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THE FED AND THE GOLD PRICE
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By Kenneth J. Gerbino
June 18, 2004
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In the last five months $213 billion new dollars
have been added to the U.S money supply (M2). Amazingly, no one
in the mainstream financial community questions this.
Looking over some past Federal Reserve archives one finds that
$213 billion was all the money in circulation in 1962. Currently
it is $6.2 trillion. All the material items of wealth in this
country (buildings, roads, cars, aircraft carriers, toasters,
TV sets etc.) were created in the 173 years leading up to 1962
with that $213 billion circulating. Have we come close to that
real wealth creation in the last five months? This is a huge wake
up call that something is not right. This excessive money creation,
as history attests, will bring along an enduring inflation created
by the same people pledged to control it.
The Fed has never been able to stop inflation. Higher
interest rates do not stop inflation. This is a false economic
theory. There are no statistics to prove higher rates stop inflation.
Stopping inflation means if you have a 3% increase in consumer
prices, you will have a 3% decrease soon thereafter. That is stopping
inflation. If you have a fever at 103, well above the normal 98.6
and you go to your doctor to stop the fever, you expect him to
get you back to 98.6. In the world of economics we have accepted
prices to go up and if the prices just stay steady at that new
price level we are suppose to be happy. That is the same thing
as your doctor telling you, no problem you are steady at 103 have
a nice day. Inflation builds on itself month after month year
after year. It is like the economy has built up a 150 degrees
temperature.
Also, in past inflationary periods the Fed has raised
interest rates for years and all during those years the CPI continued
to go higher and higher. Higher interest rates not only cannot
reverse (stop) inflation they cannot hold it in check. Prices
are rising from money that has been in the system and has been
churning around from years before. Wall Street professionals who
do not understand this concept will be vulnerable to the future
changes that will occur as inflation distorts our economy and
markets once again and for all the same reasons.
The Fed’s purpose is two-fold, to create money
and be the lender of last resort to the government when those
multi-billion dollar deficits show up and to be the protector
of the U.S. banking system. No one will argue that if the banks
go under we are all in a lot of trouble, so the Fed over the decades
has enjoyed a reputation that has led the country and the politicians
to believe one can print a lot of money forever with manageable
consequences. This is true for small-scale stuff, but when you
are talking about trillions of dollars it is obvious to some of
us that we are now past the point of no return.
The Fed also controls interest rates. In a country that espouses
free market economics, this aspect of their daily activities is
hard to comprehend. There is nothing more important in a free
market economy than to allow money and the cost of money - interest
rates - to be left alone and to allow the daily interaction of
millions of people and tens of thousands of institutions and millions
of transactions to function without interventions and manipulations.
The fact that any institution is intervening in any marketplace
to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, sometimes on a daily
basis, is something to fear.
These activities by the Fed will be the eventual driving force
behind excessive inflation, a depreciating currency and a much
higher price of gold. The Fed and other foreign central banks
are following policies that are contrary to basic economic truths,
classical economic thought and just plain common sense.
My late friend, Nobel laureate (economics), F.A.
Hayek told me years ago when I visited him in Germany that decades
before he had a discussion with the renowned economist John Maynard
Keynes, where Keynes told him that he (Keynes) had made a terrible
mistake and was prepared to write an important piece to disavow
deficit spending and hence paper money creation. But two weeks
later Keynes died. World governments have all embraced Keynes’
mixed up theories because it gave them a convenient solution to
cover up their economic mismanagement. Because of this, huge debts
and huge piles of paper money have been fostered on populations
creating what is now an economic tidal wave that is now on the
horizon.
As inflation is always the result of excessive expansions
of money in a society, we should simply do the math. Huge money
increases equal huge producer and consumer price increases eventually.
There is no doubt about the money supply increases, so there should
be no doubt about a strong and prolonged inflation that has obviously
started. This is all bullish for gold. For other articles on gold
and the economy please visit the commentary section of our website
at www.kengerbino.com
Kenneth J. Gerbino
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Kenneth J. Gerbino & Company
Investment Management
9595 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 303
Beverly Hills, California 90212
Telephone (310) 550-6304
Fax (310) 550-0814
E-Mail: kjgco@att.net
Website: www.kengerbino.com
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