Finance & Economics Archives - Page 5 of 8

Russia Buys More Gold Reserves

SINGAPORE, Jan 27 (Reuters) – Russia extended its buying spree of gold to a ninth straight month, and the price of gold rose for the first time in five months, data from the International Monetary Fund showed on Tuesday.

The global financial institution later on Tuesday confirmed the Netherlands did not increase its bullion holdings in December, contrary to the IMF’s earlier report that the bank had raised gold holdings for the first time in 16 years.

The Dutch central bank, the world’s ninth-biggest official sector gold holder, has kept its holdings unchanged since late 2008. The bank earlier on Tuesday denied that it bought more gold last year.

Central bank buying and selling can have a significant influence on gold prices. Central banks became net buyers in 2010 after two decades as net sellers, driven by an increased interest in gold in the wake of the 2008 global economic crisis.

Gold prices rose nearly 1 percent in December, the first monthly rise in five, possibly on support from central bank purchases.

“It has been the emerging market central banks that have been doing the buying over the past few years, so it is encouraging for gold markets to see the Dutch additions,” said Victor Thianpiriya, an analyst with ANZ in Singapore, speaking before the IMF’s data correction.

The Dutch central bank in November moved to repatriate more than 120 tonnes of gold from vaults in the United States.

Net purchases by the euro area totaled 9.55 tonnes in December, at a time of heightened jitters over the economy and speculation over stimulus measures by the European Central Bank, which just last week announced a bond-buying programme.

Meanwhile, Russia added 20.73 tonnes to the world’s fifth-biggest gold holdings, bringing its total to 1,208.23 tonnes.

Russia’s gold-buying spree comes amidst a bearish outlook for its economy, which is expected to slide into recession this year on low oil prices and the fallout from sanctions over Ukraine.

Ratings agency S&P cut Russia’s sovereign credit rating to junk status on Monday, bringing it below investment grade for the first time in a decade.

PAUSE IN UKRAINE SALES

Ukraine, which has seen renewed conflict with pro-Moscow separatists and is also struggling with economic growth, seems to have taken a pause in selling its gold holdings.

It sold about 16 tonnes of gold in October and November, but Tuesday’s data showed that its bullion reserves were steady at 23.64 tonnes in December.

Turkey, however, lowered gold holdings by 3.86 tonnes to 529.12 tonnes. Turkey counts gold held on deposit with commercial banks as part of the central bank’s bullion holdings.

Other buyers included Kazakhstan, Belarus and Malaysia. (Additional reporting by Jan Harvey in London; Editing by Ed Davies)

Article originally posted at Reuters.com.

Bear Market Extremes Equals Bull Market Wealth

by Jeff Clark – Hard Assets Alliance:

I want to congratulate you.

Gold and silver have been in a downtrend for over three years. And yet you’ve held on.

In spite of violent selloffs and a prolonged bear turn in the market, you’ve been patient. You see the big picture. You’ve steeled your emotions and rebuffed the negative mantra from the mainstream. You get it. You understand that sooner or later the fiscal and monetary path the world has embraced and praised won’t work.

And you will soon be rewarded. I can’t give you a date, but I can tell you it’s a question of when, not if.

How can I make such a claim?

History.

The Gold Market at Extremes

I measured the duration and degree of every bear market in gold and silver in modern history and compared them to our current situation. It’s quite revealing.

In each chart, the black line represents our current bear market. Here are the data for gold since the early 1970s:

Gold has endured deeper selloffs, but as you can see, it’s one of the longest on record. And if the price were to slip further and close below $1,142 (on a fix basis), it would officially be the longest bear market in modern history. I’ll also point out that gold declined 1.8% last year, making 2013/2014 the first back-to-back annual loss since 1997/1998.

Silver’s performance is even more dramatic. Since the 1960s, only one bear market has registered a bigger price decline, and only two were longer (assuming the bottom was $15.28 on November 6 last year).

These data all point to a bear market that has reached an extreme level.

That’s not to say prices can’t go lower, but history suggests that the end to the downtrend is close, if not already behind us. Your patience will soon get a vacation.

