What is the Likelihood of Hyperinflation in 2010, 2011 or 2012?

Come come my good man. Surely someone as inebriated with his own verbosity as you are is capable of answering a little question?

Where is the tsunami Melly?

It isn't a difficult one but it is perfectly illustrative of why you are such a bulbous bellend.

Take your time. Not too much though. There is a tsunami coming. Apparently.

Question, what question, the one I have repeatedly answered on here, *that* question?

If you don't understand the answer, that's your problem.

But speaking of unanswered questions, how about this one:

How do you plan to get rid of the "Menelaus" I stenciled on your mind?

For EeternalOptimist ( probably ) as will get back to Menelaus when have read the wisdom of the Ferguson, smiles:

As you may know from the ahem other place, I think we both like to see hyperbolic language used selectively.
Common examples that annoy us both ( got to be careful as it's presumptious to speak for you ) include starvation when what's really meant is hunger, poverty when what's really meant is income inequality, decimation when a little trimming of a budget by a couple of a % has happened. So if hyperinflation is to get a definition which means that it's used sparingly, then that'll be just fine.

Bongo, I know your post is not addressed to me but you lost me there, especially if you are cryptically suggesting that there is hyperbole involved in what I posted. I would say then that the faster you get your hands on Mr. Fergusson's book, the better off you will be.

"Hyperinflation" can only be clearly understood and defined by studying ACTUAL hyperinflation events and drawing conclusions on what actually did take place, not what some academic wants it to be to fit his models. It is not "very high inflation", nor 50pc inflation per month. It is not even a monetary event.

What the chap from "ahem the other pace" quoted is Phillip Cagan's description of what hyperinflation is, yet another Ivy League misguided keynesian economist. "Closing" hyperinflation withing that very limited mathematical construct has been discredited long ago.

In 1913 the German mark could be exchanged at par with the British shilling. Ten years later in 1923, a British shilling was worth 1,000,000,000,000 marks (yes, that's twelve zeros), although in reality no one was prepared to accept the mark even at that silly exchange rate. The mark was essentially worthless.

The mark depreciated by half during the period of 1914-18, and by mid 1919 it halved again. In 1920 things started to get interesting and the mark only had about one-fortieth of its foreign purchasing power left and remained so until about 1923. And then boom, the exchange to the shilling was in the trillions. How does this scenario fit into Mr. Cagan's models?

In 1923, there was a collective understanding by the German public that the colored pieces of paper they had in their pockets were indeed only Judefetzen and nothing more. It was not the inflation numbers that defined hyperinflation, it was the collapse in faith in fiat money. Money dies, as simple as that. Yugoslavia's experience in hyperinflation in 1994 and Zimbabwe more recently tell a similar story.

Any fool can post what comes up when you google the word hyperinflation, but unfortunately it seems very few truly understand what it is.

No Melly you haven't. You squirmed and lied that only you could see the tsunami of inflation when in fact there has been a relatively modest tick up. Lets leave aside causality for a moment, in the mid 1970's when inflation was running at over 25% people were worried about it but they called it for what they saw it as ie high inflation. They didn't call it a tsunami or in those days a tidal wave. Clearly they wouldn't because such things carry all before them and leave devastation in their wake. You were wrong. The fact that your ego will not allow you to concede the point is most informative. Bongo almost certainly wasn't referring to you when he cites hyperbolic language but only because he doesn't yet know how you operate. He will soon enough.

Money dies, as simple as that.

Yet more hyperbole.

There's nothing worse than an obsessed halfwit.

It looks like the first few dozen times I answered this it went right over your head, so let me try again.

You probably live in some kind of a nanny state owned or subsidized council home. You don't have to worry about skyrocketing general upkeep, maintenance, property taxes, insurance and utilities costs, the tax payer is paying on your behalf. So no tsunami here for you to see.

You don't own a vehicle, therefore no skying maintenance and insurance costs. Hell come to think of it, you can't even use public transport with its recently higher ticket prices that have everyone complaining, you're in all likelihood on a wheelchair FFS. Any special services offered by NHS to move you around are paid by, you guessed it, people like me. And we also send you an incapacity benefit to boot to do as you please. No tsunami for you to see here either.

You eat sh1t. When food prices are skying, you switch to a cheaper brand of sh1t. No tsunami for you to see here either.

You are single and live alone (no probably or likelihood here - that I know for certain), therefore you have no family to educate, so education costs spiralling out of control are none of your concern. Yes sir, no tsunami here either.

Those totally ineffective pills you keep popping to help with your serotonin deficiency are paid for with…….. drum roll please…...the money the nanny state steals from me. No tsunami to see here either.

As for the rest of us, in a financial world where fortunes are made and lost on a trillion $ plus FX market where currencies are quoted to THE FOURTH DECIMAL point, where billions can be added or lost on the market cap of a company trading on the equities markets because it beat or missed expectations by A FRACTION OF A PERCENT, where billions can be lost or added in the value of  major market indices because the economy expended or contracted by A FRACTION OF A PERCENT, where an economy can be deemed to be in expansion or contraction by a mere difference of ONE PERCENT or less, where margin calls can be triggered by a hypothecated asset dropping its market value by a FRACTION OF A PERCENT, I would day that REAL inflation running over the "official" number by around 10pc based on my experience is indeed a f/king tsunami.

It all depends on your perspective.









Now, how about answering my question, its plain courtesy:

How do you plan to get rid of the "Menelaus" I stenciled on your mind?

You're being unfair i feel EO : across 200+ sovereign nations in 100 years, a state of affairs that's happened roughly 3 times. To use the word 'hyperinflation' sparingly is right. When it does happen, extreme and dramatic language is legitimate surely.

As for "money dies" being a hyperbole, just visit your nearest coin & banknote dealer and ask him to show you all those notes from all over the world that are no longer in circulation and have been demoted to for "collectors only" dustbin. Most all were hyperinflated to death.

Hyperbole my a$$.


There is one thing worse than an obsessed halfwit, and it's an obsessed halfwit trying to feign intellect.

Now answer the question.

The last post was obviously NOT addressed to you, bongo. Last I checked your posts on here passed the "sane" test.

bongo

Hyperinflation has happened far more often than 3 times in the last 100 years.

Shiitferbrains

Of course it was hyperbole. If it was the case that money dies, as simple as that then there wouldn't be examples where money didn't die. But there are. So it was hyperbole. Same with your inflation nonsense. Even assuming that somebody was daft enough to accept your desperate clutching at straws with your assertion that inflation was running at official figures plus 10% that in no way could be described as a tsunami. In fact for a  fair part of the 70's they would have begged for such a rate of inflation. And you know what. Life went on.

bongo

Regarding the second part of your post when there is hyperinflation extreme and dramatic language is indeed legitimate. In fact describing it as a tsunami would be apposite.

What I am objecting to is the fact that Melly told us that it was inevitable that there would be a tsunami of inflation. He was quite clear that this wasn't a case of hyperinflation but clearly of devastatingly high inflation. He guaranteed it. When it failed to materialise he twisted himself into knots attempting to convince people that it was really here but that only he could see it. Emperors new clothes and all that. He is pathologically incapable of accepting when he calls something wrong and so he continues with the charade.

Do you think there has been a tsunami of inflation? Would anybody in their right mind? It is hyperbolic language which only confuses the issue and makes its originator look like a fool.

Are you really *that* thick, or is your mental disorder flaring up again.


I'm probably the most prolific poster on this sorry forum (that's the only thing we agree on), consistently putting up enough comment and OPINION to fill a few volumes of books but you latch on a single word in a post that was put up years ago to try to "score" points when you've been totally impotent otherwise, or so your sick mind thinks. That is the true definition of desperation (or insanity, I haven't decided which yet)......oh yes, and you do erupt in orgasmic rapture when you point out my odd spelling mistake.

Other than that, you sit quietly in the corner marveling and learning, unable to comment or contribute because parroting investopedia won't do, it will only show your superficial knowledge of economics. What you are good at is throwing smoke bombs on the forum to hide your ignorance and divert attention away from substance and onto fluff. And I won't even mention the con job you tried to foist upon us showing up with three different aliases, and continue to try although you have been exposed long ago.

There are two posters who keep putting up "where's the tsunami" time and again, charlatan and you. You both live off the t1t of the nanny state, this stuff doesn't effect you. I mean in his case, he even posted that he gets his wife pregnant so that he can collect child credits. I'm sure you have you own little scam to share, lots of easy money could be made from being declared disabled now days I'm sure.

On the other hand, I live in a world where a fraction of a percent difference in performance, whether it be in the financial markets or corporate earnings, can make or brake my year. It's a different perspective, and TEN PERCENT in that respect is a tsunami. Try and wrap your sick mind around that because after explaining it about a dozen times I'm losing patience to explain yet again.

As for the rest of the drivel you put up:

If it was the case that money dies, as simple as that then there wouldn't be examples where money didn't die

In HYPERINFLATION money dies. Do you get it now? Or, are bank notes with 12 zeros on them considered "alive" and have value for buying a single egg in your mind?

Life went on

I never said live wouldn't go on, are you making this sh1t up as you go. Again, your small mind is interpreting the use of the word "tsunami" to mean a life extinction event is approaching. Those delving in the world of finance though understood what I meant and profited from it. If you expect REAL inflation at TEN PERCENT over official reports THEN you make plays on the markets (and manage your money accordingly) to PROFIT. That was the sole point of my original post. If you expect INFLATION, buy gold, buy equities, buy commodities. All reacted as predicted for PROFIT. I'm not surprised you missed that point, none of that stuff concerns you, only that the nanny state continues to steal from me to give to you......and that you continue to chase my shadow on here to try to get even. Good luck.

