Scribbling on Money? Great Marketing Idea?

I mentioned a few posts back that I have been blogging religious everyday at a website run by a new company that I founded with some friends. The site is called ROBOT55 (Robot Go-Go). The site is bilingual so please check it out.

Today, I posted an article over there that I do want to share with the regular readers of this blog. The post is entitled: Guerrilla Marketing! Mr. Spock and the Greek Artist That Hijacked the Euro! (robot55.jp/blog/guerilla-marketing-greek-artist-hijacks-the-euro-and-mr-spock/)

The article talks about two really wild (and funny) things going on. 

One is an artist who has made a name for himself by drawing public hangings, police thugs, skateboarders, riots, etc. on Euro Bank Notes. 

The other is about how Canadians are drawing Mr. Spock on $5 dollar notes so much so that the Canadian government has asked them to stop.

Here's a snippet from the article:

The government of the EU and Canada are destroying the value of their respective currencies by money printing and deficit spending, but they don’t want you scribbling doodles on the money. 

Yeah, I guess no one in government is smart enough to see the irony in all this: The government can wreck the currency, but they don't like it if you or me do the same. I wonder which is worse? Devaluing the currency or drawing doodles? Morons!

It's hilarious and I have lots more photos over at the post: Guerrilla Marketing! Mr. Spock and the Greek Artist That Hijacked the Euro! robot55.jp/blog/guerilla-marketing-greek-artist-hijacks-the-euro-and-mr-spock/

Currency Wars Lead to Trade Wars Which Lead to Shooting Wars - Yen to Go to ¥200 to $1 US Dollar?

And so it begins. The currency wars have most definitely started. The last time this happened was in the 1930s and we know what that lead to as currency wars lead to trade wars which lead to shooting wars. 

I hear that Kyle Bass predicts the yen to drop to ¥200 to one US dollar.

And some people criticized me for predicting this event (though off by a few months) two years ago.

Start to stock up, folks. We're in for a rough ride. It's not coming, it has begun.

Getting Richer By Getting Poorer - Japan's FX-Bond-Stock Trilemma

JPY could fall a lot further because weak JPY has been the most effective tool to create equity market wealth and spur Japanese demand. Moreover, Citi's Steven Englander notes, Japanese policymakers do not have many other options. If JPY is ticket for the Nikkei to regains ground lost versus other equity markets, USDJPY would have to go into three digits. By implication JPY would have to weaken a lot more. The loss of market share in part reflects long-term structural issues but Japanese governments (like others) are more mindful of incurring the anger of domestic political constituencies by making tough structural reforms than of G20 counterparts by weakening the exchange rate. From a political perspective, the Nikkei-JPY relationship is too much a good thing for Japanese policymakers to give up - but divergences are abundant at the short- and long-end of the JGB curve - and too much of a good thing in this case is a disaster.

Read more at Zerohedge

If the G20 criticize Japan for currency manipulation, which they probably will, Japan can point out that their equity market poor performance over these last ten years  also reflects a major loss of export market share… This has occurred since 2000 and escalated since 2007. In fact, some economists would say that Korea has benefitted greatly on the Yen's strength and this is unfair to the Japanese economy. 

Please refer to: Yen's Drop to Give Boost to Earnings in Japan

South Korean manufacturers Samsung Electronics Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. snatched market share away from Japanese rivals, helped by several years of won weakness and yen strength. But some of those advantages are eroding with the weaker yen. The won has strengthened 27% against the yen since June 1. 

The Japanese representatives will also argue that there is undeniable evidence that the yen to dollar exchange rate has contributed to the weakness of the Nikkei and the overall Japanese economy. Couple this with a much more militant Shinzo Abe administration and I think it wouldn't be outside of possibility where we see Japan getting upset at the G20 and strongly protesting actions. Hell, the last time a world wide organization really put the Japanese on the spot for actions was when Japan walked out of the League of Nations on Feb. 24 1933 (Almost 80 years ago today!)

