Overheating China PPI Sends 10Y Yields To 30 Month Highs As Banks Inject Another Quarter Trillion Dollars In Loans

Despite a disappointing US CPI report on Friday, which saw core inflation miss once again despite an expected spike due to the "hurricane effect", moments ago China reported that in September, its CPI printed at 1.6% Y/Y, in line with expectations, and down from, 1.8% in August largely due to high year-over-year base effects, but it was PPI to come in smoking hot, jumping from 6.3% last month to 6.9% Y/Y, slamming expectations of a 6.4% print and just shy of the highest forecast, driven by the recent surge in commodity costs and strong PMI surveys.

While there has been no reaction in the Yuan, either on shore or off, the stronger than expected PPI has pushed China"s 10Y yield to the highest in 30 months, or since April of 2015.

Adding fuel to the flame was PBOC head Zhou Xiaochuan who said earlier that China’s GDP would pick up from the 6.9%  figure recorded in the first six months of the year "thanks to a boost from household spending", according to a synopsis of his comments at the G30 International Banking Seminar posted to the People’s Bank of China website on Monday." The reason why his comments have impacted the long-end is that the reported, and completely fabricated number, is higher than the previous consensus forecast of a goalseeked Q3 Chinese GDP of 6.8%.

And while spiking Chinese yields wouldn"t be concerned if China was indeed deleveraging as the Communist Party and the PBOC claim it is doing, the reality is, of course, that China continues to add more and more debt as the latest weekend credit numbers out of the PBOC revealed. As Bloomberg reported earlier, China"s broadest credit aggregated, Total Social Financing, jumped to 1.82 trillion yuan, or over a quarter trillion dollars in September ($276BN to be precise), vs a Wall Street estimate of 1.57 trillion yuan and 1.48 trillion yuan the prior month. New yuan loans also beat expectations, at 1.27 trillion yuan, versus a projected 1.2 trillion yuan, while for the first time in months, the broader M2 money supply did not hit fresh fresh record lows, and instead beat expectations, rising to 9.2% from an all time low of 8.9%.

Just as notable, after China"s shadow banking credit appeared to have finally been tamed after several months of contraction, shadow banking finance saw a pick-up in Sept (trust loans, entrusted loans and undiscounted bills), which accounted for 22% of Sept TSF vs. 18% in August. This was due mostly to milder deleveraging pace post the completion of self-checking of CBRC regs.

Commenting on the latest burst of credit creation by China, Kenneth Courtis, chairman of Starfort Investment Holdings and a former Asia vice chairman for Goldman Sachs Group, said that "Momentum continues to be very strong. Loan demand of the private sector has finally turned up in recent months."

It also means that just two weeks after the PBOC cuts its RRR for most banks in an unexpected monetary easing on Sept 30, “there is little hope of further policy easing in the fourth quarter as the monetary policy is very accommodative," said Zhou Hao, an economist at Commerzbank AG in Singapore. "There could be even a tightening bias."

Of course, confirming what we have been saying for years, Christopher Balding who is an associated professor in Peking Univeristy in Shenzhen said that "deleveraging is not happening if we look at any measure of credit growth" and that "lending in 2017 has actually accelerated significantly from 2016." This is shown in the chart below, which confirms that to keep its GDP at 6.9% or some other goalseeked number, China has to inject more than double that amount in credit every single month, in this case 15%. The biggest question is what happens to China"s credit impulse after the 19th Party Congress which begins on Wednesday.

When looking at the boost in household spending noted above by Zhou Xiaochuan, all of this is the result of a surge in household lending: "Household short-term loans have increased too rapidly, with some funds being invested in stock and property markets," said Wen Bin, a researcher at China Minsheng Banking Corp. in Beijing. "Regulators have started to pay attention to the sector and required banks to strengthen credit review. I think the momentum will show signs of slowing in the fourth quarter."

Commenting on the recent burst in Chinese household leverage, where short-term household loans soared to 1.53 trillion yuan, versus 524.7 billion yuan this time one year ago, Deutsche Bank"s Hans Fan writes that "noticeably China households are levering up quickly. We welcome the personal loans driven by genuine consumption growth, but there may be a notable portion of short-term consumer loans that were used to finance property purchases, which in our view contains higher risks." 

Some more details:

A breakdown by borrower suggests household and corporate sectors continued to lever up, making up 31%/41% of new system credit in Sept (35%/38% in Aug). For households, while mortgage growth had slowed, s/t retail loan growth accelerated to 17.6% yoy in Sept (vs. 15.8% in Aug or 7.3% in 1Q17) to make up c.10% of credit creation. We attribute this to both decent consumption growth with rising credit penetration and property-related lending. We estimate 1/3 of new consumption loans may be used to finance purchases of second homes. However, PBOC and local CBRC offices have started to crack down on property-related consumer loans in September and we expect consumer loan growth momentum to moderate in the coming months.

However, as so often happens in China, this surging leverage "sugar high" will not last, as "regulatory crackdown on property-related consumer loans together with monetary policy staying neutral lead us to expect slower credit growth in 4Q17." The implications for China"s economy and the global credit impulse will be adverse, and will lead to a global economic slowdown just as all central banks enter tightening moment together.

Finally, for those wondering what the biggest timebomb in the global financial system was, is and will be until such time as it finally blows up, here is a lovely up close schematic courtesy of Deutsche Bank.

Venezuela Begins Publishing Oil Basket Price In Yuan

Two days after the WSJ confirmed Maduro"s earlier threat that he would stop accepting US Dollars as payment for crude oil imports, Venezuela has done just that.

As a reminder, and as we reported previously, in an effort to circumvent U.S. sanctions, Venezuela told oil traders that it will no longer receive or send payments in dollars. As a result, oil traders who export Venezuelan crude or import oil products into the country have begun converting their invoices to euros.

Furthermore, Venezuela"s state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA (whose bankruptcy is fast approaching), told its private joint venture partners to open accounts in euros and to convert existing cash holdings into Europe’s main currency, said one project partner. The new payment policy hasn’t been publicly announced, but Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who has been blacklisted by the U.S., said Friday, "To fight against the economic blockade there will be a basket of currencies to liberate us from the dollar."

Fast forward to today, when according to a statement on the Venezuela oil ministry, the country"s weekly crude oil and petroleum basket "will be published in Chinese Yuan" - oddly, not in Euros as the WSJ hinted - going forward. We can only assume that Venezuela avoided the European currency on concerns that Brussels may follow in D.C."s footsteps and impose financial sanctions on the Maduro regime next. Which meant that the only "safe" currency to transact in, was that of the country"s two big sources of vendor (and commodity) financing: China and Russia. For now Venezuela has picked the former.

The ministry also unveiled a price of 306.26 Yuan per barrel for the week of Sept. 11-15, up 1.8% from the 300.91 in the previous week, saying "the more favorable outlook on world oil demand and reports of lower global production contributed to the strengthening of crude oil prices this week."