But does that mean the price is ready to take off again?

Gold Is Insurance, Not an Investment

While you can sell gold for a profit or a loss like any other investment, the most accurate way to view gold is as an alternate currency—the only one history has shown to provide monetary protection during a major currency devaluation. And the ongoing currency dilution around the globe today is comparable to some of the most notorious in history.

Yes, I think we’ll all make a lot of money in our HAA accounts. But gold’s primary role as insurance is more important right now.

Consider the risks we investors and consumers face:

• What if banks begin lending out the money the Fed has loaned them?

• What if the Fed decides it needs another round of QE, regardless of what they call it?

• What if interest rates rise, whether initiated by the Fed or pushed higher by the markets?

• What happens when—not if—the stock market enters a correction and mainstream investors begin losing money? What if the average investor remembers 2008 and decides to bail? How will the Fed react?

• What will be the mainstream reaction if the real estate market goes flat or reverses? How would the Fed respond?

• What happens if the economy legitimately grows—and kickstarts inflation?

• What happens if the debt load overwhelms the Fed’s printing efforts? Will they give up or double down?

• What if a developed country selectively or fully defaults on its debt?

• What if we reach a tipping point where other countries tire of the nonstop currency dilution and slow or reverse their treasury purchases?

• What happens if the markets lose confidence in the Fed or other central banks’ ability to manage their respective economies and markets?

• What if politicians don’t institute serious fiscal reforms, and Fed interventions are reduced to nothing more than monetizing deficit spending by causing inflation?

• How would global central bankers respond if deflation takes root?

• What happens if the geopolitical conflicts deteriorate and lead to war?

• What happens when—not if—control of the gold market shifts to China, away from North America?

The point is that we face increased systemic risk. Central bankers have painted themselves into a corner, and there is no easy exit from their policy mistakes. Since these issues have not been dealt with effectively, and political leaders show no sign of doing so, systemic risk has greatly increased. Sooner or later there must be a reckoning—the math doesn’t work, and history has demonstrated the outcome of such fiscal setups numerous times. Certainly, more caution is warranted than what most mainstream commentators suggest.

This is a major reason why I continue to buy gold and silver, and why I recommend you do, too. It’s not a speculation on rapid gains, but essential wealth insurance. In fact, the next bull market in gold will likely be spurred by one or more of the above risks materializing.

So instead of wondering if the gold price has bottomed, I recommend asking these questions:

• How much have you personally allocated to precious metals to offset the risk of a currency or similar crisis of major proportion? The need for monetary insurance against those risks is high, and rising. Given the elevated risk, a commensurate level of insurance is necessary. Fire insurance is designed to provide enough funds to rebuild your entire home, not just the basement. So one ounce of gold or one tube of silver won’t cut it.

• Does your portfolio stand on a foundation of mostly paper assets? If stocks and bonds comprise the lion’s share of your investments, your overall investment risk is very high.

• How correlated are your investments to the stock market? If mainstream investments decline, how will your overall portfolio be impacted? Gold and the S&P are typically negatively correlated; with both at extremes, now is a good time to make sure you strike the right balance.

• Have you stored some assets outside your political jurisdiction? The prospect of capital controls has grown.

In other words, it is less about the exact price and date of the bottom for this market and more about how you will protect yourself against the risks outlined above—they are real, in spite of what we read in mainstream headlines. If any transpire, they will wreak havoc on your investment portfolio and your ability to maintain your current lifestyle. That’s worth insuring.

In the meantime, the extreme nature of the current bear market means that current prices are a potentially life-changing opportunity.

Join me in creating bull market wealth—by taking advantage of current bear market prices.

Article originally posted in the January issue of Smart Metals Investor at HardAssetsAlliance.com.

Brighter Days Ahead for Gold

by Hard Assets Alliance:

“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day.” —Nina Simone

Those lyrics from the timeless Nina Simone song Feeling Good certainly draw a parallel to the present state of gold.

After a rough couple of years, gold begins 2015 with a clean state. It will take time to shake off its hangover, but the yellow metal is looking good early into the new year.

