Bernanke Announces The Final Round of QE3: This Time, It's Unlimited

The Fed said:

• it will buy $40 billion worth of MBS per month, with no end in sight. 
• they will hold interest rate at zero until mid-2015 — "a considerable time after the economic recovery strengthens"
• it will continue operation twist
• the US has enjoyed broad price stability since mid-1990s

My points:

• The Dow is at it's all time high, the interest rates and treasuries at their all time lows, mortgage rates at their all time lows, most commodities not too far from their highs, and according to official figures, employment has dropped significantly — obviously; this is a lie. Amazingly, Bernanke didn't want to prove the market's expectations wrong, and provided exactly what the consensus wanted.
• The Fed has been forecasting an economic recovery for years, and nothing has happened, yet, they will keep on doing the same thing; over and over again. They again forecast a strong economic recovery to come in the next few months, while it's obvious that the reality is economic contraction and the Greater Depression...
• My personal opinion about Bernanke is that he's the most inept Fed chairman ever, and most probably one of the worst economic forecaster ever. I don't think his brain is wired for the real world, and even though I have the lowest esteem possible for him, Bernanke managed to surprise me by is foolishness and prove me wrong on my forecast — Mea Culpa. I know will consider him an economic and monetary terrorist. 
• Will printing money to buy MBS do anything to help unemployment? Only a madman will find a direct causation between the two, specially since when mortgage rates are at their all time lows.
• Will QE provide a boost to the markets? I don't think it will beyond the first few days after the announcement and the resulting euphoria. Why?
• Fundamentally, the markets are a discounting mechanism. So when the news comes in about the purchase of mortgage for $40 billion a month, this gets almost immediately priced into the market. The market only move by about 2% while integrating this discounting of the QE3.
• The previous QE1 and QE2 seemed to work on the surface because they were announced when the markets had experienced significant declines and sentiment was very low. Currently, we're at the opposite: markets are at euphoria levels and irrational exuberance and confidence at historically high levels. When this happens; there's room for only one way: down.
• The probability that Bernanke has signed his and Obama's political suicide is very high. Hopefully, Obama won't be elected and another inept President will take over and do a favour to the world by removing this economic terrorist from his position.

I'll need some time to rethink and see if my deflationary forecast might be postponed due to this "indefinite" printing of money... 

 Here's the Bloomberg report:

(Bloomberg) 2012-09-13 — The Federal Reserve said it will expand its holdings of long-term securities with open-ended purchases of $40 billion of mortgage debt a month in a third round of quantitative easing as it seeks to boost growth and reduce unemployment.

“If the outlook for the labor market does not improve substantially, the committee will continue its purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities, undertake additional asset purchases and employ its other policy tools as appropriate,” the Federal Open Market Committee said today in a statement at the end of a two-day meeting in Washington.

The FOMC said it would probably hold the federal funds rate near zero “at least through mid-2015.” Since January, the Fed had said the rate was likely to stay low at least through late 2014. The Fed said “a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy will remain appropriate for a considerable time after the economic recovery strengthens."

[...] The decision provoked a renewed backlash from Republicans, including Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, who said Bernanke’s policies damage the Fed’s credibility while doing little to spur the economy.

[...] Growth will improve to as much as 3 percent next year and as much as 3.8 percent in 2014, up from upper estimates of 2.8 percent and 3.5 percent in their previous forecasts. The so- called central tendency forecasts exclude the three highest and three lowest of 19 estimates.

While the U.S. has “enjoyed broad price stability” since the mid-1990s, the employment situation remains a “grave concern,” Bernanke said at a press conference after the statement. “The weak job market should concern every American.” 

The Fed said it will continue its program to swap $667 billion of short-term debt with longer-term securities to lengthen the average maturity of its holdings, an action dubbed Operation Twist. The central bank will also continue reinvesting its portfolio of maturing housing debt into agency mortgage- backed securities.

[...] Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said he wouldn’t reappoint Bernanke when his term ends in January 2014. Glenn Hubbard, the Columbia University Business School dean and Romney adviser, has said additional bond purchases by the Fed would do little to shore up the economy.

