While working toward a better America for the kids, while staying current with what’s going on in the USA economy, what did you read and hear this last weekend in August, about what the dickens was decided at Jackson Hole last week? And what that might well mean for people and employment in Montana?
For this elder, navigating thru Jackson Hole 2014 commentaries before the weekend, seemed like driving on a slow gummy muddy road with bad windshield wipers and sometimes darn little traction.
So it finally got into my thick head to turn around and get back to chores and off and on thinking about Jackson Hole 2014 and maybe what that could mean in dollars and sense for Montana.
I encourage you to consider the plusses and minuses of current Fed Policy to deflate the US currency against other currencies. Maybe Montana wheat sold for future delivery to China, at lower US dollars in 2015? Maybe 2016? Maybe Montana coal sold to China? Maybe exported logs?
Pretty ugly sweetheart deal. China needs more Montana treasure. It’s a sellers market! Montana has treasures to sell to a willing market. Maybe Montana could charge a nickel more for coal and wheat, and still sell more into a Sellers Market!
Oops, no it is not a sellers market, it’s a Fed-centric market. Fed policy is to deflate the US dollar to lower upcoming export prices, especially to increase incoming US dollar volumes, of exports out of the USA!
Just got to do that because USA imports continue to daily move many more multi millions of dollars out of the USA, compared to the multi millions of dollars that come into the USA, to pay for exports going out away from the USA.
Plus dollar intensive foreign policy interventionism and adventurism separately combine to devalue the US dollar.
And now Russian demand for currencies, has on schedule turned away from keeping large reserves of dollars built up by selling natural gas for dollars to Europe! No more demand for those dollar reserves. Russia has dumped dollars to acquire rubles and yuan, in exchange for Russian natural gas pipelined to the West, and soon to the East.
Add up all that and more and I can see how Central Bank planners might think their USA must export more coal and wheat out of Montana to slow down dollar depreciation against stronger currencies.
Got to export more Boeing Aircraft. Plastics. Chemicals. Those three in similar dollar volumes. Check them out.
But you guessed it, by large numbers easy to search for, the biggest export out of our country is petroleum products. You got it again, petroleum has long been a most favored sector by Congress, The Fed, often the President, and most always by global investors seeking a risk-adjusted most profitable sector on stock exchanges! (Of course, the transportation sector is the current large sector, up chart trender.)
From what this geezer gathers, Fed Policy appears to favor and incentivize USA exports; make them a little cheaper, to sell a lot more.
New subject! How about Fed Domestic Policy? Any nuanced hint about changing status quo Fed Policy currently favoring price inflation for petroleum products here in the USA?
Let’s see now, will Fed Policy in Montana continue to reduce fuel costs for Australian beef producers, also increase dollar denominated and paid for refrigeration and transportation costs of foreign beef shipped, then trucked into distribution hubs, then trucked to grocery stores in Montana?
All the more reason to make more progress towards Montana protein products in Montana grocery stores! If beef has to cost more at the grocery store, how come the price increase has to benefit foreign pockets?
How about thinking locally? A regional product-to-market loop. How about a community project to get Bitterroot raised beef to tables in the Bitterroot?
Maybe finance through the QE3 T Bills = USD (IMO intentionally, certainly knowingly, debased dollars). QE 1, 2 and 3 perceived by many as something like almost free loans to the five Big Banks.
No! No! Not enough time to achieve objectives! Bitterroot residents have missed the opportunity to get QE money to help build systems and structures to get Bitterroot beef into Bitterroot grocery stores! Some would say that, for just look at the Jackson Hole commentary, that the long anticipated termination of QE3 is in fact going to happen before the election! Worse yet, some Jackson Hole commentary says Fed holding open their option to soon increase interest costs of borrowing money from their banks!
No! No! There’s not enough community desire in the Bitterroot for locally raised beef.
Not enough time to grow a staged plan and seek bank funding, enabled by QE3.
Let Billings do it! Next year or so examine a working model, of a Montana made way and means of supplying Montana consumers with proteins produced in Montana!
Nay! Nay! Nay! I say no more sideways direction. No more new world immorality of passing on fixable, large scale, broadly costly, central planning to the next generation in the Bitterroot!
No more of that status quo kool aid! Instead, make plans day by day for Bitterroot products, for Bitterroot kids you see day by day.
Local protein to help build minds and bodies.
Local trees into local cut, milled and dried dimensional lumber to help build buildings and homes.
What’s wrong with those objectives?
Bob Williams
Stevensville