Meanwhile, back at club med in Greece, customs agents go on strike,  exacerbating Greece’s economic woes by hindering exports. Greece’s citizens are rightfully angry that their wages and lifestyles will likely have to be trimmed back. After all, most of Greece’s citizens made the best decision for the families by working for the federal government (Fed employees are 20% of Greece’s workforce). Now they will likely have to except a pay cut or be retrained in another industry. There simply is no easy “human” decision to be made.

Meanwhile, gold is attempting to return to its real worth, zero, which would place gold at a value of 6,000 US DOLLARS! At which time the governments of the world will blissfully ask that its citizens hand over its metal in exchange for toilet paper as it did in the 1930s.

Andrew Jackson is howling from his grave as we speak, while Nicholas Biddle lies in his with a smile.

Gilbert lays out three reasons why currency investors are starting to doubt the US government, after all why ‘pick on’ the dollar as he says: “These include the state’s pressure on Bank of America Corp. to buy Merrill Lynch & Co.; the priority given to Chrysler LLC’s unions over the automaker’s secured creditors; and the freedom that some banks will regain to supersize executive bonuses by giving back part of the government money bolstering their balance sheets.”

It’s sad, but I revel in seeing stories like this on such a mainstream, if niche, media outlets.  Will Obama Time Magazine ever run something like this?  Probably not.  A likely op-ed in the New York Times?  Not if it unmasks Krugman for the hack that he is.

As an aside: let’s make it clear … dollar is dirt and treasuries are toast, those things ring true to me.  Adding that AAA is gone means nothing.  Gilbert mentions that even a downgrade to AA makes the USA’s creditworthiness “very strong” — something that is laughable.  Standards and Poor’s ratings are as worthless as the Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization and the Securities and Exchange Commission that props them up.

How China Sees the World (Economist.com)

China understands that the only way for the US to service its debt is through monetization.  It’s unlikely that they ever imagined a US recession would lead to this type of monetary expansion:

As the US dollar currency in circulation approaches $1 trillion, China is finally trying to find a new safe haven for cash.

Is it likely that we will see another Bretton Woods soon?  I don’t think as it stands now.  But maybe, just maybe, China is setting the framework for a future day when it dumps its treasuries and punishes the US.  This certainly would be painful for Beijing, but what is this investment actually worth anyway?  It may be the perfect catalyst for a Shanghai version of Bretton Woods in 2010.  Could a new currency order with China leading the way be worth its investment loss?

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
–Samuel Johnson

U.S. consumption has driven global growth for years. South Pacific countries sold us their spare capacity which drove and modernized their economies at a seemingly unrealistic pace. Foreigners have been building dollar reserves for decades. Many of those countries have rightly realized that perhaps they should use those dollars to buy U.S. assets rather than hold treasuries. It is one thing to exploit foreign labor, but now foreigners have put their surpluses (their money/capital) to work buying up U.S. assets, thus exploiting us. Touché. Now, profits generated from the selling to the U.S. consumer go oversees rather than staying here.

The consumer was being squeezed on all sides entering into 2008. Higher fuel prices, falling housing prices, stagnant wages, higher unemployment, and rising food costs.

Household debt as a percentage of GDP is almost 100% as the below chart illustrates.

Pundits argued that rising household net worth would allow spending to continue forever and ever as net worth continued it climb in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Now household net worth is falling at an unprecedented rate. In 2008 household net worth declined an astounding to $11.2 trillion to $51.5 trillion (Random Factoid $trillion in household net worth vs. 600 trillion in outstanding derivatives in the U.S.).  In 2007, residential mortgages outstanding, in percentage terms   were equivalent to 78% of US GDP. In 2006 residential mortgages made up an outstanding 36% of total U.S. debt outstanding. When this crisis started in 2007 Gary Shilling said that we would need vacant supply to fall below 600k homes now he estimates that there currently are 2.1 million in excess supply. Shilling estimates that housing prices could fall anther 20% (ughh what’s that going to do to household net worth?).

A sad fact now apparent to most of us, the U.S. consumer is tapped and they are not coming back for years … not months. I am now realizing why the Fed has chosen to monetize this debt, clearly the people who have burrowed(or should I say lent…ah what the hell…both) can’t afford for the Fed not to.

Now let me get this straight…the Fed is going to buy back these mortgages via Fannie and Freddie, an issue treasuries to do so? Now the Fed is going to buy back treasuries (monetizing: printing money) to keep rates down so lenders can then make more loans to people who are insolvent? Meanwhile oil is walking its way back up the ladder towards $100 (granted I believe will break $40 once more) because oil is finite and fiat dollars are not. Food costs are not slowing the way they should if an economy is truly productive, wages are declining, productivity(…well is there such thing as productivity in Never Never land?) is declining and the government is scaring the entrepreneur back into his/her shell with taxes.

Jefferson is rolling over in grave as we speak.