28-minute Interview with Robert Prechter

Robert Prechter joins Talk Radio One host Steven Spierer to discuss the effect of social mood on economics, the way the free market would have worked if the governments had not created a controlled economy in the US and deflation (of course).

The 28-minute interview is available on Elliott Wave.

Deleveraging: Still a Long Way to Go

There's still a long way to go for the global deleveraging to finish, and all the actions from the Governments and their Central Banks is doing is slowing down the process which means more pain for longer period of time.

Here's a nice McKinsey chart showing this:

Interestingly, Spain is the worst shape.
Unfortunately, this chart doesn't take into account the government leverage, which in the case of the US  has risen massively. So even though the US seems in better position, it's only a mirage, as their government will need to tax the private sector to pay back the debt its been accumulating in bailouts and other handouts.

Harry S. Dent June 2012 Update

Harry S. Dent published their latest update on YouTube.

After having been the perfect contrarian indicator in late March 2012, he seems to have recovered from his Hopium high. This is a great analysis of what is currently happening, and he forecasts markets are toping as we speak. I don't have time to provide a summary here, but I'm sure you will have 9 minutes to spare for this very good update.

Dollar Scarce as Top-Quality Assets Shrink 42%

A few days ago, I wrote a post titled Seeking Dollars Desperately: Massive US Dollar Shortage in Argentina as Peso Inflation Runs 25%-30%. Here's another Dollar Scarce story:

(Bloomberg) May 29, 2012 — The dollar is proving scarce, even after the Federal Reserve flooded the financial system with an extra $2.3 trillion, as the amount of the highest-quality assets available worldwide shrinks. 

From last year’s low on July 27, the greenback has risen against all 16 of its major peers. Intercontinental Exchange Inc.’s Dollar Index surged 12 percent, higher now than when the Fed began creating dollars to buy bonds under its extraordinary stimulus measures at the end of 2008. 

International investors and financial institutions that are required to own only the highest quality assets to meet investment guidelines or new regulations are finding fewer options beyond dollar-denominated assets. [...]  

“The pool of high-rated assets has been shrinking, not just in the euro zone but elsewhere as well,” Ian Stannard, Morgan Stanley’s head of Europe currency strategy, said in a May 22 telephone interview. “With the core of Europe shrinking, and the available assets for reserve purposes shrinking, it makes the euro zone less attractive.” 

Seeking Dollars Desperately: Massive US Dollar Shortage in Argentina as Peso Inflation Runs 25%-30%

My friend blbl has sent me the following link to the Figaro and here is the (rather poor) Google Translate link, a French newspaper.  Here are quotes from the translated link, with improvements I've made:

Greenback withdrawals have been restricted in order to preserve the reserves of the central bank. "Seeking dollars desperately": for months, an obsession of the greenback touches the Argentinians, as the government tightens controls on foreign currency purchases. 

Restrictions applied since October, forcing the Argentines to obtain special permission for each withdrawal of dollars, was added a series of restrictive measures on travel abroad, imports and remittances outside the country. 

The aim is to preserve of central bank reserves (47 billion) under pressure due to the reduction of current account surplus (government expenditure increase by an average of 30% against 26% for recipes) while Argentina still has no access to international credit for refinancing as a result of defaulting on its debt in 2002. For now, these measures were successful in slowing capital flight, increased from $ 8.4 billion in the third quarter 2011 to 1.6 billion in the first quarter of the year. But this at the cost of a dollar surging parallel. The authorities had to call the police to close the illegal exchange bureaus that have exploded in the center of Buenos Aires, and beautiful golden retrievers have been specially trained to "smell" (illegal) greenbacks. 

Inflation between 25% and 30%: The government is trying to change attitudes, while a large part of economic life is pegged to the dollar. The president, Cristina Kirchner , announced that she would change the dollar savings account in pesos, to give the "good example", calling her "friends, business owners and employees" to do the same.  She is not sure that's enough to calm the fears of his countrymen. For the leading economist Rogelio Frigerio, "the problem is not the dollar, but the peso and inflation." The latter, always overshadowed by the authorities, running between 25 and 30% per year for an estimated private practice, no incentive to save in the Argentine national currency. 

