on horseback with swords and muzzle-loaded firearms.

Almost impossibly, just 80 years later Paul Tibbets dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. And just 100 years after Lee surrendered his sword at Appomattox, man set foot on the moon.

Simply, the story of energy is step-by-step the story of the ascent of humankind.

I mention this as a circuitous route to make the point that the constant quest to maximize existing energy sources, and to find new ones, is a quest that will never end... at least not until the ultimate breakthrough occurs that allows us to, for example, efficiently harness energy from the sun.

But that is then, and this is now. And right now the energy sector is huge, diverse, and geographically fragmented.

And because of its day in, day out importance, it is also extremely rich in opportunities for investors armed with the right information.

On that front, by now you should have received an invitation to our first ever Casey Research Energy & Special Situations Summit, which is being held in Denver, September 18 to 20.

The registration site for the event, which already boasts one of our most impressive faculty line-ups yet, is now open. Access our summit site by clicking here.

At the event, you'll get concise briefings on specific opportunities in everything from green energy to lithium technology, and from conventional oil and gas in North America, to unconventional oil and gas in Europe. Coal, uranium, geothermal, hydropower, solar, and much, much more will be covered (and, where appropriate, debunked) and the very best opportunities to get positioned for energy profits revealed.

As for the "special situations" in the summit's title, that refers to first-ever programs on emerging homerun opportunities in areas such as rare elements.

All signs are that it will be one of our best – and maybe even our best – summits ever.

As always, it will be a great opportunity for you to meet members of the Casey Research team and to share notes with like-minded individuals. If you've ever attended one of our summits, you already know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, then this is a great chance to find out.

As usual, to keep these events congenial and collegial, we always limit the attendance. Every summit to date has been a sell-out... so, please don't wait to check your schedule and to register.

See you in Denver!

Statehouses in the Poorhouses

People are not the only ones feeling the pinch. As has been widely reported, so, too, have been the states. This excerpt from the Washington Post may not say it all, but it says a lot...

David again. I can well remember the sense of incredulousness I felt back in 2005 when watching state governments, flush with tax loot as a result of booming real estate and investment markets, passing lavish new spending programs. The financial rationale for the many new programs at the time could best be described as "Happy Times Are Here Forever!"

Well, now they are learning the hard way that they are not, leaving the government worker unions scrambling to retain their grips on the public purse. In California, where a pitched battle has been going on over the soaring deficits, the government unions are taking the stance that their backs are up against the wall. That they have pretty much cut all they can cut and still provide the services that the helpless public demands of them. A contention that someone with a brain and a lot of time on their hands answered by assembling the following list of California state agencies.

California Academic Performance Index (API) * California Access for Infants and Mothers * California Acupuncture Board * California Administrative Office of the Courts * California Adoptions Branch * California African American Museum * California Agricultural Export Program * California Agricultural Labor Relations Board * California Agricultural Statistics Service * California Air Resources Board (CARB) * California Allocation Board * California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority * California Animal Health and Food Safety Services * California Anti-Terrorism Information Center * California Apprenticeship Council * California Arbitration Certification Program * California Architects Board * California Area VI Developmental Disabilities Board * California Arts Council * California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus * California Assembly Democratic Caucus * California Assembly Republican Caucus * California Athletic Commission * California Attorney General * California Bay Conservation and Development Commission * California Bay-Delta Authority * California Bay-Delta Office * California Biodiversity Council * California Board for Geologists and Geophysicists * California Board for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors * California Board of Accountancy * California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology * California Board of Behavioral Sciences * California Board of Chiropractic Examiners * California Board of Equalization (BOE) * California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection * California Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind * California Board of Occupational Therapy * California Board of Optometry * California Board of Pharmacy * California Board of Podiatric Medicine * California Board of Prison Terms * California Board of Psychology * California Board of Registered Nursing * California Board of Trustees * California Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians * California Braille and Talking Book Library * California Building Standards Commission * California Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education * California Bureau of Automotive Repair * California Bureau of Electronic and Appliance Repair * California Bureau of Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation * California Bureau of Naturopathic Medicine * California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services * California Bureau of State Audits * California Business Agency * California Business Investment Services (CalBIS) * California Business Permit Information (CalGOLD) * California Business Portal * California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency * California Cal Grants * California CalJOBS * California Cal-Learn Program * California CalVet Home Loan Program * California Career Resource Network * California Cemetery and Funeral Bureau * California Center for Analytical Chemistry * California Center for Distributed Learning * California Center for Teaching Careers (Teach California) * California Chancellor's Office * California Charter Schools * California Children and Families Commission * California Children and Family Services Division * California Citizens Compensation Commission * California Civil Rights Bureau * California Coastal Commission * California Coastal Conservancy * California Code of Regulations * California Collaborative Projects with UC Davis * California Commission for Jobs and Economic Growth * California Commission on Aging * California Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation * California Commission on Judicial Performance * California Commission on State Mandates * California Commission on Status of Women * California Commission on Teacher Credentialing * California Commission on the Status of Women * California Committee on Dental Auxiliaries * California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office, Junior Colleges * California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office * California Complaint Mediation Program * California Conservation Corps * California Constitution Revision Commission * California Consumer Hotline * California Consumer Information Center * California Consumer Information * California Consumer Services Division * California Consumers and Families Agency * California Contractors State License Board * California Corrections Standards Authority * California Council for the Humanities * California Council on Criminal Justice * California Council on Developmental Disabilities * California Court Reporters Board * California Courts of Appeal * California Crime and Violence Prevention Center * California Criminal Justice Statistics Center * California Criminalistic Institute Forensic Library * California CSGnet Network Management * California Cultural and Historical Endowment * California Cultural Resources Division * California Curriculum and Instructional Leadership Branch * California Data Exchange Center * California Data Management Division * California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission * California Delta Protection Commission * California Democratic Caucus * California Demographic Research Unit * California Dental Auxiliaries * California Department of Aging * California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs * California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals Board * California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control * California Department of Boating and Waterways (Cal Boating) * California Department of Child Support Services (CDCSS) * California Department of Community Services and Development * California Department of Conservation * California Department of Consumer Affairs * California Department of Corporations * California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation * California Department of Developmental Services * California Department of Education * California Department of Fair Employment and Housing * California Department of Finance * California Department of Financial Institutions * California Department of Fish and Game * California Department of Food and Agriculture * California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) * California Department of General Services * California Department of General Services, Office of State Publishing * California Department of Health Care Services * California Department of Housing and Community Development * California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) * California Department of Insurance * California Department of Justice Firearms Division * California Department of Justice Opinion Unit * California Department of Justice, Consumer Information, Public Inquiry Unit * California Department of Justice * California Department of Managed Health Care * California Department of Mental Health * California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) * California Department of Personnel Administration * California Department of Pesticide Regulation * California Department of Public Health * California Department of Real Estate * California Department of Rehabilitation * California Department of Social Services Adoptions Branch * California Department of Social Services * California Department of Technology Services Training Center (DTSTC) * California Department of Technology Services (DTS) * California Department of Toxic Substances Control * California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) * California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVets) * California Department of Water Resources * California Departmento de Vehiculos Motorizados * California Digital Library * California Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Certification Program * California Division of Apprenticeship Standards * California Division of Codes and Standards * California Division of Communicable Disease Control * California Division of Engineering * California Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control * California Division of Gambling Control * California Division of Housing Policy Development * California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement * California Division of Labor Statistics and Research * California Division of Land and Right of Way * California Division of Land Resource Protection * California Division of Law Enforcement General Library * California Division of Measurement Standards * California Division of Mines and Geology * California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) * California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources * California Division of Planning and Local Assistance * California Division of Recycling * California Division of Safety of Dams * California Division of the State Architect * California Division of Tourism * California Division of Workers' Compensation Medical Unit * California Division of Workers' Compensation * California Economic Assistance, Business and Community Resources * California Economic Strategy Panel * California Education and Training Agency * California Education Audit Appeals Panel * California Educational Facilities Authority * California Elections Division * California Electricity Oversight Board * California Emergency Management Agency * California Emergency Medical Services Authority * California Employment Development Department (EDD) * California Employment Information State Jobs * California Employment Training Panel * California Energy Commission * California Environment and Natural Resources Agency * California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA) * California Environmental Resources Evaluation System (CERES) * California Executive Office * California Export Laboratory Services * California Exposition and State Fair (Cal Expo) * California Fair Political Practices Commission * California Fairs and Expositions Division * California Film Commission * California Fire and Resource Assessment Program * California Firearms Division * California Fiscal Services * California Fish and Game Commission * California Fisheries Program Branch * California Floodplain Management * California Foster Youth Help * California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) * California Fraud Division * California Gambling Control Commission * California Geographic Information Systems Council (GIS) * California Geological Survey * California Government Claims and Victim Compensation Board * California Governor's Committee for Employment of Disabled Persons * California Governor's Mentoring Partnership * California Governor's Office of Emergency Services * California Governor's Office of Homeland Security * California Governor's Office of Planning and Research * California Governor's Office * California Grant and Enterprise Zone Programs HCD Loan * California Health and Human Services Agency * California Health and Safety Agency * California Healthy Families Program * California Hearing Aid Dispensers Bureau * California High-Speed Rail Authority * California Highway Patrol (CHP) * California History and Culture Agency * California Horse Racing Board * California Housing Finance Agency * California Indoor Air Quality Program * California Industrial Development Financing Advisory Commission * California Industrial Welfare Commission * California InFoPeople * California Information Center for the Environment * California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (I-Bank) * California Inspection Services * California Institute for County Government * California Institute for Education Reform * California Integrated Waste Management Board * California Interagency Ecological Program * California Job Service * California Junta Estatal de Personal * California Labor and Employment Agency * California Labor and Workforce Development Agency * California Labor Market Information Division * California Land Use Planning Information Network (LUPIN) * California Lands Commission * California Landscape Architects Technical Committee * California Latino Legislative Caucus * California Law Enforcement Branch * California Law Enforcement General Library * California Law Revision Commission * California Legislative Analyst's Office * California Legislative Black Caucus * California Legislative Counsel * California Legislative Division * California Legislative Information * California Legislative Lesbian, Gay , Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Caucus * California Legislature Internet Caucus * California Library Development Services * California License and Revenue Branch * California Major Risk Medical Insurance Program * California Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board * California Maritime Academy * California Marketing Services * California Measurement Standards * California Medical Assistance Commission * California Medical Care Services * California Military Department * California Mining and Geology Board * California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts * California Museum Resource Center * California National Guard * California Native American Heritage Commission * California Natural Community Conservation Planning Program * California New Motor Vehicle Board * California Nursing Home Administrator Program * California Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board * California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board * California Ocean Resources Management Program * California Office of Administrative Hearings * California Office of Administrative Law * California Office of AIDS * California Office of Binational Border Health * California Office of Child Abuse Prevention * California Office of Deaf Access * California Office of Emergency Services (OES) * California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment * California Office of Fiscal Services * California Office of Fleet Administration * California Office of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Implementation (CalOHI) * California Office of Historic Preservation * California Office of Homeland Security * California Office of Human Resources * California Office of Legal Services * California Office of Legislation * California Office of Lieutenant Governor * California Office of Military and Aerospace Support * California Office of Mine Reclamation * California Office of Natural Resource Education * California Office of Privacy Protection * California Office of Public School Construction * California Office of Real Estate Appraisers * California Office of Risk and Insurance Management * California Office of Services to the Blind * California Office of Spill Prevention and Response * California Office of State Publishing (OSP) * California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development * California Office of Systems Integration * California Office of the Inspector General * California Office of the Ombudsman * California Office of the Patient Advocate * California Office of the President * California Office of the Secretary for Education * California Office of the State Fire Marshal * California Office of the State Public Defender * California Office of Traffic Safety * California Office of Vital Records * California Online Directory * California Operations Control Office * California Opinion Unit * California Outreach and Technical Assistance Network (OTAN) * California Park and Recreation Commission * California Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) * California Performance Review (CPR) * California Permit Information for Business (CalGOLD) * California Physical Therapy Board * California Physician Assistant Committee * California Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services * California Policy and Evaluation Division * California Political Reform Division * California Pollution Control Financing Authority * California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo * California Postsecondary Education Commission * California Prevention Services * California Primary Care and Family Health * California Prison Industry Authority * California Procurement Division * California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) * California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) * California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) * California Real Estate Services Division * California Refugee Programs Branch * California Regional Water Quality Control Boards * California Registered Veterinary Technician Committee * California Registrar of Charitable Trusts * California Republican Caucus * California Research and Development Division * California Research Bureau * California Resources Agency * California Respiratory Care Board * California Rivers Assessment * California Rural Health Policy Council * California Safe Schools * California San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission * California San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy * California San Joaquin River Conservancy * California School to Career * California Science Center * California Scripps Institution of Oceanography * California Secretary of State Business Portal * California Secretary of State * California Seismic Safety Commission * California Self Insurance Plans (SIP) * California Senate Office of Research * California Small Business and Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Certification Program * California Small Business Development Center Program * California Smart Growth Caucus * California Smog Check Information Center * California Spatial Information Library * California Special Education Division * California Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Board * California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) * California Standards and Assessment Division * California State Administrative Manual (SAM) * California State Allocation Board * California State and Consumer Services Agency * California State Architect * California State Archives * California State Assembly * California State Association of Counties (CSAC) *0ACalifornia State Board of Education * California State Board of Food and Agriculture * California Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) * California State Children's Trust Fund * California State Compensation Insurance Fund * California State Contracts Register Program * California State Contracts Register * California State Controller * California State Council on Developmental Disabilities (SCDD) * California State Disability Insurance (SDI) * California State Fair (Cal Expo) * California State Jobs Employment Information * California State Lands Commission * California State Legislative Portal * California State Legislature * California State Library Catalog * California State Library Services Bureau * California State Library * California State Lottery * California State Mediation and Conciliation Service * California State Mining and Geology Board * California State Park and Recreation Commission * California State Parks * California State Personnel Board * California State Polytechnic University, Pomona * California State Railroad Museum * California State Science Fair * California State Senate * California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science (COSMOS) * California State Summer School for the Arts * California State Superintendent of Public Instruction * California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) * California State Treasurer * California State University Center for Distributed Learning * California State University, Bakersfield * California State University, Channel Islands * California State University, Chico * California State University, Dominguez Hills * California State University, East Bay * California State University, Fresno * California State University, Fullerton * California State University, Long Beach * California State University, Los Angeles * California State University, Monterey Bay * California State University, Northridge * California State University, Sacramento * California State University, San Bernardino * California State University, San Marcos * California State University, Stanislaus * California State University (CSU) * California State Water Project Analysis Office * California State Water Project * California State Water Resources Control Board * California Structural Pest Control Board * California Student Aid Commission * California Superintendent of Public Instruction * California Superior Courts * California Tahoe Conservancy * California Task Force on Culturally and Linguistically Competent Physicians and Dentists * California Tax Information Center * California Technology and Administration Branch Finance * California Telecommunications Division * California Telephone Medical Advice Services (TMAS) * California Transportation Commission * California Travel and Transportation Agency * California Unclaimed Property Program * California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board * California Unemployment Insurance Program * California Uniform Construction Cost Accounting Commission * California Veterans Board * California Veterans Memorial * California Veterinary Medical Board and Registered Veterinary Technician Examining Committee * California Veterinary Medical Board * California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board * California Volunteers * California Voter Registration * California Water Commission * California Water Environment Association (CWEA) * California Water Resources Control Board * California Welfare to Work Division * California Wetlands Information System * California Wildlife and Habitat Data Analysis Branch * California Wildlife Conservation Board * California Wildlife Programs Branch * California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) * California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board * California Workforce and Labor Development Agency * California Workforce Investment Board * California Youth Authority (CYA) * Central Valley Flood Protection Board * Center for California Studies * Colorado River Board of California * Counting California * Dental Board of California * Health Insurance Plan of California (PacAdvantage) * Humboldt State University * Jobs with the State of California * Judicial Council of California * Learn California * Library of California * Lieutenant Governor's Commission for One California * Little Hoover Commission (on California State Government Organization and Economy) * Medical Board of California * Medi-Cal * Osteopathic Medical Board of California * Physical Therapy Board of California * Regents of the University of California * San Diego State University * San Francisco State University * San José Stat e University * Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy * State Bar of California * Supreme Court of California * Teach California * University of California * University of California, Berkeley * University of California, Davis * University of California, Hastings College of the Law * University of California, Irvine * University of California, Los Angeles * University of California, Merced * University of California, Riverside * University of California, San Diego * University of California, San Francisco * University of California, Santa Barbara * University of California, Santa Cruz * Veterans Home of California

David again... finally. I wonder how many of those agencies existed 50 years ago? And I wonder, really, what would happen if they closed half of those agencies and cut the budgets of the survivors by half?

We may find out.

Report from CYCLE

A few weeks back I mentioned CYCLE 2008 (Casey's Youth Conference for Liberty and Entrepreneurship), the week-long camp for young entrepreneurs that we sponsor in Lithuania. Louis James of our team organized this year's event, and the reviews have been very positive. Happily, even though we mentioned CYCLE at the last moment, a couple of Casey subscribers were able to arrange things to have their own children participate. Here's an excerpt from the notes of one, Natalie.

Up to this point, these camps have only been held annually, in Eastern Europe, but we are considering holding them more frequently and in other areas of the world, including North America. While there may be some commercial gain to be made by expanding this initiative (and no apologies for that), the reality is that there is a dearth of opportunities available to young people these days to learn about the free market and how to succeed in it. Maybe we can do some good.

So, what do you think? Good idea or not? Do you know a kid that could benefit from an immersion course in freedom and free markets? Drop us a note at info@CaseyResearch.com and let us know. We'll keep you posted on any developments.

Too Funny

I have to share this, because it is classic Doug Casey, and I laugh every time I think of it.

The setup is that the nation's media fell all over itself to say kind things in obituaries about Robert McNamara, the former defense secretary who presided over Vietnam and who shed his mortal coil this week.

Louis James, who does the interviews for our new free e-letter, Conversations with Casey, thought that McNamara's passing was something that might have caught Doug's attention and so asked him about it. The result, in addition to being spot on, included some memorable lines, my favorite coming as a result of a follow-on about why the media was so complimentary of the man.

Doug:

If you aren't signed up for Conversations with Casey, it gets very high reviews, and I guarantee you'll never find it dull. Sign up for it here, and don't forget to pass it along!

Miscellany

Casey Phyle News.
- Bend, Oregon, Up and Running. A group of Casey subscribers have started meeting regularly in Bend, Oregon.
- Kansas City Phyle will be having their first meeting very soon.
- SoCal Phyle's Next Meeting Set for July 18, from 1:30 to 5:00 pm. The largest and most active Casey phyle is hosting a program with a speaker reporting on his recent trip to Uruguay, and another from Italy who will be discussing the European perspective on the crisis. The meet-up is at the Steelhead Brewing Company in Irvine California, and space is limited.
If you are in any of those neighborhoods and want to join in the fun, drop us a note at phyles@CaseyResearch.com and we'll get you connected.
Big Changes Coming. Watch your email inbox for an announcement on some exciting and significant changes here at Casey Research. One of those changes will be that this weekly experiment in musing will be going daily (at least for a trial period, likely beginning July 20). The name of the publication will change, too... to Casey's Daily Dispatch. That's just the tip of the iceberg, but I wanted to let you in on the new name now. Watch for the announcement of additional changes soon...

And That's That for This Week

As I sign off this week, the S&P 500 is off 62 points, a slight improvement from earlier in the day, but still well established on a negative down slope, exacerbated, no doubt, by the latest news that the sentiments of consumers are growing less cheery (gee, I wonder why that could be?).

With duty calling, I must now sign off, thanking you for reading and for being a Casey Research subscriber.

Until next week, remember... good things can happen in bad times – if you are sufficiently prepared and have the right attitude.

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room – 06/19/2009

David Galland — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:57:00 GMT

Dear Reader,

David is taking a well-deserved week off, so this week you’re hearing from Olivier.

While David may be off duty, it didn’t prevent him from submitting an interesting article sent by one of our subscribers, along with a couple of comments.

Telegraph: U.S. cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive

Dozens of U.S. cities may have entire neighborhoods bulldozed as part of drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline.

Olivier again. Definitely a creative plan that may prove to be a better use of federal dollars than most of the other infrastructure development projects contemplated by the administration. The problem with most new infrastructure projects is that they end up adding operating and maintenance costs to municipalities and states that can’t really afford them. At least the “wrecking ball programs” should result in decreased long-term overhead for the cities that implement them.

The First 150 Days

Yesterday marked the end of Obama’s first 150 days at the helm of the U.S. of A. None of us doubted that Obama was a savvy and ambitious politician, but even we are impressed by the sheer number of new initiatives the president has undertaken. In less than five months, there are very few campaign promises he has failed to tackle.

One has to wonder, however, whether Obama may be failing to deliver on the biggest of his campaign promises – that of bringing change to Washington. Weren’t we supposed to see the end of politics as usual and of government waste and pork? Instead, we’ve gotten more of the same, with Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, and their ilk still in charge and Geithner replacing Paulson. The doors continue to revolve between Wall Street and K Street, with the same cabal influencing policy.

Given my inclination to look at facts rather than listen to pronouncements, here is my assessment of the State of the Union after 150 days. Let’s look at a balance sheet of achievements with assets and liabilities as of June 18.

Starting with the assets:

While we have not returned to a healthy credit environment, it is undeniable that the massive injection of liquidity into the financial system by the Fed and the Treasury has managed to thaw the credit freeze we experienced last fall.
After declining by 24% from January 1 through March 9, the S&P 500 has managed to recover and closed at $918 yesterday, up 3.4% for the year in spite of a sharp contraction of real GDP (-5.7%). This may be explained by a reported increase in corporate profits for Q1 (+$42.6 billion, although non-financials declined by $64.2 billion).

One may wonder, however, if the $116.1 billion Q1 increase in profits from the financial sector (following a $178.7 billion decrease in Q4 2008) had anything to do with the changes in the FASB mark-to-market rules that were conveniently adopted by this regulatory board on April 2. (This change did not allow financial institutions to restate 2008 results but, interestingly enough, allowed them to apply the new rules retroactively to Q1 results.)
A better-than-expected unemployment report for May 2009. Non-farm employment figures fell by “only” 345,000 compared to a decline of 504,000 in April. Yet the unemployment rate has continued to grow to an all-time high of 9.8% (for the record, it was 5.3% in May 2008).
Total housing starts increased to 532,000 in May from 454,000 in April. The lowest since the Census Bureau began tracking housing starts in 1959.
Foreclosure filings dipped 6% in May compared to April. Yet they increased 18% from May 2008, marking the third highest month on record. "There were almost one million foreclosure filings in a three-month period, and that's simply unprecedented," reported Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac.
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May hit its highest level since last September, indicating that while consumers are still relatively glum, they are increasingly hopeful the economy will experience a turnaround in the next few months. The final index at 68.7 was higher than April’s 65.1 and November’s 28-year low of 55.3.

So maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel, and the markets are anticipating the 2009 fourth-quarter recovery Ben Bernanke promised us last March in his 60 Minutes interview. Given Chairman Ben’s track record, though, I wouldn’t bet on a recovery just yet, so let’s turn to the liabilities:

Back in early March, the Obama administration released its forecast for the federal budget for the remainder of 2009 (ending 9/30/09). While the 2009 deficit announced was a staggering $1.8 trillion – four times that of 2008 – the plan is that we will start to see a progressive return to reasonable levels after a few years. Unfortunately, it is already certain that once again actual deficits and unfunded liabilities will rise far beyond current plans. So far, tax receipts are $100 billion lower than forecasted in Obama’s budget, and I doubt that actual spending will come in below.
The Public-Private Investment Partnership (PPIP), announced with great fanfare by Tim Geithner in March, has yet to attract investors. While banks appear to have returned to health, they are still undercapitalized and loaded with toxic assets ready to explode with the next round of bad news.
Over the first five months of 2009, unemployment rose by 3.4 million to 14.5 million.
Foreclosures have declined slightly, but the number of foreclosures from prime borrowers (as opposed to subprime and Alt-A “problem” loans) is rising quickly as job losses increase. We can expect more defaults as a result of the recent layoffs, and we have yet to hit the next wave of Alt-A loan resets that is forecasted to hit later this year and to continue through 2011. The number of new homebuyers may be dwindling soon, too – while 30-year mortgage rates are still low, they are definitely rising. More stringent lending standards and higher rates do not bode well for a recovery in the residential markets.
Commercial real estate is only beginning to see the full impact of the recession. A tight lending environment, stricter loan-to-value ratios, declines in property values, lower occupancy rates, and the lower overall profitability of most properties mean that we will continue to see an increase in defaults in the commercial sector for quite some time.
The Obama administration’s big push for alternative, “green” energies and for a cap on carbon emission is sure to cost American taxpayers and businesses hundreds of billions of dollars while providing no guarantees that it will have any real impact on reducing our dependency on imported hydrocarbons. The administration shows very little support for the only real short- to medium-term alternatives: clean coal, domestic oil and natural gas, and nuclear. In fact, many projects are being curtailed due to lower energy prices and regulatory hurdles and threats.
Not only are we staying in the nightmare of the Iraqi war, we are expanding our involvement in Afghanistan and are drawing closer to involvement in Pakistan --

leading to yesterday’s Senate approval of the war supplemental. Who knows, we may soon be liberating North Korea too.
While universal health care may be a popular concept, it will come at a hefty price, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, it will definitely add to the already staggering, unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security. Who will pay the bill?
Why, the “rich,” of course! By rich, I mean those earning over $250,000 a year. Of course, since raising taxes on the rich and carbon-emitting businesses won’t suffice, new forms of taxation – such as a federal VAT – are being seriously considered in DC. In fact, if you want to get a deeper understanding of the impact of the first 150 days of the Obama administration on future taxation, you should check this link to the Americans for Tax Reform website:. While probably not totally unbiased, it provides a sobering look at what may be upon us.
Inflation is still relatively tame. As we have explained time after time in our publications, we expect the deflationary impact of the recent burst in the asset bubble to soon be overcome by monetary expansion and runaway inflation. As the deficit widens and foreigners lose confidence in the dollar, we can expect the Fed to fill the gap by running its printing presses overtime.
The bailout of the financial, insurance, and auto industries has not only cost taxpayers an enormous amount of money, it is also a clear step towards government control of the private sector.
It is becoming clear that the federal government is challenging contractual rights in the name of the War on Crisis. In the past few months, the protection of stakeholders under bankruptcy has been trampled, contractual bonus obligations have been voided, mortgage lenders have seen foreclosure rights eliminated, and corporations have seen management and capital structure overhauled by bureaucrats without shareholders’ approval. Yet the administration states that private enterprise is the principal element of any economic recovery. Unless coerced, what private investor will want to invest in a challenging economic environment without contractual protections?

One of our subscribers, Tommy K, forwarded a cartoon that appeared in 1934 in the Chicago Tribune. It wouldn’t be too hard to make it current and relevant to our times.

Enough ranting on the state of the union, though. Let me turn to Bud Conrad, who will enlighten us on whether the current stock market rally is the beginning of a recovery or one of those bear market rallies common in serious recessions. I will let you draw your own conclusions.

Where Did the Wealth Go?

Bud Conrad, June 2009

The drop in housing and the stock market decreased consumers’ desire to spend. To understand how big the impact is, I have taken the Federal Reserve’s latest data that was published on June 11 to see what the effect is on the assets of households and nonprofit organizations. The chart below shows all the assets added together are generally growing through the end of 2007. It then shows the levels of decline through the end of the first quarter of 2009. The drop in all assets combined was $12 trillion in just over a year's time. The biggest downturn is in stock market valuation ($7 trillion), and the second-biggest drop in housing ($3 trillion).

Household liabilities decreased a very small amount by comparison. That makes sense, because housing prices can move much more rapidly than the debt on those houses. This very big decline in asset value is both the result of a slowing economy and the cause of future slow growth. As consumers feel less wealthy, they are less likely to spend. The conclusion to be drawn from this loss of wealth is that the slow economy will be with us for quite a while.

Foreigners Are Slowing Investment in the U.S.

Bud Conrad, June 2009

Foreign investment in the U.S. has been one of the supports for our government deficits and for our dollar. With foreigners questioning how large their holdings should grow, a closer look at the total cross-border flows gives some indication of what is going on.

Breaking down foreign purchases of securities into long-term and short-term gives an indication that while foreigners are not yet running away from the dollar, they are reluctant to hold long-term instruments. A logical interpretation is that by holding short-term paper, they retain more flexibility to shift their money towards new investments.

The conclusion from the data is that foreigners are starting to look for alternatives to U.S. investments. Their pronouncements confirm what they are doing. Important meetings are occurring, such as that of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, where the U.S. was excluded this week and where they discussed looking for alternatives to the dollar.

Olivier again. There are still a few bears around on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jim O’Neill said financial markets could weaken in coming weeks amid concern over the government’s intentions to roll back stimulus packages.

See this link.

In fact, it does not take a seasoned economist or a PhD to figure out that there is more downside than upside in the stock market these days.

During the month of May, the S&P 500 traded at an average P/E ratio of 127.48, shattering the previous average monthly high of 58.66 in April. For historical reference, the average P/E for publicly traded U.S. stocks has been around 15.

You may ask, if we see clear signs of a correction and weakness in the dollar, and if inflation is around the corner, why hasn’t gold gone through the roof yet? I can give at least three reasons for its relative lack of strength ($934 this morning):

Seasonality. The gold price typically shows signs of weakness in the summer and picks up in the fall and winter months because of increased jewelry demand.
IMF gold sales. It is expected that the IMF will sell one eighth of its gold reserves (12.97 million ounces) to finance aid programs to developing economies hit by the current crisis.
Deflation. While we are forecasting inflation, there are still some strong deflationary forces at play. We do not anticipate the gold mania to start until deflation fully subsides.

So am I long on gold? More than ever. I see the current softness in prices of precious metal as an opportunity to continue to load up on bullion and stocks of major gold producers, as advised in our BIG GOLD newsletter. If you are not yet a BIG GOLD subscriber, you may want to check it out and follow our recommendations.

Speaking of gold, you may have seen the following article on our site or others: Mint moves to halt possible “run” on gold.

On the same subject, one of our subscribers reports:

Notes from the Field

Although he was just back from a trip to Colombia, Louis James hopped on a plane again this week to go down to Mexico and check out Mexican silver properties there. Louis just sent along preliminary notes from his visit.

International Speculator

A Centrally Controlled Economy?

This week has seen another flurry of activity in Washington. It started with an announcement by Obama on the Financial Regulatory Reform granting the Fed broad authority as a super regulator. After studying the White Paper issued by the White House, our Bud Conrad had the following comments:

We are quickly moving to a centrally controlled economy, private ownership be damned. The source of my opinion is the already 80 pages of general description of the thousands of bureaucrats that will be assigned to direct the economy and not just limit the excesses.
One of the most problematic parts of the proposal, in my opinion, is that the Federal Reserve would be given yet more power and responsibilities in the face of its abject failure to understand and deal with the ongoing economic situation.
The Federal Reserve has stepped beyond its original charter to manage the monetary system and has been taking on loans and responsibilities for specific financial institutions. Look at Mr. Bernanke’s reaction to the simple inquiry by Congress to reveal the names of the institutions to which the Fed handed out almost $1 trillion: he flatly refused to comply.
We don't need more bureaucracy. We need more accountability and prosecution of the crooks that brought us here in the first place. What we will get is an expensive bureaucracy, many reporting requirements, and overhead. This system will add a great burden to the efficient operations of our financial systems.
If exporting manufacturing jobs offshore has hurt our economy, think of what a constipated regulatory system will do to our financial institutions: they will go somewhere else, taking jobs and wealth with them.

I have to say, having the Fed as an unregulated super-regulator is a scary thought.

But there are reports on more activities on Capitol Hill…

Audit the Fed

Don Grove, Casey Research Washington correspondent

The Federal Reserve Transparency Act would require the first audit ever of the Federal Reserve. The bill has 234 sponsors, a comfortable majority of the members of the House, and is gaining momentum.

The Obama administration should be delighted, given its commitment to transparency in government.

Drill, Baby, Drill!

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee adopted an amendment to its energy bill that would allow oil and gas drilling within 45 miles of the Florida coast. If the Senate climate bill becomes law with the Florida drilling amendment intact, it could be sufficient to derail the whole climate bill. "We're simply not going to let this happen," said Bill Nelson (D-Fla).

Yes! That's what I like to hear! As long as they are bickering among themselves, there is less chance they will do any real mischief.

Back to Olivier .

On the subject of hydrocarbons, you may be interested in this article about the recently released 2009 International Energy Outlook. This year’s report released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) includes the first acknowledgement of Peak Oil by this agency.

At Casey Research, we are so bullish on energy that it will be the central theme of our next conference on September 18-20 in Denver, Colorado. Marin Katusa, Senior Editor of Casey Energy Opportunities, has been working on an extraordinary line-up of experts to cover both conventional and alternative energies in depth. If you have not done so, mark your calendar – registration will open soon.

As we all know, Europe has been struggling with the recession just as much as we have. For a while it appeared as though Italy might have just found the solution ($40 billion more or less) to its financial problems, thanks to the diligence of its border patrol officers, who detained two supposedly Japanese men with $134 billion worth of U.S Treasury bonds in a suitcase.

Check out this story from Asia News: U.S. government securities seized from Japanese nationals not clear whether real or fake.

Unfortunately for Italy, Bloomberg reported yesterday that according to the U.S. government, the notes are fake..

Building Without the Proper Permits

Jacques T. sent us this very funny email I would like to share. Purportedly, this is an actual letter sent to a man named Ryan DeVries regarding a pond on his property. It was sent by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Quality, State of Pennsylvania.

While we haven’t verified if this is real or a hoax, it’s quite amusing nonetheless.

SUBJECT: DEQ File No.97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County

Dear Mr. DeVries:

It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:

Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond.

A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity. A review of the Department's files shows that no permits have been issued. Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.

The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2009.

Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff. Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action. We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

David L. Price

District Representative and Water Management Division.

Here is the response sent back by Mr. DeVries:

Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County

Dear Mr. Price,

Your certified letter dated 12/17/07 has been handed to me to respond to. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget Lane, Trout Run, Pennsylvania.