As for the more relevant topic, Venezuela"s abdication of the US dollar, whether permanent or temporary - until the US finds a way to intervene and restore normalcy - Nomura debt analyst Siobhan Morden warned that "you can say whatever you want for your domestic propaganda and make it look like you’re retaliating against the U.S.... this political posturing will only be to their detriment.”

It remains to be seen if president Trump will use today"s official switch by Venezuela to a PetroYuan as justification for a more "aggressive" foreign policy posture.

* * *

Meanwhile, recall that the decision by the nation with the world"s largest proven oil reserves to eliminate the dollar, comes just days after China and Russia unveiled the latest Oil/Yuan/Gold triad at the latest BRICS conference.

“Russia shares the BRICS countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture, which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies. We are ready to work together with our partners to promote international financial regulation reforms and to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies.”

“To overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies” is the politest way of stating what the BRICS have been discussing for years now; how to bypass the US dollar, as well as the petrodollar. Clearly, Beijing is ready to step up the game. Soon China will launch a crude oil futures contract priced in yuan and convertible into gold.

This means that Russia – as well as Iran, the other key node of Eurasia integration – may bypass US sanctions by trading energy in their own currencies, or in yuan. Inbuilt in the move is a true Chinese win-win; the yuan will be fully convertible into gold on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges.

The new triad of oil, yuan and gold is actually a win-win-win. No problem at all if energy providers prefer to be paid in physical gold instead of yuan. The key message is the US dollar being bypassed.

To promote their strategic partnership, Russia and China  – via the Russian Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China – have been developing ruble-yuan swaps for quite a while now. Once that moves beyond the BRICS to aspiring “BRICS Plus” members and then all across the Global South, Washington’s reaction is bound to be nuclear (hopefully, not literally).

Washington’s strategic doctrine rules RC should not be allowed by any means to be preponderant along the Eurasian landmass. Yet what the BRICS have in store geo-economically does not concern only Eurasia – but the whole Global South.

Sections of the War Party in Washington bent on instrumentalizing  India against China – or against RC – may be in for a rude awakening. As much as the BRICS may be currently facing varied waves of economic turmoil, the daring long-term road map, way beyond the Xiamen Declaration, is very much in place.

*  *  *

Finally, having threatened China just this week with exclusion from SWIFT, we suspect Washington is rapidly running out of any great ally to sustain the petrodollar-driven hegemony (and implicitly the US war machine). So will calls for a Venezuelan invasion now commence, if for no other reason than to teach any other nation contemplating a similar move that it will simply not be allowed?

Escobar Exposes Real BRICS Bombshell: Putin's "Fair Multipolar World" Where Oil Trade Bypasses The Dollar

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

Putin reveals "fair multipolar world" concept in which oil contracts could bypass the US dollar and be traded with oil, yuan and gold...

The annual BRICS summit in Xiamen – where President Xi Jinping was once mayor – could not intervene in a more incandescent geopolitical context.

Once again, it’s essential to keep in mind that the current core of BRICS is “RC”; the Russia-China strategic partnership. So in the Korean peninsula chessboard, RC context – with both nations sharing borders with the DPRK – is primordial.

Beijing has imposed a definitive veto on war – of which the Pentagon is very much aware.

Pyongyang’s sixth nuclear test, although planned way in advance, happened only three days after two nuclear-capable US B-1B strategic bombers conducted their own “test” alongside four F-35Bs and a few Japanese F-15s.

Everyone familiar with the Korean peninsula chessboard knew there would be a DPRK response to these barely disguised “decapitation” tests.

So it’s back to the only sound proposition on the table: the RC “double freeze”. Freeze on US/Japan/South Korea military drills; freeze on North Korea’s nuclear program; diplomacy takes over.

The White House, instead, has evoked ominous “nuclear capabilities” as a conflict resolution mechanism.

Gold mining in the Amazon, anyone?

On the Doklam plateau front, at least New Delhi and Beijing decided, after two tense months, on “expeditious disengagement” of their border troops. This decision was directly linked to the approaching BRICS summit – where both India and China were set to lose face big time.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had already tried a similar disruption gambit prior to the BRICS Goa summit last year. Then, he was adamant that Pakistan should be declared a “terrorist state”. The RC duly vetoed it.

Modi also ostensively boycotted the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) summit in Hangzhou last May, essentially because of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

India and Japan are dreaming of countering BRI with a semblance of connectivity project; the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC). To believe that the AAGC – with a fraction of the reach, breath, scope and funds available to BRI – may steal its thunder, is to enter prime wishful-thinking territory.

Still, Modi emitted some positive signs in Xiamen; “We are in mission-mode to eradicate poverty; to ensure health, sanitation, skills, food security, gender equality, energy, education.” Without this mammoth effort, India’s lofty geopolitical dreams are D.O.A.

Brazil, for its part, is immersed in a larger-than-life socio-political tragedy, “led” by a Dracula-esque, corrupt non-entity; Temer The Usurper. Brazil’s President, Michel Temer, hit Xiamen eager to peddle “his” 57 major, ongoing privatizations to Chinese investors – complete with corporate gold mining in an Amazon nature reserve the size of Denmark. Add to it massive social spending austerity and hardcore anti-labor legislation, and one’s got the picture of Brazil currently being run by Wall Street. The name of the game is to profit from the loot, fast.

The BRICS’ New Development Bank (NDB) – a counterpart to the World Bank – is predictably derided all across the Beltway. Xiamen showed how the NDB is only starting to finance BRICS projects. It’s misguided to compare it with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). They will be investing in different types of projects – with the AIIB more focused on BRI. Their aim is complementary.

‘BRICS Plus’ or bust

On the global stage, the BRICS are already a major nuisance to the unipolar order. Xi politely put it in Xiamen as “we five countries [should] play a more active part in global governance”.

And right on cue Xiamen introduced “dialogues” with Mexico, Egypt, Thailand, Guinea and Tajikistan; that’s part of the road map for  “BRICS Plus” – Beijing’s conceptualization, proposed last March by Foreign Minister Wang Yi, for expanding partnership/cooperation.

A further instance of “BRICS Plus” can be detected in the possible launch, before the end of 2017, of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – in the wake of the death of TPP.

Contrary to a torrent of Western spin, RCEP is not “led” by China.

Japan is part of it – and so is India and Australia alongside the 10 ASEAN members. The burning question is what kind of games New Delhi may be playing to stall RCEP in parallel to boycotting BRI.

Patrick Bond in Johannesburg has developed an important critique, arguing that “centrifugal economic forces” are breaking up the BRICS, thanks to over-production, excessive debt and de-globalization. He interprets the process as “the failure of Xi’s desired centripetal capitalism.”

It doesn’t have to be this way. Never underestimate the power of Chinese centripetal capitalism – especially when BRI hits a higher gear.

Meet the oil/yuan/gold triad

It’s when President Putin starts talking that the BRICS reveal their true bombshell. Geopolitically and geo-economically, Putin’s emphasis is on a “fair multipolar world”, and “against protectionism and new barriers in global trade.” The message is straight to the point.

The Syria game-changer – where Beijing silently but firmly supported Moscow – had to be evoked; “It was largely thanks to the efforts of Russia and other concerned countries that conditions have been created to improve the situation in Syria.”

