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Thursday, April 28, 2011
Energy and Food Inflation and Ben Bernanke
Food and Energy Inflation is Not Transitory
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday held his first press conference in history. The press conference took place shortly after the Fed announced its decision to leave the Fed Funds Rate at a record low of 0% to 0.25%, where it has been for an unprecedented 28 months. The U.S. economy is flooded with U.S. dollars and is close to overdosing on excess liquidity. The fact that our financial markets are not falling on the possibility of the Fed not unleashing QE3 immediately at the end of QE2, shows that we could be on the verge of hyperinflation with or without QE3.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday held his first press conference in history. The press conference took place shortly after the Fed announced its decision to leave the Fed Funds Rate at a record low of 0% to 0.25%, where it has been for an unprecedented 28 months. The U.S. economy is flooded with U.S. dollars and is close to overdosing on excess liquidity. The fact that our financial markets are not falling on the possibility of the Fed not unleashing QE3 immediately at the end of QE2, shows that we could be on the verge of hyperinflation with or without QE3.
The Federal Reserve currently has a mandate of both maintaining price stability and facilitating job creation. However, central banks don't have the ability to create real employment. If any jobs happen to be created as a result of a central bank's policies, they are only temporary jobs created due to the errors and distortions of phony asset bubbles. All phony asset bubbles that are fueled by monetary inflation eventually burst, sending unemployment through the roof.
Almost every major central bank besides the Federal Reserve, understands the truth about job creation, and has a mandate that focuses solely on keeping price inflation low. The Bank of Japan, Swiss National Bank, Bank of Canada, and Bank of New Zealand, all have mandates that are entirely about low inflation and don't even mention the creation of jobs or the rate of employment. Bernanke said on Wednesday that, "while it is very, very important for us to try to help the economy create jobs and to support the recovery, I think every central banker understands that keeping inflation low and stable is absolutely essential to a successful economy."
Bernanke has decided to go down a route that no central banker has ever gone before. Bernanke has literally invented countless ways to create inflation that nobody else has ever thought of. If keeping inflation low was ever Bernanke's slightest concern, the Fed Funds Rate would currently be north of 5% and the U.S. economy would be in a steep recession. Bernanke has never once thought about keeping inflation low. He has literally implemented every measure he could possibly think of to create as much inflation as possible, while outright lying to the American public and saying that he isn't printing money and that inflation is under control.
Bernanke would like the public to believe that his policies of expanding the money supply through cheap and easy money will cause the U.S. economy to recover and unemployment to decline back to pre-crisis levels, and that right before price inflation spirals out of control, he can raise interest rates and prevent massive price inflation without disrupting the recovery. Unfortunately, this is impossible because the recovery isn't real and massive price inflation is already here. Bernanke's policies may have created 1 million artificial jobs since December of 2009, after 8.75 million jobs were lost in the previous two years, but he did this at the expense of 310 million Americans already seeing double-digit percentage increases in food and energy prices.
Since after the Real Estate bubble burst in late-2008, the primary economic concern of Americans has been finding a stable job in order to make mortgage payments and put food on the table. Under the pressure of Congress, the Fed printed enough money to prevent a much needed recession that would be healthy for the long-term U.S. economy. In its attempt to reinflate the Real Estate bubble, the Fed has been destroying the free market and creating new economic distortions, which caused an artificial bounce in the rate of employment. Unfortunately, when you add together the money the Fed has either printed or committed for bailouts and stimulus programs, over $4 million has been spent for each job created. The Fed would have been better off just crediting the bank accounts of unemployed Americans with the average U.S. income.
When asked about rising gas prices, NIA is very happy that Chairman Bernanke acknowledged that gas prices "have risen quite significantly" and are "creating a great deal of financial hardship for a lot of people". Bernanke admitted that gas is a "necessity" as "people need to drive to work" for the artificial jobs Bernanke created at a cost of $4 million per job. However, Bernanke seemed to be confused when he said "higher gas prices add to inflation". The truth is, Bernanke's zero percent interest rates and quantitative easing are the inflation, and inflation leads to higher gas prices.
Bernanke is directly responsible for gas prices rising back to $3.87 per gallon, yet refuses to admit it. Bernanke placed the blame on the growing global and emerging market economies, and their strong demand for oil. He said that America's demand for oil is going down, which NIA believes is actually due to the U.S. dollar losing its purchasing power and Americans seeing their standard of living decline. Bernanke said there is nothing that he can do about rising oil and gas prices "without derailing growth entirely". The truth is, Bernanke already derailed growth entirely when he derailed the free market. It is impossible to see real economic growth when a government and central bank is interfering in every aspect of the economy and impeding the free market in every possible way. All nominal GDP growth in the U.S., along with growth in retail sales, is solely due to inflation. Even when the government adjusts GDP and retail sales growth to the rate of inflation, it is based off of the consumer price index, which NIA believes is currently understating price inflation by approximately 4%.
