Puru & The Rock

Puru Saxena presents his forecast:

"The developed nations are over-extended, their debt levels are ballooning and their governments are creating copious amounts of money. Put simply, most industrialised nations are now caught between a rock and a hard place. After years of excesses, the developed world is slowly beginning to realise that you cannot continue to live beyond your means and spend your way to prosperity. Today, US national debt stands just north of US$12 trillion, its fiscal deficit for this year alone should come in around US$1.6 trillion and the nation faces mind-boggling deficits for as far as the eye can see. Furthermore, demand for US government debt has begun to wane and this implies that the Federal Reserve will have to resort to creating even more money over the following years. Make no mistake; the US cannot afford higher interest-rates and in order to keep a lid on the government bond yields, we are convinced that the Federal Reserve will resort to debt monetisation. In other words, the central bank will create new dollars in order to fund the deficits. Needless to say, this money-creation will be extremely dilutive and end up undermining the viability of the world’s reserve currency. If our assessment is correct, within the course of this decade, the interest-payments on the existing government debt will become so large that the US Treasury will need to issue new debt just so that it can keep paying interest on its outstanding debt. When that happens, you be sure that foreigners will not be eager buyers of US government debt. Therefore, the Federal Reserve will have to create additional money, just to keep the Ponzi-scheme going. And when all else fails, the US will simply debase its currency, thereby repaying its creditors in significantly depreciated dollars. Although our prognosis may sound far-fetched, we want to remind you that throughout history, currency debasement has been the norm rather than the exception. Let us put it simply, the US is now left with three options:
•Sovereign default (unimaginable)
•Severe economic contraction (unlikely)
•Currency debasement (most probable)"

The entire article:
http://financialsense.com/editorials/saxena/2010/0407.html

The Mega Ponzi Scheme

"In our view, in the not too distant future, the interest payments on the outstanding national debts in the overstretched ‘developed’ nations will become so large that their central banks will need to create money just to keep the Ponzi schemes going. When that happens, the game will be up and we will probably experience a total breakdown of the fiat-money experiment. At this stage, we do not know when the day of reckoning will arrive but we do know that all Ponzi schemes ultimately collapse under their own weight and this one will be no different."
Puru Saxena

Entire Article:
http://financialsense.com/editorials/saxena/2010/0211.html

Inflation or Deflation?

Puru Saxena, Editor of Money Matters, is a frequent guest on Jim Puplava's radio show. He just posted an interesting article regarding the inflation vs deflation forecast. I believe that he's "dead on". An excerpt:

"It is my firm belief that over the years ahead, the US and all other debt-laden nations in the West will engage in massive money-creation in order to debase their currencies and dilute the purchasing power of paper money. Remember, monetary inflation is a debtor’s best friend as it makes the debt easier to service and repay. On the other hand, monetary inflation goes against the interests of savers and creditors. Given the fact that most of the ‘developed’ nations are up to their eyeballs in debt, you don’t have to be a genius to figure out that monetary inflation is our future. At present, the global economy is dealing with deflationary forces due to credit contraction in the private-sector. However, even now, total credit in the US is expanding due to rampant borrowing by the US government. So, I don’t expect deflation to take hold; rather, I anticipate accelerating inflation which has always led to rising asset and consumer prices."

"Now that we have established that monetary inflation is our future, let us examine which currencies and assets will maintain their purchasing power. If history is any guide, nations which engage in monetary inflation always diminish the purchasing power of their currency. So, in the years ahead, we can expect currencies in the West to depreciate in terms of purchasing power but the trouble is that none of the fundamentally sound nations want a strong currency either! As the world engages in competitive currency devaluations, I expect all the currencies in the world to lose significant purchasing power against hard assets. Therefore, in the years ahead, precious metals and other commodities with intrinsic value should appreciate considerably. Even the values of fundamentally sound businesses with clean balance-sheets should sky-rocket as a result of inflation."

The entire article:
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/saxena/2009/0320.html