On the Korean peninsula, it’s clear how RC think in unison; “The situation is balancing on the brink of a large-scale conflict.”

Putin’s judgment is as scathing as the – RC-proposed – possible solution is sound; “Putting pressure on Pyongyang to stop its nuclear missile program is misguided and futile. The region’s problems should only be settled through a direct dialogue of all the parties concerned without any preconditions.”

Putin’s – and Xi’s – concept of multilateral order is clearly visible in the wide-ranging Xiamen Declaration, which proposes an “Afghan-led and Afghan-owned” peace and national reconciliation process, “including the Moscow Format of consultations” and the “Heart of Asia-Istanbul process”.

That’s code for an all-Asian (and not Western) Afghan solution brokered by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), led by RC, and of which Afghanistan is an observer and future full member.

And then, Putin delivers the clincher;

“Russia shares the BRICS countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture, which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies. We are ready to work together with our partners to promote international financial regulation reforms and to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies.”

“To overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies” is the politest way of stating what the BRICS have been discussing for years now; how to bypass the US dollar, as well as the petrodollar.

Beijing is ready to step up the game. Soon China will launch a crude oil futures contract priced in yuan and convertible into gold.

This means that Russia – as well as Iran, the other key node of Eurasia integration – may bypass US sanctions by trading energy in their own currencies, or in yuan.

Inbuilt in the move is a true Chinese win-win; the yuan will be fully convertible into gold on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges.

The new triad of oil, yuan and gold is actually a win-win-win. No problem at all if energy providers prefer to be paid in physical gold instead of yuan. The key message is the US dollar being bypassed.

RC – via the Russian Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China – have been developing ruble-yuan swaps for quite a while now.

Once that moves beyond the BRICS to aspiring “BRICS Plus” members and then all across the Global South, Washington’s reaction is bound to be nuclear (hopefully, not literally).

Washington’s strategic doctrine rules RC should not be allowed by any means to be preponderant along the Eurasian landmass. Yet what the BRICS have in store geo-economically does not concern only Eurasia – but the whole Global South.

Sections of the War Party in Washington bent on instrumentalizing  India against China – or against RC – may be in for a rude awakening. As much as the BRICS may be currently facing varied waves of economic turmoil, the daring long-term road map, way beyond the Xiamen Declaration, is very much in place.

The Three Hidden Subplots Of The G20 Hamburg Summit

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

The Group of Twenty, known as G20, is an unaccountable and powerful organization that is the closest thing on earth to a true world government. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the rotating President of the G20, will host the next G20 meeting in the city of Hamburg, on the mouth of the Elbe River near the North Sea Coast.

G20 refers to its twenty member countries. They are a mixture of what were once the world’s seven largest economies, known as the G7, consisting of the United States, Canada, France, Germany, the UK, Italy and Japan, and some fast-growing, newly emerging economies such as Brazil, China, South Korea, Mexico, India and Indonesia. Other countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia are included because of their natural resources or for reasons of geopolitics.

The G20 operates at many levels. Several times each year their finance ministers and central bank heads meet to discuss technical issues and try to reach consensus on specific goals. The most important meetings, however, are the leaders’ summits, attended by presidents, prime ministers and kings, which meet periodically to discuss global financial issues.

It is at these leaders’ summits, both in the formal sessions and informally on the sidelines, that the actual deals shaping the global financial system are made.

In recent years, G20 summits have focused less on financial crises and more on the one world agenda of the global elite. This elite agenda includes world taxation, climate change, terrorism, anti-money laundering and other aspects of globalized governance.

Today, financial risk is once again coming to the fore as global growth continues to slow. Nationalist leaders such as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Theresa May have emerged to challenge the globalist agenda. This puts more stress on the cohesiveness of the G20 process.

Above is the “class picture” of global leaders from the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China, September 4-5, 2016. Xi and Merkel appear front row, center in this photograph. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF appears in the back row.

Financial risk, anti-globalism, immigration, and threats from terrorism will be on full display at this next G20 leaders’ summit. There will also be three key sub-plots happening off the main stage to watch closely.

The most important of these private meetings involve Trump and Putin, Macron and Merkel, and the BRICS.

The United States and Russia

By far, the most important encounter at the Hamburg G20 Summit will be the first face-to-face meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Despite the avalanche of allegations of “collusion” between Trump and Putin to rig the 2016 U.S. presidential election (an allegation for which there is zero evidence), and the presumed sympathies between the two leaders on policies involving ISIS and terrorism, they have never met and have had only limited telephonic contact.

The bilateral agenda of the two leaders could not be more urgent.

Despite allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, and the Russian scandals surrounding Trump, the two leaders have an important shared agenda including Syria, North Korea, Ukraine, trade sanctions, and energy policy.

Trump wants to build bridges to Russia in order to prepare for a coming confrontation with China. Russia, China and the U.S. are the only three superpowers in the world.

Classic balance-of-power politics dictates that if you are going to confront one power in a three-power game, it is essential to have an alliance with the other power, or at least keep it neutral. The U.S. needs a neutral or friendly Russia before it confronts China on trade, currency manipulation, North Korea and the South China Sea.

Unfortunately, Trump’s efforts at opening dialogue with Russia were handled in an amateurish way by Kushner and Flynn. Both lied about their contacts with the Russians, which fed the collusion narrative. This led to investigations, and Trump’s clumsy efforts to head off those investigations have now led to allegations of obstruction of justice.

Despite the dysfunction in the Trump White House and the media circus in Washington DC, the reasons for normalizing relations with Russia are no less urgent than when they were first pursued by Trump.

The G20 summit will be a chance for Trump to reinvigorate the U.S.-Russia dialogue outside the context of the Beltway feeding frenzy. Putin understands this and he will be an eager interlocutor.

Trump’s defense, diplomatic and national security team of James Mattis, Rex Tillerson, and H. R. McMaster are far more capable than Kushner and Flynn, and will assist in Trump’s preparation for the Putin dialogue.

The Trump-Putin dialogue in Hamburg will be the most important diplomatic event of 2017. Watch closely for both public statements and leaks about the substance of the dialogue.

This information will contain important clues about the prospects for war with North Korea, relief from economic sanctions in Europe, and the endgame for ISIS.

The BRICS

Another important highlight of recent G20 summits is the informal meeting of the BRICS on the sidelines. Hamburg will continue this tradition.

BRICS is an acronym for its member nations: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. These nations include the four largest emerging markets economies, the two most populous nations on earth (China and India), and four of the six largest nations by landmass (Russia, China, Brazil, and India). The BRICS are the main counterpoint to the G7 inside the G20.

The BRICS have their own summit meetings and institutions, including a well-funded development bank. Yet, the G20 summit is a convenient time for the BRICS leaders to meet in person given the difficult logistics of coordinating so many leaders’ schedules.

The BRICS agenda will be lighter at this G20 summit than in years past. This is partly because the currency wars are temporarily quiet, and the BRICS development agenda has been eclipsed to some extent by China’s “One Belt, One Road” multi-trillion dollar infrastructure initiative in central and south Asia.

