Re <<the Fed might just up the ante by moving from QE to Yield Curve Control>> (“YCC”)
(1) I am guessing that at each juncture the authorities shall do the best decipher they deem for that juncture, and best-decide cohort after cohort to hurt-land, all caught wrong-footed or paralyzed, running around or still.
If we can conceive of YCC, they will do it, but only after another batch of folks are caught and hurt.
The nature of the game is last-survivor-standing-then-fell.
Just a guess.
(2) Looking at the prerogative of the rulers, everything is simple and simply clear, to maintain rule of the ruled. The instruments at disposal are plenty, and few, then fewer, and then very much fewer survive. The idea is to maintain rule at the cost of mobilizing savings at all levels from everybody in order to save everybody, except the liberated who was doing fine until freed of savings, then separated from reserves. We usually call such events pre-, proto-, color-, and finally kinetic revolution. Been there, and take my word for it, unpleasant, albeit for the Greater-Good (“GG”)
(3) Asset classes?
From the most to the least liquid, a convenient parameter, for that which sports dwindling liquidity shall be irrelevant and wilt:
(3-i) Cash - accelerating dilution, but at times slower than other assets, and other junctures step-function fast, for GG
(3-ii) Au / Ag / Pt / Pd - very few physical ounces available for 3 of the 4, all difficult to store and move when in sufficient quantity, and either controlled by paper ounces or constrained by liquidity trap, and at times punishingly work done by way of paper metals
(3-iii) Bonds - effectively no yield especially relative to liquidity / solvency risks, and suffers same affliction as that of cash, with added insult of sure to happen jubilee, for GG
(3-iv) Stocks - pumped until all herded, in local currencies term, everywhere, to Zimbabwe-point, then bad things happen, because it will have already happened once the herding is done, when measured in inflation-adjusted terms, for GG
(3-v) Farm land / residential / commercial / whatever - all taxable addresses, and all require the protection of the dying laws. We saw what happened to California and NYC landlords. “Landlord” at certain junctures of history is a pejorative term, labeled on people meant to be soft- or hard- off-ed, because it is okay, for GG
(3-vi) Arts / collectibles - all require guarding, and almost all difficult to unload when the needful required, and nothing moves in any hurry, unless the piece can be re-processed to its constituent raw material. Canvass would not cut it.
(4) To make it across the Darkest Interregnum, some modicum of astuteness might help, and key word is “might”. Agility of financial and physical mobility, within and across nations would not hinder survival. The fellow in California got to be able to migrate to Florida, and if necessary, again to Tennessee. Anything tying the fellow to California would not be helpful, be that some fellowette(s) or real estate, or worst of all possible, senior parents requiring help.
(5) Two strange asset classes not mentioned -
(5-i) Education / skills / personalities - very important, but already formed for the asset holders of such, and not easy to trade for another set
(5-ii) Bitcoins - a great unknown - it is arguably valuable and certainly sports a ask / bid, in demand, very mobile, not easy to dilute except by going further to the right after the decimal, not easy to off - not even as easy as off-ing gold. But a true store of value during truly hard times?
Should it prove its claim, $500K here we go, and if BTC cannot reach 500K it likely meets Mr. -0- in head-on collision, and become subjects in many books.
(6) We are in human trial against a fiat money pandemic, every one in, all all-in, very few shall make it, no opt-outs. The disease melts our assets, increases our liabilities, and leaves our needs in place.
On 3, 2, ... oops, wrong, the game already started, and many already kneecapped. Play on. |
