Our Latest Audio Book and Why the Fed will take Baby Steps

6/6/2015 Portland, Oregon - Pop in your mints…

Recently we have been working with some wonderful producers to make many of our volumes here at The Mint available in audio format.  The experience has been great as those with talent in the voice department, such as Robert Fox, who brought our newest audio offering, Bitcoins:  What they are and how to use them, to life.

We imagine the producers get a good chuckle as they read our prose, to which Long-suffering readers of The Mint are accustomed.  We know we do!

Why the Fed will take Baby Steps when it comes to raising rates

The US Economy added 280,000 jobs in May of 2015, which was positive no matter how you slice it.  To our readers, this should come as no surprise, every one of our key indicators indicates an economy that is roaring ahead.  Take the price of oil, which continues to hover near the $60 per barrel mark.  While to some, a lower oil price may signal weakness in demand due to a slowdown in underlying activity, we see it as incredibly positive for US consumers, as oil, which translates into gasoline prices, acts as a quasi tax for many consumers whose demand is relatively inelastic.

We also see the steady prices of copper, around $2.70 per ounce, and corn, clocking in at $3.60 per bushel, as signs that the United States economy is on extremely solid footing looking ahead.  These prices tend to tank when bad omens are on the horizon.

The only negative (depending upon who you are), as reflected in the Jobs report, is that wages have not risen at a healthy pace.  This is great for employers and the Fed, who can maintain their margins on the backs of the working class, but not so good for those employed.

We sense this will change, as the productivity gains of the past several years are not likely to replicate themselves over the next several.  The economy is transitioning to the second half of the chessboard (as Thomas Friedman would say) and it will take a ton of work to get it there.  Once it is there, we will see hyperactivity in the economy, it will be a whirlwind that people will either embrace or run direct the other way from.  To an extent, humankind will benefit, but mother nature will suffer perhaps a fatal blow.

If proletariat wages remain low, then why has the stock market reacted negatively to what would otherwise be considered most excellent news?  We can only guess that equity traders, who at times are clairvoyant to their own detriment, look around at the plethora of good news and smell a Fed rate hike on the horizon.

They are correct, of course.  However, we believe that the Fed learned its lesson back in 2008.  The blind 0.25 per month basis hikes that were implemented to cool off the sizzling post 9/11 economy were blunt and oversized for the sheer breadth of the Fed's economic sphere of influence.  It is doubtful we will see such blunt and misguided policy from the current Fed.

Instead, we see baby steps, increases of 0.01 basis points emitted over time so that the economy can absorb the shocks in a manageable way, rather than taking them square on the kisser as it did in 2008.

Will it work?  Only time will tell, but for the moment the US economy looks like it's running full speed ahead, and nobody at the Fed is interested in being the next Ben Bernanke.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for June 6, 2015

Copper Price per Lb: $2.69
Oil Price per Barrel:  $59.13

Corn Price per Bushel:  $3.60
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  2.40%
Bitcoin price in US:  $227.55
FED Target Rate:  0.13% 
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,172

MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  5.5%
Inflation Rate (CPI):   0.1%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  17,849
M1 Monetary Base:  $3,029,600,000,000

M2 Monetary Base:  $11,853,900,000,000

Obama comes to Portlandia

5/7/2015 Portland, Oregon - Pop in your mints…

For those unaware, the Portland metro area is playing host to President Barack Obama.  While we had no idea why he is here, we have been made keenly aware of the traffic perils that await us over the next 24 hours.  Highways randomly shut in both directions, entire areas of the city impassable by car, rail, or bicycle (perish the thought).  Such is the cost of playing host to the world’s most heavily guarded human being.

After some careful research (roughly 40 characters typed in a google search) we now know that he has come to promote something called the “Trans-Pacific Partnership,” which we have heard described as “NAFTA on steroids.”  He has chosen the Nike campus, which is a mere 10 minute walk from where The Mint resides, to tout what would be his crowning achievement, a free trade agreement that exterminates what remains of US based manufacturing once and for all.

His choice of Nike, who in a sense pioneered the practice of exploiting cheap overseas labor, has drawn reactions of shock and awe from socialists and unions alike.

First, the Daily Kos, where an author known as “davej” lays out the case against Nike by alluding to sweatshops and child labor, and feigns disgust at the irony that Obama would choose Nike to hold his rally there.  For good measure, the article ends with instruction on where to meet at Nike to stage a protest as the President speaks.