Still, the BRICS as a group continue to be interested in ways to bypass the U.S. dollar in global payments systems. By strengthening and expanding non-dollar payments systems, the BRICS make themselves less vulnerable to U.S. economic sanctions, which mainly operate through bank channels and dollar accounts.

Gold is also an important topic among the BRICS. Russia, China and South Africa are three of the world’s largest gold producers, while Russia, China, and India are among the world’s largest consumers of gold.

Watching the BRICS “sideline summit” at G20 for can provide information about gold, non-dollar payments, and broader efforts to diminish the international role of the U.S. dollar.

Merkel, Macron, and “More Europe”

This year, Germany will use the G20 summit to announce its support for a European “destiny” (as described by Angela Merkel) independent of U.S. preferences or fear of Russia.

In effect, a reunified Germany has finally emerged from the long shadows of World War II and the Cold War. It will take its place on the world stage as an economic superpower with its own agenda. Of course, Merkel will not announce an explicitly German agenda, only a European agenda, but Germany is the undoubted leader of the new Europe.

On the sidelines of the G20 meeting, it will be important to watch the ever closer relationship between France and Germany, in particular the growing cordiality between the new French President Emmanuel Macron and longstanding German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Of course, there’s nothing new about Franco-German cooperation in post-World War II Europe. France and Germany were among the original six members of the European Economic Community, or “Common Market,” created by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The Common Market was the direct predecessor to today’s European Union.

However, the degree of cooperation between these two major economic powers has waxed and waned over the years.

From 2012 to 2016, the Socialist French President Hollande was at odds with Merkel on issues such as Greek bailouts and budget austerity. Macron is much more in sync with Merkel on these and other issues.

One of the persistent criticisms of the EU from U.S. and UK economists was that the EU had created a monetary union through the Eurozone and ECB, but had failed to create a fiscal union with a unified budget and bond issuing authority.

The criticism is valid, but the typical U.S. or UK remedy was to break up the Eurozone. That was never the intention of EU leaders. Instead their solution was “More Europe,” which means unified banking regulation, a central fiscal authority and a Eurozone parliament to debate fiscal and monetary issues with a view to unified solutions.

Macron and Merkel (known to wags as “Mackerel”) are in accord on the More Europe approach and are already taking steps to implement that vision. G20 will be their first joint appearance on a world stage.

President Trump has picked fights with Europe about their financial contributions to NATO and their liberal immigration policies in the face of terrorism.

President Putin is isolated from Europe because of continuing sanctions related to his actions in Ukraine.

Merkel recognizes that Europe is increasingly on its own and needs to purse a destiny independent of the U.S. and Russia. Macron has publicly voiced the same view.

Macron appears to be the strongest French leader since Charles de Gaulle. Merkel is undoubtedly the strongest German leader since Konrad Adenauer. Together, their like-mindedness will deepen European integration and make the Eurozone and the euro stronger than ever.

The G20 meeting will be an ideal opportunity to put the new Franco-German alliance on display. This will signal to the U.S., China and Russia that EU policies will reflect EU priorities and not be mere accommodations to the preferences of the U.S.

The likely beneficiary of this new European outlook will be China. With Russia still subject to sanctions, and the U.S. in a more confrontational mode, China will be met with open arms by the new Europe.

China is looking to diversify its reserve position away from dollars towards euros. China is inherently cautious and was reluctant to invest heavily in euros while the European sovereign debt crisis rolled on from 2010 to 2015.

Now, the European crisis has passed, the economies of the periphery states of Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland have stabilized, and Franco-German cooperation is growing. China is ready to take the plunge with portfolio investment in European debt and direct foreign investment in ports, airports, highway systems and other critical infrastructure as well as large stakes in key European companies.

Even China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative envisions continuous transportation links from Shanghai to Rotterdam, and will need European participation.

While Trump and Putin are meeting privately, expect to see “Mackerel” and China’s President Xi engaged in their own trilateral diplomacy. This will be another one of the G20 sub-plots to watch closely for clues about the best investment opportunities.

This will be one of the most important G20 meetings ever. It will facilitate a Trump-Putin pro-nationalist channel of communication, and will be a platform for the emergence of the new Europe under the joint leadership of Macron and Merkel.

Emerging Markets Are Not All Created Equal

For most investors, targeting foreign countries where there are high expectations for growth is a useful strategy.

After all, in the United States, Canada, and Europe, economies are mostly growing at about 2% or less per year. And while these developed markets are less risky to invest in, finding value can be tricky.

That’s why, as VisualCapitalist"s Jeff Desjardoins notes, for many decades, investors have been allured by the fast growth of far-off economies. In the 1950s and 1960s, Japan’s economy regularly expanded at a 10%+ clip, and who can forget the “Four Asian Tigers” that followed in Japan’s footsteps? In the 2000s, the focus shifted to the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) – and more recently, attention has been on countries like Indonesia, Nigeria, Colombia, and Turkey.

DIFFERENT RISKS IN EMERGING MARKETS

Although emerging markets are similar in that they have high expectations for growth, it’s important to remember that these countries have very unique and different sets of risks.

Today’s visualization comes to us from Charles Schwab, and it provides a simple breakdown of the types of risks faced by the economies of emerging markets:

As an example, Mexico and Chile have considerably different risks, according to the chart.

Aside from currency risk, which they both share, Chile is particularly prone to sensitivity in the world’s commodity markets. That makes sense, because Chile is the world’s largest supplier of copper – and close to 50% of the country’s exports are copper-related, including refined copper (22.6%), copper ore (20.9%), raw copper (3.6%), and copper wire (0.5%).

On the other hand, Mexico is noted as having particular sensitivity to what happens in developed markets such as the United States. This is because 81% of Mexican exports go to the U.S., while the next biggest buyer of Mexican goods is Canada at 3% of exports. If the buying power of the U.S. and Canada is affected, it could have big consequences on what will be bought from Mexico.

Euro Saves Germany, Slaughters the PIGS, & Feeds the BLICS

Authored by Chris Hamilton via Econimica,

The change in nations Core populations (25-54yr/olds) have driven economic activity for the later half of the 20th century, first upward and now downward.  The Core is the working population, the family forming population, the child bearing population, the first home buying, and the credit happy primary consumer.  Even a small increase (or contraction) in their quantity drives economic activity magnitudes beyond what the numbers would indicate.

To highlight the linkage of Core populations to economic activity, the chart below shows the European 25-54yr/old population vs. the best indicator of economic activity, total energy consumption (data available starting from 1980).  The implications are pretty straightforward.  European economic activity (& resultant energy consumption) will contract for decades, at a minimum, with the declining Core population.  The pie is shrinking and now it"s simply a fight for who gets bigger slices.

Given this, consider Germany was well aware of it"s post WWII collapsing birth rate and the impact of this on economic growth as this shrinking population of young made it"s way into the Core.  Consider Germany"s Core population peaked in 1995 and it"s domestic consumer base has been shrinking since, now down over 3.3 million potential consumers (about a 9% Core decline...remember a depression is a 10% decline in economic activity, which a 9% and growing decline in German consumers would have almost surely induced).

