GLENN: Holy cow, I'm just getting this from CNBC. Initial claims for unemployment benefits increased 31,000 to 473,000, labor department said today. Also the department showed prices paid at farm and factory gate rose faster than expected, 1.4 from December after a .4% gain in December. When you have the PPI moving up and no progress in the jobs situation, that doesn't bode well for continued improvement in equity prices. So you know, this is the worst recession in seven decades. The economy has lost 8.4 million jobs, excuse me, 8.4 million jobs. The PPI report may give investors who keep a wary eye on inflation following massive efforts by the Federal Reserve to pull the economy out of its worst slump since the 1930s is something to worry about. The bottom line is the Fed is going to have some decisions to make at its next meeting because inflation is now back at the table. About 3/4 of the increase last month was due to a 5.1% jump on food and energy goods, said the department. Strong energy prices, blah, blah blah. Stripping out the volatile food and energy core prices, producer prices raise more than expected, blah, blah blah.
I love this. I love the inflation index where they can say, well, let's I mean, if you don't look at food and energy, it wasn't that bad.
PAT: Who needs those two things.
GLENN: I mean, it's just, it's crazy.
PAT: I just
GLENN: Hang on just a second. This is, by the way, an annual inflation rate of 16.8%. 16.8. I want you to also realize what I told you on television last night that England also, all of the experts, the Central Bank, everybody in England said, don't worry, we can spend this much money, we can print this much money, don't worry about inflation, don't worry. And all of a sudden inflation is coming barreling down the road. We're repeating all of the mistakes of England, all of them.
STU: Is this why Bernanke was saying the other day I mean, you are way smarter on this stuff than I am. Is this why he was saying we're probably going to have to raise rates soon is because he sees this stuff coming?
GLENN: Yes, but just listen to this. He is saying that we're going to have to raise rates soon for a couple of reasons. And this is, the market is not going to allow this to continue, period. The bond market will not allow it to continue. That's why China dumped bonds. They are no longer our biggest holder of foreign debt. It's now Japan. That should have been the front page story all across America. The number one holder of all bonds is the Federal Reserve. With $5.1 or $5.6 trillion of American debt. That's taking money from one pocket and putting it in the other. This is a game that's being played. So China is saying to us, you know what? We don't trust you guys. They didn't stop buying the bonds, our treasury debt. They didn't stop buying them. They also sold them! So you know what? We've got to distance ourself a little bit. That was the first telegraph saying, stop, stop what you're doing right now because you are in their thinking you're dishonoring our money, our loans and our people's honor. It's not a good situation to be in. So to get people to go back in and buy our bonds we have to raise what they're going to get. Look, we don't take out 30 year mortgages on this. This isn't sitting out there for three years. Some of this stuff is three months, six months, twelve months, three years. It resets; we're the kind of people, we're buying a house on an adjustable mortgage. And in three months a trillion dollars can come up and we have to go back to the bank of China, back to Japan, back to whoever loaned us money and say, hey, we need this trillion dollars again for another three months. It's a revolving loan. Well, now that people say, no, no, we don't trust you guys, they are going to ask for a higher interest rate. They are going to say, we're taking too much of a risk. What are you going to pay us to take this risk? You think they are going to take 3%? No. Because they don't think they are going to get their money back. 5%? 8%? 10%? 12%? 18%? At some point it will be those numbers.
PAT: Well, wait a minute. If they don't think they are going to get their money back at 3%, then they should charge us no percentage rate of interest so that we have a better chance of paying it back. Isn't that kind of how it works right there?
GLENN: That's the kind of logic that the people in Washington would use. So we have to give them more money for borrowing. It's just like a credit card company. Why are you paying 24%? Because you have good credit? No. So that's our borrowing situation, our spending situation. But to be able to stop inflation, you have to suck the money back in that we've printed. Remember this whole thing was push the money out, push the money out, get people to spend, get people to buy more stuff, get that money into the banks and have the banks flood it out into the system. Well, there's too many dollars. That causes inflation. Too many dollars chasing too few of goods.