Of course, gold still has its fair share of critics. Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup, recently referred to gold as a “shiny bitcoin.” Refuting such a ludicrous statement isn’t worth the digital ink. Instead, we’ll keep it short and simply say: Such a statement ignores 6,000 years of human history.

Not all gold bears are as controversial. Most analysts pessimistic about gold’s near-term outlook cite the strong dollar, rising interest rates, and deflated energy prices as headwinds, though we would argue that each of these factors actually reinforces the need to hold gold… but that’s a discussion for another day.

Rather, let’s take a look at what some of the sharpest financial minds are saying about gold:

• In terms of gold price expectations, it appears that the repair of technical picture is now behind us and that a stable bottom has formed. The next 12-month price target is the USD 1,500 level. Longer term, a parabolic trend acceleration, with a long-term target of USD 2,300 by the end of the cycle.—Ron Stoferle, Incrementum Lichtenstein

• In the long term, however, I am more bullish on the gold price than I have ever been. All central bankers want inflation, and one day they will get it. Betting on inflation is the surest thing I have ever bet on in my life.—Pierre Lassonde, Chairman of Franco-Nevada (FNV)

• The lengthy bottoming process in gold seems to be nearing its close. The conditions that led to a decade-long rise in the gold price in 1999 are quite similar to today. Gold is not just ignored but hated by mainstream investors—it’s the Rodney Dangerfield of investment concepts.—John Hathway, Comanager of Tocqueville Gold Fund

Optimism about gold is also showing up where it matters most: the spot price. Gold has climbed nearly 12% since its November low and is off to its hottest start since 2008. Last week’s surprise announcement by the Swiss government to sever its peg to the euro provided the latest boost. It’s yet another reminder to own gold, the only asset that isn’t somebody else’s liability. We see this as a recurring theme in 2015.

Article originally posted in the January issue of Smart Metals Investor at HardAssetsAlliance.com.

Chinese Gold Purchases Skyrocket on the Last Three Days of 2014

by Lawrence Williams – Mineweb.com:

Traditionally Chinese New Year celebrations involve gold gifting, and January tends to be the month that gold traders and banks stock up ahead of the date.
In releasing the latest information on Chinese gold withdrawals, the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) both confirmed that total withdrawals for the year came to over 2,100 tonnes, only 3.6% down on the previous year’s record, but also that withdrawals for the final three trading days of the month amounted to some 29 tonnes suggesting that demand remains strong ahead of the Chinese New Year. Indeed with a longer run-up to the Lunar New Year this year – the actual date is February 19 – the second latest date in the Western calendar on which the Chinese New Year can fall, we can expect strong gold withdrawal figures out of the SGE for both January and February.

In the Chinese Zodiac 2015 is a Sheep year (also known as Goat or Ram year) and denotes both calmness and prosperity.

If last year’s pattern of gold buying ahead of this date is followed then January could be a very big month for Chinese gold demand indeed. Last year gold withdrawals from the SGE that month were actually substantially higher than at the start of the record 2013 year – and if demand in the last quarter of 2014 is anything to go by, they could be at close to record levels again this year.

Traditionally Chinese New Year celebrations involve gold gifting, and January tends to be the month that gold traders and banks stock up ahead of the date and holiday period surrounding it.

Anecdotal reports suggest that this is already the case with high demand levels already being seen at the beginning of the month. Reuters reports, for example, a Shanghai trader as saying “We saw consistently strong buying this week, premiums and volumes are better than what we saw in the last month.” As confirmation SGE premiums for gold have risen to $7 an ounce as demand grows.

Withdrawals from the SGE have been averaging over 50 tonnes a week for virtually all of the past three months. With the actual date of the Chinese New Year falling more than two weeks later than it did last year when it fell on January 31 we can probably expect a slower, but more prolonged, build-up this year. Judging by the increased premiums, if the Shanghai trader is correct we could see something of a boost in the early January figures.

Article originally posted at Mineweb.com.

Silver Bullion Sales Soared in 2014

by The Silver Institute:

The continuing appeal of silver for investors led to record sales of U.S. American Eagle Silver Bullion coins last year, topping the previous milestone established just the previous year.