While officials of the central bank minimizes the problem of soaring dollar parallel, the haunting of the country is experiencing a new "corralito" blocking of bank accounts and a devaluation, as during the 2001-2002 crisis. Control of sales of foreign currency has also been called "corralito verde" by the Argentines, who took to the streets of Buenos Aires last week by tapping their pans in protest.

At the (inverse) beauty conquest of the ugliest currency, it seems like the USD is failing to get anywhere close to the top. This is another thing that (hyper)-inflationists have missed: many currencies will collapse well before the USD, and these collapse will force people to turn themselves to the least ugly choice, and so far, there isn't anywhere to turn but the USD (and maybe the SGD, but there aren't enough of these). I'm not counting the CHF and JPY as the central bankers of these countries are even more mad than Ben Bernanke, and one way or another, they will collapse before the USD does.

Robert Prechter on Capital Account

Robert Prechter was interviewed earlier today on Capital Account, available on YouTube:

The main takeaway beyond Prechter's usual themes is that the DSI on US bonds has it 97%, and that Prechter predicts that this is the end of the more than 30 years long bull market in treasuries.

I, too, believe we've hit at least a short term top on treasuries, and will look to short them for a short-term trade. But looking back at Japan, I wouldn't bet the farm that the top is in, and that the bull market is over. I'd actually think that the bull market can last a few more years. As usual, I will allow myself to change this forecast along with the market action.

Robert Prechter Debates With James Turk About Deflation vs Inflation on GoldMoney.com

The 30min conversation between James Turk and Robert Prechter is available on YouTube.

Points discussed are:

• Topping in stocks, most stocks having topped in May 2011, with the blue chips only taking until May 2012 to top
• The rise of the dollar
• James Turk remains a hyper-inflationist, while obviously, the USD dollar has been rising for the past 3 years... 
• Best strategies to protect your assets

Harry S. Dent 90 Minute Interview

Harry S. Dent was interviewed on Gonobo Radio. The 90 min interview is available on YouTube and embedded below:

Harry is still a deflationist, and expect all hard commodities to decline, along with the stock markets. This is a long term perspective interview, and remains interesting, although Harry is declining in my esteem as he's making more and more comments with which I strongly disagree, and starts sharing political opinion along with his demographics and markets analysis, and for most parts, his political ideas are plain dumb.

A few quotes that might shock inflationists:

• I don't like gold, I don't like silver
• Commodities have peaked in 2008 and have experienced their secondary peak in 2011.
• Commodities are going down for the next decade.
• Keynesian economics are going to die here.

Stupid comments:

• The rich have to pay more taxes because they benefited the most from the boom. This is a political, socialist opinion, which doesn't fit with the rest of the talk
• There's not enough gold to go back to the gold standard. That worked during the Roman empire, but it wouldn't work now. That's one of the most stupid yet most common error about the gold standard. Gold is a measure of value and wealth. It doesn't matter how much there is, as long as there's a fixed and stable amount. It's as to say that there aren't enough yards or kilograms to measure the length of the roads, now, because there are far more roads now than during the roman empire. The price of anything can be determined instantaneously by dividing the price in whatever currency, by the price of spot gold, in that same currency. It doesn't contain any relation to the amount of gold available.

Several Years After the Money Printing of the Fed has Began, Inflationists Still Don't Undertand The Treasury Market's Behaviour

After many calls for hyperinflation, silver at $300, gold at $5,000, treasury rates at 10, 20%, inflationists still can't get around the fact that yields are at a record low, and still cannot understand that we're on the same path as Japan, except 20 years behind.

(Bloomberg) May 30, 2012 — The U.S. Treasury 10-year yield slid to a record while stocks tumbled and the euro weakened to a two- year low as Spain struggled to recapitalize its banks, concern grew about Greece’s future in the euro and American home sales declined. Italian and Spanish bonds tumbled.

