Kondratieff Wave

Elliott Wave International’s free report “Discover the Top 100 Safest U.S. Banks” explains the true risk that you may face when a bank fails.

Bank failures still dominate headlines as the number of failing banks continues at an alarming pace in 2011. The odds are that you’ve seen at least one bank failure in your community since the financial crisis hit in 2008. Some economists claim we’re in a recovery, yet hundreds of smaller financial institutions still suffer from the debt crisis that began a few years back.

Money in the Bank: Does It Still Mean “Safe and Sound?”

Consider this May 25 post from author Kalyan Nandy, on the popular Atlanta real estate site CityBiz: 

“Bank failures continue with no end in sight. Last Friday, U.S. regulators closed down three more banks, taking the total number to 43 so far in 2011…Looking back, there were 157 bank failures in 2010, 140 in 2009 and 25 in 2008.

“Issues like rock-bottom home prices, still-high loan defaults and deplorable unemployment levels are nagging troubles for such institutions…

“The number of banks on FDIC’s list of problem institutions shot up to 884 in the fourth quarter of 2010 from 860 in the previous quarter. This is the highest number since the savings and loan crisis in the early 1990s.”

The following excerpt from Elliott Wave International’s free report, Discover the Top 100 Safest U.S. Banks, explains the true risk that you may face when a bank fails.

Why do banks fail? For nearly 200 years, the courts have sanctioned an interpretation of the term “deposits” to mean not funds that you deliver for safekeeping but a loan to your bank. Your bank balance, then, is an IOU from the bank to you, even though there is no loan contract and no required interest payment. Thus, legally speaking, you have a claim on your money deposited in a bank, but practically speaking, you have a claim only on the loans that the bank makes with your money. If a large portion of those loans is tied up or becomes worthless, your money claim is compromised.

A bank failure simply means that the bank has reneged on its promise to pay you back. The bottom line is that your money is only as safe as the bank’s loans. In boom times, banks become imprudent and lend to almost anyone. In busts, they can’t get much of that money back due to widespread defaults. If the bank’s portfolio collapses in value, say, like those of the Savings & Loan institutions in the U.S. in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the bank is broke, and its depositors’ savings are gone…

The U.S. government’s Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation guarantee just makes things far worse, for two reasons. First, it removes a major motivation for banks to be conservative with your money. Depositors feel safe, so who cares what’s going on behind closed doors? Second, did you know that most of the FDIC’s money comes from other banks? This funding scheme makes prudent banks pay to save the imprudent ones, imparting weak banks’ frailty to the strong ones. When the FDIC rescues weak banks by charging healthier ones higher “premiums,” overall bank deposits are depleted, causing the net loan-to-deposit ratio to rise. This result, in turn, means that in times of bank stress, it will take a progressively smaller percentage of depositors to cause unmanageable bank runs.

If banks collapse in great enough quantity, the FDIC will be unable to rescue them all, and the more it charges surviving banks in “premiums,” the more banks it will endanger. Thus, this form of insurance compromises the entire system. Ultimately, the federal government guarantees the FDIC’s deposit insurance, which sounds like a sure thing. But if tax receipts fall, the government will be hard pressed to save a large number of banks with its own diminishing supply of capital. The FDIC calls its sticker “a symbol of confidence,” and that’s exactly what it is.

FED is printing money. They call it “Quantitative Easing” aka QE1, QE2 and so on. Many economists think this expansion of FED balance sheet will create inflation in the near future. But they were saying that back in 2009 too. And two years later we still do not have the promised inflation. Base money supply expanded from 800 billion to almost 3 trillion. Yet we have outright deflation in some sectors such as housing. Yes Oil, Food and other commodities are up, but that seems to be due to demand/supply problems, not a shift in the purchasing power of the currency. US dollar is still at the same bottom levels that it was before the financial crash. So, why is the US dollar not in a free fall?

Club EWI’s Free Independent Investor eBook 2011 (excerpt)
Chapter 1: Quantitative Easing Has Not Brought Back the Old Inflationary Trend
(From Prechter’s January 2011 Elliott Wave Theorist)

While long terms rates are rising, Treasury bill rates are stuck near zero. How is that possible?