The U.S. Mint announced that 2014 sales of American Eagle Silver Bullion coins reached 44,006,000 ounces. The robust sales performance was primarily driven by a resurgence of demand in the fourth quarter last year. To that point, December sales of the American Eagles Silver Bullion coins were up 104% year-on-year.

Sales of the American Eagle Silver Bullion one-ounce coin dramatically outpaced those of the one-ounce American Eagle Gold and Platinum coins last year. Moreover, based on 2014 U.S. Mint sales figures and annual average metal prices, Silver Eagles eclipsed Gold Eagles’ sales by 59%.

Introduced in 1986, the 99.9% pure American Eagle Silver Bullion coins have experienced strong demand in recent years, with sales climbing sharply since 2008 and occasionally reaching levels where demand exceeded supply. As a result, the U.S. Mint was forced to stop selling the Eagles on several occasions last year as demand swelled, instituting a policy to allocate available American Eagle Silver Bullion coins to its authorized purchaser distribution network.

Meanwhile, the Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) reported healthy demand for its silver bullion products last year, ending on a high note having sold all 1 million of the Mint’s Bald Eagle coins from its new Canadian Birds of Prey 99.99% pure silver coins series. The RCM said its flagship Silver Maple Leaf Bullion coin continues to generate solid customer interest.

Australia’s Perth Mint reported that while total silver sales were down 13.5% year-on-year, largely due to a sales tax increase in Europe, there was an increase in buying as the price came off through the second half of the year producing 20.8% higher sales over the first half.

Investors’ support for silver was not just limited to bullion coins. Investment in silver-backed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) grew by 1.1 million ounces by the end of December last year. Although a modest gain of 0.2%, when compared with the 8.8% decline in gold ETFs last year, it is clear that silver ETF’s remain a popular investment vehicle. Early indications for physical bar demand are down in 2014 for both silver and gold, however.

While American investors continue to demonstrate support for silver, demand for the metal also increased through the year in India, where silver imports climbed 13% to an estimated 212 million ounces in 2014, setting a level of imports that surpasses the previous record volume of silver imports posted in 2013, according to analysts at GFMS Thomson Reuters. Silver has benefitted from increased Indian demand due to uncertainty surrounding government import policies impacting the gold market.
Silver has historically been an attractive and affordable precious metal and provides investors an excellent opportunity to diversify their investment portfolio.

The Silver Institute is a nonprofit international industry association headquartered in Washington, D.C. Established in 1971, the Institute’s members include leading silver producers, prominent silver refiners, manufacturers and dealers. The Institute serves as the industry’s voice in increasing public understanding of the many uses and value of silver, and also creates programs across various platforms that benefit the white metal. For more information on the Silver Institute, or silver in general, please visit: www.silverinstitute.org

Employing the Infinite Banking Concept

submitted by jwithrow.

Yesterday we examined the merits of the Infinite Banking Concept. Today let’s look at some IBC strategies to build capital and mitigate inflation.

If you combine the Infinite Banking Concept with a fundamental asset allocation model you have the makings of your own personal central bank. If one were so inclined, just like a central bank, one could establish tangible reserve requirements and use the policy’s ever-growing capital base to purchase tangible assets. Your job as Chairman would be to continuously acquire assets based on your allocation model as your central bank’s capital base grew in size to maintain your specified reserve ratios.

The possibilities with this strategy are endless!

The hardest part of employing the Infinite Banking Concept is being patient enough to capitalize your policy over the first several years until the policy becomes self-sustaining.

Imagine a world in which more people take control over their financial destiny by using the Infinite Banking Concept as an integral part of their financial plan. This strategy has the power to mitigate the boom-bust cycles created by the Federal Reserve and the fractional-reserve banks because people employing the IBC strategy would not have much need for traditional bank financing.

The power of the Infinite Banking Concept can truly be unlocked if families were to implement this strategy generationally. For example: what if parents were to set up IBC policies for their children as soon as they were born?

The IBC policy would have the opportunity to grow for twenty years or more, and the next generation would automatically have a large pool of capital available to them upon their maturation into adult-hood. This pool of capital could be used to finance specialized education or to start a business with no student or bank loan necessary.