GERMANY

The chart below shows Germany"s Core population from 1950-->2040...but understand this is no guestimate through 2040.  This is simply taking the existing 0-24yr/old population (plus anticipated immigration) and sliding them into the Core through 2040.  Germany"s Core population is set to fall by over 30% or 10+ million by 2040 (far more than the 7 million Germans of all ages who died in WWII).

But Germany had a plan.  With the advent of the EU and Euro just as Germany"s Core began shrinking, Germany was able to avoid the pitfalls of a shrinking domestic consumer base, circumvent the strong German currency, and effectively quadruple it"s effective export market across Europe.  German exports, as a % of GDP, have essentially doubled since the advent of the Euro (22% in "95 to almost 50% in "16).  The chart below highlights Germany"s shrinking Core vs. rising GDP (primarily via exports) since 1995.

And this had the desired effect of turning what was a rising German debt to GDP ratio during re-integration of E. Germany into a falling ratio (chart below).

So the German motivation for the EU and Euro are fairly plain as are the resultant economic transfusion from South to North.  But for Germany to be a winner, there had to be a loser in this shrinking pie game.  Hello PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain), you lost.  As the old poker adage goes, when you don"t know who the sucker at the table is...it"s you.  Particularly when you "win big" at first and it all seems so easy...but then it all turns.

PIGS

The chart below shows the PIGS Core population peaking about 15 years later than in Germany but likewise clearly rolling over.  By 2040, the PIGS Core population will be back at it"s 1960 levels...down from the 2010 peak by 17 million or about a 30% decline.

But if we look at the PIGS combined GDP and Core population...we see a very different picture than in Germany.  The chart below shows the PIGS GDP turned down ahead of the Core population peak.  The rise in GDP in these nations was a credit bubble premised on cheap EU wide interest rates more appropriate for Germany.  Exports as a % of GDP (which were higher than Germany"s in "95) have risen less than half of Germany"s increase (rising as a % primarily due to declining PIGS GDP).  Low German wage increases and high quality German goods helped displace PIGS domestic manufacturing base.

To extend the game a bit longer (and multiply the harm), un-repayable government debt has been substituted to keep the PIGS consuming since 2007 (chart below).

How it played out...

The chart below shows the impact of the implementation of the EU and Euro on the different parties.  Clearly the PIGS were fattened up on cheap credit.  These nations became used to unsustainably fast growth and the good life, buying really nice German exports and undermining their own national brands.

But then the phony PIGS growth turned to real and deep contraction (chart below).  However, the slowdown was quick and shallow for Germany and the BLICS.  French GDP likewise turned upward after a shallow contraction but did so on a large increase in debt and continuing high levels of unemployment.  Quite the opposite of the trends in Germany.

The raw trade data confirms Germany"s gain against an ageing domestic population came at the expense of the PIGS.

BLICS

And just to square the circle, I need to talk a little about the BLICS (Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Cayman Island, and Switzerland...yes, I understand Cayman Island is not in Europe, but bear with me as it is a British Overseas Territory).  These nations with a total population of about 24 million have been disproportionate beneficiaries of the new EU system.  These financier nations have been the biggest winners of all with huge amounts of money flowing through them (BLICS GDP below).

But why would small to tiny financier nations be the greatest beneficiary of the new EU?  Untold quantities of nearly free ECB money & distortions does wonders for those who can get their hands on it.  In this respect, a peek at these nations US Treasury holdings is quite telling.  These tiny nations are now five of the top 13 foreign holders of US Treasury"s (Ireland is #3, and Cayman Island #5, Switzerland #6, Luxembourg #7, and Belgium has slipped to #13).  That these are America"s creditors is laughable really!

I"m just guessing but the timing and size of BLICS Treasury purchases sure looks like it was front running in conjunction with the ECB"s 2011 LTRO and subsequent 2014 TLTRO?!?  The chart below shows the BLICS Treasury holdings back to 2001.  "Financialization" writ large for nations that don"t produce much of anything.

In fact, since the July 2011 debt ceiling debate (debacle?!?) when Congress determined the US would never live within it"s means, it has been the BLICS that have done the heavy lifting to maintain the foreign Treasury bid while China (and cumulative BRICS) have been selling despite record dollar surplus" (chart below).  As an aside, from "00 through July "11, China recycled about 50% of it"s dollar trade surplus into Treasury"s...from July "ll China only continues to sell Treasury"s despite record trade surplus...but luckily the BLICS stepped up just as China and the BRICS bowed out.

The chart below highlights that the BLICS are now, as of January 2017, the largest holder of US Treasury debt overtaking the declining holdings of both Japan and China.

Conclusion:

As Europe"s Core population collapses (and economic activity with it), the Euro and ECB seem to be serving a select few at the expense of the majority.  The imbalances and distortions will only grow as the attempts to mask who the Euro and ECB truly serve continue.  What little vitality exists is being transfused to prop up the few.  Hope this has been thought provoking and make of this what you will.

"Why Are They So Angry?"

The discourse in this Criminal Fraud UNITED STATES, CORP. INC., & even amongst the Presstitute"s would change practically overnight if an APB, "All Points Bullitin" along with InterPol was issued for the immediate Arrest & Apprehension of George Sorros.

Some are obvious paid Sorros Agent Provocateurs mixed in with actual Leftists. Others are perhaps different left over Occupy Wall Street groups which have spun off into Splinter protesting groups of their own.

You have the Anti Whites, Anti Capitalism, Anti Trump & Racism, BLM Groups. You have the Immigration, Pro Abortion, Pro Gay & Trans Whatever Groups being all sent into a fever pitch because of one person.

Pure Evil Criminal Psychopath Geroge Sorros.

And, they all have one Ideology in Common.

They hate Capitalism, all favor Socialism & Nations without Borders

China Vows To Refrain From "Mega Economic Stimulus" As 'Two Sessions' Begins

The US has Jeff Sessions, but China is about to have "two sessions".

Starting Sunday is a two-week period of heightened political discourse, if not exactly debate, among the top echelons of China"s Politburo, also known as China"s "two sessions."

The China People"s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) starts on March 3 and will conclude on the 13th. The National People"s Congress (NPC) will start on March 5 and last until the 16th. On March 5, Premier Li Keqiang will announce 2017 economic targets (e.g., GDP growth and CPI) and policy measures including fiscal and monetary policy (e.g., on-budget deficit, M2 and TSF) in the morning session of NPC. A number of senior economic officials, including Premier Li, will also hold press conferences during the meetings to provide further details/clarifications on policies in major economic fronts.

In previewing what to expect from the "two sessions", this week Xinhua reported that China will "not flood the economy with government investment as it pursues more stable, healthy economic growth," an official with the top economic planner said Wednesday. "Instead, it will focus on supply-side reform for a modest expansion of aggregate demand," said Li Pumin, secretary general of the National Development and Reform Commission, at a news conference.

Li made the remarks when answering a question on whether China would roll out a major stimulus plan like in 2008.

