All Posts Tagged With: "bond yields"

We’ve battled this argument before, so we apologise if we repeat ourselves. But it needs to be said because the mainstream media continues to talk gibberish about China’s economy. This is the argument: a falling inflation rate in China allows the authorities to ease monetary policy to avert a hard landing.

So far, the Great Correction has followed the usual script. Bond yields have fallen. Price inflation has generally come down. But demand for credit — as evidenced by $10 trillion government financing costs — is running hot. This is no typical downturn. And it wouldn’t be too surprising if all this demand for credit pushed up bond yields.

The failure of the German bond auction earlier this week was the latest shock. It tells us that pressure on the European Central Bank (ECB) is mounting.

It’s one thing when Greece and even Italy can’t finance their debt. Who cares? But it must surely get German bankers’ attention when nobody wants to buy their bonds.

Here in the States, we can say that the U.S. dollar is cheap. Everything in America seems cheap compared to Australia. Food, beer, movie tickets, petrol, and of course, houses. The cost of living is definitely lower here, at least in this part of the country. But even though it’s had its first monthly rally since June, don’t go pinning your hopes on the U.S. dollar.

Speaking of value, let us now return to the question of element number 79 on the periodic table. The snarky article we mentioned at the top is this one from Michael Pascoe at the age, titled “There’s more gold where that came from.”

In the article Pascoe takes on the issue of “peak gold.” But how well has he done in accurately stating the argument for gold?

So how does a government fund its spending programs if global creditors begin to turn to other assets? Well, it can have its own central bank “monetise the debt.” But having the central bank buy government bonds with new money is a sure-fire path to currency depreciation and higher interest rates.

His goal was to bluff and bamboozle the world’s investors – notably China – into believing that the US had its finances under control. Once we’re out of this mess, he told China’s top man, we’re going straight.