August 19, 2021
* The dollar continues to get bought…
* Why on earth are the metals getting sold like funnel cakes at a State Fair?
Good Day… And Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to you! I’m going to leave all the Tub Thumpin’ to you dear readers, for I’m still working though weakness and foggy brain… I want to take a minute here to tell you about a dear reader, Jim M., that sent me a copy of a letter from the Pan Mass Challenge, that supports the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The letter acknowledged that Jim W. had made a donation in the name of Chuck Butler & Dennis Miller… Talk about being blown away! OK… now on to other things… Thanks for all the welcome back notes I received on Tuesday, I truly appreciate each and every one of them! It’s all me today, folks… no guest writer… so, we’ll see just how long I can last this morning…. Supertramp greets me this morning with one of my fave songs from them: From Now On…. Not exactly on your hit parade of songs, but… I love it!
Well… Just about every day, the dollar gets stronger… There are so many reasons for that not to be happening, but… When an asset is in a strong trend, there’s no amount of bad things that can bring it back to earth… And so it is with the dollar right now. When I left to go on “vacation”… The BBDXY (Dollar Index) was 1,143…. And yesterday it closed at 1,151.43, So, just from that you can tell that the dollar has been on a rampage…
And yesterday was no different… Even stocks got sold yesterday, as the markets are beginning to show their fear of the Cartel, I mean the Fed, wanting to taper their bond buying… St. Louis Cartel President, James Bullard said in a recent interview that he believed that all stimulus should be ceased… I find this kind of talk to be B.S. in that, what? You’re telling me that the Cartel will begin to pull away the punch bowl while the Delta variant spreads and causes major economic problems once again?
I’ve never given the Cartel and credit for having gray matter, but… I think they see the writing on the wall here folks… So, everyone just calm down, please! And stop buying Treasuries and dollars! The 10-year Treasury’s yield is down to 1.22%, and the guy on TV that claims to be the mortgage expert says he’s still doing home loans “in the 2’s”… And that’s what’s fueling the current housing boom, folks… But I digress here, time to move on…
On Tuesday this week I reported, in error, that Retail Sales were negative .3%, when they actually were negative -1.1%… But then Industrial Production was up 1%… So, where’s the disconnect? I believe from what I’ve read about this, is that most economists have no idea what’s going on here… And while I don’t like to think of myself in with “most economists”, I have to say that this is a head scratcher for me too… I don’t recall the Industrial Production number being massaged, cooked, and manipulated in the past, but this sure looks to me to be the case…
But even having Retail Sales in July go so negative, didn’t change the direction of the dollar… I came across something that the great economist, David Rosenberg, said on Twitter yesterday regarding the negative Retail Sales figure, so let’s listen in to what Mr. Rosenberg had to say on Twitter: “So the same month that the BLS tells us the US economy managed to generate 943k net new jobs we have the consumer cutting back 1.1% on retail sales activity. And almost the exact same thing happened in June. Imagine what happens when employment really starts to cool off!” – David Rosenberg on Twitter
So, I guess I should move on from here, eh? The July numbers are water under the bridge, so to speak, so I’ll leave them there, and move on…
Gold was able to eke out a $2.00 gain yesterday, but Silver lost 17-cents… I was thinking yesterday, in between bouts of fogginess, that back in the year 2000, Gold was not looked at as a potential mover and shaker that it would become in that decade… There was a lot of sideway movement in Gold at that time, and then suddenly, the sideway movement went away and brought on a rally to talk to home about. You know me, I’ve always said that while history may not repeat itself, it sure does come to doing so, and that’s my belief with Gold right now…
Rich Checken says to watch the money supply number… And that’s a good piece of advice, for I’ve always maintained that Money Supply equals inflation…. I used to have long arguments with a professor of economics at St. Louis University about that… She was opposed to that view, but… I think if you go back in time during periods of inflation you will find that Money Supply growth was rapid… I’m just saying…
And if Money Supply is strong, then inflation is rising, and if inflation is rising, then Gold should be rising in price too… You know, the shin bone is connected to the ankle bone, etc. So, my suggestion to you, dear reader, is this… If you are fully allocated in your diversified investment portfolio with Gold (& Silver) then you should really just sit back and wait for the rise… But… if you are not fully allocated, then you should take this buying opportunity in Gold and run with it… Again, I’m just saying…
There are so many things going on in the U.S. these days, it’s difficult to keep on top of them all… The withdrawal of Saigon, I mean Afghanistan, is bad enough, but the Covid Delta virus continues to be a real problem for people… I have to say that I’ll never know the real truth, but…. In my heart of hearts I truly believe that being vaccinated, kept me from being on a ventilator and probably dying… It did what it was supposed to do, and while I understand completely that every citizen of the U.S. has the right to decide what goes in their body, I would really like for more people to step up to the plate and get vaccinated… So, we, as a country can put this behind us, and get back to being social humans, that go out, and celebrate things….
OK… so those many things going on sure have me thinking that there’s something BIG going to happen soon… I don’t know what that BIG thing is at this point, but…. There’s just no way we, as a country, can keep taking hits, and not have something BIG happen… Of course I also don’t know which way that would take the dollar… If I were a trader, I would sell dollars faster than you can shake a stick… But I’m no longer a trader, or even employed by anyone, so what I would do shouldn’t hold any water…
On a sidebar, I have to tell you that I’m having a bit of a problem with falling lately… I’ve got so many band aids on my arms where I’ve experienced trauma an bleeding after falling… I want to believe that this is just a product of my brain fog… And leave it at that… Kathy wants me to get around using a walker, so that I won’t fall… But…. I just can’t get my arms around the need to walk with a walker, at my age, and physical being! My PCP told me to slow down… Geez, I thought, he went to Medical school for that? HA!