The child would also receive a substantial death benefit payment down the road when the parents were to pass on from this world. That death benefit could then be used to set up larger IBC policies for future generations so the family’s pool of capital would continuously grow over subsequent generations. Every single one of your children and grandchildren would have access to a significant pool of capital to help them build self-sufficiency and resiliency.

Talk about an individual revolution!

A generational implementation of IBC in this way could gradually transfer the power of the purse away from governments, central banks, and Wall Street and back into the hands of individuals where it belongs. This would cause the financial sector to shrink tremendously, which would free up capital for more productive purposes across the board.

You see, the financial sector doesn’t really produce much of anything. It is more like the money changers of old in that the financial sector does little more than temporarily warehouse capital and then move it around, siphoning off small fees at every stop along the way. The financial sector certainly plays a very important role in a developed economy, but that role should be much smaller than what it is today.

So how do we know that the IBC strategy will survive the Great Reset? The answer is that we don’t know anything for sure.

But life insurance companies have a built-in inflation hedge as they can charge higher premiums to new customers on an ongoing basis as the currency loses value. Additionally, if the currency were to completely collapse, it is highly likely that life insurance companies would re-value their policies in terms of a new currency or maybe gold (we should be so lucky). Also, if you operate your personal central bank wisely and use your capital to purchase precious metals and other real assets, then you have a currency hedging strategy already in place.

Hopefully this chapter has done the Infinite Banking Concept justice, and you can see why we think it is a powerful tool for individuals disciplined enough to devote the time and resources necessary to capitalize a policy.

The Infinite Banking Concept

submitted by jwithrow.

Before you can see why we believe so strongly in the Infinite Banking Concept (IBC) you must change the way you think about life insurance. The purpose of structuring an IBC participating whole life insurance policy actually has nothing to do with life insurance itself. Whole life insurance policies, when structured correctly according to the Infinite Banking Concept principles, are powerful vehicles for warehousing capital. This is what we are primarily interested in.

Typical IBC policies are structured such that 40% of the premium paid supports the base policy and 60% of the premium buys additional paid-up insurance. The large amount of premium going to purchase additional paid-up insurance serves to both grow your insurance policy (add to the death benefit) and it builds cash value much more quickly than standard whole life policies.

Your life insurance cash value is simply equity in the policy; it is not physical funds in an account. This gives life insurance cash value advantageous tax and legal treatment and it largely shields the cash value from creditors, plaintiffs, and corrupt government departments.

To illustrate this legal advantage think about what would happen if someone were to win a civil suit against you. The first thing that they would come for would be your bank accounts. The court could then force you to liquidate any investments in a standard brokerage account to pay the plaintiff’s claim and your capital base could be wiped out very quickly.

The court could not make you liquidate your life insurance cash value, however, because it is just equity in the policy. The primary way to access the cash value is to borrow against it and the court cannot force you to do this in the same way the court cannot force you to borrow against your home (domestic cases between spouses may be different as the court may determine one party to have an ownership claim already).

Now the court could enable the plaintiff to take an assignment of the life insurance in the amount necessary to satisfy the claim, but this would only pay out in the event of your death. Meanwhile, your cash value would continue to grow uninhibited and you would still have access to that capital at any time for any reason.

In addition to legal shelter, it would be much more difficult for the government to change the tax laws regarding life insurance cash value than for qualified retirement accounts. Qualified retirement plans (401k, IRA, etc.) are creatures of the tax code – these plans were specifically created within the IRS legal structure.

Life insurance, on the other hand, has been in existence for centuries in some capacity. The first American life insurance company was founded in 1787 and many life insurance companies that are prominent today were founded in the early-to-mid-1800’s. Contrast this with the IRS which was not unleashed on America until 1913.

While it is impossible to eliminate risk in this world, building capital in whole life insurance policies based on the Infinite Banking Concept is a way to mitigate legal risk and IRS risk, especially when compared to qualified retirement plans.

So now that we know our cash value is relatively safe from those who would steal it from us, let us examine the capital building merits of the IBC strategy.

