Conquer the crash: Bernanke defeats deflation.

At last, the news reports are now fully brimming with optimism and proclaiming victory after victory on the economic front. Despite the fact that the private (and total) credit in the US economy has been and is still contracting at unprecedented multitrillion dollar annual rate, which is deflation by definition in credit based monetary system, the Bloomberg news declares nevertheless that the honorable manager of the privately owned Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, has already defeated deflation. Oh say, can you see …

Q3 2009 private sector credit collapsed at – $1.81 Trillion annual rate.

The ONLY major player still borrowing money in big amounts was the United States Treasury Department (line 3), sopping up $1481.2 billion of the credit available — and leaving LESS than nothing for the private sector as a whole.

Overall total credit in the economy shrank at an unprecedented annual rate of -$275.6 billion.

Private sector credit fell at an astonishing – $1.8098 Trillion.

Retail Sales Data from NPD Shows Consumer Technology Revenue Declined the Week of Black Friday.

When you don’t have government meddling into the free-market price setting mechanisms the prices decline and help consumers save money. Such is the case of consumer electronics that has been experiencing deflation for many years now and the skies did not fall. To the contrary all consumers benefited from natural price declines while the quality and capability of consumer electronic goods have been continuously improving. Now, when most of us badly need lower prices the only bright spots of the economy are where the government is absent and not trying to prop up prices, with our stolen money by the way.

Sovereign Defaults Coming in Second Stage of the Financial Crisis.

The first stage of the deflationary debt unwind resulted in massive consumer and corporate defaults, particularly in the financial sector. This sector being one and the same as the governments that it controls, the state has thrown all the resources that it had and did not have (pulled them out of thin air) in order to save its Banking sponsors. While it has given the Banks the respite and saved many of them for now from going belly up, it did not solve a thing. The bad debts have simply been transfered to the Central Banks’ balance sheets that are expected to be later transferred to the taxpayers of each and every country. Whatever was not transfered was hidden by suspension of the mark-to-market accounting rules. Thus, the deflation that is not seen has not gone a way, but has been simply hidden.

What deflation will do to future US GDP.

It is now an established fact that Japan has been mired in deflation for the last 18 years. It meant no economic growth as manifested in the below GDP graph. Assuming that USA is now in the early stages of a similar, if not much stronger, deflationary depression, we may be able to project future US GDP growth/contraction based on the Japanes experience.

Treasury Three-Month Bill Yields Turn Negative.

When you have US Treasury yields sitting at historic lows at prolonged periods of time and across the entire yield curve, it only means one thing – delfation is here and anywhere you look on the horizon. But when you have yields turn negative, which really means investors paying privately owned Federal Reserve to hold their money as it has become the only safe place to keep it, this is a sign of a crash or some impending credit event which is also deflationary. Someone somewhere knows something. Only indication we, the common folks get of an impending crisis, is the sharp jump in excess reserves held with the Federal Reserve banks by other financial institutions. The excess reserves rose by almost $250 Billion between July of 2009 and November 2009, while the stock market has been setting yearly highs and “recovery” has been gathering pace, or so the powers that be would want us to beleive. Add to this the November 19th, 2009 delay in release of “Reserve Bank credit H.4.1 weekly report” and you get a shiver down your spine that something is about to hit the proverbial fan.

Demand deflation.

In a deflationary environment the psychology of economic agents, be it lenders or borrowers, is such that neither is motivated to engage in credit transaction. This is because consumer attitudes in a deflationary environment are leaning towards conservation not expansion and consumption. Thus, making it economically discouraging for business to expand. The deflationary times follow an expansionary period which ends in an oversupply of goods and services, and overcapacity in production that makes them happen.

Deflation is firmly taking root in USA. FED is still in denial.

Even though the signs of deflation are everywhere as expressed in contracting credit, money supply, and prices, the privately owned Federal Reserve’s executives continue to beat about the deflationary bush by referring to it as “disinflation” and talking about it in future tense. It has been happenning already for the past year and a half and it will continue as evidenced by record low long term Treasury yields this week. The below article provides a detailed discussion and solid evidence of deflation and how it works.

The Lowdown on Deflation.

Deflation is the contraction (reduction) of money and credit. It occurs when the economic system is carrying too much debt to be supported by the level of income generated by economic activity. It occurs because too much debt has been incurred to create unproductive assets that don’t generate income. Deflation is a corrective process, it’s simply the market (you and I) not being able to service debt, so we must forfeit.

Total US Debt has reached at least $60 Trillion as of Q1 2009!!! Debt to GDP ratio 425%!!!

By that measure if we were to take the Q1 2009 reported US GDP of $14,097.2 billion and divide Q1 2009 total US debt level of $60 Trillion by that GDP number we would get an astonishing record Debt to GDP ratio of 425%.