A couple of beavers are in the (State-unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood “debris” dams across the outlet stream of my spring pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of nature’s building materials “debris.”

I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.

These are the beavers/contractors you are seeking. As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity.

My first dam question to you is:

(1) Are you trying to discriminate against my spring pond beavers, or

(2) do you require all beavers throughout this state to conform to said dam request?

If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued.

(Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.)

I have several concerns. My first concern is, aren't the beavers entitled to legal representation? The spring pond beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation -- so the state will have to provide them with a dam lawyer. The Department's dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event, causing flooding, is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the spring pond beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling them dam names…

Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office.

Thank you,

Ryan Devries & the Dam Beavers

Miscellaneous

We have received requests for new phyles. Several subscribers want to know if there are existing phyles in either Chicago, Manhattan, or in Massachusetts. No formal group have formed in these areas yet, but if you are interested in organizing or participating in such a group, let Megan know by sending an email to phyle@caseyresearch.com. She will be happy to facilitate contacts in these cities.

Tom in Melbourne, Australia, is interested in starting a new phyle there. Contact Megan if you live in the area, and she will coordinate with him.

Finally, Tommy K. is wondering if the Denver area phyle members would be interested in a summer meeting in Vail he would host with his wife.

12:50 pm… I’m afraid it is time for me to sign out. The Dow is slightly down, the S&P and TSX are up again, and commodities markets are quiet.

Thank you for reading and being a Casey subscriber.

Olivier Garret
CEO, Casey Research

The Room – 06/12/2009

David Galland — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:08:00 GMT

The Room Special Alert:

Casey Research Summit, this one dedicated to Energy and Special Situations

September 18 – 20 at the Westin Tabor Center in Denver

David

Dear Readers,

Again this week, I was admonished by one of your fellow dear readers, who recommended that I keep my political comments to myself. And furthermore that I, and the entire Casey team, should focus solely on finding the next great investment.

While I can’t and won’t argue with the latter part of his advice -- that is, after all, our overarching mandate, and a mandate we take seriously – I suspect the real issue is that the political views we occasionally express run contrary to those of the author of this rebuke.

Even so, if you give the matter any thought at all, you will almost have to conclude that the business of America is now hugely dependent on the business of government.

As a refresher, the following – compliments of the Encyclopedia of Business – describes the two major foundations economies have typically been built on in modern times: central planning and capitalism.

centrally planned economy

capitalism,

Now, I may be naïve about certain things, for example the autoeroticism of the sort apparently favored by the late David Carradine, but I’m not naïve enough to think that there is such a thing as a "pure" economy that fits either of those two descriptions to a T.

Therefore, the important thing is to understand where your particular economy – in my case, that of the United States – falls on the scale between the two systems.

I usually refuse to jump into the same rumpled bed as the hard right wing of the U.S. political spectrum, but they are probably waving their arms about the same economic concerns we comment on here and in our other publications from time to time.

What makes me different from the Limbaughs et al., and maybe it is a fading difference, is that I really would like the current administration to succeed. As I don't really like either party, either party will do – as long as that party makes intelligent choices about the role government should play in our daily lives.

President Obama appears to be a reasonable, intelligent, and certainly articulate human being. Therefore, I hold out hope that he will eventually come around to making the only logical decision that can be made about the path forward. If for no other reason than that choosing the wrong path will inevitably lead to election defeat.

To prove that simple point, it is hard to miss the rising tide of fiscally conservative attitudes evidenced in the polling booths during the recent European elections. Europe, which is not exactly known for its free-market policies, rose up as one and soundly defeated the hard left socialist candidates on the ballot.

Unfortunately, at this point, Obama and his many government operatives and sycophants appear to be speeding down the wrong road – the road that leads to a continued shift in the direction of a centrally planned economy.

For example, this week the House of Representatives passed a bill that meddles with the choices that Americans make regarding the cars they drive. The idea is to give a marketing boost to the new U.S.-owned auto companies. enticing consumers to buy new cars by taking up to $4,500 out of taxpayers’ pockets and giving the money to others. Those, in turn, give it to automakers that provide cars that drive at least two miles further per gallon in the tank.

Here’s a quick take on the bill from politico.com…

There has always been a problem with a centrally planned economy. When you remove the free market from the supply and demand equation or tamper with the free market, you cause unnatural dislocations and all manner of unintended consequences.

Of course, Mr. Obama enjoys strong union support, and we as taxpayers now own large shares in the American auto manufacturers. Therefore, the good intention of the central planners in Congress is that this "cash for clunkers" law will unleash a new wave of naked consumerism, returning the economy to the happy days we all wish for.

There are, however, more than a few flies in the ointment. Starting with the fact that for the last six years, the top-selling cars in these United States have all been produced by Japanese companies. While many of those cars are now built in the United States, they are not built in Detroit, and they are not built by GM or Chrysler.

It is also worth pointing out that all of the top sellers will easily qualify for the largess being offered by we the U.S. taxpayer. Perhaps the legislators hope that GM's new hybrid, the "Volt,” will ride to the rescue. But Toyota’s well-selling Prius hybrid – which has recently been redesigned, is a huge hit in Japan, and is expected to fare equally well in the U.S. – could throw a wrench in GM’s poorly laid-out plan. Especially because the Prius sells for about half of what the Volt is expected to debut at. With either car, you get the $4,500 rebate, so the choice comes down to this: do you want to pony up an extra $20,000 for a GM-made experiment or get a proven high-quality winner from Toyota for a lot less?

According to a study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, the premium sought by GM can’t be rationalized:

plug-in hybrids

The problem is the added weight – and the cost of the batteries. The lifespan of the batteries is also a big question mark. According to an article on Mixed Power…

K.G. Duleep, managing director of consulting firm Energy & Environmental Analysis Inc. in Arlington, Virginia, and a researcher on a U.S. study on plug-ins and other advanced autos, said he is very skeptical about the lifespan of the batteries. “I’m very skeptical about the prospects for near-term durability of the batteries. Even in the lab, they aren’t lasting more than seven years,” said Duleep.
So, into the dogfight for what few automobiles will be sold in the crunch years ahead, the new and supposedly improved Government Motors (GM) will send an expensive, so far unproven entrant... which, according to the central planners, will be snapped up in such quantities as to knock off the reigning champs, all Japanese. My take: GM is a dead duck, and the Japanese will be the primary beneficiaries of this latest bit of central planning.

GM was delisted from the NASDAQ this week, and investors looking to buy it must turn to the disgraceful OTC Pink Sheets for their shares.

And this is what the central planners have deemed worthy of dropping $25 billion in taxpayer funds on.

Health Care, Everyone?

The central planners are also hard at work on putting the final bullet into the head of American healthcare. The first shot, Medicare, only severely wounded it.

Speaking of Medicare, the following data points may prove useful as you hear more and more about the greater efficiency supposedly gained by having the government expand its health options to cover everyone.

(FYI: Medicare Part A, passed into law in 1965, covers hospital visits for those over the age of 65 or with certain types of medical conditions; Part B, passed later, covers doctor’s visits and certain outpatient services; Part C allowed private insurers to provide the Medicare benefits; and Part D, passed in 2003, provided prescription drug benefits.)

So, how has that whole Medicare efficiency thing been working out?

The following is from "Medicare for All" Universal Health Care Would Not Solve the Problem of Rising Health Care Costs by David Hogberg, Ph.D.

The fiscal future of Medicare itself is bleak. The Medicare Trustees report notes that, by 2018, revenues for Part A will only be sufficient to cover 80 percent of its costs. By 2080, revenues will only cover 29 percent of costs. “Closing deficits of this magnitude,” the report warns, “will require very substantial increases in tax revenues and/or reductions in expenditures.” The prospects for Part B and Part D are not much better, with the report stating that revenues for those parts will “have to increase rapidly to match expected expenditure growth under current law.” From 2005-2080, the report predicts, Medicare’s share of GDP will rise from 2.7 percent to 11 percent.
There are numerous fiscal problems associated with any government-provided program, especially one that ignores pre-existing conditions, as is the case with the current legislation now being proposed. One is that greater accessibility at a lower cost – or for many, at no cost at all – and providing credits toward government payments to households with revenues of up to $110,000 will make people flock to the docs in large and steady numbers. And that, of course, will drive the cost of healthcare even higher. Call it an unintended consequence if you will, but I will call it a completely natural and to-be-expected consequence.

Thus, though the Obama administration projects that the nation will have to spend another trillion dollars it doesn't have providing medical care for all -- that number is certainly far off the actual tally required.

Again, according to Dr. Hogberg…

Why anyone would want to put every American in a program that is already nearing fiscal collapse is perplexing, to say the least.
As for dislocations, in the current legislation, private insurers will not be able to deny a person coverage for pre-existing conditions or charge them a higher premium. This bit of central planning means simply that everyone will have to pay a higher premium. Furthermore, companies in the healthcare industry will almost certainly have to compete with a government-run insurance program whose mandate will be to ensure that everyone can afford insurance.

Shareholders in private U.S. health insurance companies are already burdened by their share of the costs that those companies have to incur in order to comply with an estimated 130,000 pages of Medicare-related regulations. Now they will not only see the sheer quantity of those regulations ratchet up exponentially, but they’ll have to pay even higher taxes to support direct competition to their companies by the government.

All of which is to say that private insurers are going to have a very hard time competing against their own government, leading to the very real potential down the road for a sole U.S. healthcare insurance provider – “Mama Sam.”

And corporations that already provide insurance, or don't, will be forced to pay even more to the government in order to cover the cost of bringing all the uninsured under the umbrella.

Again quoting politico.com...

R. Bruce Josten, a lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said: “We are disappointed, clearly.” He participated in weekly meetings with Kennedy’s committee, and the bill that resulted suggests “the only person who has skin in the game is the employers,” Josten said.
Josten is, of course, talking his own book. That's because employers – i.e., corporations – don't actually pay taxes. Consumers do when they purchase the products of those companies, whose costs are calibrated to cover expenses such as taxes. And so, American industry will have to raise the cost of its products, making them less competitive on the global stage.

This reduced competitiveness will result in American corporations going out of business, and more and more people will be added to the unemployment rolls, moving them out of the category of "net contributors" to the new healthcare system and into the category of "net recipients," sending costs ever higher.

Of course, one way that the government, having laid this bed of nails, might decide to respond is by adding entry barriers for foreign-made goods. Which, when you think about it, may be the solution to the automobile conundrum as well?

I'm not sure where one goes to school to learn the fine art of central planning, or even if such a school exists, but I'm fairly sure that even the best of such a school can adequately train its graduates in the effective, long-term, micromanagement of a complex system such as the U.S. economy – or any economy, for that matter.

Is there a potential bright spot for investors in all of this? I think passing of this healthcare legislation, which is a near certainty given the Democrats’ majority, will shake out the weaker insurance companies already buried under mountains of bad investments that are about to get a lot badder. And I have to believe that unless and until Mama Sam passes legislation prohibiting private insurance altogether, there will be a niche for an insurance company that charges very high premiums but promises quick care of the highest quality in return.

Faced with the alternatives of doing business with the upscale private provider or the far less expensive government option (or one of the private companies that try to compete on price with that entity), the bulk of individuals with pre-existing conditions or generally poor health will choose the less expensive option.

Now, I know this whole thing about universal healthcare will strike a negative chord with many of you, including many of our neighbors to the north. And, please don’t think of me as hard hearted. But this gets back to the idea of positive vs. negative rights. If you believe that we the people have the inalienable right to healthcare, then you might as well believe that we also have the right to three square meals a day, a respectable roof over the head, dental care, a top-quality education, a decent wardrobe, transportation to get to our jobs, day care for the kids, and so on and so forth.

The problem is, and always will be, how can you pay for all of this without coercively taking the money out of one family’s pocket in order to shift it into another’s? And by coercively, I mean the direct threat of imprisonment if you don’t hand over the cash. That violates the morally correct right that we should be free from threats of personal harm, extortion, and outright theft.

In fact, the very idea that some faceless government functionary can walk into my house, or my office, at any time and on any pretense and require me to spend my time and resources assisting him in going over my books so that he may demand more money from me – money that will then flow through the machine to be used to purposes I find personally abhorrent -- is a truly warped and disturbing concept.

At least with a consumption tax, you can make a voluntary decision as to which products you buy, with full knowledge of the taxes you’ll also pay. That is very much not the case with income taxes, property taxes, estate taxes, etc., ad nauseam.

Don’t get me started…

No More Big Bucks for You!

For today’s catalogue of evidence that we’re heading toward a centrally planned economy, I provide the following from Bloomberg this week…

Now, far be it from me to champion the insane pay levels of public company officers. But to actually get into the trenches and try to engineer those pay levels to something considered more politically correct strikes me as a serious step in the wrong direction. Shareholders of companies, which these days are mostly mutual funds and other institutions, need to pay a lot more attention to compensation practices than they obviously have been. And if they are too lazy to do so, then they deserve what they get, should they fail to get a level of corporate performance reflecting said pay.

Fortunately, We Have the Law

I wish I could stop there, but I can't. That's because this week, the faint glimmer of hope evaporated that I had felt when the Supreme Court put a halt to the Chrysler bankruptcy so that it might study the legality of the structure the government had imposed on the company’s stakeholders.

The claims of the secured bondholders in that company were – by tradition and legal rights that extend literally back to the beginning of America and to English law before that – superior to the unsecured claims of the union pension operators. Nevertheless, they were ignored and their legitimate claims set aside "for the public good."

Again, my sympathy goes out to pensioners who dedicated their working lives to a company whose executives may have been better qualified as washroom attendants. But to let one's emotions (or political ambitions) willy-nilly trump well-established law seems the height of insanity.

How, now that the precedent has been re-set, are bond investors – or, for that matter, any stakeholder in a company – supposed to evaluate the investments being offered to them? When commercial obligations can be tossed out the window for political expediency, what does that do to the legal certainty that is supposed to be such a big competitive advantage for America?

Commenting on the transaction, an official of the Treasury, which strong-armed the deal into existence, had this to say…

“This morning’s closing represents a proud moment in Chrysler’s storied history. The Chrysler-Fiat alliance has now exited the bankruptcy process and is poised to emerge as a competitive, viable automaker.”
Since we are relying on dictionaries today, let’s look up the word “proud” just to be sure we are understanding this member of officialdom clearly.

Relying on Webster this time,

prūd,

prod, prud, prou

prode

“Advantageous?” Sure, for the unions and, by extension, the political fortunes of Mr. Obama.

“Just?” Hardly. How is it that the unions put up nothing and get 55% of the company?

“Wise?” Politically, maybe. But turning commercial law on its head to try and bail out a twice bankrupt company? And handing the “new” company another $6 billion of money the government very much doesn’t have as an “exit” gift hardly seems intelligent, at least to me.

“Bold?” In my book, that is not the word I would use to describe the government’s bullying tactics, including publicly vilifying legitimate bond holders.

No, proud is not a word I would associate with this takeover. Expedient, reckless, capricious… all of those words seem far more appropriate.

This is one of those seminal events that has the potential to be with us for a very long time – in future bankruptcy proceedings, which I expect we'll see a lot of – and in the very structure of capital markets.

Capital Gains… What Capital Gains?

David M., the coordinator of our SoCal Phyle, sent along an interesting essay written by Chriss Street, the treasurer/tax collector of Orange County, California. He argues against states spending beyond their means, and also against a bailout of the states by the federal government. The essay is worth reading, and you can do so here.

I thought the following excerpt from Street’s essay is especially noteworthy, given the coming increase in capital gains taxes…

All of which raises the question, where is California going to get the money it needs to dig itself out of its current hole… now expected to ring in at about $25 billion for the year?

Why, Mama Sam, of course.

The Road Less Traveled

While we don’t talk about it much, I feel compelled to give a tip of the hat to our senior researchers who think nothing of hopping on planes to far corners of the world, literally risking the worst in their quest for opportunities ahead of the crowd.

What compels me this week was a trip to Colombia Louis James of our International Speculator just returned from. Accompanied by heavy security, he walked the ground on a new discovery with the credible potential to host five million high-grade ounces of gold, and maybe more.

While the armed escort is still advisable in those parts, it is increasingly becoming less so and is mostly just a holdover from the bad old days of the 1990s at this point. Back then, the area Louis visited was bristling with guerillas and out-of-control paramilitary groups who, some say, were even worse. Today it’s peaceful, and the locals couldn’t be happier to see a new gold rush. Colombia has a truly fabled history in gold mining, and it is now politically stable and pro-business – perhaps the most pro-business country in South America. This has led to big profits for investors in successful junior gold explorers (the company Louis visited saw its share price shoot up 104.5% in two days).

Louis will report on the opportunities he found on his trip to Colombia in the next issue of the International Speculator. You can learn more by clicking here.

There is much opportunity, even in challenging markets… but sometimes nothing but putting your boots on the ground will do. And for being ever willing to do that, my hats off to the tireless team!

21 Economic Models Explained

(Thanks to our regular correspondent and longtime friend, “the General,” for sending this along. Sorry if this gores anyone’s ox… or, cow, such as the case may be.)

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbor.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk
away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called “Cowkimon” and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5,000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No one believes you, so they bomb the crap out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least you are now a democracy.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

Promoting Free Market Economics…

By Louis James

As you may recall, Doug Casey joined me in my yearly teaching sabbatical in Eastern Europe last summer (click here for last August’s report on how it went). It was a smashing success, and the students had such a good time learning about free enterprise and entrepreneurship, most of them are returning this year and bringing friends. The result is a record group of students – about 90 – who will come to learn more about rational economics, creating businesses, investing, and more, at what we now are proud to be able to call the first Casey Youth Conference on Liberty and Entrepreneurship (CYCLE), to be held from June 29 to July 5, in beautiful Trakai, Lithuania.

This year, they’ll have to write a complete business plan to complete the course – we’re excited. The students are as well and are building a web site for CYCLE. It’s still in beta-testing as we go to press, but you can try it here: CYCLE.

Doug sees CYCLE as one of the most cost-effective ways to teach young people about free-market economics, and better yet, to enable them to join the producers and creators in the world who make progress possible. Eastern Europeans have living memory of soul-crushing communism, and they are hungry for this sort of learning – it’s a great environment. In fact, if you have college-age children who would like to join in, drop us a line at feedback@caseyresearch.com, and we may be able to squeeze in a few who can pay their own way.

When we wrote about this last summer, several subscribers wrote to ask how they could help. One simple way to do this is to make a tax-deductible contribution to the same non-profit we are working with to run our CYCLE program. That’s the International Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL), a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Doug generally believes most charities aren’t worth the dynamite it would take to blow them up, but CYCLE is an educational investment with potentially near- to mid-term returns. And if you’re going to pay for something, it’s nice to be able to take half that money out of the government’s pockets in order to do so. To pitch in, click here for ISIL’s secure donation page or call ISIL directly at 707-746-8796 and tell them you’d like to support CYCLE.

The programs is very cost effective – about $150 per student (they pay part of the cost) – but there are a lot of students this year, so CYCLE could use your help. Thanks!

Miscellany

More Casey Phyles Starting Up. If you are interested in meeting up and sharing notes with other Casey subscribers, this week we received indications of interest from individuals in the following locales. South Africa, New York (Manhattan), Massachusetts, South Carolina, France and Chicago. If you are in any of those places and want to be connected, drop us a note at phyles@CaseyResearch.com.
Poker, Anyone? Our own Doug Casey, who is known to enjoy a game or two of cards now and again, forwarded me an article from the Wall Street Journal about a grab by the Feds of 27,000 bank accounts totaling $34 million. The sole rationale for the grab was that the miscreants apparently had the gall to enjoy playing poker online. What’s next? Users of online adult sites pop to mind. Then what? The slippery slope gets more slippery by the day. You can read the full article here.
IMF Gold Sales. This just in from our Washington correspondent, Don Grove, who is keeping a sharp eye on the proposed vote to allow the IMF to sell on the order of 13,000,000 ounces of gold (to the Chinese).
The Daily Room Thing… Thanks to all of you who weighed in on the idea of converting this letter from a weekly to a daily room. The vote came in slightly in favor of keeping this a weekly. Even so, I think we’ll try going daily for awhile (but not until a couple of weeks from now.) For one thing, there is so much that I could, and even should, be addressing that trying to cram it into one issue at the end of the week is impossible.

Currently, I think that we would segment the daily room (name still not decided), by major topic areas. For instance, commodities, energy, equities, the economy and, of course, politics (with some miscellaneous scattered throughout). We would then focus on those major sectors on the same day each week. Thus, if energy was not of interest to you, you could just skip Tuesday, for instance. In this way, we could focus our research a bit more on what’s important in each of these key areas, while keeping the segments shorter. For fans of the weekly version, at the end of the week, we could do a round-up edition.

Hate the idea? Like it? All input always welcomed at david@caseyresearch.com (though I apologize profusely for being a poor correspondent of late. While I have read all of your emails, I just haven’t had the time to respond.)

Speaking of The Room… this week is my wife’s much-deserved annual road trip, a wonderful week during which I play full-time father and relearn to appreciate what it’s like to manage a household 24/7. If history is any guide, the week will start out with a fair amount of chaos but eventually settle into something resembling order. In any event, Casey Research CEO Olivier Garret has gallantly offered to step in and write The Room next week, while I concentrate on the simple things – like not burning down the house with that new wood-burning tool I bought the kids.

As I sign off, I see that the stock market is just barely keeping its lips above the water line. I continue to believe that a big wave is about to change things, and fairly soon. There are now so many new and existing negatives looming over the market that it can’t be overly long before Mr. Market runs for cover. Among the things to watch for is a surge in commercial mortgage defaults, which are anticipated to almost double from recent months, to some 4.1% of the total outstanding.

(In The Casey Report, we are currently shorting two especially ripe commercial real estate companies… you can, too… details here.)

Then there is the pending wave of Option ARM resets, which will hit later this summer and then soar into next year.

And there is the soon-to-be-widely-reported-on smack up the side of the head to mortgage originations, caused by the recent 75 to 100 basis point jump in mortgage rates.. a jump that occurred over the period of a week and a half. Speaking with insiders in the banking business who shall be unnamed, I learned that the rate increase caused mortgage originations to hit the proverbial wall. Full stop. While the punditry has begun to comment on the likely impact of the jump in rates, when the full extent of the impact becomes apparent in the weeks ahead, it will send a signal that Mr. Market will surely not appreciate.

Rates are going up, and we are positioning ourselves to take full advantage in The Casey Report.

Meanwhile, U.S. exports continue to fall, Treasuries continue to come under pressure as Russia and other countries announce they are going to invest in IMF paper vs. that of the U.S.

And one more thing, especially interesting, that came my way via Steve H. It is about a meeting on June 16 by senior officials of the BRIC nations, in a remote mountain resort in Russia. The concern is that they are working on plans to replace the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Start by watching this somewhat odd video linked here…

The presenter comes across as something of an odd duck, and so I asked Steve (who is a very successful money manager and a very solid guy) if the guy was credible. Here’s his response:

www.comdig.com

www.deanlebaron.com

www.leadership.gather.com

So, I did a bit of looking around and found this reference on the pending meeting, from the Beijing Review.

Now, it is a bit of a leap to think that this meeting will indeed amount to a Bretton Woods II, but without the U.S. in the room… you can bet the dollar will be on the agenda.

Interesting times, indeed.

And with that, I must run… I think I smell smoke.

Until the week after next, thank you for reading and for being a subscriber to a Casey Research service.

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room – 06/05/2009

David Galland — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:10:00 GMT

Dear Reader,

Before getting down to the business of trying to make some sense out of the Bizarro World we’ve stumbled into, I want to thank all of you who wrote in response to last week's edition of these musings.

And I want to apologize for the e-mail flub-up that resulted in many of you receiving a rather odd response that had next to nothing to do with the e-mail you sent. Further, I'm sorry to say that this e-mail issue was only discovered yesterday, which means I haven’t had a chance to respond to your many good thoughts.

Quickly scanning the pile of e-mails, however, I was happy to see a lot of them contained high praise for the guest editorial Decline and Fall of the American Empire by James Quinn. I have passed those e-mails on to Jim and let him know we’d love to hear more from him in the future.

Also, since we’re chatting, I’d like to mention that we are considering making The Room a daily, versus a weekly, publication. That would allow us to be more timely and to deliver the content in more bite-size segments, rather than the weekly magnum opus as is currently the case.

What do you think? Drop me a line at David@CaseyResearch.com .

While you're at it, maybe you'd like to suggest a new name for this column/blog/musings thing that better reflects its nature and the fact that it is delivered daily, should we decide to go ahead with that change. (And your input will definitely factor into our decision.)

Finally, before we move on to what's important for the week's news, I’d like to mention our new weekly e-letter, "Conversations with Casey." By now, as a Casey subscriber, you should have received the first edition of this new publication. The genesis of it is simply that, since partnering up with Doug Casey in 2004, one of the great benefits of our association has been that it gives us the opportunity to chat on a regular basis. I can assure you that Doug is as interesting and colorful in casual conversation as he is in the written word or his platform speeches.

And so, thanks to all sorts of wonderful modern technology, we figured it would be a pretty simple matter to record quick discussions with Doug and get them out the door to provide Doug’s latest thoughts on the passing parade and to introduce Doug and Casey Research to a wider audience. If you did not receive your copy of the inaugural issue, check your spam filter, or click here to sign up.

Now, on to the week’s big news, and more… starting with the unemployment data that are getting so much attention as I write.

Unemployment Falls!

“Job Losses in the U.S. Slow, Signaling Recession Is Abating”

(Bloomberg headline, June 4)

For the week ending May 30, it was widely reported, initial jobless claims eased to 621,000 unfortunates, a reduction of 4,000 over the previous week. Let's ignore for a moment that that is an awful lot of people freshly added to the line for unemployment benefits. Let’s focus instead on the fact that the 4,000 improvement was on the revised data put out by the Labor Department.

Originally, for the week ending May 16, the numbers released stated that 623,000 people were newly unemployed – but that number was subsequently revised upwards to 625,000. Should a similar adjustment be made a week or so down the road, and 2,000 people are added to the 621,000 number, the May 30th numbers would bump back up to 623,000 – for an actual improvement of just 2,000, or just 0.32% of the total. Anyone who sees a bottom in those numbers is either delusional or deceitful.

Elsewhere, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the employment stats for the month of May, stats that generated the following comments from our own Bud Conrad…

Housing Market Bottoms!

"US Housing Market: Pending Home Resales Rocket 6.7%”

(BusinessWeek, June 4)

There was also much made this week of the notion that the housing market was bottoming. The most pointed-to statistic was an improvement in the pending sales of existing homes in April. To wit, signed contracts… not actual sales.

Not to be a grouch, but as you can see in the chart here, there is a natural uptrend in housing sales in the March to June period. So the latest numbers are not out of left field but reflect to some extent seasonal patterns.

Even so, the bump in sales of 6.7% was still quick good news and, by historic terms, the logical outcome of low interest rates and sharply falling prices. Even so, it is waaaaayyyy too early to spot a turn in the bend as far as housing is concerned.

In fact, the only real trend in motion at this point, you can see in the chart here. It’s from the National Association of Realtors and shows home sales bouncing along in the basement. As you don’t need us to tell you, rising interest rates will merely increase the pressure on home sales going forward. The odds are good that sales will not fall off a cliff quite as steep as witnessed in 2007. But to expect the opposite – that at any time soon, we’ll see a surge of buying sufficient to chew through close to a year’s worth of housing inventory, and therefore begin to drive prices back to the upside – is to expect the highly improbable.

Another trend in motion can be seen in this chart, showing how the subprime foreclosures are starting to ease, but the larger market of prime mortgages is now heading for even bigger trouble.

So, Why the Stock Market Rally?

Over the last month or so, the stress-tested banks have raised over $84 billion in new capital. Of course, much of this is in response to the fact that now the government is insisting on compensation caps for banks that have received TARP funds. And it is now set to enforce those caps with the help of a soon-to-be-appointed "Special Master for Compensation," who will report directly to Treasury Secretary Geithner.

(Note: the term “Special Master” is not my creation but that of the White House – we truly have moved into a strange new world.)

Not wanting to have to answer to the Special Master, the recipient banks are scrambling to raise the capital needed to pay off their loans and get out from under TARP’s big, fat thumb.

But I also strongly suspect that a key reason these firms are pumping out paper as fast as they can is because they realize that to wait will mean to raise more capital at a lower share price, not a higher one. In addition to a very top-heavy rally, there is the still unresolved fact that the foundations of the nation’s largest financial institutions rest on piles of suspicious paper that, absent the recent rejiggering of the accounting rules, would have them on their knees. If the captains of these enterprises really thought the green shoots were going to grow into golden fields of wheat, they would wait as long as they could in order to get a better price for their shares – rather than shoveling the stuff out the door as fast as they can at these reduced prices.

Likewise, insider selling continues apace. According to Eric Roseman, writing for our friends at The Sovereign Society (sovereignsociety.com)…

“According to InsiderScore.com, officers and directors of publicly traded American companies have increased their selling of company stock since early May to its highest levels since 2006.”
There is a popular saying in poker circles that goes something like, "If after the first half hour, you don't know who the sucker is, then it's you."

In the current scenario, a large percentage of American investors still don't know they're the suckers, or even that there’s a game being played. Unfortunately, the facts of the matter will be revealed to them shortly.

Ed. Note:

Casey Trend Trader

click here

Gold Can’t Be Beaten

The war spending authorization bill that is now working its way through the U.S. Congress originally included a provision to hand the IMF $100 billion to pass along to other countries struggling with the financial crisis. (Hey, what’s $100 billion here and there?) And it also authorized that same institution to sell about 13 million ounces of gold. While those provisions were included in both Obama’s IMF plan and the Senate bill, it was removed from the House bill. The odds are, however, that by the time the legislation passes, they will be put back in, despite considerable Republican opposition.

Perhaps anticipating passage, gold has come under a fair amount of pressure in recent weeks, but each time, it has managed to stage an impressive comeback. The chart here shows gold’s action so far in 2009.

While there’s no question that gold could test the $900 level again, particularly if the IMF sale is approved, there has been a palpable lessening of the voices stridently calling for deflation as the inevitable result of the current financial crisis. Yes, they’ll return, but next time around, as the government unleashes its next wave of monetary inflation in response to the continued downturn in the markets we are anticipating, they’ll quickly be overwhelmed by the circumstances on the ground.

On that front, our own Bud Conrad has just sent over an important piece of work that looks to answer the question, “When will the price inflation reemerge?”

Over to you, Bud…

Debt Collapse and Inflation

By Bud Conrad, Chief Economist, Casey Research

Most of us understand the general idea that if the money supply increases, prices will rise.

Attempting to prove that notion, economists develop elaborate theories and definitions around the various measures of money and try to make comparisons of growth rates of money to increases in prices. Unfortunately, the correlations do not give reliable results. One of the biggest problems is that we don't have a universally accepted definition of money supply.

To give you my perspective, I provide this analysis that goes beyond traditional bank deposits to look at a broader measure of money supply including debt. I then examine what has happened during the credit collapse, to see what the short-term effect has been on inflationary pressure.

The Federal Reserve publishes a narrow measure of money supply called M1, and a broader measure called M2. They used to publish M3 and “L” as even more comprehensive measures of money, but they were both eliminated.

M2 includes most deposits at banks plus the base money supply of M1, which includes all the currency and deposits held by banks at the Federal Reserve. This is obviously an inadequate measure of the debt instruments that can be used to purchase items and grow the economy. For example, mortgage debt is used to buy houses, and corporate bonds are issued for corporations to expand their factories and operations. So the following discussion is an attempt to look at the combined traditional measures of money as provided by the Federal Reserve, as well as other measures of debt, to see what is happening to what may be thought of as a broader measure of money by adding by the following items:

U.S. Treasuries

Agency Bonds

Agency Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities

Non-agency Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities

Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities

Investment Grade Corporate Bonds

High-Yield Corporate Bonds

Asset-Backed Securities

All of the above forms of debt add to the ability of the economy to expand. So, the following analysis demonstrates what has been going on in the quantities of this form of debt outstanding to see whether there are inflationary pressures or deflationary pressures from the expansion or contraction of the quantity of debt.

The starting point is to look at the quantity of face value of debt outstanding. That number is then discounted by price actions and expected loss of value in defaults. Credit Suisse performed an analysis of each class of debt at four points of time, starting from early 2007 through spring 2009. Adding up all this outstanding debt shows that, in total, the amount of debt has been in modest decline, most rapidly in the latter half of 2008.

Drilling down a bit further, though, you can see that whereas forms of private debt have taken a serious drop recently, government-backed debt has been continuing its steady growth. Real estate debt that was not backed by government – for example, jumbo loans – showed the biggest drops in amount outstanding. Corporate bonds also slipped.

Three layers of government-guaranteed debt are the U.S. Treasuries, the agency bonds and Agency Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities. The reason the agency debt is considered strong and not collapsing is that it is guaranteed by the federal government, now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been taken over. The other forms of debt are privately held, and they contain the deflationary seeds from the credit collapse. This debt, when marked to market for the value it could be sold for today, has lost as much as 30% of its face value. Total debt of this set of classifications has dropped from $21 trillion to $18.4 trillion as of the fall of 2008. It recovered to $20 trillion by the spring of ’09, partly by the expansion of government debt.

The chart shows the deflationary collapse of private debt, which occurred into the early part of 2009, as being bigger than the expansion of government-supported debt. Thus we have experienced deflationary pressure.

But look what is already beginning to occur, as the government’s debt expansion gains pace. We already know, because it has told us, that it will issue $2.5 trillion of additional Treasuries to fund its big deficit and bailout programs.

By averaging the growth rate of the sectors from 2007 to 2009 with the growth of the latest quarter, we can extrapolate to a scenario of what the debt might look like in spring of 2010. Government spending will keep the debt expanding. Looking forward, we know that government debt, especially in the form of Treasuries, is likely to expand greatly. It is likely to grow more than the private debt will be collapsing. Therefore inflationary pressures are likely to return.

The value of debt outstanding helps us analyze the pressure toward higher inflation. The size of bad debt collapse being smaller than the expansion of government-supported debt suggests the return of inflationary forces in a year or less.