The rest of the sh1t you put up in colorful prose is just that.....sh1t. Because stringing random words together and serving them with the skill of a poet doesn't stop from exposing the underlying idea still as sh1t.

I too put up poetry on here, but I'm a poet of a different kind.






































Still missing from all your impressive elusive maneuvers is still the answer to the question:

How do you plan to get rid of the "Menelaus" I stenciled on your mind?

Sorry Melly. Not good enough. I know you are an arrogant buffoon but some of us at least gave you the benefit of the doubt regarding your honesty and thought you would come clean when a forensic mind dissected you. It appears I was wrong. This was the heart of what you wrote back in late 2010. It is interesting because it is one of the few occasions when you give any kind of indication of a timeline.

Which has nothing to do with the tsunami of inflation that is coming (100pc certainty)...........The next two years will prove more than interesting.

This is what you say today which is virtually two years after that event.

I never said live wouldn't go on, are you making this sh1t up as you go. Again, your small mind is interpreting the use of the word "tsunami" to mean a life extinction event is approaching. Those delving in the world of finance though understood what I meant and profited from it. If you expect REAL inflation at TEN PERCENT over official reports THEN you make plays on the markets (and manage your money accordingly) to PROFIT. That was the sole point of my original post. If you expect INFLATION, buy gold, buy equities, buy commodities. All reacted as predicted for PROFIT.

Wrong on the first point. I wasn't interpreting it in that way. I was interpreting it as a massive life affecting event.

The key thing is that all didn't react how you suggested. The money on gold and silver was to be made in the preceding years. That would have been a smart call. Yours was a stupid call. Today measured in either USD (your preferred measure) or GBP both gold and silver are lower than a year ago. I think they have a word for that. Doesn't it begin with a D? The bird had flown by the time you made your call.

Same with oil. In May 2012 the latest date which inflation data.com has information for oil was lower in price than immediately after your call in January 2011. Incidentally, the historical high point of oil adjusted for inflation was in 1980.

For once you pinned your colours to the mast and even when your best case scenario of continued arguably ongoing QE came to fruition your predictions were still hopelessly wrong. On any measure the tsunami of inflation about which you referred had already happened. The smart guys had already made their money at that time. You were just a hanger on trying to predict the future based on what had happened.

Now if you had really been smart you would have known and been able to explain why further bouts of QE would not have the same effects as the earlier efforts.

Let me first start by keeping it brief, you either the biggest idiot to ever post on this forum, or your obsession with me has totally taken over your central nervous system. More than likely the latter, which is what I had in mind in the first place.

I put up hundreds of posts on here but you selectively pick single words, or single lines, to make sure that everything else I put up is taken out of context.

How about this post, put up long after the word "tsunami" seems to have inflicted such a deep wound in your mind:

"The FED (the only central bank that counts - the rest are noise - think global reserve currency) has lowered rates to zero and have printed, and continues to print, in an attempt to "fix" the fiscal side. The truth is their only interest is maintaining the solvency of the banking system and funding the massive USG deficits. All the newly created cheap money that ends up in the hands of the banks through swapping for garbage ends up in commodity speculation which drives prices up. Combine this with currency debasement through expanding the money supply and the job is done. This inherently manifests into inflation which they of course deny.  Higher inflation in a deleveraging economy damages further the economy and slows it down even more (higher cost inputs). As the economy deteriorates further and unemployment rises (that's what we are seeing now) Keynesian politicians start screaming louder to spend more, to keep the wheels of the economy spinning so to speak. The central bank responds by printing more, after all they have to, not because politicians demand it or that they care about unemployment but the deflation that shows up on bank balance sheets (debts that can not be repaid) needs to be covered up otherwise the banking system collapses. And they print more because there is no other way to fill the gap - no organic growth. Which in turn drives commodity prices up...........and the vicious cycle of destruction continues until one fine morning the currency breaks - those who have it want to get rid of it as quickly as possible, those who don't have it won't accept it - complete loss of confidence which is what hyperinflation is NOT high inflation"


or, how about this one, again long after the "tsunami" you understood in your simpleton mind wasn't evidently destroying humanity. You should know this one, it was addressed to you:

"The FED (the only central bank that counts - the rest are noise - think global reserve currency) has lowered rates to zero and have printed, and continues to print, in an attempt to "fix" the fiscal side. The truth is their only interest is maintaining the solvency of the banking system and funding the massive USG deficits. All the newly created cheap money that ends up in the hands of the banks through swapping for garbage ends up in commodity speculation which drives prices up. Combine this with currency debasement through expanding the money supply and the job is done. This inherently manifests into inflation which they of course deny.  Higher inflation in a deleveraging economy damages further the economy and slows it down even more (higher cost inputs). As the economy deteriorates further and unemployment rises (that's what we are seeing now) Keynesian politicians start screaming louder to spend more, to keep the wheels of the economy spinning so to speak. The central bank responds by printing more, after all they have to, not because politicians demand it or that they care about unemployment but the deflation that shows up on bank balance sheets (debts that can not be repaid) needs to be covered up otherwise the banking system collapses. And they print more because there is no other way to fill the gap - no organic growth. Which in turn drives commodity prices up...........and the vicious cycle of destruction continues until one fine morning the currency breaks - those who have it want to get rid of it as quickly as possible, those who don't have it won't accept it - complete loss of confidence which is what hyperinflation is NOT high inflation"





And please, please, please, don't be so cruel, STOP HITTING ME WITH THAT WET NODDLE.

The second post was meant to be this:

"It's time you give up because your are starting to sound and behave like a complete lunatic. So you thought you were a "big" man because you are the tallest Lilliputian. Then you looked up………..and you're still in shock.

You went way back and found some posts of mine, lifted specific lines that suit you while ignoring countless others, and now you are throwing temper tantrums because I'm not taking the bait.

What I said was that the inflation was are seeing now, which is multiples higher than what's officially reported by the government (even though clearly you don't even know how they actually come up with that number), is leakage. Driven by speculation into commodities with money the CBs handed over to the banks in exchange for worthless paper. The tsunami of inflation is still sitting with bank excess reserves on the CBs balance sheets, which they can't rein in when they have to because they can't raise interest rates without governments, and just about everyone else blowing up. You know when Bernanke said he can rein in inflation in 15 minutes, well, he lied.

You're in way over your head. Your knowledge in the area where I make my living is anecdotal. It shows, despite the colorful language and the never ending parade of strawmen. You are probably a retired school teacher, who reads this stuff without the background and tools to understand it, and who wonders where it all went wrong when you can't even afford to take a short trip to London to learn something new. You are no barrister either because when I laid down the test of the reasonable man, which is a well established legal principle, it went right over your head.

There are Gullivers out there. Get over it.

More windy rhetoric which at its heart can be broken down very simply into QE and accompanying policy will result in a flight to assets and resultant inflation vis a vis those assets. You said this in December 2010 directly after QE2 was announced in November 2010. You expected the same sugar rush as happened after QE1 and you were wrong as I have illustrated.

All the newly created cheap money that ends up in the hands of the banks through swapping for garbage ends up in commodity speculation which drives prices up. Combine this with currency debasement through expanding the money supply and the job is done.

Like I said until you can understand that you were wrong you won't be able to understand why you were wrong and your future predictions will amount to little more than wetting your finger and sticking it in the air.

You only understand half of the story and that will remain your achilles heal.

Physician heal thyself.

Look mate, schooling you on here doesn't pay well and I have a family to feed. Not to mention that I have no slivers on my mind that need constant scratching.

I don't think I should continue to feel compelled to write 10,000 word posts every time you drop a turd on here trying to set you straight. I've done it once, I've dome it twice, I've done it literally dozens of times BUT if you really want to continue to stick your little winnie in a meat grinder and call it "winning", then be my guest.

Don't take your dress downs personal, consider it a character flaw of mine to cut to size anyone who comes on here and feigns intellect by parroting things they read somewhere but they don't fully understand. The fact that you are bat sh1t crazy posting under a number of aliases only added to my motivation to expose who you really are. Job done methinks.

By the way.....How do you plan to get rid of the "Menelaus" I stenciled on your mind?








Don't answer that, it's a rhetorical question, I knew the answer even before I started stenciling.

This forum has waited a long time for this moment. A dishevelled Melly running from the battlefield shouting to the guffawing masses that it is but a mere tactical retreat. Don't sweat it Melly. The ability to break people down is a rare gift and sooner or later virtually everybody meets their nemesis. I'll keep looking.

In the meantime I'll leave you with a little thought. I believe the originator of the black swan analogy was Karl Popper that just one black swan in the whole world would disprove the assertion that all swans were white. Simple but profound. That is the number I have been doing on you. This issue was the smoking gun. Once it was established that you could be wrong about this then your veneer of invincibility would be shattered and my job done because you could be wrong about anything.

One strand at a time which ultimately reduces you from oracle to gobshiite forced to hiding behind his wife's skirt. Family needs indeed.

Your post scores off the scale when it comes to delusional. Perhaps there's something beyond bat sh1t crazy that I'm not quite aware of.

I think I heard the same "stay and fight, you coward" rant from this fellow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno





I'll let you know when I want to fist **** you again. In the meantime, double up on your meds and.......wait.

I thought you had mouths to feed and were too busy to explain why you called inflation in assets when they dropped against the same fiat you so despise. Ah I see. You were too busy for that but you have all the time in the world for your bullshiit.

there is no chance of hyperinflation in the uk.

hope this helps.

That is the number I have been doing on you.

and there was me thinking i had already done it at the first attempt on this thread!

Musings so far . . .

