IS THE EVOLUTION OF MONEY HURTING US !!!

It all started with “BARTER TRADE SYSTEM”: Long time ago the first trade was conducted via Barter. All goods were directly exchanged for all other goods. But this method had its own problems. If you want to swap your chicken for a loaf of bread, but the baker happened to want firewood, you had a task to find someone with firewood who wanted to have chicken.

        Then came the medium of gold exchange, under which everyone agreed to accept gold in return for whatever they were selling. This transition allowed the swapping of chickens for gold and then gold for anything else. The thing with gold was that it was indestructible and could be stored for the future. As gold also become the “Store Of Value” – if you had lots of chickens you could swap all of chickens for gold, spend only part of the gold on bread and keep a few gold for a rainy day.

                Gold as a mode of money, created its own set of problems – Governments in financial troubles, would call back their gold coins, then melt it down and reform the same metal into more coins with lower gold content in it or mixing any other metal in it. For government, it generated a nice new stock of gold for conversion into coins. This is what called “Debasement of Currency”.

                       But debasement of currency became a huge problem and led to the development of certificates of gold deposits. Debasement & the larger monetary transaction required that the coins to be counted weighed and checked for its purity & authenticity. In addition to which there was constant problem of security, so this led to the development of the Gold Depository Banks whereby a group of merchants come together and formed Merchant Banks that would hold their gold securely at a central location. The quality of coin was checked, the depositor was issued with paper certificate of deposit. The certificate of deposit represented his holding of gold within the banks & the holder of this certificate was entitled to present the certificate back to the bank, who would on demand, exchange it for the same amount of gold coin originally deposited.

                       These banks soon realized that the owners of the gold rarely come back to collect it. As a result gold was lying idle with them most of the time. So, these bankers come up with a money making scheme of their own. These banker’s started issuing their own certificates of gold deposit and would lend those certificates to merchants. These merchants would use these new certificates to buy goods, which they would then sell on at a profit provided everything went well, the merchant could borrow the certificate, buy & sell the goods to make profit and repay the bank before anyone realized that the gold had left the vault which of course it never had.

                 Now, what this did was there were always more certificates of deposits in circulation than the gold in the vaults of banks. This in turn led to crisis situation during which individuals with these certificates landed up at the bank asking for their gold back. The trouble was that the bank did not have enough gold to make good against all the certificates it had issued. As this news spread, more people landed up leading to bank running, this soon led to a situation whereby a central bank was created which would fight financial instability. In return for the backing of the central bank, the commercial banks gave up their rights to issue their own gold depository certificates. From now on there would only be one type of depository certificates and these would be printed by the government, and be distributed through the central bank to the commercial banks. In addition, gold reserves of the commercial banks would be collected together at the central bank.

                This created the concept of Currency Notes issued by the government. But what this also did was that it gave the government a monopoly on printing money. And unlike the kings of the earlier age, who had to call their gold coin back to debase them, now government could simply print more and more paper money as & when they deemed fit. And this right as we know has more or less been responsible for the current financial crisis.

IMPACT OF THE EVOLUTION OF MONEY: Let’s say US government prints $1 trillion and keeps it in its vaults, so then what would be the impact of this printing of money will be on the Inflation? The answer would be ZERO impact? Correct, simply because all the printed money is in the vault and does not enter into the economic systems…It is when the money enters the economic system which leads to a situation wherein more money chase the same or even fewer goods leading to price rise. At same time it is important how fast does money changes hands, meaning how fast people receive and then go out and spend this money. The faster they spend this money, more velocity money has and that in turn leads to a faster increase in prices & thus an increase in inflation. 

SAFEGUARD FROM THE FINANCIAL CRISIS : When markets are erratic & at times unpredictable, then the wise thing to do is to step up exposure to an asset that would infuse a semblance of stability and strength to the portfolio. And the cleanest, simplest & most efficient way to do is to invest in GOLD ETF. Not to mention the fact that the rampant way in which countries are debasing their currencies, one cannot help feel that at the end of the day, bullion will be more valuable than billions.

                             

BUY GOLD ETF's: There are new alternatives to invest in GOLD ETF’s - CLICK HERE , ETF’s – known as Exchange traded Funds which are listed on NSE. ETF just like any other mutual funds collects money and invest into the market. GOLD ETF’s collects funds and invests in GOLD. They buy gold physically – so the units are backed by 0.995 finesse gold. When you invest in GOLD ETF you are allotted a unit same as in mutual fund, here 1 unit of GOLD ETF can be 1 gm or 1/2 gm of gold depending on the funds – So Gold ETF are affordable. GOLD ETF’s trades like normal equity share on exchanges whose prices are in tandem with domestic gold price. If you dint have Demat account you still can invest in GOLD FUNDS like SBI GOLD FUND, Quantum Gold Saving Fund. You can also invest in these ETF in a Systematic Investment way (SIP) with as low as Rs. 500. JUST call your broker to buy GOLD ETF’s (List of listed ETF are mentioned below) or just visit your nearest bank and ask for GOLD FUND (if you don’t have trading account)

Listed GOLD ETFS

AXIS GOLD SHARE

GOLD BeES 

HDFC GOLD ETF

KOTAK GOLD ETF

RELIANCE GOLD ETF

RELIGARE GOLD ETF

SBI GOLD ETF

READ MY POST ON ALWAYS BUY GOLD 

Is it Time to worry about the Dollar??

