“It’s Inflation All The Way, Baby!”

The title’s quote is one of many eminently quotable messages I had the pleasure of receiving over a few years of contact with a late, great and a very interesting man* named Jonathan Auerbach, who headed a unique specialty (emerging and frontier markets) brokerage in NYC called Auerbach Grayson.

Jon was an honest and ethical man.  He was also a gold bug (in that descriptor’s highest form) who innately understood the Kabuki Dance that has been ongoing by monetary authorities since the ‘Age of Inflation on Demand‘ (what guest poster Bruno de Landevoisin calls the Monetized New Millenium) started its most intense and bald faced phase in 2000.

Yesterday the minutes were released from the last (FOMC) meeting of official interest rate manipulators and surprise surprise, they are found to be hand wringing about the strong dollar.  A strong dollar is going to take direct aim at US manufacturing among other exporting businesses, after all.

“Over the intermeeting period, the foreign exchange value of the dollar had appreciated, particularly against the euro, the yen, and the pound sterling. Some participants expressed concern that the persistent shortfall of economic growth and inflation in the euro area could lead to a further appreciation of the dollar and have adverse effects on the U.S. external sector.”

And the money line…

“At the same time, a couple of participants pointed out that the appreciation of the dollar might also tend to slow the gradual increase in inflation toward the FOMC’s 2 percent goal.”

In an inflated construct (cue the chart for what seems like the 1000th time), there is no way out other than inflation “all the way”.

So while we twittle our charts and manage markets in the here and now as if we are conventional market participants, we (well I, anyway) are anything but that.  What I do is have some fun along the way with graphical representations of the falseness that is the underpinning of the Age of Inflation on Demand; and the humor too.  Every time the Fed rolls over on making real and sound policy and/or speaks out of both sides of its mouth the reaction is either comical or sad, depending on how you look at it.  I choose both, it’s comical and sad…