Your cash value grows in two ways: when you pay the premium, and when the life insurance company pays a dividend. Paying premium into the policy guarantees that you will have a specific cash value at specific intervals in time.

Your life insurance agent can run illustrations for you depicting the cash value at the end of each year and this value is contractually guaranteed as long as premiums are paid. The guaranteed cash value illustration enables you to know, to the exact dollar amount, what your minimum cash value will be in a given year. This illustration depicts the cash value established by your premium payments (base+paid-up additions) and the figures assume that a dividend will never be paid.

Your agent can also run non-guaranteed cash value illustrations that estimate cash value based on the assumption that the company will continue to pay dividends at the current schedule. The non-guaranteed cash value illustration depicts the same contractual figures as the guaranteed illustration with the addition of annual dividends based on the current dividend rate. Dividends can add substantially to the cash value of the policy over time.

Whether or not dividends are actually paid out depends upon the company’s annual death benefit costs and investment performance. Mutual life insurance companies pay a dividend every single year unless they are in serious financial trouble and every single policy holder will receive a dividend if one is issued. Dividends are small in the policy’s early years, but can become quite substantial in the policy’s later years.

For example: we have an IBC policy illustration that estimates a dividend in the amount of $1,659 in year 5 of the policy and it estimates a dividend of $21,076 in year 25 of the policy. And just for fun: the dividend estimate is $69,951 in year 40 of the policy.

This same illustration depicts a guaranteed cash value of $17,288 and a non-guaranteed cash value on $17,667 after year one. After year five the guaranteed cash value is $95,936 and the estimated non-guaranteed cash value is $101,192. Year 25 depicts a guaranteed cash value of $804,112 and a non-guaranteed cash value of $1,048,247. And just for fun again: the guaranteed cash value after year 40 is $1,511,993 and the non-guaranteed cash value estimate is $2,662,316.

This illustration is based on an annual premium of $24,000 with 40% of that supporting the base policy and 60% buying additional paid-up insurance.

The point is you can generate an internal rate of return within the policy itself. This rate of return will be conservative and it will not wow you, but guess what? There is absolutely no risk to principal
whatsoever. This is huge!

This strategy allows you to know exactly how much capital you will have available to you at any particular point in the future so long as you keep making the premium payments. Once the policy is big enough you can also take policy loans to make the premium payments if need be. In fact, capitalizing a policy for as little as five or six years could be enough for policy loans to perpetually support the premium going forward.

The primary risk with this strategy is that the life insurance company could fail at some point in the future. This rarely happens, however, because mutual life insurance companies are very conservative organizations, unlike the Wall Street firms. The prominent mutual life insurance companies in operation today have survived the Great Depression as well as the crash of 2008. And they didn’t need any bail-outs or subsidies, either.

One reason for their strong financial history is that mutual whole life companies do not have shareholders. Accordingly, these companies do not need to resort to excessive risk taking to try to constantly pump up their stock price. Instead, the policy holders own the company and they are quite happy with a conservative risk appetite.

Additionally, the stronger life insurance companies in the industry have historically done a good job of taking over a failing company on the rare occasion when this has happened. In this scenario, the stronger life insurance company assumes all outstanding contracts of the failed company so as to maintain the conservative reputation of the industry.

Hopefully the power of the Infinite Banking Concept is starting to become apparent to you. Tomorrow we will look at some ideas on how to employ the IBC strategy as well as how you can mitigate the inflation risk inherent in standard life insurance products.

How the Fed Grows Government

by Hunter Hastings – Mises Daily
Article originally published in the January 2015 issue of BankNotes

We are told that elections are important, but the most powerful state institution, the central bank, is totally out of reach of the voter.

Ludwig von Mises viewed democracy as a utilitarian concept. It was the form of political organization that allowed the majority to change the government without violent revolution. In Socialism, Mises writes “This it achieves by making the organs of the state legally dependent on the will of the majority of the moment.” He identified this form of political process as an essential enabler of capitalism and market exchange.