The Fed’s so-called “QE2″ (Quantitative Easing/second round) which is purchasing of U.S. Treasury bonds by printing more and more currency notes to fulfill its purchases are supposed to come to an end on June 30, 2011, which would make July a crucial month – for the US economy, for the performance of the dollar and most of all for the Emerging Markets like INDIA.

For the last two years, the U.S. economy has been supported by the twin catalysts of fiscal and monetary stimuli. Fiscal stimulus seems to continue for some time as US have year’s $1.6 trillion deficit. But monetary stimulus is another matter. 

Since QE2 began in November 2010, the Fed has been buying about two-thirds of the Treasury bonds issued – or about $600 billion ($60,000 Cr) of the $900 billion ($90,000 Cr) in total bonds to be issued between November and June. Simply extending QE2 won’t solve this problem. The Fed would then be buying both too much of debt and not enough of debt at a same time.

Treasury bond purchases of $75 billion ($7,500 Cr) a month would be enough to push inflation sharply upwards. This is, after all, the very same policy that gave the German Weimar Republic its trillion-percent inflation. On the other hand, even if the Fed buys $75 billion ($7,500 Cr) of Treasuries a month, this will bring with them the need to place an additional $75 billion ($7,500 Cr) worth of bonds every month. And with inflation rapidly accelerating, the chances of a bond market and dollar crisis would still be great, which will affect the flows of foreign money (FII’s money) to the emerging markets like India. This is a concern!!!!

The one way to avoid the Death of the Dollar

With the U.S. market struggling under the burden of rising inflation and some ill-advised monetary and fiscal moves, the death of the dollar is looming as a worst-case – but still possible – scenario.

The Fed has one chance to avoid this outcome. Just to have a chance of staying level with inflation. U.S. central bank policymakers must boost short-term interest rates at least to the 3% level. That would burst the global commodities bubble like one in Sliver, and reduce inflationary pressures. With that, the Fed could then –continue with a “modified QE3.” For instance, it could buy $50 billion ($5,000 Cr) of bonds in the third quarter and $25 billion ($2,500 Cr) in the fourth quarter, thus breaking the Treasury bond market. With inflationary pressure reduced by the interest-rate increase, the chances of a Treasury-bond-market meltdown would thus be reduced to almost zero. Interest rates would rise and bond prices would decline, but it will be in an orderly manner. And inflation, if it continued, would do so at a more-moderate pace.

In fact, even inflation – should it remain stronger-than-desired – could be moderated, simply by raising rates a bit more, perhaps in several increments. And the U.S. dollar would be saved. There’s only one problem with this scenario and that won’t happen unless Bernanke won’t boost rates.

Visit my previous post on click here-  US PRINTING NOTES

US PRINTING NOTES AGAIN: DEBASEMENT OF CURRENCY

"MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!!"

On November 3, 2010. Federal Reserve chairman Ben S Bernanke decided to have a second round of Quantitative Easing (QE2). He decided to pump in $600 billion into the US economy by buying an additional Treasury Bond through June in order to reduce unemployment & avoid deflation by printing money. And printing more & more money would be more “Debasement of your Currency”. This will lead to surging commodity prices & asset bubbles not only in the US but also in Emerging Markets. The US Fed reserve calls it liquidity into the financial system by merely printing more & more dollars, which are not backed by real assets such as Gold. Technically, there is no limit to this printing, i.e. No supply restriction on paper currencies. This is what economists called “Debasement of Currency”.

Gold has a unique characteristic of a store of value which is not with paper currencies, which tend to lose value over a period of time due to inflation (loss of purchasing power) caused by an oversupply of printed money.

We will compare the Currency in Circulation issued and the underlying Gold held by concerned Central Banks in developed countries. Divide the Gold reserves (in tonnes) held by Central Banks with the currency in circulation (in billion $) of the respective countries will give us a ratio, a Gold to currency ratio.

In 1973, Gold held by the US central bank was 8,584 tonnes & the currency in circulation was $61 billion. Dividing the gold held by the currency in circulation, we get a ratio of 140.2 for that year. i.e. 140.2 tonnes of gold was held per $1 billion of currency in circulation. In the year 2007, the US central bank held 8,133 tonnes of Gold & the money in circulation was a whopping $759 billion. The ratio comes to 10.7 .i.e. only 10.7 tonnes of gold held per billion dollars in circulation.

If the US were to get back to the 1973 ratio of gold held per billion $ in circulation, it would have to increase its Gold Reserve to whopping 1,07,153 tonnes from the current 8,133 tonnes, an increase of more than 13 times in potential demand. With the financial crisis not over yet, Central Banks like FED would continue to inject more & more money into the financial system. Thus the debasement of currency will continue, making real assets like GOLD & SILVER more & more attractive as a hedge against reducing purchasing power & loss of faith & confidence in paper currencies.

We should thank GOD that the US does not have a printing press for Gold. The YELLOW metal may be the only Savior of our wealth over the longer term. That sure makes a case to buy GOLD. As far as our INDIA is a concern, India’s M3 supply in INM3MS=ECI as of July 16,2010 was Rs.57,821.41 billion from Rs.56,770.76 billion (June 18,2009) & Rs.4984.46 billion on July 3,2009. GOLD RESERVE AS ON SEPTEMBER 10, 2010 – 557.7 tonnes.

SO..GOLD IS ALWAYS A BUY EVEN AT THIS PRICE. BUY IN GRAMS IT SURELY WILL MAKE YOUR WEALTH SLOWLY BUT SURELY.....

Read my previous post on GOLD - CLICK HERE -  MORE ON GOLD