"Stimulus plans are used to prop up weak demand with government investment under special circumstances," he said, adding it was different from the scale of fixed-asset investment (FAI). It was recently reported that 23 provincial-level regions had announced FAI volume totaling some 45 trillion yuan (about 6.54 trillion U.S. dollars) for 2017, stoking concern of a gigantic stimulus plan.

Li dismissed the worries by saying FAI volume is the aggregate rather than newly-added investment and includes investment from the public and private sector. The FAI volume of 32 provincial-level regions rose 7.9 percent year on year to 60.65 trillion yuan in 2016 and is likely to hit 65 trillion yuan, Li said.

After China"s economy entered a "new normal" stage, the major difficulties were a by-product of supply rather than demand, he said. The addition of excessive production capacity and redundant projects will be forestalled, and more efforts will be made to meet demand with effective supply, he added.

The overarching theme over the past few years has been China"s attempt to transition its export- and investment-driven growth model into one that draws strength from consumption, innovation and the service sector. Consumption contributed 64.6 percent to China"s GDP growth in 2016, up 4.9 percentage points from 2015, official data showed.

In the process, however, China has also been quietly fading out some of its legacy industries, such as coal, where as reported on Wednesday, Beijing warned it would have to "reallocate" some 500,000 mostly coal and steel workers (to start) into growth industries, such as ridesharing and taxicabs.

"This year we will continue to cut capacity in coal and steel," Yin Weimin, the head of China"s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, told reporters. "We will need to reallocate jobs to 500,000 workers," he said, including assigning workers different jobs within the same or a different company, early retirement or encouraging them to become entrepreneurs.

Weimin added that China will introduce a policy this year to encourage the development of new industries, for example internet-related industries, that will create new jobs, he said. In 2016, he said that China reallocated jobs to 726,000 coal and steel workers "without any major problems", adding that China"s overall employment outlook in 2017 is expected to remain relatively stable, despite the government facing immense pressure to create jobs.

Meanwhile, China has decided to adopt a "prudent and neutral" monetary policy this year to keep liquidity at an appropriate level and avoid large injections. Official data released Wednesday showed that China"s manufacturing purchasing managers" index expanded for the seventh month in a row to hit 51.6 percent in February, further evidence that the world"s second largest economy is stabilizing amid the uncertain global outlook.

In this context, the following Goldlman analysis puts in context the past two years of Chinese economic growth and momentum  and what has driven them. The chart below plots the decomposition of moves in China"s 5-year swap rates into the two market-implied macro drivers. The results provide an intuitive qualitative assessment of market moves since mid-2015.

August 2015 to January 2016 – deteriorating growth expectations: From mid-2015 through the beginning of 2016, as policymakers began another round of RMB reform, growth expectations deteriorated sharply. Falling growth expectations weighed on interest rates, although the downward pressures were partially offset by an incremental hawkish shift in the markets" expectation for monetary policy, perhaps given the backdrop of the substantial capital outflows that followed the RMB depreciation episodes in August 2015 and early January 2016.

February to Oct 2016 – improving growth expectations, easier policy: From late January 2016, a broad improvement in growth expectations on the back of a meaningful quasi-fiscal credit impulse pushed towards higher swap rates. However, from the perspective of the interest rate markets, the improving growth expectations were more or less offset by expectations for easier policy, leaving swap rates broadly unchanged.

Since Oct 2016 – tighter policy expectations, continuing improvement in growth expectations: Since October 2016 swap rates have moved higher by over 100bp. Our decomposition suggests that over two-thirds of the increase in swap rates through mid-December 2016 was related to a more hawkish shift in markets’ perception of monetary policy. The more hawkish shift in policy expectations also weighed on equities through the end of the year, although this has reversed recently as market growth expectations have continued to improve steadily.

Hawkish shift in PBoC policy perceptions key driver of higher swap rates since October
Contribution of growth and policy shocks to move in China 5-year swap rates

Perhaps more than anything, the above implies that, as Deutsche and UBS both warned recently, the period of Chinese upside momentum and credit-impulse contribution to global growth is about to end. For those who missed it, here is what UBS said:

"Our global credit impulse (covering 77% of global GDP) has suddenly collapsed" and explains that "as the chart below shows the "global" credit impulse over the last 18 months is essentially mainly China (the green shaded bit), which even now is still creating new credit at an annualized rate of around 30pp of (Chinese) GDP. But the credit impulse is the "change in the change" in credit and even the Chinese banks could not sustain the recent extraordinary pace of credit acceleration. As a result: whereas back in Jan "16 the global credit impulse was positive to the tune of 3.8% of global GDP (of which China comprised 3.5% of global GDP) it has now fallen back to -0.1% of global GDP (China"s contribution is -0.3% of global GDP).

So while it may seem rather distant and boring compared to the daily scandals emerging daily from the realm of US politics, the fate of global economic growth in the near-term will be determined in Beijing over the next 2 weeks. Our advice is to drown out the noise as much as possible, and follow developments in China closely. 

There's Not Nearly Enough Growth To Keep Growing

Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

It’s amusing to see how views start to converge, at the same time that it’s tiresome to see how long that takes. It’s a good thing that more and more people ‘discover’ how and why austerity, especially in Europe, is such a losing and damaging strategy. It’s just a shame that this happens only after the horses have left the barn and the cows have come home, been fed, bathed, put on lipstick and gone back out to pasture again. Along the same lines, it’s beneficial that the recognition that for a long time economic growth has not been what ‘we’ think it should be, is spreading.

But we lost so much time that we could have used to adapt to the consequences. The stronger parties in all this, the governments, companies, richer individuals, may be wrong, but they have no reason to correct their wrongs: the system appears to work fine for them. They actually make good money because all corrections, all policies and all efforts to hide the negative effects of the gross ‘mistakes’, honest or not, made in economic and political circles are geared towards making them ‘whole’.

The faith in the absurd notion of trickle down ‘economics’ allows them to siphon off future resources from the lower rungs of society, towards themselves in the present. It will take a while for the lower rungs to figure this out. The St. Louis Fed laid it out so clearly this week that I wrote to Nicole saying ‘We’ve been vindicated by the Fed itself.’ That is, the Automatic Earth has said for many years that the peak of our wealth was sometime in the 1970’s or even late 1960’s.

Intriguing questions: was America at its richest right before or right after Nixon took the country off the gold standard in 1971? And whichever of the two one would argue for, why did he do it smack in the middle of peak wealth? Did he cause the downfall or was it already happening?

As per the St. Louis Fed report: “Real GDP growth fell and leveled off in the mid-1970s, then started falling again in the mid-2000s”. What happened during that 30-year period was that we started printing and borrowing with abandon, making both those activities much easier while we did, until the debt load overwhelmed even our widest fantasies ten years ago. And we’ve never recovered from that, if that was not obvious yet. Nor will we.

As the first graph below shows, there was still growth post-Gold Standard but the rate of growth fell and then “leveled off”, only to fall more after, to a point where Real GDP per Capita is presently 0.5% or so -little more than a margin error-. How one would want to combine that with talk of an economic recovery is hard to see. In fact, such talk should be under serious scrutiny by now.