Worth a Read

David again. Last week, a top Democrat suffered a mental breakdown of sorts when he actually told the truth about who is really running the show down in the smelly swamp of Washington.

blurted out an obvious truth

And…

Goldman Sachs' new top lobbyist was recently the top staffer to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., on the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Frank. Michael Paese, a registered lobbyist for the Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association since he left Frank's committee in September, will join Goldman as director of government affairs, a role held last year by former Tom Daschle intimate, Mark Patterson, now the chief of staff at the Treasury Department. This is not Paese's first swing through the Wall Street-Congress revolving door: he previously worked at JP Morgan and Mercantile Bankshares, and in between served as senior minority counsel at the Financial Services Committee.
You can read the full article here, though I suspect it won’t tell you anything you don’t already know.

Since we’re on the topic of the smelly swamp, here’s a quick update from the place from Don Grove…

Adult Supervision

By Don Grove, Casey Research's Washington correspondent

I have heard that those who have had the dubious honor of being in the immediate presence of the president say there is no doubt that he is the smartest person in the room. Even our own Doug Casey has acknowledged that Obama “is no moron. Far from it.” High intelligence is no substitute for maturity and common sense, however. The guys who ran Long Term Capital Management were geniuses, including two Nobel Prize-winning economists, yet they screwed up royally and it took a Fed-sponsored bailout to stop the hemorrhaging.

The gullible electorate saw Obama as a savior. He’s not. He may be smart, but he lacks maturity and common sense. Only we ourselves can offer the salvation we seek. What we need from the president and Congress is just enough common sense to get out of the way.

Our nation and the world suffer from a popular misconception that smart people in government will solve our problems – and, of course, that they need more money to do it. Not! Revenue measures from speed cameras to requiring licenses for tax preparers and bullying low-tax jurisdictions to catch tax evaders all share a fundamentally flawed underlying assumption: that the government has a legitimate need for more money. That’s ass-backwards. We may choose to squander our scarce resources on government meddling in good times, but when money is tight, such profligacy has to go.

People do amazing things when left to their own resources. For example, our national savings rate has been going up since economic disaster hit. The average person need not be brilliant to know to hunker down in hard times, cut expenses, reduce debt, and set something aside for an even rainier day, conveniently providing capital for new productive enterprise in the process. But our government is still busy giving these sensible people bad advice in hopes of reanimating the lifeless corpse for one more miraculous cycle of spending-driven opulence. Paddles! Clear!

The Fed’s efforts to jump-start a recovery by throwing money at our problems have floundered. Chairman Bernanke testified this week before the House Budget Committee. He acknowledged that interest rates are going up in response to raging deficits, despite the Fed’s efforts to nurture those promising green shoots of recovery. For example, the Fed’s purchase of Fannie Mae bonds briefly prompted a housing refinance boom, but that has now fizzled as rates creep inexorably upward as if they had a mind of their own and owe no fealty to the Fed.

Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) told Bernanke “that there is no free lunch." Ryan noted that “Treasury is issuing debt and the central bank is buying it. It gives the alarming impression that the U.S. one day might begin to meet its financial obligations by simply printing money.” [Aren’t we already there?] Not to worry. Bernanke assured Ryan that: “The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt. Either cuts in spending or increases in taxes will be necessary to stabilize the fiscal situation.” Hopefully the former, undoubtedly the latter.

Should we take comfort from Bernanke’s assurances? No. Bernanke seems to live in a fairytale world immune from the harsh realities real people grapple with every day. According to the Fed chairman:

In this environment, we anticipate that inflation will remain low. The slack in resource utilization remains sizable, and, notwithstanding recent increases in the prices of oil and other commodities, cost pressures generally remain subdued. As a consequence, inflation is likely to move down some over the next year relative to its pace in 2008. That said, improving economic conditions and stable inflation expectations should limit further declines in inflation.
See? It’s all about inflation “expectations,” which, being “stable,” will “limit further declines in inflation.” Now, is that a good thing? Wasn’t that a bad thing a little while ago? Oh, well. Obviously smart people like Bernanke and the president have this figured out, and we all just have to have the right expectations. Still, I have this foreboding sense that the parents have stepped out and unruly children are wasting hot water, leaving doors open, bullying, and may be about to burn down the house.

Mom!

Also from Don…

Don mentioned that he participated in the last Washington DC phyle meeting… so I asked him to do a quick write-up as a way of providing some insight into the value one of these informal meet up groups might offer. (Personally, I've never been to one -- although our Summits seem to me to be larger versions of these smaller events.) Here are Don's notes...

Up to this point, we have done little more than provide communications assistance for the various Casey phyles that have cropped up around the country and in the world. We were discussing getting more involved, maybe by providing some special content for the meetings or helping define the guest speakers -- that sort of thing. If you are currently running one of these groups and would be interested in receiving more help from us, drop us a note at phyles@CaseyResearch.com.

If you're interested in attending one of these groups, drop us a note as well, and we’ll hook you up with the closest organizer.

David again… this just in from the “General,” a British friend now observing his homeland from the comfortable distance of Portugal…

Saving Private Brown

Following the well-publicised expenses scandal, Gordon Brown, the Labour P.M., now has a mutiny in the ranks. In the last few days, eight of his ministers have resigned, of which six are inner-cabinet ministers. This has precipitated a huge cabinet reshuffle, which is still going on as I type this on Friday afternoon. That is not Brown's only problem. Yesterday British voters went to the polls for local government elections. Full results will not be known until this evening; however, early results indicate that the Conservative Party led by David Cameron is already thrashing the Labour Party. On Sunday evening, we will also get the results from the 27 countries that are participating in an election for the European Parliament. Again Labour is expected to be easily beaten by the Conservatives.

On top of all this, British Members of Parliament have put down a motion of No Confidence in the PM for debate this Wednesday. Informed pundits and the media only give Brown a 50/50 chance of surviving next week. Already a number of MPs are circulating a petition forcing Brown to resign. Alternatively, he may be forced to call a general election, which the Conservatives are almost certain to win.

So what is Brown doing tomorrow? Well, he is off to Normandy for the 65th anniversary of D-Day. He will also be meeting there with President Obama and other world leaders. With his troops already mutinying and with so many walking wounded in his regiment, he might be well advised to “hang out” at the Normandy beaches and not return to the UK, where there is an awful lot of shrapnel flying about.

Quote of a lifetime from actor David Carradine, who yesterday was sadly found dead in a Bangkok Hotel, under mystifying circumstances. David was 72. His best-known films were Kung Fu and Kill Bill. He was well known for his sense of humour. My favourite quote of his was: "Never buy anything from someone who is out of breath."

Miscellany

Remember Hill-Bill? This week, someone forwarded me what I thought was a very insightful analysis of how Obama has effectively shifted his former competitors, the Clintons, to the trash heap of history. Well worth a read… linked here.

More Tech You Like: Sorry, but I can’t find out which of you sent along this tip… but thanks, whoever you are.

“I have been using the free Grand Central (now Google.com/voice) for over a year and it's great. A free phone number, transferred to any or all of your "real" phone numbers, call screening, time-of-day routing, incoming number blacklist, conference calling, voice to text messaging, google 411 integration, call return and more. Worth a look.”
The Kettle Is Now Calling the Pot Black. A couple of subscribers forwarded a commentary that ran on the website of Russia's Pravda news service. It offered a fairly sharp critique of the path America now finds itself on. Considering the source, the comments are pretty eye-opening... Here's an excerpt:

There’s much truth in those words. Regrettably.

Well, that’s it for this week. Sorry that I can’t share any music with you this week. It’s just that none really jumped out at me.

As I put away the tools for the day, and the week, I see that the DJIA has managed to rally by a meager 37 points, while gold has had a bad day, down $25 on the day… and oil is holding strong at $68. Sure, gold could go down a bit… but it’s hardly worth thinking about. The trend for much higher inflation is cemented in at this point.

As always, thanks for reading, and for being a subscriber to a Casey Research publication.

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room – 05/22/2009

David Galland — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:57:00 GMT

A dose of sanity returned to the markets this week, starting with cracks beginning to show in the U.S. dollar. Consequently gold, the not-so-barbaric relic, seems to be attracting an awful lot of attention. Instead of falling, as so many pundits have been predicting it should, it has begun to string together a number of impressive up days. Another run at $1,000 in the weeks just ahead is not out of the question.

Also this week, the U.S. stock market hit a pothole on the road to Happy Days Again, helped along, apparently, by massive selling by corporate insiders...

"...in the last couple weeks, company chief executives and chief financial officers have gone from big buyers to heavy sellers. According to InsiderScore.com, two weeks ago there was a slight bias towards selling, while last week turned in the biggest disparity of sellers to buyers — more than 1.2 sellers for every buyer — since September." (WSJ)
In addition, the chart for long-dated U.S. Treasury bonds this week – shown here – resembles a steep cliff. It appears that the U.S. Treasury Department's irrational exuberance for every bailout program that lands on its desk is finally beginning to raise doubts about the government's ability to repay its many obligations. Ahead of us on the curve, the sovereign debt of the UK is thought to be a tea cozy away from being downgraded from the AAA status normally assigned to a respectable country's sovereign debt.

While no one likes to be the bearer of bad news, this week's market action is a welcome confirmation that just maybe we haven't lost our minds here at Casey Research. I can't begin to recount the number of times I woke up in the morning wondering if we were missing something really, really big regarding the current crisis. After all, both the dollar and the stock market have held up remarkably well in the face of what appears to be irrefutable evidence that the U.S. currency and economy are now racing down the fast track to a devastating collision with the reality that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Despite many opinions to the contrary, the government cannot "fix" an economy as massively broken as ours. At least the fixing involves throwing out some magic combination of regulations, jawboning, newly created money, and backroom deals with fiscally irresponsible and financially bankrupt cronies.

We are, I would opine, at the crossroads of a new paradigm in American history. We have to be, because the path we have recently traveled to get here has been wiped out by an avalanche of bad policy and institutionalized self-dealing on a biblical scale. We are not going back to the bubble years anytime soon, any more than the Japanese have or will in our lifetimes.

That is not to say that America is doomed or that we should begin eyeing the ground for roots and berries. Rather, the citizenry of this nation – and the world, for that matter – are going to have to adapt their personal outlook to the way things are, and not the way network television has portrayed them these many years. Not everyone is going to have a new car every couple of years.

Of course, it's going to take awhile for this notion to sink in. Humankind, and Americans in particular, are forever looking forward to a bigger and brighter future. To the extent that said view of the future includes ever larger high-definition TVs, the latest gadgets, and an ATV parked in the backyard right next to the trampoline and above-ground pool, expectations will have to change. Probably in conjunction with the simultaneous receipt of one's first unemployment check and one's first unpayable credit card bill.

Illuminating these post-apocalyptic thoughts, just below is the text of an e-mail I received yesterday from Dominick, a valued subscriber and correspondent of some duration.

I heard an interview on National Public Radio this week with a bunch of graduates from the college class of 2009. They universally lamented the fact that there were no jobs of any description available. Experts and various callers chimed in with their suggestions for the unlucky class. One graduate with a degree in nursing complained that contrary to expectations, there were no nursing jobs on Long Island where she lived. Apparently a lot of the hospitals in the area have closed or are closing. One caller helpfully suggested that she might want to move to another part of the country where nurses were still in demand. Her reply was along the lines of "No way," and that it wasn't fair. In other words, she was entitled to her job exactly where she wanted it.

These attitudes, too, will be changing in the weeks and months ahead.

There was a day, albeit a day long ago, where Americans were far more adventurous and willing to take on risk than they are today. They were also, if the need arose, willing to roll up the sleeves and put in a hard day's work. None of that spirit was in evidence among the callers to this particular program, whose default mode seemed to be to take a job with government and/or move back in with their parents.

So, how are the coddled generations going to cope with the world as it is, as opposed to the world they want it to be?

We are going to probe deeply into that, and a number of related topics, in the upcoming edition of The Casey Report, which will include an interview with Neil Howe, the author of Generations and The Fourth Turning (among many other works on generation research). Meanwhile, I have some general thoughts...

A continued resurgence of socialism. Socialism is really just a softer-looking form of communism. Few people will go so far to suggest that they are active communists these days. But if you properly phrase the question, I suspect that a majority of young Americans, and maybe a wide majority, are socialist in attitude. Many would even overtly identify themselves as a believer in that form of collective, a clear sign of societal amnesia, given all the lessons that history has provided about that system's shortfalls. Consequently, the world will set about relearning the lesson that you cannot build a productive society by punishing the productive elements of society. Joe Biden's public retort when a woman asked him what she should tell her friends who were unhappy about having their taxes raised, was, "It's time to be patriotic, that's what you say to them."

Watch this clip of then-candidate Biden defending this point of view, and see if you can spot the direct correlation between his words and the concept Marx expressed in his "from each according to his abilities, to each according to their needs."

Also note the obvious passion he brings to the topic. This is not simply campaign jargonizing but a deeply held conviction.

I may be hoping for too much, but I wish that Americans of any income range would be able to look past their personal bias to spot the clear fallacy of this approach. Strictly speaking from a fairness perspective, it wasn't the business owner, successful or otherwise, who led us into this dead end – it was the government and the many special-interest groups firmly latched to the teats of that government. To get a bit metaphoric, it wasn't the fellow owning a chain of dry cleaners who drained the well of American wealth and then replaced the water of enterprise with quick-hardening cement. Again, that would be the U.S. government.

And yet, according to Biden et al., the patriotic thing to do is to take your hard-earned money and give it to the government to give to the needy, whose ranks are currently swollen with the bumbling executives of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan, and similar Wall Street institutions.

But those comments are based on the notion of fairness. Let's forget fairness for a moment. Forget that letting the Bush tax cuts expire already amounts to the largest tax increase in history, and let's get entirely practical.

Who does the public think is ultimately going to do the heavy lifting needed to bring the economy back into some sort of equilibrium?

As I don't need to tell you, it will not be the government. Thus, every new tax and regulation or insane government dictate simply add more bricks to the wall that entrepreneurs must climb in an attempt to build a sustainable economic recovery.

Which brings me to a second prediction -- the creation of a new wave of quasi-state companies. If you like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, then you'll like the new wave of Franken-businesses that will morph out of enterprises that the government decides are too important to fail. Need to prop up a unionized car company? No problem. Just have the USG take a lot of taxes from unpatriotic taxpayers and hand them over to the "new and improved" car companies – companies that are building the next generation of cars, whether people like them or not. For a picture of what's coming, look no further than Amtrak, which has shown an unblemished track record of almost 40 years of losing money. The losses are now exceeding $1 billion a year.

To quote Amtrak's February 2009 independent auditors report...

The Company has a history of substantial operating losses and is dependent upon substantial Federal government subsidies to sustain its operations. There are currently no Federal government subsidies appropriated for any period subsequent to the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009 ("fiscal year 2009") as discussed in Note 2 to the financial statements. Without such subsidies, Amtrak will not be able to continue to operate in its current form and significant operating changes, restructuring or bankruptcy may occur. Such changes or restructuring would likely result in asset impairments.
So, what does the government propose? To build a series of high-speed bullet trains to crisscross the country.

I could go on, but I'm a little short on time this morning, given that Doug Casey and all of our senior editors and staff are gathering at the office here today for a rare in-person management meeting.

Before I rush on, however, I would like to underscore the point I am trying to make, because I think it's an important point. At this stage of the crisis, the government is doing almost everything exactly wrong, the exact opposite of what they should be doing. And the public, correctly scared as they are of the dark and threatening skies overhead, are scurrying under the government's hastily constructed tent.

We shall come out of this just fine -- though we won't come out of this anytime soon, unless there is a 180° shift in government policy, the sort of shift that traditionally only occurs as a result of a popular uprising of strong emotions, expressed eventually at the ballot box. Since the majority of the emotions now swirling around are very much oriented towards more, not less government, we are nowhere near the end of this thing.

As investors, therefore, that is how you have to rig your portfolio -- and that is how we are rigging the portfolio recommendations made in our various letters.

For a final word on the subject of where we are in the economy, I would like to turn the platform over to Howard Davidowitz, the outspoken chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a company that provides strategic consulting to the retail industry.

What Davidowitz is currently telling his clients, and what he'll tell you in the video clip you can view here, is best summed up in his comment, "If the consumer isn't petrified, he or she is a damn fool."

Crime Scene

As a matter of personal taste, not policy, no one in our household watches network television anymore -- with the exception of Survivor, which never fails to entertain by celebrating humankind's remarkable capacity for self-delusion. Even so, when watching that program, one is forced to sit through trailers for an apparently very popular genre these days -- grisly "true life" police dramas, including any number of geographical derivations of something called Crime Scene Investigation, conveniently abbreviated to CSI. The trailers alone are sufficiently gruesome, but I warn the kids to avert their eyes, which they do willingly.

This week anyone paying attention would have seen a real-life crime scene every bit as gruesome. A U.S. House of Representatives committee passed new greenhouse gas legislation, legislation that includes a cap-and-trade system.

If it were socially acceptable to swear in print in polite company, I would do so right now. Instead, I will express my continued belief -- though maybe it is just a forlorn hope -- that there is no way cap-and-trade legislation can make it into law at this point in time (hopefully at no point in time, but especially at this point in time).

Even so, it boggles the mind that, with everything else going on, the government would spend any time at all on this issue just now. So why are they? A couple of reasons...

First, thanks to a misplaced road sign, over the past couple of decades, millions of young people mistakenly wandered onto the path of "environmental remediation" and related academic pursuits, versus something far more useful and productive. This despite the fact that the world has never been cleaner and is clearly on the trend to get cleaner still.

How did this massive misallocation of time and resources come about? I have read a defensible argument that the entire green movement, which initially cropped up in Germany in the 1970s, was funded by the Soviet Union as a clever attack on the underbelly of capitalism. Given academia's natural attraction to socialism – the attraction to a worldview that seeks to bring down businesses based on the inevitable waste that they must produce in their production processes – it is understandable. But this is a topic for another day.

However, there is something more to the rushed passage of this latest round of government meddling in the affairs of business here in the U.S. It is, if you believe the polls – or just your common sense – that the average American is ignorant of exactly what "cap and trade" actually means. And I quote...

In other words, if the Democratic leadership is going to make good on its promises to its many environmentally oriented supporters, it's going to have to do so pretty darn quickly. At some point the public at large will catch on to the crime that is about to be committed through the cap-and-trade legislation. Under the best of circumstances, it will be a huge waste of time and resources. Under even moderately bad circumstances, it will result in further hardship and taxes dumped onto the back of American enterprise.

There is something else pushing Congress from behind on this issue: a massive lobbying effort by "rent seekers," who are now well positioned to earn big profits from this legislation. Below is a link to a very informative article from the Wall Street Journal. While the author, Bjorn Lomborg, is a fairly rabid socialist himself, I give him credit for at least being honest in his critical analysis of his colleagues in the environmental movement. You can, and should, read his competently constructed critique of the goings-on at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen that is opening this weekend.

As you will read, what is happening behind the scenes is not just shameful but, in my view, a criminal fraud.

Read Lomborg's article, The Climate-Industrial Complex here.

Just So You Know

This week, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, concerned about talk that the U.S. government could lose its AAA bond rating, clarified his goal for government deficits in the years just ahead.

Just so you know, the government expects the deficit to be about 13% of GDP in fiscal year 2009. As we see it, that understates reality by a wide margin. The actual number is likely to be closer to 18%, or $2.5 trillion.

For fiscal 2010, Geithner forecasts the deficit will drop to 8.5%, or about $1.17 trillion. If the government's projections are as far off next year as they are this year, the actual 2010 deficit would ring in at about $1.6 trillion, or about 11.5% of GDP.

For fiscal 2011, the deficit according to Geithner will fall to 6% of GDP, or $840 million. But again, applying the same margin of error for the forecast as we expect to see this year would put that number at about 1.15 trillion. That's still almost three times the prior record of $436 billion, set by George Bush in 2008.

Of course I can't help but comment that the government is out of touch with the reality it is creating with its out-of-control spending, and that the vast majority of the money is going down a rat hole. But it is also important to try and look past the blunt numbers to some of the consequences of this fiscal insanity.

For instance, taking as our starting point the current U.S. debt of $11.3 trillion and adding in the projected additional deficits just discussed, the country will end fiscal year 2011 with a total debt of $16.5 trillion, or about 46% higher than it is today.

That would mean total federal debt would be about 120% of total GDP. That's almost exactly the previous record set in the concluding years of World War II.

One of many tangible consequences of this accumulated debt will be a staggering burden of interest payments. At just 4%, the government would be forced to pay on the order of $660 billion per year in interest payments.

But what happens when interest rates rise to 10%, let alone the 20% Doug Casey feels they are headed for? While it's hard to get one's mind around the latter number just now, the former is certainly within the realm of possibility, given the current trend.

So, how does the government cover $1.65 trillion in annual interest payments?

The answer is, it doesn't.

All of which is to say that we are racing toward a situation where the government will have absolutely no other choice besides massive inflation or an outright default. The stirrings this week suggest that Mr. Market is starting to come to the same conclusion. That means he will also come to the conclusion that interest rates must go up -- either to offset the pending inflation or to compensate for the growing risk of a default.

I'm sure economists have some fancy term for this situation, but vicious cycle will suffice for now.

By the time the politicians stop dithering around with the deck chairs, the ship of state will have sunk, with the survivors clinging to the wreckage. It is our intention – in fact more than that, it is our firm goal -- to make sure our subscribers have a comfortable seat in the lifeboats.

I am not kidding or being disingenuous when I tell you that there has never been a better time to be a subscriber to our various publications. The problem, of course, is that we have quite a few of them, and each is geared to helping you to manage various subsets of market opportunities. For gold and other natural resources, the go-to publications are BIG GOLD, the International Speculator and Casey Investment Alert. For energy, it's Casey Energy Opportunities and Casey Energy Confidential. Overall portfolio strategies, which include plays on rising interest rates, are covered by The Casey Report. And for strategically designed options and futures trades, look no further than the Casey Trend Trader.

Any one of these publications can be instrumental in helping you make it through the shipwreck just ahead, but all of them combined will get you through it in especially fine style. To that end, we are now working on a new membership organization called Casey's Club. It allows you to subscribe to all of our publications and alert services with one low initiation fee... and receive all of them, as well as any services we'll launch in the future, for as long as they are published.

The final details are being worked out now. We'll have more on this first-ever Casey lifetime offer soon.

Tar Baby

I will confess to a strong dislike for fundamentalist religions that advocate as part of their daily ritual the murder of innocents or the suppression of women. Thus, I have zero sympathy for the Taliban or similar groups now being chased around Pakistan, Afghanistan, or other corners of the Middle East.

Anyone who chooses to live by the sword is welcome, as far as I'm concerned, to die by the sword.

Unfortunately, the U.S. seems to be the only country that wants to wield the sword with which they will be smote. Is it because we are somehow more righteous than other nations? Is it that it's our destiny to police the world and to make it over in our own image? Or is it something else, perhaps an overriding and possibly even delusional sense of specialness made ever more acute by the world's largest military budget?

Who knows, maybe it's that Israel – a nation whose neighborhood keeps its back against the wall constantly – has for many decades proven effective at lobbying American congressmen for their undying support. That is not an anti-Semitic remark but a verifiable fact. I don't blame the Israelis for manipulating U.S. policy -- if I were in their position, I would do exactly the same. Instead, I blame the systematic weaknesses within the United States government that allow it to be so readily manipulated.

Regardless, as a result of the normal quirks and accidents of history, we have arrived at a place where U.S. boots are once again firmly planted on the ground in an unwinnable war halfway across the globe. Just as we replaced the French in Vietnam, we have now replaced the Ottoman Turks in Iraq and the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Consequently, even with the more "enlightened" Obama in office, the military budget for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is again being ratcheted up. The Senate will pass a funding bill of over $91 billion this week to cover the costs of fighting those wars.

Tellingly, by the end of this year, it is expected that there will be more than twice as many U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan as there were at the end of 2008. The cost of the Afghan adventure will in 2009 exceed that of the battle in Iraq.

As with the antagonist in Uncle Remus' famous parable, we are now well engaged in attacking the tar baby. I suspect the results will be much the same.

Confidence Inspiring 101

I'll admit that I am something of an Anglophile, enjoying as I always have some of the British traditions such as complete British breakfast, afternoon tea, British humor, and a pint of Boddingtons over a game of snooker.

But I do have to wonder whether someone has been slipping something into the warm beer of the British public lately, with a double dose for members of the government over the past decade or so.

There are too many signs of mass insanity to ignore this point, starting with the willing adoption of some of the world's most egregious and intrusive surveillance policies, followed by a rush towards monetary self-mutilation.

For the latest example, the UK Treasury refused to provide the results of the stress tests it had put its banks through. Rationalizing this refusal, the UK Treasury commented that publishing the information could increase instability and result in the government having to undertake even further measures to shore up that country's financial system.

How's that for confidence inspiring?

It shows just how foolish the British have become in dealing with such matters. All they had to do was follow the lead of the U.S. Treasury Department and simply come up with a poorly crafted but well-delivered set of outrageous lies about banks' solvency!

I mean, really old chaps, you can do better.

Random Thoughts

I'm running out of time, well before I run out of topics. So I'm going to go a little wild here, with some quick observations...

On Gold... Everyone seems to like gold these days, including top-performing hedge fund manager John Paulson. The majority of his holdings are now invested in all things gold. Here are his current top portfolio holdings:

Top 15 Holdings (by % of portfolio)

SPDR Gold Trust (GLD): 30.37% of portfolio
Wyeth (WYE): 13.96% of portfolio
Rohm & Haas (ROH): 13.44% of portfolio
Boston Scientific (BSX): 8.4% of portfolio
Gold Miners ETF (GDX): 6.81% of portfolio
Kinross Gold (KGC): 5.87% of portfolio
Philip Morris International (PM): 3.42% of portfolio
Petro-Canada (PCZ): 2.96% of portfolio
Schering Plough (SGP): 2.26% of portfolio
Mirant (MIR): 2.22% of portfolio
Gold Fields (GFI): 2.21% of portfolio
JPMorgan Chase (JPM): 1.65% of portfolio
AngloGold Ashanti (AU): 1.15% of portfolio
St Jude Medical (STJ): 0.91% of portfolio
Embarq (EQ): 0.81% of portfolio

The Russians Also Like Gold. "MOSCOW, May 21 (Reuters) - Russia's precious metals and gems repository plans to quadruple gold purchases this year to about 3 percent of national output to help miners survive the economic slowdown, a source within the organisation said on Thursday. The repository, known as Gokhran, plans to buy 5 tonnes (160,754 ounces) of gold from about 15 enterprises this year, up from 1.2 tonnes in 2008, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"...Gokhran was founded in 1920 with the aim of centralising and storing Russia's supplies of precious metals and gems. Today, the body is subordinate to the Finance Ministry and its total reserves are a state secret."

The Chinese Don't Like Dollars. This week the Chinese and the Brazilians began working in earnest on a new regime that would allow each country to use each other's currency in intrastate trade, bypassing the U.S. dollar. Actions speak louder than words, and the Chinese have been saying a lot with their actions of late.

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp – Next Up for Bankruptcy, I Mean, Bailout. According to our own Bud Conrad, PBGC, the government entity that guarantees the pensions of some 44 million Americans, is in deep trouble. You can read this story of epic self-dealing by America's favorite investment banks and its government stooges by following this link...

Tech Talk

A software that I find particularly useful, is SnagIt (learn more here). It allows you to very easily capture any image on a computer screen and then paste it into another document. For those of you who like to blog, SnagIt is an essential tool.

The following came in from subscriber Steve H. While I haven't personally had a chance to try out the software yet, I plan on it...

jott.com

Do you have a technology you like to share with others? Or any comments at all about this edition of The Room? If so, send them my way at David@CaseyResearch.com.

Miscellany

Oil Spills? Bring ‘em On... Check this out.

A bit of British Humor. A moment ago, I mentioned my fondness for British humor. Follow this link to a car review from a British newspaper, hands down the funniest car review I have ever read.

Joe Cocker. A subscriber this week reminded me of Joe Cocker, an artist whose name is largely faded from memory, but who was certainly unique in his time. You can view a funny "translation" of Joe's wild performance at Woodstock by pasting this url into your browser window: http://www.elwp.com/Joe%20Cocker.html. Viewing that video made me wonder, "Whatever happened to Joe Cocker?" Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, I found that he is still alive and well and maybe even coming to a town near you soon. Check out his rather fancy website here, http://www.cocker.com/.

And that, dear readers, is that for this week. Even though I started well before the crack of dawn, I am now running late and ready to sign off. A quick glance at the screens tells me that the Dow is up 26 points and gold is holding steady at $957 per ounce.

Until next week... thanks for reading and for being a subscriber to a Casey Research publication.

As dire as the outlook may be, quoting Joe Cocker, together we'll get through all of this, "With a little help from our friends."

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room – 05/15/2009

David Galland — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:48:00 GMT

Dear Reader,

Last time I wrote, I labored under the after-effects of a mild case of “immoderation.” In response to which the ever-moving Doug Casey (writing from Washington D.C.) sent along the following witticisms, which I thought you might enjoy...

After a week of engaging in all manner of healthful activity, I am ready once again to tilt my lance against the armies of absurdity that assault the senses more or less constantly these days.

This week, for instance, Alan Greenspan opined that the economy has bottomed, and the stock market actually rallied in response! It’s akin to Bernard Madoff announcing he is opening a new money management service from the secure facility where he now resides, and having investors rush all over themselves to hand him their money.

Or how about these headlines...

US Retail Sales Unexpectedly Fall for Second Month (Bloomberg)… and, Foreclosures: “April was a shocker"(CNN)… or Unemployment Claims in U.S. Jump More Than Forecast on Idled Auto Plants (Bloomberg).

Now, despite my ready access to a large and very capable team of researchers who are intensely curious and focused on facts, I won’t claim anything close to perfect knowledge about anything. But I will claim that any economic observer who is “shocked” by any piece of bad news these days has either been misreading their doctor’s instructions on their daily doses of Valium, or is just plain stupid.

But the absurdity doesn’t stop there. Not by a long shot.

For proof of that contention, look no further than the crime of omission the mainstream media are now committing by failing to report, emphasized with banner headlines, the train wreck now occurring with the government’s finances.

Starting with the trouble the U.S. Treasury had on May 7 when it tried to auction off $14 billion in long-term bonds. Skeptical buyers demanded higher yields, forcing the rate to rise from 4.19% to 4.29% over the course of the auction.

But even that is just the tip of the iceberg. The latest developments have to do with the sharp shortfall in tax revenues we have been anticipating.

Here’s the story…

Tax Revenues Tanking

While everyone else has been focused on the banks’ stress tests and how much government is spending to bail out troubled “too big to fails,” a disturbing trend on the other side of the equation is now emerging: how much (or rather, how little) the U.S. government is receiving in tax revenues.

After combing through the past 25 editions of the “Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government,” which is compiled and published by the Treasury Department’s Financial Management Service, we created the following chart.

Here’s what’s going on:

In 2007 and 2008, government tax revenues averaged about $633.15 billion per quarter. For the first quarter of 2009, however, the numbers just in tell us that tax receipts totaled only about $442.39 billion -- a decline of 30%.
Looking to confirm the trend, we compared the data for April – the big kahuna of tax collection months – to the 2007-2008 average, and found that individual income taxes this year were down more than 40%. The situation is even worse for corporate income taxes, which were down a stunning 67%!
When you add in all revenue from all sources (including Social Security revenue, government fees, etc.), the fiscal year-to-date – October through April – revenue shortfall comes to 19%, vs. the 14.6% projected in Obama’s budget. If, however, the accelerating shortfall apparent year-to-date, and in April in particular, continues, the spread between projected and actual tax receipts will widen considerably.

Tellingly, for the first time since 1983, the U.S. government posted a deficit in April. That’s a big swing in the wrong direction, as the bump in personal tax collections in April historically results in a big surplus -- on average about $68 billion.

What are the implications of this tanking tax revenue?

For starters, it means the federal government deficit is going be as bad or worse than the $2.5 trillion Bud Conrad, chief economist of Casey Research, projected it to be last year.

If the shortfall in individual and corporate tax revenue persists -- and we expect it will -- then the deep hole the government is already digging for itself will be that much deeper.

Using the government’s own expense projections, the revenue shortfall, even if it doesn’t worsen further, would push the fiscal 2009 budget deficit up to about $1.958 trillion. For reasons we’ve discussed at some length in The Casey Report, those expense projections are likely to be significantly understated.

Case in point, in January the government projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2009… in March, just three months later, they upped the projection to $1.8 trillion. That $600 billion “adjustment” alone totaled more than any full-year budget deficit in the nation’s history.

Yet, the real fly in the ointment is that the actual borrowing by the Treasury is likely to be at least half a trillion dollars more than the deficit.

That’s because the Treasury is buying toxic paper (mortgage, credit card loans, etc.) and putting them on the books with a higher value than the market is willing to assign. While that makes the budget deficit appear smaller, it doesn’t negate the fact that the government still must borrow the money needed to buy the toxic paper in the first place. The additional revenue shortfall means they have to raise that much more money. Based on the struggle they had pushing the $14 billion in long-term notes at the latest auction, it becomes increasingly apparent that when push comes to shove, the only way the government is going to come up with the money needed to meet its aggressive spending is to print it up.

In other words, events are rolling out almost exactly as we have been anticipating. Below, for example, are some useful excerpts from an April 3 article titled “Widening Deficits” by Casey Research CEO Olivier Garret. To quote…

In the midst of the Great Depression, the 1931 federal tax revenues had fallen by 52% from their 1929 highs. While we do not expect anything that dramatic in 2009, it would not be unrealistic to see a 20% to 25% reduction in cash flow from tax collections this tax season. Such a drop would pose significant challenges given that spending commitments are off the charts and climbing.
Later in that same article, Olivier continued,

Olivier’s forecast of failed auctions and rising interest rates on Treasuries proved more prophetic as a May 7th story from Bloomberg reported:

So, what does all this mean?

As per above, the rock-and-the-hard-place scenario we have been predicting is unfolding before our eyes. At this point, other than sharply changing course and letting the free market cope with the crisis through a brutal “survival of the fittest” scenario, the government is left with no other option than to accelerate its buying up of its own debt.

Which is to say, it must push even harder on the levers of its printing presses, further setting the stage for the massive period of inflation we continue to see as inevitable… and for the stunning rise in interest rates we are now positioning ourselves for in The Casey Report (and, you can too… learn more).

Super Fed, Super Cop?