OK… In the overnight markets last night… There was more dollar buying, folks… This is really getting into an overbought situation for the dollar, but that’s not stopping traders from loading up on dollars right now… The BBDXY, which closed yesterday at 1,151.43, has climbed higher overnight, and this morning is trading at 1,155.00… The euro has fallen below 1.17, the Norwegian krone has fallen trough the 8 figure and is trading this morning with a 9 handle… When I got back in town I checked the currencies and the Aussie dollar (A$) was trading over 93-cents… Well, this morning the A$ has a 71-cent handle…
And while Gold is only down a buck to two this morning in the early trading, the rot on the Palladium and Platinum’s vine is really getting exposed today… Palladium is down $32 and Platinum is down $71 in the early trading… Silver is down another 16-cents… Not that one can figure out why these metals are getting sold, other than price manipulation…
I really do believe that traders need to stop and think about what they are doing here… The tapering just isn’t going to happen as long as we have the Delta variant spreading and causing problems… I just can’t see that going any other way…
The U.S. Data Cupboard today has very little in terms of data for us to see… The leading Indicators Index will print, along with the usual fare of a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday, Weekly Initial Jobless Claims… But beyond that, there’s very little today and tomorrow, in the data cupboard… So, we’ll go into the weekend still having that gnawing feeling that something just isn’t right here, and continue wondering when the shoe will drop..
For What It’s Worth… OK… I’m running out of steam here, so I went to a trusted source of info, the Lew Rockwell site, and lo and behold he has a great article on how Nixon and the Rockefellers teamed up to destroy the dollar… Sounds like a good FWIW article, doesn’t it? Well, it can be found here: How Nixon and the Rockefellers Teamed Up To Destroy the Dollar – LewRockwell
Or, here’s your snippet: “August 15 marks a special date in American history: it commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s suspension of Bretton Woods. With this decision, the United States stopped redeeming foreign governments’ and banks’ dollars for gold. Consequently, the world economy transitioned to unconstrained central bank discretionary monetary policy, an unprecedented era in monetary affairs.
The traditional justification for such a momentous decision utilizes highfalutin rhetoric and appeals to the public interest: the gold constraint restricted the ability of wise economic planners to fine-tune the economy. However, as I document in Cronyism: Liberty versus Power in Early America, 1607–1849 (forthcoming, Mises Institute, October 2021), the actual reasons for government policies are due to self-interested politicians rewarding themselves and favored business interests at the expense of the public. Bretton Woods is no exception: Nixon suspended gold convertibility to enhance his 1972 reelection chances and benefit the Rockefeller-dominated Chase Manhattan Bank and other expansionary banking interests at the cost of higher inflation. When it comes to government, privileged interests always come before the public.
Nixon is one of America’s most notorious presidents because of his resignation following the Watergate scandal. This infamous attempt to steal the 1972 election is not the only aberration in Nixon’s career; all his life he was paranoid about elections and wanted to win at all costs. The former vice president was convinced that Federal Reserve contractionary monetary policy denied him the 1960 presidential election against John F. Kennedy. Nixon also insisted that Fed restrictionism contributed to Republican setbacks in the 1970 midterms. He was so concerned about elections that after assuming office in 1969 he candidly told his White House advisers that “political considerations” will often override the “economic standpoint.”1 At the top of his priorities was ensuring victory in 1972. To accomplish this, Nixon wanted the Fed to provide “a rate of monetary expansion sufficient to move the economy up on the desired path.”2
Major banks also supported cheap credit. They maintained close links with the administration, particularly the Chase Manhattan Bank, which was dominated by the wealthy Rockefeller family and had the most assets ($31.7 billion) out of any financial institution in 1968. Although Nixon ran against New York governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1968, he cozied up with Rockefeller interests after becoming president. He offered Nelson’s brother David, the chairman of Chase’s board of directors, the secretary of the Treasury position multiple times. Although David declined, the job went to David M. Kennedy, a banker recommended by the Chase board. Under secretary of the Treasury for monetary affairs went to Paul A. Volcker, a former vice president of Chase. Rockefeller men also commanded the State Department, which played a role in international monetary affairs.”
Chuck again… if you’re like me, no wait, no one wants to be like me, but if you like to read people’s thoughts that don’t hold back punches… Then Lew Rockwell is your guy…
Market prices 8/19/2021: American Style: A$ .7164, kiwi .6854, C$ .7845, euro 1.1698, sterling 1.3654, Swiss $1.0902, European Style: rand 15.1665, krone 9.0152, SEK 8.7865, forint 300.61, zloty 3.9143, koruna 21.7886, RUB 73.63, yen 109.67, sing 1.3629, HKD 7.7905, INR 74.27, China 6.4800, peso 20.15, BRL 5.3175, BBDXY 1,155.00, Dollar Index 93.36, Oil $63.15, 10-year 1.22%, Silver $23.40, Platinum $970.00, Palladium $2,434.00, Copper $4.06, and Gold… $1,788.40
That’s it for today and tomorrow… Tomorrow is my darling daughter Dawn’s Birthday.. She’ll be… no wait! I don’t believe your daughter would want people to know her age, Chuck! All I can say is that she sure doesn’t look her age, she has remained small in size, and can still light up a room with her smile… So, Happy Birthday Dawnie! When Dawn was a toddler, I used to call her Boo Boo… And her uncle after all these years still calls her “the Boo”… Well, I got through the letter without any problems! The brain fog seems to have lifted for now, and for that I’m quite grateful! The J. Geils Band takes us to the finish line today with their song: Must of Got Lost… I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much I like the music of The J. Geils Band… Well now I have! I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday, and please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler