Showing posts with label Price Formation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Price Formation. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Waiting for a Default, the Search for Knowledge, Final Prices, and What do Schlitz and the US Dollar have in Common?

6/22/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

We search for answers, yet the questions are trumping them right now. This phenomenon is inherent to human existence. People are always chasing after knowledge. In the Bible, the book of Daniel speaks of our times when the Angel tells Daniel in his vision:

“But you, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”

Daniel 12:4, King James Version

A little bit of knowledge sparks a thirst for more knowledge, which, once quenched, sparks an even greater thirst for knowledge. Like Carmex, which soothes one’s chapped lips for a time only to dry them out again, which appears to create a perpetual “need” for to the product, knowledge provides answers and understanding which lead the enquirer to even more questions, and the cycle repeats itself.

The phenomenon expresses itself in markets in the form of a search for a “final price”. In a free, unfettered marketplace, this price, in money terms, represents all that is known about the value of the good that is being exchanged for money at that point in time. However, this “final price” is in and of itself a new data point to be considered, as is the exchange of goods which it represents. This changing data necessarily creates a new “final price” which, by definition, takes into account all factors know about the value of the good and so on.

Ever since we decided to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the chase for knowledge has continued and will continue until Jesus returns.

But what does this have to do with the US Dollar, let alone Beer?

We are glad you asked as we were getting a bit side-tracked. Our personal search for knowledge has brought us to the most recent of the endless questions that need to be answered:

When will Central Bank Currency Regimes and Sovereign Governments admit they are bankrupt and be allowed to default?

This is an URGENT and very important question as the entire financial world cannot progress until this question has been answered.

To be clear, most western governments and their Central Bank run currency regimes are now technically in default. They have been ever since they began to “solve” liquidity problems via money printing or “Quantitative Easing” (QE for short).

The acts of Quantitative Easing, which have been embarked upon by the US, Euro, and Japanese Central Banks is only necessary when the faith based currency regime in question has failed. The necessity to print money which is not demanded by the market nor provided at market prices provides concrete proof that people are no longer willing to further enslave themselves by incurring additional debt.

As we have explained in this space before, debt is the lifeblood of the currency regime. In these mindless confiscatory monetary systems where the only way to create money is to coax someone else into incurring debt, shrinking debt is the equivalent of someone pushing the currency regime’s self destruct button.

But instead of recognizing this fact for what it was, a failure of the system, much of western civilization continues in willful denial. Soon, however, everyone will be rushing for the exits.



But we promised you a beer, fellow taxpayer, so crack yourself a cold one (on your own dime, of course, this is, after all, a free newsletter) and see if you tell us what the Federal Reserve Notes that we currently use as money and Schlitz Beer have in common?

What do Schlitz and the Federal Reserve Note have in Common?
Need a hint? Think quality, or lack thereof.

Give up? Here are the answers, as always, we invite inquiring fellow taxpayers to add to this list by commenting below.

First, both Federal Reserve Notes and Schlitz were once the gold standards of their product class (currency and beer, respectively). Federal Reserve Notes took the place of US Dollars in 1913 and maintained the US Dollar’s tradition of quality and enjoyed increased market share until finally overtaking the British Pound Sterling as the world’s currency of choice. In the beer industry, Schlitz rose to overtake rival Pabst as the most popular beer in the world in 1902.

In the 1970s, the Schlitz brewing process was changed to make use of high temperature fermentation in order to further speed production. This change and subsequent changes in the formula had disastrous results which came to a head in 1982. On the US Dollar front, then President Richard Nixon began to tinker with the US Dollar formula in the 70s, namely making the US Dollar no longer convertible into gold. This watering down of the dollar supply had disastrous effects which also came to a head in the early 1980’s.

Both Schlitz and the US Dollar then continued to generally decline in status for close to 30 years.

In 2008, however, the old Schlitz formula was discovered and has been revived by Stroh’s Brewing Company to give new life to an old beer that everyone had left for dead.

Circa 2011, the US Dollar is still yearning to return to the “gold convertibility” formula that made it so insanely popular for the first half of the twentieth century.

Is there anyone who can find it?

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

P.S. If you enjoy or at least otlerate The Mint, please share us with your family, friends, and colleagues.

Key Indicators for Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Copper Price per Lb: $4.10
Oil Price per Barrel: $95.06 A FAILURE TO INFLATE

Corn Price per Bushel: $6.07 MONETARY POLICY IS NOT WORKING
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 2.99%
FED Target Rate: 0.09% FED IN PERMANENT DESPERATION MODE

Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,549 BENEFITING FROM PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 2.25%
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.2%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,163
M1 Monetary Base: $1,921,900,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base: $9,084,400,000,000 YIKES!!!

*See MINT Perceived Economic Effect Rate Chart at bottom of blog. This rate is the FED Target rate with a 39 month lag, representing the time it takes for the FED Target rate changes to affect the real economy. This is a 39 months head start that the FED member banks have on the rest of us on using the new money that is created.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Auburn “Pushes” Oregon, Portuguese in Denial of Debt Flash Floods, and real Floods in Australia

1/12/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…
We are back in Oregon mourning, along with the rest of the State, the Duck's loss to Auburn last night in the College Football championship, otherwise known as the BCS (Bowl Championship Series).  The game was not a total loss, however, as the University of Oregon will line its pockets with a portion of the PAC 10 conference's share of the $180 Million worth of revenue.  Yes, fellow taxpayer, if you were not aware of the fact already, College Football is big business.  The fact that the final spread of 3 points was covered by Auburn made any bets on either Auburn or Oregon that took the 3 points a "push", meaning that nobody wins, nobody loses, and everyone keeps their money.
Down? Ducks Uniforms the envy of the Nation.  What can Betting on Football Teach us about Price Formation? (Photo Courtesy of AP)
Gambling spreads are simply another form of price formation.  When a great number of people bet on Auburn, for example, the spread offered by the bookie has to rise in order to entice enough people to take the Oregon side of the bet.  In this sense, the price (the final point spread) is set by the betting public's collective belief about the outcome of the sporting event.  The betting public is wrong as often as they are right, just as they are in the real world about the price of stocks, bonds, goods, and services.  This is a fascinating subject, price formation as expressed through betting on sporting events, that we will likely return to in the future.  Suffice it to say that the exact same forces that set prices in the market place, right or wrong, also set the final line for a sporting event at a sports book.  What does this tell us about the level of speculation occurring in everyday life?  It boggles the mind.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Gas Prices Rise in Bolivia by Decree, Estonia to Enter the Euro, Will China’s Grand Experiment End with Runaway Inflation?

12/27/2010 Cochabamba, Bolivia Pop in your mints

We are back here at The Mint to ponder what is and what may be as the Gregorian calendar turns another year older.  We can be certain of two things for 2011.  Both Bonds and Fiat currencies (the most prominent of them the US Dollar) will decline in value.  Whether or not the decline will be severe is open to debate but every passing day under current circumstances and accompanying monetary and fiscal policy lead them ever closer to tumbling off a cliff.

What catches our attention today is that, last night here in Bolivia, the Vice President, Álvaro García Linera, who greatly admires and in appearance closely resembles the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, came on TV to announce that the price of gasoline and diesel fuel, which are completely controlled via subsidies by the government, would go up 72% and 82% respectively effective immediately.  This takes the price from roughly $2.12 per gallon to roughly $3.66 per gallon.

Assange and Linera, seperated at birth?
The reasoning for the move, as explained by the government, is to kill the trafficking of “contraband” gasoline from Bolivia to, most notably, Chile.

Monday, November 29, 2010

The Productive Purpose of Speculation

11/29/2010 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…


Today as tensions in Korea continue we find ourselves pondering an activity that is vilified in many circles yet is an indispensable part of everyday life, modern or otherwise.  This vilified activity is popularly called speculation.
What is speculation?  To read the financial news over the past two years, one could equate speculation with gambling.  In a way, they would be correct.  A speculative action involves accepting a known risk in exchange for a reward that is uncertain.  All that can be said for certain is that the speculator, the person taking the risk, believes that the reward to be received outweighs the risk that is accepted.  Only with the benefit of hindsight can one say that the speculation was brilliant or insane.  Before hand, all opinions as to the speculation are in and of themselves simply speculations with regard to the speculation that they are speculating about.

Friday, October 29, 2010

The FED Conducts a Survey, Portland Rain, and Musings on Price Formation

 10/29/2010 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

It is raining in Portland, as is the custom here this time of year.  The rain in some way, shape or fashion starts in November and continues until June.  One just gets used to it.  It is hard to explain but being wet is simply a way of life during these winter months.

The FED goes up and DOWN to the Canvas with QE2 survey
In the same way that one can wake up in Portland on any given day and expect rain, it appears that the financial markets are getting ready for winter as well.  For those of you who glance at our Key Indicators below, you may have noticed that there has been little if any great swings in the data.  Why is that?  Could it be that the financial world, after so many recent fits and starts, has begun to enter into a state of equilibrium?  Oh, fellow adventurer, how we wish that were the case!  The general agitation that makes The Mint necessary would be gone and humanity would march forward unimpeded, onward and upward.  We could simply tend our garden, as Candide concluded.

But think about it, how much further from the truth could that be?  Look at the world around you, does it make sense that equilibrium has been or could be achieved?  Ludwig Von Mises, the great Austrian Economist, when pondering final prices, postulates that what we may call a "final price" is a fiction in the real world.  You see, at any point in time a commodity, given all of the supply and demand data available, would be sold at a certain price in order to spend all of the supply and fullfill all of the demand for that commodity.  That certain price is the final price, right?  Wrong!  Von Mises, wise as he is, quickly recognizes that to understand the basis of price formation (supply and demand coming together) is to understand that it is impossible to arrive at a universal final price.   Once the price is set and someone makes a sale at that "final" price, it changes!  The nerve of those prices!  Why does it change, you ask?  (and we are glad you asked!)  Because the supply of the commodity has changed as well as the demand.  Since supply and demand data change, a NEW final price for the commodity comes forth, and so on.  This simplified answer doesn't even contemplate other changes in the data such as someone else deciding that they want the commodity who before had no use for it, or changes in production costs which could inhibit supply, the weather, etc.

Can you see now how absurd it is to assume that an economy can be centrally managed?  That prices can and should be static?  The only place this could happen is a place where life has ceased to exist.  Most of us, however, prefer life.  As a by product of this preference, we get a beautifully dynamic economy and constantly changing prices.  This, fellow adventurer, is the reality in which we live.  Do you know that the only cure for high prices is, in what seems a paradox...high and yet higher prices?

I leave you to ponder prices as we divert our attention, to the actions of the Federal Reserve.  From Bloomberg:
The Federal Reserve asked bond dealers and investors for projections of central bank asset purchases over the next six months, along with the likely effect on yields, as it seeks to gauge the possible impact of new efforts to spur growth. 
It appears that, while every eye in the investment world is on the FED, the FED is asking the bond dealers to tell it what to do!  And these folks "independently" manage our money supply?  As Jesse Ventura used to say as he witnessed a pile driver, Oh My!!!

Hold on to your hats, fellow adventurers! 

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Key Indicators for Friday, October 29, 2010

Copper Price per Lb: $3.77
Oil Price per Barrel:  $81.93
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  2.66%
FED Target Rate :  0.19%
Gold Price per Oz:  $1,342
Unemployment Rate:  9.6%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.1%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  11,113
M1 Monetary Base:  $1,460,900,000,000
M2 Monetary Base:  $7,960,300,000,000