Page added on December 25, 2005
Over the past two days, December 21st – when our first Hindenburg Omen (of whatever cluster is coming) – and Thursday December 22nd, the Federal Reserve has conducted one of the largest two-day Repo injections of money into the system since back in September 2001. On Wednesday they added $18.0 billion in reserves and on Thursday they added another $20.0 billion. Is this a coincidence, coming right as we get another Hindenburg Omen? Probably not. Is something high-risk going on behind the scenes here? Let’s review some facts at the Fed. On November 10th, 2005, shortly after appointing Bernanke to replace Greenbackspan, the Fed mysteriously announced with little comment and no palatable justification that they will hide M-3 effective March 2006. M-3 has been the main staple of money supply measurement and transparent disclosure since the Fed was founded back in 1913. It is the key monetary aggregate that includes Fed Repo transactions, that mechanism whereby the Fed increases reserves. The date when M-3 will start being hidden also happens to be the exact month that Iran will declare economic war against the U.S. Dollar by trading its oil in Petro-Euros on its new bourse. But there is more. The Federal Reserve currently has three vacancies within the 19 top Regional Bank and Board of Governor spots. Why? Part of ongoing wholesale resignations.
The latest is from the Philly Fed. Fed President and Open Market Committee member Anthony Santomero has announced his resignation after only a brief year and a half tenure. Very unusual. Hey, Fed Presidents are treated like gods. They have enormous power, prestige, and presence. Why quit? He is far from alone. Over the past few years no less than six Federal Reserve Regional Bank Presidents have resigned. This is highly unusual.
An immediate impact is that we are about to have a largely inexperienced batch of individuals conducting monetary policy in the United States. So of course, the first thing they will do is hide the key money figures. Two positions for the Board of Governors (there are 7)have been open for quite a while. Plus six of the 12 Regional Head spots have turned over during the past few years.
If a substantial amount of oil transactions will suddenly be conducted in Euros instead of Dollars, this should put pressure on the Dollar as folks exchange Dollars for Euros, jeopardizing the Dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, making it more difficult to print all the dollars the Fed wants to without driving the Dollar into the ground. Iraq threatened to do what Iran has threatened to do just before we went in looking for weapons of mass disappearance. If the Dollar tanks, Treasuries might not be far behind. If Treasuries tank, kiss the Housing-driven boom goodbye. Could the Master Planners be hiding M-3 because they anticipate they may have to monetize the Federal debt, buy our own Treasury Bonds during the coming economic attack against the Dollar? That would require a ton of new fresh money creation – too much to disclose. Could it be some folks at the top of the Fed do not have the stomach to be part of what is about to go down?
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