Ten-year note yields lost as much as 12 basis points to 1.6254 percent as of 11:45 a.m. in New York. [...]. Two-year German yields reached zero for the first time.

 (Bloomberg) May 30, 2012 — German two-year notes rose, sending yields to zero for the first time, as investors were prepared to forgo a return in exchange for safety amid Europe’s escalating debt crisis. 

Ten-year bund yields in Europe’s largest economy also dropped to a record.[...]

“It’s just panic,” said David Keeble, head of fixed- income strategy at Credit Agricole CIB in New York. “We have so few safe assets in the world that just a small move in risk sentiment causes quite strange and outsized reactions. Until we’ve got the Greek election out of the way we’re just going to be in this horrible world. If you’re buying Europe right now there’s only really one credit which people want.” 

Germany’s two-year note yield fell four basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, to zero, before closing at 0.01 percent at 5 p.m. London time

I agree that there's a shortage of safe assets. The real safe assets, gold and silver, have bubbled to much, that they've showed there are not safe at all: Silver is down almost 50% from the peak a year ago!

In the meantime, idiots at Sprott Asset Management (namely, the founder, Eric Sprott, and the Chief Investment Strategist, John Embry) are still calling the market manipulated, and gold and silver to go to the stratosphere. I'm so saddened as their clients will lose their shirts on this.

Harry S. Dent Turns Bullish on Stocks, Forecasts New All Time High

In one of the most amazing bear-capitulations of the past many months, Harry S. Dent, interviewed on GoldSeek Radio (link to the MP3 file embedded below, interview starts at about 42"30') on Friday, announced that stocks will make a new high, at about 1,600 S&P 500 points.

Points from the interview:

• QE3 in the next 2-3-4 months
• Stocks and gold will like it
• It will be inflationary
• Now believes the stocks will finish 2012 in record territory
• S&P to reach 1,600 and Dow 15,000 by early next year before the Fed runs out of bullets
• Gold to gain 10-15%, Silver to reach the $40s but not make new highs
• At least a 70% crash to follow (2013?)

 

For those of you who have been following my blog or Harry S. Dent, you are probably quite aware of him being a vocal deflationist, and forecasting a market crash just a few months/weeks ago.

If Harry S. Dent is proven wrong on this call, it could very likely to be one of those capitulations which marks tops. Jeremy Grantham did it back in April 2010. Will it be a long term or a short term one? I can't tell yet. 

Robert Prechter Interview on GoldSeek Radio

Robert Prechter was interviewed on the 2nd of March on GoldSeek Radio. Robert discusses:

• Stock Markets
• Gold, Silver
• Bond market
• Social Mood
• The market is giving one the last selling opportunities 

The interview starts at about 1 hour after the start of the show.

Here's the the MP3 file.

Robert Prechter Interview on Power Trading Radio

Robert Prechter was interviewed on Power Trading Radio last week (video available on YouTube):

On this show John O'Donnell is joined by Robert Prechter of Elliott Wave fame to discuss thecontinuing credit purge deflation across world markets. Prechter outlines the socionomic hypothesis that social mood impacts human action and drive price. They explore and discuss with charts the large head & shoulders pattern in the Dow today, and correlation tothe non-confirming Dow Theory ratio structure today. The Dow/gold ratio, and S&P500/gold ratio all confirm the equity market has been in a silent crash mode since 2000 "real peak". O'Donnell and Prechter agree on the inflation vs deflation debate.

[Berkshire’s] Engine of Growth Set to Stall, Says Buffett Himself

Following up from my last post — Buffett's $2 Billion Investment in Energy On Track for Complete Wipe Out — Just the Beginning of His Fall? — it's ironic to see that Buffet himself is seeing the end coming, and so, just a couple of days after I mentioned it here.

Here's a quote from a Bloomberg report:

March 2 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett, the former hedge fund manager who built Berkshire Hathaway Inc. into a $195 billion company by gaining leverage through insurance premiums, said this traditional source of new funds is drying up. 