Am about 30 pages in to the 'When Money Dies' book ( paperback ) by Adam Fergusson. And a good and detailed read it has been so far. I didn't know before thay Austria and Hungary went printy and the Weimar republic sort of followed them even though they could see next door what was happening. Fast forward to now, and it looks like the war-time allies ( in this case UK, US and EZ ) are following each other, as if it isn't so bad because the others are doing it too.
What was funny when shopping on amazon is that hard-back copies of the book fetch £300+, copies in very good or better condition fetch even more. If the UK went hyerinflationary, somebody out there could probably get a washing machine and a cooker in barter exchange for a mint condition Fergusson book about hyperinflation if they so wished.
There's a word for that.

Do my eyes deceive me???



Could this be true???

A post on here by someone other than the self immolating halfwits and their alter egos???

A post other than the incessant self denigrating circle jerk by the usual suspects???

WTF???







P.S. Keep reading bongo, it gets better.

More windy rhetoric which at its heart can be broken down very simply into QE and accompanying policy will result in a flight to assets and resultant inflation vis a vis those assets. You said this in December 2010 directly after QE2 was announced in November 2010. You expected the same sugar rush as happened after QE1 and you were wrong as I have illustrated.

All the newly created cheap money that ends up in the hands of the banks through swapping for garbage ends up in commodity speculation which drives prices up. Combine this with currency debasement through expanding the money supply and the job is done.

Like I said until you can understand that you were wrong you won't be able to understand why you were wrong and your future predictions will amount to little more than wetting your finger and sticking it in the air.

You only understand half of the story and that will remain your achilles heal.

as I have illustrated



Like I said until you can understand that you were wrong you won't be able to understand why you were wrong and your future predictions will amount to little more than wetting your finger and sticking it in the air.




You only understand half of the story and that will remain your achilles heal





You should first stop making things up (I know, I know, it's a hard to do with your condition) and then follow it up by canceling your subscription to whatever rag you are reading.

ALL FLUFF AND NO SUBSTANCE......the more things change on here the more they stay the same.

And my finger appears to be still deep up your ***, not the air.

Contrary to what most of the forum thinks I believe, the chances of hyperinflation at the moment are small (less than 10pc) but have increased since QE2 and will increase further to significant levels if the FED does not stop their monetization policies. Which has nothing to do with the tsunami of inflation that is coming (100pc certainty).

Having said all that, it wouldn't take much of a black swan event to change all this with catastrophic results. The next two years will prove more than interesting.

Written in 2010.

Those who still argue "low inflation" because of the manipulated CPI number and continue to ignore real life evidence (price increases, weight-out and fade-out in products) and trade this position, will find themselves on the wrong side of the trade. Trust me on this one.

I'm not sure what thread it's on and I don't have the time nor the inclination to go looking for it just to satisfy you but my previous posts on "tsunami of inflation" included information on the massive commodity price increases we have witnessed in 2010 and the assertion that inflation is with us NOW (ignore CPI, pay attention to your bills) and massive inflation is making it's way through the system, to be here in 3-6 months once existing inventories get depleted and the price increases make their way through the system.

If you're too lazy to bother reading other threads on here don't make it my problem.

And the coup de grace:

I'm in the inflation now, massive inflation coming, hyperinflation a threat if the FED stays on this path camp.

Thanks for posting.

I feel soiled doing this because no one ever won an argument with a sign post or a psychopath, but here it goes nevertheless.

First of all, I have no idea what point you think you are actually making to be honest but I do know what an unlimited amount of money created out of thin air ad infinitum means. 

This is the road that central bankers have embarked on in case that point was lost on you. They climbed on the tiger's back, now they can't get off without being devoured. They can't stop printing, nor can they reverse. So in this sense, and I do know this point is totally lost on you, although some amazing can kicking has taken place to delay the outcome, the outcome is edged in stone nonetheless. The outcome was predetermined from the outset. I'm saying this with the full knowledge that this is a concept that you struggle to process through your two malfunctioning brain cells. It's not a matter of IF anymore, it's only a matter of WHEN.

You display a pattern of arguing by lifting two or three lines out of my typically long posts that went up years ago, taking them out of context to score points in your sick mind while ignoring the rest of the post or all the posts that followed. Evidently for some strange reason only known to you, you think  you are actually accomplishing something other than continuing to display your skin deep understanding of economics and finance.

You seem to be still hang up on the inflation thing, the "tsunami" of inflation as it were. I've responded to that in a way that a five year old child could understand so I'm not going down that road again. You either truly don't understand, or refuse to understand because it doesn't fit your misguided narrative on here. Either way, it's your problem, the posts are still up, either go through them again slowly or get someone to explain them to you.

I have posted incessantly about the bouts between inflation and deflation taking place, and that the only deflation that actually exists is on bank balance sheets. Pretty hard to understand what I'm talking about though since, based on what you posted in the past, you don't even know how those two monetary events are even defined in economic terms. And bank balance sheets (insolvency) is what the central bankers are trying to save, nothing more, nothing less. When your only tool is a printing press, then everything must be explained as deflation. And mugs like you buy the whole pack of lies, hook line and sinker.

Your latest obsession seems to be to draw me into a discussion on the "diminishing returns" of QE, using words like "I expected the same sugar high", words that you obviously lifted from reading the main stream financial media, but never however as far as I can recall even once appear in any of my posts. That didn't stop you from implying that those words came out of my mouth. You are an expect at distorting reality, so I am not at all surprised here. When you are all fluff and no substance, distorting reality is not the most effective tool you have at your disposal, it's the only tool.

What exactly are the "effects" of QE that you are referring do? Moreover, what precisely are the "diminishing returns" on those "effects" that you feel I don't understand? What exactly are you referring to as "sugar rushes" which I never referred to? I'd venture a guess those are all words that you lifted from main stream media referring to the effect of QE on the equities markets. Those who got their hands first on all those printed out of thin air and provided at no cost dollars to speculate with simply wanted more and more of it. I guess the point that was missed by the author of the article your read is that the equities markets have disconnected from the real economy long ago. One can talk about what the "effects" of QE were and continue to be, only once they fully understand why central bankers are QEing in the first place.

The various iterations of QE had TWO purposes and TWO purposes ONLY. ONE to prevent the banking system from collapsing (it did, and it continues to) and TWO to fund bankrupt governments (it did, and it continues to). All this other nonsense about dual mandates of price stability and full employment were exactly that, nonsense. You however seem to have bought into that explanation, hence that's why you think the "effects" are diminishing. The effects are alive and well, totally insolvent institutions are still doing business and totally bankrupt governments are still spending money they don't have (that's inflation by the way in case you haven't clued in). With more QE to come as far as the eye can see (cue in Bank of Japan next), the unlimited variety without an end date at that, while the actions of central banks can never be reversed. And the beat goes on, until one day it doesn't. It appears that, similar to that other ozzy halfwit that used to post on here, is that when I shout "hyperinflation is how this ends", you interpret that to mean  "hyperinflation is how this ends TOMORROW".

We are in the biggest global economic contraction the modern world has ever seen. The US is contracting and living in a Bernanke made-up bubble waiting for a pin, parts of europe are in outright depression, other parts in a recession or clearly heading into one, Japan is a complete mess and China is slowing down……….BUT Brent is solidly over $100 and food prices are going through the roof……..YET a numbskull like you thinks that the "effects" of QE are diminishing because the equities markets haven't continued going up in a straight line.

Dumb. Cancel your subscription.

You are all fluff and no substance and no amount of smoke bombs that you fire on this forum on a daily basis can hide that fact.

For someone who squeals so much about misrepresentation you do seem to do an awful lot of it yourself. We all know exactly what you contend because you have never wavered. It is all written down on this forum.

And I did the same:

What should follow is deflation. The bottom line is that the deleveraging process for this bubble or series of bubbles is immense. There is a credible argument that the policies enacted will slow the inevitable down but that you would need to QE to the order of tens of trillions to douse the flames. Some would argue (I would and I think charlatan is in this camp) that what they are doing is the same kind of shiit which got us here and that they are potentially storing up even bigger problems down the line. However, that is an argument for another day.

The other side of the argument is that in the final analysis once the policy decision has been taken that there will always be a method to create inflation in a fiat monetary system, be it through the printing press, helicopters or simply a man, with a finger and lots of noughts. I think this is the view of menelaus. As I have suggested, I think this is the wrong policy but I don't doubt that everything they have done leads to a conclusion that this is the policy. One of my principle objections centres on the disagreemnt between charlatan and menelaus on the definition of hyperinflation. Incidentally I think both are right in that there is a gestation period but that there is a period of development of consciousness which can be frighteningly quick. My gut feeling is that they aren't yet doing enough on their own to create hyperinflation. I still sit in the camp that says that there is a lot of deleveraging still to come down the pipe. This doesn't mean that if their medicine doesn't work that they won't go for bigger and bigger doses with more and more consequences including the flight to assets and commodities which could make hyperinflation a reality.

So having given a kind of reasoning my own view is that in that kind of time frame (end of 2012) we have about a 20% chance of deflation and about a 75% chance of moderate inflation. This leaves about a 5% chance of high or frightening inflation levels.


Yet in your latest diatribe you continue to come out with pearls. Including this one:

We are in the biggest global economic contraction the modern world has ever seen. The US is contracting and living in a Bernanke made-up bubble waiting for a pin, parts of europe are in outright depression, other parts in a recession or clearly heading into one, Japan is a complete mess and China is slowing down……….BUT Brent is solidly over $100 and food prices are going through the roof……..YET a numbskull like you thinks that the "effects" of QE are diminishing because the equities markets haven't continued going up in a straight line.

All factors which are pulling in the opposite direction to your theory. Or do you not understand what is supposed to happen in a depression? You do understand the process of deleveraging which they are trying and barely succeeding in stopping don't you despite all that money being created? Like I said feel free to keep mispresenting my views but the facts don't lie:

Gold, oil, other commodities have all dropped in value since your pronouncements about accelerating inflation levels.