Although Bernanke denies he has the ability to reduce gas prices, he claims he can prevent "gas prices from passing into other prices and wages throughout the economy and creating a broader inflation which will be much more difficult to extinguish." Bernanke obviously doesn't want Americans to see higher wages because he believes it could lead to broader inflation, but NIA believes rising wages would be a good thing. Inflation hurts Americans most when the rate of inflation is far outpacing wage increases. The fact is, the U.S. is already experiencing broad inflation even without wage increases.
Bernanke's brand new favorite word as of late seems to be "transitory", which he used about a dozen times during his press conference. Despite what Bernanke says, NIA strongly believes that rising food and gas prices are not transitory. Bernanke likes the word "transitory" because he can use it to try and pretend that rising food and gas prices are only just a temporary phenomenon and that their current high levels aren't here to stay. Many Americans can remember the day 40 years ago when a can of Coca-Cola cost a dime and a Hershey chocolate bar cost a nickel, with a gallon of gas back then costing only thirty-five cents. Have rising food and gas prices over the past four decades been transitory?
NIA first predicted two years ago in its documentary 'Hyperinflation Nation', that rising food and gas prices would soon become the primary concern of all American citizens as a result of the Fed's dangerous and destructive monetary policies. Bernanke back then claimed that inflation would not be a problem and said that the U.S. risked deflation. If Bernanke has been so wrong about the inflation that Americans are faced with today, NIA doesn't see how anybody can possibly believe that Bernanke will be right and that current high food and gas prices aren't here to stay. In our opinion, the food and gas price inflation that Americans have experienced over the past 40 years, is likely to occur all over again during the next 4 years. NIA believes that 4 years from now, Americans will look back at the good old days of having cheap $4 a gallon gas.
The last thing the U.S. government wants is for the American public to realize that Bernanke is responsible for rising food and gas prices. If the public demanded to end the Federal Reserve, the government will no longer be able to spend recklessly knowing that the Fed will be there to monetize their deficit spending. In an attempt to make up excuses for rising gas prices and deflect attention away from the Fed, Congress has been pressuring the U.S. Attorney General to investigate the matter. Attorney General Eric Holder just announced the formation of the Oil & Gas Price Fraud Working Group. The stated purpose of this working group is to monitor the oil and gas markets for potential violations of criminal or civil laws to safeguard against unlawful consumer harm.
NIA considers this to be complete insanity. Any government interference in the oil markets will only drive oil prices up even higher. Oil prices are rising solely do to supply and demand. Demand is going through the roof because the Federal Reserve is creating a lot of inflation, and inflation always gravitates to the goods that Americans need the most to live and survive. Oil supplies are falling because President Obama has ordered U.S. troops to occupy Libya. In the past we at least made up excuses to invade countries like Iraq over oil by claiming they had weapons of mass destruction. Today, the U.S. government doesn't even bother. Obama campaigned as an anti-war President, saying he would bring our troops home from the middle-east. Instead, he has increased our middle-east troop levels, and the sheep who voted for him are showing absolutely no signs of outrage.
It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at: http://inflation.us
Are you just like a member of Al-Qaeda
Posted: 27 Apr 2011 08:14 PM PDT
Are you against raising the debt ceiling? If so, according to former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill you are actually part of al-Qaeda. Yes, seriously. During an interview on Bloomberg TV the other day, O'Neill actually made the following statement: "The people who are threatening not to pass the debt ceiling are our version of al-Qaeda terrorists. Really. They're really putting our whole society at risk by threatening to round up 50 percent of the members of the Congress, who are looney, who would put our credit at risk." For a high ranking Bush administration official to equate Tea Party activists with al-Qaeda is extremely frightening. Just remember what the Bush administration did to anyone supposedly associated with al-Qaeda. They shipped them off to Guantanamo Bay and waterboarded them into oblivion. It also shows how out of touch the Bush administration really was with the conservative base of the Republican Party. The Bush administration ran up record setting deficit after record setting deficit and now any conservatives that dare to want some assurances that we are actually going to do something about our rampant debt problem are labeled as "al-Qaeda terrorists". Of course the Obama administration is essentially doing the exact same thing. The current Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, has been running around frothing at the mouth and declaring that we are going to experience financial armageddon if the debt ceiling is not raised. This whole episode is yet another example that shows what a fraud the false left/right political paradigm in this country really is.The debt ceiling is one of the only points of leverage that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has available. If the Republicans want to make a stand on the national debt, they need to do it somewhere. John Boehner already caved badly when it came to the 2011 budget. The Republicans are running out of opportunities to make a statement before the 2012 election.