The AFL-CIO produced a video enlisting not only American workers but also workers from other countries throughout the Pacific Rim to denounce TPP as a job killer and an enemy of organized labor.  You can see it below:  

Finally, Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Socialist and current 2016 Presidential candidate, bemoans the fact that a $320 pair of LeBron XII Elite iD shoes can be sold in America but not made in America.  Comrade Sanders, we admire your zeal yet find your logic vexing.

We have no clue what the TPP will do, but generally speaking, free trade is good, and will ultimately benefit everyone.  However, circa 2015, there is a fly in the ointment that makes Free Trade act as a lubricant on the once slow moving machinery of global warming:  Debt based currency.

Federal Reserve Notes:  A License to Strip Mine the Earth

While it is fine and well the TPP will enable American consumers to consume at theoretically better prices that those that they already enjoy thanks to pioneers like Phil Knight and Sam Walton, all of this consumption comes at a steep price, both in terms of human suffering and the environmental impact of removing barriers to trade.

While we would love to appeal to a moral high ground, such as the author at the Daily Kos and the AFL-CIO do in their opposition to the TPP, we cannot.  Instead, we appeal to our own at times infallible logic on the matter.

The TPP and the associated increase in trade along the Pacific Rim that it will enable will cause an unprecedented amount of debt based currency to come into being and begin to circulate.  While most persons have been trained to think of debt based currency as money, we offer a new definition:

Debt based currency is a license to strip mine the earth, and entirely too many of them have been issued already.

Yes, when you circulate debt based currency (and on the planet today it is nearly impossible not to) by buying and selling in it, you are sending an erroneous economic signal to the rest of humanity.  When you purchase the above mentioned Lebron James Michael Jordan wannabe shoes from Nike, you simply want the shoes to put on your feet.  However, what you are saying to Phil Knight and his minions is, “design a shoe that I and 50 of my closest friends will drool over, then drill deep into the earth and extract petroleum with which to run the machines that will make the shoe, then hire labor as cheaply as possible to run the machines and assemble the shoe, kill some cows for leather, pull latex from plants or manmade processes, create dyes to color the shoe just so, and do whatever it takes to bring together the raw materials by which to bring my dream shoe into being.”

Now the production of the shoe and all of the related activities that it spawns would be fine and well were the shoes to be paid for with real money.  However, consumers, no matter what country they are in, pay for things in debt based currency, meaning currency which comes into being on a whim, and derives its value by acting as a hot potato, causing any number of unnecessary or non-beneficial activities to be envisioned and carried out by mankind on a daily basis without a natural counterbalance to said activities.

In layman’s terms, when one is purchasing a product using debt based currency, they are by no means engaging in “fair trade,” despite what the label says, they are trading nothing for something, something that the earth and its inhabitants had to be strip-mined and enslaved to create.  For the wants and needs of mankind are limitless, and, when enabled by a limitless supply of debt based currency, cause a chain reaction of 1) increased human activity which leads to 2) increased impact on the environment without a counterbalancing activity of resource replenishment, human or natural, elsewhere in the broad swath of economic activity on the planet.

Federal Reserve notes and their foreign counterparts are nothing more than a license to strip mine the earth and its inhabitants of resources well ahead of their ability to replenish them.  Mother Nature is now in the second half of the Chessboard, will we turn in our license before it's too late?  Or will we drive nature and ourselves off of the proverbial cliff?

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for May 7, 2015

Copper Price per Lb: $2.90
Oil Price per Barrel:  $58.72

Corn Price per Bushel:  $3.57
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  2.18%
Bitcoin price in US:  $236.53
FED Target Rate:  0.13% 
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,184

MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  5.5%
Inflation Rate (CPI):   0.2%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  17,924
M1 Monetary Base:  $3,100,000,000,000

M2 Monetary Base:  $11,824,300,000,000

The US Economy Turns Green in Time for St. Patrick's Day

3/16/2015 Portland, Oregon - Pop in your mints…

1 oz .999 Fine Silver Round Irish Green Enamel Four-Leaf Clover With Display Box

A Happy early St. Patrick's Day to our long-suffering readers of The Mint, who know we have an affinity for the color green, specifically the tone which can be found on the coin pictured to the left.

We have been buried deep in a classic accounting "busy season" of our own design, as, along with our regular duties, we have stumbled upon a vein persons ready to move their accounting systems into the cloud along with a cadre of brilliant entrepreneurs who need solid advice in terms of accounting and systems.  This work has gone nicely with our goal of mastering the tax trade this winter and spring.  We have also managed to produce our first audio version, What is Truth?  On the Nature of Empire (check it out here).