Even against debased currencies. Go on tell us. Nobody will judge you. How big a mug do you feel right now? How big a mug do you think you will look in another year?

I don't normally take psychopaths in my class but you're such an amiable chap, in your case I'll make an exception. So put your straight jacket on, take one of the front row desks and face the chalkboard. Your lesson is about to begin.

Or, put another way, you are about to get stripped naked and given a spanking in full public view for putting up things that sound intelligent but are clearly wrong and you  half-understand. Watch this space.

Is it the space between your ears or legs?

I have no idea where you lifted what you posted before and you now so proudly showcase, but unfortunately it was patently wrong then, as it is glaringly wrong today. Especially today, since the deflation thesis was debunked long ago, but obviously a mug like you didn't get the memo. So let's start at the beginning and I promise to dumb this down enough for you to understand but still get my point across.

You obviously bought into the central bank and main steam media narrative that "What should follow is deflation". An opinion that it appears you still hold steadfastly today and continue to parrot rather loudly on here. You've been had.

IN A FIAT MONETARY SYSTEM DEFLATION IS A MYTH. Here's why:

(I can already see you waiving your head side to side and  screaming, Japan, Japan, Japan…….just STFU and be patient, I'll get to that)

We have a credit based money system and under this system sustained periods of money supply contraction and price deflation DO NOT happen. Prolonged and meaningful price deflation has NOT happen anywhere in the world INCLUDING Japan (again more on Japan later) since the gold standard was abolished. In fact, even during the great depression, the only one of two quasi legitimate examples of an economy imploding due to deflationary forces  (the first is the first three years of the Great Depression, the other is the year following WWI), a country that went OFF the gold standard weathered the storm and never experienced price deflation.  In fact it even experienced  inflation that would make the BoE with their 2pc target green with envy (the country I'm referring to is Sweden and the source is Irving Fisher's 1934 "Debt Deflation Theory of the Great Depressions" ).

Under the gold standard, there were LEGAL requirements to have credit/money issued backed by physical gold bullion holdings. From an accounting standpoint, the central bank had to have ASSETS (gold bullion) entries matching the money printing (LIABILITIES) side of the balance sheet. That was the whole point of the gold standard, to limit the ability of bankers/politicians to print money at will for a government to spend when spending exceeded revenues (TAXES). To prevent the trap that every sovereign has now fallen into, DEFICIT SPENDING. But just as important, to limit the ability of bankers to tax the public without representation. That's what currency debasement really is.

With the abandonment of the gold standard, the legal requirement to balance the liabilities on the ledger with physical gold bullion was REMOVED. The central bank, just like magic, can expand the money supply by making ledger entries on BOTH the assets and liabilities side of the balance sheet. The process, therefore, of EXPANDING the money supply (cough,cough,INFLATION,cough,cough) became as SIMPLE as typing a few numbers on a keyboard and clicking on the "send" button. INFLATION, after all in economic terms, is an expansion in the money supply, nothing more, nothing less. DEFLATION is the opposite. All one has to do to understand this point is to have a look at the charts at the US deficits and the parabolic shape of the curve starting exactly at 1971.

(NOTE: The price of gold followed the trajectory of the US deficits but I won't discuss this here now since my views of how the FED continues to blatantly manipulate the PM's markets are pasted all over this forum and it is a debate for a different day. Presently, the paper price of gold has been manipulated and distorted so much, it has been rendered almost meaningless as a valid indicator of serious inflation in the inflation/deflation debate.)

Now, I know most people don't live in economic formulas so to the public INFLATION typically means rising consumer prices (which can happen WITHOUT actually expanding the money supply, scarcity of an item has a profound effect on raising its price) and DEFLATION the opposite.  Consumer price deflation can also happen WITHOUT contracting the money supply, competition and technical advances have a profound effect on lowering prices. Governments in turn, determine the impact of inflation on their economies by measuring producer and consumer price inflation. The methodology for measuring those two is also a debate for a different day but let's just say the government statistics consistently  UNDERSTATE real inflation and EVERY change that has been made to the methodology is the last 20 years (and about the be made again in the UK) was made for the sole purpose of lowering the reported official number. If you doubt that, then I regret allowing you in my class in the first place.

Here's where it gets a little complicated. There is no DIRECT way to measure inflationary forces in an economy. Both the money supply and the available supply of goods are constantly changing. If the money supply is expanding ahead of demand, that is not necessarily immediately reflected in consumer price inflation. Layer on top of this a methodology that takes advantage of the fact that measuring inflation is not an exact science and which by DESIGN is understating inflation, and the bankers blaming any prevailing inflation on every other reason they can think off (transitory, drought, global impacts) except too much money printing and the waters get pretty murky pretty quickly for the hapless public. But it doesn't stop there, weight outs (same or small price increase, same package, fewer contents) and fade outs (same or small price increase, smaller package therefore fewer contents - have you looked at the size of a chocolate bar lately?) further confuse consumers the one place where they can actually see inflation at work (food prices) in their daily lives. But no one who can count to two without missing a number in between can dispute that SOONER OR LATER, if the supply of money increases FASTER than the demand for that money by consumers to use to purchase a fixed supply of goods, inflation in consumer prices will follow. The opposite with deflation.

When you ask deflationists, you know, the "what should follow next is deflation" clueless mug variety, to point out where this phantom deflation really is, they can certainly NOT point to the most fundamental and essential items to the public like food, energy, medical and education costs since they are all going up, significantly higher up than the reported official inflation number if I may add, so they typically point to two things. Housing prices and deleveraging.

According to the deflationists, housing prices that grew to bubble prices in a binge of debt fueled orgy of real estate speculation, reverting back to the mean (and still a long ways from the mean) is deflation.  Laughable, especially when the housing market is priced at the margin.

So it's the deleveraging then. Money is created as debt, bad loans were made, those loans are in default, the paper becomes toxic, money gets destroyed, the money supply contracts. Furthermore, there's now a short supply of credit worthy borrowers, so the amount of money created through debt creation drops. That's deflationary. Also, spooked consumers pay down loans quicker than their maturity, thus shrinking the level of outstanding credit by extinguishing debt faster that new debt is created by new borrowers, overall credit outstanding contracts, money is being destroyed, hence inflation. There you have it, it's deflation then, what more proof do you want?

Not so fast grasshopper.

First and the easiest to debunk, consumers are not paying down debt. We've seen a downward bleep, both in the UK and US, in the consumer credit curve at the height of the crisis, which is now well in the rear view mirror, when mortgages were being defaulted on. That was not a voluntary debt pay down by consumers who all of a sudden found religion (consumer deleveraging) although it was presented as such by the central banks. If they are printing, they must shout "deflation" to justify their actions. Consumer credit is EXPANDING, so much for voluntary deleveraging. So much for deflation.

Now let's move on with the illusion of  deflation because people are not borrowing anymore. The money system today is actually a HYBRID system (this gets a little technical here so I won't delve into this too much and confuse you). It is a PUBLIC (the government) and PRIVATE credit money system. Which essentially means (and this is what had actually happened) that when the public stops borrowing, the government borrows on your behalf (I posted numerous times about this but I guess it doesn't fit your misguided narrative so you didn't bother lifting those lines out of my posts). The government fills the gap with DEFICIT spending. What do you think one of the main two reasons is that central banks are QEing? And guess what, without a gold standard, they can create money out of thin air with just a few keystrokes, unlimited and without an end date. Osborne found £35bn under his pillow the other day to spend as he pleases. How do you think that money came into existence and what does it mean when the government spends it?

Which now leaves the last and only place were deflation can really be found, defaulting paper on bank balance sheets. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum, these insolvent banks with their imploding balance sheets DID NOT go down, The bad debt was NOT discharged, it did NOT clear the system, it was rarely acknowledged as defaulted on. It was exchanged with the chaps that could create money out of thin air, the lenders of last resort. That money that was supposed to be getting destroyed and had every numbskull who parrots sh1t without understanding it shout "what should follow is deflation"…….IS STILL THERE. Either sitting on OBS entries, or marked to fantasy, or transferred on the FED's balance BUT STILL THERE NONETHELESS. The numbskulls shouting "what should follow next is deflation" forgot that in a fiat monetary system the central bank can create money at will, an unlimited amount at that. The only stumbling block is how to disguise the fact that money is backed by nothing, and can be crated by the money cartel to hand to its friends, to the clueless public and to manage and space out the money printing orgy sessions in a such a way that the peasants don't starve to death from rising food prices. Everything else is NOISE.

Which brings us to the last desperate bastion of deflationary stupidity…..JAPAN, The poster child of every clueless deflationist out there wasting the good oxygen he breathes. "But Japan, with its lost two decades, has deflation". Really? Have they? Well, that's the narrative anyways, but have you thought about it on your own? Well, let me help you think for yourself. What was the average inflation measure in Japan for the years when they reported under zero inflation. The answer is, (minus) -0.18. Wow, some deflation. And what methodology does Japan use for measuring inflation? The answer is, since they are really nothing more than an American protectorate (have been that since the end of the war) and since they wanted to hide the high inflation years of the early 70s, the US model. And how much does the US model UNDERSTATE inflation? What? You have no idea? Well neither do I precisely to be honest but I guarantee you it's multiples the -0.18 number? Disinflation, yes, but deflation my a$$.

So mug, where the feck is the deflation that followed next? If keeping a my house lit and warm, continue to feed my family well, giving them the education they so richly deserve and providing the best medical care for them, not to mention filling my car up with petrol is costing so much more today than when your "deflation follows next" showed up, then what the feck am I going to be paying when you finally acknowledge inflation is here? You don't see it, because it doesn't effect you. The nanny state will keep sending you my money, until one day it can't anymore.

