The title says it all if you know what you are looking at. A little history first then we will dive into the relationships between BRICS, the Dollar and Interest Rates and it will wake you up if you haven’t been watching the world. BRICS is the formation of a new currency based on precious metals formed to take on the dollar as the world’s new reserve currency, we will get more into that in a minute. The Dollar is our currency in the United States and is the current world reserve currency. Then how do interest rates play into this equation you ask? Interest rates may not react now to both of these currencies now but they will very soon.
BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, China, and South America, they were the original nations that signed on to use this new currency. Since the formation of BRICS, Several other countries have signed on to use this currency, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Afghanistan, and several others countries. What this means is that these countries will use the BRICS currency as their reserve currency, not the US Dollar. This has not materialized yet but it is in the works. If this new currency catches on and becomes the world’s reserve currency and not the dollar that could have to reach economic consequences for the Dollar. If you are paying attention to what is happening in Ukraine right now you have to understand that this conflict is not about Ukraine’s sovereignty from Russia it is about money. Money has driven almost all wars in history and this one is no different.
The Dollar has been the world’s reserve currency since World War 2 and before that, it was the Pound Sterling (British Currency). The Dollar was originally backed by Gold and Silver. When the US was limited to gold and silver it could not expand as fast as those that held the gold and silver wanted it to so it moved from a currency that could be backed by precious metals to the Federal Reserve Note we have today. That transition happened in 1971 under President Nixon. The US moved to what some call a “Petrol Dollar” which is a dollar backed by oil. Again, we have seen wars fought over oil now, why? Money. Today’s Dollar is really only backed by debt and that is why the world sees the dollar as a dead currency where the debt has exceeded what a normal mind can grasp. $33 trillion dollars is a number that is not quantifiable to a regular person, numbers like that are for mathematicians. The dollar has been the great magical vehicle for decades with people believing it has actual worth and that belief has allowed the US to become the largest superpower in the world.
Interest Rates, how does it play into the currency game? This one will take a history lesson as well. Interest Rates, by definition, are the cost of money. Interest Rates in the US have been controlled by the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve also controls the Money Supply. We can now see the relationship as the Federal Reserve controls both the supply of Dollars and the cost of the Dollar. The Federal Reserve system has been under fire lately with the way they have managed this relationship as we have seen interest rates soar over the last few years. With the dollar as the world’s reserve currency for so long the Federal Reserve Bank has been lucky that countries like China and other countries that hold a large stake in the US debt have not called it due. If the world moves away from the Dollar as a reserve currency you will see the devaluation of the dollar worldwide and those still using the dollar will see it be devalued on the world stage. A devalued dollar will create inflation and the cost of the money will have to go up to offset this. The cost of money is interest rates.
This is just a quick view of those things to come and can also explain what is going on in the world today. If you connect the dots you can see why BRICS has come to fruition. War in today’s world is being fought on the economic front not so much on the battlefield. If the BRICS currency takes over, the dollar will devalue and the cost of things in the US will skyrocket. If we have high inflation we will have high-interest rates. When you look at the conflict in Ukraine understand it is not about Ukraine at all, in fact, if you look at Ukraine you will find that their government has been corrupt for decades. If you research President Zelenskyy you will see he started off in life as a comedian and actor and worked for a TV station prior to being “elected” President of Ukraine in 2019. Zelenskyy’s net worth is estimated to be between $20 and 50 million US dollars, and some estimate it far greater than that. Meanwhile, the US has recently sent Ukraine over $120 Billion in aid. These are facts; you can even google it and see that the search engine has not yet closed the door on this information. It is on top of this administration’s list to keep the dollar as the world reserve currency to keep America the strongest and richest country in the world. When you are watching or listening to the news, however, you find your information, keep money in mind when watching as that is the underlying cause for almost every conflict in the world is money. I tried to keep this to facts that we know, but I think if you peel the onion back a bit more you will see things and understand things that you may not want to have knowledge of. There is a lot more to this that I can’t possibly go into for this short blog post so keep your eyes and mind open.