Not that Boehner and the rest of the "establishment Republicans" are much interested in seriously cutting the budget. If they were, they would have done it during the Bush years.
But there are millions of Americans (and a few members of Congress) associated with the Tea Party movement that are deeply troubled by our soaring budget deficits and that desperately want something done before it is too late.
If the U.S. government keeps running up debt like it is right now, it is going to completely destroy our economy. America has a debt problem unlike anything ever seen in the history of the world. If left unchecked, it is going to destroy the economic future of our children and our grandchildren.
Something needs to be done.
Yes, if the debt ceiling is not raised, the financial world will throw a fit. There may even be a bit of a panic. But you can't really blame those associated with the Tea Party for wanting some assurances about getting the debt under control before agreeing to raise the debt ceiling yet again.
Our national debt is a horrific national crisis. It threatens to destroy everything that our forefathers built.
But members of the political establishment such as former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill don't have much patience for those that want to question the status quo.
Look, when any member of the Bush administration uses the words "al-Qaeda" in relation to a group of people you need to pay careful attention.
Do you remember how the Bush administration treated anyone that was accused of being part of al-Qaeda? The following are some of the kinder things that they would do to them according to official U.S. government memos....
*Forced nudityThere are a lot worse things that they would do to "members of al-Qaeda" but they cannot be printed in this space.
*"Walling", which is slamming a prisoner into a wall
*"Cramped confinement" which means "placement of the individual in a confined space"
*Stinging insects placed inside "a confinement box"
*Waterboarding - one of the memos actually admits that "the use of waterboarding constitutes a threat of imminent death"
*Sleep deprivation for several days
*Sleep deprivation while wearing a diaper
*The use of "stress positions" to cause "muscle fatigue"
*"Dietary manipulation"
*Facial and abdominal slapping
So when Paul O'Neill says that you are part of al-Qaeda, let's just say that he does not plan to invite you out for a Sunday picnic.
This is yet another example of how dirty politics in America is becoming. Liberals hate conservatives and conservatives hate liberals. They both hate libertarians and libertarians hate them. America is a deeply, deeply divided nation and hatred and bitterness are growing at a staggering pace.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government is absolutely drowning in debt and the plans put forward by both the Democrats and the Republicans are total jokes. Nobody seems to have any idea how to get out of this mess.
We have accumulated the largest mountain of debt in the history of the world and we expect our children and our grandchildren to pay it off.
What we have done to future generations is absolutely inexcusable.
In a previous article on U.S. government finances, I detailed some absolutely horrifying statistics about U.S. government debt....
#1 If you divide the national debt up equally among all U.S. households, each one owes a staggering $125,475.18.
#2 The federal government has borrowed 29,660 more dollars per household since Barack Obama signed the economic stimulus law two years ago.
#3 During Barack Obama's first two years in office, the U.S. government added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.
#4 In the new budget that the Obama administration has proposed, the U.S. government would spend 3.7 trillion dollars in 2012 and by 2021 the U.S. government would be spending a whopping 5.6 trillion dollars per year.
#5 The U.S. government currently has to borrow approximately 41 cents of every single dollar that it spends.
#6 The total compensation that the federal government workforce earned last year came to a grand total of approximately 447 billion dollars.
#7 The U.S. national debt is currently rising by well over 4 billion dollars every single day.
#8 The U.S. government is borrowing over 2 million more dollars every single minute.
#9 The U.S. national debt is over 14 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.
#10 Unfunded liabilities for entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare are estimated to be well over $100 trillion, and nobody in the U.S. government seems to have any idea how we are actually even going to come close to meeting all of those obligations.
#11 If you were alive when Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now. But this year alone the U.S. government is going to go about 1.6 trillion dollars more into debt.
#12 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.
You would think that our politicians would be working night and day to solve this problem.
But instead, anyone that is actually serious enough to want to pause before raising the debt ceiling again is called an "al-Qaeda terrorist".
Even if you are against the Tea Party and in favor of raising the debt ceiling immediately, you should still be extremely concerned when a former high ranking member of the government equates a group of Americans with "al-Qaeda" just because of their political beliefs.
Our country is being transformed. Liberty and freedom are dying. Today, when Americans are concerned about the national debt they are called "terrorists", but when our women and our children are sexually molested at "security checkpoints" it is called "patriotic".
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
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