[Update 8 – 22 January 2015]
With the globalists sipping champagne and nibbling caviar at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, it’s no surprise to see preparatory propaganda for the coming “Fed mistake” being presented on the 22nd of January…
In this instance, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is preparing us for what is to come. According to the Telegraph article…
>>> The United States risks a deflationary spiral and a depression-trap that would engulf the world if the Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy too soon, a top panel of experts has warned…
“There is no confident basis for tightening. The Fed should not be fighting against inflation until it sees the whites of its eyes. That is a long way off,” he [Larry Summers] said, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Mr Summers said the world economy is entering treacherous waters as the US expansion enters its seventh year, reaching the typical life-expectancy of recoveries. <<<
So with his remarks, he is establishing an expectation for the end of the “recovery” and for the “mistake” the Fed will make this year. And after establishing that an “epochal deflationary crisis” will come if the Fed tightens money policy “too soon,” Christine Lagarde is then reported saying this…
>>> Mrs Lagarde said the IMF expects the Fed to raise rates in the middle of the year, sooner than markets expect. <<<
In other words, she is expecting the Fed to tighten monetary policy too soon.
The article also quotes Lagarde saying something that is interesting in light of the George Soros interview I’ve been writing about…
>>> “If the US is in a bad place, we are short of any engine at the moment, so I hope you are wrong,” said Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund. <<<
So if the US economic engine stops driving the world economy, which nation will take its place? According to the George Soros FT interview…
“China will emerge as the motor replacing the US consumer and, of course, it’s a smaller motor because the Chinese economy is much smaller. So the world economy will have less of a motor, so it will move forward slower than it has in the last 25 years. But China will be the engine driving it forward…”
Another thing that Soros mentions in the interview is the effect of China de-pegging the renminbi from the dollar. Given what happened with the Swiss franc and the euro this month, that is something else we should be watching for. Another form the “Fed mistake” could take is doing quantitative easing instead of raising rates, and that could trigger de-pegging like it did in Europe. I’ll cover this in another update.
[Update 9 – 23 January 2015]
Are Netanyahu and the Pope setting up a time window for war?
Two peculiar things I’ve watched pop up in the news are the planned US visits of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Pope Francis, both of whom are to give speeches before joint sessions of Congress this year.
When I first saw news of Netanyahu’s visit, his speech was scheduled for February 11 (2/11), but it has since moved to March 3 (3/3). And the Pope’s arrival in the US is scheduled for September 22 (9/22). These dates suggest that Judeo-Masonic mischief is afoot. But what sort of mischief?
If we look to the public personas of the two, Netanyahu is seen as a war hawk and the Pope as a peace dove, so this suggests we might be looking at a “war window”: two points in time that mark the beginning and end of a period of staged military conflict. According to some news reports, such as this one at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution…
…the Israelis and Republicans are doing an end-run around Obama which could possibly lead to war. Will the Pope then come to bring peace?
During any other year, I wouldn’t pay much mind to the two visits, but 2015 isn’t going to be like any other year.
I’ll keep an eye on this…
[Update 10 – 24 January 2015]
Congress may be waiting for “Fed Mistake” before passing audit bill
We’re nearing the end of January, and neither the mainstream media nor the Congress have been talking much about the “Audit the Fed” effort. The articles that have been trickling out of the MSM have appeared in local outlets, but they feature wording that’s worth noting. Here’s a snippet from a Raleigh News & Observer piece…
“Detractors from both major political parties are preparing legislation to rein in the powers of the Federal Reserve, moves that would test and potentially restrain its independence.
The proposals include ordering a broad audit of the central bank, including its secret policy making, and giving Congress the power to confirm or reject the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, one of the most influential…
Since 1913, the Fed has used closed-door deliberations to conduct monetary policy, raising its benchmark interest rates when the economy gets too hot and inflation is a threat, and cutting them in a bid to spark activity when economic recovery loses steam.”
They are making a point of mentioning that the audit will cover the Fed’s monetary policymaking, which could be a hint that the legislation will be advanced when the Fed makes its big “mistake” with regards to monetary policy.
