Executive Summary

• Why the Fed's rate hikes are not actual "hikes"
• The new debt issuance directly or indirectly enabled by the Fed is staggeringly large
• Why the Fed's intervention in the financial markets is creating worrisome instability
• As the risks mount, what should the concerned investor do?

If you have not yet read Part 1: The Federal Reserve Is Destroying America available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

When Is A Rate Hike Not A Rate Hike?

The Fed keeps talking about raising interest rates, but they really aren’t doing any such thing.  In fact they are doing the opposite.

I know that’s a controversial statement, so let me explain.  The point of a ‘rate hike’ is not to make the cost of money (interest rates) go up, but to drain excess money from the system.  That’s why a rate hike cycle is called a ‘tightening’ cycle; because it is making the amount of money available for lending to shrink, or for conditions to become tighter.  The same as if you don’t have quite enough money at the end of the month, things are tight. 

This means that the interest rate is the derivative, and the amount of money is the main driver.  You don’t set interest rates, you control the amount of money in the system, and the interest rates follow along.  They are the result, not the cause.

Or at least that’s how it used to be.  But not any longer.

In the past, when the Fed ‘hiked rates’ what it actually did was drain money from the system.   Money out = interest rates up.

Now when the Fed hikes rates it removes zero money in the system, and this is why a rate hike is not actually a rate hike at all, but the opposite because it leaves 100% of the money in the system but raises the amount that banks and other financial institutions can charge you for new loans and outstanding credit.

How did we get to this ‘upside down world’ where a rate hike increases money? 

To understand let’s be sure we are clear on…

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Executive Summary

• The repercussions of the Fed's Free Money Machine
• Why debt-funded state control stagnates productivity
• The importance of the 8-year cycle
• What should guide investors' focus and decisions

If you have not yet read Part 1: How Long Can The Great Global Reflation Continue? available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

In Part 1, we asked these questions: can we just keep doubling and tripling the economy’s debt load every few years? What if household incomes continue declining? Are these trends sustainable?

In the near-term, we asked: is this Great Reflation running out of steam, or is it poised for yet another leg higher? Which is more likely?

Let’s start by looking at the mechanism that funds the government’s deficit spending, i.e. its ability to borrow and spend enormous sums of money year after year.

The Free Money Machine

The state can afford to continue or increase fiscal stimulus (deficit spending) because the central bank (the Federal Reserve) has created what amounts to a free money machine. Here’s how the machine works.

The federal government issues $1 trillion in new bonds to fund another $1 trillion in deficit spending. The central bank (Federal Reserve) creates $1 trillion with a few keystrokes, and buys the $1 trillion in bonds with newly created money.

The Federal Reserve earns interest on the $1 trillion in bonds it now owns, but it returns this income to the Treasury, minus the Federal Reserve’s relatively modest expenses of operation. Let’s say the bonds carry an interest rate of 2.5%.  The government pays the Federal Reserve $25 billion in annual interest, and the Federal Reserve returns $20 billion annually, so the net cost of borrowing and spending $1 trillion is an insignificant $5 billion.

If this isn’t entirely free money, it’s extremely close to free money.

So in ten years, the Federal Reserve owns $10 trillion more in federal bonds (assuming the bonds are long-term and didn’t mature).

It's no wonder that some economist propose…

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We desperately need to have new national and global conversations about everything from how we’ll feed everyone in 2050, to developing a coherent sustainable energy policy, to the fact that each year is hotter than the year before, to the idea that we’re living with a soul crushing sense of scarcity in a world of abundance.

There’s lots that needs addressing, and the process should begin with letting go of the old narrative so that we can make space for assembling the new one.

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