The Floundering of QE 2

Down With the Ship? 
By MIKE WHITNEY

Was Friday's job's report the final nail in the coffin for QE2? 

It should be. After all, how is Fed chairman Ben Bernanke going to convince people that his bond purchasing program is working when payrolls rose by a measly 54,000 and the unemployment rate climbed back to 9.1 percent? It'll take a lot more than fast-talk to sell that load of horse-manure. The truth is, QE2 has been a total bust and the BLS's report is just the icing on the cake. Just look at the data; it's as grim as anything we've seen in the last two years. Here's a clip from an article titled "Disastrous US jobs report points to deepening slump" that will give the reader some idea of how bad things really are:

"The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a liberal Washington think tank, explained Friday that the official unemployment figure masked an even grimmer reality. It pointed out that the labor force participation rate remained at its lowest point of the recession and that the labor force in May was smaller than it was a year ago, by about 500,000 workers, even though the working-age population grew by 1.9 million in that period.

"Consequently," it noted, "the proportion of the population that is in the labor force is now 0.7 percentage points below where it was a year ago. If the labor force participation rate had held steady over the last year, there would be roughly 1.8 million more workers in the labor force right now. Instead, they are on the sideline. If these workers were in the labor force and were counted among the unemployed, the unemployment rate would be 10.1 percent right now instead of 9.1 percent. In other words, the improvement in the unemployment rate over the last year (from 9.6 percent to 9.1 percent) is due to would-be workers deciding to sit out the economic storm". ("Disastrous US jobs report points to deepening slump", World Socialist Website)

So, the only reason the stats look as good as they do (which isn't very good at all) is because people are throwing in the towel and calling it "quits" altogether. So much for the American dream, eh?

And there's an interesting twist to the BLS report that readers may not have noticed. The reason the jobs picture is so bleak, is because the "austerity crazed" government has been laying people off while the economy is still struggling which is making things even worse. This is from the Streetlight blog:

"The government sector of the economy continued to make the jobs picture worse. May was the seventh month in a row during which government layoffs undid some of the work of the private sector in creating jobs. Since January 2009, government employment has shrunk in 21 of 29 months -- and without temporary hiring for the Census, it would probably have shrunk in 25 of the last 29 months.

This steady reduction in government employment is a form of contractionary fiscal policy.....If government employment were simply keeping up with population growth in the US, we would expect to see about 17 to 18 thousand more state and local government jobs each month. Instead employment has shrunk by an average of 15 thousand jobs per month since the start of 2009....

In other words, in the absence of the sharp cutbacks in government spending that have been prevalent in the US over the past year or two, about 1.3 million additional people would be working now compared to 8 months ago, rather than the actual job growth we've experienced over that time of about 1 million - a 30% difference. That's a pretty tough headwind to fight, especially for an economy that's already struggling." ("Contractionary Fiscal Policy and the US Job Market", The Streetlight blog)

So, if the government hadn't been foolishly slashing jobs in the middle of a Depression, 1.3 million more people would still be working today. How's that for shooting yourself in the foot? Remember, the easiest way to prime the pump is to make sure that people aren't fired during a slump. That's Rule #1. But, of course, the deficit hawks have already won that scrimmage, so it's probably pointless to even talk about it. 

And this isn't just about employment either; it's about distribution, too. As economist David Rosenberg points out in a recent post at Zero Hedge "the labor share of national income has fallen to its lowest level in modern history - down to 57.5% in the first quarter from 57.6% in the fourth quarter of last year, 57.8% a year ago, and 59.8% when the recovery began." 

What does that mean? It means all the gains in productivity are going to the fatcats in the front office while workers are scraping by on fewer and fewer crumbs. It means working people are getting reamed again bigtime.

But, then, Bernanke promises to level the playing field with QE2, right? Everyone who wants a job will be able to find one and it'll be Happytime in America again. At least, that's what he intimated in his op-ed in the Washington Post before the program kicked off in November. Here's an excerpt:

"The Federal Reserve's objectives ---- are to promote a high level of employment and low, stable inflation.....Low and falling inflation indicate that the economy has considerable spare capacity, implying that there is scope for monetary policy to support further gains in employment without risking economic overheating.....the Federal Reserve has a particular obligation to help promote increased employment..... Steps taken this week should help us fulfill that obligation." ("What the Fed did and why: supporting the recovery and sustaining price stability", Ben Bernanke, Washington Post)

So, has QE2 lowered unemployment?