Together, it has made little time for reflection.  Alas,  this is the life of a farmer. When the season to work comes over us, we work day and night, knowing a season of rest waits.

Due to our numbers related tarries, the last time we took a glance at the US economy for long enough to write about it was October 3rd of last year, according to our records.

At that time, when the stated Unemployment rate was 5.9%, we sensed back then that it did not matter as the FED was set on continuing its Zero Interest Rate Policy until its member banks were safely in the clear, and that the US Labor market was getting extremely tight.

In case you are wondering, ZIRP and tight labor markets, taken together, is a recipe for explosive economic growth.  Five short months later, it appears that the feast is nearly ready, and the US economy is about to eat it.

First, let's check in on Unemployment, which stands at 5.5%. According to the March 9th jobs report, US Job Creation has never been stronger:

US Job Creation

And that momentum in the labor market is hotter than it was in 2005 - 2006:

Labor Market Momentum

And you have a labor market that has not been seen since the end of WWII.

But what about Wage Growth? It is tame, a 0.2% drop, in fact, if the BLS is to be believed. However, the NFIB Compensation Plans Indicator and the Employment cost Index are on the rise, meaning American workers are enjoying a rare (long overdue, we might add) post 1971 gain in real wages before the CPI, which clocked in at 0.7% (still well under the FED's target), overtakes them.

Wage growth and Inflation go hand in hand

And this chart seems to indicate that the tightening rental market may be the match that starts the Wage/Price spiral in motion:

Tight Rental Market

We're not sure about other metro areas, but rental and housing markets in Portland are 'en fuego,' with apologies to Dan Patrick.

What does it all mean? No one can be certain, but here are a couple of guesses:

1) The US Economy will once again become the envy of the world, despite itself. Yes, even with Obama care and other political and economic landmines strewn around it, the US economy is on pace to surpass the growth rates of developing nations, soon to be known as last decade's darlings:

US to blow past emerging markets

2) US Worker's are likely to get healthy wages from healthy companies. Unhealthy companies will be gutted in this brain drain and fail.

3) Housing premiums, in terms of rent and home sales, are about to soar.

4) Interest rates will not go up until the markets yank them up by their shirt collar and hold them up against the wall, the FED will keep short-term rates low and allow the banks to recapitalize on the backs of the US economic miracle:

No Rate Hike coming

5) There will be no "Grexit" to spoil things.  Despite European claims to clairvoyance, it was the US who established the Euro zone (and its predecessor treaties) as the vital space for a revitalized German industrial base in the wake of WWII (more on this in our upcoming review of "The Global Minotaur" which was ironically written by a Greek economist).  Circa 2014, the Euro currency zone exists for the sole benefit of Germany and to an extent France.  The rest of Europe would be better off without it, which is why Germany and the pan euro banks will hold it together with an iron fist, not matter how futile the effort, or how far they have to bend the rules.

6) The Chicago River will turn green, and a record amount of beer will be sold tomorrow in honor of St. Patrick

Be safe out there as the Luck of the Irish and the ignorance of the FED paints the US Economy green for the foreseeable future!

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Key Indicators for March 16, 2015

Copper Price per Lb: $2.65
Oil Price per Barrel:  $43.68

Corn Price per Bushel:  $3.79
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  2.10%
Bitcoin price in US: $289.87
FED Target Rate:  0.11%
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,154

MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  5.5%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.7%

Dow Jones Industrial Average:  17,977
M1 Monetary Base:  $3,069,400,000,000

M2 Monetary Base:  $11,883,100,000,000

Bitcoin Panel Illuminates the World of Crypto-currencies for the Oregon AFP

2/21/2015 Portland, Oregon - Pop in your mints...

For those who were unable to join us on Wednesday, the Bitcoin panel discussion at the Oregon AFP was a great success.  With us were six of the finest minds in Crypto-currencies in the Portland area.  These minds, together with some of the finest financial practitioners in the city, worked to bridge the gap between the Bitcoin universe and mainstream commerce. 

We were pleased to find that the two are really not that far apart.

While there were a number of keen insights shared at yesterday's meeting at the Multnomah Athletic Club, three stood out in our minds:

1) Transactions volume in Bitcoin has soared over the past two years and the USD/Bitcoin price action has settled down as a result.  Further, Venture Capital is pouring into the Bitcoin industry, proving that crypto-currencies, once on the exciting confluence of technology and money, are now entering the relatively boring yet infinitely more profitable economic mainstream.

