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by Keith Weiner March 2022 from Monetary-Metals Website
Part I The term inflation is used by many people to mean rising consumer prices, regardless of the cause.
Though most are aware of
nonmonetary causes, there is a tendency to scrutinize the quantity
of dollars whenever prices are rising. Milton Friedman famously said
that "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon."
We will address the likely consequences of Ukraine, both on prices in the short term and on the financial system longer-term, below.
Before Covid, we wrote a lot about mandatory useless ingredients. This is when regulators and taxinators force producers to add things to their products, which buyers do not care about (and often do not know about).
There has been a steady march of added useless ingredients over the decades. But, like watching a child grow taller every day, you may not always think about the big change compared to five years ago (or 50 years ago, in the case of useless ingredients).
It would be very difficult to estimate how much useless ingredients have added to the prices of each good.
The same is going on, in the fuel you pump into the car, the tires you drive on, and everything you put in the trunk when you go shopping.
The cost of these useless ingredients is high and rising.
Before Covid, this was the biggest driver of inflation.
Inflation from Trade War
For a few years prior to the virus, another driver began to emerge. Trade war. For us, this is a broader term than just tariffs.
Though, there have been many tariffs added in recent years. Some readers may assume these are targeted at China due to its military threat, but there have been American tariffs imposed on Scotch whiskey, Canadian lumber, and many other things.
Like useless ingredients, the consumer is often unaware of tariffs and how they drive up the price of the 2×4's they buy. So they assume that the cause is simple money printing.
Trade war is not limited to tariffs.
In the wake of President Trump's China policy, every corporate supply chain manager has been forced to rethink the jurisdiction risk of every supplier.
They have been forced to embark on multiyear projects to change the mix of sources, reducing or eliminating suppliers in jurisdictions that are either out of favor today, or at risk to become out of favor tomorrow.
Intel and TSMC are both building additional factories in the US, at a cost of perhaps $100 billion.
This stupendous sum is necessitated by trade war. Pre-Trump, this cost would not have been incurred. In the meantime, something is occurring which would have been inconceivable previously.
There are chronic shortages of computer chips. Also chicken wings, onion rings, and a myriad of other things.
And this leads to a phenomenon that would be curious if it were a simple case of money printing.
Prices are, at once, both lower and higher.
This is what economic dis-coordination looks like.
Wider spreads, with both producers and consumers kept apart by a growing gulf.
Inflation from Lockdown Whiplash
This leads to a third nonmonetary cause of rising prices.
The lockdown and its release have caused a sharp whiplash. It has hit shippers, truckers and warehousers. Shipping costs skyrocketed. Shipping times stretched much longer.
And they became unpredictable...
Businesses have been scrambling ever since, to try to somehow plan and keep generating revenues. Business models are forced to change.
Take car dealerships. In the old model, they had vast inventories on their lots. They could move it, by offering incentives to buyers (and sales staff).
In other words, low unit margins times high volume.
Now, they don't have many cars in inventory. They can sell cars at list price, or higher. But it's low volume times higher margin.
Car dealers previously were limited by the number of buyers they could find. Now they are limited by the number of cars they can obtain.
That's a pretty big change, and not for the better.
Non-Linear and Synergistic Effects on Prices
There can be a non-linear synergistic effect between multiple nonmonetary drivers of higher prices.
For example, the UK passed a law forcing coal- and oil-using industries including power generators, to switch to natural gas. And it also passed a law banning domestic production of natural gas.
The total impact on energy costs, from the combination of both green energy restrictions, is probably much greater than either alone.
And there is another synergistic effect, with another driver. The turmoil in shipping and logistics pinches the UK's supply of natural gas, with a further magnified effect on prices.
And now, in the wake of Ukraine, it is increasingly dubious that,
Speaking of food, Ukraine used to be a big exporter of wheat, accounting for 10-15% of global wheat exports.
Will those exports continue?
Here is a picture of the commercial airplanes in the air, as of Saturday afternoon (Arizona time):
Obviously, there are no planes over Ukraine at the moment. Also Belarus...
There are some over Russia, but not to or from cities in Europe or America.
At the very least, certain routes will become much longer, as the planes are forced to go around.