Mises extended this concept of utilitarian democracy to citizens’ control of the budget of the state, which they achieve by voting for the level of taxation that they deem to be appropriate. Otherwise, “if it is unnecessary to adjust the amount of expenditure to the means available, there is no limit to the spending of the great god State.” (Planning for Freedom, p. 90).

Today, this utilitarian function of democracy, and the concept of citizens’ limitations on government mission and government spending, has been taken away by the state via the creation and subsequent actions of central banks. The state carefully created a central bank that is independent of the voters and unaffected by the choices citizens express via the institutions of democracy. In the case of the US Federal Reserve, for example, the Board of Governors state that the Federal Reserve System “is considered an independent central bank because its monetary policy decisions do not have to be approved by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branches of government, it does not receive funding appropriated by the Congress, and the terms of the members of the Board of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms.”

Independent from Voters, But Not from Politicians

Importantly, the central bank is independent of the citizens in this way, but, in practice, not independent of politicians. Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, is quoted as asserting, “I never said the central bank is independent,” alluding to similar statements in two books he has written, and pointing to one-sided political pressure significantly limiting the FOMC’s range of discretion.

This institutionally independent, but politically directed central bank spearheads a process that enables largely unlimited government spending. It expands credit and enables fiat money, which is produced without practical limitation. Fiat money enables government to issue debt, which, at least so far, also has been pursued without restraint. The unlimited government debt enables unrestrained growth in government spending. The citizenry has no power to change this through any voting mechanism.

Thus, the state is set free from having to collect tax revenue before it can spend, and as Mises explained, in such a case, there is no limitation on government at all:

The government has but one source of revenue — taxes. No taxation is legal without parliamentary consent. But if the government has other sources of income it can free itself from this control.

In other words, when faced with the possibility of voter reprisals, members of Congress are reluctant to raise taxes. But if government spending no longer necessitates taxes, government becomes much more free to spend.

Without restraints on government spending, there are no restraints on government’s mission, or on the growth in the bureaucracy that administers the spending. The result is a continuous increase in regulations, and a continuous expansion of state power.

Has The Central Bank Limited Itself?

In the one hundred years since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, US federal government spending has grown from $15.9 billion to a budgeted $3,778 billion in 2014 (a number we now refer to as $3.8 trillion to make the numerator seem less egregious). Spending as a percentage of GDP has advanced from 7.5 percent to 41.6 percent over the same period. A comparison of regulation growth is more difficult, but over 80,000 pages are published in the Federal Register annually today, versus less than 5,000 annually in 1936.

The evidence, therefore, is that voting makes no difference to this lava flow of spending and regulation. Whatever the will of the majority of the moment, government spending and government power will continue to expand, with consequent reduction in the economic growth that is the primary goal of the society that is being governed.

John Locke opined that, when governments “act contrary to the end for which they were constituted,” they are at a “state of war” with the citizens, and resistance is lawful. (Two Treatises of Government, p. 74). The theory and practice of unhampered markets and individual liberty are particularly relevant at election time.

Hunter Hastings is a member of the Mises Institute, a business consultant, and an adjunct faculty member at Hult International Business School

Please see the January 2015 issue of BankNotes for this article and others like it.

How to Get Paid Up Front to Buy Stocks

submitted by jwithrow.

Want to get paid up front to buy stocks you want to own at a price you specify? Selling put option contracts allows you to do just that.

Put options are a contractual agreement between two parties. The owner of the put option contract has the right to sell the designated stock to the counter-party at the agreed upon strike price at any time prior to the specified expiration date. In exchange for this right the owner of the put option must pay a market-based premium to the seller up front. Each contract is for 100 shares of the underlying stock.

For the owner, put options can serve two purposes – either as a downside hedge or as speculation. Generally speaking, the owner of the put option profits from the deal if the stock declines below the strike price.

In order to get paid up front to buy the stocks you want you simply need to “be the store” for hedgers and speculators and sell puts on stocks you would like to own. You choose the stock, the strike price, and the expiration date and you receive the premium immediately upon execution. That premium is yours to keep no matter what happens. If the stock is still above the strike price on expiration day then you walk away from the trade with pure profit. If the stock is below the strike price and the put option is exercised then you are obligated to buy 100 shares of the stock per option contract sold and the premium you were paid up front serves to reduce your cost basis in that position.

