THE FALL OF DOLLAR & THE THREAT OF FINANCIAL TERRORISM

THE FALL OF DOLLAR & THE THREAT OF FINANCIAL TERRORISM

THE US DOLLAR IS ABOUT TO INFLICT CARNAGE ALL AROUND THE PLANET  

by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog.  submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/05/2014 - 20:39 

Introduction  by Tyler Durden

For the US, it’s now shooting fish in a barrel – but just for now. The three-pronged plan the Fed has started to execute is plain for everyone to see... And it will have the rest of the world begging for mercy.   

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As I watch the euro losing another 1.3% against the dollar today, it’s now at $1.25, and down from close to $1.40 recently, it’s getting clearer all the time: the greenback is busy eating currencies and economies alive. 

Extract

Albert Edwards in:

• “WHEN BAD NEWS BECOMES BAD NEWS AGAIN”: ALBERT EDWARDS (ZERO HEDGE)

 Inflation expectations in the US have just followed the eurozone by plunging lower. Until very recently, the Fed and the ECB had been quite successful at keeping inflation expectations in their normal range – this despite their clear failure to control actual inflation itself, which has consistently undershot expectations. Investors are beginning to realise that contrary to their confident actions and assurances, the Fed and the ECB have failed to prevent a dreaded replay of Japan’s deflationary template a decade earlier in the West.

The Ice Age is once again about to exert its frosty embrace on markets as investors wake up to a new and colder reality. There were two key parts to our Ice Age thesis. First, that the West would drift ever closer to outright deflation, following Japan’s template a decade earlier. And second, financial markets would adjust in the same way as in Japan. Government bonds would re-rate in absolute and relative terms compared to equities, which would also de-rate in absolute terms. [..]

Another associated element of the Ice Age we also saw in Japan is that with each cyclical upturn, equity investors have assumed with child-like innocence, that central banks have somehow ‘fixed’ the problem and we were back in a self-sustaining recovery. Those hopes would only be crushed as the next cyclical downturn took inflation, bond yields and equity valuations to new destructive lows. In the Ice Age, hope is the biggest enemy.

[..] “amid the inevitable impending global economic and financial carnage, when people, like Queen Elizabeth ask, as she did in November 2008, why no-one saw this coming, tell them that many did. But just like in 2006, before the Great Recession, investors once again chose to tilt their ears towards the reassuring siren songs of the Central Bankers and away from the increasingly hysterical ramblings of the perma-bears and doomsayers.”

Down the line, the insane debt levels all around the globe will do in everyone. That goes for, in order of appearance, Japan, Europe, China and the USA. An order that can still be shaken up by various kinds of unrest and other black swans. Hong Kong protests, Catalunya, a country voting to leave the EU, there are too many options to mention.

But aside from these, Japan looks the furthest gone, with 400%+ debt to GDP and rapidly rising. Europe is a good second, because of debt levels AND the difference in wealth between rich and poor member nations AND all the other differences between rich and poor member nations.

China is a bit of an odd one out, it has room to move, but it also committed to $25 trillion in new debt in just a few years, without anything solid to show for it except apartment buildings that can only go down in price and bridges to a nowhere nobody wants to go to. And then there’s dozens of emerging nations with nowhere to go but down.

For the US, it’s now shooting fish in a barrel – but just for now. The three-pronged plan the Fed has started to execute is plain for everyone to see:

1) Stop QE. This hauls back in to the US dollars from around the planet, from a million parties that owe debt denominated in USD. Already happening at a frantic pace, though no-one involved would advertize it.

2) Raise the value of the greenback. This makes it that more expensive for all parties under 1) to pay off their debts. They have to offer ever more just to stand still. And when they can’t, assets will be confiscated.

3) Raise interest rates. The final blow. It will make life much harder on the US government too, but they’ll have trillions of dollars flowing in to cope with that. It’ll put millions of Americans into the equivalent of medieval torture instruments, and out of their homes and cars and jobs, but that too will be initially softened by the dollars coming home to papa. Crucial take home: they’ve given up on the US real economy, likely a long time ago.

And it will have the rest of the world begging for mercy. In that regard, it’s funny to see Britain planning to raise its rates too. Do be careful what you wish for there, lads.

The full taper of QE means everyone needs dollars, and most who do are leveraged to the hilt, while the combination of higher interest rates and higher dollar value means the buck will come much more expensive.

It’s going to be carnage out there.

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