Business
Tom welcomes an extremely thought provoking guest Jeff Snider to the show. Jeff flips the lid on the global shadow money system and shows us all the mechanisms and leavers that lie in the shadows. Inflation is understandably an emotional topic and often a difficult conversation to have. Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. It's usually a significant increase in prices across a broad swath of the economy. In order to see sustained price increases, you need to have too much money chasing too few goods. Bank reserves are not money they are a unit of account used in the banking system. Therefore the Fed isn't flooding the world with money. The balance sheet of the Fed is a reaction to something else happening behind the scenes. Reserves are not the same as printing dollars. What we have seen in the CPI and PPI figures recently seems exclusive to the United States. We see these humps in these flawed measures which clearly line up with the reopening of the economy. We also see a response from the large drops of helicopter money but these conditions tend to be temporary. Part of the Fed's objective is to promote expectation policy. Some of their plans are intentionally designed to register an emotional response. Something is not right with what we are being told. They don't actually print money, that's why the dollar and inflation don't get out of control. Bank reserves are not a trivial distinction. It's all smoke and mirrors. If you believe the Fed is printing money then you will act on that information. That is the point. This is called expectation policy. Jeff points out that the Eurodollar system plays a key role in the global reserve currency system. The Euro is a virtual reserve-less currency standard that is global. As the Bretton Woods system failed the Euro stepped in as its replacement. This happened before the ending of the U.S. gold standard under Nixon. The 2007 crisis was due to a global Eurodollar system shortage. There was a collapse of this shadow money system that affected the entire global economy. The global reserve currency system has been steadily malfunctioning for the last 15+ years. Money is always 100% about confidence. Since the 1950s we've had vast changes to how money was defined. Today, the Fed barely comprehends what money actually is anymore. Central banks are pretending to understand what is going on. The Eurodollar system appeared to work so long as it was expanding. As we saw in 2008 the inherent flaws finally caused a crisis in confidence. Jeff explains why Evergrande is not a Lehman moment because it's an intentional event created by China. China is attempting to transition to a more socialist state via a system of managed economic contraction. Crypto prices today are way out of whack with the rest of the economy and the idea of ledger money is not a new phenomenon. Since a tidal wave of inflation is not coming the shift in the narrative will cause problems for crypto. Central bankers no longer understand money or what is going on with the system. They only look at various metrics to judge if their policies are working. Time Stamp References:0:00 - Introduction0:40 - Inflation Causes3:17 - Sustaining Inflation6:54 - Camel Humps10:52 - Fed Policy Approach13:50 - Bank Reserves16:14 - Reverse Repo17:40 - Euro Policies23:53 - What broke in 2007?27:40 - U.S. TIC Data32:26 - An Evergrande Moment?36:55 - China's Debt & Risk39:11 - Gold and/or Crypto43:12 - Where is the risk?45:30 - Fed & U.S. Gov't48:20 - Lies & Statistics54:52 - Course Corrections?56:42 - Digital C.B. Currencies58:46 - Money Vs. Currency1:01:52 - Concluding Thoughts1:07:35 - Wrap Up Talking Points From This Episode How bank reserves and how the shadow banking system works.Why the Fed's main job is 'managing expectations'.The 2007/2008 crisis and the real causes.The importance and role of the Eurodollar system. Guest LinksTwitter: https://twitter.