Fiat money is entering its death spiral...What's behind Dowd's thinking? He wrote this last December:
Banks use crooked accounting methods to hide losses and enrich employees with bonuses. It's another form of looting...
At least 46 out of 50 US states are insolvent.
Sooner rather than later, it will dawn on investors that Treasuries are over-valued and confidence in the Treasuries market will crack: one possibility is that rising inflation expectations or higher deficits will then push up market interest rates, causing bond prices to falter and then fall; an even more imminent prospect is that some combination of the Fed’s quantitative easing and yawning Federal budget and U.S. balance of payments deficits will cause a further decline in the dollar that makes foreign holders of Treasury bonds lose confidence in their investments. In either case, there is then likely to be a rush to the exits – a flight from Treasuries on a massive scale – forcing up interest rates in general and inflicting heavy losses on bondholders, especially on those holding long-term bonds.
• The collapse of the Treasuries market will cause the banks’ previously profitable ‘gapping’ adventure to unravel with a vengeance: the very positions that yielded them such easy returns will now suffer swingeing capital losses. Confidence in the banks – never strong since the onset of the crisis – will collapse (again) and we will enter a new (and severe) banking crisis.
• The bursting of the Treasuries and financials bubbles will then feed through to the junk bond bubble: the collapse in the Treasuries market and the renewed banking crisis will lead to sharp falls in the values of corporate bonds and sharp rises in credit spreads. Highly leveraged firms will then default in droves, the junk bond market will collapse and LBO activity will dry up.
We also have to consider the nontrivial knock-on effects: the Treasuries collapse will trigger an immediate financing crisis for governments at all levels, and especially for the federal government, and one which will likely involve the downgrading of its AAA credit rating, and so further intensify the government’s by-then already chronic financing problems. Nor should we forget that these financial tsunamis are likely to overwhelm the Federal Reserve itself: the Fed has a highly leveraged balance sheet that would do any aggressive hedge fund proud; it too will therefore suffer horrendous losses and is likely to become insolvent. The events of the last three years will then look like a picnic...
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