2) Bitcoin innovators have largely solved the problem that has thus far kept most bankers at bay:  KYC, Know Your Customer.

3) Concerns about Bitcoin's wild fluctuations in value are addressed by services that instantly exchange Bitcoins accepted in trade into national currencies. This is especially important for those who transact day-to-day business in Bitcoin, as it is technically considered property for tax purposes and could otherwise create an accounting nightmare. It also allows for a clear delineation between Bitcoin speculation and Bitcoin circulation, two completely different activities before were often unwittingly commingled by virtue of one's use of Bitcoin in trade.

Bitcoin has come a long way since we published our 48 hour crash analysis of the emergent monetary revolution back in 2013, and our panelists did a superb job of presenting a balanced discussion of the present state of crypto-currencies.

A special thanks once again to all of our panelists, Lawrence I Lerner, Ian Pulicano, Anna Guyton, Mike Fors, George Fogg, and Rhys Faler, who was planning on spectating and found himself on the panel in the midst of an incredibly rich, informative, and relevant discussion of the merits and challenges of Bitcoin.

Ian had the difficult task of breaking the ice of ignorance and/or skepticism that is often associated with presenting the concept of Bitcoin to someone for the first time, which is never an easy task.  Beyond explaining the technical side in a concise manner, the slide near the end which highlighted the exponential growth in transactions and VC funding over the past 3 years got everyone's attention and set the stage nicely for the discussion that followed.  Anna did a great job of stepping up as moderator and added valuable insights throughout, Lawrence did an excellent job of bridging the knowledge gap between industry and Bitcoin through helpful analogies, Mike and Rhys provided the evidence that Bitcoin can and is being used in everyday transactions, and George added insight into the inherent challenges and opportunities of Bitcoin on the regulatory and securitization side of the house.

At the end of the hour, the audience was left with one inescapable conclusion: Crypto-currencies are here, are here to stay, and will be part of one's economic experience in the not too distant future.

For the benefit of those who were unable to join us yesterday, we offer the following bootleg recording of the event over at The Mint:  Bitcoin Panel Illuminates the World of Crypto-currencies for the Oregon AFP

We also offer the hope that these types of panels will be held in other venues where finance and technology intersect, and that mankind will be all the better off for it.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Key Indicators for February 21, 2015

Copper Price per Lb: $2.58
Oil Price per Barrel:  $50.81

Corn Price per Bushel:  $3.85
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  2.13%
Bitcoin price in US: $246.31
FED Target Rate:  0.09%
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,204

MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  5.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  -0.3%

Dow Jones Industrial Average:  18,140
M1 Monetary Base:  $2,884,400,000,000

An Ode to Papa Jerry

Jerry and Bettie Mitchell

Earlier this year in the class on Luke, we collectively learned that death is a form of healing.  This being the case, our friend Jerry Mitchell was healed on January 28th, 2015.  In terms dear to us as Samaritans, it may be said that Jerry graduated to heaven on that day.

Jerry Mitchell, or Papa Jerry, as we knew him, taught in the Beaverton School District until his retirement.  He was already retired when we met him.  We came to know Jerry as the cornerstone of Good Samaritan Ministries (GSM), a ministry with a call to "teach nothing but the Kingdom of God," a call which continues to this day at GSM in Beaverton.

While Jerry's wife, Bettie Mitchell, is recognized as the founder of the Ministry, she is always quick to recognize that Jerry, by giving permission for Bettie to leave her teaching job to pursue the Ministry full time, was the one who released the calling into action.  It was he who supported and accompanied her through the years as the Ministry grew to touch lives not only in Beaverton but also in some 32 countries throughout the world.

Jerry was a veteran of World War II and a member of what Tom Brokaw famously referred to as "The Greatest Generation."  Jerry was a great fan of the Portland Trailblazers and was always quick with a smile and a joke.  He was honest and approachable and loved children.  It may truly be said that he never lost touch with the child within himself.

His positive impact as a soldier, teacher, and Samaritan can be seen today on four continents, and we count ourselves blessed to have had our hearts warmed by knowing Papa Jerry towards the twilight of his wonderful life.  The world is a better place because Papa Jerry lived.

Rest in peace Papa Jerry, and thank you for your many sacrifices this side of heaven.  We look forward to the time when we will meet again on the other side.