US data mixed; Honda & Nissan to merge; South Korea overtakes Japan in per capita GDP; China wants economists fired who don't talk positively; UST 10yr at 4.58%; gold and oil down; NZ$1 = 56.5 USc; TWI = 67

Import of such as , shoes, clothing, pots & pans all the  sorts of consumer essentials which once upon a time local industry did largely manufacture. Of course the raw material for that was needed to be imported anyway. I recall wearing to work Lichfield shirts which lasted for years. My son in law, now in the same sort of office work, wouldn’t think to keep wearing a shirt for more than a year, even if it lasted that long.

Advisor,

"To be fair, the annual value of our exports have doubled in the last two decades". 

Despite that, the ratio of exports to GDP has been falling since 2000. the peak was 35.75% in 2000 and in 2022 was 24.40%. This puts us at 121st out of 160 countries. if we look at the OECD, their average in 2022 was 63.93%, having risen steadily from 26.34% in 1970. Sources: Global Economy.com and the OECD Library.

All 3 of those things more likely than not lead to GDP growth.

Although it sounds like the person telling you the information is more important than the actual information.

"They're both ignorantly-framed questions. "

Your opinion is noted. They are lifted from a set of survey questions given to graduates to garner whether the grads had an understanding of the most commonly mentioned economic terms. The results were enlightening, and disappointing, as very few could answer succinctly, or accurately, or reference the assumptions (e.g. conventional wisdoms) they used in their answers, in this case GDP. As you'd expect, economics grads did best. But close behind them were engineering grads. Sadly, science grads were quite a way down the list, as were doctors, lawyers and dentists. (There were answer like yours, too.) They didn't have access to google or an A.I., unlike the only other person to attempt an answer.

"Money is ultimately underwritten by energy, via work-done."

No. Money is ultimately underwritten by people's confidence in a currency.

There's a very simple proof for that: Bitcoin. Billions of kilojoules of energy have been consumed (wasted?) creating the coins. Can this energy ever be recovered? No. So what is its 'value'? It has value based upon people's confidence alone. Without that confidence, misplaced or well placed, it has no value in and of itself. No different to any other currency in that regard.

"And the overhang can be nothing but irreconcilable debt."

Again, wrong. History is awash with 'debt' that has become worthless as the currency the debt is held in has become worthless.

But because the debt is secured over some asset, the only thing of value that remains when a currency becomes worthless is that asset. (At this point it is worth mentioning that assets go up and down in value all the time. And yes, energy is one component that makes up how the asset is valued. But it is far from the only one as you constantly assert.) Thus, the underlying asset provides the value which can be measured in another currency, or even compared to another asset should a bartering system be used instead of a currency.

I expect you'll immediately claim that it's value is related to the energy either contained in that asset (I refer you to the Bitcoin proof), the energy needed to recreate the asset (Bitcoin proof again), or the energy that can be extracted from that asset. And once again, you'd be wrong. It will only be worth what the highest bidder will pay for it. (Worth pointing out here that the generic 'energy' you love to use comes in many forms and the relative value of each kind moves around a lot.) And once again, it comes down to people's confidence that they can extract some 'utility' from the asset that justifies what they have 'forgone' to purchase it.

There's absolutely nothing grey in the economic benefits NZ derived by building hydro-dams and cheap electricity that flowed from those projects.

There's recently been a release of years of internal docs from the Dems/white house citing issues getting Biden on point. Meetings cancelled and deferred based on whether he was having a good or bad day, heavily scripted public interactions because he's incapable of on the fly comms, and a requisite to keep briefings and meetings short to coincide with his attention span.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/biden-white-house-age-function-diminished-…

Yes but same-same, as there is a strong obligation to do so. For sure, the consequences of not fulfilling the obligation are starkly different!

:-) and it still hasn't sunk in has it, Chris?



I repeat - the vast majority of the MS comes from banks writing up loans out of thin air and the remainder in effect comes from coinage/bank-notes and QE, with a much smaller amount coming from fiscal injections into the economy via the Treasury - which once again is massively influenced by Wall Street and the best Congress representatives that money can buy. 



#1 In 1913, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, establishing this nation's Federal Reserve System. This Act authorized the Federal Reserve Banks to issue Federal Reserve Bank notes. In 1914, the Federal Reserve Banks began issuing Federal Reserve notes - the only currency still being manufactured today by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.



And who owns the Fed Chris?



Yes, 100% of the shares are owned by the private banking cartel. In the case of the New York Fed, the principal global money spigot, around 75% of the shares are owned by just two megabanks - Citigroup and JPMC. 



#2 QE is a form of monetary policy used by central banks to increase MS. This is done by the Fed (that's the 100% privately owned one) purchasing T-bonds and other financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and in doing so, injecting bank reserves into the economy. In the U$, the Fed implements QE policy.



In terms of fiscal policy, the government can influence the MS via the U$ Treasury Dept which sends money directly, or indirectly into the economy.



The value of the M1 money supply in the U.S. amounted to 18.1 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023, which was a slight decrease compared to the previous year.



While between 2000 and 2019, the M1 money supply increased at a slow pace, there was an exceptionally sharp increase in 2020, which was the result of the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing in response to the COVID-19 plandemic (yet another rich man's trick).



The sharpest increase took place in May 2020, (the plandemic response) when the M1 money supply was increased from 4.8 to 16.2 trillion U.S. dollars.



The debt-trap debacle carried on from the 2008 GFC...



https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/10/the-new-york-fed-pumping-out-mor…



... quoted...



"The New York Fed was in charge of almost all of the secret $29 trillion in bailouts during the 2007 to 2010 financial crisis. Congress never approved these loans or was even aware of where the money was going. After the Fed lost a multi-year court battle to keep its bailouts a dark secret from the American people, we learned that Morgan Stanley was one of the largest recipients, receiving a cumulative total of $2.04 trillion according to the audit conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Buried deep in the GAO audit is this bombshell:

“Morgan Stanley funds include TALF borrowing by funds managed by FrontPoint LLC, which was owned by Morgan Stanley at the time TALF operated.”

TALF was one of the Fed’s bailout programs. Which means the Fed was subsidizing FrontPoint with super cheap funding as it was shorting the hell out of the very banks that the Fed was desperately attempting to prop up with trillions of dollars in secret loans.

How viable was Morgan Stanley at the time the Fed was flooding it with emergency lending? According to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report, both Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley had reached leverage ratios of 40:1 by the end of 2007 – “meaning for every $40 in assets, there was only $1 in capital to cover losses. Less than a 3% drop in asset values could wipe out a firm.”



..................................



"Since the Fed’s inception in 1913, the statutory role of the Federal Reserve has been to serve as lender of last resort to commercial banks – so that those commercial banks could help the overall economy by making sound business and consumer loans.



The statutory role of the Fed has never been to be a lender of last resort to the trading houses on Wall Street or hedge funds. But beginning with the 2007 to 2010 financial crisis, the New York Fed has simply arbitrarily decided to provide an unlimited money spigot to Wall Street’s trading houses whenever they are at risk of blowing themselves up as a result of their own hubris.

To say that Congress has been negligent in reining in this abuse barely captures the reckless irresponsibility of what the New York Fed has been allowed to continue to do with barely a whimper from Congress or mainstream media."



https://wallstreetonparade.com/2019/11/these-are-the-banks-that-own-the…