There are two basic strategies for selling put options. The first is to sell in-the-money puts on stocks you absolutely want to buy. This strategy can enable you to buy the stock at a lower price than it is trading for at the time.

Let’s use AUY as an example of this strategy (not a recommendation). AUY is currently trading at $4.48 per share. Instead of purchasing AUY at $4.48/share you could sell the February 20 5.5 Put for approximately $1.30 per share. This would obligate you to purchase 100 shares per put contract of AUY at $5.50 per share on or before February 20 and you would be paid $130 per contract up front to do so.

Now there are only two possible results. If AUY is trading above $5.50/share on February 20 then the put option expires worthless and you walk away with $130 per contract sold and you can explore selling more put options on AUY if you want. If AUY is still trading below $5.50/share on February 20 then you will be “put” the stock and you must purchase 100 shares per contract at $5.50/share. But you were already paid $1.30 per share so you would effectively be buying AUY at $4.20 per share ($5.50-1.30). Recall AUY was trading at $4.48 when you sold the put so you are buying the stock at a lower price than you could have originally.

The second strategy is to sell out-of-the-money puts on blue-chip stocks that you don’t think will dip below the strike price but you wouldn’t mind owning if they did. This is primarily a low-risk strategy for generating income and the lower premiums reflect this.

Let’s use WMT as an example of this strategy (not a recommendation). WMT is currently trading at $89.68 per share. We could sell the WMT March 20 82.5 Put for approximately $0.70 per share. In this example WMT would have to decline by roughly 8% in a little over two months for the put contract to be exercised. We walk away with $70 per contract unless that sharp decline happens.

As you can see, selling put options involves limited risk. You must keep enough cash in your brokerage account to purchase the underlying stock should the option be exercised but that is the most you can lose in each trade. If done properly, selling put options is actually less risky than buying stocks outright.

As always, be mindful of your asset allocation model before venturing into the equity markets.

The Case for Gold

submitted by jwithrow.

“The process [of debauching the currency] engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.” – John Maynard Keynes

This chart illustrates the construct of the global financial system denominated in U.S. dollars.

There is an estimated 171,000 tons of physical gold bullion currently in existence which is $7 trillion if priced at $1,300 per ounce. Physical gold served the global financial system as an anchor in some capacity from the Industrial Revolution all the way up until 1971.

The U.S. dollar became the sole anchor of the international monetary system in 1971 and there is now approximately $25 trillion sitting in cash globally. Additionally, global equity markets are valued at roughly $57.5 trillion and global investable real estate valuations are roughly $70 trillion.

Global debt has reached $175 trillion with governments being the biggest debtors. This number does not include all of the unfunded liabilities accrued by the social welfare states of the world.

Dwarfing all other U.S. dollar denominated asset classes is the over-the-counter derivatives market. According to the BIS, OTC derivatives total $639 trillion with interest rate derivatives being the largest category by far.

So there is approximately $1,028 trillion worth of U.S. dollar denominated global assets in existence and physical gold, the market’s choice for money over several centuries, makes up less than 1% of total global assets.

Gold is the only asset on this chart that has no counterparty risk meaning there are no other contractual parties involved when you hold physical gold.

The U.S. dollar is issued and managed by the Federal Reserve and the Fed can (and does) reduce the value of the dollar simply by creating more dollars. Equity values obviously depend on the particular company’s financial performance. Real estate investments depend on a tenant to make payments in a timely fashion. The counterparty to debt is the debtor who must make timely payments and the debtor typically has counterparties as well. Derivatives, the largest global asset class, come with a complex web of counterparties that are virtually impossible to predict.

Global dollar denominated assets have been able to balloon up to $1,028 almost exclusively because of 40+ years of constant credit and credit-based money expansion. One day credit will have to contract and that $1,028 trillion figure will dissipate rather quickly. Where do you think capital will fly to when that day comes?

My bet is physical gold.

Image Source: Global Precious Metals