COMMENTARY NUMBER 576
Residential Construction, Consumer Confidence

November 26, 2013

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Building Permits Showed No Recovery

Consumer Confidence Declined Again in November

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PLEASE NOTE: The next regular Commentary is scheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday, November 27th covering October new orders for durable goods, as well as a discussion on the cash-based 2013 federal budget deficit.

Best wishes to all — John Williams

 

 

OPENING COMMENTS REPORTING DETAIL

Housing Industry Remains Far Short of Recovery.  Initially, this Commentary was scheduled to discuss the reporting catch-up on the regularly-covered housing starts series.  Due to ongoing effects of the government’s October shutdown, however, the Census Bureau further delayed the release of the starts data until December 18th.  At that time, initial reporting for September, October and November housing starts should be published.  Nonetheless, a partial report on residential production was published this morning (November 26th) with detail on building permits issued for new privately-owned housing units.

Where ShadowStats regularly covers housing starts, it does not do so for building permits, due to definitional inconsistencies in that series.  That said, the basic detail on the building permits is covered here, with comparative graphs showing building permits through October, versus the housing starts through August.  Accordingly, there is no separate Reporting Detail section.  There is no suggestion of a recovery in housing in the permits data; the housing starts will be fully covered, when released.

Ongoing Consumer Problems Limit Housing Activity.  Consistent with ongoing liquidity constraints on the consumer, as discussed and graphed in Commentary No. 575 and Commentary No. 572, the Conference Board’s November estimate of consumer confidence—also released today—continued its recent pattern of month-to-month decline.  Shown in the accompanying graph, confidence remains at levels previously seen only deep in historical recessions, not in economic recoveries.  Unlike the two-year renewed expansion in GDP, following a purported recovery beginning post-June 2009, the pattern shown by the confidence number is plunge-and-stagnation.  Separately, the plunge-and-recovery fantasy of official GDP reporting also is not reflected in the accompanying detail on residential construction.

Building Permit Gains Dominated by Apartment (Multiple-Unit) Structures.  The Census Bureau reported that building permits for privately owned housing units rose by a headline 6.2% +/- 0.9% (95% confidence interval) in October, following an initial headline gain of 5.2% in September, which followed an unrevised 2.9% monthly decline in August.  The October year-to-year gain was 13.9%, versus 5.8% in September and 11.0% in August.  The trend in single-unit permits was ongoing stagnation, while volatile multiple-unit permits (specifically 5 units or more) have shown two months of gains (up 16.9% in October, up 19.9% in September, and down 13.2% in August).  More detail is available at ShadowStats affiliate www.ExpliStats.com.  (See continuing text following the four sets of graphs comparing building permits through October, versus housing starts through August, and their major sub-series.)

 

 

The patterns of activity in the related building-permits and housing-starts series are largely consistent.  Of note, and as evident in the last two graphs, the reported number of multiple-unit building permits has tended to outnumber the actual multiple-unit housing starts, on a fairly regular basis, even allowing for the leading relationship of the permits series.

Please note that the first set of graphs, on total units, shows unit volume on an annual-rate basis per month, while subsequent graphs show the actual, seasonally-adjusted monthly rate.  This does not alter the appearance of the graphs, but the monthly numbers shown are more-realistic indicators of actual for these highly volatile series.

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PLEASE NOTE: Neither the Hyperinflation Watch nor the Week Ahead section is changed from the prior Commentary.

 

HYPERINFLATION WATCH

 

Summary Hyperinflation Outlook—Unchanged.  The Hyperinflation Outlook of Commentary No. 567 is repeated here without change.  Detail on the pending publication of Hyperinflation 2014—The End Game, which will be a fully-updated version of Hyperinflation 2012, also was discussed in Commentary No. 567.

This summary is intended as guidance for both new and existing subscribers, who are looking for a brief version of the broad outlook on the economic, systemic and inflation crises that face the United States in the year or so ahead.

Recommended Background Material.  Commentary No. 559 (September 2013) and No. 527: Special Commentary (May 2013) supplemented No. 485: Special Commentary (November 2012), which reviewed shifting market sentiment on a variety of issues affecting the U.S. dollar and prices of precious metals.  No. 485, in turn, updated Hyperinflation 2012 (January 2012)—the base document for the hyperinflation story—and the broad outlook for the economy and inflation, as well as for systemic-stability and the U.S. dollar.  Of use here also are No. 500: Special Commentary on GAAP-based federal deficit reality and the Public Comment on Inflation.

These are the primary articles outlining current conditions and the background to the hyperinflation forecast, and they are suggested reading for subscribers who have not seen them and/or for those who otherwise are trying to understand the basics of the hyperinflation outlook.  The fundamentals have not changed in recent years or recent months, other than events keep moving towards the circumstance of a domestic U.S. hyperinflation by the end of 2014.  Nonetheless, a fully-updated Hyperinflation 2014—The End Game is planned by the end of November, again, as discussed in Commentary No. 567. 