Still, the numbers remain positive, you say. Yes, that’s true. But there’s a caveat, roughly similar to the one regarding energy and the return on it. Where we used to pump oil and get 100 times the energy in return that we needed to pump it, that ratio (EROEI) is now down to 10:1 or less. Alternative energy sources do little better, if at all. Whereas to run a complex society, let alone one like ours that must become more complex as we go along – or die-, we would need somewhere along the lines of a 20:1 to even 30:1 EROEI rate.

Another place where a similar caveat can be found is the amount of dollars it takes to produce a dollar of real growth. That amount has been increasing, and fast, to the point where it takes over $10 to create $1 or growth in the US and Europe, and China too moves towards such numbers.

Both our energy systems and our financial systems are examples of what happens when what we should perhaps call the rate of ‘productivity’ (rather than growth) falls below a critical mass: it becomes impossible to maintain, even keep alive, a society as complex as ours, which requires an increase in complexity to survive. In other words: a Real GDP per Capita growth rate of 0.5% is not enough to stand still, just like oil EROEI of 5:1 is not; there is growth, but not -nearly- enough to keep growing.

One does not get the impression that the St. Louis Fed economists who wrote the report are aware of this -though the title is suggestive enough-, they seem to lean towards the eternal desire for a recovery, but they did write it nonetheless. Do note the sharp drop that coincides with the 1973 oil crisis. We never ‘recovered’.

Why Does Economic Growth Keep Slowing Down?

The U.S. economy expanded by 1.6% in 2016, as measured by real GDP. Real GDP has averaged 2.1% growth per year since the end of the last recession, which is significantly smaller than the average over the postwar period (about 3% per year). These lower growth rates could in part be explained by a slowdown in productivity growth and a decline in factor utilization. However, demographic factors and attitudes toward the labor market may also have played significant roles.

The figure below shows a measure of long-run trends in economic activity. It displays the average annual growth rate over the preceding 40 quarters (10 years) for the period 1955 through 2016. (Hence, the first observation in the graph is the first quarter of 1965, and the last is the fourth quarter of 2016.)

Long-run growth rates were high until the mid-1970s. Then, they quickly declined and leveled off at around 3% per year for the following three decades. In the second half of the 2000s, around the last recession, growth contracted again sharply and has been declining ever since. The 10-year average growth rate as of the fourth quarter of 2016 was only 1.3% per year. Total output grows because the economy is more productive and capital is accumulated, but also because the population increases over time.

The same dynamics (or lack thereof) are reflected in a recent piece by Chris Hamilton, in which he argues that global growth -as expressed by growth in energy consumption- has largely been non-existent for years, other than in China. Moreover, China has added a stunning amount of debt to achieve that growth, and since its population growth is about to stagnate -and then turn negative-, this was pretty much all she wrote.

Global Growth is All About China…Nothing but China

Since 2000, China has been the nearly singular force for growth in global energy consumption and economic activity. However, this article will make it plain and simple why China is exiting the spotlight and unfortunately, for global economic growth, there is no one else to take center stage. To put things into perspective I’ll show this using four very inter-related variables…(1) total energy consumption, (2) core population (25-54yr/olds) size and growth, (3) GDP (flawed as it is), and (4) debt. First off, the chart below shows total global energy consumption (all fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro, renewable, etc…data from US EIA) from 1980 through 2014, and the change per period. The growth in global energy consumption from ’00-’08 was astounding and an absolute aberration, nearly 50% greater than any previous period.

[..] here is the money chart, pointing out that the growth in energy consumption (by period) has shifted away from “the world” squarely to China. From 2008 through 2014 (most recent data available), 2/3rds or 66% of global energy consumption growth was China. Also very noteworthy is that India nor Africa have taken any more relevance, from a growth perspective, over time. The fate of global economic growth rests solely upon China’s shoulders.

China’s core population is essentially peaking this year and beginning a decades long decline (not unlike the world. The chart below shows total Chinese core population peaking, energy consumption stalling, and debt skyrocketing.

The chart below shows China’s core population (annual change) again against total debt, GDP, and energy consumption. The reliance on debt creation as the core population growth decelerated is really hard not to see. This shrinking base of consumption will destroy the meme that a surging Chinese middle class will drive domestic and global consumption…but I expect this misconception will continue to be peddled for some time.

• China of ’85-’00 grew on population and demographic trends.

• China of ’00-’15 grew despite decelerating population growth but on accelerating debt growth…this growth in China kept global growth alive.

• China of ’15-’30 will not grow, will not drive the global economy and absent Chinese growth…the world economy is set to begin an indefinite period of secular contraction. China ceased accumulating US Treasury debt as of July of 2011 and continues to sell while busy accumulating gold since 2011.

Unfortunately, neither quasi-democracies nor quasi-communist states have any politically acceptable solutions to this problem of structural decelerating growth and eventual outright contraction…but that won’t keep them from meddling to stall the inevitable global restructuring.

I can only hope that these data will convince more people that all the times I’ve said that growth is over, it was true. And perhaps even make them think about what follows from there: that when growth is gone, so is all centralization, including globalization, other than by force. This will change the world a lot, and unfortunately not always in peaceful ways.

What seems to have started (but was in the air long before) with Brexit and Trump, is merely a first indication of what’s to come. People will not accept that important decisions that affect them directly are taken by anonymous ‘actors’ somewhere far away, unless this promises and delivers them very concrete and tangible benefits. In fact, many have lost all faith in the whole idea, and that’s why we have Trump and Brexit in the first place.

This turn inward - protectionism if you will - in the UK, US and many other places, is an inevitable development that follows from declining growth and soaring debt. Entire societies will have to be re-built from the ground up, and people will want to do that themselves, not have it dictated by strangers. At the same time, of course, those who profit most from centralization want that to continue. They can’t, but they will try, and hard.

Equally important, people who wish to try and save existing ‘central institutions’ for less selfish and more peaceful reasons should think twice, because they will fail too. It’s centralization itself that is failing, and the demise of the structures that represent it is but a consequence of that. We will see local structures being built, and only after that possibly -and hopefully- connect to each other. This is a big change, and therefore a big challenge.

The West Will Become The New ‘Third World’: PricewaterhouseCoopers

Hold your real assets outside of the banking system in one of many private international facilities  -->    https://www.sprottmoney.com/intlstorage 

Written by Jeff Nielson (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)

First World

The term “First World” refers to so called developed, capitalist, industrial countries, roughly, a bloc of countries aligned with the United States after word war II, with more or less common political and economic interests: North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia.

Second World

“Second World” refers to the former communist-socialist, industrial states, (formerly the Eastern bloc, the territory and sphere of influence of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic) today: Russia, Eastern Europe (e.g., Poland) and some of the Turk States (e.g., Kazakhstan) as well as China.

