Cashless Society Needed for Negative Rates-Gordon Long…” You are going to see this (cashless society idea) accelerate in the next six months.”
By Greg Hunter
USAWatchdog.com
June 14, 2015
Macroeconomist Gordon Long says elite bankers want and need negative interest rates. How do they get them? Long says, “We need a cashless society in order to get negative interest rates. We have had negative real interest rates for some time. That’s the whole premise of paying down the government debt by effectively debasing it. But we have run up against a wall, and we have run up against that wall. Clearly, quantitative easing isn’t working.”
Long says the bankers are not through distorting the system, and a cashless society is the next step. Long explains, “We are still early in the second or third innings of what’s to come. We are trapped in a globalization trap. With quantitative easing . . . we are bringing demand forward. Debt is nothing but future demand. So, we are really pushing at demand, but we can’t bring anymore forward. In fact, real disposable income is falling. People don’t have money to spend, and jobs are not there. The issue now is not demand. . . .The issue is oversupply. Cheap money doesn’t just allow you to buy something, it also allows producers to produce.”
So, will a cashless society put off the next crash? Long says, “We have run out of runway, but never underestimate the ingenuity of a trapped politician and central bankers to come out with new policies and new ways to extend this. We are going to see some pretty violent volatility and corrections. We are going to be in there guaranteeing collateral because our issue is . . . there is a shortage of collateral. The Fed sucked all of the bonds out of the market. There is a shortage of them. So, we have a major liquidity problem. That’s the runway we are running out of, and flows are starting to slow dramatically. Now, that says it’s getting unstable, but that doesn’t mean the world is coming to an end. It does mean we are going to do something else, and one of those things is negative nominal rates and cashless society. That’s the reason why we are going to have a cashless society. You are going to see this (cashless society idea) accelerate in the next six months.”
Long predicts, “The next crisis is going to be in sovereign debt, and it’s going to be in the bond market. I think it will stem out of the insurance and pension problem where they can’t fund it. Credit is going to collapse around muni bonds, who are using this money to pay pensions. Yes, we are out of runway. . . . We have north of $200 trillion in debt structures. Right now, it’s paying on average 4% or $8 trillion a year. The global GDP is only $72 trillion. The debt is now consuming our seed corn, so to speak. We are not only eating the seed corn, we are borrowing the money; and at some point, somebody is no longer going to lend you money. That’s kind of where we are right now.”
So, is hyperinflation what is coming next? Long says, “It’s coming, but not next. Hyperinflation is a currency event. Hyperinflation is not about prices going up but your currency going down, which means things are more expensive to you. When hyperinflation happens, it is very quick and very short. It is a lack of confidence. What triggers a lack of confidence? All of a sudden, you have an alternative to the debasement in these developed countries. . . . I believe we are going to have more deflation. We are going to have both inflation and deflation, but we are going to have more deflation first because of this oversupply I talked about. Excess supply is going to start to collapse collateral values which are going to hurt assets (bonds held as collateral). I believe, very quickly, that governments will move to guarantee collateral. When that happens, then we get into the hyperinflation. So, there is a down, then a panic and then we go up. We could have a Minsky melt-up, but not
Long adds that it will be “2008 all over again, but on steroids.”
Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with financial expert Gordon T. Long.
After the Interview:
Gordon Long adds he sees trouble coming with “September options expirations” this fall. He also expects a “big credit freeze coming that may last for two weeks before mid-2016,” but he’s quick to say that credit freeze could literally “happen at any time.”