So what do they do? To get those dollars back into the treasury so they can be destroyed, they have to have the banks charge more. Let's just say you borrow $100. If you have a 0% interest rate, it means you get $100 and it's free. When you pay it back, you just pay back $100. If they want you to take out more loans, they will say, you pay us $1 on the $100 loan. So you owe us $1.01. Because your credit is bad, it could go up to $20, 20% interest rate. $20 for every $100 you borrow. It's either that your creditor is bad in the case of an individual, or the way the Fed works. They bring that money supply back in. And so what they say is we're going to charge the banks 8%, 12%, 20% we'll use that, 20% to lend that money out to you. So the bank says, well, I've got to make some money, too. So I'm going to make it 24%. The bank makes their 4% of doing business with you, but the 20% goes to the Fed. That's where they destroy that money. They burn it up. And it sucks all of that money back in. That's when they expand and contract the money supply. That's the theory of the Fed. But the Fed is supposed to be responsible enough to be able to not flood it too much that they could never pull it back. As they told you a year ago, they are going to have to pull this money back and that's the moment of decision. The moment the Fed says we have to raise interest rates, that's when money is harder to get. Remember we're an economy 70% on consumption. So that means it's going to be harder for you to get a loan. That means it's going to be more expensive to do business. It's going to be harder on your credit card. The price of money goes up. Which means Americans will spend less. It will mean that business expands slower, if they expand. They can't get a loan to go ahead and expand this portion of their business. So what happens? It slows down the economy. Well, if you are on the precipice of collapse, you cannot slow the economy down. This is exactly the situation of the Weimar Republic. The politicians and the Central Bank of Germany got together and they had inflated the money and they were in this position. And the central banker looked at the politicians and the politicians said, you can't do this, there will be riots in the streets. It will shut the economy down. And everybody will lose their job. And the central bankers said yes, but if we continue to go this path, you are going to have hyperinflation and then you'll never be able to stop it. And the politicians said, well, do you know that for sure? Are you sure there's nothing we can do? And the Central Bank said, well, not that we I mean, it's never ended any other way. But I mean, I mean, does anybody have any suggestions? Well, there's got to be something, I mean, maybe something. We know that the economy will stop if you pull the money back in, right? Yes. And we're not sure that some miracle's not going to happen and this will give us more time to be able to figure out something that will work, right? "Well, yeah, but nothing is going to there's no way to do." But I mean, there's a possibility. I mean, right? That's the position we're now in, and it is the position that every Banana Republic goes through. And this is when you need a politician that has the courage to not sign an executive order and say, well, let's look into what our economic future is, somebody who knows and somebody who stands up and tells the American people, guys, we are going to lose jobs, we're going to lose a lot. But if I'm going to be a one term president, that's fine. We must save the monetary system. We must save the republic. And it's going to mean that we're going into a depression, but that's because everyone has lied to you. You can't have everything. And we are at the moment of decision. Do we save the republic? Or do we hope for a miracle that somehow or another the laws of finance break down on the coast of North America. And this is just a special place where mathematics no longer work. Magic works. This is it. Once the Fed says we're going to raise interest rates, our money lenders will say, whew, good. They will save themselves eventually, as long as we are also cutting taxes and spending. And when I say taxes and spending, I'm not talking about, hey, get some tax cuts for the poor and what I'm talking about staggering tax cuts, staggering. And when I say cuts on spending, I mean staggering spending cuts. What was it Greece had to reduce their debt to GDP in the next three years? Do you remember that number? It was thrown out in a meeting I think this morning. It was some don't quote me on this because I know this isn't right but it was like 60% or 133% of GDP, their debt to GDP needed to go down to, what's it like 60% or 30%?
STU: It potentially may have been 60 from 133.
GLENN: It has to be cut in half.
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: That is our future. And California, New York, citizens of America understand this. Your politicians are lying to you right now about your state politicians are lying to you about the pension funds because they know they are going to be bailed out. The pension funds.