All your other comments about Gold, Oil and commodities being lower today than when I was posting inflation is coming are so far off base, they only again put your skin deep knowledge of finance and economics on display. Unfortunately to properly respond to that I would have to come up with another 10,000 word post and at this point I couldn't you a toss what a clueless mug like you thinks or has to say. I'll just economize and say with as much sarcasm as I can muster, "yeah, I know what you mean, just look at fuel and food prices going down every day".

You can pull your trousers up now. CLASS DISMISSED.





P.S. The charts are from the St.Louis FED and are US specific but they tell a tale that can't be ignored about the world's reserve currency? Unless of course you are all fluff and no substance in which case you can ignore them.

Where…..is………the………..fecking………deflation?????

CLOWN

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M1/

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TOTALSL/

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CPIAUCSL

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TOTALGOV

ttp://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=8l2

A knockout blow.

Thank you for that Menelaus. That must've taken a while. Hard to disagree with any of that. I'd say inflation is running at 5-10% in this country right now.

A layman's question to Lix ( useless to put it to Menelaus)/
The exactly why are govts. so furiously printing money ?.
To fight off inflation ?
Doh.

--''Then exactly why are govts. so furiously printing money ? "

I'll add more commonsense, layman viewpoint.
The general public has pretty much lost complete confidence in both the integrity of the financial system and in the ability of the govt. to manage the greed and venality of bankers and the like.
As a result currently they're not borrowing and they're not spending at the levels required to grow our economies ( inflate our economies).
That is deflationary in anybody's book.
People like Menelaus live not only in a theoretical cocoon but also in a spending one.
He talks about medical costs inflating when in fact they've always been too high for the average person, he talks about the cost of filling up his car ( in his case a top end porsche) when in fact most people are downsizing their cars, he talks about the cost of food when his wife continues to shop at Harrods food hall and most others are going to Aldi or whatever. He's out of touch with the real world.
In the real world, people are scared not of inflation but of deflation and recession or even depression. They fear losing their jobs, losing their homes. They would absolutely love to see the good old days of inflation to come back. Menelaus is right about just one thing. The only inflation is occurring at the sharp ( corrupt ) end where those who get first use of all the new money sloshing around are investing it short term in selfish, greedy stock mkt. speculation. There's no real investment happening in capital assets to generate long term sustainable growth. The world is contracting and the govts. are furiously trying to stop it from turning into a deflationary rout. IMHO only of course. But what do I know ?. I'm not moving and shaking in the ivory towers of academic finance like Menelaus.

they're not spending at the levels required to grow our economies

Not sure you meant to write that FAFH, or I've misinterpreted it.
Surely spending doesn't cause an economy to grow. For sure, if people get creative and industrious and produce and sell services and products to the market that people buy or trade, then  wealth has been generated. In that sense spending ( wealth that you've generated ) is a symptom of a growing economy, but would never be a cause.

As for deflation,in the UK there are pensioners who get guaranteed 2.5% pay increases ( or RPI whichever is higher ) - they would love some deflation. I'm in a public sector job at the moment getting 1% for the next 2 years - inflation is not good news, although other factors such as low interest rates on mortgages mean materially I've never had it so good.

It's a worry that the UK spends over £1.20 for every £1 received in taxe&receipts and has done for 4+ years - it can't last, but a lot of people getting money from the public purse via benefit or public sector contracts have indexation of their benefits - this has to be inflationary surely, but the perils of indexation is another subject perhaps.

Thanks for your thoughts, cheers to Menelaus also.

bongo, I'd venture a guess he didn't mean anything buy it, he's just a halfwit living in blissful ignorance and hell bent on putting his massive stupidity on display on here every day. I wrote the post as simply as I could, intentionally avoiding technical jargon, but unfortunately if he is still posting sh1t like that, it clearly STILL went over his head. No surprise for me there.

As far as your comments go, I wasn't making an argument whether or not consumer price deflation is good or bad, I was simply explaining that when that post went up loudly and proudly proclaiming "What should follow is deflation", it was blatantly wrong. Steadfastly cheering it today, with the benefit of hindsight, when the actions of central bankers are there for all who care to see and price deflation is nowhere to be seen is beyond moronic.

In a money system, where unlimited money can be conjured out of thin air, deflation (money supply contraction) is a myth. As simple as it sounds however, it's pretty hard to understand when most people can't even define the terms inflation, deflation, disinflation and hyperinflation correctly.

It's also pretty hard for most people to wrap their head around this stuff when they don't really understand why central bankers are quantitative easing in the first place. It's not for price stability and it certainly is not for full employment. That's a banker and politician fabricated lie. It's to make sure the members of the money cartel have all the fiat money they need to avoid insolvency and it's for governments to continue spending money they don't have. The second reason is also done with the benefit of the bankers in mind. Put another way, without the government stepping in and borrowing and spending on behalf of consumers who can no longer afford to borrow and spend, the financial system implodes.

I have posted ad nauseum about this on here, the system needs infinite and exponential growth to pay the coupon. That's what money as debt does, that's what compounded interest does, that's how the system was designed. Most people unfortunately bought into the central banker fabricated lie that that with deflation there can be no growth. That's wrong and not supported by historical facts. We have seen tremendous growth and deflating consumer prices during the last two industrial (and technological) revolutions.

What the truth today is however, and remains largely untold, is that without cheap oil, there can be no exponential growth. It's scarcity in cheap oil, the world's alpha commodity, that's driving the "growth" bus today (or lack of it), not bankers conjuring fiat money out of thin air. It's not the constant creation and destruction of bubbles by the central banks that's proved their own undoing, it's not even governments borrowing money they can't pay back. It's something out of their control, something they can't print. It's geology, flow rates, depletion rates and EROEI. It's OIL.

The US spends two dollars for every dollar of revenue they bring in. They are currently borrowing at the rate of $1.5 trillion per year. That in itself is frightening but it doesn't even come close to telling the real story. The US has on its books $121.2 trillion (yes, that's with a T) of unfunded liabilities (social security/medicare/medicaid). Now their CBO is saying that even with a fiscal cliff deal, the best case scenario has those unfunded liabilities rising by $27.3 trillion in the next four years (supporting aging boomers can be a real b1tch). In case your calculator is not handy, that works to a liability of about $230,000 per US household to a total of $1,249,000........which will need to be borrowed or Bernanke will be forced to monetize. Their entire government funding will ultimately come only through direct monetization because the only way of managing their obscene debts is through currency debasement. In other words, they'll pay the creditors back but with dollars that are worth less or worthless. Take your choice.

Governments everywhere made promises they can't keep, and borrowed money that they can't pay back. The only way out is sentencing their currency to death. It's always happened this way, and this time will not be different.

Hyperinflation is how this ends.....just not tomorrow.

Melly

You must be tired after staying up so late inventing all those straw men. Unfortunately for you anybody who reads what I wrote two years ago which incidentally wasn't quoted from anybody else can see clearly that I am not in the deflation camp. Allow me to refresh your memory again:

What should follow is deflation. The bottom line is that the deleveraging process for this bubble or series of bubbles is immense. There is a credible argument that the policies enacted will slow the inevitable down but that you would need to QE to the order of tens of trillions to douse the flames. Some would argue (I would and I think charlatan is in this camp) that what they are doing is the same kind of shiit which got us here and that they are potentially storing up even bigger problems down the line. However, that is an argument for another day.

The other side of the argument is that in the final analysis once the policy decision has been taken that there will always be a method to create inflation in a fiat monetary system, be it through the printing press, helicopters or simply a man, with a finger and lots of noughts. I think this is the view of menelaus. As I have suggested, I think this is the wrong policy but I don't doubt that everything they have done leads to a conclusion that this is the policy..............So having given a kind of reasoning my own view is that in that kind of time frame (end of 2012) we have about a 20% chance of deflation and about a 75% chance of moderate inflation. This leaves about a 5% chance of high or frightening inflation levels.

There is a world of difference between saying that something should happen and that something will happen. Where someone says something should happen it logically follows that outside intervention has the capacity to alter the course of events sometimes predictably and sometimes less so. As I indicated that is currently the case. It is clear from my reasoning as to the policy prescriptions and final paragraph where I sit on the issue. I gave a prediction and reasoning and they were both right. You gave a reasoning which is almost certainly right in the long term but a prediction which was wildly inaccurate in the specified time frame and which shows no sign of coming true in the near future. And that relates to the tsunami of inflation let alone the hyperinflation. Which isn't any kind of recommendation.

Having burned down your straw man relating to deflation I turn my attention to your inflation is all around argument. Here you contradict yourself. One minute you are saying:

Now, I know most people don't live in economic formulas so to the public INFLATION typically means rising consumer prices (which can happen WITHOUT actually expanding the money supply, scarcity of an item has a profound effect on raising its price)

The next:

So mug, where the feck is the deflation that followed next? If keeping a my house lit and warm, continue to feed my family well, giving them the education they so richly deserve and providing the best medical care for them, not to mention filling my car up with petrol is costing so much more today than when your "deflation follows next" showed up, then what the feck am I going to be paying when you finally acknowledge inflation is here? You don't see it, because it doesn't effect you. The nanny state will keep sending you my money, until one day it can't anymore.

Firstly, the most crucial of those things which is indeed oil is cheaper now than when this was first being discussed at the end of 2010. Why is that?

Whilst there is some price inflation in other goods and services to the ultimate consumer we don't know what is driving that price inflation. Is it scarcity? Is it price rigging, anti competitive practices?

To be clear and to state my consistently stated position. I see inflation. I've seen inflation since the final cur of the link to the gold standard by Nixon. I don't currently see anything like the inflation rates we have seen for long periods of that time despite all this currency debasement. Why is that?

Where is the tsunami Melly?

