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THAILAND: NOT LETTING A GOOD CRISIS GO TO WASTE

October 13, 2011<br style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Pattaya, Thailand

Parts of Thailand have experienced terrible flooding lately, and much of the country’s production shut down as a result. Thailand makes everything from tire factories to hard disk drive manufacturers to rice… and given the slowdown in the economy, it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Not to worry, though, the government has a plan to fix it. Let me explain:

Thailand’s central bank is sitting on roughly $212 billion in net foreign reserves right now. That’s up 37% from last year and nearly 80% from 2009. Curiously, it all starts with Ben Bernanke.

When Ben Bernanke conjures trillions of new dollars out of thin air for QEx, that money has to end up somewhere… usually the Treasury Department or banks. (you may recall that banks were able to swap their worthless toxic securities for Bernanke’s worthless dollars– a truly bizarre trade…)

As funds make their way into the banking system, money managers often deploy those new dollars overseas to developing markets where the expected rate of return is much higher than in developed economies.

Thailand is one of the largest economies in Asia and is capable of absorbing large capital flows. Neighboring Laos, for example, only has a $6 billion economy. You can’t move $10 billion into Laos without seriously moving the needle. Conversely, Thailand’s GDP is $247 billion, making it more suitable for large investments.

Even with the size of Thailand economy’s, though, the inflow of foreign funds has pressured the Thai baht. As Thailand is an export-oriented economy, nobody here wants a strong baht.

Thailand’s central bank has aggressively fought the baht’s appreciation. Taking a page from Bernanke’s playbook, the bank has suppressed interest rates below the rate of inflation while simultaneously creating billions of new currency units with which to buy all the new US dollars flowing into the country.

This is how the bank ended up with an 80% surge in foreign reserves from 2009– it simply printed new baht to purchase the newly printed dollars.

Thai people are not fooled by this trickery. Unlike brainwashed westerners who believe in their worthless paper, Thai people know that fiat money is a scam. Even the poorest Thais occasionally buy a few grams of gold with whatever savings they can scrap together on expectations of inflation.

They’ve turned out to be right; prices are rising. All of the new money ends up somewhere, and with interest rates below the rate of inflation, businesses, consumers, and banks all have an incentive to constantly redeploy funds.

The real estate sector has been the net beneficiary of this frenzy. Hell, everyone knows it’s a bubble… the government, the developers, and even all but the most dim-witted customers.

Developers are feverishly building as quickly as possible, sacrificing quality for speed, so that they can finish and collect the customer’s money before the bubble bursts. It’s like watching a live game of musical chairs.

Thailand now finds itself between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, the country is faced with rising inflation and a number of bubbles. On the other, it faces a declining economy. Orders from China, Europe, and the US have slowed, and the domestic economy isn’t developed enough to tighten the slack.

Production shutdowns from the recent flooding certainly haven’t helped.

The government’s solution? Print money and put it directly into people’s pockets by overpaying peasant rice farmers.

Under the government’s new plan, local farmers will receive the equivalent of roughly 40% more than the market price for rice. Anyone who slept through high school economics can tell you that price controls don’t work. This is the stuff that feeds inflation, creates shortages, and misallocates production resources.

Needless to say, there are global implications when one of the world’s biggest producers and exporters goes down the path of inflation.

This is exactly what happens when a government with access to cheap credit meets with an opportunity to launch a populist agenda. As President Obama’s former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

Thailand’s flooding is a crisis, no doubt. Populist-driven inflation will be an even greater economic crisis. Make no mistake, when inflation comes home to roost in North America, it will be exported from countries like Thailand.

This is an early sign that Mr. Bernanke is about to get some of those dollars back.

http://www.sovereignman.com/

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M2 looks hot since May when people started the seasonal selling of stocks

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=M2:IND

but M3 increase is not so steep

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/money-supply-charts

so I don't these macro numbers prove the Fed is lying, I think that would take more digging into the details. Commodities have have had a good pull back and seasonal Agriculture rally should be starting so the Jim Roger Ag trade sounds good.

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I thought about Jingthing's repeated calls for " spend spend spend " when I saw part two :giggle:

Well the ostrich tends to believe that which caused the problem can now be the solution.

But it is the time of chickens coming home to roost now.

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Research Center of Thai Military Bank (TMB) predicted that if the current flooding carried on until the end of this year, inflation could rise by 5.1 percent while prices of fresh foods by 11.9 percent, local media reported on Wednesday.My link

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Even with all that money I don't think I envy the likes of Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon one bit as they will need to be looking over their shoulder for the rest of their lives…………

" You know we need our Islamic and Arab brothers to help us with this; what about declaring some fatwas on these guys. Forget about [an Indian-British novelist] Salman Rushdie, what about Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein.