If you are in the Mortgage or Real Estate business currently you are experiencing slow times and you are working harder than ever. I am here to tell you that these slow times are all part of the business cycle that has been disrupted over the last 20 years or so. With all the disruptions to the economy over the last 20 years starting with the rise and fall of the sub-prime era of the early 2000s and the recession that followed the recovery and then the pandemic the U.S. economy has been put the challenge. The Real Estate Industry followed right along with the economic rollercoaster. Having seen the type of market we are in for the first 20 years of my career I almost feel comforted by the normal slowdown of the Real Estate industry after the boom we just came through. In the late 1900s, the cycle for booms and busts was on an almost predictable 10-year cycle, and normal slowdowns during the months of November, December, January, and February (the winter months) were predictable. The change began when we should have had a slowdown in the early 2000s instead the Government came out pushing the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 in an effort to get low-income folks into housing. Thus, beginning the “Sub-Prime” era of lending with little or no oversight over lending and financial institutions. By 2008 the economy was pushed past the adjustment period it should have had and coupled with financial institutions failing made for a perfect storm.
We know what followed, the crash of 2008, and in a lot of ways it is still affecting the ways we do business in the aftermath of no oversight to the new age of total oversight. Fast forward to today, we are coming off one of the hottest real estate markets since the “Sub-Prime “ era where money was flowing, and this time money was flowing with low-interest rates. So, it is perfectly normal for the economy to take a deep breath. During these adjustment times or slowdowns, you will typically see a consolidation of Financial institutions and Real Estate firms it is a time for the well-positioned companies to gobble up the companies that couldn’t see the change coming. We are seeing both Realtors and Loan Originators depart the business for a steady paycheck. This is normal, and so will be a sagging stock market as the Real Estate Industry is one of the largest manufacturing sectors of our economy and drives so many other industries like construction, home improvement stores, home furnishings stores, and so on. Technology is also affected when the housing industry slows as fewer people are investing in new technology when the old tech is working fine for time being.
This economy is normal but if the politicians see it as problematic for their future, they will do stupid things to try and stimulate the economy. The biggest mistake the government has done over the last few years, pandemic and post-pandemic were to issue “Stimulus Checks”. Putting more money into the economy does 2 detrimental things to the economy down the road, it devalues the dollar and creates inflation. This is where we are at today. As a follower of the economy with a degree in economics, it is not too hard to see the effects of Government intervention in the economy. Unfortunately, there is another way the government can stimulate a sagging economy and I don’t want even to bring this up, however, in light of recent events it must be said. War is a way to stimulate an economy and to keep power.
Ukraine is going to be the war our government will get us into if “We the People” don’t stand up to it. The reasons for this conflict are crystal clear from my standpoint. One: The formation of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) is the formation of those countries denouncing the US Dollar and creating a new currency built on a precious metals standard. Since its formation, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa have joined. This could very well mean the end of the US dollar’s dominance as a world reserve currency. Second, is the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, and the World Health Organization and its push for global governance where the BRICS nations are not on board with this agenda, and quite frankly we should not be involved either. Third: Oil and the flow of this resource or more so the control of the flow of oil is what is going to turn out to be a part of this global conflict. I am not a doomsday kind of person, so I am praying that I am terribly wrong and the world turns to peace and unity rather than conflict.