Ukraine is a fairly large country, and Russia is huge.
Inflation, Who's to Blame?
We can be sure of three things.
On an amusing note, The Economist just sent us this article, asserting that central banks should somehow "ignore soaring energy costs" due to Ukraine, but,
Which means that they recognize that central banks cannot change the growing scarcity caused by war, or the effect which is the rising price of energy.
Which implies that The Economist knows that war is a nonmonetary driver of higher prices.
But The Economist doesn't realize that the other causes of rising prices are also nonmonetary.
Can Russia Enact a Gold Standard?
In Part I above, we discussed how the fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine will lead to inflation, but not in the way most people think.
Here in Part II we discuss the possibility of Russia repudiating the dollar and going on a gold standard.
The Russian central bank reportedly has over 2,000 tonnes of gold.
We have seen three arguments repeated many times, both in finance/economics articles and on social media.
Let's address these in order.
Russia Paying in Gold
The Russian central bank has over 2,000 tonnes of gold, worth around $130B.
Perhaps, but Russian GDP was $1.5T in 2020. Russia imported $247B in 2019. So its imports are nearly double its gold reserves, or to put it the other way,
That is, unless Russia were paid gold for its exports.
This is dubious, as Russia is having to increasingly incentivize buyers of its oil, a vital economic good. Russia is currently being paid about $18 a barrel under the market price. This indicates a lack of appetite for Russian oil.
This is the environment in which we are to suppose that buyers will be so hungry for Russian exports they will pay in gold?!
But there is a deeper issue.
A central bank is in the same position.
Its assets are not available for spending.
Could Russia Impose a Retroactive Gold Standard?
Does Russia have enough gold to declare a gold standard?
First, let's address the question of would they even want to do so.
To begin, a dictator would not want a gold standard. The gold standard is the monetary system of a free market, and Russia is no free market.
Putin orders production as he wills and gives the rights to profiteer to his cronies ("oligarchs"). A dictator does not want a free market in money, as it would work against his purposes.
That minor issue aside, a gold standard cannot be understood in terms of a ratio of gold reserves to currency.
It must be understood as the creation of gold-redeemable credit (including bank notes) by the individual depositors who willingly bring their gold to the banks.
Each deposit creates a gold asset on the bank's balance sheet, and creates a corresponding gold liability to return the metal under the terms of the deposit contract (which is on demand, for a bank note).
It should go without saying, that no rubles exist today which were created by a deposit of gold.
That is, those who best understand China's financial system are fleeing it, even at risk to their lives.
We have little reason to think that Russia's financial system is better than China's. And therefore, little reason to think that non-Russians would send their gold to Russia in exchange for a bank note or bank account.
This leads us to ponder,
It can mean one of two things.
And what is the right price?
Every creditor wants the highest possible price, because it results in the highest amount of gold they would be paid. Every debtor wants the lowest possible price because they can get out of debt for a minimal amount of gold.
Assuming they set a price somehow, then their so called "gold standard" is just a price-fixing scheme. Sooner or later, the market will demand the gold. And when that happens, that is the end.
Every price fixing scheme inevitably fails.
To summarize,
There is a path to a genuine free market in money, i.e.
But that path is not a fiat decree.
The Threat of Foreign De-dollarization
Getting back to the economic sanctions imposed on Russia, the most serious concern is that other countries will see what happened to Russia, and proactively withdraw from the dollar and SWIFT system lest they be removed at a time inconvenient for them (e.g. when they are invading a neighboring country).
We will leave aside that most countries are not planning to invade a neighbor (we hope!)
It has long been understood that the US freezes or seizes any assets of rogue nations they can get, for example, Iran. So, this is nothing new in the calculus of governments.
Further, when a country displays strength, confident that it uses its power righteously, it tends to gain the respect of other countries.
The US is the ultimate example of this.
Leaving this argument aside also, how should one respond to the concern?
It is well-understood (notwithstanding that MMT advocates claim it to be an important new revelation) that if a country borrows in its own currency, then it can always service its debts.
The value of the currency it pays may be dubious, but the ability to pay the number of currency units owed is not in doubt. But most countries are not in a position to borrow their own currencies.