Hyperinflation Timing, Set for 2019 Back in 2004, Advanced to 2014 in Aftermath of 2008 Panic.  While the U.S. government has lived excessively beyond its means for decades, it was not until the December 2003 (federal government’s 2004 fiscal year) enactment of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 that the United States was set solidly on a course for eventual hyperinflation.  Back in 2004, ShadowStats began forecasting a hyperinflation by 2019; that forecast was advanced to 2014 as a result of the nature of, and the official handling of the 2008 panic and near-collapse of the domestic financial system.  The hyperinflation forecast for 2014 remains in place, with 90% odds estimated in favor of its occurrence.

The initial unfunded liabilities for the Medicare overhaul, alone, added nearly $8 trillion in net-present-value unfunded liabilities to the fiscal-2004 federal deficit, based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP accounting), exceeding the total $7.4 trillion gross federal debt of the time.  When approached by ShadowStats as to how this circumstance likely would lead to an eventual domestic hyperinflation, the response from a member of the Bush Administration was “that is too far into the future to worry about.”

That future has come too quickly.  Adjusted for one-time events, GAAP-based federal deficits have averaged $5 trillion per year for the last seven years, with government spending and financial commitments exploding out of control.  As of fiscal-2012 the GAAP-based annual federal deficit was an uncontainable and uncontrollable $6.6 trillion, with gross federal debt at $16.2 trillion and total federal obligations (net present value) in excess of $85 trillion, more than five-times the level of annual GDP and deteriorating at an annual pace in excess of $6 trillion per year.  Details can be found in No. 500: Special Commentary.

On a GAAP-basis, the United States faces long-range insolvency.  The global financial markets know it, and so do the miscreants currently controlling the U.S. government.  Yet, as just demonstrated in the crisis negotiations surrounding the federal-government shutdown and debt ceiling, there is no controlling, political will in Washington to address the long-term solvency issues.  The still-festering budget crisis and recent negotiations reflect no more than the formal, continued posturing and political delay of the same issues and crisis that nearly collapsed the U.S. dollar in August and September of 2011, that then were pushed beyond the 2012 election, and then pushed again to the just-postponed negotiations of October 2013.

The chances of the United States actually not paying its obligations or interest are nil.  Instead, typically a country which issues its debt in the currency it prints, simply prints the cash it needs, when it can no longer can raise adequate funds through what usually become confiscatory tax rates, and when it can no longer sucker the financial markets and its trading partners into funding its spending.  That results in inflation, eventual full debasement of the currency, otherwise known as hyperinflation.  The purchasing power of the current U.S. dollar will drop effectively to zero.

Therein lies the root of a brewing crisis for the U.S. dollar (all “dollar” references here are to the U.S. dollar unless otherwise specified).  Global financial markets have wearied in the extreme of the political nonsense going on in Washington.  No one really wants to hold dollars to or hold investments in dollar-denominated assets, such as U.S. Treasury securities.

Due to ongoing solvency issues within the U.S. banking system, that Federal Reserve is locked into a liquidity trap of flooding the system with liquidity, with no resulting surge in the money supply.  Yet, the Fed’s quantitative easings have damaged the dollar, which in turn has triggered sporadic inflation from the related boosting of oil prices.  The overhang of dollars in the global markets—outside the formal U.S. money supply estimates—is well in excess of $10 trillion.  As those funds are dumped in the global markets, the weakening dollar will trigger dumping of U.S. Treasury securities and general flight from the U.S. currency.  As the Fed moves to stabilize the domestic financial system, the early stages of a currency-driven inflation will be overwhelmed by general flight from the dollar, and a resulting surge the domestic money supply.  Intensifying the crisis, and likely coincident with heavy flight from the dollar, odds also are high of the loss of the dollar’s global-reserve-currency status.

These circumstances can unfold at anytime, with little or no warning.  Irrespective of short-lived gyrations, the dollar should face net, heavy selling pressure in the months ahead from a variety of factors, including, but certainly not limited to: (1) a lack of Fed reversal on QE3; (2) a lack of economic recovery and renewed downturn; (3) concerns of increased quantitative easing by the Fed; (4) inability/refusal of those controlling the government to address the long-range sovereign-solvency issues of the United States; (5) declining confidence in, and mounting scandals involving the U.S. government.  

It is the global flight from the dollar—which increasingly should become a domestic flight from the dollar—that should set the early stages of the domestic hyperinflation.

Approaching the End Game.  As previously summarized, nothing is normal: not the economy, not the financial system, not the financial markets and not the political system.  The financial system still remains in the throes and aftershocks of the 2008 panic and near-systemic collapse, and from the ongoing responses to same by the Federal Reserve and federal government.  Further panic is possible and hyperinflation remains inevitable. 