You're the chap "passing through" from the boxing forum, what part of a "knockout blow" don't you understand?



Because if you think I'm going to continue to spend hours writing 10,000 word posts to deconstruct the psychotic rants and worthless sh1t you keep putting up here, you are thicker than I thought.

Yeah, yeah, now I get what you said, a day without sunshine is like, you know, night. Brilliant.


Now on the count of three, give me another "where's the tsunami" or "dance sucker dance". Your choice. Surprise me.

"Firstly, the most crucial of those things which is indeed oil is cheaper now than when this was first being discussed at the end of 2010. Why is that?"


I'm not doing this for you, or the other halfwit who shows up whenever I post and says nothing, I'm doing this for the forum in case anyone is baffled by your bullsh1t.

It's hard to say what time frame you are lifting all those lines you are re-posting selectively from various threads and various posts trying to sell your illusion, but it seems some of them you attributed to late 2010.  Actually, if you have a closer look, some of them along the same vein appear earlier than that but I suppose that just doesn't fit your lunatic narrative. In fact, some of them go back to 2009. But I digress, let's stick with the time frame of your choosing.

Now, I don't mind you getting keynesians and Austrians mixed up, or not cluing in that the deflation thesis debate is over, or even not knowing what hyperinflation really is, but as a minimum next time you decide to stick your 2" willy in a meat grinder, learn how to read fecking basic charts first.
 
Brent was trading around $74 at the start of 2010, and gradually almost in a straight line went up to $94 by the end of the same year. It continued to go up through the spring of 2011 reaching a price of around $124, and a price level that was then exceeded a year later in the spring of 2012 at $127. It's now trading at around $110.

Brent oil contrary to what you posted is higher today than the end of 2010 by around $16, and was significantly higher ($33) in March of 2012, an entire 15 months after you are posting with glee you thought I made the wrong call. You know, because "what should follow is deflation". If that's a wrong call, then I want to be wrong all the time.

The questions at large is (that's your take home assignment for the day), why did Oil drop from $127 in March to what it is today. What market forces are driving the price of Oil? Or, did the world wake up one morning and collectively said, "hey, we can't let Melly be so right, let's take this sucker down"? Because if you know the answer to this, then you'll stop dead in your tracks like a deer in headlights and realize how right I was.

And if you don't understand Oil, you don't understand sh1t. Most crucial indeed.

 

http://ycharts.com/indicators/brent_crude_oil_spot_price

I was trying to work out what you reminded me of and it suddenly struck me. You are like one of those tin foil hat wearing global warming nutters who back in the 90's told us we would all be boiling in another 50 years. Apart from waving their hands around, obfuscation and shouting a lot they struggle when you ask them to explain why the high point of global warming came in about 97. You see they had boxed themselves in with their pronouncements and they couldn't and can't explain why with continuing development in massive population countries like India, China and others the trend wasn't and isn't ever upwards to boiling point.

Same with you. I don't need to ask you to dance. All I request is that you avoid 10000 word dissertations. Not for my benefit you understand but the more concise your answers the more clearly people will be able to see through your dissembling.

Now on to the point in question:

I'll let others be the judge on just how disingenuous you are being regarding the parameters of our debate. Most will know that you are throwing this deflation thing in as a red herring.

What I am interested in is you answering my question:

To be clear and to state my consistently stated position. I see inflation. I've seen inflation since the final cut of the link to the gold standard by Nixon. I don't currently see anything like the inflation rates we have seen for long periods of that time despite all this currency debasement. Why is that?

Can you answer this question for me?

When you've answered this we can proceed to the issue of widescale commodity price stability or indeed deflation. Oops that word creeping in.

Do you ever stay on topic, or have you taken enough beating on this one so we can now move to the next one?

You can shout "hey look over there" only so many times before even those who usually give you a pass on here start to catch on.

Out of curiosity, getting caught on the Oil price lie thing, did you lie intentionally, or do you really don't know how to read a chart?

And I have news for you, impartial others have ALREADY judged, it's just that you are not paying attention.

Yes mug, a knockout blow, someone already put it far better than I ever could.



Now on the count of three........

Same topic. Taking you to school. This is what you wrote:

It continued to go up through the spring of 2011 reaching a price of around $124, and a price level that was then exceeded a year later in the spring of 2012 at $127. It's now trading at around $110.

There is a word for that. It escapes me for the minute. Is it inflation? Er no. That's not the one. Hyperinflation perhaps? Nope. I'll have a think about it.

In the meantime remind me about that tsunami again. And while you are at it perhaps you'd like to have another look at what the prices in things like wheat, corn, gold, silver etc have been doing.

I'll be waiting sucker.

EO
A simple question from a simple man
What would happen if govts. stopped the printing presses overnight?
Would the world collapse into a deflationary spiral or into a hyper inflationary one ?
Which alternative is most on the minds of the politicians?
Clearly it's not that black or white, but generally where is the real risk of doing nothing to the money supply ?

Note I address this to yoou EO as I know I will get a civilised response, whether pointing out my ignoranc eor otherwise.
Also I can see that you have relatively open mind about things.
Also most importantly you seem to know that economic theories are just excactly that. Theories and not worth the paper they're printed on. Or in this case the forum space they take up.

Well, it looks like you're going to wait for a long time then. I've trained myself when someone shouts "hey, look over there" to look everywhere BUT.

This "debate" (I'm using the word extremely loosely here) was over before it even begun, it's just that you didn't realize it until now.

Next time you want to score some points try finding something that makes sense, something that you don't have to rely twisting and turning three year old posts, something where the definition of "is" actualy is "is, and on occasion use a little more then just the broad brush lines you memorized from reading sh1t. A number to support what you are saying, or at least reading a chart correctly would also help.

If however, you still want me to use you as toilet paper, then carry on, knock yourself out.




And it's bad manners not waiting until three to start spewing "sucker" again.

On a more serious note, for the benefit of those watching except the chap who shows up and says nothing:

So let me get this straight, Oil goes up about 30pc an entire 15 months after I posted about inflation but I got the call wrong, but it goes down less than 10pc and it's, what's the word, what's the word.........DEFLATION...........LMFAO.

It went up a buck today is that mean that inflation is taking over again........oh, wait, let's wait and see tomorrow......LOL.

Like I said earlier, if don't understand Oil, you don't understand sh1t.

I'm starting to think I was flattering you calling you "toilet paper".

I think it might be to your best interest to let this thread die at this point or you can start just shouting "where's the tsunami" again. Your choice.

Why is oil suddenly an all important indicator that hyper inflation is on the horizon ?.
Everybody knows and expects it to increase in price over time.
That's a given and has been for a long, long time.
Surely it's been factored in to all known economic models out there, being used either by the inflationistas or the deflationistas ?

That may not be the case
US to become 'world's biggest oil producer'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20304848

Oh nooooooo, Stow, I wished you hadn't done that...........or are you trying to wrap your head around this one too?

That report was debunked before the ink dried FFS. I can hold your hand and walk you through the gaping holes in it if you like since evidently it doesn't take much to be a scientist now days.

CERCA TROVA

Btw in today's climate of low interest rates, surely it's logical to assume that as the cost of warehousing oil has gone down, there must a shortage ( and thus a large price increase ) due to lots of oil being deliberately withheld from the mktplace ?
That probably rexplains shortish term oil price movements.
On a long term basis, as Menelaus states its the basic geological facts that will determine the ever upward price of oil.
But does any of this have any real imppact on whether we are inevitably headed towards hyperinflation being caused by this energy source actually running out and not being replaced by some new ( perhaps not even yet invented) source of renewable energy ?
Isn't the jury still out on all this ?
Once again, I emphasise these are layman questions, not even opinions in fact.

I hope you spotted my post Stow as it was regretably quickly covered under a pile of manure.

My offer still stands.

My questions still stand to be answered by any of the normal, civilised posters on here.

U.S. Redraws World Oil Map
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324073504578115152144093088.html?mod=WSJ_Commodities_LEFTTopNews

Oil Prices May Fall, Despite Mideast
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324352004578132902620727298.html?mod=WSJUK_hps_LEFTTopWhatNews

Stow
Do you really question the premise that long term the price of oil will continue to rise, due to basic supply/demand factors.
After all the new sources of oil, such as shale, tar sands require quite expensive extraction processes don't they ?
Short term it's all controlled by the commodity traders/speculators, but long term ?

Fine As

You aren't simple in the least. Like myself you are someone seeking to make sense of often contradictory information and opinions and trying to move a loud mouthed gobshiite out of the way so that discussion and hopefully progress if not enlightenment can prevail. In answer to your question I'll start by reasserting the point above. The reason you or I have to ask the question is further evidence of the lack of consensus amongst those who think they know what they are talking about.

My personal view would be to start by asking if you are familiar with Hegel and in particular his dialectic? If so you may have already answered your question. The synthesis of the thesis (deflationary spiral) and anti thesis (hyperinflationary spiral) is ultimate collapse as you have pointed out. I'd ask whether it matters how we get to that point if that point is an inevitability? For the sake of completeness I'd say that on balance I'd go with the former but isn't it a purely hypothetical question? What politician would do so? Even where a politician did so could he resist other policy actions?

Having said that I now have to ask is the synthesis (collapse) inevitable? Once again, sadly unlike crystal ball Melly, I don't know. What I would assert is that all previous attempts to run a functioning fiat monetary system have sooner or later collapsed. Historically that would present as an inevitability.

Is it inevitable now? I can't think of there being a logical reason why not. I don't necessarily buy into the theory that because we have more of history to learn from that we will do so. History is littered with examples of mistakes being repeated again and again. Do you trust our leaders to come up with the goods? Do they strike you as more intelligent or more pure of motive than those who went before? Me neither.