During hyperinflation, rates typically rise to double digits per month. Inflationists find it difficult to reconcile the Fed’s massive balance sheet growth over three years beginning in August 2008 with short term rates at zero and long term rates only in the 2-5% range.

Deflationists (that is us) understand why investors are willing to hold government paper at such low returns:  The total supply of debt is contracting. Most bonds won’t survive. The federal government’s bonds will survive the longest.

Figure 10 shows that the total supply of “money” plus debt (all of which is in fact debt) peaked in 2008. This decline in overall money and credit is the first on an annual basis since 1929-1933. It is a big deal.

 This chart explains why gold in 2010 was so much lonelier in making an all-time high than stocks, commodities and real estate were in 2006, when everything was making an all-time high simultaneously: The total money + credit supply is down and cannot support new highs in all markets at once.

The Fed’s QE programs are failing to re-ignite inflation. By mid-2011, the Fed will have monetized just over $2 trillion worth of debt since 2008 to bring the value of its total assets to about $3t. This does represent a huge amount of fiat money. But the overall debt load is $65 trillion. Thus, the Fed will have monetized only 5% of the total, meaning that 95% of the outstanding debt is still suffocating the economy like a giant pool of sludge. …The Fed’s degree of monetization in light of these debts is very small.

For more of Robert Prechter’s insights on the markets, including why QE2 was a major tactical error, why rising oil prices are not bearish for stock, and why earnings don’t drive stock prices, read the rest of this Download your FREE 51-page Independent Investor eBook NOW.

Bernanke is at it again. His printing press is at work to create another 600 billion dollars. Bernanke declared the Economy needs it. The rationale is that if the government has more money coming from the FED, they can spend it and this Keynesian spending can jump start the economy. The assumption is that this will help us avoid a double dip recession. But is it really that easy? Afterall, if printing money was the answer, why do we not simply print it non-stop? Why did we not print it before the 2008 crash? Robert Prechter’s Conquer The Crash reveals whether the Fed really can save the US economy.

Since its creation in 1913, the primary intended role of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank has been that of protector. In theory, the central bank was bestowed with the power to shape monetary policy in a way that would keep both booms and busts in check. The two main tools at its disposal - interest rates and money creation - would provide a “ceiling of normalcy” above expansions AND a “net of safety” below contractions.

To this day, the financial mainstream holds great faith in the Fed’s ability to fulfill its save-the-day duties - as these recent news items make plain:

• “Why Raising Fed Funds Rate Is Positive For Equities.” (Seeking Alpha)
• “Fed’s Moves Lift All Asset Classes.” (Associated Press)
• “US Stocks Erasing Losses: The aggressive moves of the Fed have been an important driver for the stabilization of stock prices.” (Bloomberg)

But of all the variables the Fed creators took into account, there’s one glaring factor they neglected to consider: Namely, it cannot force consumers to spend, creditors to lend, or businesses to borrow. The events of 2007-2009 “credit crunch” and the subsequent “Great Recession” made that obvious. Remember how the government was upset at banks for sitting on the bailout funds instead of lending them out to consumers? And consumers weren’t exactly lining up on the street to get a loan, either.

The Fed’s inability to change social mood is the central theme in Chapter 13 of EWI President Bob Prechter’s NY Times business bestseller book Conquer the Crash. There, Prechter describes the Fed’s strategy of lowering the federal funds rate to stimulate spending to be as effective as “pushing on a string.”Writes Bob:

“The primary basis for today’s belief in perpetual prosperity and inflation with an occasional recession is what I call the ‘Potent Directors Fallacy.’ It is nearly impossible to find a treatise on macroeconomics today that does not assert or assume that the Federal Reserve Board has learned to control both our money and our economy. Many believe that it also possesses the immense power to manipulate the stock market. The very idea that it can do these things is false.”

2008 crash happened despite FED intervention to the economy. Since then nothing has been fixed. We are doing more of the same that brought us the crash. Will Keynesian spending stop another economic downturn? Have we really found the magic bullet to kill the beast? Or is the FED intervention to the free markets planting the seeds of a misaligned economy with misallocated resources that will eventually collapse?