Nope.

Reduced spare capacity? 

Not much.

Increased inflation?

Slightly. 

So, it was all baloney; QE2 didn't really do anything except send gas and food prices skyrocketing. (which has further crimped consumption) 

But that's not how Bernanke sees it. According to him the program has worked spectacularly. Here's the Fed chief crowing about the miraculous effects of QE2:

"Equity prices have risen significantly, volatility in the equity market has fallen, corporate bond spreads have narrowed, and inflation compensation ...has risen to historically more normal levels." (Bloomberg)

Yipee. Another freebie for the investor class! And we're supposed to be grateful for that? What about the jobs you promised? What about stimulating the economy and putting people back to work? Wasn't that how you sold QE2 to the American people in your op-ed, Mr. Bernanke? 

It was all lies. Every word of it. Here's how Cullen Roche sums it up over at Pragmatic Capitalism:

"QE2 didn't monetize anything. It didn't cause the money supply to explode. It didn't really do anything except cause a great deal of confusion and generate an enormous amount of speculation in financial markets that now appears to be contributing to turmoil and strife around the globe......

Where we saw a real impact was in commodity prices, general price speculation and the financing pyramid.....Rates have meandered up and down and up and down without a care in the world for the Fed's $600B purchase program. In other words, the program had no impact on rates." ("The QE3 conundrum", Pragmatic Capitalism)

QE2 has been a total flop. The rise in stock prices was a reaction to the temporary increase in corporate earnings which fueled investor optimism. That was a one-time deal caused by trimming expenses and laying off workers. Now production costs are rising at the worst possible time, when all the other economic indicators are beginning to sag. Current data shows weakness throughout the economy, which is why stocks are falling. Expect the worst.

Bad ideas have a way of outlasting their shelf-life. (Especially when people in positions of power have ulterior motives.) Quantitative easing should be put to rest once and for all. It hasn't lowered interest rates, increased GDP, boosted employment, or sparked another credit expansion. The plan has failed. Time to move on.

World Bank: Food prices at "dangerous levels"

by Christopher Leonard, Ap Agribusiness Writer – Tue Feb 15, 4:39 pm ET

ST. LOUIS – Global food prices have hit "dangerous levels" that could contribute to political instability, push millions of people into poverty and raise the cost of groceries, according to a new report from the World Bank.

The bank released a report Tuesday that said global food prices have jumped 29 percent in the past year, and are just 3 percent below the all-time peak hit in 2008. Bank President Robert Zoellick said the rising prices have hit people hardest in the developing world because they spend as much as half their income on food.

"Food prices are the key and major challenge facing many developing countries today," Zoellick said. The World Bank estimates higher prices for corn, wheat and oil have pushed 44 million people into extreme poverty since last June.

The report comes a day before Finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of 20 leading economies meet in Paris. Zoellick said he's worried some countries might react to food inflation by banning exports or implementing price controls, which would just aggravate the problem.

The World Bank's food price index rose by 15 percent between October and January alone. The increase has been driven by volatile global trading in wheat, corn and soybeans. Global corn futures more than doubled since this summer, from $3.50 to $7 a bushel, in part because of higher demand from developing countries and a growing biofuels industry.

Prices are rising in part because global grain traders have gotten jittery about historically low reserve levels of corn, wheat and soybeans, said Chris Nagel, an analyst with Northstar Commodity in Minneapolis. Growing demand from customers in China and elsewhere is putting pressure on the supply of most commodities, he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicted last week U.S. corn farmers will have just 675 million bushels of corn at the end of August, before next year's harvest begins. That's just an 18-day supply, Nagel said.

The slim reserves mean traders will likely bid up crop prices further at any weather event that reduces next year's planting.

"We need to get good crops, all around the world, in all of these commodities," Nagel said. "You just don't have much foot room for error.

The global price of fats and oils rose 22 percent and wheat rose 20 percent between October and January, according to the World Bank. The prices of sugar rose by 20 percent in that time.

Industrialized nations like the United States are insulated from the price increases because raw ingredients account for just a fraction of the total food costs. But in many developing counties, prices get transmitted more drastically.

Between June and December, wheat prices climbed 54 percent in Kyrgyzstan, 45 percent in Bangladesh and 16 percent in Pakistan, for example.