I live in hope and prepare for the worst. Even if a collapse is inevitable what isn't inevitable is the timing of that collapse. This is what so irks Melly. He is highly likely to be right in my view. He could be dead before his prediction comes to fruition though. Ergo my earlier sketch of him on his death bed berating Mr Ben.

As for what is on the politicians minds I'll ask you if you were in their position and you suspected if not knew that there was a high degree of probability that there would be a collapse what would you do? Would you take the collapse now and expect a noose? Or would you seek to keep the plates spinning in the hope that something turns up or in a more cynical analysis that you could take part in a transfer of wealth and hope to insulate yourself when the future collapse comes?

Most people in the politicians place would pretend and extend. Strip all the glitz away and politicians are like most people. The psychopathic people anyway.

EO
Thanks for your considered response.
I have to be honest and say that I'm not familiar with any of the dialectics of any of the famous economists, past or present.
Whilst I take your point that no politician can be trusted to act totally in the interests of the common people, I'm not so cynical that I unconditionally accept the view ( being essentially expressed on here by Menelaus) that they are totally acting in the interests of what he calls the " banking cartel".
The bankers created this mess, and the politicians are trying to clear it up. Too simplistic ?
I do believe that it was a basic error ( or moral hazard as they say ) to bail out the big players who were seriously over exposed to sub prime mortgage derivatives, but it has been done and we have to accept it. I can't say that I believe the bail out was done for dishonest reasons, as opposed to morally incorrect ones. I would love to see a few more people in jail for thie actions, and I would love to see all the ill gotten bonuses being reclaimed from the many, many unworthy recipients. But it ain't gonna happen.
I feel the mood of the world is deflalionary. I sense in the people I mix with, a resignedness that we have to pay a serious and painful price for the credit binge that took place.
Already most people I know feel a hell of a lot less financially comfortable now than they have ever before felt, and are cutting back on a lot of needless personal expenditure. We all bought too many goods and products we neither needed nor particularly wanted, apart from keeping up with the Jones'.
So in my rather simplistic, non technical analysis,I don't see all this leading to a hyper inflation scenario, but rather the opposite.
And you know what, it's the actions of the normal people in all this that will ultimately decide what happens. Not what the economists or the politicains say or do.
I expect countries like China and India and Brazil to come out of all this stronger and more powerful. The hegemony of the USA is certainly going to be destroyed both morally and financially.

You chaps can stroke each other from here to eternity but it doesn't make either one of any less the clueless lemming that you both really are.

What IRKS melly is that this is a financials/economics forum and a pseudo intellectual putting up sh1t in colorful language doesn't make it any less of what it is .......SH1T. And the intellectualism any less phony.

What IRKS melly is that vast ignorance disguised as original and objective analysis is still vast ignorance and others reading it are not only NOT the wiser they can in fact get mislead by the poetic prose and colorful syntax. In other words, this is not only sh1t, it's dangerous sh1t.

In addition to all that, you are a psychopath. I have a lot more to say about this and the sh1t disguised as caviar you posted a little later. I have to run to a few meetings now.

Fine As

You could be right. Leaving aside the motives of the big players which we cannot say for sure and which to some extent are an irrelevance I agree and disagree with elements of your above post.

I agree that the mood of the world is deflationary as it should be in a depressionary environment but then you have to throw into that mix the actions of the central banks and politicians which is inflationary through quantitative easing. I agree that there are a lot of people cutting back to make ends meet either voluntarily or by necessity. I don't agree that this constitutes deflation. What I think it may be is essentially a personal version of what happened in the 70's which would be personal stagflation. By that I mean that peoples discretionary spending may be stagnating into a mildy to moderately inflationary environment whose compound effects after nearly 5 years is beginning to mount. This is an unusual phenomena to us because we are used to constant standard of living increases but as you say with issues around oil extraction we may have to get used to this unless there is another energy revolution.

Sorry Melly this is a private discussion. Learn some manners. You seem to think it acceptable to block certain people. I suggest you self block from this discussion as we aren't interested in you waving your willy around at this moment. I'll give you a nod when I want you to come back onto the pitch. Be a good boy now and sit quietly.

Wow, what do you know, a private discussion on a public forum. Impressive how you keep raising delusion to a whole new level.

Or, is it because you are afraid I'm about rip apart that abortion in a wedding dress you put up?

Let's not get into that because you are quite adept at supposedly blocking people on said public forum. Even though you can't wait to abuse them. Now pipe down. There's a good lad. I'll give you the nod for your cameo appearance at the end.

First, let me start with paying you a compliment. You write well. You have an interesting and catchy turn of phrase. But that's precisely what makes the rubbish you put up on here dangerous. The uninitiated may come to the conclusion that someone that can expresses themselves so eloquently, with such poetic prose and colorful syntax must know what they are doing about. They couldn't be more wrong.

First a few general comments about you, all key for readers to understand who you really are, and starting with the most important.

You suffer from chronic psychosis. You have serious psychological issues. I'm not saying that to be hurtful, and I'm not making that stuff up.  I have experience in this area, and your psychological profile was very easy to create with your personality openly pasted, in your own words, all over these forums. Thousands of posts to choose from.  All the "dance sucker dance", "I will destroy you", "I will slay you" and "I wish you dead" comments don't fall out of the sky, they are the product of a very disturbed mind. Bringing into the forum alter egos (a charade that you continue to this very day) and mentioning a handicapped wife (with several other ailments) who doesn't exist only help cement my conclusions.  But there's more. While I've consistently wiped my a$$ with you at every turn on here, you still continue to stick your intellectual two inch p3ck3r into the same meat grinder expecting a different result. That is profoundly insane. Putting up thousands of posts on here while continuing to claim that you are passing through, with the overwhelming majority having me as the subject matter displays a  decidedly abnormal and unhealthy (for you) level of obsession. Perhaps more important to the forum, however, is that as desperately as you have been trying to hide it, your knowledge of finance and economics and of the true meaning of current economic events is skin deep.

Your posts only intend to deceive. All the way from having a conversation with yourself by posting under different forum names, to constant attempts at feigning knowledge, to blatantly repeating lie after lie in your posts, as if by repeating them it will make them true. You posted more lies on here than I care to remember. I called you on it. You changed the subject. A case in point is on this very same thread I'm posting on now. You repeated the "the price of oil is lower now" lie again and again and again, trying to deceive those who readers were willing to listen without checking. I called you on it. You changed the subject.

Your posts are totally devoid of numbers. Totally devoid of mathematical analysis. Now that would be fine this what the "Young Poets & Novelists" forum. It isn't however, it's a financials forum. So although you are quite adept at posting broad brush, 30,000 foot level, touchie feelie kind of stuff you picked up by reading various magazines, this isn't the poetry of Byron we are discussing, it's economics. Economics and finance where the irrefutable power of mathematical analysis is king. Without math you can't understand economics, when in reality economics is a branch of mathematics. You can't understand complex theoretical models, you can't understand basic economic indicators, you can't do simple valuations and risk assessment that are key to investing. Do you know what the biggest enemy of "all fluff and no substance" is? Numbers.

But enough of that, this after all is not the psychology forum, it's the financials forum. Let me deal with the latest turd you dropped on the forum. Because although you poured an entire bottle of perfume on it, it's still a turd. The underlying stench in undeniable.

First off, you sound completely confused. Overwhelmed by the complexity of events that are neither contradictory nor in need of consensus. They are in need of a genuine understanding of what's really taking place and what it all means. Something which you totally lack unless someone else writes an article that you can read and memorize first. Your post first takes us on a ride in obfuscation, hedging, ambiguity, confusion, providing more questions than answers and culminating with the usual motherhood statement "I live in hope and prepare for the worse". Yes, I like apple pie too.

You admit you have no idea what's going on, what's even worse, you haven't the faintest what's coming next or when. So you say you're hedged. Nice safe cover your a$$ statement. But when I asked you to explain how precisely you are hedged, all I heard were crickets chirping. Everyone knows the buzz words, they've gone main stream now, but very few understand the real substance. And that's your undoing.

You try very hard to impress. Seriously, I mean how many people are familiar with Hegelian dialectic. I'm surprised you didn't mention Plato in your post, that would have totally convinced the readers that you are an intellectual. But once you peel back the veneer of pseudo intellectualism all you have left is an empty shell. Thomas Sargent didn't use Hegelian dialectic in his cause and effect in the macroeconomy thesis, he used mathematical models. Thomas Schelling didn't use Hegelian dialectic in his brilliant work on game theory, he used the irrefutable power of numbers. Even Gary Becker, whose work revolves around behavioral economics, didn't use Hegelian dialectic in his non-market behavior papers, he used the undeniable logic of mathematics. So instead of wasting your time trying to impress, you'd be far better served to acquaint yourself with basic math, this way what's unfolding now, a system collapsing under it's own weight, wouldn't be as confusing to you.

Let me leave you with something, and I'm not not going to disguise what I'm saying behind double talk and the nonsense you post when you're caught offside. Like "I said deflation SHOULD follow, not necessarily that it WOULD follow", very reminiscent of the famous Bill Clinton line "it depends what the meaning of "is" is".  I'm will say this with conviction because it's based of in-depth knowledge, facts and numbers, not the motherhood fluff that you hide behind.

Since the US unilaterally abrogated the gold convertibility agreement in 1971, there has been a banking crisis (and I know this number will stun you) in 120 nations around the planet, including here in the UK. Mostly same story as always, too much leverage, too much high risk, too many bad loans until one day it all blows apart. Bank balance sheets imploding destroying money and credit with it. In other words, a contraction in the supply or deflation. YET, DESPITE ALL THESE INCIDENTS THERE HASN'T BEEN A SINGLE CASE OF RECORDED DEFLATION, OR A DEFLATIONARY COLLAPSE IN ANY OF THESE ECONOMIES. In fact, quite the contrary, in most cases these incidents were followed with raging inflation and in some incidents even hyperinflation which killed the currency out of existence. Why the feck do you think that is halfwit?