So begins one of the most groundbreaking studies into the very real INABILITY of the Fed to defeat the great bears of economic declines, or to feed the great bulls of economic vigor.

The best part is, you can read Chapter 13 of Conquer the Crash in its entirety FREE via a Club EWI resource “You Can Survive And Prosper In A Deflationary Depression.” The free report also includes SEVEN other chapters of Conquer the Crash that shed equal light on some of the most misleading notions of mainstream economic wisdom.

The world’s foremost Elliott wave expert Robert Prechter goes “behind the scenes” on the Federal Reserve Bank

November 25, 2010

By Elliott Wave International

The ongoing financial crisis has made the central bank’s decisions — interest rates, quantitative easing (QE2), monetary stimulus, etc. - a permanent fixture on six-o’clock news.

Yet many of us don’t truly understand the role of the Federal Reserve.

For answers, let’s turn to someone who has spent a considerable amount of time studying the Fed and its functions: EWI president Robert Prechter. Today we begin a 3-part series that we believe will help you understand the Fed as well as he does. (Excerpted from Prechter’s Conquer the Crash and the free Club EWI report, “Understanding the Federal Reserve System.”)

Money, Credit and the Federal Reserve Banking System
Conquer the Crash, Chapter 10
By Robert Prechter

An argument for deflation is not to be offered lightly because, given the nature of today’s money, certain aspects of money and credit creation cannot be forecast, only surmised. Before we can discuss these issues, we have to understand how money and credit come into being. This is a difficult chapter, but if you can assimilate what it says, you will have knowledge of the banking system that not one person in 10,000 has.

The Origin of Intangible Money

Originally, money was a tangible good freely chosen by society. For millennia, gold or silver provided this function, although sometimes other tangible goods (such as copper, brass and seashells) did. Originally, credit was the right to access that tangible money, whether by an ownership certificate or by borrowing.

Today, almost all money is intangible. It is not, nor does it even represent, a physical good. How it got that way is a long, complicated, disturbing story, which would take a full book to relate properly. It began about 300 years ago, when an English financier conceived the idea of a national central bank. Governments have often outlawed free-market determinations of what constitutes money and imposed their own versions upon society by law, but earlier schemes usually involved coinage. Under central banking, a government forces its citizens to accept its debt as the only form of legal tender. The Federal Reserve System assumed this monopoly role in the United States in 1913.

What Is a Dollar?

Originally, a dollar was defined as a certain amount of gold. Dollar bills and notes were promises to pay lawful money, which was gold. Anyone could present dollars to a bank and receive gold in exchange, and banks could get gold from the U.S. Treasury for dollar bills.

In 1933, President Roosevelt and Congress outlawed U.S. gold ownership and nullified and prohibited all domestic contracts denoted in gold, making Federal Reserve notes the legal tender of the land. In 1971, President Nixon halted gold payments from the U.S. Treasury to foreigners in exchange for dollars. Today, the Treasury will not give anyone anything tangible in exchange for a dollar. Even though Federal Reserve notes are defined as “obligations of the United States,” they are not obligations to do anything. Although a dollar is labeled a “note,” which means a debt contract, it is not a note for anything.

Congress claims that the dollar is “legally” 1/42.22 of an ounce of gold. Can you buy gold for $42.22 an ounce? No. This definition is bogus, and everyone knows it. If you bring a dollar to the U.S. Treasury, you will not collect any tangible good, much less 1/42.22 of an ounce of gold. You will be sent home.

Some authorities were quietly amazed that when the government progressively removed the tangible backing for the dollar, the currency continued to function. If you bring a dollar to the marketplace, you can still buy goods with it because the government says (by “fiat”) that it is money and because its long history of use has lulled people into accepting it as such. The volume of goods you can buy with it fluctuates according to the total volume of dollars — in both cash and credit — and their holders’ level of confidence that those values will remain intact.