Did you see that the Obama administration wants to turn the Fed into a “super cop” to regulate any company considered by the government to be “too big to fail”? If not, you can read the story here…

That notion caught the attention of Bud Conrad, no big fan of the Fed. In his own words…

video of testimony by the Inspector General

anything

David again. Speaking of banking, there is a short but very informative video that explains in simple terms what a sham the recently concluded bank stress test really was. Watch it here…

Sharks Eat Sharks

Dear friend and regular UK correspondent Sadia sent me a collection of links to the unfolding media scandal now underway in England over the egregious abuses of expense accounts by members of parliament in that country. Here’s her email…

Times: Parliament's darkest day: MPs suspended and Michael Martin at risk

Linked here

Times: Shahid Malik stands down as Justice Minister after PM orders inquiry into his expenses
Linked here.

Daily Mail: Bring them to justice! The Mail helps to launch campaign to prosecute sleaze MPs
Linked here.

Independent: The married couple who took taxpayers for £282,731
Linked here.

FT: MP claimed for non-existent mortgage
Linked here.

Guardian: MPs' expenses
Linked here.

Telegraph: MPs' expenses
Linked here.

David again. My purpose for including all those links was not to invite you to spend the rest of your day in idle reading, but rather to make the point that there is an honest-to-goodness, blood-in-the-water media frenzy now underway in England. Members of both the ruling party and its loyal opposition are (correctly) under assault – which is to say, the very institution of government in the UK is running for cover.

The good news, for this side of the Atlantic, is that you can bet your last dollar that the desk editors of various U.S. media factories, having taken note of the satisfactory increase in eyeballs-on-pages being generated in England over the expense scandal, are now urging their reporters to look for – and find – a similar scandal in Washington D.C.

I suspect they won’t have to look too hard.

While no fan of the whole genre of news-as-entertainment, I expect to be highly entertained by the revelations of expense abuses by U.S. congressmen and sundry bureaucrats that should be coming to a media outlet near you soon.

Eat Dirt

Given the general outlook and views of those here at Casey Research, it is something of an oddity that we are headquartered in Vermont. It is, in fact, something of an accident -- the outcome of the usual twists and turns of life that brought me to this place roughly 25 years ago. Subsequently, Casey Research followed along.

The "oddity" part has to do with the fact that this is one of the highest-taxed states in the union, and the overarching political temperament could be accurately described as "socialist." In fact, Vermont's Senator Bernie Sanders is the nation's only elected (openly declared) socialist.

Yet, the place has much to recommend it, including a general lack of population due to the aforementioned high taxes and a well-earned reputation for cold winter weather. But it also has an abundance of beautiful scenery, scenery that includes any number of ski hills and even the shores of the six largest lake in the country. When the weather is good here, Vermont is very nice indeed.

I mention all of this because I came across a story this week from one of our fellow residents, an amateur environmentalist by the name of Annie Leonard who has created a popular YouTube video about America's "stuff"... the general theme being that to own "stuff" is bad. Very bad.

To give you a sense of her views, here is an excerpt from an article on her film.

“We’ll start with extraction, which is a fancy word for natural resource exploitation, which is a fancy word for trashing the planet,” she says at one point. “What this looks like is we chop down the trees, we blow up mountains to get the metals inside, we use up all the water and we wipe out the animals.”

There is an old saying, "Beware what you wish for because you may get it.” While I cannot find it in my heart to hope that Ms. Leonard gets her wish, because then we would all be living in caves and subsisting on roots and berries, I can certainly hope that the populace come to their senses before her Luddite notions gain any real traction.

Alas, I think it is a false hope because she has just signed a contract with Simon & Schuster to publish a book on the same theme. Further, her video is now being widely distributed to the nation's schools to be used in their normal curriculum of brainwashing.

You, too, can glimpse the future we should aspire to, according to Ms. Leonard, by emulating the world of the past – by taking 20 minutes now to view the same video, “The Story of Stuff,” that millions of schoolchildren will be viewing in the months and years ahead.

This seems to be an appropriate time to mention that we are now homeschooling one of our children... and none too soon. More on that topic on another day.

(But since we are on the topic, however briefly, if you have any good recommendations for online courses for middle- and high-school students, I would greatly appreciate it if you'd shoot them my way, at David@CaseyResearch.com.)

Word from the (Mexican) Street

Earlier this week, as part of an effort to further calibrate our investment advice to the needs of our readers, I reviewed a count of Casey Research subscribers by geographic location. As usual, I was pleasantly surprised at the large number of countries in which our subscribers reside – including Burkina Faso, Lebanon, Brunei, Nepal, and well over 100 more.

Once again tapping into this widespread network, I was able to solicit a first-hand report “from the ground” as to the state of things in Mexico. Jeff B., a longtime correspondent, filed this dispatch on how the swine flu hysteria had affected life in his current home town of Acapulco…

Star Trek – “Stayed Wide Awake”

Last weekend, I took the kids to see the new Star Trek movie. While most movie reviewers tend to use some number of stars or perhaps thumbs pointing upwards or downwards in order to communicate their opinions on the movies they watch, I have a simpler system that emanates from the hours I keep.

Using my rating system, uninteresting movies warrant a "long nap" -- literally.

Mediocre fare will garner "periods of napping," or perhaps "occasional nodding off.” It is only the very best movies that rate "stayed wide awake throughout" -- the rating I enthusiastically award to the latest entry in the Star Trek movie franchise.

As a youth, I enjoyed Star Trek but would not categorize myself as a "Trekkie" (generally speaking, a self-imposed moniker that always struck me as categorizing oneself as "delusional" and maybe in need of "getting a life"). Even so, it was fun to see how the director managed to seamlessly introduce the Star Trek characters as they came together in their early careers, the background against which the movie unfolds.

But even if I had never seen a Star Trek episode, I have to believe that the overall plot and production values of the film would have sucked me in and kept me glued to my seat, as they did. The only disappointment came in mild doses, mostly associated with brief appearances by one of the original cast members whose age is sufficiently advanced at this point that you can detect a slight but distracting whistling of his dentures as he delivers his lines. But that’s a petty critique of what is otherwise a very tight movie.

So, at least by my rating system, if you're looking for an entertaining, interesting, and action-packed film for a rainy weekend, Star Trek may be just the thing.

Miscellany

Lecture on the Great Depression. While there is as much or even more misinformation on the Internet, and a great deal of mindless -- make that mind-numbing -- stupidity on services such as YouTube, there is no debate that there is also much excellent content available. For instance, if you have 49 minutes available, you can listen into an excellent lecture on the Great Depression sponsored by the Von Mises Institute. All that’s required is that you click the link here.
Charlotte Phyle… Grant in Charlotte is looking to get a phyle started. If you are in the area, drop us a note at phyle@CaseyResearch.com and we’ll get you hooked up.
Trade War… with Canada? As I was getting ready to go to press, someone sent me an article from today's Washington Post on the topic of a burgeoning trade war between the U.S. and Canada, the unintended – or maybe intended – consequence of the "Buy American" provisions inserted by Congress into the recent stimulus package. Here's an excerpt to give you a flavor of the thing...

Once again reminding one of the reason to run in the opposite direction whenever one hears the phrase "Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help." (Read the full article here)

And with that, I must sign off for the week, noting as I do that the U.S. stock market is jumping around like a yo-yo, with the DJIA down 36 points as I sign off. Gold continues to defy its naysayers by holding firm at $930, and oil is changing hands at $58 a barrel, no small feat given the surpluses now filling storage tanks, and even oil tankers, around the world. There is big money moving into inflation hedges just now… but merely a trickle compared to what’s to come.

Until next week, thanks for reading and for being a Casey Research subscriber…

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room – 05/01/2009

David Galland — Fri, 01 May 2009 23:41:00 GMT

Dear Reader,

I am writing you in some haste this morning, fueled both by what may be an overdose of espresso and a general lack of sleep due to fulfilling my responsibilities as the managing editor of The Casey Report, the final copy deadline for which is inconveniently today.

In the interest of not being discovered face down on my desk, a spilled cup of coffee dripping onto the floor, I'm going to take a few shortcuts in preparing this week’s edition of The Room. Namely, relying on other members of the Casey team, as well as our impressive ranks of correspondents, to fill in some holes. I think you'll be happy with the result.

First, however, a quick word or two is in order about the Chrysler bankruptcy. In last week's edition of this somewhat manic missive, I opined that Chrysler’s bankruptcy was now both inevitable and imminent. Further, I wrote about the proceedings, which have the U.S. Treasury deeply involved in structuring the bankruptcy...

We didn't have to wait long before bankruptcy to be declared or for the government to reveal the nature of its back-office dealings regarding the unions. To quote the New York Times…

Chrysler

General Motors

Isn't it remarkable how very predictable the government can be? Now, anyone want to venture a guess why the unions made out so well in the deal? It's like shooting ducks in a barrel. Again, from the New York Times...

Ford Motor

So, after throwing billions of dollars of your money into these failing car companies, the government has essentially turned around and handed ownership over to unions. Ownership, it might be added, that was lifted out of the pockets of investors. I have little sympathy for any investor stupid enough to have kept their money in these poorly run, constantly unprofitable businesses – and I'm sure many of those investments were made out of some conviction that the U.S. government would step in with an open wallet and make everybody good. Yet, fair is fair and, as discussed last week, there are well-defined procedures in place for liquidating and distributing assets of bankrupt companies. The government simply shuffling the cards around to suit its political aims and rewarding its lobbyist friends at the expense of investors sets a very dark precedent.

Wouldn’t you think that, at a minimum, officialdom would at least thank the investors for their unwilling contribution to the nation's organized worker brigades? Hardly. Quoting Bloomberg...

John Dingell

Sander Levin

Don't you love that "will now be dealt with accordingly in court" threat?

Dorothy, we’re no longer in Kansas... or, as far as I can recognize, the United States.

Hey, look what just popped in -- some "airplane notes" from my globetrotting partner and chairman of the circus, Doug Casey.

Editor’s Note:

You can watch his appearance here

The Day the Earth Stood Still

By Doug Casey

A few thoughts occurred to me on the flight from Buenos Aires last week. I was admittedly in a bad mood thanks to the detailed interrogation one is subjected to on flights to the U.S. (and only on flights to the U.S.). In most airports in the world, security is more stringent than it used to be, but (unlike the U.S.) you can still arrive less than an hour before take-off with no problem. Only on flights to the U.S. (and Israel) are you interrogated.

Maria, our BA concierge, noticed my mood and commented that they were only doing their job. I responded that was also true of the guy who was only driving the train to Auschwitz. Notwithstanding that universal observation, there’s no doubt that flying to and within the U.S. is the bottom of the aviation barrel. Many people I know now avoid it at all cost. Even to change planes, because the U.S. is one of the very few places in the world that requires clearing customs and immigration even if you’re just connecting.

On board, Business and First were only ¾ full, Economy about ½ full. Last year the flight would have been full; it was often impossible to even get a seat on any popular route. It wasn’t Swine Flu fears, because this was several days before that hysteria hit. Clearly the Greater Depression is starting to have an effect.

I flew United, a bad habit I’ve gotten into after about 2 million miles with them. The plane was a 767, but kitted out with seats that only reclined to 45 degrees, and a crappy entertainment system. Both were relics from the ‘80s and completely unacceptable on an overnight flight. Coming from Argentina, of all places, they didn’t even offer beef on the menu -- only chicken or pasta. The cost cutting was egregious on all fronts. Oddly, the napkin sported an eyehole, allowing you to attach it to a button on your shirt. That’s a nice feature on a plane, where a bib is advisable for dining. I remark on it because United eliminated their napkin eyeholes a few years ago, in some accountant’s idea of saving a few thousand dollars a year -- even though it was a big signal to their best customers that the company was in a tailspin. Now they’ve gone back to the nice little eyelets, just as the whole enterprise is about to crash and burn. Perhaps the U.S. government will bail them out as well? Otherwise, they’re almost surely going down for the count this time.

My somber mood was reinforced by watching “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” a remake of the ‘50s classic, this time starring Keanu Reeves. My friend Robert Prechter of Elliot Wave, the only person in this business who may actually be more bearish than I am, would say (I’m sure) that the movie is another indicator of today’s social mood. And the markets don’t cause social mood; social mood generates the markets. This movie was a long way from the buoyant and optimistic theme of ET that we saw at the beginning of the Long Boom nearly three decades ago. The theme of this one is that humans are about to be destroyed, and are pretty much getting what they deserve. I rather liked the depiction of the U.S. SecDef as a woman who’s something of a cross between Madeleine Halfbright and Hillary Clinton. She does her best to push the aliens towards destroying the planet, because that’s part of her job description.

I don’t know if Klaatu and Gort, the movie’s alien protagonists, are on their way, but I know I’m going to be cashing in all of my numerous Frequent Flyer miles on United over the next year, while the company can still get the credit it needs to buy gas.

Editor’s Note:

The Casey Report

much

Not yet a subscriber?

The Casey Report

clicking here now

Watch What You Wish For

This week, the clearly adept politician Sen. Arlen Specter jumped off the Republican’s burning ship in the hopes of retaining his privileges in the Senate dining room. That, plus the certain swearing-in of jokester Al Franken as the senator of Minnesota, will give the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, which is to say complete control over the government.

Some commentators have called Mr. Specter's ship jumping the greatest gift that President Obama could have received on his 100-day anniversary. However, my conclusion from previous instances when one party so dominates is that the Democrats have more to fear than to gain from an unstoppable majority. And that would be even more so the case today.

Simply, with total control also comes total blame for pretty much everything that goes wrong going forward. Sure, they'll be able to continue (correctly) blaming the Bush administration and, by extension, the Republicans for much of the mess we are now in -- but that artifice will only work for so long, as the vigorous “solutions" implemented by the Democrats begin to blow up in their face. Now, please don't misunderstand -- I am not saying that were the Republicans in control, they would do a better job. Rather, the best one can hope for in democracy is a rock-solid deadlock, one such as the country enjoyed during President Clinton's waning years -- when the Republicans had the president and Congress so tied up in the Affair Lewinsky that the government all but ground to a halt. In hindsight, those were dramatically pretty years from an economic perspective.

In any event, given that the Democrats are energetically readying themselves to get hoist with their own petards, I suspect that their majority won't last long -- and maybe only until the congressional elections next year.

But between now and then, almost every liberal's dream may be realized -- if only temporarily. As for the damage to the country if preposterous propositions such as taxing American industries hundreds of billions of dollars for their carbon output gets passed, that will be felt considerably longer.

We’re All About to Die!!!!

In last week's edition, I wrote an article titled "Panic Number 10," in which I discussed how, over the course of my life, I’ve witnessed approximately ten distinct media-encouraged panics. While it was the imminent destruction of the world due to global warming that served as the context for my musings, hardly was the virtual ink dry when Panic Number 11 flared up in the form of swine flu.

While I'll have more to say on the topic in a moment, taking one of the aforementioned shortcuts, I'll share some of the raw research that the ridiculously hard-working Shannara Johnson threw together at my request.

Here’s Shannara …

http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/?s_cid=swineFlu_outbreak_001

Google Map of the U.S. and Mexico

just in Texas

this Ron Paul video

here’s a video

David again. While the media seem to have gotten way ahead of themselves in projecting the end of the world due to this particular virus, there is certainly a possibility that it could morph into something more dangerous -- and maybe even catastrophic. While I’m sure no expert on the subject, my constant reading has given me a couple of thoughts that may be of some use.

First, with North America heading into summer and meteorological conditions that are not favorable to the flu, the places to watch are those now entering winter -- for example, New Zealand, where there have already been cases reported. If things start to go seriously off the tracks there, and by that I mean a virulent spreading of the disease coupled with a significant mortality rate, then you can start getting concerned.

Second, if this were truly a pandemic, you would start to see pyramiding death totals, which hasn’t been the case in Mexico. In fact, as Shannara points out, while the media have rushed out a number of 150 dead, the World Health Organization has so far only confirmed about 20 deaths. But regardless of whose number is more accurate, the important thing is that the number is not ratcheting up quickly. If you start to see a progression such as 150 dead this week, 500 dead the next, 1,000 dead the week after that -- that's when you want to start pulling the kids from school and enjoying the pleasures of telecommuting to work. And maybe picking up a few fashionable flu respirators.

Until then, be skeptical and don't buy into this latest attempt by the media to get you all ramped up, or by the government to take upon itself yet more powers, all in the name of providing "security" to the otherwise helpless population.

Speaking of the notion of security, this week Shannara also sent across the following quote from Helen Keller that clearly demonstrates that while that lady may have been deaf and mute, timid and fearful she was not…

Helen Keller, The Open Door

Since we're on the topic, I couldn't let this week go by without mentioning a couple of almost humorous blunders by our trusted officials this week.

The first was the stunningly stupid flyover of New York City by Air Force One, accompanied tightly by a number of fighter jets, for the purpose of taking a photograph that clearly could have been created using Photoshop. Someone who knew how to properly turn a phrase commented that the military director of the White House, who is apparently behind the stunt, was guilty of "felony stupidity." In the event you haven’t yet seen the YouTube footage showing panicked residents of New York reacting in terror to the flyover, here it is.

The second item was Vice President Biden’s helpful suggestion that people avoid flying commercial airlines, due to the swine flu. That ranks right up there with Obama's finger waving at companies that hold meetings in Las Vegas.

A Word from Mother England

Subscriber and UK correspondent Richard Guthrie sent along some quick notes on the state of things in the UK that I thought you’d find informative. Here’s his update…

exploded

Technology YOU Love!

I am now running far behind, but did want to share with all of you some of the thoughts you sent in, in response to my article last week on technologies I love.

"Text Aloud"

http://nextup.com

AT&T Natural Voices

Text Aloud

.doc

.pdf

Internet Explorer

Fire Fox

The

Casey Report

Big Gold

The Room

***

http://www.xmarks.com/

***

(David here – for the record, I have the standard version of Dragon Speaking v. 10, and I find it to be near flawless. That said, if I were to buy it again, I would go with one of the versions that allow you to dictate into a handheld unit, then upload it into your computer later on.)

PDF reDirect Pro

***

www.k7.net

***

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/06/05/1545236-review-finally-a-useful-digital-pen

David again. Before finishing up this week, and on this topic, I would like to mention something that a very smart friend of mine brought to my attention. Namely that there is a true revolution going on in terms of applications being developed for iPhones, Blackberry Storms, and similar advanced telephones/PDAs.

For instance, he pointed out that for something like $19.95, a golfer can now buy a GPS application that shows you where you are in any golf course, distance to the hole and other statistics for which you would previously have to have paid $200 plus to get in a standalone, handheld unit. Likewise, on my telephone, I now have a standard GPS unit. It costs almost nothing. As I write, I am listening to Pandora – mentioned last week – streaming live out of my Blackberry Storm and amplified through a set of portable speakers.

This is a topic, as well as both an opportunity and a risk, that requires a great deal more thought. How, for example, are companies like Garmin going to survive? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the winners and losers as these applications gain traction. As always, drop me a note at David@CaseyResearch.com.

Miscellany

Follow the money. This week, the Milken Institute released its annual Capital Access Index, an annual ranking of entrepreneurial access to capital around the world. Guess which country was the most entrepreneur-friendly last year? If you guessed Canada, which is where the majority of the junior resource stocks followed in our International Speculator letter are located, you guessed right.

While the paper tiger companies are still having trouble getting financing, well-run companies with solid projects are finding the money they need, and on reasonable terms. Even though the junior resource companies may have to wait a bit longer to realize their full potential, it's hard to see how you could get hurt over the medium to longer term by investing some percentage of the speculative corner of your portfolio in companies with proven million-ounce-plus gold deposits, lots of cash, competent management, and which are selling for pennies on the dollar. For more, click here.
Need a job? One of our subscribers and regular correspondents dropped me a note wondering if I knew a senior level oil executive interested in a high six-figure job working for a major Russian oil gas company. If that sounds like something you're qualified for, drop me a note at David@CaseyResearch.com.
Heroin, not love. In discussing last week's musical selection, "Under the Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I thought aloud that the lyrics were about amorous activities under said bridge. It turns out, some of you corrected me, that what was really going on under the bridge was that the lead singer of the band was learning the dangerous joys of heroin addiction.

Love, heroin – pretty close if you ask me. As for this week, another old favorite, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, has risen to the surface, one that has a certain application to the viewpoint of many these days, mainly that society owes them something. Regardless, it certainly qualifies as a dramatic song – powerful even – and therefore makes the playlist.

And that, dear readers, is all I have time for this week -- in fact, it was more than I have time for, but as always, I enjoy writing to you and so I tend to go on.

A quick look at the screens shows me that stock markets are largely flat, gold has pushed back down towards $885. So, a relatively quiet day as we head into a weekend that I'm looking forward to more than usual.

Until next week, thanks for reading and thanks for being a subscriber to a Casey Research publication. (And an extra thanks to all of you who contributed to this week’s edition!).

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room – 04/17/2009

David Galland — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:22:00 GMT

Dear Reader,

Being new to a profession is always a challenge. The neophyte wants to impress his superiors, but lacking experience, is left to rely upon what natural skills he possesses. And, often, will try to make up for any shortcomings in specific skills by displaying a double dose of enthusiasm and energy.

Our new president, for example, has a great many skills related to successful politicking, but none at all specifically related to the task of being president of the world's most powerful country. This is not a job that one can prepare for.

And so We the People, his new bosses, are left to observe Obama leaning heavily on his considerable political skills – and his obvious energy – in an attempt to impress.

He is trying to do so through a constant stream of new pronouncements emanating from the White House, or wherever Mr. Obama happens to be standing at the moment. On one day he wishes to put an end to nuclear weapons, on the next to reach an accommodation with the Iranians. While he’s at it, he'll be (maybe) pulling the troops out of Iraq, but redeploying them into Afghanistan and maybe even Pakistan.

Hopping on Air Force One to bask in foreign adulation, he might close the afternoon by announcing he’s going to rescue the indebted mortgagees while dealing with bank insolvency. With hardly time for a deep breath, we see commitments to salvage the U.S. car industry -- but without overly inconveniencing its unionized workers -- followed by a promise to tackle the thorny question of immigration. Over afternoon tea or perhaps a Seder supper, he pronounces that help is on the way for Mexico in its “war” with its drug gangs, then over breakfast dedicates himself to assembling an “armada of allies” to wipe the earth clean of Somali pirates.

Worried that those initiatives may fail to impress, Obama’s administration then treats us to news that it will reform the tax code (if only to tighten the weave of the net) and close down the world's "tax havens." Further, before this December, if the Obamites have their way, carbon emissions in the United States will be smashed down to the levels of 50 years ago (which is to say that what is left of American manufacturing will soon become Indian or Chinese manufacturing). In support of that goal, a comprehensive cap-and-trade program will be initiated, invoking tens of billions of dollars in new taxes on American enterprises each year.

While I have the chronology wrong, the actual list of initiatives proposed so far by the energetic Obama is correct, though not complete. In fact, the list goes on and on… and expands even as I write: with the administration’s encouragement, the EPA is set to declare carbon dioxide -- you know, the stuff that makes plants grow -- a threat to public health.

In any event, the point I am trying to make, other than to offer President Obama a kindly word of advice that maybe he should take a deep breath and pause in his many exertions, is that rather than impressing, he is increasingly at risk of blowing all of his considerable store of political capital and going down in the history books as something of a failure.

There is a saying in marketing that I've always found true, and I think it is very appropriate in this instance. Namely, "The more you emphasize everything, the less you emphasize anything."

I, for one, am getting dizzy from watching Mr. Obama's antics and trying to understand exactly what he’s looking to accomplish, other than endeavoring to impart the impression that he’s accomplishing a lot. But there is a big difference between creating an impression and actually delivering the goods.

Sooner rather than later, I suspect, Congressional Democrats -- looking just over the horizon at the next election -- will realize that not only is the economy on tilt but so perhaps is their president, at which point he will be forced to begin a program of massive backpedaling with serious consequences to his credibility.

For those of you who are supporters of Mr. Obama and hoping for the best from his administration, now might be a good time to drop him an email suggesting he might wish to rein in his goals before spinning into oblivion. For those of you who don't particularly care for Mr. Obama, at the pace things are going, I think you’ll find your worst fears about the ambitious president will remain unrealized.

Alternatively, finding himself all of a sudden at risk of becoming marginalized and being fired at the end of his four-year probation period, Mr. Obama might take a serious gamble to regain his relevance – a war with Pakistan? While one can only hope not, stranger things have happened.

Why Do You Buy Gold?

As you can see from the chart below, since the latter part of February, the GLD gold ETF has been on a down trend, reflecting the underlying action in gold.

The retracement, while unwelcome, is understandable given the news about persistent deflation in widely followed indices such as the consumer price index. Also pushing things in the wrong direction, there are the U.S. dollar’s recent gains against the euro. And, as discussed here last week, we've also heard that the IMF is going to be dumping a fair bit of gold in its attempt to rebuild its war chest.

Not exactly cheery news for our favorite yellow metal. In fact, in any other than the Bizarro World in which we now live, the chart for GLD would be looking a lot worse than it is. As you can see more clearly in this next chart, the volume in GLD has fallen off quite a bit of late, which is a good proxy for broader interest in gold. Granted, we live in a particularly volatile and unpredictable age, which means anything can and likely will happen on any given day that can change virtually anything or even everything. But the odds are pretty good that absent one of those "shocker" incidents, gold is likely to remain range bound, perhaps even trend lower, until the inflation that has been baked into the cake by the government’s massive infusions of money makes itself known.

Which brings me to a question: Why do you buy gold?

Being clearly able to answer that question is the only way you can intelligently determine both the quantity of gold you ultimately buy and the timing of when you will buy (and eventually sell).

I mention this because on far too many occasions, I have had conversations with individuals, or received emails from subscribers, who view gold with an almost romantic affection. That's a mistake. As Doug Casey recently wrote, it's important not to fall in love with something that cannot love you back.

While gold can backstop your portfolio and place a solid foundation under your net worth, in the final analysis it is simply an asset, albeit one with unique properties that make it an especially attractive form of money.

It’s because of those unique properties that many of you own gold, as a form of insurance against inflation and other forms of monetary mayhem. In our view, that is the most important reason to own gold, especially these days. Viewed through that lens, the latest price setbacks for gold should be of almost no concern, unless you have not purchased your full allocation to the metal -- in which case, beginning to buy on the dips makes sense.

On the other hand, if you're a speculator in gold, your challenge becomes trying to discern gold’s current trading range so that you can buy when it's low and sell when it’s high. Reflecting the extreme volatility that grips almost all markets, gold's trading range these days is fairly wide, roughly between $800 and $1,000.

Frankly, absent a shocker event, I see no reason for gold to break out of that range decisively anytime real soon… at least not until we see the inflation that is the inevitable outcome of the Fed’s determined destruction of the dollar and U.S. government deficits of a magnitude that would bring tears to the eyes even of the late Lord Keynes.

Entourage

As you may have heard, our media star president is heading off to the Summit of the Americas next week to engage in another round of photo opportunities with other politicians.

Given the obvious importance of the event, it is no wonder that he is taking an entourage of over 1,000 important U.S. delegates, including wife Michelle's full-time makeup artist, a presidential first.

So what are the lofty goals of this important summit?

According to the AP…

Obama's priority list for the trip that begins Thursday is stacked with matters of concern across the Western Hemisphere – the crippling recession, the warming of the planet, the trafficking in drugs, the gloom of poverty. Crime, despair and political unrest south of the border can all undermine U.S. interests.
In order to meet and discuss these many challenges, the princely sum of $80 million will be spent by summit organizers, an amount that does not include the staggering sums involved with transporting the Obamas and their entourage to the Caribbean island where the summit will be held.

Not to worry, I am sure that all 1,000 of our delegates are necessary and worth the cost of sending them on their spring break and putting them up in the style they are quickly becoming accustomed to.

Interestingly, as is the case with these highly staged events, the outcome has already been decided and the post-summit agreement already drafted. Again, according to the AP...

The draft summit agreement, negotiated laboriously, speaks broadly about cooperation on climate change, education, safety and prosperity. But it makes no direct mention of the overarching crisis of the time, the global economic swoon. In fact, most of it was negotiated before the crisis hit with full force last fall.
If you excuse me for being a bit of a skeptic, a Grinch even, don't you think this all could have been handled with a couple of conference calls? Because as you and I both know, in the final analysis nothing will come out of this grand holiday other than a noticeable increase in local rum sales.

All of which moves me to ask, is anybody actually keeping a tab on the president's tab? Does no one now occupying the polished corridors of power in Washington understand that the economy is wrecked, and that every dollar counts?

Is anybody out there?

Ed. Note:

Entourage

Opportunity Knocks?

The chart shown here is of the CRB commodities index. A couple of things jump off the page, at least to me. The first is, that was one hell of a slide in commodities prices. The second is that it sure looks like it's trying to put in a bottom.

The contrarian in me tells me that this is a picture of a very interesting opportunity in the making. Again, no guarantees the commodities complex can't go lower, but the simple fact is that people need to eat, to keep the power on, and to actually produce the things necessary for daily life. Thus, looking for opportunities to get intelligently positioned in the commodities complex, with the expectation of a double or better over the next five years (without leverage… with leverage, the returns could be manifold that), seems to make a lot of sense.

Rest assured that in The Casey Report -- and for those of you with a higher net worth and a familiarity with futures and options, the Casey Trend Trader – we will be sharing a variety of strategies to get positioned in this trend.

The Down Low

Upon reading that Homeland Security has issued a report this week warning about the rising threat from "right wing extremist" groups brought to mind a topic I’ve been meaning to comment on for some time.

The topic is simply, armed revolution.

While I doubt their ability to get the specifics right, I suspect the general thesis of the Homeland Security report is probably correct. Namely, that some Americans may be willing to go to the mats should the U.S. government continue to infringe upon their rights, with stronger gun control measures being a likely tripwire.

Supporting that contention, below is an excerpt from an email that someone forwarded to me – not in support of the idea, but rather to show me that there are those willing to entertain the idea of a gun-battles-in-the-street sort of revolution.

(Note: The term "Three Percenters” refers to the 3% of colonialists who, the authors of this email allege, were the minority who actually took up arms against the British in the American Revolution, versus the 97% who were largely just bystanders. In the modern context, it is this 3% who are supposedly ready to grab arms and use them against the government.)

Below is the excerpt… which, as you will read, is inflammatory stuff.

Three Percenters today do not claim that we represent 3% of the American people, although we might. That theory has not yet been tested. We DO claim that we represent at least 3% of American gun owners, which is still a healthy number somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million people. History, for good or ill, is made by determined minorities. We are one such minority. So too are the current enemies of the Founders' Republic. What remains, then, is the test of will and skill to determine who shall shape the future of our nation.

The Three Percent today are gun owners who will not disarm, will not compromise and will no longer back up at the passage of the next gun control act. Three Percenters say quite explicitly that we will not obey any further circumscription of our traditional liberties and will defend ourselves if attacked. We intend to maintain our God-given natural rights to liberty and property, and that means most especially the right to keep and bear arms. Thus, we are committed to the restoration of the Founders' Republic, and are willing to fight, die and, if forced by any would-be oppressor, to kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution that we all took an oath to uphold against enemies foreign and domestic.

We are the people that the collectivists who now control the government should leave alone if they wish to continue unfettered oxygen consumption. We are the Three Percent. Attempt to further oppress us at your peril. To put it bluntly, leave us the hell alone. Or, if you feel froggy, go ahead AND WATCH WHAT HAPPENS.

(As an aside, I’m sure Homeland Security appreciates it when these self-described revolutionaries make their identities well known by sending around broadcast emails.)

Supporting the notion that people are loading up out of concern that the government has designs on their weapons is this citation from Bloomberg…

sales

I can attest to the fact that the local gun store is clearly thriving; it has recently undergone a top-to-bottom renovation in order to more comfortably accommodate its many patrons. The trend toward more gun sales is also evident in the share price of Smith & Wesson (SWHC) over the last six months…

So, it’s not out of the question that the stage may be set for what could turn into a series of confrontations between the government and its harshest critics.

Some random thoughts...

As is true of almost all successful species, it’s human nature to want to group together. This tendency toward the collective is perfectly understandable in that it allows for a more efficient sharing of resources. There are other benefits, including a sharing of the protective duties and chores that would otherwise take an inordinate amount of time and/or resources should each individual be forced to undertake them. While I personally shy away from most forms of collectivization, that so many gravitate toward that condition is easily understood.
Along with this natural desire to collectivize, it is equally natural for an individual or individuals to assume power of the collective, once formed. As often as not, the group encourages and even demands that a particular individual or individuals assume the reins of power. We can all recall the kids who, even in our kindergarten classes, would naturally assume a leadership role and be supported in that role by many.

Perhaps this is related to a subconscious quest for better genes, or simply because most people prefer it when others stronger than themselves take on the responsibility of decision making. Regardless, the tendency to gravitate to power is a clear and present human trait.
Which brings me back to the “Three Percenters.” Imagine, for a moment, the logical outcome if this group were to actually rise up and win the day? In my construct, all this would achieve is that the national collective would replace the current leadership with that of another sort. While I am not any more enamored of the current power elite than I was of the bumblers they replaced, I suspect that I might like living under the rule of the Three Percenters even less.
While I don't doubt that we'll see incidents of violent pushback against the current government, and maybe even something as dramatic and devastating as the Oklahoma bombing (notably carried out by a veteran of Gulf War I), the idea that a group of homegrown revolutionaries could actually outgun our modern army is ludicrous.

There is a significant difference between 1776 and the situation today. Not only does the U.S. government not have to deal with long supply routes, as was the case with the British, but today even the best-equipped gun shop has nothing in stock to remotely compare with the sophisticated armaments the U.S. government has at its disposal, thanks to decades of massive military budgets. When we can take out houses in Peshawar using drones operated by technicians comfortably seated in a Nevada command post, how much trouble, really, will it be to handle a small cadre of malcontents operating in Poughkeepsie?
The danger, therefore, doesn’t come from the outbreak of a guerrilla war here in the U.S. -- although dramatic incidents and perhaps even large-scale riots are almost a certainty over the next 10 years -- but rather from the government’s reaction to these events.

Already, local police are being equipped and trained to view even commonplace crime with a military sensibility. And we have seen a breathtaking degradation in individual liberties in response to the 9/11 attacks.