Berkshire’s insurance units, which cover risks from fender benders to asbestos-related hospital bills, can no longer be relied on to provide new investment funds in the form of float, or accumulated premium, Buffett said in a Feb. 25 letter. Float, which rose to $70.6 billion as of Dec. 31 from $65.8 billion a year earlier and $39 million in 1970, is unlikely to “grow much -- if at all -- from its current level,” Buffett said. 

[...] “It’s an engine of growth that is running out of gas,” said Jeff Matthews, a Berkshire shareholder and author of “Secrets in Plain Sight: Business & Investing Secrets of Warren Buffett.” Berkshire “has now officially become a conglomerate. It no longer has the culture of an investment vehicle.” 

Berkshire’s success in attracting more insurance business each year than it loses has allowed Buffett to use policyholder funds to buy securities and keep them, in some instances, for decades. “Money we hold but don’t own,” as Buffett called float in 1997, has advanced in 27 of the last 28 years.  [...] 

“Float has always been their secret sauce,” said Shields, who has a “hold” rating on Berkshire stock. “This is a pretty dramatic change.” [...] 

Berkshire has declined 7.6 percent in New York in the last 12 months, compared with a gain of 5.2 percent in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. [...] 

"If insurance businesses are shrinking then it’s a reversal of the whole leverage model," said Alice Schroeder, author of “The Snowball, Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” and a Bloomberg View columnist.          

 Yes, it's true: deflation and delivering will hit everyone, and more so all the people who have been relying on leverage and credit expansion as their business model.

Japan Update: GDP Sinks, Record Trade Deficit, Fukushima Temperature Surpasses 752 Degrees, Pension Funds Nightmare Scenario

23 years into the depression following the Government and Central Bank sponsored the real estate and credit bubble in Japan, and with trillions of dollars wasted on Keynesian stimulus, there's still no end in sight, and things are actually getting worse and worse — depending on what the government will do, the end game is either going to be: massive multi-trillion default on the JGBs or hyper-inflation. Nice huh?

Here are main items from the past week or two:

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s economy shrank an annualized 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter, more than economists estimated, as slumping exports undermine a recovery from last year’s record earthquake. 

The contraction compared with the median forecast for a 1.3 percent decline in a Bloomberg News survey of 26 economists. Growth was a revised 7 percent in the previous quarter, the Cabinet Office said today in Tokyo.

Another report, another opportunity for the economists — usually referred to as "the useless bunch of highly overpaid ignorants" — to prove how useless they are and how little they understand about the economy.

Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Japan posted a record trade deficit in January as the yen’s strength and weaker global demand eroded manufacturers’ profits and slowed the nation’s recovery from last year’s earthquake and tsunami. 

The gap widened to 1.48 trillion yen ($19 billion) and shipments dropped 9.3 percent from a year earlier as energy imports surged, a Ministry of Finance reported in Tokyo today.

[...] In Japan, the country’s trade deficit of 2.49 trillion yen in 2011 was the second largest since World War II. That also contributed to the nation’s current-account surplus sliding to a 15-year low in 2011.
[...]
“Clearly Japanese manufacturers are struggling,” Hiroshi Shiraishi, an economist at BNP Paribas SA in Tokyo, said before the report. “We aren’t really expecting a major pick-up in external demand because the U.S. and Europe are undergoing balance sheet adjustments.”
[...]
Japan’s exports to the EU, its third-largest export region, fell 39 percent from 2007 to last year, according to Ministry of Finance figures.
[...] 

With global demand for imports out of Japan dropping, and energy imports into Japan surging, I guess that the BoJ must be very clever to try to weaken the Yen, right?

 And in addition to the economic depression, the natural and human catastrophes are pilling in. Here's an update on Fukushima — an made in Japan, man made global disaster:

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the temperature in one of the damaged reactors at its Fukushima nuclear station rose to levels above safety limits even as it injected increased amounts of cooling water. 

