by Mac Slavo, SHTFPlan:
If you think the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing will only affect the US dollar, think again. Now that the United States has officially begun it’s third round of money printing to the tune of at least $40 billion monthly, central banks around the world will also act to ‘defend’ their currencies in kind.
Moreover, because everyone is joining the fray, all of that extra money will make its way into key resource stocks and commodities, adding further upside price pressure to essential goods like food and fuel.
It’s a race to the bottom, and the losers are the 99.9% of us who aren’t being kept in the loop.
Quantitative easing is really another word for currency wars. A weak U.S. currency puts continued pressure on the Japanese Yen, the Chinese Yuan, the South Korean Won, the Australian dollar and other currencies.
Credit cards have been used as a lifeline and a way to live beyond one’s means in the United States for many years. Yet the current environment of deleveraging is hitting credit cards hard. The outstanding balance on credit card debt has reached a level last seen over a decade ago. This is positive since many were simply using credit cards as a method of spending money they did not have. Yet with access to debt becoming more restricted for households, how many people that once had credit cards have shifted to safety net programs like food stamps? It is impressive to see how the epitome of American debt spending in the credit card is contracting in this current environment. Americans are simply in the process of deleveraging and credit cards are one of those items that signal that debt growth does have a maximum tipping point.