Of course, this degradation is not apparent to most, other than as modest inconvenience at airports. That’s because most of us will never experience the dire consequences of a negative assessment of our email records and other similar intrusions upon our privacy – picture a door being kicked in in the middle of the night followed by a quick trip to a dark cell. Even so, the fact that the government has been willing to cross previously unimaginable lines in its fight against real and imagined terrorists is a clear indicator that, should domestic disturbances begin to reach anything approaching a regular tempo, the response could be extreme.

So what is one to do? Given humankind's tendency toward collectivization, and for the collective to be controlled by a small power elite that will not generally give up the reins once taken, it seems logical to me that the only sane response that we as individuals who value our individual freedoms can have is to learn the fine art of keeping a low profile. Or, to use modern slang, to keep things on the “down low.”

Put another way, trying to swim against a powerful river, a river that stretches back to the very beginning of human time on this planet, will only wear you down and eventually pull you under.

In my opinion, people should spend a lot less time worrying about the collective and a bit more time thinking about the steps that they can take as an individual to enjoy an excellent life while simultaneously keeping out of harm's way.

To be sure, that might involve eventually coming to the conclusion -- as some Jews did in Germany pre-WWII -- that as warmly as one might feel about their hometown, to remain in place is to risk everything. By the time the sentimentalists were being packed up for camps, the realists had already set up shop in far less dangerous climes.

In the current instance, as much as we may complain about the growing power and meddlesomeness of the U.S. government, most people are able to go through their lives largely unaccosted – saved by the tax man. But that doesn't mean you should be blind to the hard historical evidence that any country, no matter how enlightened it might seem, can and will change... and in some cases, dangerously so.

It is for this reason that my globetrotting partner Doug Casey has long advocated having at least one foot in another country. And by "one foot," I mean some percentage of your assets, ideally some property, and at least a working knowledge of the place and some local connections.

Don't get me wrong, I think the United States of America is a great place, and the odds are good that as bad as things might get, it will remain in solid contention as one of the top five countries in the world in which to reside. But if things took a decided turn for the worse, long before I would even begin to get it into my head to grab up arms, I’d be headed for the nearest international airport.

Having traveled the world extensively, I can say with complete confidence that there are many, many other countries where one can live an exceptional and fulfilling life, even if – or maybe even especially if – you don’t have very much money.

I apologize if this comes across as rambling or disappoints those of you looking only for investment advice, but I think the point is important... the point being that we each have to deal with the realities of where we live, and getting overly heated up serves no real purpose. Sure, join up with your fellows in protesting higher taxes, write your congressman, and make your voice heard – but don't overlook the need to also organize your life in such a way that you generally fly below the radar of the powers-that-be, and so that you can move on to friendlier climes in the unlikely event that becomes a necessity.

Most of all, don't forget to smell the roses.

To quote Robert Friedland speaking at our recent Las Vegas summit, "The situation is hopeless, but it is not serious."

Tax This!

Given that this week encompassed the dastardly date of April 15, I thought at least a passing reference was in order.

To assist in making a reference, I turn to the folks at Reason magazine who have put together a worthwhile short video on the topic, which you can view by clicking here.

Elsewhere, I thought it was interesting to read this week that the governor of Texas publicly pondered the idea of Texans seceding from the union, should the federal government continue its insane tax-and-spend ways. Here's what he had to say on the subject...

"We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot," Perry said Wednesday.
And, of course, as I'm sure you have been reading about, there has been an outbreak of anti-tax "tea parties" around the country.

So there's hope. The situation is hopeless, but not serious.

That’s It for This Week!

Before signing off today, I would like to thank all of you who responded to my solicitation last week for feedback on whether the U.S. should sell "economic citizenships." The views I received were roughly split down the middle, with half in favor of a program that offered citizenship in exchange for a significant investment in U.S. real estate, and the other half dead set against anything that would allow more foreigners into the country. Next week, when I have a bit more time, I'll try to share some of the juicier excerpts from both sides of the argument.

As I sign off just after midday on Friday, April 17, I see that the Dow has stalled out and is flat on the day. Given that today's news includes that Citigroup's earnings were stronger than estimated, as well as the profits earned by GE -- I cannot help but take it as a very bad sign for the stock market that it has not managed to mount a further rally.

Meanwhile, gold has fallen again and is now trading at $868 per ounce. It could go lower, but per above, at this stage in the game, with the longer-term fundamentals for gold firmly in place, its short-term price action is of very little real concern.

Until next week, thank you very much for reading and for subscribing to one or more Casey Research services!

Sincerely,

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room – 04/10/2009

David Galland — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:18:00 GMT

Dear Reader,

A quick comment is in order on the recent stock rally. While I could provide that comment, few people do the "dose of reality" thing better than my globetrotting partner and friend of many years, Doug Casey.

Begging the forgiveness of our paying subscribers to The Casey Report, I would like to quote Doug from the current edition, just published...

David again. Given that Doug and, to a somewhat lesser degree, our own Chief Economist Bud Conrad, are deeply negative about the current economic set-up, I make it my personal mission to try and look at the brighter side of things -- though readers of this weekly missive might find that assertion laughable. It has been, I admit, a challenge to find the sunny spots in the economy over the last year or so, a challenge I have often failed at.

Even so, I had been expecting this latest rally for a couple of months, based in part on the large amount of cash sitting on the sidelines and looking to get "active." People don't enjoy being constantly bearish, and investment managers, whose livelihood – not to mention the payments on their Maseratis – depends on deploying the money entrusted to them, are always looking for excuses to be bullish.

If you look at the history of these sorts of crises – the domestic paradigm of which is the Great Depression of the 1930s – you will see that even in an event as dire as that, there were any number of fairly significant bear market rallies. In fact, it may surprise you to learn that of the 20 largest stock market rallies in the history of the DJIA, 17 occurred during the Great Depression.

While I agree to the level of my DNA with Doug's assessment of the dark outlook for the U.S. and global economy, I am of an equally firm opinion that the stock market will bottom well before the economy recovers anything close to the effervescent days of recent past.

The chart here helps make the point. Specifically, even though the Great Depression lasted well into the 1940s, the stock market bottom was put in all the way back in 1932. It is important, Doug and I agree, not to conflate the stock market with the economy. While they are certainly linked, they are not the same.

That is not to say that you could have invested in the stock market at any point following 1932 and made a profit. Far from it.

But rather, as the chart confirms, there was a significant opportunity for those who got positioned following the DJIA’s wipeout and capitulation in 1932, by which point it had fallen a full 90% from its pre-crash peak.

With the market now off "only" about 50% from its pre-crisis highs, we believe that there is still a steep cliff waiting for unwary equity investors on the other side of the current stretch of Happy Highway.

Even so, the rally now underway could last for a while, maybe even a month or so – and therefore offer traders a quick speculative opportunity.

iShares Dow Jones US Financial Sector (IYF)

But the real opportunities will come on the other side of this rally, when investors learn the full wrath of a very angry Mr. Market... and again following that dose of hard reality, when the investment masses are huddled in a fetal ball, sucking their thumbs and whimpering pathetically.

In the first part of that two-part profit equation, we’ll be shorting the zombie institutions who are only briefly being reanimated by the current bear market trap… and in the second part, we’ll be buying deeply undervalued stocks with both hands.

As an investor, you can choose to speculate on the rally lasting a bit longer, but do so only with the understanding that things could turn on a dime – and when that happens, your dime can quickly turn into a couple of pennies. Alternatively, one can make a good case for simply remaining patient, with heavy allocations to both cash and gold. In either case, as we explained in the current Casey Report, now's a good time to begin getting positioned for the inevitable turnaround in interest rates.

[It would be remiss of me not to mention that The Casey Report offers a generous no-risk trial period, for those of you who are interested in staying closely in touch with the evolving economic and investment situation, and the various ways to profit. Click here to learn more.]

Speaking of Zombies

(For the more musically adventurous, while you read this next bit, you might want to listen to a song in a genre I normally don't gravitate to – and I almost guarantee you that most of you will hate -- the "Goth” classic Bela Lugosi's Dead by Bauhaus. But really, unless you're a bit of a freak, you probably want to give this one a pass.)

Casey Research CEO Olivier Garret and I traveled to the Washington DC area earlier this week for several meetings, including a cup of coffee with Washington correspondent Donald Grove.

The thing that struck me most on this visit to our nation's capital was the large number of homeless people wandering its streets. There was not a single city block, it seemed to me, where one could walk without having to weave in and out of the slowly moving, numb-countenanced, living testaments to failed lives.

Please do not think I’m insensitive, I’m not (or at least I like to think I’m not… a friend once told me I was the most insensitive sensitive person he knew). Rather, I provide this observation to make the point that even at the very epicenter of our coddling government, some significant percentage of the citizenry appears to have veered onto a very bumpy stretch of life’s road, leaving them with addled brains, the clothes on their backs, and not much more.

Also commonly seen on the streets of Washington D.C. are the well-coiffed, Armani-suited creatures of government that are, in my opinion, zombies of another and more dangerous sort. Rather than simply trying to shuffle in your way long enough to solicit a voluntary donation, this elevated breed of zombie gravitates to the power that resides in Washington DC, with the clear intent to use it to forcibly shake you down and then, if in the mood, proceed to suck the blood out of your very existence.

While the first form of zombie should, and does, evoke a certain amount of sympathy, the latter deserves nothing but scorn.

Shifting gears, but still in Washington, as is often the case, because of my prior experience in the trade, I took the opportunity to chat with the taxi driver who delivered us from the train station to our first meeting.

He was a very engaging, middle-aged man from the nation of Eritrea who had been residing in these United States for about 16 years. After discussing the geography, politics, and the language of his country of birth -- a discussion that included a demonstration of his native language, a fascinating collection of sounds and words that would not have been out of place in the Star Wars bar scene – the conversation turned to life in the big city.

"So," I inquired, "how's business?"

"Pretty good," he replied. Adding, rather perceptively, I thought, "I figure this place will probably do all right. It should be one of the last places to experience a bad economy."

"Good point," I concurred. "After all, it seems like the business of government is a growth business these days."

"Yes," he added, "the business seems very good."

"What about crime?" I asked, my countryside sensibilities always attuned to the dangers of big-city life.

"It's better than it was ten years ago, but it seems like it's getting worse lately."

"How many times have you been robbed?" I asked, never thinking to ask if he had been robbed -- if you’ve driven a taxi in Washington DC for any time at all, that you’ve been robbed is a given.

"Yes, recently," the cabbie volunteered, "but they didn't take my money."

“Why not?"

“The two guys told me that I was such a nice person, they decided not to rob me. They also told me to tell my fellow cabdrivers that they should not assume that all young black men are robbers, and should pick them up. They were quite angry, you see, because they had to wait for a long time before any cab would pick them up, which was me."

"But, in fact, they were robbers, right?" I asked.

"Yes," he said with a wry smile.

(Not only am I not insensitive, I’m also not prejudiced… and I apologize if that story might be misconstrued as such… I just thought the robbers’ admonition to their intended victim to be something approaching a classic in the annals of irony.

In fact, for the record, the cab driver from Eritrea was well dressed, fit, thrilled to be in America, and happy in his work… all of which was in stark contrast to the lecherous Las Vegas cab driver I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, who was fat, sloppy, and an all-around malcontent. Given the choice of neighbors, the good-natured and hard-working Eritrean or the "all-American" cab driver from Las Vegas, the Eritrean immigrant would get my vote, hands down.)

Since I seem to have fallen into a slipstream here, I’ll go with it a bit further.

Have you seen the idea bandied about that the U.S. government could provide substantial support to the free fall in housing prices simply by offering immigrants the ability to gain citizenship, perhaps after some modest waiting period, by purchasing a house with a value in excess of some reasonable number – say $300,000?

This is not a new concept but was used very successfully by the Canadian government, on the verge of the Chinese takeover of the former British colony of Hong Kong, to encourage immigration from the well-heeled community of Hong Kong Chinese. Likewise, countries like Switzerland have for years offered economic citizenships, albeit with a higher price tag.

I gather from John Mauldin, who spoke at our Las Vegas seminar, and who had run this idea by his subscriber list, that it had generated a lot of negative feedback. I have a hard time seeing what the problem is, given the destruction of the net worth of so many American homeowners… and given this nation’s long and altogether positive experience with immigration.

What am I missing? Drop me a line at David@CaseyResearch.com.

The Cloudy Crystal Ball

For no particular reason other than curiosity, I spent some time this week looking at a couple of charts that conventional knowledge says should provide something of a look into the future.

The first chart, shown below, tests the idea that the stock market is a sensitive precursor indicator for the economy in general.

But if you look at the chart, you’ll see that the DJIA peaked about two years after the peak in the housing market, the key economic driver of the recent boom times.

Is there something to be learned from the chart? Besides the fact that the old adage about the stock market as a leading indicator doesn’t hold much water, it suggests that you should be paying far closer attention to what's going on in the real economy, rather than the stock market.

While the headlines of the financial press of late have carried story after story discussing whether the recent stock market rally is signaling the bottom in the economic downtrend, if you focus only on the tangible data emanating from the real economy – data that confirm continuing negative trends in unemployment, house prices, and defaults in virtually all credit instruments – you're likely to get a much better fix on where we are in the economic cycle.

The second chart has to do with the old saw that “Dr. Copper” is particularly adroit at predicting turns in the economy. While you might look at the chart below and see something I don’t, what I see is a very poor correlation between copper and the beginning – or end – of recessions.

In hindsight, the idea that a single indicator, however logical it might be, can tell you anything important about the future seems silly. If for no other reason than if it could, everybody would pay close attention to it and act accordingly, and so it would quickly lose its potency.

Feed the Pigs, Own the Pigs

Speaking of old saws, I’m sure you've heard the oft-repeated story about how a smart guy once captured a heard of especially wild pigs, a story that is usually set in some remote corner of the state of Georgia.

For the few of you who haven't heard the story, all the smart fellow does is to begin putting feed on the ground in a certain spot where the pigs are known to pass… and to repeat this activity daily for several weeks. At that point, with the wild pigs accustomed to the apparent manna from nowhere, the man builds a pen surrounding the feeding spot and waits until the next time the pigs are snout-deep in their victuals – at which point he simply closes the door of the pen.

That story came to mind on reading this week that the new HUD secretary, Shaun Donovan, has gone on record as saying that banks that receive TARP funds will soon be required to modify the terms of their mortgage loans to ease the burden on those struggling to pay.

Need I say more?

Probably not, but I will add a footnote in the way of the photo below, which I swiped from my favorite blog, www.planetmoron.com. The photo is of the prototype for a new vehicle to be produced by a partnership between GM and Segway… in other words, this rolling coffin will be funded in no small part with the taxpayer funds you were so kind to provide.

No, seriously, I’m not joking… they actually think they are going to sell these things, simply because they can label them green. Really, who are these people? Where do they come from? How did they make it through the gene pool intact?

Then again, anyone insane enough to strap themselves into one of these devices and pull into an active roadway likely will be removed from the gene pool in a hurry.

A Shift in Tide for the Trade Deficit

Our own Bud Conrad threw together the following chart showing the recent deep reversal in the trade deficit.

Some people might view this chart with optimism – because we all know trade deficits are bad, especially those of historic portions. And so, a reversal in the trade deficit can only be good, right?

Maybe not.

Seeing this sharp reversal, a couple of thoughts come to mind.

For instance, the foreigners on the receiving end of the deficit have been redeploying the massive quantities of dollars they received by selling us flat-screen televisions, etc., to buy up equally massive amounts of U.S. government debt. In fact, they have been the largest buyers of U.S. Treasuries, by a wide majority, in recent years. Thus, a reversal of the trade deficit means that these same foreigners will now have far less cash with which to purchase U.S. Treasuries… at the very same time that the U.S. government has obscene amounts of Treasury bills to sell.

Our own Doug Casey has often said that while one should be concerned about the trade deficit, it is when the trade deficit goes into reverse that you should get most concerned. Doug’s point is simply that the reversing trade deficit is likely an advance indicator that the flow of dollars is beginning to reverse and head back toward our shores. Put another way, over the last decade Americans have essentially exported their inflation, but the reversal in the flow strongly suggests that we are now heading toward the opposite scenario.

The More Things Change...

Tim Diering from the office sent over a cartoon, cut from the pages of the Chicago Tribune circa 1934.

While the cartoonist clearly demonstrates a flair for the dramatic in his etchings, I found the general talking points eerily similar to those you might come across these days in the public discourse about the Obama administration's liberal application of stimulus, combined with equally generous implementations of new and larger government programs.

You can view a full-sized version of it here.

Miscellany

What’s a Trillion, Part II. A week or so ago in this column/blog thingy, I included a link to a very competently done graphic demonstrating just how much money $1 trillion really is. I thought that would be the last word on the topic, but then John from the office sent over a link to a video that does an even better job of communicating just how much $1 trillion is. Give it a watch by clicking the link here …

… and then use the tool on this page to forward this missive to a friend or relative in the hopes of illuminating more and more people as to both the magnitude and the insanity of the government's plans to spend trillions -- and as much as $12 trillion has been committed so far -- in trying to return to the halcyon days of the bubble years now gone by.

What’s a Ton(ne)? As we have also touched upon lately, often times you will find that the media uses “tons” or “tonnes” when discussing the sale bulk quantities of gold. Yet, because gold is most commonly priced and sold in troy ounces, using any other measure serves mainly to obfuscate the situation and confuse the average reader.

In an attempt to resolve this question once and for all – and I am encouraged in this effort by both Doug Casey and reader Steve D. -- there are 32,150 troy ounces to the metric ton or tone, which is the measure usually used in discussing large gold sales, but shouldn’t be. [Note: Whenever here in the U.S., you read the word “ton” without a qualifier, it almost always means short ton. There are 2,000 lbs. to the short ton and 2,205 lbs. to the metric ton. To confuse you even more, likewise, a troy ounce differs from a standard, or avoirdupoiss, ounce – the former equals 31.1 grams, the latter only 28.4 grams.]

A “tonne” of gold seems a lot… a lot more than 32,150 ounces. So, maybe the use of tonnes is a deliberate attempt to spook the market? I’m not conspiracy-minded, but just maybe…

Panama Errata. In a recent article titled "Move Your Money Out of the Country, and Soon," the editors of Without Borders provided the names of several firms in Panama that might be able to assist readers with the international component of their portfolios. One of the firms involved, Verdmont Capital, S.A. contacted us to let us know in no uncertain terms that they will not accept American clients. Apparently, other companies named also no longer accept U.S. clients.

We are sorry if any of you wasted time by reaching out to those firms. At least you can take consolation in the knowledge that Uncle Sam is keeping a close eye on your money.

And that, dear readers, is it for this week’s edition. With the markets closed for the Easter holidays, I won’t be offering a final comment on the market action, as I so often do.

I will, however, wish you all a very happy holiday. May all the golden eggs be yours!

Until next week, thank you for reading and for being a subscriber to a Casey Research publication.

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room – 04/03/2009

David Galland — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Dear Readers,

In the March 6, 2009 edition of this missive/blog/column/whatever you want to call it, I listed three "Desperate Measures" the U.S. government might turn to next in its futile attempt to rearrange the ruined economy into something more resembling a perfect world.

Suspend "mark to market" rules. At the time of my initial write-up (which you can read here), highly placed sources within the financial services industry that I spoke to were of the opinion that no significant changes would be made, for the simple reason that to do otherwise would risk destroying what little credibility was left for the financial sector.

As you now know, the government has strong-armed the FASB into modifying the rules, essentially allowing companies to "mark to model." Which simply means that the same financial wizards who helped create the models so pivotal to causing the mess in the first place are now free to dust those models off, give them a little tweak, and use them to fabricate more attractive values for the toxic waste than the market was willing to assign. Some might term these rule changes outrageous, fraud even... I call it business as usual.
Bad bank. The government has moved forward with this initiative as well, essentially rigging up a system that literally guarantees that a very small handful of firms -- likely just four or five -- will receive the sweetheart deal of the century, at the same time that the U.S. taxpayer gets the short end of the stick… right up the side of the head.
Fed buys long-term Treasuries. This, too, has now come to pass and is likely to accelerate. While there are many ways that one could describe this latest initiative, I find it best to keep these things simple... it's called inflation.

Maybe next week, I'll try to come up with some new candidates for desperate measures, but for now I would like to turn my attention to the much-anticipated and widely watched G20 meeting that has just wrapped up in London.

I imagine, because it is such a headliner event, many of you expect me to wax with some vitriol about it, but I fear I must let you down.

Sure, it bothers me that our president traveled to the event with an entourage of 500, including secret service agents, paper carriers, and other lucky sycophants -- all of whom were put up in grand style at taxpayer expense. (By way of comparison, my Portugal-based correspondent General Watson reminded me that when Maggie Thatcher was prime minister, for state visits, she used to travel commercial with a small group of aides. Often times, the other passengers were unaware she was even on the plane. )

This sort of excess is somewhat ironic and maybe even a little hypocritical, given Mr. Obama's derogatory comments about companies flying executives to corporate meetings in places such as Las Vegas, a topic I briefly touched upon last week.

I cannot begin to imagine what sort of costs are involved in transporting all those people -- along with three presidential helicopters and any number of stretch armored limousines -- to Europe, then keeping them in clover for a week... but I suspect it would be more than enough to keep the occupants of a moderately sized city in some third-world country in food for a decade or so.

G20 Meeting, Who Cares?

While I often don't succeed, I try to focus these weekly comments on matters that are actually of some importance -- on a broader scale, and to me personally. With that filter in place, the G20 meeting barely registers a blip.

Sure, there were a lot of fine-sounding speeches by politicians, but since when are those worth the paper they are written on? And yes, they managed to agree in principle to give over $1 trillion to the IMF – a topic I’ll have more to say about in a minute. In addition, they promised to collectively put the shoulder to the wheel in an effort to create a massive, new, global regulatory regime.

Run for cover? Hardly.

On the radio yesterday, I heard an African intellectual bemoaning the fact that the G20, by its numerically limited scope, excluded the representatives -- and therefore bypassed the inputs and opinions -- of over 180 other, lesser nations whose names did not make it onto the invite list.

Now, let me ask you, when it comes to implementing the high-sounding pronouncements that emanated from the G20 meeting, what are the odds that this collection of talk-a-crats will actually be able to come together to the extent required to create a functioning bureaucracy that delivers on its promises at any time in, say, the next 1,000 years?

Which makes the laments of the above-mentioned African intellectual all that more laughable. Can you imagine political junket-goers from 200 countries getting together and accomplishing anything other than drinking the hotel bar dry?

For the source of my skepticism, look no further than the United Nations.

(One thing I do find mildly amusing at gatherings such as the G20 is a circus of professional protesters who flail their thin arms at the rather better-equipped, truncheon-wielding security forces. The source of my humor is that the vast majority of these individuals are there to encourage the representatives of the world's governments -- the very same governments whose names should appropriately be entered into the blank following the question "Who is most responsible for the mess the world is in?" -- to further expand and extend their powers. Memo to protesters: the solution to bad government is not more government.)

The IMF

It seems somewhat ironic that the IMF, which was founded in 1944 as part of the Bretton Woods arrangement, should now be viewed as a possible source of the world's salvation.

In the way of history, its original purpose was to "promote international monetary cooperation," specifically by attempting to maintain fixed exchange rates for the world's many currencies. The idea was that the IMF would step in whenever a country suffered from a temporary deficit in its balance of payments. To help the country avoid having to debase its currency to meet its external obligations, the IMF will provide a short-term loan. These loans came with "strings" attached, in the form of various demands for monetary reform following the Keynesian principles favored by the functionaries of the organization.

According to a briefing paper prepared by the CATO organization for Congress (which they'll never read anyway)...

Read the complete paper here

In addition to spawning a coterie of kleptocrats around the world, the IMF has also failed miserably in its role of managing the global monetary system, witnessed by the persistent inflation the world has suffered since its founding.

(As for the fixed rate system it was supposed to be managing, that came to a sudden halt when the U.S. government closed the window on gold convertibility, a central tenet of the same Bretton Woods agreement that birthed the IMF.)
So what function does the IMF currently serve? Shedding light on that topic is Ken Ewert, writing in The Freemen...

Why then, the widespread support for the IMF? The reason is more straightforward than many of us would like to believe. When governments speak of the need for "increased economic coordination," what they mean is that governments around the world want to better synchronize their inflationary monetary policies. Inflation is politically expedient for every government in our age. It temporarily stimulates economic activity and in so doing buys considerable political favor. Only later when the unpleasant effects appear -- rising prices, economic dis-coordination, consumed capital, and unemployment -- does the inflation become a political liability. The illusive goal pursued by governments around the world is to reap the political benefits of inflation without paying its subsequent costs.
Even so, perhaps out of sheer frustration or even spite, the Chinese, Russians, and any number of other nations are now openly discussing the idea that the IMF should be given both the resources and the responsibilities to create a new international monetary regime that would serve to demote the U.S. dollar to just another currency, albeit a still very important one.

Ed. Note

The G20 moves the world a step closer to a global currency

Read it here.

Many observers assume the Chinese are bluffing when they raise the topic of pushing the U.S. dollar aside as the world's reserve currency... or that these comments were otherwise cooked up in a Beijing political meeting to give the Obama administration pause in its headlong rush to debase of the U.S. dollar.

Those assumptions could prove wrong -- the Chinese may be sincere in their calls for a new monetary regime. I say that after reading a paper written by Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, titled "Reform International Monetary System. ”

I highly recommend that you at least give the article a quick scan, because it shows that Zhou has a clear understanding of the various monetary systems and a clear preference for currency that is "anchored to a stable benchmark and issued according to a clear set of rules." He goes on to take a direct shot at the world’s fiat monetary system, saying, correctly, "The acceptance of credit-based national currencies as a major international reserve currencies, as is the case in the current system, is a rare special case in history."

Read his essay by clicking the link here.

As per above, I am completely confident that despite China's wishes, the world's leading governments won't be able to get out of their own way long enough to produce a new monetary system -- let alone one that is based on something other than political hot air. That leaves the door open for a single country to decide to break the mould by backing its currency with gold or some other basket of tangibles. That, of course, we shall watch for with some anticipation.

Before leaving this subject, I thought I'd share the contents of a message that our own Bud Conrad sent across this morning on the topic of China and the beefed-up IMF Special Drawing Rights...

The IMF's Gold

Those among you who find gold to be an attractive asset, which I suspect is most, are well aware that this week the IMF announced that it was likely to sell off 400 or so tons of gold in order to continue supporting the borrowing habits of its regular clientele.

While these special sales have been threatened in the past, this time around it looks like it might actually happen. While the idea of the sale might spook the gold markets for a bit, the actual event is likely to have little if any lasting effect… other than continuing to hollow out the IMF.

That's because the odds are very high that the gold will never actually make it onto the market, but instead will trade hands in an off-market transaction between the IMF and the Chinese or some other nation looking for the earliest opportunity to trade its much abused paper dollars for something of tangible value.

At this writing, of China's $2 trillion in reserves, only about 1% is held in gold. There has been credible talk of them boosting that percentage to as much as 10%.

At $900 per ounce, the math looks something like this…

At 32,000 ounces per ton, 400 tons equals 12,800,000 ounces. Multiplied by $900, we arrive at a total value of the intended IMF sale of $11.5 billion.

Ready to be deployed against that amount is as much as another 9% of China's $2 trillion reserves -- which adds up to $180 billion. And that's just China. Of course, there are any number of other countries sitting on piles of U.S. dollars and viewing the outlook for those dollars in fairly negative terms.

So, sure, the notion of a big IMF gold sale might spook the gold market a bit… but in the final analysis, it will amount to less than a hill of beans.

The Closing Door

Speaking selfishly, a human trait I won't apologize for, the headlong rush of global governments to debase their currencies might be viewed as something of a positive. That's because, being aware of it, we can take steps to arrange our investments in such a way that we should be able to profit from it.

Unfortunately, the currency debasement is only one of many actions we can anticipate that governments will take going forward. Because as they set about destroying their currencies, they’ll simultaneously be looking to raise revenue elsewhere -- specifically by squeezing the productive segments of society out of whatever money they can. But of course, until they actually put up The Wall, most people of means, in most countries, are still free to pick up their bags and move to climes where their capital is better treated.

Understanding that, one of the major initiatives that came out of the G20 soirée just ended was a rededication by the world's bureaucrats to tighten the vise on any country deemed to be overly capital-friendly. Doug Casey, who has long anticipated these developments, has warned that time is running short for U.S. citizens in particular to diversify globally.

Specifically, the gang of 20 announced they were going to use a list just published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to aggressively go after "tax havens." Regrettably, that list includes names such as Costa Rica and Uruguay, places that we know many of our subscribers have an interest in.

The implications of these moves on personal freedom are not to be sniffed at. While the G20 countries may lack the organizational skills to create a functional new monetary system or widespread regulatory regime, it is a fairly easy matter to apply financial pressures on “errant” countries. They have a lot of experience in that regard. And so, to quote the G20 communiqué on the subject, "We stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances and financial systems. The era of banking secrecy is over."

Few nations can stand up to the pressure of global sanctions, and so many if not most of those nations are likely to roll over. The only way to stave off this latest assault on the free flow of money would be if there were an eruption of a widespread public outcry, complete with rampaging mobs and a liberal throwing of rocks. But as you and I both know, that’s not going to happen.

Some of you may think that I am making much ado about nothing, but I believe it's important to view these sorts of developments not based upon the world as it now is… but rather as it could be.

That exercise is usually helped by taking a quick glimpse in the rearview mirror. And, looking back over history, you can find any number of examples where despots have taken control of governments and engaged in the wholesale confiscation of private property, either overtly or through determined inflation.

Up to this point in time, with some limitations, a person could always take some comfort in the idea that -- should push come to shove -- they will be able to escape to another jurisdiction with enough wealth to start over again.

In the brave new world we are headed for, that simply may not be possible.

As something of an experiment, I recently walked into a bank in Uruguay and asked for the papers required to open an account (one, I can assure you, that I would have fully disclosed), but was told in an apologetic tone by the bank manager that they would not accept accounts from Americans.

The door is closing, the noose tightening.

Letters from You

David again... as JK's email confirms, while there has been a huge pick-up in the interest in gold compared to even a couple of years ago, we are nowhere near the mania phase. In fact, if you step back and look at the situation dispassionately, you’ll note that gold has remained strong not because of but in spite of the current economic environment. An environment that includes, of late, a clear deflationary trend pretty much across the board in the commodity sector.

All of which is to say that once the environment for gold begins to change for the better and the consequences of today’s inflation begin to be widely felt, then and only then will gold really begin to move. In the interim, we can expect gold to fluctuate, which – for those of us who are comfortable getting positioned now, ahead of the crowd – simply means additional buying opportunities.

Miscellany

I'm sure the orphan will thank them later. It’s good to know that the poor orphans are safe from the horror of being adopted by zillionaire rock stars. Thanks in no small part to human rights groups, led by the Human Rights Consultative Committee, a coalition of 85 groups that apparently have nothing else to do with their time and their donors’ money, the Malawian government turned down Madonna’s request to adopt a second orphan from that country. Why should they oppose this adoption? Easy, it was out of heartfelt concern that the impoverished orphan might enjoy a better life than they. (Click here for more)
Kick them when they're down. This item also got my attention this week... “March 31 (Bloomberg) -- A Senate panel approved new restrictions on credit-card interest rates that are broader than those adopted by the Federal Reserve in December, brushing aside objections from Republicans and the banking industry.

“…The bill, known as the ‘credit card bill of rights,’ also would require the signature of a parent for a borrower under age 21, unless there’s proof of independent income or completion of a financial education course.”

So, let me get this straight. First the government bails out the banks, then promptly handcuffs them in their ability to price for the elevated risk of credit card loan losses, assuring that the money provided them will soon get flushed down a rat hole. Or, more likely, they’ll just stop offering credit. But wait -- isn’t that the very problem the government is trying to fix?

Now, I'm no fan of many of the practices of credit card companies, but I'm even less of a fan of the government establishing what is essentially price controls on the credit industry, with an added dose of nanny state thrown in via the requirement that adults – and anyone over the age of 18 is certainly an adult – must first take a course in finance prior to being allowed to get a credit card.

Do I think that adults will benefit from taking courses in finance? Of course. Do I think that they should be forced to it? Absolutely not. What's next, mandatory courses in parenting before being allowed to have a child?
Soup lines. Many commentators have observed that all that the current financial crisis is missing now is the sight of soup lines around the blocks of our cities. Actually, there's a reason these haven’t yet appeared. Namely that, thanks to the innovation of food stamps, the inconvenience of a soup line is no longer necessary. And at this point, according to a report just released by the Agriculture Department, fully 10% of Americans are now relying on food stamps for some portion of their daily bread. That is roughly 32,000,000 people – a very long line, indeed.

And on that unhappy note, I must sign off. As I do, a quick glance at the screens tells me that the S&P 500 is flat, taking a breather after the strong gains of last couple days. Given the onslaught of continued bad news, including the latest, poor unemployment numbers, the stock market should be in a freefall at this point.

And it probably would be if it hadn’t been buoyed up by the change in the "mark to market" rules that will soon usher in a new era of obfuscation and outright deceit. Those changes will also serve to extend the current downturn, for the simple reason that they postpone the value discovery process that ultimately must occur in order for some semblance of confidence to return to investment markets.

In the history books, I suspect that the best they'll be able to say about these rule changes will be "it seemed like a good idea at the time."

Meanwhile, I note that gold is below the $900 level for the first time in a while. I'd be very surprised to see a drop to below $850 anytime soon, and maybe never. If it were to happen, however, I’d be just one of many on the phone to the bullion dealer.

Until next week, thank you for reading and for subscribing to a Casey Research publication.

Sincerely,

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research

The Room – 03/27/2009

David Galland — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:31:00 GMT

Dear Reader,

The Las Vegas taxi driver was an old fifty-something, with a mullet hanging out of the back of his battered baseball cap and a potato sack gut hanging over his belt. Having driven a cab myself, long ago and far away, I habitually engage in cabbie chat, as I did now.

“So, how’s biz?”

“Horrible. Thanks to Obama, my family’s going to starve!”

“Really?” I asked incredulously, surprised by both the topic and the heat of his response. “How come?”

“Thanks to him trash talkin’ Vegas, we’ve had 110,000 room cancellations. Once the March Madness basketball tournament is over, this place is going to go back to being a ghost town, just like it was last week, and the week before that. My family’s going to starve thanks to Obama!”