Not to ignore the elephant in the room, but I prefer to stay positive and to look at this time in our economy as a normal economy taking a breath after a very busy and robust time. Going back to the crash of 1929 and the Depression that followed the nation's economy has seen this speed up and slow down pretty consistently. At the beginning of 1941, we were still in the depression but the recovery was well underway, but the end of 1941 December 7th to be exact is when we were officially out of the depression, and in 1945 when the war ended the economy was in full swing and returning Veterans had jobs to come home to and homes where being built and an extreme pace. Things slowed a bit by the end of the 1940s and we entered into the Korean war and things pick up again. The 1950s were a time of peace and prosperity. In 1960-1961 there was a recession caused by the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, then recovery. Then in the early 1970s was another recession caused by “the oil crisis” which also caused the stock market to crash as well. Then we had recovery and in the early 1980s we had the “crisis with Iran” again over oil and there was a recession. Recovery then followed and in the early 1990s due to the stock market crash of 1989, we again were in a recession. The early 2000s had a slowdown but not as much as it should have spurred on by the ease of obtaining money and the creation of the "Subprime Mortgage" era. This led to 2008 which as we know was the worst recession since the 1930s. By 2011 we, as a nation were in recovery mode again. Then in early 2020, COVID threw the country into an economic lockdown to a degree our nation has never seen. To get us out of this recession the Federal Reserve lowered Interest rates to the lowest levels in history and so began the last housing boom. Now we are resting and if we let our economy follow the normal cycle, we should be out of this by the end of the year 2023 or the beginning of 2024.
Invest and buy real estate now while the economy is resting for if you think that interest rates will return to the historic lows of 2000-2021 you would be drastically wrong. We are close to the equilibrium point with higher mortgage interest rates the economy will do far worse any lower we will have higher inflation. It is all guesswork on Federal Reserve’s policy with interest rates and they hope they get it right with respect to inflation. As a Real Estate and Mortgage Professional all I can tell others out there is to stay the course or if you can’t get out and find a steady paycheck. Those that can weather the storm will end up at the top of the food chain when this comes back around and it will, it always has. You see people always need housing and money so those of us that stick it out will be there first when it comes back. So don’t despair get everything in place for the next housing boom and when it comes you will be ready. Those consumers looking for housing now will find what they want a price that they can afford with a payment they can afford.
We know the state of our economy is the worst it has been since the financial collapse of 2008. We know we are having record inflation with no end in sight, and we also know that interest rates are being raised to combat the high inflation with no end in sight. What we are not being told is how to fix this, which I find as odd as the answers are all right in front of us, but it seems like it is taboo to talk about the right way to fix things. We know that gas prices are the highest in history which affects the delivery costs of goods and services. So why is it so hard for our elected leaders to figure out how to solve this problem in these modern times?
We need to explore the reasons why we have record inflation, high gas prices, and high interest rates. We know that the Federal Reserve has only one tool to fight inflation, and that is to raise interest rates. But the big question is why is inflation so high? This can be answered by analyzing where the inflation is coming from and how to fix it. We know that over the last several years since the pandemic started, the government has shut down the economy and paid it’s citizens to basically stay home. All this extra money that has flooded into the economy has devalued the dollar and that has caused some inflation. We also know that Americans have been at the mercy of other countries to deliver goods, pharmaceuticals, computer chips, and oil. This dependency on foreign suppliers has been a challenge as other countries were also under shutdown orders and some far longer than the US. We have all heard about the “supply chain” issues, which is really the big issue that is not being addressed by our elected officials.
We know that when there is a low supply of goods with the same amount of people trying to get these goods that the price of the goods will rise and we have seen this occur in 2022. To compound this issue when the United States slows its domestic production of oil this causes a decrease in the domestic supply of oil and more dependency on foreign oil and when foreign suppliers of oil slow their delivery of oil to the U.S. prices have to go up to slow demand of oil that is not there. With oil prices going to the highest in history this dramatically affects the cost of diesel that is used by the trucking industry to deliver goods to stores for Americans. With higher delivery costs you see higher prices on the shelf for consumer goods and commercial goods. In addition, farmers will have higher costs to run their machines to get the seeds in the ground and when then harvest the food for Americans. Thus, high prices for food as a result of higher costs to produce and deliver our food. Higher fuel prices also affect the individual consumer’s monthly budget as with high gas prices Americans have less money to spend on other goods and services that have raised due to the above.