Third World

“Third World” are all the other countries, today often used to roughly describe the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The term Third World includes as well capitalist (e.g., Venezuela) and communist (e.g., North Korea) countries as very rich (e.g., Saudi Arabia) and very poor (e.g., Mali) countries.

source

 

First World. What a nice euphemism. Of course depending on where a person lives in the world, they might want to attach a different label to that collection of nations, like The Conquerors, or simply The Exploiters. For many generations; the First World got fat at the expense of the other “worlds”, most notably the so-called Third World. But times have changed.

 

The economies of emerging market minnows Egypt and Pakistan could surpass the Canadian economy by 2050, according to a “brave” new report by management consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers.

That report takes a particular metric and simply projects it into the future. Pure numbers. So why would the Financial Post choose to characterize an economic projection as “brave”? How can mere numbers be brave? It’s because the findings of the report are economic (and social) heresy, in our corner of the planet. The First World will no longer be first. Indeed, arguably it will no longer even be second. The economic forecast in the PWC report shows the so-called First World on a steady slide to Third World status.

 

“By 2050, emerging economies such as Mexico and Indonesia are likely to be larger than the UK and France, while Pakistan and Egypt could overtake Italy and Canada,” PWC said in a report published Tuesday.

However, this is not the only reason why the Financial Post chose to emphasize the word “brave” when referencing the report. Readers looking at the previous statements may not immediately see anything particularly shocking in the findings. Egypt and Pakistan have much larger populations than Canada. So why couldn’t their economies become relatively stronger, in overall terms? However, that all changes when one looks at the current differentials between these economies, using the conventional means of ranking nations economically.

 

The PWC forecast seems incredulous as Egypt’s GDP based on the more common market exchange rates (MER) stood at US$340 billion and Pakistan a mere US$284 billion in 2016.

By contrast, Canada’s US$1.5 trillion massive economy placed it as the 10^th largest in the world.

Now we get to the shocking part of this projection. Canada’s GDP is currently more than double that of Pakistan and Egypt combined. Yet by 2050, according to a respected Western economic consultant, both of those nations will have stronger economies than Canada.

This is also where we get to the interesting part of this report. What metric does PricewaterhouseCooper rely upon as the basis for its economic projection? It uses an economic term called “purchasing power parity”. It is the total purchasing power of that population.

PWC argues that this produces a clearer picture of actual economic strength because it cancels out price differentials between economies. In general, prices are much higher in Western economies than in the Emerging Market countries (and even BRICS nations), thus having higher nominal amounts of wealth circulating in Western economies can be deceiving, since it can buy less stuff.

What makes this metric and report so interesting is that PWC is essentially projecting the real wealth levels of these populations. This projection is about a lot more than just evening out price differentials.

Canada’s GDP is more than four times as much as that of Egypt, and more than five times as much as that of Pakistan. Even by 2050; PWC estimates that Canada will still have GDP greater than either nation. But Egypt and Pakistan will have stronger economies, because their populations will have more real wealth circulating in those economies.

We’re not dealing with a small differential here. Note that PWC is talking about Egypt and Pakistan having much stronger economies than Canada. By 2050, measured in purchasing power parity, both Egypt and Pakistan will have economies more than 1/3 stronger than Canada.

This seems to be incongruous. If Canada will still have the larger economy by 2050 (as measured in GDP), why will Egypt and Pakistan both have stronger economies, as measured in the real wealth circulating within that economy? We get a large clue by looking at a chart which is familiar to regular readers.

For the past 8+ years; the bankers of the Federal Reserve and the bankers of Wall Street have been boasting about all the “wealth” that has been created in the United States during the mythical U.S. recovery. Yes, lots and lots of wealth.

Regular readers know that B.S. Bernanke conjured more than $3 trillion of new U.S. funny-money into existence during the infamous Bernanke Helicopter Drop, quintupling the entire U.S. money supply in less than five years. And every, single dollar was handed to the Big Banks of Wall Street – for free. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Thanks to the magic of “fractional-reserve banking”, where U.S. banks are allowed to lend $35 for every $1 they receive. The $3+ trillion which B.S. Bernanke handed to them became well over $100 trillion in new liquidity. That works out to more than $300,000 per American.

So why are there roughly 50 million permanently unemployed Americans? Why are more than 40 million forced to rely upon food stamps to survive? Because when the bankers conjured their $100+ trillion into existence (for free), they kept it all – kept it all for their Masters, the oligarchs. What did the oligarchs do with that extra $100+ trillion?

As the chart above clearly shows, the oligarchs stuffed most of that $100+ trillion into their own hoards, spending virtually nothing. Of course that’s not entirely true either. They gambled with much of their funny money, in the bankers’ private, unregulated, rigged casino – the derivatives market. The derivatives market is a hoard of private wealth which never circulates in the real economy that is somewhere in the magnitude of $1.5 quadrillion ($1,500 trillion).

We’re no longer sure how large the rigged casino has swollen, since in 2010 the bankers changed their “definition” of the casino, and overnight the derivatives market (supposedly) shrunk by 50%. This financial cesspool is the most gigantic repository of dark pool liquidity the world has ever seen.

The gambling done in the derivatives market is used to manipulate the real economy, but none of the “wealth” in that rigged casino ever circulates within the real economy. The chart above, the heartbeat of the U.S. economy, shows what happens when most of the wealth/liquidity in an economy is hoarded: the economy withers and dies.

Dismal holiday sales at Macy"s and Kohl"s cast gloom over sector

While the U.S. mainstream media were presenting their usual “visions of sugar plums” (i.e. lies) about the U.S. economy before Christmas, they couldn’t hide the truth from the bottom line.

"The strength around Thanksgiving and Christmas was insufficient to offset the sales weakness in the balance of the quarter," Stifel, Nicolaus & Co analyst Richard Jaffe wrote.

"In addition, these peak selling periods were characterized by greater promotions which contributed to weaker than anticipated gross margin as well," he said in a client note.

Translation? The only way that the U.S. retail sector was able to sell significant quantities of goods to consumers with near-empty wallets (and maxed-out credit cards) was by slashing prices to the bone – leaving little-to-nothing in profit. Does that sound like an economy that has been “recovering” for more than eight years? Does that sound like an economy literally overflowing with newly-conjured wealth? Hardly.

Why will Canada have a larger economy than either Egypt or Pakistan by 2050, while having a weaker economy than both? Because as with the United States (and the rest of the Corrupt West), most of that wealth will be hoarded – hoarded by the Oligarch Trillionaires.

Why does “sharing the wealth” automatically make an economy stronger? It’s not socialism, it’s simple economics. Just ask the IMF.

IMF study finds inequality is damaging to economic growth

The bankers would like to pretend that they are just learning this now, just learning that “trickle-down economics” was nothing more than the pablum fed by the oligarchs to their right-wing foot soldiers – and the charlatan economists who preached it. In reality, the fact that wealth equality is the foundation of economic strength is one of humanity’s oldest truths.

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all Republics.

- Plutarch (46 – 119)

According to this noted philosopher, nearly 2,000 years ago it was already old news that the fastest way to kill an economy was to let the rich people hoard all the wealth. And what have we learned in 2,000 years? As PricewaterhouseCoopers shows us, not much.

Please email with any questions about this article or precious metals HERE

Written by Jeff Nielson (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)