Typical of an approaching, major turning point in the domestic- and global-market perceptions, bouts of extreme volatility and instability have been seen with increasing frequency in the financial markets, including equities, currencies and the monetary precious metals (gold and silver).  Consensus market expectations on the economy and Federal Reserve policy also have been in increasing flux.  The FOMC and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have put forth a plan for reducing and eventually ending quantitative easing in the form of QE3, but that appears to have been more of an intellectual exercise aimed at placating Fed critics, than it was an actual intent to “taper” QE3.  The tapering or cessation of QE3 was contingent upon the U.S. economy performing in line with deliberately, overly-optimistic economic projections provided by the Fed.

Manipulated market reactions and verbal and physical interventions have been used to prop stocks and the dollar, and to pummel gold.

Underlying economic reality remains much weaker than Fed projections.  As actual economic conditions gain broader recognition, market sentiment even could shift from what now is no imminent end to QE3, to an expansion of QE3.  The markets and the Fed are stuck with underlying economic reality, and, increasingly, they are beginning to recognize same.  Business activity remains in continued and deepening trouble, and the Federal Reserve is locked into quantitative easing by persistent problems now well beyond its control.  Specifically, banking-system solvency and liquidity remain the primary concerns for the Fed, driving the quantitative easing.  Economic issues are secondary concerns for the Fed; they are used as political cover for QE3.  That cover will continue for as long as the Fed needs it.

The same systemic problems will face incoming Fed Chairman Janet Yellin.  She will face the same quandaries and issues addressed by current Chairman Ben Bernanke.  Where she also has been involved actively in formulating current Fed policies, no significant shifts in Fed policy are likely.  QE3 should continue for the foreseeable future.

At the same time, deteriorating expectations for domestic political stability reflect government scandals and conflicting policy actions, in addition to the dominant global-financial-market concern of there being no viable prospect of those controlling the U.S. government addressing the long-range sovereign-solvency issues of the United States government.  These factors, in combination, show the end game to be at hand. 

This still-forming great financial tempest has cleared the horizon; its early ill winds are being felt with increasing force; and its impact on the United States and those living in a dollar-based world will dominate and overtake the continuing economic and systemic-solvency crises of the last eight years.  The issues that never were resolved in the 2008 panic and its aftermath are about to be exacerbated.  Based on precedents established in 2008, likely reactions from the government and the Fed would be to throw increasingly worthless money at the intensifying crises, hoping to push the problems even further into the future.  Such attempts to save the system, however, all have exceptional inflationary implications. 

The global financial markets appear to have begun to move beyond the forced patience with U.S. policies that had been induced by the financial terror of the 2008 panic.  Again, the dollar faces likely extreme and negative turmoil in the months ahead.  A domestic hyperinflationary environment should evolve from something akin to these crises before the end of 2014.

Still Living with the 2008 Crisis.  Despite the happy news from headline GDP reporting that the recession ended in 2009 and the economy is full recovery, there never has been an actual recovery following the economic crash that began in 2006, and collapsed into 2008 and 2009.  No other major economic series has confirmed the pattern of activity now being reported in the GDP.  Indeed, 2012 household income data from the Census Bureau showed no recovery whatsoever.

What followed the economic crash was a protracted period of business stagnation that began to turn down anew in second- and third-quarter 2012 (see the corrected GDP graph in the Opening Comments section of Commentary No. 552).  The official recovery seen in GDP has been a statistical illusion generated by the use of understated inflation in calculating key economic series (see No. 527: Special Commentary and Public Comment on Inflation).  Nonetheless, given the nature of official reporting, the renewed downturn still should gain eventual recognition as the second-dip in a double- or multiple-dip recession.

What continues to unfold in the systemic and economic crises is just an ongoing part of the 2008 turmoil.  All the extraordinary actions and interventions bought a little time, but they did not resolve the various crises.  That the crises continue can be seen in deteriorating economic activity and in the ongoing panicked actions by the Federal Reserve, where it still proactively is monetizing U.S. Treasury debt at a pace suggestive of a Treasury that is unable to borrow otherwise.  As of the government shutdown, the Fed had monetized in excess of 100% of the net issuance of U.S. Treasury debt, since the beginning of calendar-year 2013.

The Fed’s unconscionable market manipulations and games playing in fueling speculation over the future of quantitative easing clearly were used to move the U.S. dollar (the purpose of initial quantitative easing was U.S. dollar debasement).  QE3 and continuing efforts at dollar-debasement are not about to go away.  Further complicating the circumstance for the U.S. currency is the increasing tendency of major U.S. trading partners to move away from using the dollar in international trade.  The loss of some reserve status for the U.S. dollar is likely, as the crises break, and that would intensify both the dollar-selling and domestic U.S. inflationary pressures.