Knowing this you would think you would have heard more about fixing the underlying problems with the supply of oil, and foreign goods that we are dependent on. It seems all we hear about is how oil use is bad for “climate change” and the Government’s desire to fix this. Granted the Earth is going through changes, but it has been going through changes from the beginning of time. To think that mankind has any control over it is just stupid and is a good excuse for globalists to try and control the masses with control over our basic needs. The proof, for those that live in a city and rarely go out into the world, would be to look at the Grand Canyon and there you can see firsthand how that climate has been changing long before mankind was even present. But I digress for the purpose of proving my point about the control of the masses and this is exactly why Russia and China formed BRICS to stay independent of Globalist's agenda, a topic for others to debate, but the “supply chain” is dramatically affected by all of this.
The way to fix our current economic dilemma is multi-faceted but the overall idea is to focus on the supply side of the economy and not so much on the demand side. The reason for not focusing primarily on demand, like the current administration is, is simply because there will always be a certain amount of demand for basic goods and services, and we are currently really close to a basic demand market. You see the Federal Reserve trying to curve demand by raising interest rates only can go so far then the high interest rates kill the entire market as capital is not readily available for expansion or even normal business activities putting the whole economy into a recession or worse a depression. If the supply side of the economy was being addressed properly, we would see more investment into the expansion of US supplies and farmers. Yes, we must stop being as dependent on foreign goods and oil. We should bring computer chip manufacturing back to the US and we should bring manufacturing back to the US most importantly we need to open up new oil exploration and pipelines to deliver oil more efficiently. We need to look to Hydrogen (the most plentiful element on the planet) as an alternate fuel source and explore other technologies that will curve our oil dependency. Electric cars are good for the short term, but long term they create as much waste as fossil-fueled vehicles. Investing in America and American engineering will be the key moving forward and education of our youth must be paramount for the US to stay independent and take the indoctrination to a certain set of beliefs out of our education system and focus on productivity not emotions as emotions don’t pay the bills. If the supply side of the economy is not focused on the economy will continue to spiral out of control with higher and higher prices for everything.
As most of you know Mortgage interest rates have been rising at a speed at which most people alive today in the home buying market have never seen before. Some of us old timers have seen this before and it is very true that history repeats itself and we should all learn from it. We are going to explore why rates are moving up so rapidly and then we will look at the future and where rates are heading and why. When I say history repeats itself all you must look to is the early 1970s through the early 1980s and see how monetary policy was run. I was a kid in the early 1970s and remember the gas lines and high inflation and interest rates that topped out right around 20% for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. During this, the government also set the interest rates for FHA and VA loans and put ceilings on gas prices.
If this sounds familiar it should be as the government has been involved since the beginning of time with free markets and it has never really worked out. In the 1970’s President, Nixon put gas price ceilings in place in hopes to make gas prices go down or at least stabilize them. This failed miserably as when you try to put a ceiling or a cap on prices that de-incentivizes producers from producing. During this time the government was also spending and expanding the government and services the government felt would help the common American. Then to pay for all the spending they were forced to raise taxes across the board and the Federal Income tax rate got as high as 60%. So, Government spending caused inflation, and the taxing of the citizens meant less money the average worker could take home on every paycheck thus they did spend less, and the economy was basically stagnant. During this time the term “Stagflation” was coined meaning a stagnant economy with high inflation. If this sounds familiar, then open your eyes and look around with the Government spending Trillions of dollars on “COVID relief”, the Ukraine war, AKA money being sent to the United Nations. Then we have all heard about the 87,000 IRS Agents they are hiring to make sure they get their money from the average American after they raise taxes on all of us. This type of economics is called tax and spending or Keynesian Economics.