Exactly what a dollar is and what backs it are difficult questions to answer because no official entity will provide a satisfying answer. It has no simultaneous actuality and definition. It may be defined as 1/42.22 of an ounce of gold, but it is not actually that. Whatever it actually is (if anything) may not be definable. To the extent that its physical backing, if any, may be officially definable in actuality, no one is talking. … 

Do you want to really understand the Fed? Then keep reading this free eBook, “Understanding the Federal Reserve”, as soon as you become a free member of Club EWI.

Money, Credit and the Federal Reserve Banking System
Conquer the Crash, Chapter 10
By Robert Prechter

… Let’s attempt to define what gives the dollar objective value. As we will see in the next section, the dollar is “backed” primarily by government bonds, which are promises to pay dollars. So today, the dollar is a promise backed by a promise to pay an identical promise. What is the nature of each promise? If the Treasury will not give you anything tangible for your dollar, then the dollar is a promise to pay nothing. The Treasury should have no trouble keeping this promise.

In Chapter 9 [of Conquer the Crash], I called the dollar “money.” By the definition given there, it is. I used that definition and explanation because it makes the whole picture comprehensible. But the truth is that since the dollar is backed by debt, it is actually a credit, not money. It is a credit against what the government owes, denoted in dollars and backed by nothing. So although we may use the term “money” in referring to dollars, there is no longer any real money in the U.S. financial system; there is nothing but credit and debt.

As you can see, defining the dollar, and therefore the terms money, credit, inflation and deflation, today is a challenge, to say the least. Despite that challenge, we can still use these terms because people’s minds have conferred meaning and value upon these ethereal concepts.

Understanding this fact, we will now proceed with a discussion of how money and credit expand in today’s financial system.

How the Federal Reserve System Manufactures Money

Over the years, the Federal Reserve Bank has transferred purchasing power from all other dollar holders primarily to the U.S. Treasury by a complex series of machinations. The U.S. Treasury borrows money by selling bonds in the open market. The Fed is said to “buy” the Treasury’s bonds from banks and other financial institutions, but in actuality, it is allowed by law simply to fabricate a new checking account for the seller in exchange for the bonds. It holds the Treasury’s bonds as assets against — as “backing” for — that new money. Now the seller is whole (he was just a middleman), the Fed has the bonds, and the Treasury has the new money.

This transactional train is a long route to a simple alchemy (called “monetizing” the debt) in which the Fed turns government bonds into money. The net result is as if the government had simply fabricated its own checking account, although it pays the Fed a portion of the bonds’ interest for providing the service surreptitiously. To date (1st edition of Prechter’s Conquer the Crash was published in 2002 — Ed.), the Fed has monetized about $600 billion worth of Treasury obligations. This process expands the supply of money.

In 1980, Congress gave the Fed the legal authority to monetize any agency’s debt. In other words, it can exchange the bonds of a government, bank or other institution for a checking account denominated in dollars. This mechanism gives the President, through the Treasury, a mechanism for “bailing out” debt-troubled governments, banks or other institutions that can no longer get financing anywhere else. Such decisions are made for political reasons, and the Fed can go along or refuse, at least as the relationship currently stands. Today, the Fed has about $36 billion worth of foreign debt on its books. The power to grant or refuse such largesse is unprecedented.

Each new Fed account denominated in dollars is new money, but contrary to common inference, it is not new value. The new account has value, but that value comes from a reduction in the value of all other outstanding accounts denominated in dollars. That reduction takes place as the favored institution spends the newly credited dollars, driving up the dollar-denominated demand for goods and thus their prices. All other dollar holders still hold the same number of dollars, but now there are more dollars in circulation, and each one purchases less in the way of goods and services. The old dollars lose value to the extent that the new account gains value.

The net result is a transfer of value to the receiver’s account from those of all other dollar holders. This fact is not readily obvious because the unit of account throughout the financial system does not change even though its value changes.

It is important to understand exactly what the Fed has the power to do in this context: It has legal permission to transfer wealth from dollar savers to certain debtors without the permission of the savers. The effect on the money supply is exactly the same as if the money had been counterfeited and slipped into circulation.

In the old days, governments would inflate the money supply by diluting their coins with base metal or printing notes directly. Now the same old game is much less obvious. On the other hand, there is also far more to it. This section has described the Fed’s secondary role. The Fed’s main occupation is not creating money but facilitating credit. This crucial difference will eventually bring us to why deflation is possible.