There is an elephant in this room...
Few people want to lend kina to Papua New Guinea. Even a much-larger economy such as Turkey, there is not so great a willingness to lend lira to Turkey.
About half of its debt is denominated in foreign currencies. We would expect the foreign portion to grow as a percentage. The lira has dropped so much - almost 50% in the last year - that anyone outside would think twice about holding lira-denominated assets.
The point is that countries don't borrow dollars (or pounds, etc.) out of ignorance of the dangers.
They do it because that's the only way to get capital investment. Even within Papua New Guinea or Turkey, those with wealth know that they have a choice.
Dollar holdings are ubiquitous, even in stronger countries.
And note that there is no kind of benevolent reciprocity. It is not that Turkish pension fund managers will lend shilling to the Kenyan government in some sort of quid pro quo with Kenyan banks who will lend lira to the Turkish government.
The world does not work that way.
Each is looking to protect its own interests - which does not include incurring the risk that a foreign currency will fall significantly relative to the domestic currency and the dollar.
One wonders how often, when institutional investors buy domestic debt denominated in domestic currency, that they do so under pressure from the domestic government.
Competitors to the Dollar World Reserve Currency
In order to seriously entertain the idea that there will arise an irredeemable fiat currency which replaces the dollar, we would first have to hear which currency could step up.
It won't be a plethora of currencies, as we discussed why the lira or shilling could never work.
In the years following the last financial crisis, there was an expression "the BRICs" meaning,
These countries were believed to be economic powerhouses, that could help pull the world out of a major recession. And some held out hope that their currencies could become reserve currencies.
We think that it's easy to see why it didn't and couldn't happen with the Indian rupee and Brazilian real.
Which leaves Russia's ruble and China's yuan.
Russia and the Ruble
If the picture of Russia unable to sell its oil even as the world desperately craves it, does not debunk the idea of the ruble as any kind of global reserve currency, then nothing will.
Not to mention it has instigated a war of aggression, destroyed the lives and properties of thousands, and has threatened much worse.
It's not clear if or when that would begin to change.
China and the Yuan
This leaves China.
China is run by the same government that ran over the peaceful students reading Thomas Jefferson in Tiananmen Square. With tanks. And shot many in the back, as they fled.
China has strict capital controls, which is an obstacle to adoption of its currency as a reserve, the way a locked two-ton steel door is an obstacle to entering a vault.
Its own people, who presumably know what they can trust their government for, risk their lives to evade their capital controls and acquire dollar-denominated assets.
There is a constant stream of wealthy Chinese businessmen, athletes, and entertainment stars who disappear from view.
And, though we would not call it "communist" today, it still imposes pervasive top-down planning which has created empty buildings and empty cities on a stupefying scale.
The issue is not whether people hate America (many do).
There are two issues.
That leaves bitcoin and gold.
A Bitcoin Standard?
Bitcoin proponents assert that bitcoin is the future of finance.
It's just that bitcoin has yet to show up on the finance field at all. It's a popular speculation, a bet on the price. But it does not finance anything.
No one borrows bitcoin to pay the costs of planting and harvesting a crop, to buy a warehouse, or to build a new factory.
All production of real things in the economy is financed in irredeemable currency.
This is why manufacturers of TVs, operators of copper mines, and farmers of wheat are not keen for bitcoins.
This, by the way, is what supports the value of fiat currencies.
Bitcoin proponents will say that bitcoin can be used for finance.
They can pledge their bitcoin and get a cheap dollar loan. OK, but that is not how farming, copper mining, or flat screen manufacturing works. These producers do not start with enough capital to pay for their production.
And anyways, this is dollar borrowing.
Bitcoin is not being borrowed - it is being pledged as collateral. The way a home buyer is not borrowing the house. He is borrowing dollars to buy the house.
If bitcoin were stable, or at least had a fixed exchange rate with the dollar, then it could be used to finance production.
But that would defeat the whole point.
So bitcoin is not used to finance production.
And cannot be used...
Gold
That leaves gold.
In other words,
Individuals and corporations who understand that earning interest on gold, and thereby compounding their holdings over time, is superior to earning interest on dollars over the long term...
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