The Fed’s recent and ongoing liquidity actions themselves suggest a signal of deepening problems in the financial system.  Mr. Bernanke admits that the Fed can do little to stimulate the economy, but it can create systemic liquidity and inflation.  Accordingly, the Fed’s continuing easing moves appear to have been primarily an effort to prop-up the banking system and also to provide back-up liquidity to the U.S. Treasury, under the political cover of a “weakening economy.”  Mounting signs of intensifying domestic banking-system stress are seen in soft annual growth in the broad money supply, despite a soaring pace of annual growth in the monetary base, and in mounting global banking-system stress.

U.S. Dollar Remains Proximal Hyperinflation Trigger.  The unfolding fiscal catastrophe, in combination with the Fed’s direct monetization of Treasury debt, eventually (more likely sooner rather than later) will savage the U.S. dollar’s exchange rate, boosting oil and gasoline prices, and boosting money supply growth and domestic U.S. inflation.  Relative market tranquility has given way to mounting instabilities, and extreme market turmoil likely looms, despite the tactics of delay by the politicians and ongoing obfuscation by the Federal Reserve. 

This should become increasingly evident as the disgruntled global markets move sustainably against the U.S. dollar, a movement that may have begun.  As discussed earlier, a dollar-selling panic is likely in the next several months, with its effects and aftershocks setting hyperinflation into action in 2014.  Gold remains the primary and long-range hedge against the upcoming debasement of the U.S. dollar, irrespective of any near-term price gyrations in the gold market.

The rise in the price of gold in recent years was fundamental.  The intermittent panicked selling of gold has not been.  With the underlying fundamentals of ongoing dollar-debasement in place, the upside potential for gold, in dollar terms, is limited only by its inverse relationship to the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar (eventually headed effectively to zero).  Again, physical gold—held for the longer term—remains as a store of wealth, the primary hedge against the loss of U.S. dollar purchasing power. 

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WEEK AHEAD

 

Weaker-Economic and Stronger-Inflation Reporting Likely in the Months Ahead.  The markets generally remain overly optimistic as to the economic outlook, although expectations have softened during the last year.  That circumstance, and underlying fundamentals that remain highly suggestive of deteriorating business activity, mean that weaker-than-consensus economic reporting should remain the general trend.  Inflation likely will be higher than market expectations.

In terms of monthly inflation reporting, energy-inflation-related seasonal-adjustment factors will be turning negative by year end, and were not positive enough in October to offset declines in unadjusted energy prices in the CPI or the PPI.  That said, upside pressure on oil-related prices should reflect intensifying impact from a weakening U.S. dollar in the currency markets, and from ongoing political instabilities in the Middle East.  The dollar faces pummeling from continuing QE3, and the soon-to-resurface fiscal-crisis/debt-ceiling debacle (see the Summary Hyperinflation Outlook section).  Particularly in tandem with the likely weakened dollar, inflation reporting in the year ahead generally should reflect much higher-than-expected inflation (see also No. 527: Special Commentary).

A Note on Reporting Quality Issues and Systemic Reporting Biases.  Significant reporting-quality problems remain with most major economic series.  Headline reporting issues are tied largely to systemic distortions of seasonal adjustments.  The data instabilities were induced by the still-ongoing economic turmoil of the last six-to-seven years, which has been without precedent in the post-World War II era of modern economic reporting.  These impaired reporting methodologies provide particularly unstable headline economic results, where concurrent seasonal adjustments are used (as with retail sales, durable goods orders, employment and unemployment data), and they have thrown into question the statistical-significance of the headline month-to-month reporting for many popular economic series.

 

PENDING RELEASES:

 

New Orders for Durable Goods (October 2013).  The Census Bureau has scheduled release of the October 2013 new orders for durable goods for tomorrow, Wednesday, November 27th.  Other than for the continuing sharp and irregular volatility in commercial aircraft orders, new orders generally have been stagnant.  Once again, some intensification of recent, sporadic downside movement in non-commercial aircraft orders remains likely during the next several months, coincident with slowing activity evident in other economic indicators.  Such reporting generally would tend to surprise market expectations on the downside.

As to the inflation contribution to the monthly and annual change in new orders, the seasonally-adjusted, October 2013 PPI finished goods capital equipment inflation index was up by 0.1%, month-to-month (up by 0.9% month-to-month, not seasonally-adjusted), with year-to-year unadjusted (and adjusted) inflation at 1.0%.  These inflation numbers increasingly are nonsensical.  Due to hedonic-quality-adjustment distortions to this portion of the PPI series, as with the industrial production and GDP numbers, those inflation data understate inflation reality and, correspondingly, overstate inflation-adjusted growth, by perhaps three-percentage points per year.

 

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