Read more now in the free Club EWI report “Understanding the Federal Reserve Bank.”

How the Federal Reserve Has Encouraged the Growth of Credit

Congress authorized the Fed not only to create money for the government but also to “smooth out” the economy by manipulating credit (which also happens to be a re-election tool for incumbents). Politics being what they are, this manipulation has been almost exclusively in the direction of making credit easy to obtain. The Fed used to make more credit available to the banking system by monetizing federal debt, that is, by creating money. Under the structure of our “fractional reserve” system, banks were authorized to employ that new money as “reserves” against which they could make new loans. Thus, new money meant new credit.

It meant a lot of new credit because banks were allowed by regulation to lend out 90 percent of their deposits, which meant that banks had to keep 10 percent of deposits on hand (“in reserve”) to cover withdrawals. When the Fed increased a bank’s reserves, that bank could lend 90 percent of those new dollars. Those dollars, in turn, would make their way to other banks as new deposits. Those other banks could lend 90 percent of those deposits, and so on. The expansion of reserves and deposits throughout the banking system this way is called the “multiplier effect.” This process expanded the supply of credit well beyond the supply of money.

Because of competition from money market funds, banks began using fancy financial manipulation to get around reserve requirements. In the early 1990s, the Federal Reserve Board under Chairman Alan Greenspan took a controversial step and removed banks’ reserve requirements almost entirely. To do so, it first lowered to zero the reserve requirement on all accounts other than checking accounts. Then it let banks pretend that they have almost no checking account balances by allowing them to “sweep” those deposits into various savings accounts and money market funds at the end of each business day. Magically, when monitors check the banks’ balances at night, they find the value of checking accounts artificially understated by hundreds of billions of dollars. The net result is that banks today conveniently meet their nominally required reserves (currently about $45b.) with the cash in their vaults that they need to hold for everyday transactions anyway. [1st edition of Prechter's Conquer the Crash was published in 2002 -- Ed.]

By this change in regulation, the Fed essentially removed itself from the businesses of requiring banks to hold reserves and of manipulating the level of those reserves. This move took place during a recession and while S&P earnings per share were undergoing their biggest drop since the 1940s. The temporary cure for that economic contraction was the ultimate in “easy money.”

We still have a fractional reserve system on the books, but we do not have one in actuality. Now banks can lend out virtually all of their deposits. In fact, they can lend out more than all of their deposits, because banks’ parent companies can issue stock, bonds, commercial paper or any financial instrument and lend the proceeds to their subsidiary banks, upon which assets the banks can make new loans. In other words, to a limited degree, banks can arrange to create their own new money for lending purposes.

Today, U.S. banks have extended 25 percent more total credit than they have in total deposits ($5.4 trillion vs. $4.3 trillion). Since all banks do not engage in this practice, others must be quite aggressive at it. For more on this theme, see Chapter 19 [of Conquer the Crash].

Recall that when banks lend money, it gets deposited in other banks, which can lend it out again. Without a reserve requirement, the multiplier effect is no longer restricted to ten times deposits; it is virtually unlimited. Every new dollar deposited can be lent over and over throughout the system: A deposit becomes a loan becomes a deposit becomes a loan, and so on.

As you can see, the fiat money system has encouraged inflation via both money creation and the expansion of credit. This dual growth has been the monetary engine of the historic uptrend of stock prices in wave (V) from 1932. The stupendous growth in bank credit since 1975 (see graphs in Chapter 11) has provided the monetary fuel for its final advance, wave V. The effective elimination of reserve requirements a decade ago extended that trend to one of historic proportion.

The Net Effect of Monetization

Although the Fed has almost wholly withdrawn from the role of holding book-entry reserves for banks, it has not retired its holdings of Treasury bonds. Because the Fed is legally bound to back its notes (greenback currency) with government securities, today almost all of the Fed’s Treasury bond assets are held as reserves against a nearly equal dollar value of Federal Reserve notes in circulation around the world. Thus, the net result of the Fed’s 89 years of money inflating is that the Fed has turned $600 billion worth of U.S. Treasury and foreign obligations into Federal Reserve notes.