One of three thermometers indicated the temperature at the bottom of the No. 2 reactor pressure vessel rose to 93.7 degrees Celsius (200.7 Fahrenheit) today, higher than the 80 degrees limit, Ai Tanaka, a spokeswoman for the utility known as Tepco, said by phone today. 

 But Zero Hedge claims:

But major Japanese news sources Yomiuri and Jiji note that the thermometer in reactor 2 has since climbed to 272.8 degrees Celsius, and then hit the upper limit of the thermometer at 400 degrees Celsius (752 degrees Fahrenheit).

Finally, pension funds are struggling in Japan with rates at record 0.5% for the past 2 decades or so, and equities not performing globally. Fraud and lies will not help solve the issues.

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s financial regulator ordered AIJ Investment Advisors Co. to halt its business after finding the asset manager’s clients funds of about 183.2 billion yen ($2.3 billion) may be “adversely affected” and started a probe into the 263 asset managers operating in the nation. 

“We’ve ordered AIJ to halt business for a month in order to safeguard investors, as it appears client assets have been adversely affected,” Financial Services Minister Shozaburo Jimi told reporters at a briefing in Tokyo. The regulator is still investigating the firm and can’t comment on losses. The suspension lasts from today until March 23, the regulator said. 

AIJ, a Tokyo-based asset-management firm, may have lost most of the 200 billion yen ($2.5 billion) it manages for companies’ pension plans, the Nikkei newspaper said today, citing unidentified securities investigators. Regulators have been investigating AIJ since the end of January and are unable to explain where some money went, the Nikkei reported. 

Japanese pension plans have been suffering from two decades of slumping markets and an aging population. Alternative investments were becoming one of the options for the retirement funds, which have traditionally invested mainly in bonds, as ways to maintain steady returns and fund retiree benefits in a country where more than one in five people are over 65. 

AIJ, led by Kazuhiko Asakawa, was established in April 1989, and had 120 clients including pension plans with 183.2 billion yen in assets as of the end of 2010, according to a statement from the Financial Services Agency, adding it has 12 employees. 

Only 12 employees?? Wow, you might start from here. How can a firm with 12 employees manage 120 clients and manage many billions of asset?

Japan and the Myth of Independent Central Banks

Let's start about the following quote from Wikipedia on the Bank of Japan (BoJ):

A major 1997 revision of the Bank of Japan Act (jp:日本銀行法) was designed to give it greater independence;^[10] however, the Bank of Japan has been criticized for already possessing excessive independence and lacking in accountability before this law was promulgated.^[11] A certain degree of dependence might be said to be enshrined in the new Law, article 4 of which states:

In recognition of the fact that currency and monetary control is a component of overall economic policy, the Bank of Japan shall always maintain close contact with the government and exchange views sufficiently, so that its currency and monetary control and the basic stance of the government's economic policy shall be mutually harmonious.

However, since the introduction of the new law, the Bank of Japan has persistently rebuffed government requests to stimulate the economy

Now Bloomberg headlines:

Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Bank of Japan is set to refrain from additional monetary easing next week because of signs of strength in the global economy and the boost from reconstruction work after last March’s earthquake.

Governor Masaaki Shirakawa’s board will maintain the overnight lending rate at between zero and 0.1 percent on Feb. 14, according to all 13 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. A 55 trillion yen ($712 billion) asset-purchase program will remain unchanged, 12 said. 

What happened just 4 days later?

Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s central bank unexpectedly added 10 trillion yen ($128 billion) to an asset-purchase program and set an inflation goal after an economic slide fueled criticism it has been slower to act than counterparts. 

An asset fund increased to 30 trillion yen, with a credit lending program staying at 35 trillion yen, the Bank of Japan said in Tokyo today. The BOJ also said that it will target 1 percent inflation “for the time being.” 

Stocks rose and the yen weakened against the dollar as the central bank expanded stimulus for the first time since October to revive an economy that shrank an annualized 2.3 percent last quarter. Lawmakers had urged extra efforts to counter deflation after the Federal Reserve adopted a 2 percent inflation target and the European Central Bank expanded its balance sheet. 