Zoellick warned that higher prices could stoke political instability in countries like Egypt and Tunisia. Both countries are big wheat importers and higher grain costs could aggravate social unrest as the countries form new regimes, he said.

"That's where the international system needs to try to be aware of these issues, and try to do things at a minimum not to exacerbate food prices," he said.

The Future of Food Riots

Monday, January 10, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
by Gwynne Dyer

If all the food in the world were shared out evenly, there would be enough to go around. That has been true for centuries now: if food was scarce, the problem was that it wasn't in the right place, but there was no global shortage. However, that will not be true much longer.

The food riots began in Algeria more than a week ago, and they are going to spread. During the last global food shortage, in 2008, there was serious rioting in Mexico, Indonesia, and Egypt. We may expect to see that again this time, only bigger and more widespread.

Most people in these countries live in a cash economy, and a large proportion live in cities. They buy their food, they don't grow it. That makes them very vulnerable, because they have to eat almost as much as people in rich countries do, but their incomes are much lower.

The poor, urban multitudes in these countries (including China and India) spend up to half of their entire income on food, compared to only about ten percent in the rich countries. When food prices soar, these people quickly find that they simply lack the money to go on feeding themselves and their children properly - and food prices now are at an all-time high.

"We are entering a danger territory," said Abdolreza Abbassian, chief economist at the Food and Agriculture Organisation, on 5 January. The price of a basket of cereals, oils, dairy, meat and sugar that reflects global consumption patterns has risen steadily for six months, and has just broken through the previous record, set during the last food panic in June, 2008.

"There is still room for prices to go up much higher," Abbassian added, "if for example the dry conditions in Argentina become a drought, and if we start having problems with winter kill in the northern hemisphere for the wheat crops." After the loss of at least a third of the Russian and Ukrainina grain crop in last summer's heat wave and the devastating floods in Australia and Pakistan, there's no margin for error left .

It was Russia and India banning grain exports in order to keep domestic prices down that set the food prices on the international market soaring. Most countries cannot insulate themselves from this global price rise, because they depend on imports for a lot of domestic consumption. But that means that a lot of their population cannot buy enough food for their families, so they go hungry. Then they get angry, and the riots start.

Is this food emergency a result of global warming? Maybe, but all these droughts, heat waves and floods could also just be a run of really bad luck. What is nearly certain is that the warming will continue, and that in the future there will be many more weather disasters due to climate change. Food production is going to take a big hit.

Global food prices are already spiking whenever there are a few local crop failures, because the supply barely meets demand even now. As the big emerging economies grow, Chinese and Indian and Indonesian citizens eat more meat, which places a great strain on grain supplies. Moreover, world population is now passing through seven billion, on its way to nine billion by 2050. We will need a lot more food than we used to.

Some short-term fixes are possible. If the US government ended the subsidies for growing maize (corn) for "bio-fuels", it would return about a quarter of US crop land to food production. If people ate a little less meat, if more African land was brought into production, if more food was eaten and less was thrown away, then maybe we could buy ourselves another fifteen or twenty years before demand really outstripped supply.

On the other hand, about a third of all the irrigated land in the world depends on pumping groundwater up from aquifers that are rapidly depleting. When the flow of irrigation water stops, the yield of that highly productive land will drop hugely. Desertification is spreading in many regions, and a large amount of good agricultural land is simply being paved over each year. We have a serious problem here.

Climate change is going to make the situation immeasurably worse. The modest warming that we have experience so far may not be the main cause of the floods, droughts and violent storms that have hurt this year's crops, but the rise in temperature will continue because we cannot find the political will to stop the greenhouse-gas emissions.

The rule of thumb is that we lose about 10 percent of world food production for every rise of one degree C in average global temperature. So the shortages will grow and the price of food will rise inexorably over the years. The riots will return again and again.

In some places the rioting will turn into revolution. In others, the rioters will become refugees and push up against the borders of countries that don't want to let them in. Or maybe we can get the warming under control before it does too much damage. Hold your breath, squeeze your eyes tight shut, and wish for a miracle.