“But they’re not actually going to starve, are they?”

“Yeah they are, I’m telling you. Starve, plain and simple. I ain’t making any money as it is, and once town empties out again, I’m going to go broke and my family is going to starve!”

“Wow,” I said, “so, what are you going to do? Move away?”

“Nah,” he said with no hesitation, explaining, “I like it here too much.”

With a quick and puzzled glance at the neon-illuminated cement wasteland through which the cab was speeding, I had a hard time imagining what attraction the place might have.

“What is it about this place you like so much?” So much, apparently, that he was willing to let his family starve in order to stay.

“Well,” he said in an almost professorial tone, “first, I get to see a lot of naked women. Second, I get a lot of ‘freebies’,” he said lustfully, sending a shudder down my spine. Call it rural naivety, but while I can understand that a working girl has to work, I had a hard time getting around the idea that she had to “work” with him. And for what, a free cab ride?

“Finally,” he concluded, “I like the weather. That’s about it.”

As I couldn’t think of anything else to say – at least not without risking offense -- to a man who was apparently comfortable with the idea of letting his family starve so he could continue to ogle, and apparently fondle, the women of this fair-weathered Sodom & Gomorrah, I turned my attention back to the surroundings.

And what surroundings they are. Lavish. Spectacular. Ridiculous. Some day in the future, perhaps 500 years from now, the gilded ruins of this testimony to humankind’s penchant for excess will be picked over and cataloged by archeologists for the benefit of primary school education.

Then again, with the way things are going, it could be just 50 years. I say that because City Centre, the world’s largest construction project, continues to be built on autopilot, even though it’s only about half finished. And this is just one of a number of other hotels and condo towers in a similar circumstance; started in a more optimistic time, but now merely adding to the unsold inventories that have made Las Vegas the epicenter of the real estate meltdown.

The place is in real trouble. Maybe the degenerated taxi driver will hang on, family be damned, but I suspect that an exodus from the place is inevitable. And can a cluster of mysterious large-construction project fires be far behind? (As an aside, if you own any insurance company stocks… run, don’t walk, to the selling window. It’s not just that certain doomed construction projects are likely to become fire hazards, but that insurance companies notoriously invest their capital in real estate and bonds, both of which are dead ducks, or soon will be.)

I am glad I saw Las Vegas when it was still at its prime. Soon, I suspect, it will be something akin to an urban war zone. As for Obama, the next time he gets an urge to take in a show, he might want to give the place a pass.

A Quick Musical Interlude, Then Something Different

I am going to try something different for the rest of this week’s missive, but before I get to that, I want to share a bit of music many of you may recall. But first, a little backgrounder.

A subscriber and new friend, the talented musical producer and film maker, Sadia Sadia, attended our Las Vegas summit and gave me as a gift a copy of Rick Wakeman’s autobiography, “Grumpy Old Rock Star.”

Those who recognize the name will remember Wakeman as the talented organist for the mega-band “Yes”… as well as the composer/performer for a huge body of solo work, including his much-acclaimed Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

While I wouldn’t count myself as a rock groupie and so Wakeman’s name evoked little in the way of recollection, I began to casually peruse his book, which is really just a collection of stories from his wild career, and got sucked right in. It was a big surprise… interesting, well written, and very, very funny.

As is the way with these things, reading the book reignited my interest in his music, and so I quickly stumbled back upon Roundabout by Yes, a forgotten favorite and one of the band’s best-known tunes. You can listen to it here.

(In the video, the guy dressed up in the glittery cape is Wakeman -- as gifted and as hard-living a rock star as has ever graced the stage -- so hard living, in fact, that he had two heart attacks at the age of 25.)

Now, as for the rest of this edition, I’m going to try to tell a story, but using snippets from other sources with, perhaps, a side comment thrown in now and again.

I am taking this approach because, frankly, since hopping on the plane to Las Vegas last week, the sheer volume of proposed new regulations, legislation, and plain idiocy have outstripped my processing abilities. It seems that every hour or two over the past week, there has been a breaking story that has me saying out loud, “What, are you kidding?” Or, “Wow… we’re really in trouble now!”

It came to me as I started writing to you this morning, that these many stories – rather than just random spatters of inanity – together form a distinct pattern. And the pattern seems to point to a new paradigm now materializing here in the U.S. and, by extension, the world.

As I think the following stories demonstrate, the new paradigm is not one any thinking person will embrace.

Eat the Rich

"Prudent investments in education, clean energy, health care and infrastructure were sacrificed for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected. In the face of these trade-offs, Washington has ignored the squeeze on middle-class families that is making it harder for them to get ahead. There's nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few." (A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise. The President's Budget and Fiscal Preview)

One finds many charts in a federal budget, most attributed to such deep mines of data as the Census Bureau or the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The one on page 11 is attributed to "Piketty and Saez."

. . . Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, French economists, are rock stars of the intellectual left. Their specialty is "earnings inequality" and "wealth concentration."

Messrs. Piketty and Saez have produced the most politically potent squiggle along an axis since Arthur Laffer drew his famous curve on a napkin in the mid-1970s. Laffer's was an economic argument for lowering tax rates for everyone. Piketty-Saez is a moral argument for raising taxes on the rich.

. . . Turn to page five of Mr. Obama's federal budget, and one may read these commentaries on the top 1% datum: "While middle-class families have been playing by the rules, living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not."

"Prudent investments in education, clean energy, health care and infrastructure were sacrificed for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected."

"There's nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few. . . It's a legacy of irresponsibility, and it is our duty to change it."

(The Obama Rosetta Stone, by Daniel Henninger, from the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal.Com)

Supporters of Capitalism Are Crazy, Says Harvard

everyone knows

that

(

From

Mises Daily

by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. )

Obama's Latest No-Banker-Left-Behind Scheme

(From CounterCurrents.Org)

What’s Not to Support?

David again. With a deal that has the taxpayer lending the boys club 85.7 cents on the dollar, and assuming all risk should the loans failed to be paid back, who wouldn’t provide “support” to Mr. Obama? But at what cost? Well, at better than one trillion more dollars, if things go off the rails – as they almost certainly will. How do you spell dollar? D-O-O-M-E-D.

By the by, click the following link for an exceptionally well done graphic representation of just how much money a trillion dollars is. Call the family around and give it a click (then pass it on)… http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

New York Tax Rise on Higher Earners Hinted as Budget Gap Rises

Not So Fast

Remember Wen?

March 23 (Washington Post)

***

March 25 (Bloomberg)

***

March 25 (Bloomberg)

Timothy Geithner

Zhou Xiaochuan

Barack Obama

David again. If these people are the smartest folks in the room, I wonder who’s cooling their heels in the hallway.

We’re from the Government and We’re Here to Help

9:02 p.m.

(Alec MacGillis on the Washington Blogging site commenting on Obama’s online Town Hall meeting)

***

Barack Obama

Paul Volcker

Peter Orszag

David here. But surely Volcker, that old cohort of President Reagan and champion of fiscal conservatism, won’t recommend punishing overseas investment or raising taxes by another $300 billion?

Sadly, you are laboring under a misconception (you’re not alone).

(Real Clear Markets, The Paul Volcker Myth, Feb 2008)

***

(“Paul Volcker Blasts Idea of Permanently Repealing Estate Tax,” Wall Street Journal, January 2003)

***

EPA Greenhouse Gas Declaration May Pressure Congress

General Motors Corp.

American Electric Power Co

David Bookbinder

…

David again. Don’t you love the “Congress can do it all in one shot” comment. And, yes they can. Even mentioning this sort of legislation in the face of all that now challenges the economy is near criminal. Especially in that it is almost certain to chase away the remaining companies that still endeavor to engage in manufacturing in the U.S..

Radio Worth Listening To. Do yourself a favor and find a comfortable seat and click here to listen to this audio interview of Lord Monckton from the G. Gordon Liddy Show. Monckton is one of the most well-informed – and entertaining – commentators on the topic of anthropogenic global warming on the planet.

“Hold the fort,” I can hear some of you saying. Liddy is a hard-core dogmatic. Hardly a balanced perspective. And you are right. While I have met Liddy on several occasions and enjoyed his company, a reading of his book Will indicates that he is far more than dogmatic. Insane is more like it.

But he does a competent job as an interviewer, and Monckton does a brilliant job as an interviewee. You have to sit through some oddish music in the beginning, but it’s worth taking a listen – no matter where you come down on the issue of man’s contribution to global warming.

Worth Watching… Closely

David, still here. In the following article from the Wall Street Journal, I have boldfaced the relevant words. Words have consequences, and the consequences of these words indicate we may be on the path to another ginned-up “conflict” of the “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” sort. It could also be an early step toward gun control, a topic that many Americans pay close attention to (and, based on history, for good reason).

Here’s the article – as you read it, see if your mind begins to evoke, as mine did, visions of the author running around waving his or her arms at the new and impending “crisis!”…

address the crisis

the full Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, also will offer the highest level of attention from Congress on the issue thus far

extra $100 million

targeting the guns and money from inside the U.S

The government is girding for a possible Katrina-style disaster along the 2,000-mile-long Mexican border

Obama Announces Plans for More Funding for Afghan War

(Washington Post)

***

The End of Summer(s)?

The Innovator's Dilemma

(Adrianna Huffington writing in The Huffington Post)

David here. Don’t you love the “our remarkable president” bit of sycophancy? It reminds me of a conversation I had at the Las Vegas summit with a friend of some duration – an interesting and intelligent individual. It started when she told me she had been a big supporter of Obama’s, but now she wasn’t so sure. The conversation went something like this…

“Why were you such a big supporter?” I asked.

“You know, because he was for change,” she replied.

“Sure, but what does that actually mean? What change?”

“Oh, you know, change from the way Bush was handling things,” she said with a certain uncertainty in her voice.

“So, your vote for Obama was really just a vote against Bush’s policies?” I asked, thinking that wasn’t altogether a bad reason.

“Well, no, I don’t think so,” she answered. “There is something else. You see my father was black and my mother was white, like Obama, so I felt a connection.”

“Fair enough,” I commented, “But was that it? I mean, wasn’t there some particular philosophical point that rallied you behind Obama?”

“Well, er, I’m not sure. But I sure am worried about him now.”

I have always found it remarkable how many otherwise reflective people have a hard time expressing why they support one candidate and dislike another… often viscerally. It is, I believe, strong testament to the ability of the campaign team, and the media, to paint a picture that resonates with the target audience… a picture that, while attractive, more often than not completely lacks a tangible foundation.

Americans may not be very good at manufacturing “stuff” these days, but we are whizzes at selling stuff through multi-channel media campaigns, including fine-talking politicians.

As for Summers, I have previously mentioned that Olivier Garret and I heard Summers at a White House conference last year. When it came time for him to speak, he gave a very lucid and even passionate argument for making Bush’s tax rollbacks permanent (for the not irrational reason that to let them expire will amount to one of the largest tax increases in history, an increase that the economy can ill afford at any time, but especially now).

While I don’t have a full grip on Summer’s broader philosophical and academic views of the economy, I took it as encouraging that he was brought onto Team Obama, though from what I have heard since, it seems like he has grooved right in with the statist views now dominating in Washington. But maybe not, and so, per Huffington, expect him to be an early casualty.

“Fusion Centers” Expand Criteria to Identify Militia Members

(FOX News, 3/23/09)

David again. Be afraid… be very, very afraid.

Glimmers of Hope

Gordon Gets a Thrashing

(“General Watson,” friend and occasional Casey Research European correspondent).

David again. Here’s the video… and it is definitely a “must see” -- if you haven’t yet done so, and most of you probably will have, given the amount it is being emailed around. Click here to watch.

Given the amount of play this video has received, there is hope that the media will look to boost their ratings by finding other champions of fiscal sanity and providing them a soap box. Could happen. Probably won’t.

AIG, I Quit!

David again. Another item that has made the rounds this week is the letter of resignation from an AIG employee.

There is so much to the “evil bonus takers” story that the media, falling back on Ye Olde Witche Hunt as a circulation booster, has ignored, either deliberately or just because they are stupid.

The now famous AIG resignation letter sheds some much needed light, so read it if you haven’t.

Meanwhile, the net result of all of this grandstanding and outright thuggery (for a definition of the word, look up Andrew Cuomo in the dictionary) is that the top executives from AIG and other leading financial institutions are handing in their bonuses with one hand while signing new employment agreements with firms overseas that, as part of those new agreements, are agreeing to replace those bonuses as recruitment incentives.

Even without the enticement, who would possibly want to work for AIG these days?

And so, the American taxpayer, who is already into AIG for $200 billion, has just assured that the asset “we” have paid so dearly for is little other than a gutted shell run by second-rate people. Oh, and those second-raters will be forced to deal with trillions in remaining derivative contracts. It will be akin to asking monkeys to repair jet engines.

Of course, as the next wave of planes begin to fall from the sky, the government will again rush in… with your money.

In any event, the “Glimmers of Hope” part is that the soon-to-be-former AIG employee’s letter may, just may, help cool down the mob psychology that bordered on violence last week.

A Politician I Can Support

(Press TV, March 25)

Some Concluding Thoughts

David again. Remarkably, I could go on, but I fear I have tried your patience enough for one day. So, what are we to make of all these stories?

First, the Obama administration is clearly statist. And they apparently have set their sights on taxing the productive elements of society to the fullest possible measure. As I have noted in the past, however, businesses don’t pay taxes – rather, they just pass the taxes on to their consumers (or they go out of business). And so every time you see a new business tax, cover your wallet.

While the higher net worth individuals will, for a time, accept higher and higher tax burdens, unlike the proverbial frog in a pot of water that is slowly approaching boil, those with the assets to move will – when the temperature reaches uncomfortable – hop out of the pot and head to friendlier grounds.

Recognizing this truth, the Obama administration is already working on exchange controls. That is clear in the Obama campaign promise to use tax policy to punish companies that ship jobs overseas, a promise he is now putting into effect ala Volcker. Once those particular bricks are laid, adding on a few more layers in order to also wall in the individual is a snap.

Now, some of you – many perhaps – arrive at this point in time as supporters of Obama, and so bristle at my remarks. Just as do those of you who favor the views of the strident opposition from the “right,” unhappy at my quick jibe at Bush’s policies.

It behooves me, as the managing director of a company that makes its payroll by offering solace and substance to its subscriber base, to caper and scrape to our clientele. You, to be specific.

To the extent that I offend, I apologize. But only because that is not my intent, no matter the tone of voice I might use in these weekly musings. Rather, I sit here, like you, an observer of the world around us, and I try to make sense of things. Last week, I expressed outrage at the scramble to foist our current problems onto the backs of our progeny. Today, the pattern that is visible in the collection of articles here tells me things are moving quickly beyond the matters related only to the economy. And so, looking over the landscape, I am touched by an entirely different emotion… one of deep concern for the very nature of our society.

What does all this have to do with investing, some of you will angrily write?

That, of everything, has a simple answer: with a clear, albeit disturbing pattern now emerging, so, too, are the personal opportunities to protect yourself and to profit. Gold, silver, foreign investments, contrarian stock market opportunities, strategically structured futures and options strategies to take advantage of volatility – all those and more.

These are, of course, topics we cover in great detail in The Casey Report and our other publications. And to a lesser degree, these weekly ramblings.

Regrettably, because of my duties related to getting the next edition of The Casey Report out by this time next week, I need to leave it at that, despite my promise last week to share some of the highlights from our just concluded Crisis & Opportunity Summit in Las Vegas.

I will endeavor to do so next week. I just felt the material I covered here was more important, and hope you concur.

Miscellany…

Tokyo Phyle. One of our subscribers in Tokyo is looking to start a phyle. If you’d like to meet up with other Casey subscribers in that city, drop Kristen a note at phyle@caseyresearch.com.

You Are the Best! A quick note to say, as I have before, how wonderful it was to spend time with so many of you at the Las Vegas summit. After the event ended, virtually every speaker I talked to told me that the audience was the finest, most intelligent, and impressive they had ever come across. I couldn’t agree more.

Finally, because it’s sort of funny, I wanted to close by updating the story of my quick short on the S&P, using Scottrade. As you may recall, I used words to the effect that one of the advantages of an online trading account is how quickly you can short the market (in that case, using RSW, a 2X inverse S&P ETF). At one point during the day that I was writing that issue of The Room, I was up about $800 and was going to close my position with the quick profit, but got distracted by my son asking me to check out something he was doing on a video game. By the time I remembered my short, the market was closed. Long story short (excuse the pun), that gap in attention has, so far, cost me about $15,000.

I am, however, unconcerned. There is so much bad egg now baked into the cake that the rally of late simply can’t be sustained, and today appears to be wobbling. And so I will hold my inverse ETF shares and even add to them on any further rallies. I’ll let you know how it worked out when I finally close out the position.

In the meantime, I hope you gain some benefit from my experience. Namely, because something is easy – i.e., popping into an online trading account to make a quick trade – it also makes it more likely you will take the action, based on little more than impulse and a quick flush of emotion.

On that note, I will share with you Terry Coxon’s dictate. Which goes something like this, “The next time you spot a really, really exciting investment opportunity, one that you absolutely have to act on immediately, the first thing you should do is to look around for a comfortable chair, sit down in it, and take a few deep and relaxing breaths.”

Always good advice.

And with that, I sign off, thanking you for reading and for being a subscriber to a Casey Research publication. We work only for you, and it is a pleasure to do so.

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room – 03/20/2009

David Galland — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 03:36:00 GMT

Dear Reader,

I worry I shall disappoint you today. After all, how can mere words, pecked out awkwardly on a shaky airplane table, adequately communicate all that has occurred this week?

As regular readers may guess, the plane I am on is taking me to Las Vegas for our sold-out Crisis & Opportunity Summit. While the event was deliberately scheduled to give the Obama administration an opportunity to reveal its cards after having been handed Bush's busted hand, the timing has turned out to be especially propitious, coming as it is at the end of a week that seems to be of some historic significance.

Of course, we wish you were joining us here in Las Vegas -- if you aren't -- but as your correspondent, I will certainly include notes from the event in next week's missive. But that is then, and this is now.

And now, everything is going to hell.

Bernanke's Gamble

Last week I posed the rhetorical question, "Wen is Enough?" in which I mused about the possibility of the Chinese cashing in their dollar chips and turning inward with their investing. Analysts of every stripe pooh-pooh that idea, intoning that the Chinese are now stuck with their dollar reserves, and that, further, the U.S. Treasury market is the only one with sufficient liquidity and safety to meet the needs of cash-rich foreigners.

This week we saw two developments related to this story.

The first was the Treasury International Capital (TIC) report. It is data released by the U.S. Treasury on international purchases and sales of U.S. assets. When foreigners are purring contently, the TIC report confirms that foreign investors are buying up U.S. assets, particularly long-dated Treasuries, as those represent a long-term bet on the U.S. economy and, by extension, the dollar.

Conversely, when foreigners are unsure about the outlook for the U.S., the TIC reflects this by confirming a sell-off of U.S. assets, coupled with a shift in what Treasury buying there is from the more optimistic long-term end of the time scale, to the skittish "ready-to-bolt" short-term end.

Which brings us to the just released January TIC, which was, to use the word selected by one reliable observer, a "disaster."

Our own Bud Conrad, writing with one wing (the other being smashed up in his rather spectacular bicycle accident last week), provides the big picture.

Here are some of the highlights:

1) January saw $148 billion net capital outflows from U.S. securities.

2) These big capital outflows are hard to square with the dollar's January rally.

3) Both private and official investors sold long-term U.S. assets. Aside from December, foreign investors haven't been buying long-term U.S. assets since the crisis began.

4) U.S. investors bought a bunch of foreign bonds. U.S. investors have been selling off foreign bonds and equities throughout the fall, so this marks an interest change. Is it evidence of nervousness about the dollar's future?

5) Banks stopped piling into U.S. assets.

6) Private investors reduced their Treasury bill holdings by $44 billion, and banks reduced their net dollar deposits by $119 billion.

Conclusion: The substantial selling of U.S. securities shows growing concerns about U.S. economic prospects. It is not a good sign for the dollar.

David again.

One of the interesting aspects of the January TIC was the wholesale exit from U.S. agency paper, shown in the chart here.

Given that these agency securities (paper issued by Fannie, Freddie, and others) are for all intents and purposes guaranteed by the U.S. government, the sell-off of these assets is a clear signal that Wen Jiabao and other foreign creditors are now doing more than just talking about their concern over the creditworthiness of the world's largest debtor... they are taking action. Specifically, eschewing agency debt instruments and putting what money they still invest in Treasuries into the short-term stuff that can be dumped in a proverbial heartbeat.

Which brings us to our second story.

As we have previously discussed here and in other Casey Research publications, the dismal January TIC numbers confirm that the foreign buyers so essential to financing the U.S. government's elevated spending needs are falling well short of fulfilling those needs. Couple this with what has to be a sharp fall-off in tax revenues, and the government begins to find itself not just between a rock and a hard place, but between the jaws of a Maxpower Industrial Grade Locking Vise Grip.

And so, this week, the Fed announced it was going to whip up a large batch of fresh cash for the purpose of buying the agency securities and even long-term Treasury bills that no one wants.

Here's a quote from Bloomberg on the baseline story...

March 18 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve said it will buy $300 billion in Treasury securities and increase its purchases of mortgage and agency debt in an effort to bolster housing and hasten the end of the recession.

"To provide greater support to mortgage lending and housing markets, the committee decided today to increase the size of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet further by purchasing up to an additional $750 billion of agency mortgage- backed securities," the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement in Washington today. "Moreover, to help improve conditions in private credit markets, the committee decided to purchase up to $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months."

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is becoming more aggressive after unemployment climbed to 8.1 percent and economists forecast the economy will shrink through the middle of the year. Fed officials also kept the benchmark interest rate at between zero and 0.25 percent. The central bank also said it will consider expanding the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility to include "other financial assets," the statement said.

Altogether, this latest explosion in money creation comes to $1.2 trillion -- somewhat more than the Chinese now hold in U.S. dollar-denominated reserves, reserves that have been built up by years of heavy trade and regular (self-serving) investment in support of the U.S. government's endless spending.

And, with the flip of a proverbial switch, the Fed has diluted the dollars that make up those reserves with another cool $1.2 trillion infusion of funny money.

So much for President Obama's strong assurances last week to Wen Jiabao that the U.S. government can be counted on to be a careful shepherd of the dollar.

The dollar failed to concur with Obama's assurances by staging a sharp sell-off and, in the process, sending our favorite yellow metal up handsomely.

And the government isn't done yet.

Earlier this week, we also heard that the Treasury was considering using the Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility (TALF) program to lend up to $1 trillion to their buddies – I mean highly respected financial firms – to buy up a variety of discounted, albeit troubled assets, sweetening the deal up by making the loans "non-recourse." Simply translated, that means "can't lose."

Back in the good old days, these sorts of deals traditionally involved paper bags stuffed with unmarked bills... but that was much more inconvenient. Again, turning to Bloomberg...

As it's currently set up, the TALF may lend as much as $1 trillion to investors from hedge funds to pension funds and insurance companies to buy recently created securities backed by loans for car purchases, college education and real estate. Applications for its first loans are due tomorrow.

Broadening the TALF to include older, illiquid and lower- rated securities could allow the participants in the public-private investment funds to potentially repackage assets and sell them on to a wider group.

So, what does this all mean? Simply that the government is literally willing to do "whatever it takes" in its attempt to return the country to its bubble days, a notion that any sane observer would instantly recognize as a delusional fantasy. But hard reality and vote-getting often don't get along, and so instead we get a government on the determined path of least resistance... unleashing an ever-escalating airlift of dollars.

Sharp Words

And now I feel the need to express thoughts that might strike some as a little "sharp."

This morning, as I was driving to grab a pre-flight coffee, I heard an ad for a local car dealer promoting that – thanks to one of the federal government's many new programs – by purchasing a new car in 2009, you are able to deduct the state and local taxes you would otherwise pay come tax time. This, according to the announcer, would save you $1,500 on a $25,000 purchase. And this, they say, was just one of a number of new federal programs they could help you use to save money on your new car purchase.

For reasons that only a neurologist (or maybe a psychiatrist) could fathom, despite having heard a litany of bailout and stimulus news over the last year, this proved to be the final straw, and instead of just shaking my head in dull resignation, I felt anger.

Sitting with a friend over my coffee a few minutes later, I tried to put the source of my agitation into words. The conversation picks up after I explained to him the message of the commercial.

He: "Dude, I hear ya, and I hate all this stuff, but it's necessary."

I: "Why is it necessary? Who is going to pay the $1,500 that the government doesn't have in the first place? This and all the stimulus programs are just putting the country further and further into debt. And who's going to pay for that debt? Not us, but our children and their children. Sure, we're going to get stuck for more taxes now, but there is no way the Obama administration can cover all this new spending with taxes, and the foreigners aren't going to keep lending to us. So, it comes down to borrowing more and more, beggaring future generations."

"Hey, it wasn't Obama who got us into this mess, man."

"No, it wasn't, and I'm not saying it was. It was Bush and the entire Congress, with some of them, like Barney Frank, more responsible than others. But it's Obama's ball now, and he's calling the shots. And as much as I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, I can't believe what he's doing."

"Well, he's got to do something, man, otherwise the economy would crash and everyone would suffer even more pain."

"Exactly!" I said, maybe even sputtering a bit, "But it is our generation that should take the hit. It is us who should feel the pain of the collapse. We did it to ourselves by standing idly by while the government and its many friends in the banking sector got us into this mess. And don't forget the orgy of spending and personal debt that the population engaged in, encouraged every step of the way by the government's easy-money policies. This all happened on our watch, but instead of taking our medicine, we the people are now encouraging the government in its many efforts to reinflate the bubble, fully aware all we are really doing is trying to shift the mess onto the backs of our children, and their children, and probably their children's children. What a bunch of cowards we are."

(That, of course, is not a perfect recounting of our conversation... I'm pretty sure I interjected one and maybe two "rat bastards" into my diatribe.)

You can call all of this quantitative easing if you wish; I call it institutionalized cowardice walking hand in glove with mob psychology.

Or you can call it "change."

If, however, I were the Chinese, I would call it "enough" and accelerate my plans to swap my dollars for just about any tangible asset at this point. There's no reason for them to stick around to share the pain we have all but guaranteed our children.

Protectionism

While there is a fair amount of debate about the causes of the Great Depression of the 1930s, there is one lesson from that dire circumstance that pretty much everyone agrees on: that the global trade war set off by the U.S. with the Smoot-Hawley Act and its many tariffs only made things significantly worse and helped prolong the depression. Further, everyone agrees that the world, faced with an economic crisis such as that now unfolding, would never make that mistake again.

But then the U.S. government went ahead anyway and slapped our trading partners in the face by including the Buy American provision in the recently passed stimulus package.

Those trading partners are starting to slap back.

First, Mexico announced this week that they would, henceforth, be foisting tariffs on a wide array of U.S.-made products... this in retaliation to the entirely disingenuous refusal by the U.S. government to live up to the terms in the NAFTA agreement whereby Mexican trucks would be allowed to drive on U.S. highways.

"Unsafe!" say the unions and their government backers, supported, oddly, by outraged talk show hosts of a more conservative leaning, whose normal free-market instincts are apparently trumped by xenophobia.

For the record, Mexico is the United States' third largest trading partner, behind Canada and China. Even so, we all know in our heart of hearts that the Mexicans are really just looking for an excuse to smuggle drugs and illegal aliens across the border, so the hell with them! If they want a trade war, bring it on!

Then there are the Chinese, who this week decided to institute a new "Buy Chinese" clause, at least as far as Coca-Cola buying a controlling interest in a successful Chinese juice company is concerned.

Regardless of how this stuff gets started, once it does, it can very quickly snowball, with national sensitivities getting hurt and exporters on both sides of the disputes being the ones taking it in the neck.

Too bad no one in government is actually involved in an export or import business, or any business at all, for that matter. Because then they might understand that these actions have real consequences, today, just as they did in the 1930s.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not so naïve to think that our trading partners don't try to gain the system in order to help their export companies succeed in U.S. markets. But I am not so blindly nationalistic that I think we don't try to do exactly the same thing.

Even so, for better or worse, thanks to its past success, the U.S. serves as a role model for the rest of the world and, in that regard, is held up to a higher standard. That we are willing to overtly move toward protectionism, whether by reneging on elements of NAFTA or through the Buy American provision, risks setting off a chain reaction of protectionism. Just as did Smoot-Hawley.

But we'd never make that mistake again, right?

Evil Capitalist Polluters!

Despite the quickly mounting deficits caused by stimulus money flying here and there like a St. Patrick's Day snow flurry, the new administration remains fully committed to tackling the all-important topic of global warming.

In fact, if current plans come to fruition, crisis or not, Team Obama may require the evil capitalists that run the few remaining manufacturing concerns to spend up to $2 trillion on "cap and trade" credits.

An excerpt from the Washington Times on the topic...

President Obama's climate plan could cost industry close to $2 trillion, nearly three times the White House's initial estimate of the so-called "cap-and-trade" legislation, according to Senate staffers who were briefed by the White House. A top economic aide to Mr. Obama told a group of Senate staffers last month that the president's climate-change plan would surely raise more than the $646 billion over eight years the White House had estimated publicly, according to multiple a number of staffers who attended the briefing Feb. 26.

"We all looked at each other like, ‘Wow, that's a big number,'" said a top Republican staffer who attended the meeting along with between 50 and 60 other Democratic and Republican congressional aides. The plan seeks to reduce pollution by setting a limit on carbon emissions and allowing businesses and groups to buy allowances, although exact details have not been released.

At the meeting, Jason Furman, a top Obama staffer, estimated that the president's cap-and-trade program could cost up to three times as much as the administration's early estimate of $646 billion over eight years. A study of an earlier cap-and-trade bill co-sponsored by Mr. Obama when he was a senator estimated the cost could top $366 billion a year by 2015. A White House official did not confirm the large estimate, saying only that Obama aides previously had noted that the $646 billion estimate was "conservative."

"Any revenues in excess of the estimate would be rebated to vulnerable consumers, communities and businesses," the official said. The Obama administration has proposed using the majority of the money generated from a cap-and-trade plan to pay for its middle-class tax cuts, while using about $120 billion to invest in renewable-energy projects.

Mr. Obama and congressional Democratic leaders have made passing a climate-change bill a top priority. But Republican leaders and moderate to conservative Democrats have cautioned against levying increased fees on businesses while the economy is still faltering. House Republican leaders blasted the costs in the new estimate. "The last thing we need is a massive tax increase in a recession, but reportedly that's what the White House is offering: up to $1.9 trillion in tax hikes on every single American who drives a car, turns on a light switch or buys a product made in the United States," said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner. "And since this energy tax won't affect manufacturers in Mexico, India and China, it will do nothing but drive American jobs overseas."

Now, of course, the Washington Times heavily skews Republican and so can be counted on to point dramatically at every Obama misstep, but the fact that anyone is even thinking about foisting another bureaucracy -- and a massive new tax regime -- on struggling businesses is, in my view, just plain insane. And for the record, while businesses do go out of business, they don't pay taxes... that burden falls only to consumers, who ultimately get passed the tab.

Even so, at the rate things are going, by the time the full force of the new taxes are felt in a couple of years, the $650 billion, or $2 trillion -- whichever the number turns out to be -- may amount only to roughly enough in inflation-adjusted dollars to buy a Big Mac, hopefully with fries and a shake.

The Coming Credit Crisis

Oh, you thought we've already had our credit crisis? Sorry, so far we've only seen the first act. As for what's next, this came to me this week from a trusted correspondent who works in the consumer credit arena. It's from the Herald News...

There is a common perception in America that most of us live beyond our means with credit cards financing the party. However, the newly released Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances for 2007 tells a different story. According to their results, it's easy to see that the middle class has been steadily increasing its consumer debt in order to keep up with inflation.

An easy translation of that is the average Joe is using his Visa card to pay the light bill and keep his family fed. He's not partying, but trying to find a way to live from day to day. That news has real repercussions for what the next rollout of bad news and blow to our already battered confidence in the economy is most likely going to be.

The Fed's survey, which is taken from a carefully selected cross-section of 4,500 consumers, shows that since the last reading in 2004, median family incomes dropped slightly for middle income Americans, particularly those headed by a single parent. Average incomes for the wealthiest 10 percent rose substantially, by 8.5 percent.

The mean amount of credit card debt being carried by individuals rose 25 percent, from $3,000 to $7,300, a much faster rate of increase than in previous years. That doesn't sound significant enough until all the pieces start to come together.

The survey noted that the majority of the credit card debt has shifted from stand-alone companies, such as Capital One, to 87.1 percent being held by commercial banks. Those are the very same banks the feds have been working with to ferret out poisonous mortgage debt. Commercial banks that are doing well also made the same decision to not lend short-term consumer debt in large quantities to high-risk people. That means that the debt that is most likely to go unpaid is sitting with the same banks that are already in trouble.

Also, most consumers in the middle income category reported they were saving less than 1 percent, which makes sense if it's already taking a credit card to pay for the basics of life.

So the picture that's forming is an average voter who has a family to support but fewer real dollars in order to accomplish the feat and vital credit sources that have quickly disappeared except for the bill, with no monetary reserve to get through a tight year.

Add on top of that the climbing unemployment rate of this very same group.

It becomes easy to see the very real likelihood that a lot of the retail debt now held by weakened commercial banks will go unpaid. Consumers will choose paying for pretty much anything else before catching up the credit card debt when there isn't enough to cover all of the essentials. A damaged credit report will stop being seen as enough incentive if there's a risk of foreclosure on the house or the phone being disconnected.

Banks will start to make hard decisions about covering the debt owed to the retailers who accepted in good faith the bank-generated credit card. It all starts to roll downhill again.

What's astounding, given that the survey is generated by the feds, is how little Bernanke and his crowd are talking about the coming tidal wave. It can't be that we're still practicing the idea that if we look away long enough it won't all fall apart, yet again.

Fannie Mae, AIG, WaMu and Lehman were apparently not a big enough lesson. One of the more galling aspects is that right now there is not only no significant consumer loan modification being offered in this category but instead, banks are trying to generate bottom line income by charging fees of 25 percent based on a consumer's balance. There was a time when that was called usury in the United States. It starts to beg the question of what real differences exist anymore between the dreaded payday loan and some of the bank-issued credit cards.