Give us some support. We're desperate over here. These guys are killing us. They're market fundamentalists and terrorists and we're dying. Maybe you could help us. Let's get rid of them" :o

http://presstv.com/detail/204920.html

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Even with all that money I don't think I envy the likes of Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon one bit as they will need to be looking over their shoulder for the rest of their lives…………

" You know we need our Islamic and Arab brothers to help us with this; what about declaring some fatwas on these guys. Forget about [an Indian-British novelist] Salman Rushdie, what about Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein.

Give us some support. We're desperate over here. These guys are killing us. They're market fundamentalists and terrorists and we're dying. Maybe you could help us. Let's get rid of them" :o

http://presstv.com/detail/204920.html

I think fatwas are only declred aginst those persons where Islam doesn't have a possibility in sharing in the profits.

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Does anyone want to bet with me that the Greek people will not accept this? :bah:

Euro zone pushing for tougher policing of Greece

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/18/us-eu-greece-taskforce-idUSTRE79H1GJ20111018

i hope the Greek people don't accept it, let their country go bankrupt, leave the EU, go back to their shitty currency Drachma and pay 35% interest on any domestic and offshore loans for years to come. the EU taxpayers are pissed off financing the dolce vita of ClubMed members who think they can live happily ever after by accumulating debt.

Merkel and Schäuble are attacked by clowns east and west of the Atlantic for not acting, respectively not shelling out the billions and pouring them into the Greek barrel which has no bottom. these clowns are already shitting in their pants because they not only fear but know for sure they will be in for a Tango, a Waltz and last not least a Sirtaki if no solution can be found.

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in a country where consumption represents 70% of GDP this must be a worrying trend? :blink:

Lowes to Close Stores;Gap to Close US Stores, Expand in China; Best Buy to Reduce Square Footage by 10%; Mall Vacancies Record High; Grim Jobs Picture

" Where the Hell are the Jobs Going to Come From?

Housing - no

Financials - no

Government - no (hopefully)

Commercial Real Estate - no

Retail Sales - no "

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/10/lowes-to-close-storesgap-to-close-us.html

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Bank of America Takes Accounting Fraud A Step Further

If you keep your money at Bank of America, you are an idiot. BAC quietly moved $53 trillion in derivatives from its holding company to its subsidiary that holds $1 trillion in customer deposits and is insured by the FDIC. If any part of these derivatives blow up, the Taxpayer will then be on hook for the $1 trillion in deposits.

I said 8 years ago that we would eventually see things go on in this country that blow your mind. This is one of them. Although this kind of move is permitted to a very limited degree by the Federal Reserve Act, there is no way in hell that the loophole was intended to permit $53 trillion of shit to affect FDIC-insured deposits. Of course, the watchdogs who are supposed to prevent this kind of abuse are the same people who benefit from allowing it to occur.

That the BAC upper managment would be so completely devoid of ethics and do something like this is a tragedy. That Bernanke, Geithner and Obama would allow BAC to do this is a testament to the fact that our system is collapsing..

Details from Bloomberg....

BofA Said to Split Regulators Over Moving Merrill Derivatives to Bank Unit

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Bank of America Takes Accounting Fraud A Step Further

If you keep your money at Bank of America, you are an idiot. BAC quietly moved $53 trillion in derivatives from its holding company to its subsidiary that holds $1 trillion in customer deposits and is insured by the FDIC. If any part of these derivatives blow up, the Taxpayer will then be on hook for the $1 trillion in deposits.

I said 8 years ago that we would eventually see things go on in this country that blow your mind. This is one of them. Although this kind of move is permitted to a very limited degree by the Federal Reserve Act, there is no way in hell that the loophole was intended to permit $53 trillion of shit to affect FDIC-insured deposits. Of course, the watchdogs who are supposed to prevent this kind of abuse are the same people who benefit from allowing it to occur.

That the BAC upper managment would be so completely devoid of ethics and do something like this is a tragedy. That Bernanke, Geithner and Obama would allow BAC to do this is a testament to the fact that our system is collapsing..

Details from Bloomberg....

BofA Said to Split Regulators Over Moving Merrill Derivatives to Bank Unit

Hope the FDIC prevails. This is more evidence that the Bernake is dirty. I don't know that there is anything wrong with the valuation of the derivatives but its suspicious and nevertheless improper to burden the taxpayer with the risk of the derivatives which should be outside the scope of an FDIC insured banking function and precluded by their regulations. An after the fact loading of the public backed banking division with that black hole of derivatives (even though the derivatives values may be fair and ultimately profitable as I have seen to evidence to the contrary) needs to be stopped and the banksters slapped silly for doing it.

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