Today the Fed’s production of currency is passive, in response to orders from domestic and foreign banks, which in turn respond to demand from the public. Under current policy, banks must pay for that currency with any remaining reserve balances. If they don’t have any, they borrow to cover the cost and pay back that loan as they collect interest on their own loans. Thus, as things stand, the Fed no longer considers itself in the business of “printing money” for the government. Rather, it facilitates the expansion of credit to satisfy the lending policies of government and banks.

If banks and the Treasury were to become strapped for cash in a monetary crisis, policies could change. The unencumbered production of banknotes could become deliberate Fed or government policy, as we have seen happen in other countries throughout history. At this point, there is no indication that the Fed has entertained any such policy. Nevertheless, Chapters 13 and 22 address this possibility.

Do you want to really understand the Fed? Then keep reading this free eBook, “Understanding the Federal Reserve”, as soon as you become a free member of Club EWI.

FED is getting ready to print more money to stimulate the economy. Total bank credit has stopped expanding. Total debt, which is principal + interest, is more than the money supply, which is principal only. As the shortage of US dollars forces foreclosures and bankrutpcies, FED and the government is cherry picking favored ones to be bailed out. So the question is: Can the FED stop deflation? What if FED were to print $5000 per borrower, and hand it out? Would you spend it, or would you pay outstanding debt with it? As people choose to deleverage by paying down debt, the velocity of money is declining and consumer credit is shrinking. And there is more. Let us read what else is deflationary.

September 23, 2010

By Elliott Wave International

As the biggest credit bubble in history continues to shrink, consumer prices have stayed flat over the past several months, meaning there is no sign of inflation to come, despite growing commitments from the U.S. government.

So what’s keeping inflation at bay, given all the stimulus money promised? The answer is: Deflation - an overwhelming urge for consumers to liquidate their assets for cash. And this new economic phase is finally becoming too obvious to ignore, as explained in recent commentary from the world’s largest technical analysis firm.

“The economy is moving into a critical new phase, an outright deflation in which ‘prices fall because people expect falling prices.’ Obviously, this implies an element of recognition, as efforts to protect against indebtedness and falling prices contribute to further declines. We can tell deflation is entering a new stage because of the language and ideas that financial observers now use to describe it.”
– The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast (September 2010)

Get an independent look at the future of the U.S. economy by reading Robert Prechter’s FREE Deflation Survival Guide. Newly updated for 2010, Prechter’s 90-page ebook on deflation reveals the biggest threat to your money right now. You’ll learn not only how to prepare for deflation and adapt during it; you’ll also learn how to survive it and, most important, prosper during it, so you’ll be ready for the buying opportunity of a lifetime at its end. Click Here to Download Your 90-Page Deflation eBook for FREE.

Here are a few recent comments about the new economic reality:

• “[New Jersey Governor] Christie spelled out the details of his proposal Tuesday. They include: repealing an increase in benefits approved years ago; eliminating automatic cost-of-living adjustments; raising the retirement age to 65 from 60 in many cases; reducing pension payouts for many future retirees; and requiring some employees to contribute more to their pensions.” — Associated Press (Sept. 15)
• “U.S. Home Prices Face Three-Year Drop as Inventory Surge Looms” — Bloomberg (Sept. 15)
• “Atlanta Awash in Empty Offices Struggles to Recover From Building Binge” — Bloomberg (Sept. 14)
• “The world economy faces a long, hard slog toward recovery and could slide into deflation and financial instability if leaders fail to deliver on promises of reform.” — Reuters (Sept. 10)
• “Deflation seems to have the upper hand lately in the debate among investors about inflation versus deflation.” — Marketwatch (Sept. 8 )
• “With the release of the August sales figures, one thing is clear for car shoppers — it’s a buyer’s market.” — Edmunds (Sept. 2)
• “20 Funds to Guard Against Deflation” — Smartmoney (Aug. 29)
• “Dividend-Yield Signal Screams Deflation” — Forbes (Aug. 25)