Today’s decision “shows the BOJ bowed to political pressure,” said Hiroaki Muto, a senior economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. “There will probably be limited impact on the yen’s gains.”

These reports show two things:

1. The economists, this pathetic bunch, are always wrong, and heard on the exact opposite side of what is really going to happen.
2. Independent Central Banks are independent for only as long as they act in the way that pleases the Government and they do what the Gov expects them to do. After all, their independence is given by the Government, and can be taken back anytime, with a simple law. For this reason, the same way that the Japanese government can force the BoJ into more easing, the US Government will at some point force the Fed into stopping the madness — or force the US into defaulting on their debt, since the Fed QE programs do nothing but adding more debt to the US balance sheet...

Whatever the outcome, it's time to put an end to this. Hopefully, we'll have a peaceful end with Ron Paul. 30 years of deflation, or 3 years of hyperinflation are too destructive of the people, the economy and the country as a whole.

Robert Prechter Interviewed on Capital Account

Capital Account's Lauren Lyster has been doing a good job promoting libertarian and points of views different from the mainstream media by having Mish quite frequently on the show, and Robert Prechter for a long interview (available on YouTube and embedded below).

They go through the theory behind Socionomics, the social mood, the Elliott waves before jumping to the markets.

Harry S. Dent on Bloomberg TV

Harry S. Dent was on Bloomberg TV on Friday the 27th and discussed demographics and deflation.
Not much news, he's still recommending safety and forecasting a risk-off trade that will take all asset classes down, including equities, gold, silver, oil, other commodities, etc.

Harry S. Dent Interviewed on Straight Talk Wealth

Harry S. Dent was interviewed on Straight Talk Wealth last week — follow link for the HD footage of the interviews.

Here's the summary of one-hour in-depth interview:

• Introduction about Harry's background, and the effectiveness of contrary thinking
• Is the government making things better?
• It's generational cycle of spending that is ending, and a cycle of saving beginning.
• Goes into much detail to explain how he conducts his forecasts (demographics and another indicators he uses) and why most other economists are wrong.
• The interviewer does a good job at asking HSDent to explain why he made a call for the Dow to reach 40,000 and why this forecast failed.
• Discusses past bubble, speculative behaviours
• Government's behaviour, their role in creating the bubbles and inflation
• His views on how to solve the crisis — write down the debt, deleverage. Along with some comments about what the government should do, but with which I do not agree as they are not based on free market principles.
• Why the Fed created bubble will pop and the markets crash
• Why we'll going to deflate, why deflation shouldn't hurt people, only creditors if they admitted they have to write down the debt.
• What will happen in the Eurozone with the current debt crisis: nothing will save Greece unless they write down the debt by at least 60%, no stimulus or bandaid will fix the problem.
• Doesn't like Treasuries, Silver, Gold (for the wrong reasons in my opinion).
• The healthcare and tax systems are so broken, they cannot be repaired, we need to start over from scratch.
• We'll have a major change in the next 10 years, almost as big as a new Constitution.
• We'll see the end of Keynesian economics (I would LOVE to see that happen).

The videos are embedded below:

I've read his books, and it's a great and cheap way to get access to all the HS Dent data, charts and understand their methodology. I would definitely recommend them.

Harry S. Dent 1-Hour Interview on Australia's The Room Live

Harry S. Dent made a very good summary of all his points of views and opinions in this close to one hour interview on The Room Live (Australian show?). The interview is available on YouTube.

  

It's too long for me to provide a summary, but what I'll do, is highlight the statements I disagree with, in order to avoid any confusion with my readers:

• "There is not enough gold to return to the gold standard". That's nonsense. It's like saying there isn't enough kgs to move to the metric system.
• Bubble are great for the economy. I don't think I need to debunk that one...
• "Economists are very smart people". Uh... Hello?

Finally, I would like to point out that this interview was made on the 12th of January 2010. So it's easy to find out whether he was right, or not, on what his forecasts.