It's also possible to conceive that consumers are now paying down debt that consists more of fees owed than actual retail debt. That's where we are at the moment.

If nothing is done, voters can rightfully say that, once again, big business and another pending bailout of some titan of industry on the taxpayer dollar mattered more. After all, the Federal Reserve was the one who gathered the necessary information and then stuck it in a drawer.

David again. In previous financial crises, credit card defaults were the first sign of trouble... this time around, it has largely been mortgages. That's because so many people were so far over their head with their upside-down mortgages and the sheer burden of homeownership that they knew trying to stay in the house, in many cases bought as speculations, was a non-starter. And so, instead they let the mortgages go in record numbers, while hanging on to their lifeline – the credit cards.

That the credit crisis is now intensifying into credit cards is, and should be, deeply concerning. As bad as credit card defaults have gotten, they are getting worse. In fact, this week the news came out that, in February, credit card defaults rose to a 20-year high. Amex and Citigroup (of which you, if you are a U.S. citizen, are now a proud owner) are particularly hard hit, with net charge-off rates rising to 8.7% and 9.6%, respectively.

Now, it is not my role in this world to be a bearer of bad news but rather to make sure that you are fully in the picture. And that picture at this moment is fairly bleak. Okay, it's downright dark. So don't make the mistake of thinking that the worst is behind us... it's not.

That said, the stimulus will almost certainly have some effect once it starts to hit into the economy. But the effect will be short lived and should be treated like a lit firecracker. Kind of exciting with the fuse fizzing away, but hold on too long and the result will be very painful.

"AIG Scum Out of Town!"

That was the epitaph scrawled into the dust-encrusted rear window of an SUV stopped in front of me here in the town that serves as world headquarters of Casey Research. A town that also happens to be the location of a prominent resort built with AIG money.

This sort of outrage over the AIG bonuses was underscored by the CNN reportage I was forced to watch on the large flat-screen TV stuck on the wall in front of the exercise equipment down at the local gym. (I don't have cable at home, and never intend on getting it.)

According to CNN, the citizenry and its elected officials are up in arms because AIG lived up to contractual agreements to pay the executives who continued to work at the firm rather than deserting the sinking ship to look for more permanent employment elsewhere (and, yes, a number of those who got bonuses were helpful in the actual company-sinking).

As I am on a plane, I can't yet say whether or not the government has followed up on its threat to pass legislation, retroactive no less, levying a 90% tax on the bonus recipients, but it won't surprise me if it does.

I'll come back to that momentarily, but am going to juxtapose that story with a second story that caught my attention while attempting to whip my body into shape. The story started with CNN's cameras showing a large ballroom filled beyond capacity with bureaucrats and contractors who were lined up literally down the hallway to get and complete the paperwork needed to get their share of the stimulus funds now being made available. The only catch, according to one interviewee, was that the projects for which they sought free money had to be "shovel ready" -- meaning the recipients had to begin spending the money they received this year. Thus, the ballroom seemed to have the same sort of frenetic energy one might attribute to a mosh pit, with the recipient hopefuls jostling elbow to elbow while clamoring for their share of the quick cash.

Doing my best to test your levels of concentration, I now return to the AIG story. Given that the government provided AIG with over 150 billion dollars in bailout funds, it is a safe assumption that the powers-that-be felt such a massive bailout was necessary. In fact, according to officialdom, it was critical because, should the company fail, it would lead to a real global catastrophe.

Is it too much of a stretch, therefore, to think that the government might actually want the company to succeed in working its way out of the trillions in CDS and other problem derivatives linked to the company? Or that, to accomplish that goal, the company might need to attract or retain executives with a certain skill set?

Now, it is not my intention to be a cheerleader for the morons that brought AIG to its knees in the first place, and I was very much against the bailout in the first place. Rather, I am simply trying to follow some sort of basic logic related to these bonuses.

And it doesn't seem illogical to spend $165 million in bonuses if that raises the odds of recouping a return on the $150 billion already dropped into the company and, more importantly, the hundreds of billions of more potential losses lurking in the AIG closet. (Remember, thanks to the misguided bailout, the government has put you, the taxpayer, in the position of owning 80% of AIG... and virtually all of any further losses they incur.)

So, as distasteful as the whole mess is, I can find some small rationale for the AIG bonuses.

But how, as a taxpayer, am I to rationalize the ballroom full of bureaucrats and their friendly contractor friends, each clamoring for a million here or a million there to fill in some pot holes, build a new bridge, or a knock together a new community center? Why are these things necessary, now of all times, with the country already struggling like Atlas with a groin pull under a world of debt?

The answer, simply, is because the administration believes that this grand experiment will somehow produce an economic miracle, magically reinflating a bubble that easy money and massive spending created in the first place. And Congress, in all its wisdom, and only after great study and deliberation, signed off on the stimulus, just as they did with the Iraq war and the Patriot Act.

Sure the AIG bailout was an outrage, and the bonus money is just an extension of that initial outrage... but so is the stimulus spend-a-thon.

As is the notion that Congress would even consider using tax policy – pay up or go to jail, to be specific – as a punitive measure. By the time this plane lands, I hope against hope that the bill has failed... because if it hasn't, then the government will have discovered a new tool for its large and growing arsenal of coercive powers. While we can't know whom they will turn it against next, you can be assured that, in time, they will.

The sponsor of the bill to use taxes as punishment was Congressman Steve Israel (D-Huntington), who grandly stated upon announcing the legislation...

"American families shouldn't be forced to reward these professional financial failures with extravagant bonuses that could buy fancy cars and yachts," Israel said in a statement. "AIG may not like it, but since they had to come to the federal government for help, the federal government now has a say in how they spend taxpayer money."

I wonder what Rep. Israel would say if someone proposed a bill to tax 90% of the salary of the "professional financial failures" who have led our country into a depression, and who are now throwing taxpayer money around in the trillions, beggaring the populace for generations to come?

[Okay, I am now in Las Vegas and, sure enough, they passed the legislation. Whether you think that AIG or other bailout bonus recipients are greedy and deserve punishment or not, the horrible precedent of punitive taxation aimed at a select group of citizens has now been established.

And there is something else that I heard this morning that is as concerning. It was an overt death threat by New York's Attorney General Cuomo, who has managed to extort the names of all of the employees of Merrill Lynch who, under the terms of their employment contracts, received bonuses over the last year. The company has asked Cuomo not to make those names public over fear for the safety of their employees in this overheated atmosphere. To which Cuomo has replied that he will hold off for a bit, but only to see which employees return the bonuses so he can strike their names off the list. In other words, return your bonuses or else suffer the potentially dire consequences.

We are deep in uncharted water, and it is only going to get deeper from here.]

It Just Doesn't End

Another thing that I just have to comment on this week is that the IMF is seriously considering joining the money-printing game, pumping out Special Drawing Rights that countries around the world can use as money.

As my plane is beginning to descend, and writing about this stuff is beginning to weigh on my good temper, I will leave it to the Telegraph to fill out the story...

The International Monetary Fund is poised to embark on what analysts have described as "global quantitative easing" by printing billions of dollars worth of a global "super-currency" in an unprecedented new effort to address the economic crisis.

Alistair Darling and senior figures in the US Treasury have been encouraging the Fund to issue hundreds of billions of dollars worth of so-called Special Drawing Rights in the coming months as part of its campaign to prevent the recession from turning into a global depression.

Should the move, which is up for discussion by the summit of G20 finance ministers this weekend, be adopted, it will represent a global equivalent of the Bank of England's plan to pump extra cash into the UK economy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

If the U.S. dollar manages to come through this crisis and retain its status as the world's reserve currency, I will be very surprised. Maybe, just maybe, whatever is next will be backed by something more tangible than political promises. But that's just a pipe dream.

Miscellany

Inflation? What Inflation? Regular readers may remember that last month the inflation numbers came in significantly higher than expected. "A fluke," we were assured. But this week, the CPI from February was released, showing that once again the CPI was up 0.4%, an increase over the 0.3% the prior month. And the highest inflation reading since last July.

Another anomaly, we are told, caused because gasoline unexpectedly spiked over 8% for the month... but increases were seen in a broad range of other items, including clothes, of all things. Could it be that the China discount, another topic we have mentioned in the past, is starting to fade away right along with our foreign trade? When you consider, as does Jeff Clark in the current edition of BIG GOLD, how strong gold has been over the last year, in the face of a strong dollar and a general absence of inflation – can you imagine how strong it will get when the reverse is true?

How high could gold go? A lot higher than you might think. To read the current edition of BIG GOLD and find out, risk-free, click this link. The current edition also includes the latest and most comprehensive article I have ever seen on whether the GLD ETF is actually safe... essential reading.
Videos? I know this is oldish news, but I think I have finally figured out why President Obama gave Gordon Brown a 12-pack of DVDs as his symbolic gift of friendship when Brown came calling at the White House in one of the first state visits of the Obama administration.

It struck me that the gift was analogous to the time I forgot to get my wife a birthday present and had to hightail it down to a local spa to buy a day pass complete with relaxing herbal wrappings and a massage. In this case, I'm pretty sure that as Gordon Brown was walking up the front steps, someone slapped a forehead and said something to the effect of, "Oh, crap... we forgot the present. Quick, didn't Bush leave behind some DVDs?"

I just wish I could have been there to see the expression on Brown's face, or heard what he had to say when he got back to his room.
Got Gold? If Not, in Zimbabwe You Starve. This is not a funny story. Rather, it is a video showing how the only thing now standing between many in Zimbabwe and starvation is their ability to pan for gold. There are parts that are hard to watch, but the message – that even in the most dire of situations, gold is still used as money – is a worthwhile one. You can watch the video here.
Tea Party. There are increasing signs, overseas and in the U.S., that we are entering a new phase of social unrest. In Cincinnati, a group of citizens outraged over the stimulus staged a tea party. Expect more.
Casey Phyles Updates and Info.

The next SoCal Phyle meeting will take place Saturday, March 28, 2009 from 1:30pm - 5:00pm (or so) at the Baja Cantina, 311 Washington Blvd., Marina Del Rey, CA 90292 http://www.bajacantinavenice.com.

The next Calgary Phyle meeting will be held Tuesday, April 7, at 7:00pmatCadence Coffee, 6407 Bowness Road NW, Calgary, Alberta http://www.cadencecoffee.com/main.html (All inquiries regarding the Calgary Phyle can be directed to calgaryphyle@yahoo.ca )

People looking to start a group: Daniel in the Lapeer, Yale, Port Huron, MI region. Homer in Winter Park, FL.

And that, dear readers, is it for this week. I am sorry for having gone on so long. Believe it or not, I actually cut out about five pages of notes on other topics I wanted to discuss this week. But for now, I must sign off and turn my attention to the Summit, which starts later today.

As I sign off, I see that the U.S. stock market is down modestly (the DJIA is off 33 points) and gold is hanging tough around $960. I wonder what the government will do next if the stock market takes another big dive from here? I suspect we won't have long to wait to find out.

Until next week, thanks for putting up with my ramblings... and for subscribing to a Casey Research publication.

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room – 03/16/2009

David Galland — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:55:42 GMT

Dear Reader,

This week I tripped over an old musical favorite, I'm Your Captain, by Grand Funk Railroad, which is what I'm listening to as I begin this weekly missive.

While the song has a little rust on it, for those of you who haven't taken a ride on Grand Funk Railroad of late, it's a nice enough trip. You can listen to it here.

Now, on to what seems important this week.

Citi-Mae

This week Vikram Pandit, the CEO of Citigroup, a bank that has managed to lose $38 billion over the last five quarters, sent around an internal memorandum in which he said he was "encouraged" by the company's performance so far in 2009.

This fig leaf was enough to light the fuse to a pretty decent rally in U.S. stocks.

Looking at the Citigroup stock chart over the last three years, I have a hard time believing that there is anything left to be discouraged about.

The government's efforts to keep the mega-bank afloat to date have been nothing short of herculean, with infusions of over $45 billion in new capital. As important, the Treasury and its many agencies have agreed to cover losses from over $300 billion in toxic paper held by Citi. (With the new TALF plan, they can go much, much higher than that, if required.)

With that sort of support, it is safe to assume that the bank has been chosen by Team Obama to survive... though in a form that may be less than satisfying to existing shareholders.

Several things jump off the page when reading the biography of Vikram Pandit, the aforementioned CEO of Citi.

The first is that he is an impressive guy: lots of degrees, directorships, and high-level work experience... all of the right sort of credentials. You know, the sort possessed by the very same best and brightest who helped bring Wall Street to its knees in the first place.

Second, he seems to lack certain restraints when it comes to OPM (other people's money), witnessed by the fact that it was he who stubbornly insisted on going forward with the purchase of a new $50 million private jet for the company – this after receiving the aforementioned bailout. (Not to mention that the jet was to be of French manufacture, adding a measure of salt to American wounds.)

Most importantly, however, is that he clearly has a knack for making good deals for bad assets. Case in point, he sold Old Lane Partners, an underperforming hedge fund with just $4.5 billion under management, to CitiGroup for $800 million -- a truly ridiculous amount. He personally made close to $200 million on the deal.

And now, it seems, he's trying to engineer the same sort of buy-out for CitiGroup... but this time the buyer is... you!

Specifically, Citi has offered to convert the preferred shares held by the Treasury into common stock, effectively finishing the process of seeing the bank nationalized. Quoting Financial Week...

Wall Street Journal

The fact that an internal memo from a drowning bank in a crashing economy can ignite a strong rally tells us that at least some investors are tiring of the bear market, and are willing to throw down cash in the hope that it's time for the bull to run again. So, we could see the market rally for a bit longer, but the odds remain good that it's a bear market trap.

In the case of Citi-Mae – my suggestion for the company's post-nationalization name – we the people will soon be responsible for the company's mountain of dubious debt from tens of millions of credit card accounts, mortgages, commercial paper... and that's just for starters.

No wonder Mr. Pandit is so enthusiastic.

Wen Is Enough?

This week, we had a swarm of China-related stories. In one, China's premier Wen Jiabao took time during his annual press conference to express his concern about the safety of China's holdings of Treasuries, warning the U.S. government, in so many words, that China is now paying close attention to its financial affairs. The implied threat being that, should the constant currency abuse escalate, they might consider taking their renminbis elsewhere.

"Nonsense," say the punditry, explaining authoritatively that China doesn't have any option but to continue propping up the dollar. After all, selling their Treasuries would devastate the value of their hundreds of billions of dollar-based holdings. A weaker dollar would also make China's export-reliant economy less competitive, pushing said economy even further onto the reef.

"True," I answer, speaking aloud to no one but my sleeping dog. "But it's worth harking back to April 2001 and Hainan Island in the South China Sea."

Newshounds among you will recognize the time and the place as the location of what the media likes to call an "incident" between the forces of China and the U.S. Specifically, after colliding with a harassing Chinese military jet, a damaged U.S. spy plane was forced to land on Hainan Island where it was captured by the Chinese military.

And there the plane, and its crew of 24, sat for almost two weeks. Despite the U.S. government's most strident diplomatic efforts, including getting really red in the face, the Chinese simply refused to release the crew or the plane. It was only after the U.S. government bowed to China's unswerving demand that it issued an official apology – which it did on April 11, that the crew was allowed to leave, on April 12.

The spy plane, however, was not allowed to leave until mid-July... and then only in the pieces that Chinese engineers left it in after dismantling it and going through it with a tortoise shell comb.

At the time, the Chinese government was exporting over $100 billion a year of product to the U.S. Didn't seem to concern them in the slightest at the time that the U.S. was making all sorts of hollow threats about the spy plane.

So, now that Chinese exports to the U.S. are about three times the level they were in 2001, are the Chinese three times more likely not to want to cause trouble for the U.S. today?

Didn't seem that way when, this week, five Chinese boats harassed a U.S. spy ship operating in international waters, 75 miles off China's coast. My favorite part of the incident was when one of the Chinese ships got so close that the U.S. Navy ship, U.S.S. Impeccable, opened fire with a water cannon. In response, the Chinese crew stripped down to their underwear and enjoyed a mid-week shower.

It reminds me of the classic scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when the crusaders demand the surrender of the French castle.

Why, look, thanks to the wonders of YouTube, you can watch it here!

The point, however, is simply this: people are people wherever you go... but they have certain cultural idiosyncrasies. The Afghans, for instance, possess a strong national pride about having taken on – and defeated – the masters of the universe at any given time. Denny Crane from Boston Legal would sum up their martial confidence by intoning, "Never lost, never will." And so, we can expect them to rise up every time they are invaded.

Likewise, the Chinese have a reputation for not allowing themselves to be dictated to by foreign governments, unless, of course, said foreigners arrive with an army, as did the Japanese in WWII.

Thus, should the current administration conclude in their many weighty calculations that the Chinese have no choice but to scrape and bow to the mighty dollar, they risk making a gross miscalculation... in this case, one that could bring what's left of the U.S. economy to its knees.

It is worth pondering, however, whether the Chinese may begin to march to their own drummer, no matter what the U.S. does or doesn't do, at this point. I say that because, whether out of national pride or the realization that the debt-fueled economic engine of U.S. consumption is terminally broken, there is little question that China is turning its attention to stimulating its own economy by inward-looking spending. Versus, say, investing that money in non-yielding U.S. Treasuries, especially of the riskier long-dated variety.

The situation is directly analogous to the build-out of the interstate highway system here in the U.S., a topic I touched on in passing recently. The build-out of that system, which finally got underway during Eisenhower's administration in 1956, cost about $100 billion to complete. While I don't have time to go deep here, there is little argument that the interstate highway system helped grease the skids of commerce, paying back the government's investment many times over through a variety of transport-related taxes and overall improvements in GDP.

In constant dollar terms, the U.S. GDP in January of 1947 was $1.570 trillion. By January of 1957, as the interstate highway system was getting built, GDP had risen to $2,300 trillion, a 46% increase. By January of 1966, however, GDP had reached $3,372 trillion, a 60% increase over the preceding ten-year period. While I can't attribute the additional gain to the growing highway system, there is little question it was a contributor.

The point I am trying to make is that the Chinese leadership is very capable of figuring out the benefits of better and more highways, ports, dams, electrical lines, and other infrastructure improvements ... and of deciding that continuing to lend to the world's biggest debtor won't pay off nearly as much, over the long run, as using their pile of cash to finish building out their own key infrastructure.

Nothing stays the same in this world, except human nature, that is. The Chinese, with their hundreds of billions in reserves, and 1.4 billion people, are not going to stay in place. At the point when they decide it is time to look inward, and that point may be now, the world's financial regime will begin to change.

Sure, the U.S. monetary hegemony could be maintained for awhile longer, and likely will. But there are no guarantees, and to dismiss the Chinese as whipped dogs could be a very big miscalculation.

Since we're on the topic of China's infrastructure build-out, Simon Black and Fitzroy McLean from Without Borders have uncovered a China-based cement company that is uniquely well positioned to profit. To learn how you can profit from the remaking of China's infrastructure, visit this link.

Before moving on, I came across the following chart I thought you might find of interest. It presents a breakdown of what it is the Chinese sell the U.S. so much of. Looking the chart over, it's easy to conclude that Chinese exports to the U.S. are only going to come under more pressure (not a lot of furniture changing hands just now, I suspect). That lessens the importance that the Chinese will attribute to their U.S. relationship in the future.

Speaking of Exports

I don't watch much television but do make an exception for Survivor on CBS every Thursday night. I like the show because it offers the voyeuristic experience of watching members of the Homo sapiens species as they cavort around in more primitive tribal settings. With much of the bling and bluster stripped away, what's left to observe is the hominid mind at its most calculating as it schemes to climb over the heads of its fellows to win a million dollars.

Last night, as I waited for the show to begin, I was treated to a spot of local news, the top story being that the Burlington City Council had rewarded a bridge rebuilding contract to an out-of-state construction company. Members of the local citizenry were interviewed and were uniformly outraged. "There are local companies desperate for work, and they give the job to a company from Maine! Unbelievable!"

It's an interesting philosophical conundrum. After all, the land and the people of Vermont and neighboring Maine couldn't be any more homogeneous. Okay, so maybe they eat lobster with more regularity... but other than that, it's mostly about some lines on a map and small differences in local ordinances.

Live and let eat, I say, but I suspect most of the tribe would disagree. At least if you pay attention to all the "Buy Local" bumper stickers being sported around these days.

(Sometimes, the sloganeers try to show a broader mind, expanding the phrase to "Think globally, act locally"... which is really just a dressed-up way of saying the same thing.)
As is well demonstrated on Survivor, when things are going well around camp... say, after having won a reward challenge against the other team and finding yourself surrounded with sundry food items and maybe a few beers, then humanity is all good cheer and generosity.

But lose a string of challenges, resulting in a depleted food supply and sleeping in the rain under poor shelter, and the human character soon forgets all sense of charity and each individual looks with steely eyes to their own needs.

The broader economy is much the same, if for no other reason than it is really nothing more than the sum total of human action.

While the connection may be hard to see at this moment, this week it was reported that both imports and exports have fallen yet again. According to Bloomberg...

imports

exports

Echoing the theme of this section, there was also this...

Christopher Low

Reducing these matters to a more understandable level, we come back to the case of Burlington and the Maine-based bridge builder. Or, to a positively human scale, by looking to the weekly lesson provided by Survivor. To wit, the world is beginning to wonder where its next meal is coming from, and they are not about to let some other person/state/country beat them to it.

The U.S. has already let its intentions be known by passing the "Buy American" provision in the new stimulus package.

The Swiss this week made their intentions clear by announcing that they were going to actively intervene in the foreign exchange markets in an attempt to weaken their currency and therefore make their products more competitive to consumers in other nations. They will do so by buying up the currencies of their largest trading partners. The Japanese have tried this move, as have the Chinese and others. Soon, everyone will be doing it.

In its write-up on the Swiss move, the Wall Street Journal opined...

As the U.S., while wounded, is still the world's single largest market, it's likely to be the currency against which most others try to depreciate (the Swiss are likely to focus on the euro, however).

Paradoxically, to some extent the U.S. is a willing "victim" in this manipulation, as the greater buying pressure on the U.S. dollar allows the Fed to print, print, print without having the debasement of the currency become apparent.

Of course, it will hurt U.S. exports if the currencies of our major trading partners fall in comparison to the dollar, but for the time being, a strong dollar helps to reduce the cost of energy imports and other such essentials. And it masks the prolific spending now underway, and further envisioned, by the Obama administration.

The problem, of course, is when all those dollars begin to flow back this way... for example, when the Fed finally crosses the line and governments around the world decide it is now in their best interest to rid themselves of the greenback.

It won't happen overnight or probably anytime real soon... but at this rate, it is all but a given.

Snippets from the Swamp

Donald Grove, our stalwart Washington correspondent, took time out of his busy day to shoot over a couple of updates on the never-ending machinations now underway in the corridors of power. ..

Making Friends with Crisis

Never waste a good crisis

Feeding Frenzy

Gold Stocks – a Knock at the Door

While it is not much of a payoff for the one hour that our own Louis James, editor of the Casey Investment Alert and International Speculator, spent on the phone with the reporter, the fact that Barron's did an article at all on the attraction of investing in junior gold explorers is worth noting.

You can read "Thar's Green in Them Thar Gold Stocks" via the link here.

Then there was the article from Newsweek, also this week, titled "Cash in a Mattress? No, Gold in the Closet." While the author is clearly a skeptic – which I think is healthy, frankly – the fact that gold is beginning to show up more and more in mainstream media will only add to its luster.

Here's an excerpt from the piece...

The price of gold is near an all time high—it topped $1,000 an ounce on March 13—yet the number of Americans who are taking delivery of gold coins and bars is rising. According to the World Gold Council, Americans bought 600 tons of gold bars and coins in 2008, a 42 percent increase over 2007. That's not as much as in Europe, where gold mania has become epidemic—but significant given the metal's high price. An uptick in the U.S. economy, and buyers are likely to find they've been part of a giant, golden bubble.

And for those of you with more time on your hands, here's a link to the full article.

Miscellany

The Greater Depression -- How Did It Come About? As I was going to press, I received this link to a Saturday Night Live skit that gave me a couple of chuckles. As we can all use all the chuckles we can get just now, here's the link. (And, please, for those of you who are from either side of the political spectrum who may take offense, please don't... satire is as American as running a trade deficit.)
Mea Culpa. In the current edition of The Casey Report, we included a chart showing the performance of various recent short recommendations, compared to the S&P 500. None of our recent shorts has been nearly as profitable as that of GE from our December article, "Shorting the Big Debtors." The only problem is that we equivocated on that recommendation, then in January, due to concerns over the possibility of government action, and actually formally announced we were not going to recommend making the short.

Thus, the graphic was wrong and could rightfully be misconstrued as misleading. The simple fact is that while we were right in bringing GE to readers' attention as a short candidate when it was trading much higher than it is today... we didn't follow through with a formal recommendation, and so we cannot claim it.

I won't go into a long explanation of how this screw-up happened, other than to say that it was an honest mistake by a researcher and a lack of attention on my part as managing editor. It has now been fixed in the edition.
Phyle News. By all accounts, the recent phyle meeting in Toronto where Louis James, Jeff Clark, and Doug Hornig stopped by was a big success. Angus, thanks for inviting the team to participate, and thanks to the group as well.

Meanwhile, the Calgary Phyle, which hosted the very first meet-up of Casey Research subscribers, will be getting together at the Cadence Coffee, 6407 Bowness Road NW on April 7 at 7:00 pm. You can get questions answered, or RSVP, by emailing calgaryphyle@yahoo.ca . Alex, the owner of Cadence Coffee, is the organizer of the phyle. If you can't make it to the April 7 get-together, stop by any time and introduce yourself as a fellow subscriber.
Argentina in Las Vegas. For those of you heading to our sold-out Crisis & Opportunity Summit, I wanted to mention that David "Santiago" McIlvaine from Doug's La Estancia de Cafayate project in Argentina, as well as Jack Zehren, the lead architect and land planner for the project, will be at the event. Property owners can catch up on the latest, and anyone interesting in learning more can do so.

And that, dear readers, is that for this week. As I sign off, I see the stock market is about flat, but still well up on the week. Gold has had a good day, topping $930, but coming back slightly. As you may remember, as I was writing this missive last week, I took a quick break to short the broader market... and was well up by the end of the day. A little while before the market closed, I got distracted long enough to miss the window to sell and lock in my profit, and then stubbornly hung on... the net result being a good thwacking as the stock market soared this week. Fortunately, I also bought some GLD as the gold market briefly dipped below $900 and so my net losses are minor, and I'm still holding both my short and my GLD as the week comes to a close.

While I do think the stock market could rally more here, I just can't see a sustained rally at this point. Could happen, but if it did, I'd be okay, because I am not leveraged or playing (a good word) with money I can't afford to lose.

The markets remain unpredictable and dangerous at this point. So caution is the word...

Until next week, when I'll be writing from Las Vegas, thank you for reading and for being a subscriber to a Casey Research service.

Sincerely,

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room – 03/06/2009

David Galland — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:22:00 GMT

March 6, 2009

Dear Readers,

Of late, it seems as though I have gotten sideways with the technology deities.

First, as reported recently, was my accidental deletion of an hour-and-a-half recorded interview with trading gurus Dave Hightower and Terry Roggensack.

Then, yesterday, while waiting to put in a phone appearance on the U.S. Global Funds Webinar that many of you sat in on, I carefully put my speaker phone on mute (you can tell it's on because the button lights up) and set about trying to wolf down a chicken salad sandwich before it became my turn to talk.

This led to being reminded of several of life's little lessons. Including...

Eating quickly is never a good idea, because it can lead to aspirating, as opposed to swallowing, one's food.
Once aspirated, a fairly decent-sized piece of food – say, for example, chicken salad – can actually make its way up through one's sinus passages. In fact, with enough coughing, hacking, turning red, grabbing of the throat, choking and blowing, the aspirated morsel can actually traverse the nasal passages and exit through the nose.
And, finally, I was made to recall the fallibility of technology when I learned, after the fact, that a lit-up mute button is no firm guarantee that the phone is actually muted.

It was only when someone stuck their head into my office to let me know that my close run with lunch was being broadcast live that I became aware of the latter point. To which I whispered incredulously, "But that's impossible... I have it on mute, see!" In reply, I received a shrug and a statement that was as accurate as it was succinct, "Must be broken."

For those of you on the call, and especially my fellow presenters, whose carefully prepared presentation, I was later told, was disrupted on multiple occasions, my sincere apologies.

And to the technology gods, I supplicate in your general direction.

Before moving on to more substantive topics, a quick "thank you" to everyone who submitted entries for my growing category of dramatic music. While there were many excellent additions to the library – and I will share more in weeks to come – the hands-down winner this week was sent from Phil of our New Zealand contingent.

You may have seen this particular piece of music/video... because apparently over 1.5 million viewers have. But I hadn't and so really enjoyed the setup and the unlikely singer's powerful delivery. Real goose bump stuff, guaranteed to bring a smile to your day. Enjoy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEo5bjnJViA

I might add that the humble phone salesman went on to become an acclaimed opera singer – according to PR Newswire, "his debut album ‘One Chance' stormed to the top of the charts in 13 countries and notched up an astounding 27 platinum and four gold awards." His second album "Passione" is due to being released in April. Proof that even in these days, which are often filled to the brim with hopeless-seeming news, dreams can and do come true.

And now, on to the decidedly less entertaining aspects of our modern world.

Desperate Measures

As I write, the U.S. stock market is not yet open, on Friday, March 6. Yesterday was yet another bad-hair day for stock investors, with the DJIA off 281 points and the S&P 500 off 30 points to 682.

At this point, it is hard to see what Team Obama will do, or even can do, in the attempt to stop the bleeding-out of equities markets.

I mean, consider!

They have announced increases in capital gains taxes, and that didn't work!
In tandem, they announced that the dwindling number of people who still have money to invest should rather give more of that money to the government in the form of higher taxes. And that didn't work.
Members of the Obama administration have gone out of their way in recent weeks to let the financial markets know that, in their expert opinions, the crisis is only going to worsen. In fact, just this week, Goldman Sachs's Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Mr. Geithner, speaking at yet another Senate hot-air festival, reminded potential investors that "this is still a deepening recession and a deepening credit crunch." Those sentiments were echoed by the president himself, who helpfully pointed out that, should the government fail to act with appropriate vigor, things could move from "crisis into a catastrophe."

And yet, the stock market stubbornly refuses to mount anything resembling a solid rally. Go figure.

Hold the phone!

The nice thing about an online discount trading account is how quickly you can place a trade: in this case, buying an inverse S&P ETF, which I just did. We'll check in later to see how the trade works out.]

So, what's Team Obama to do? Besides taxing and trash talking the economy, that is? Well, that and promising to beggar our great-grandchildren by opening the spigots on a tidal wave of monetary Kool-Aid, served up by a new army of fresh-faced Obamacrats?

This is no idle question: while the voting masses will give the prez his 100 days and probably more, a systematic failure in the economy over the next few years is unlikely to be rewarded at the polls. Should such a failure continue to gain steam, Obama risks being labeled even by his own as a false messiah, at which point, out come the stones.

The fact is, despite its many powers and foot soldiers, there's only so much that government can do at this point... and none of it without the steep potential for unintended consequences and naked risk. In no particular order, here's a quick summary of the possible measures left to the increasingly desperate government:

Suspend Mark-to-Market Rules. On March 12, a House Financial Services subcommittee will be gathering for free lattes, donuts, and a chat about suspending mark-to-market accounting standards. Simply defined, financial institutions are now required to establish, for accounting purposes, the fair value of their assets, using as a basis the "price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date."

The problem, of course, is that there currently isn't a market for much of the toxic paper now clogging the pipes of banks and other financial institutions. By exposing the folly of past decisions made by these institutions, mark-to-market rules have required these giants of finance to regularly fess up to the huge losses they have incurred.

Hypothetically, by suspending or modifying the rules, the operators of the many beggared institutions could straighten themselves up, adjust the old school tie, run a comb through their thinning but well-coifed hair, and announce that the toxic stuff was actually worth something. The "something" would, of course, be based on this model or that which imputes an elevated valuation at some distant point in the future.

With their persistent capital problems relieved, the bankers would then entice investors back to their equity by speaking in their most stentorian tones while pointing to a fresh set of metrics designed with special appeal to "value" investors.

Or, at least, that's how things are supposed to work out.

The people I have spoken with on this topic have expressed opposing views on whether mark-to-market as it now stands will be nudged over the side of the sinking ship. One well-placed money manager told me that he thinks it's unlikely it will be dumped, but that, if it is, the stock market could stage a 60% rally from here.

Another told me that there was no way that the government will tamper with it, because they would worry (correctly, in my view) that changing the rules in any material sense could be the final straw in destroying the thimbleful of credibility still retained by the financial institutions.

Personally, I think the potential of a change to these rules is very real – with the rationale for doing so announced in double-speak that positively drips of good intentions and sound practices. As to the reaction of the market, who can say? If the changes coincide with a general fatigue among the bears, and are possibly supported by some encouraging buying from friendly parties, they could spark a rally, and maybe a big one.

On the other hand, it could also put the match straight to the powder and result in an explosive collapse.

I wish I could be a bit firmer in my opinion of how this could shake out, but conjecture is all that is possible at this point. I'll keep trolling around for informed opinions, but the key thing now is to watch the upcoming hearings closely, and to watch for the trial balloons that the government likes to send up before making its decision. Knowing what's coming is half the battle, even if only as a signal to run for even deeper cover.
Bad Bank. Speaking of trial balloons, the government has floated veritable blimps with the phrase "Bad Banks" emblazoned across their girths.

A picture of the latest Bad Bank plan, snipped out of the Wall Street Journal, is shown here.

Adding some context to the graphic, the idea is for the government, along with the private sector, to pony up as much as $1 trillion to buy distressed assets.

As the graphic helpfully points out, "Investment managers who agree to put up a certain amount of capital would run the funds."

That caption may be translated as "Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan and other Wall Street insiders will be able to borrow money from the government on extremely favorable terms, with no recourse for failing to repay, as long as they agree to invest it back into the Bad Bank fund. As a reward for providing cover for this operation, the banks would earn billions in fees earned off the bulk of the money deposited in the fund, which will come directly from the Treasury. Big party follows."

Turning to the next caption over, we see that "Investors, such as pension funds, would be able to participate in the funds."