The word “deflation” also started appearing more in the financial media around 2002, but Robert Prechter, president of technical analysis firm Elliott Wave International and author of the 2002 New York Times best-seller Conquer the Crash, added in the updated 2009 edition of his book that the deflation references back then were in an entirely different context:

“The rarely used word deflation has become fashionable in financial discussion. … It is fashionable, however, not to predict its occurrence but primarily to dismiss the idea that it has any serious likelihood of occurring. The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said in May [2004] that there is ‘maybe one chance out of four’ that deflation will occur.”
– Conquer the Crash, 2nd edition (2009)

And Prechter says the opinion from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas was not an isolated outlook at the time. Here’s another quote from around the same time:

“Not one economist [of 67 surveyed] said it was ‘very likely’ the economy would slip into deflation, and only 6% said it was ’somewhat likely.’ About 95% said deflation was ‘not very likely’ to happen.” — Barron’s (2003)

In hindsight, we know that economists — in the aggregate — were dead wrong about their deflation predictions.

As we saw above, references to “deflation” are increasing now — because it’s obvious.

So if economists were unable — or worse, unwilling — to warn you in advance about the threat of deflation a few years ago, what are they not warning you about now?

Get an independent look at the future of the U.S. economy by reading Robert Prechter’s FREE Deflation Survival Guide now. Newly updated for 2010, Prechter’s 90-page ebook on deflation reveals the biggest threat to your money right now. You’ll learn not only how to prepare for deflation and adapt during it; you’ll also learn how to survive it and — most important — prosper during it, so you’ll be ready for the buying opportunity of a lifetime at its end. Click here to download your free 90-Page Deflation eBook now.

The total outstanding debt in the world is approaching record levels. Most are preparing for inflation thinking that central banks will be printing money to pay the debt. What if someone told you inflation is not the immediate danger, but deflation is? Why? Because our money supply is not printed money. It is debt. When debt deflates, it is money supply that deflates. Most of the world’s debt is denominated in US dollars. Creditors are asking for US dollars to be paid back. Not gold, not stocks, not houses. This creates demand for US dollars. This is why when there is a debt crisis, US dollar goes up. US dollar has already lost it’s value due to excessive borrowing for decades. Now it is time to move up. Here is an article about the excessive debt burden of many developed countries.

By Elliott Wave International

The biggest balloon in the world is deflating.

This balloon had been inflated with a quadrillion (10¹⁵) dollars, which is to say: This balloon was filled not with air but with debt from around the globe.

What will happen as this global debt winds down? In two words: Deflationary Depression — the likes of which could be unprecedented in history. Want to Learn

How to Prosper in a Deflationary Depression?
You should not miss Robert Prechter’s deflation argument. Download 60 Page Guide to Understanding Deflation here.

A thousand trillion in debt can’t be wished away or swept under the rug. No one can “forgive” the debt. The consequences of unwinding this debt could be as massive as the dollar figure itself.

We’ve heard plenty about the debt problems of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy.

But how about the world’s second largest economy? Consider this fact reported in the Japan Times (July 8):

“Japan’s government debts are the highest the world has ever seen, at 219 percent of gross domestic product, according to the International Monetary Fund.”

Then there’s the world’s sixth largest national economy. In January 2009,  Robert Prechter wrote this in the Elliott Wave Theorist:

“British banks have amassed $4.4 trillion worth of foreign liabilities, twice Britain’s annual GDP. … England, moreover, ‘has not defaulted since the Middle Ages.’ The possibility that it may do so again is yet another indication that the bear market is of … (larger) degree, exactly as Elliott wave analysts have predicted all along.”

Remember, Japan and Great Britain are major world economies. Imagine what the debt totals would look like in a line-item analysis of other nations, regions, states, provinces and municipalities around the world, including the U.S.

De-leveraging will likely lead to a deflationary crash — a “day of reckoning.”

How can you prepare for a deflationary crash?

To start with, keep your money safe. As Bob Prechter mentions in his June 2010 Elliott Wave Theorist:

“Investors should be primarily in greenback cash and Treasury bills.”

He also describes holdings which should be strictly avoided.

Learn How to Prosper in a Deflationary Depression?
Download Guide to Understanding Deflation here.