So while you are sitting there confused, overwhelmed with the complexity of economics and finance, and spewing bullsh1t like "deflation should come next", others know EXACTLY how this will play out because THIS TIME IS NO DIFFERENT.

In the real business world, I've taken to school men that were intellectual giants compared to you, with a real understanding of economics not the anecdotal sh1t you keep regurgitating on here, and with the strength of character to send chills down your spine with one piercing look………not an ignorant sick POS like you hiding behind a keyboard. You may slay MYTHICAL dragons in your fantasies, but I skewer REAL stupidity whenever I see it.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I wonder why then that Menelas sounds more like the complete psycho on here and not EO.
I think the very last para in Menelaus' last post might just sum up the Walter Mitty aspect of his character.
EO at the very least qualifies everything he says with the normal humility of man, by admitting that he doesn't really know all the answers. He merely knows what he doesn't know and freely admits it.
On the other hand, Menelaus seems to be the first economist ever in history to be claiming that he has developed an economic theory based entirely on irrefutable mathematics. A theory that can seemingly with absolute certainty forecast future events . And it's so secret that apparently nobody in the world's academic or socio/political research insitutions has picked up up on this extremely amazing theory and has thrust it into the forefront of the world's mind. No poiticians or party of politicians are piggybacking on it to establish never ending power at the ballot boxes.
How all very credible is that ?.

I can predict also.
I can predict Menelaus' response.
Something like.
Ah here comes the white space guy with the integrity of dog sh!T.
He's sucking off EO again.
What a party these two are having.
Why do I have to prove that ALL those qualified in the elite world of economic theorizing totally concur with ALL that I'm saying. There is no dissent from any source. ( Don't for god's sake mention ignoramuses like Paul Krugman and many others - they're only fluff media hack academics who fluked a Nobel prize or two).

Hell I'm not even saying that Menelaus is wrong in what he is forecasting ( and neither in fact is EO saying that).
I am merely exercising my perfect right not to agree with his points of view unreservedly.
I don't have to justify that in any manner at all, as I am not asking any others to join me in this position.
Menelaus finds that unbearable for some reason .
He takes it as a personal insult to his towering intellect, and in fact it isn't that at all.
It simply just one person who, for good or bad, has decided that he has not stumbled fortuitously upon the font of all economic wisdom ( that is Menelaus) and has decided to cover his bets by following ( in part at least) contrary advice he is getting from a few other, well wqualified, well credentialled sources ( and no I don't have to name them either on what is after all a gambling website).

The bottom line of all my long winded posts is that I'm simply not going to put as much as 75 % of all my net worth into non interest bearing gold bars, and then sit around twiddling my thumbs praying and hoping every day for the world to collapse in a heap to prove my investment decision right.
How sick would that be really ?
Yet that is essentially what Menelaus has done, except that he isn't sitting around twiddling his thumbs, he is putting them to great use in accompanying his fingers on a keyboard posting furiously ( all over the place who knows ?) and giving public lectures to ramp up his vested interests in the price of gold. But he has declared them openly, so I suppose that is not a fair criticism, even if true.
But he's out there as a declared gold bug, and evrything he says has to be viewed in that context.

He doesn't seem a well man. Stress can unhinge even the most grounded of individuals.

By the way just for the manic mouth I do have a response to your question:

I know you have asked several times about my personal circumstances but firstly why would I tell you when you consider me to be a psychopath? The last time I did that and told you I objected to you characterising me as disabled because my wife is disabled you just kept on anyway. Secondly, some of us consider it gauche to go bragging about what we have or don't have in relation to others but I will say that I've ordered my affairs in recent years not a million miles from how you see things.

At least we know one thing for sure, that his PSYOPs education
hasn't helped him that much.

How can it? He simply refuses to be budged from his belief that we are one and the same along with carlos. Would you put anybody that intransigent in charge of running a bath?

Okay Melly. You've been a very good boy. Get your boots. Feel free to disagree with my opinions given to Fine As.

I wonder how long it will take you to figure out that sniffing my balls everyday on here is a dead end road.

Thanks for responding. Good boy.

In answer to the original question. Feck all chance.

Thank me in 2013.

Well I finally finished the book 'When Money Dies' by Adam Fergusson and a blooming good read it is too. If you're interested in hyperinflation, then please read it too, the level of detail of the Weimar monetary chaos is amazing. I'd like to thank the chap on here who recommended it, although he's surely far too modest to want mentioning by name, smiles.

Some of what happened to Germany in the early 1920s is unlikely to be replicated - reparations and being invaded unopposed by France in 1923 for example.
But much of what happened could still be repeated today.

A few examples in terms of how people behaved and thought:

Prices were believed to be rising by the general public - no they weren't, not really. Prices stayed the same, it was the money that was losing value. It's hard to expose the fallacy that inflation means that prices are rising ( it's so obvious as the number on the label gets higher, but that's because it takes more of the paper money to buy the same item because the money is worth less ). 

During the high inflation of 1920-21-22, unemployment was negligible, there were even labour shortages and this was considered a good thing. This relationship between high inflation and low unemployment wasn't really well explained, which would be my only criticism of the book, but it was real enough, and when neigbouring Austria stopped their hyperinflationary rot and unemployment there soared, it worried the Germans a little, so printing money continued as a way of financing public expenditure.

But worst was the general moral decline, dishonesty, and willingness to blame everything and anyone except the actual causes. Inflation was so high after WW1 that people delayed paying their taxes as long as possible and why not, people went on strike frequently for higher pay ( no problem, we'll borrow some worthless money from the central bank to meet your pay request ), people blamed foreigners, barterers, shops that opened for a couple of hours a day, hoarders of foreign currency, farmers/peasants who had goods of relatively fixed value to trade, gluttons, Jews, currency speculators, and especially foreigners who could actually come and buy things the locals couldn't. Nationalism took off.

Overall, a slow read but also a very good one.

Hyperinflation, or inflation or watever we intend to discuss all realy means the same thing IMO.

Well it's all about opinions, wat does inflation realy mean.

Does it mean prices rise. Bongo nails it on the head. No.

Inflation = money is

Losing it's value.

So wat does hyperinflation mean.

IMO In short it means, a certain rate or % effects different countries in different ways.

Eg if inflation rises by say 15% in India over a 3 month period, it would not effect the people in that country all that much.

Now if it were to happen in the uk I think it would be kind of devastating.


Does any1 else agree, or am I mental

Carlos Monzon

I agree with you that the difference between inflation and hyperinflation is academic and it actually means nothing.

I would actually contend that we need very high inflations in the UK economy in order to erode our currently excessive private and increasing public debt. That can be done by simply printing a few trillions and debasing the Sterling.

For the high inflation I am advocating not to be devastating to most people we need to peg all wages and benefits in line with the monthly inflation rate computed by the ONS and the government and companies should not try to reduce it in the first 3-5 years so that people can easily repay their old debts with increased incomes thanks to inflation.

Banks will be instructed to freeze all their old debt at the current low rates to enable us repay them and only new credit will be charged at the prevailing interest/inflation rates.

The banks have lent us so recklessly that our total debt to GDP stood at over 500% according to McKinsey by mid 2011!!! Those financial institutions deserve to take the pill for their irresponsible behaviour.

It is simply unacceptable to allow the banks hold assets worth 3/4 times our GDP when logically they should not hold even half!!!

anyone want to give me sensible odds (with a numerical lower bound for hyperinflation) for 2013, 2014 and 2015?

Zero

The government's spending pace in 2013 has been $13.3 billion a day while tax receipts have averaged $10.8 billion, according to Capital Economics. That leaves a daily shortfall of $2.5 billion.

Treasury will have to start dipping into the nearly $36.5 billion in reserves it is holding to cover that shortfall, meaning the government can still run for about 14 more days. That, though, is probably too optimistic an outlook.

"Because tax revenues fluctuate and spending obligations are not spread out evenly, the Treasury is likely to exhaust its reserves before then," Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital, said in a report.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101113997

on target

so when can we expect this hyperinflation to set in?

February 29th

All the hoarders are going to have to start eating the 1500 tins of emergency chic peas soon.

Jesus H Christ, I don't think that even if I'd had the best parents ( and they were damned good ) and the best education at Eton and Cambridge and MIT that money can buy, that I could have predicted this back in say 2007:

"Germany sold five-year notes at an average yield of minus 0.08 percent on Wednesday, a euro-area record, meaning investors buying the securities will get less back than they paid when the debt matures in April 2020. "

This comes from ( . http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-28/euro-area-negative-yield-b... ) and it might make sense for the people buying these bonds only because the estimated cost of keeping large amounts of cash is slightly lower than that ( estimates of 0.5% have been made ) and that Germany is a huge net exporter and therefore a safe place in money terms. And Germany is also safe from wars which is the worst thing for free trade.
"Hey Mr Putin, you want to keep buying our technology and machines that produce the tunnels and the ticketing system for the StP Metro that will connect thousands to the Kirov Stadion for the 2018 World Cup, then don't mess with us judo boy."
That's the clout you have if you are the one with effectively no weapons, but you have the brains and the technology and the machines. Well played Mademoiselle Merkel, you know you get me hard.

If you predicted or even just guessed 8 years ago that people would give money to Germany in this way at -ve rates which means you are openly taking a loss, give yourself a massive pat on the back. In the context of after-timing we all say, ahh it sort of makes some sense, but in the context of Nov 2007 when the recession officially started depending on who you read, you would have to say that this is unbe****gbelievable.