I think I have this part straight. What they are saying is that now that the Friends Of Obama (previously known as Friends of Bush) are well positioned, the investment managers are going to search the world over for the last of the really stupid pension and money managers, a moniker aptly applied to anyone willing to invest in a toxic soup of bad-asset-backed securities. They may find a few who can both drool and write a check at the same time, but not many.

In reality, what will likely happen is that (a) the government will print up another trillion to buy the bad assets, then (b) pay their buddies billions to "take a meeting" at a posh eatery a few times a week. Meanwhile, the financial institutions who sold the toxic stuff off to the Bad Bank fund will be able to sally forth to greener pastures, leaving the taxpayers with the bill for the bailout... and the bankers' many lunches.

Do I think we'll see a Bad Bank? Almost certainly. Will it solve the problems besetting the economy? No. Rather, it will just continue the process of transferring the liabilities from where they belong onto the back of the already overburdened taxpayer.

But it could result in a stock rally, if only for a limited time, and only for the stocks of the companies doing the dumping of the toxic stuff.

As for the overburdened taxpayers: as Doug Casey writes in his Casey Report lead article this month, "Street Fighting Man," taxes are a strong possible trigger for social unrest. It may already be starting, with the first proverbial (for now) shots fired this week in Hoboken, New Jersey, when a mob tarred and feathered the mayor in effigy for refusing to deal with oppressive levels of taxation. More on that story here.
Fed Buys Long-Term Treasuries. The Fed has, periodically, floated the idea of stepping into the market to buy long-dated Treasuries, should the need arise.

We think the need will arise, because of (a) the sheer scale of the government financings that will be required this year, and (b) the fact that foreigners are running out of cash due to domestic spending need and falling exports to the U.S., and maybe even running out of patience with the now official U.S. policy of monetary prolificacy. As foreigners have been about the only buyers of long-dated U.S. Treasuries in recent years, the shortfall caused by their reduced participation can only be made up by taxes – but tax revenues are plummeting right along with the engines of commerce that throw those off as byproduct – or by printing fresh dollars.

Which means, simply, printing is the only answer that will pop to officialdom's mind (the others require inconvenient free-market solutions).

So, what happens when the Fed is forced to begin buying up the longer-term paper?

For a time, interest rates might go down – simply because the primary buyer, the Fed, won't demand higher yields on its money. But rates won't stay down, because nothing will say inflation louder than the Fed becoming the lender of last resort to the Treasury, the self-described spender of last resort. At that point, the price of gold begins to soar, with interest following along in fairly short order.

As I am moving fast, I'm glossing over a new round of stimulus spending, and another after that – but those are pretty much taken as givens for now. And I'm sure I'm overlooking other desperate measures the government might take – for example, exchange controls or the creation of a dual currency system (one for the locals and one for the foreigners) -- but those will be more of a reactive nature following the broader collapse and the return of price inflation.

Of course, the government has the option of calling the whole thing off and turning their attention to supporting the free market... scraping the convoluted and counterproductive tax system in favor of a flat tax... reducing regulations... cutting government spending... but that's just silly talk.

In any event, if you have any thoughts on the topic, drop them my way at david@caseyresearch.com. In the meantime, the above seems a good list of trial balloons to keep a watch out for in the darkening skies.

Kindle Two

As readers of any duration are aware, my recent run-ins with technology aside, I have a fixation of sorts about Amazon's Kindle reading device. As I have described in far too much detail in prior missives, I think the K-I-N-D-L-E spells D-O-O-M for anything other than children's and coffee table book publishers, and I'm not so sure about the former.

Given that the other members of my immediate family agree on the many merits of the Kindle, most nights a scuffle of the friendly sort for the use of it occurs. That, and because I didn't need any other encouragement, really, caused me to rush out and buy the new Kindle as soon as it became available.

While I didn't think it possible, Amazon has outdone itself, smoothing out every first-generation bump and producing a truly elegant new reader.

I'm not going to go into any detail here, because there are now numerous articles on version two, but I will give it my wholehearted endorsement. It is more streamlined, functional, and just all around better than V.1, and that was already best of class, in my firmly held opinion.

Coincidently, this morning subscriber, correspondent, and fellow Kindle aficionado Ryan D. wrote in to suggest that we make our publications more Kindle-friendly (there is a function that allows you to email yourself documents to read on the Kindle, and apparently our letters currently don't "translate" very well). Jumping on the idea, I sent Ryan's email on to our production team, and they have already answered that this seems a task we can manage. And so, if I have anything to do with it (and I do), we will.

Not sure how long it will take, but we'll keep you posted.

Letters from You

I received a couple of letters this week that I thought worth sharing. In the first, D. White takes Jerry C. to task for the ditty on taxation he provided for last week's edition of this missive.

As I read D. White's comments, I chuckled -- but in a chagrined sort of way -- because I had entirely failed to register the point of contention to which she refers, and I near simultaneously remembered that the week before, I had shared the song "It's a Man's World" by James Brown and Pavarotti. Am I a subconscious sexist? I hope not... because I'm certainly not a conscious one.

In any event, here's the letter...

"Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids."

Well, let's see – there were no cars – so there goes the motor vehicle taxes, license taxes, gas taxes, etc. Of course, at that time, most people couldn't even afford a horse, streets were polluted by equine waste, a trip of 20 miles was a major production, and many people rarely or never left the town they were born in. I guess you think that we were all better off that way. The country may have been the most prosperous in the world (the Brits of that time probably disagreed), but life expectancy was lower, infant and maternal mortality higher, and the standard of living much, much lower. Read "The Jungle" for more details on how swell things were.

Mom had no choice but to stay home and raise the kids. And if anything happened to Dad, they were all likely to wind up in the poorhouse or county farm (they still existed), because she had no opportunity for decent employment. I think most women are grateful for their expanded horizons, Jerry – but perhaps you are the barefoot-and-pregnant kind of guy. If that's the case, let's hope that medical science (funded by the government) quickly gives you a chance to try being Mr. Mom. I'll be happy to personally chain you to the stove – which 100 years ago was much more dangerous than today and the cause of many house fires and women's deaths when their long skirts went up in flames.

Then, to liven up my day, I received this...

All I can say is, thank god Obama is willing to try to do something to unstick the system. Sarcastic philosophical rantings aren't doing it for me... nor do they help our country.

Richard

Here's the response I hastily dashed off in Richard's direction...

So, let me ask you a straight-up question. What is the economic theory – the past examples, if you will – of a government spending and taxing its way out of trouble? How exactly does that work?

The nation is bankrupt and, as would be the case with an individual, it has to come to grips with that fact. Grabbing another handful of credit cards and heading back to the mall solves nothing. It just makes things worse.

I can, and will, comment in whatever tone I see fit when I see a continuation of the same stupid and dangerous policies that got us here in the first place. Hell, I'd even happily go for the extra 40% tax increase that I will have to pay if Obama's budget passes, if it was part of a plan that actually had a chance of working.

But I am indignant at the idea that government should do "something" just "because," with zero basis in even rudimentary economics.

I hope that his rigorous actions give you a lot of personal comfort – that temporary comfort will be paid for by your great-grandchildren.

I include that last correspondence not to show that I can get my hairs up when pushed to it, but rather to stress that the skeptical comments I make now and again really aren't about Obama, per se... but rather, about his administration's clear willingness to stay the course -- the same course but even accelerated – as his predecessors.

Unlike, apparently, the often-contradictory Mr. Limbaugh (who, for instance, called for drug dealers to be shot at the same time he was a secret drug addict), I have no desire to see Mr. Obama fail... provided, of course, that we first define "success."

If in "succeeding," the Obama administration turns the nation into a socialist paradise, trapping my capital with exchange controls, and then slowly (or not so slowly) confiscating it for the "greater good," then I guess I'd prefer him to fail.

On the other hand, if his financial shell game somehow managed to get the country through to greener pastures and better days, then clearly that is an outcome I'd have to salute.

The problem is that, using history as our guide and seeing a litany of new initiatives that hardly help, and in many cases, actively hamper the enterprising individual, the only realistic conclusion I can come to is that the government remains stubbornly on the road to ruin.

The sign post for Bush's road read "To Baghdad." Obama's reads "To a Perfect World."

Both lead off a cliff.

On That Topic...

Thanks to subscriber Matt F. for sending this along...

The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

Dr. Adrian Rogers

Miscellany

Get Well Soon, Bud. In addition to his never-ending quest for truth in economics, our own Bud Conrad likes to engage in somewhat dangerous sports... like windsurfing off the coast of Northern California and, apparently, riding ten-speed bicycles too fast on city streets. Fortunately, it was his left arm he broke in three places, and not his right. Get well soon, Bud.
Phyle News.
- Alex C., who runs the first-ever Casey phyle at his coffee shop in Calgary, is looking to hold a get-together at some point in March.
- John is looking to start a phyle in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
As usual, if you are interested in participating in these or other gatherings of Casey subscribers around the country – and the world – drop us a note at phyles@caseyresearch.com.

And that, dear readers, is that for this week.

As I sign off, I see that the stock market has reversed rather sharply from its early enthusiasm and is now down 35 points. More to the point, the short position I put on as I began to write you today is about $800 to the good.

To be clear, I am definitely not a day trader. But given the news that greeted the opening bell this morning, that U.S. unemployment is at 8.1%, the highest in 25 years, the early rally made no sense. Ergo, the quick application of a short position.

Importantly, I was comfortable allocating a modest portion of the speculative corner of my portfolio to shorting the broader market, figuring that even if I do badly today, the stream of bad news is certain to continue into next week, and likely next month, and even next year. So, provided I can afford to weather a setback, which can happen at any time, then I am pretty confident I'll be able to close out the position within the week for a nice gain. And if the bottom falls out again this afternoon, then I'll make this a day trade after all and bank the short-term gain. At which point, I might take the family out to a nice dinner, enjoyed without any undue haste.

Adding a little frosting to the cake, I see that gold once again refuses to be pushed down and has bobbed back up to $939. While it is certainly not inconceivable – and maybe inevitable – we'll see it back in the 800s again before the final lift-off, there is no question we are showing firm support in here. And, as hard as we look, we can't see anything in the way of a serious obstruction to it holding up and going higher. Ditto, silver is starting to get pretty interesting, but that is a topic for another day.

Until next week, thank you for reading and for subscribing to a Casey Research publication.

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room – 02/27/2009

David Galland — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:07:00 GMT

February 27, 2009

Dear Readers,

This morning, as I was looking over dispatches from correspondents around the world – from Ed in Alberta… Sadia in the UK… Baldy in Indonesia… the “General” in Portugal… and Nitin in Katmandu – I began to appreciate what it must have been like to be on the news desk during World War II.

I am trying not to be overly pessimistic, but there’s no denying the mass of bad news coming to us from all fronts: the forces of collectivism are using the cover of the crisis they largely created, aided and abetted by capitalism’s quislings, to roll over the individual.

Even so, contained within the dire reportage is also some very good news for you personally, and I’ll touch on that as well in today’s missive.

The Bad News

As fully anticipated, with its first budget plan, the Obama administration has fired a salvo into the side of the productive classes. (For those of you who are not U.S. citizens, feel free to use Team Obama as a proxy for what is likely to occur where you reside.)

Yes, we expected the $1.75 trillion budget deficit, which will, by the time all is said and done, come in a lot closer to the $2.5 trillion number anticipated some months ago by our own Bud Conrad.

Yes, we expected the government to begin raising taxes, which they are proposing to do with vigor – starting with an increase of $1.4 trillion on the people who earn in excess of $250,000 a year. “Right on!” shouts the mob, on the way out the door to burn Porsches.

For no other purpose than to keep the record straight, it’s worth noting that thanks to the government’s steady dose of inflation, $250,000 today will only buy you 77% of what it would have in 1998… and 56% of what it would have in 1988.

A decade from now, given the inflation rate we expect, the dollar’s purchasing power will erode by another 50%, and probably a lot more than that. In fact, at the current rate of money creation, by the time the dust settles, $250,000 might be the annual wage commanded by burger flippers.

But, hey, look at the bright side, at that point everyone will be rich!

The further details of Obama’s budget plan are a hodgepodge of this and that, some of which we even agree with (like cutting business subsidies). On the whole, however, the overarching mandate appears to be to thrust the hand of government, like some motion picture kung fu villain, deep into the heart of American enterprise.

And government’s expansion is far from over. Even as I write, the news continues to pour in…

Citigroup to get another $25 billion bailout from the U.S. Treasury.
Treasury officials work on bailout plan for auto parts manufacturers.
President Obama exploring automatic workplace pensions and an expansion of unemployment insurance.
AIG, now a government lap puppy, takes another big loss, and is again looking to its master for another handout.
Speaking of lap puppies, Fannie Mae, has lost another $25 billion and is looking for $15 billion more from the Treasury. The value of this zombie institution’s net assets is now a negative $105 billion, and eroding. Great investment of your tax dollars, eh?
Then there’s the new administration’s cap-and-trade green tax… a stunning new initiative that will bring many U.S. businesses to their knees. (You can read more about it here.)

There is more, so much more, including a $638 billion reserve fund for healthcare reform in the president’s budget that loudly broadcasts that, “Yes, we’re going there.” There being nationalized health care.

But you already read too much and don’t need me to rehash things as they are.

I will, however, comment on the way things will be, because in that, at least, we can find some good news.

The Good News

My fellow citizens of planet Earth, it is now abundantly clear that the trend toward socialism in all its many disguises is about to, once again, shift into high gear.

We’ve been here before, encouraged by the words of Karl Marx, a distinctly unsuccessful individual (to read his life story is to read of almost unending misery, poverty, and discontent) but a decidedly successful phrase-coiner, knocking the world off its axis with his “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

While no one with any real sense of history, not to mention economics, can take any overt joy at the prospect of the dark clouds of collectivism looming high in the sky above us, there is, if you pay close attention, a very big opportunity in all of this.

Namely, we are now presented with a relatively rare chance to see with some clarity into the future.

Imagine if eight years from now you could step into a time machine and zip right back to this very moment. How much money do you think you could make?

Well, just because the chattering masses have the blinders on as they march forward to their collective penury doesn’t mean we need to join them. And, if we are even a little bit careful, we won’t.

So, what is it about the future we can now see? Some broad strokes…

Currency depreciation.
More taxes.
Rising interest rates.
A price capitulation in real estate, with a collapse in commercial.
Exchange controls (now that Team Obama is raising your taxes, you don’t really think they’re going to let you pick up your wealth and leave, do you? The window for global diversification will soon be closing.)
The return of mega-labor unions.
Trade wars, shooting wars, and other forms of heightened geopolitical tension.

(This is a topic we are discussing at greater length, backed up with specific recommendations, in the March edition of The Casey Report, which will be released on or around March 3. Among its many highlights, Doug Casey is just putting the finishing touches on his article titled “Street Fighting Man” about the prospects for social unrest.)

Provided you keep your personal wealth profile low (there was a reason Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, drove a beat-up pick-up truck), your financial powder dry, and, maybe most important of all, retain your sense of humor, the opportunities in the unfolding crisis will be abundant

We’ll do what we can to help you spot those opportunities in our various services. If you are unsure which of our services is right for you, don’t hesitate to try them all… we offer very generous trial subscriptions, most of which come with a full money-back guarantee if you don’t find the service a good match. We have no interest in trying to rope you into a service that isn’t exactly right for you, so don’t feel bad at all if you try a service and later cancel for a full refund. We’re just happy to have the opportunity to share our research with you.

You can learn about all our services, of course, at CaseyResearch.com.

Ed. Note

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learn more about our Trend Trader trial offer here

Whatever you do, don’t be complacent about what’s coming.

We are long past the point where doing nothing is an option. Review your personal finances, cut out unnecessary expenses, talk to your accountant about tax planning, and, if you’re a U.S. citizen, consider moving at least some of your wealth out of the country while you still can (but please, don’t try to hide it… that’s a fool’s errand). If you own gold, only you and your spouse, if you have one, should be aware of it.

Ask yourself, “If I just dropped in from eight years in the future, what measures would I take?”

Now, take them.

A Musical Interlude

This week, I have been listening – repeatedly, according to certain innocent bystanders -- to the following tracks.

For the rock & rollers among you, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking from the Rolling Stones kicks off with one of my personal favorite guitar riffs. Listen to it here.

And for pretty much anyone, an odd but really well-done duet by James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti singing “It’s a Man’s World,” which was sent along by subscriber David B. in response to last week’s call for dramatic music. Now, I don’t know if this song is as sexist as its title makes it seem (I haven’t listened closely to the words), but watching James Brown doing his natural best to match vocal talents with Pavarotti is, alone, worth the price of admission. Which, in this case, is just a click on the link here.

Have some dramatic music you want to share? Shoot it my way at David@caseyresearch.com.

A Golden Opportunity

While it’s still a long shot, one possible outcome of the deluge of paper money about to hit the global economy may be that governments will be forced by simple math back to a gold standard: when you dump trillions of freshly created paper into the market, inflation must soar.

And because governments produce nothing, the servicing of all their many debts and new spending programs gives rise to the real risk that the inflation could devolve into a Zimbabwe-like downward spiral. At that point, the intelligentsia, uncomfortable at the sight of glowering pensioners growing tired of living on dog food, may be forced back to a sound money system.

For the most part the citizenry has no memory of a gold standard, and even less understanding of same. We expect that to change. And, in fact, an early straw in the wind showed up this week in the form of a YouTube video sent along by subscriber Peter F.

You really must watch this, given that it is an excerpt from a major cable news personality, Glenn Beck, who manages to wax intelligently on matters involving the gold standard. There may be hope after all.

Watch it by clicking here.

Meanwhile, rather than wait for government to act on gold convertibility for their currencies, individuals the world over are doing their own conversions by trading their paper currencies for the hard stuff in record amounts.

Rand Refinery Ltd.

Johan Botha

Many of you have written to us expressing concern about the potential for direct action by the U.S. government against gold, – now that it’s returning to its dominant role as a sound money – including an outright ban or confiscation. We don’t see any signs of that yet, but we’re vigilant.

Damn Foreigners

The rising power of the mob in virtually all of the world’s democracies invariably leads to geopolitical tensions.

That’s because the ruling elites know they need to pander to the blunt-force voting blocs if they are to retain their elevated status. And there are few issues more unifying to the mob than the sight of filthy foreigners taking advantage at the expense of the locals. Whether it’s the damn illegal wetbacks who dare to cut our lawns or wash our restaurant dishes on the cheap, or the crafty Chinamen willing to work for pennies a day to feed their families – thereby taking food out of the very mouths of good union folks here in the U.S.A. – fanning the flames of nationalism is as easy as drawing breath for any politician worthy of the label.

And so we’ll be seeing a lot more of that, too, as politicians on both sides of the spectrum revert to script in redirecting the blame for what is now unfolding, and what is yet to come, to anywhere other than where it belongs.

This is a dangerous game.

For starters, the U.S. is now deeply, deeply in debt to the rest of the world. While the Chinese have, so far, been tolerant, their recent demands for some form of guarantee before they buy any more U.S. agency debt is a clear signal that their patience with the U.S. government’s prolificacy is not without limits.

Some of you might protest that the Chinese and other foreign trading partners, looking for a commercial advantage by keeping our currency high, encouraged the U.S. government to spend, spend, spend by engaging in a policy well described as lend, lend, lend. And you are right. But since when does anyone have to take a loan, just because it’s offered?

At any point during the decades-long run-up in federal government spending, the reigning morons in the Washington swamp could have “just said no.”

Instead, they said “yes,” embarking on foreign adventures… spending trillions on building and then largely ruining the world’s biggest military apparatus… offering financial backing to liar loans… launching the mutant health care scheme that goes by the name of Medicare… and… and… agreeing to whatever other thick, fat-laden slice of pork the politicians thought the lazy-minded voteriat would find agreeable.

We don’t need to look overseas for people to blame. The culprits are still knocking around the halls of power, just wearing new ties (with cute little donkeys on them instead of elephants), their blubbery lips retrained to spout off about the need for new subsidies to promote this or that green energy project “for our children” (conveniently forgetting that their cousin Bob happens to be a big shareholder in said project).

Sorry about that. Got a little carried away, listening once again to Can’t Hear Me Knocking at high volume.

I need to move on, because I have to get back to editing The Casey Report, and because I just got invited to make an appearance this afternoon on Fox Business.

But before I go, I want to bring this down to a more human level by sharing the contents of an email I received this morning from Baldy in Indonesia.

I guess we’ll find out just how splendid isolation really is…

Look for the Union Label

By Donald Grove, Casey Research Washington Correspondent

After last week’s edition of this exercise in fulminating, subscriber Buster H., sent along the following note:

I am surprised you have not mentioned the major stealth labor union executive order signed (without any media coverage) by Obama on Feb. 6. Read the text here.

After reading the referenced document, I shot off a note to Donald Grove, our tireless Washington correspondent, asking him to turn over a few stones to get to the bottom of the story. Here’s his report…

Unions played a big role in putting Obama in the White House. His campaign website assured his labor backers that he would “fight for passage of the [so-called] Employee Free Choice Act” (which would eliminate secret ballots and leave workers who don’t want a union vulnerable to harassment), “ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, increase the minimum wage and index it to inflation to ensure it rises every year,” and “increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to make sure that full-time workers earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs.” Once safely ensconced as the nation’s chief executive, it was time for Obama to remember those who put him there.

On January 30, with inauguration festivities still a fresh memory, Obama signed three union-friendly executive orders reversing a series of Bush administration executive orders dictating how federal contractors are to deal with union workers.

Obama said, “We cannot have a strong middle class without strong labor unions. We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests. I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it's part of the solution.”

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who attended the signing ceremony, said “The executive orders are the first step in a long road to restore balance between workers and corporations. As the weeks and months continue, we thank God that we have a president, vice president, and Congress who are determined to fix our economy so that it works for everyone.”

On February 6, the president tossed labor another bone. While this fourth labor-friendly executive order does not require executive-branch agencies to use project labor agreements on construction projects, “it is the policy of the Federal Government to encourage executive agencies to consider requiring the use of project labor agreements in connection with large-scale construction projects in order to promote economy and efficiency in Federal procurement.” Unions love these agreements, which were prohibited by the Bush administration.

Michael Steele, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, had a different take, however. He said, “President Obama’s executive order will drive up the cost of government at a time when we should be doing everything possible to save taxpayer dollars. federal contracts should go to the businesses that can offer taxpayers the best value – not just the unions who supported the Democrats’ campaigns last year. Quietly signing executive orders to pay back campaign backers undermines Obama’s promise to change Washington. It is a disappointment for Americans hoping for more transparency and less politics-as-usual in Washington.”

According to two of America’s largest construction industry trade groups, the president’s orders would limit the number of workers hired on new federal jobs to build roads, bridges, and buildings – the very projects touted as creating millions of new jobs as part of the stimulus package. Jerry Gorski, national chairman of the Associated Builders and Contractors, said that 84% of the country's construction workers are not in labor unions. “If the purpose of these projects is to get Americans back to work, why would we pick an approach that would allow only a small percentage of the construction workforce to participate?” Brian Turmail, speaking for the Associated General Contractors, said Obama’s executive order “takes the contractor out of the process of negotiating with their employees and puts the government in that role.”

Here are the orders for those who wish to scrutinize.

2009-01-30 Notification of Employee Rights under Federal Labor Laws
2009-01-30 Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers under Service Contracts
2009-01-30 Economy in Government Contracting
2009-02-06 Project Labor Agreements

A couple have not yet appeared on the White House Briefing Room at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office.

I’m sure many of you will recall this inspirational jingle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNTpOnZqeUo

Thank God it’s Friday!

Regards, Don

State Sovereignty – Saying “No” to the Feds

By Shannara Johnson

David again. There have been a number of articles recently about the possible break-up of the Eurozone. Before those of us in the U.S. get too smug, we might want to wonder if something akin to that could happen here. “Never!” I can hear some of you exclaiming, and you are probably right. But we are very much heading into unchartered waters, with a serious power grab on the federal level that leaves the states with much of the costs associated with complying with the spate of new regulations.

Shannara Johnson, a senior researcher and editor here at Casey Research who touches almost everything you read from us – quite amazingly so – found the time to dig in on something of a revolt now brewing in capitals around these 50 states. Her report follows…

Drowned out by the fiscal calamities of recent months, there is a new “movement” in the United States; one that has, incredibly, received little attention from the mainstream media. Not so united anymore, an increasing number of states have been introducing resolutions to declare sovereignty.

Now, to clarify this, a declaration of sovereignty is not the same as secession. Rather, it is the assertion of states’ rights – rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution and have been, in the view of many state governments, eroded or usurped by the bigwigs in Washington, DC.

In the words of Arizona state Rep. Judy Burges, “We are telling the federal government that we are a sovereign state and want to be treated as such. We are not a branch of the federal government.”

The states are pointing to the 9th and 10th Amendments, which affirm, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” and “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Even though it’s not secession, it is definitely a warning shot. The resolutions demand that the Obama administration “cease and desist” from unrestrained government expansion; they also imply that federal laws and regulations that violate the 10th Amendment can be nullified by the states.

So far, ten states have recently drafted or are about to draft bills to declare sovereignty: Oklahoma, Arizona, Missouri, Michigan, Hawaii, Montana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Washington, and Texas. And according to analysts, up to 20 more states may follow suit this year, including Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine, and Pennsylvania.

The complaints mainly revolve around federal legislation imposed on the states without their consent; pet peeves include gun control laws, martial law provisions, freedom of religion and speech, and out-of-control federal spending.

“Live Free or Die” state New Hampshire’s resolution is one of the harshest:

NH Representative Dan Itse told FOX News’ Glenn Beck, “It’s a line in the sand to tell the federal government that they are no longer allowed to transgress the Constitution, and if they do, then they’re nullifying the Constitution.”

So far, so good. Here at Casey Research, ever the small-government advocates, we might be inclined to applaud the gutsiness of the states’ lawmakers. However, as Beck pointed out in his interview with Itse, some things just don’t add up.

For example, despite tough words and fingering the revolvers strapped to their hips, many governments of the very same states that are declaring sovereignty do not seem to mind holding their hands out for their share of the stimulus money the Obama administration is dangling in front of them. They just don’t like to be told by the feds how to spend it.

The Washington Times reported that Republican governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina “aggressively opposed the stimulus plan. However, in a Thursday morning interview on CBS’ ‘The Early Show,’ Mr. Sanford said his state would accept money from the stimulus bill. Opposing the plan ‘doesn’t preclude taking the money,’ said Mr. Sanford.”

Pragmatism or hypocrisy? Tad DeHaven of the Cato Institute chooses the latter, noting that about a third of average total state spending comes from the federal government. Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, agrees: “To a large degree, states are scapegoating their budget problems on Washington. It’s tough to be sympathetic for states and local governments when they go $467 billion in federal grants last year.”

Tax Revolt – Part I

Friend and mining stock guru Rick Rule sent the following along this week…

Actual “Letter to the Editor” from the February 5th edition of the Wichita Falls, Texas Times Record News...

Dear IRS,

I am sorry to inform you that I will not be able to pay taxes owed April 15, but all is not lost.

I have paid these taxes: accounts receivable tax, building permit tax, CDL tax, cigarette tax, corporate income tax, dog license tax, federal income tax, unemployment tax, gasoline tax, hunting license tax, fishing license tax, waterfowl stamp tax, inheritance tax, inventory tax, liquor tax, luxury tax, Medicare tax, city, school and county property tax, real estate tax, Social Security tax, road usage tax, toll road tax, state and city sales tax, recreational vehicle tax, state franchise tax, state unemployment tax, telephone federal excise tax, telephone federal state and local surcharge tax, telephone minimum usage surcharge tax, telephone state and local tax, utility tax, vehicle license registration tax, capital gains tax, lease severance tax, oil and gas assessment tax, Colorado property tax, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and New Mexico sales tax, and many more that I can't recall, but I have run out of space and money anyway.

When you do not receive my check April 15, just know that it is an honest mistake. Please treat me the same way you treated Congressmen Charles Rangel, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, and ex-Congressman Tom Daschle and, of course, your boss Timothy Geithner. No penalties and no interest.

Ed Barnett
Wichita Falls

P.S. I will make at least a partial payment as soon as I get my stimulus check.

Tax Revolt – Part II

Thanks to subscriber and periodic correspondent Jerry C. for sending this along…

Tax the table at which he's fed.

Tax his tractor, tax his mule,

Teach him taxes are the rule.

Tax his work, tax his pay,

He works for peanuts anyway.

Tax his cow, tax his goat,

Tax his pants, tax his coat.

Tax his ties, tax his shirt,

Tax his work, tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco, tax his drink,

Tax him if he tries to think.

Tax his cigars, tax his beers,

If he cries, tax his tears.

Tax his car, tax his gas,

Find other ways to tax his ass.

Tax all he has, then let him know,

You won't be done till he has no dough.

When he screams, then tax him some more.

Tax him till he's good and sore.

Then tax his coffin, tax his grave, tax the sod in which he's laid.

Put these words upon his tomb,

“Taxes drove me to my doom...”

When he's gone, do not relax,

It’s time to apply the inheritance tax.

Accounts Receivable Tax, Building Permit Tax, CDL License Tax, Cigarette Tax, Corporate Income Tax, Dog License Tax, Excise Tax, Federal Income Tax, Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA), Fishing License Tax, Food License Tax, Fuel Permit Tax, Gasoline Tax, Gross Receipts Tax, Hunting License Tax, Inheritance Tax, Inventory Tax, IRS Interest Charges/IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax), Liquor Tax, Luxury Taxes, Marriage License Tax, Medicare Tax, Personal Property Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Tax, Service Charge Tax, Social Security Tax, Road Usage Tax, Sales Tax, Recreational Vehicle Tax, School Tax, State Income Tax, State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) Telephone Federal Excise Tax, Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax, Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes, Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax, Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax, Telephone State and Local Tax, Telephone Usage Charge Tax, Utility Taxes, Vehicle License Registration Tax, Vehicle Sales Tax, Watercraft Registration Tax, Well Permit Tax, Workers Compensation Tax.

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened? Can you spell P-O-L-I-T-I-C-I-A-N-S?

David again. If you are not yet tired of this week’s bashing of government, read the following opinion piece titled “America’s biggest problem is big government” by Dr. Gary Wolfram of Hillsdale College. It’s worth a read. Click here.

Miscellany

Toronto Phyle. On March 3rd at 7:30 p.m., the Toronto Phyle will be hosting three members of the Casey Research team, all of whom are in town for the annual Prospectors and Developers conference. If you are going to be in the area and want to connect with other Casey subscribers as well as Jeff Clark, editor of BIG GOLD, Doug Hornig of the Daily Resource, and Louis James, our senior researcher and editor of the CIA and International Speculator, drop us a note at phyles@caseyresearch.com and we’ll get you the details.
In Other Phyle News… Oren in Israel… John in Boise, ID… Michael in the Quartzsite/Parker, AZ, Blythe, CA area… plus other individuals in Edmonton, Alberta… Kingston, NY, and Wichita, KS, are willing to host subscriber get-togethers. Drop us a note at the email address just above, and we’ll get you connected.

And that, dear readers is that for this week. As I look at the screens, I see that the stock market, after having opened up sharply lower, is now down just a little… while gold is trading at $940, well off from its latest run-up near the $1,000 mark. That’s okay. This is not a sprint we are in but the early days of a grueling trek to what’s next. Gold will be a critical part of our financial travel kit and, at times along the way, a pretty good trading sardine, too. For instance, if it gets knocked back into the mid-$800s.

Stay the course.

Before signing off, I would like to give a special thanks to all of our many correspondents. Over the years, we have built a large and robust international network that now serves as an early-warning system for our team. You collectively make our task of scanning the world for what is important far easier… and individually, you make my job all that more agreeable.

For those of you who will be making it to Vegas, let’s grab a beer together. And for those who won’t, a toast in your general direction.

On the topic of Vegas, or more specifically, our upcoming Crisis & Opportunity Summit, we never did quite get around to sending out a big promotion, but the conference is all but sold out at this point. We can take a few more registrations, but just a few. By this time next week, it will be a complete sell-out. So, if you’re still interested, and you should be, the time to act is now. More info here.

Until next week, thank you for reading and for being a subscriber to one or more Casey services.

Sincerely,

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research, LLC.

The Room

The Room – 07/10/2009

Opportunity Knocks

Playing the Bounce

Speaking of Unemployment

What Really Makes the World Go Round (and How to Profit from It)

Statehouses in the Poorhouses

Report from CYCLE

Too Funny

Miscellany

And That's That for This Week

The Room – 06/19/2009

The First 150 Days

Where Did the Wealth Go?

Foreigners Are Slowing Investment in the U.S.

Notes from the Field

A Centrally Controlled Economy?

Audit the Fed

Building Without the Proper Permits

Miscellaneous

The Room – 06/12/2009

Health Care, Everyone?

No More Big Bucks for You!

Fortunately, We Have the Law

Capital Gains… What Capital Gains?

The Road Less Traveled

21 Economic Models Explained

Promoting Free Market Economics…

Miscellany

The Room – 06/05/2009

Unemployment Falls!

Housing Market Bottoms!

So, Why the Stock Market Rally?

Gold Can’t Be Beaten

Debt Collapse and Inflation

Worth a Read

Adult Supervision

Saving Private Brown

Miscellany

The Room – 05/22/2009

Crime Scene

Just So You Know

Tar Baby

Confidence Inspiring 101

Random Thoughts

Tech Talk

Miscellany

The Room – 05/15/2009

Tax Revenues Tanking

Super Fed, Super Cop?

Sharks Eat Sharks

Eat Dirt

Word from the (Mexican) Street

Star Trek – “Stayed Wide Awake”

Miscellany

The Room – 05/01/2009

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Watch What You Wish For

We’re All About to Die!!!!

A Word from Mother England

Technology YOU Love!

Miscellany

The Room – 04/17/2009

Why Do You Buy Gold?

Entourage

Opportunity Knocks?

The Down Low

Tax This!

That’s It for This Week!

The Room – 04/10/2009

Speaking of Zombies

The Cloudy Crystal Ball

Feed the Pigs, Own the Pigs

A Shift in Tide for the Trade Deficit

The More Things Change...

Miscellany

The Room – 04/03/2009

G20 Meeting, Who Cares?

The IMF

The IMF's Gold

What Really Makes the World Go Round
(and How to Profit from It)