In the meantime, Sputnik (a newly branded Russian government propaganda outlet), is promoting Ron Paul and the endgame of the Fed audit maneuver…
…May God bless our elite-sponsored “hero,” Ron Paul. 🙂
[Update 11 – 24 January 2015]
George Soros, the dollar/renminbi peg, and the “Fed mistake”
So far this month, we have seen lots of drama coming out of the central banks. And amidst this drama, three notable precedents have emerged…
1) Central banks are making abrupt, market-shocking changes in policy direction.
As noted in Update 4, we have seen this in Switzerland, and we’ve also now seen it in Canada. If you haven’t heard what Canada did, have a look at this Economist article…
“THE Bank of Canada does not like to surprise the markets and usually signals changes to its benchmark interest rate well in advance. But on January 21st markets were shocked by the bank’s decision to drop the target for the overnight rate from 1% to just 0.75%.”
2) Central banks are lowering interest rates and doing quantitative easing.
Canada lowered its rate and the European Central Bank announced a 60 billion euro per month bond buying program.
3) A central bank has removed a currency peg.
The Swiss de-pegged their franc from the euro using the ECB’s anticipated quantitative easing as an excuse.
Looking at these three precedents, let’s have another look at the anticipated “Fed mistake.” So far, the expectation has been that it would take the form of the Fed raising their interest rates too soon and/or too much. But what would happen if they instead followed the precedents set by the other central banks?
Before answering this question, let’s look back at what George Soros said about the dollar and China’s renminbi back in 2009 (for more information on this interview, see George Soros and the elite’s China-fronted New World Order)…
From here: “Well, certainly a decline in the value of the dollar is necessary in order to compensate for the fact that the US economy will remain rather weak — will be a drag on the global economy.”
From here: “And basically the renminbi is permanently undervalued because it’s tied to the dollar.”
From here: “As long as the renminbi is tied to the dollar, I don’t see how the decline in the dollar can go too far.”
From here: Interviewer – “Do you think it’s possible to persuade China to allow the renminbi to become stronger?”
Soros – “I think that they would be… they have been agitating for it, so I would take them at their word…”
(Keep in mind that the Chinese are attempting to transition from an export-based economy to one based on domestic consumption, so an increase in the renminbi’s value would help with that.)
What Soros is implying with his statements is that the renminbi is like a helium balloon that naturally wants to go up (because of the “strength” of the Chinese economy and China’s vast commodity assets), and the dollar is like a weight that naturally wants to go down (because of the “weakness” of the US economy and the dollar’s diminishing use as the world’s reserve currency). So as long as the two currencies are tied together by the Chinese government’s dollar peg policy, the renminbi is weighed down by the dollar and the dollar is held up by the renminbi. If you untie the two, the balloon will rise and the weight will fall.
Now imagine this…
After making a big show of supposedly tapering and then stopping its quantitative easing, and after getting all the markets to expect an interest rate increase sometime in 2015, the Fed instead does the exact opposite and restarts QE (they would do this under the pretext that the QE from all the other central banks is making the dollar too strong and exports too expensive, thus threatening the US “recovery”). The Chinese, in turn, could use such a Fed move as the pretext for de-pegging their currency like the Swiss did. This could cause an abrupt dollar/renminbi currency move which could be greatly exacerbated if the Chinese also did one or both of the following:
1) Announce that in addition to depegging, they will start moving towards a gold backing for the renminbi.
2) Begin unloading large quantities of their US Treasury bonds using the excuse that the Fed is irresponsibly inflating away the value of China’s dollar holdings.
The ensuing currency shock could then give rise to a “multilateral solution” through the IMF.
This leaves us with three candidates for the “Fed mistake”…
1) The Fed goes against the flow of the other central banks and raises interest rates too much / too soon, thus causing a shock in the markets.
2) The Fed goes with the flow of the other central banks by reversing course and reinstituting QE, thus causing the Chinese to abandon their dollar peg.
3) The Fed does nothing, and after the speculative bubbles burst and sink the system, they get blamed for letting the bubbles grow too large on account of their too loose, too long monetary policy.
Get out the popcorn. This should be fun to watch.
For the previous updates in this series, click here.