Delicious Privileges

02/18/11 08:00AM EST

This note was originally published at 8am on February 15, 2011. INVESTOR and RISK MANAGER SUBSCRIBERS have access to the EARLY LOOK (published by 8am every trading day) and PORTFOLIO IDEAS in real-time.

“That most delicious of all privileges – spending other people’s money.”

-John Randolph

After reviewing this Disaster Deficit proposal put forth and watching the political theatre associated with delivering it from an American classroom yesterday, I re-shorted the US Dollar and sold out entirely of the 3% in US Treasury denominated Fixed Income I had left.

Since professional politicians from George Bush to Barack Obama clearly don’t have it in them to stop spending other people’s money, the only way to Govern the Government from here on in is going to have to be the old fashioned way - voting with our wallets.

The aforementioned quote came from a Congressman in Virginia (who served between 1825-1827) most commonly remembered as John Randolph of Roanoke. I am calling out his thoughts because they pertained to the constitutionality of the US government’s concentration of power. Standing up against the tyranny of central planning is not a new idea in America this morning. I’m just reminding you where we came from.

In the coming weeks I am going to focus on the history of both US monetary and fiscal policy. I’ll be drawing most specifically on a recently published book that I’m two-thirds of the way done by Barry Eichengreen titled “Exorbitant Privilege” which focuses on the history of the US Dollar, other modern day fiat currencies, and the politicization that supports them.

The idea of Delicious or “Exorbitant Privilege” shouldn’t be foreign to any human being. Depending on which part of this world that you live, you may actually call into question the US Dollar having the privilege of being the world’s most recent reserve currency. As Eichengreen reminds us,

 

“This has long been a sore spot for foreigners, who see themselves as supporting American living standards and subsidizing American multinationals through the operation of this asymmetric financial system.”

Why have I been so intensely focused on how modern day fiscal and monetary policies affect the US Dollar for the past 3 years? That’s simple. Staying ahead of the big draw downs in the US Dollar’s price over the course of the last 3 years has protected my clients and firm from being long massive bubbles in US Equities (2008) and US Treasuries (2010).

Until the huge correlation risk to what the US Dollar Index does every day burns off (and, God willing, it eventually will), I won’t stop weighing the US Dollar as the #1 factor in my 27-factor global macro risk management model.

Unlike whatever models Greenspan and Bernanke have been using for the last 10 years, mine has had some credibility in calling out big Global Macro risks before they become consensus. We introduced the Hedgeye Macro Theme of Global Inflation Accelerating in October of 2010 – today the #1 headline at one of the world’s key lagging economic indicators, The New York Times, is “Companies Raise Prices As Commodity Costs Jump.”

Having authored the inflation theme 5 months ago, I think we have as good a shot as the next Thunder Bay Bear to call a rollover in inflation – or to appease The Ber-nank fans, maybe we’ll call it The Deflation of The Inflation…

 

Just because inflation concerns are now a global consensus doesn’t mean that they can’t remain. I think the #1 factor in determining where inflation goes from here is where the US Dollar Index goes from here.

So, to keep this globally interconnected game of Chaos Theory very simple:

  1. If the US Dollar is debauched from here, I think Global Inflation will continue to accelerate
  2. If the US Dollar is resuscitated from here, I think Global Inflation readings will decelerate

As a reminder, the way we Chaos Theorists measure risks in macro markets is on the slope. Many Big Government Interventionists don’t even know what that means. Being historians and socials scientists can indeed provide impediments to understanding mathematical thoughts.

Another way to talk about slopes, sequential rates of change, and the risk management signals embedded therein is to simplify it – so Barney Frank and John Boehner please repeat after me – what happens in macro happens on the margin… what happens in macro happens on the margin…

Good. With that trivial math lesson in hand, all we need to give America’s professional politicians are some lines and charts for the US Dollar Index:

  1. TAIL (long-term) resistance = $81.66 (that’s the line you’ll need to challenge to overcome your credibility issues)
  2. TREND (intermediate-term) resistance = $78.98 (that’s the line you’ll need to watch day-to-day during the Deficit and Debt Ceiling Debates)

Now, on the topic of the US Debt Ceiling Debate, going all the way back to that prickly little critter that American folks like John Randolph were so focused on – the US Constitution – I’d be remiss not to remind the current Treasury Secretary of the United States of America that it wasn’t until 1917 that Congress gave the US Treasury discretion to issue debt…

That’s right – from 1787 to 1917 is a fairly long time. And we’re pretty sure that the decision in 1917 didn’t have anything to do with Presidents Bush and Obama giving prime time PR speeches from our children’s classrooms to justify deficit spending. The idea behind the issuance of US Treasury debt was grounded in protecting the American people during a time of war, not in protecting government from the people.

My immediate term support and resistance lines for the SP500 are now 1318 and 1337, respectively. As the implied default risks associated with US deficit spending and debt issuance continue to be reflected in higher US Treasury Yields, we now have a ZERO percent asset allocation to UST bonds.

Best of luck out there today,

KM

Keith R. McCullough
Chief Executive Officer

Delicious Privileges - ja1

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