Agricultural Commodity Prices Exploded w/ Price Of Food Rising Substantially In US And World

This Is Starting To Get Very Real
By Michael Snyder - BLN Contributing Writer


Do you believe that you will always be able to run out to Wal-Mart or to the local supermarket and buy massive amounts of inexpensive food?  If so, you might want to think again.  During 2010, agricultural commodity prices have absolutely exploded.  Nearly every single important agricultural commodity has seen a double digit percentage price increase.  In fact, the S&P GSCI Agriculture Index recently surged to a fresh two year high.  Now food producers and retailers are starting to pass those commodity price increases on to consumers.  Today when I went to the supermarket I was absolutely startled by some of the price increases that I witnessed.  On some of the items that I most commonly purchase, prices were up 20 or 30 percent.  So just what in the world is going on here?  Well, it turns out that there was a lot of bad weather around the world this year, so many harvests were worse than projected.  In addition, the growing population of the world has an increasingly voracious appetite for food.  When supply gets tighter as demand continues to go up that means that prices are going to increase.

On a recent article on our sister site entitled "Rampant Inflation In 2011? The Monetary Base Is Exploding, Commodity Prices Are Skyrocketing And The Fed Wants To Print Lots More Money" a reader named Erica left a comment describing the food prices that she is seeing in her area:

Food inflation is real, and it is here. Just yesterday I compared my receipt from a grocery run to prices I have from the same exact store from September 15, 2009. Bacon? Up 52% to $13.69 from $8.99 for 4 lbs. Butter? Up 73% to $9.99 from $5.79 for 4 lbs. Pure vanilla extract up 14% to $6.79 from $5.95. Chopped dried onions up a mere 2% but minced garlic (wet) was up 32%.

These price increases are not a coincidence.  This is happening all over the United States. Food inflation is here and it is not going away any time soon. In fact, food inflation is hitting consumers hard all over the globe this fall:

*According to the United Nations, international wheat prices have soared 60 to 80 percent since July.

*Since the beginning of 2010, the price of bread has gone up 17 percent and the price of meat has gone up 15 percent in European Union countries.

*The inflation rate in Russia rose to 7 percent in September primarily because of rising food costs.

*Turkey’s inflation rate accelerated to 9.2 percent in September, and authorities there are primarily blaming rising food prices for the increase.

*Food riots have already erupted in the poverty-stricken country of Mozambique and the government there is desperately trying to maintain order.

*Food prices have doubled in Afghanistan and authorities are warning that there could be an outbreak of famine unless the nation quickly receives more humanitarian aid.

So is there hope that things are going to get better in the years ahead?

No, not really.

In fact, global demand for food is only going to increase in the years to come. Global demand for meat and poultry is forecasted to increase 25 percent by 2015. Overall, it is being projected that global demand for food will more than double over the next 50 years.

So where in the world will all of that extra food come from?

That is a very good question.

Meanwhile, rising food prices threaten to send a new wave of inflation sweeping across the globe.
Mark O’Byrne, the executive director of GoldCore in Dublin, was recently quoted in Bloomberg as saying that the Federal Reserve "continues to be worried about low inflation, but the rising prices seen in agricultural commodities such as wheat would suggest that they may be looking in the rear-view mirror and should be more concerned about inflation, especially in the medium and long term."

As mentioned earlier, wheat prices have soared 60 to 80 percent this year, but wheat is not the only agricultural commodity that is going up big time.

In a recent article entitled "An Inflationary Cocktail In The Making", Richard Benson listed many of the other agricultural commodities that have spiked in price in 2010:

*Coffee: 45%

*Barley: 32%

*Oranges: 35%

*Beef: 23%

*Pork: 68%

*Salmon: 30%

*Sugar: 24%

So are American families seeing large increases in pay to keep up with all of this food inflation?

No, actually incomes are going down.

Median household income in the United States fell from $51,726 in 2008 to $50,221 in 2009. In fact, of the 52 largest metro areas in the nation, only the city of San Antonio did not see a decline in median household income in 2009. American families are being squeezed like never before, and the last thing that they need is for the price of food to start moving up substantially.

But it isn't just the price of food that is going up.

Health insurance companies across the United States are announcing that health insurance premiums are going to go up substantially this year because of the new health care law.

American consumers can only be stretched so far. Eventually something has got to give.

In fact, we are already seeing more Americans beginning to fall into poverty than ever before.  Today, one out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one anti-poverty program run by the federal government.

Unfortunately, there is every indication that the Federal Reserve wants to make inflation every worse.
It seems like almost every single day now a different official from the Federal Reserve makes public comments about how another round of quantitative easing is going to be necessary in order to stimulate the U.S. economy.

But if the Federal Reserve pumps even more paper money into the financial system isn't that going to put inflationary pressure on the economy?

The price of food is going to continue to go up.