This is poor Monetary Policy from an economic point of view. I can say without one doubt in my mind that if Monetary Policy continues down this road then we are in for many years of high inflation and high-interest rates. The government has totally neglected the economic curve's supply side and focused only on the demand side. The evidence is seen at the gas pump, the grocery store, at the automaker's showrooms, and the list goes on. Current monetary policy is to raise interest rates with the hopes that with high-interest rates consumers will slow their demand for goods and services, which has held true, however, when staples like food, fuel, transportation (automobiles), and housing prices have risen due to normal demand interest rates can’t slow the basic demand for these goods. Couple the fact that we have just come out of an economy that was shut down for basically 2 years the supply of the goods consumers need has been diminished as there were fewer workers to build or produce these basic goods. Since this has caused a shortage in supply and with the same amount or more consumers going after the same amount of goods and services with the same or less ability to produce more goods due to lack of labor and now high-interest rates or a high cost of money to pay for these workers to produce a normal amount of goods you get supply side inflation. If you have heard of this before you are not wrong, Ronald Ragan was the first to look at the supply side of the economic curve and after that was addressed in the mid-1980s the economy was more manageable. Also, with more workers working the government was getting more tax dollars by taxing the workers less and having more workers paying lower rates but more workers paying those lower rates made the government more money. This is a concept that has been lost by our current Monetary Policies which are only looking at the demand side of the demand and supply curve.
I think you now have the knowledge to see where this is all going unless some drastic changes are made. The economy has no feelings and reacts only to what is given to it. I will say without a doubt in my mind that if the supply side of the global economic and American economic curve is not addressed soon interest rates have to continue to rise. The Federal Reserve or our Central Bank only has interest rates to fight inflation with they do not have the ability to address the supply side of the demand and supply curve and without the Government’s policies changing to address this we will continue to see high inflation and high-interest rates. The way out of all of this is to actually do the opposite of what is going on currently. I agree with the Federal Reserve in raising interest rates as inflation is high, however, high-interest rates will not curve the demand and it will only hurt the supply side of the curve as it is costing companies more to have workers with high taxes and high-interest rates. Until the Government addresses the supply side of the curve this will continue to spiral upward out of control, and I am truly convinced that our current government leaders do not understand this basic economic concept. In fact, they have gone so far the other way spending money to “protect the environment” they have basically stopped the expansion of oil production in the United States, and with a low supply of oil you get higher gas prices. Oil is not only used for our automobiles but our roads, plastics, fertilizer, and so many goods are produced from oil that people don’t even realize. The price of fuel is directly related to our food prices, as well, and people may not realize that it cost more to deliver the food on a truck, it also costs more for the fertilizer to grow the food. It also costs more for the farmers to till the fields and harvest the food as that is all done with fuel. We are nowhere close to using electric vehicles for all of this and then you have to ask the question, are we going to need fuel to power generators to make the electricity to power all the electric vehicles? I agree we should be more environmentally friendly, but not at the expense of our way of life, and our economy invest more time to come up with real solutions not a knee-jerk to some environmentalists. The real solution to clean power is Hydrogen as 2/3 of the Earth is covered in water and when you burn Hydrogen the byproduct is water, why we have not gone down this road baffles me, but I digress.
So, I will conclude this by saying if we stay on the current course the interest rates will be around 8% by the end of the year, and by the first quarter of 2023, we will have interest rates at or above 10%. You might think this is a crazy prediction but look at the history of this type of Monetary Policy and see what happened last time. I am not a Doom and Gloomer, I consider myself a realist and everything to this point under the current Monetary policy has not worked or has made things worse. If you read some of my earlier blog posts and the dates, I wrote them you will see I have been dead on. Remember the economy has no feelings it does what it is told to do, all you have to do is look to see what it is being told to do and you will come to the same conclusion I have. Unfortunately, I have no say in how the government creates its policies and if I did I fear I would be called an “Extremist” in my views. We will see sagging housing prices, but the rub will be that no one will be able to afford them with rates as high as they are headed without some income inflation to match the current inflation rate, however, if you make more income but are taxed at a higher rate your net income will have gone down. We live in a world with cause and effect and if the elected people can’t see the cause and effect of their policies then We the People pay the price. If you are a first-time home buyer don’t be discouraged by all this as there are only 2 things you should be concerned about and that is “What is my payment going to be and what is it going to cost me to get the house?” Once you own the home and you can make the payment then it should not matter to you what your rate is if you are comfortable making the payment. When the rates come down you can always refinance to a lower mortgage payment. So now is a great time to buy your first home, but it is now before the rates go even higher because they will be worse before they get better.