Category Archives: Peter’s Commentaries

“In recent years a good part of the monetary debate has become a simple war of words, with much of the conflict focused on the definition for the word “inflation.” Whereas economists up until the 1960’s or 1970’s mostly defined inflation as an expansion of the money supply, the vast majority now see it as simply rising prices. Since then the “experts” have gone further and devised variations on the word “inflation” (such as “deflation,” “disinflation,” and “stagflation”). And while past central banking policy usually focused on “inflation fighting,” now bankers talk about “inflation ceilings” and more recently “inflation targets”. The latest front in this campaign came this week when Bloomberg News unveiled a brand new word: “lowflation” which it defines as a situation where prices are rising, but not fast enough to offer the economic benefits that are apparently delivered by higher inflation. Although the article was printed on April Fool’s Day, sadly I do not believe it was meant as a joke.

Up until now, the inflation advocates have focused their arguments almost exclusively on the apparent dangers of “deflation,” which they define as falling prices. Despite reams of evidence that show how an economy can thrive when prices fall, there is now a nearly universal belief that deflation is an economic poison that works its mischief by convincing consumers to delay purchases.”

“So far, 2014 has been a paradoxical year for gold. Many investors aren’t even aware that it has rallied more than 7%. On the rare occasion that the financial media mentions the yellow metal, it is only in the context of comparing the recent rise to last year’s decline.

In spite of this overwhelming negative sentiment, gold is experiencing a stealth rally as one of the best performing assets of the year. Let’s look at some important metrics of the most under-valued sector in this market.”

“Everyone agrees that the winter just now winding down (hopefully) has been brutal for most Americans. And while it’s easy to conclude that the Polar Vortex has been responsible for an excess of school shutdowns and ice related traffic snarls, it’s much harder to conclude that it’s responsible for the economic vortex that appears to have swallowed the American economy over the past three months. But this hasn’t stopped economists, Fed officials, and media analysts from making this unequivocal assertion. In reality the weather is not what’s ailing us. It’s just the latest straw being grasped at by those who believe that the phony recovery engineered by the Fed is real and lasting. The April thaw is not far off. Unfortunately the economy is likely to stay frozen for some time to come.

Over the past few weeks, I have seen just about every weak piece of economic news being blamed on the weather. First it was lackluster retail sales that were chalked up to consumers being unable or unwilling to make it to the mall. (This managed to ignore the fact that online sales were similarly weak – which would be unexpected for a nation of snowed in consumers). Then came the weak auto sales that were ascribed to similarly holed up potential car buyers. However, this ignores that while GM and Chrysler sales were way down, sales for luxury cars like BMW, Mercedes and Maserati, surged to record high levels (more on that later). No one offered a reason why wealthier motorists were able to brave the cold. A number of other data points, such as lower GDP, productivity, ISM and factory orders were also ascribed to the elements.”