... Hey! Didn't I just read a sentence at the start of this exact blog post that said, 

"The last time this happened was in the 1930s and we know what that lead to as currency wars lead to trade wars which lead to shooting wars."

Yep. I did. 

This isn't going to turn out well....

Idiots in Japanese Government - Intervenes in Yen Again!!!

What did I tell you?


The Japanese government has thrown away another several hundred billion dollars down the toilet by intervening in the Yen's rise. 


From Bloomberg:


Yen Drops Versus Euro, Dollar as Japan Intervenes for the Third Time This Year

The yen dropped by the most in three years against the dollar as Japan stepped into foreign-exchange markets to weaken the currency for the third time this year after its gains to a postwar record threatened exporters.

“I’ve repeatedly said that we’ll take bold action against speculative moves in the market,” Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi told reporters today after the government acted unilaterally. “I’ll continue to intervene until I am satisfied.”

The yen weakened against the more than 150 currencies that Bloomberg tracks as Azumi said he ordered the intervention at 10:25 a.m. local time because “speculative moves” in the currency failed to reflect Japan’s economic fundamentals. Today’s drop reversed this month’s previous gain by the yen against the greenback amid speculation the Federal Reserve may add to stimulus measures as the U.S. recovery stagnates.

The Japanese currency sank 4.3 percent as of 6:44 a.m. in London to 79.24 per dollar, after remaining at 79.20 for almost three hours. The yen headed for its biggest closing drop since October 2008. It fell to as low as 79.53 per dollar, the weakest since Aug. 4.

Seriously, these people are nuts. These fools keep doing this but it never works. They throw away billions, the yen falls for a short while, then it starts to rise again. Please refer to: Insanity: Japanese Government of August 9, 2011:

I write over and over until my fingers are bleeding that the government is run by idiots. For over twenty years, the clowns "at the helm" of the Japanese government have been creating debt and trying to manipulate the markets. We have the current situation to show for it: Massive public debt and an economy mired in the mud.

Last year's currency intervention was to stop the yen when it was at about ¥82 to the US dollar. The Japanese Central Bank threw $63 billion dollars at the problem then. 

FIVE DAYS ago, the yen and dollar rate was ¥76.9 yen to one US dollar. The Japanese government threw $56 billion dollars at that. They were patting themselves on the back because the yen quickly shot past ¥80 to the US dollar. That was on August 4, 2011.

This is the third currency intervention by Japan this year. How many times do these idiots have to keep repeating the same mistake until they learn that these sorts of interventions never work?

Let me predict that we will see ¥75 to the US Dollar again before Feb. 2012... Soon followed by another massive currency intervention.

The last intervention was $60 billion dollars down the trash can. This newest one, with the biggest rise in the yen since 1978, must be well more than that! Japanese government debt is now 225% of GDP. Is it any wonder with the government so stupidly throwing money down the toilet over and over?

Selling Their Gold? The Japanese Must Be Completely Insane!

I stumbled upon this story today from Reuters about how many Japanese people are selling their gold. It seems that, at today's high prices, they want to cash in while they can.

Because of this trend, this makes Japan a net exporter of gold for six years in a row!


Why would anyone want to sell gold (real money) in exchange for worthless paper? These people selling their gold haven't a clue as to what they are doing. 


Reuters reports in "Analysis: Japanese Cash in on Gold Price Boom":

(Reuters) - For Eriko Ebina, standing outside a downtown Tokyo medical equipment store that has a side business buying gold, the recent surge in prices for the precious metal was just too tempting.

"For more than 30 years, I kept gold jewelry mother bought for me, and with media saying prices are high, I thought I would sell them now except for a few keepsakes from her," said Ebina, in her 60s.

"I earned more than I thought they were worth. I'm not interested in buying gold."

It is sellers like Ebina who will offset surging investment into gold funds in Japan, which should make the country a net exporter for the sixth year in a row.

The assets of Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corp's physical gold exchange traded fund (ETF), Japan's first backed by metal stored in the country, have grown by a quarter since end-July to 21.8 billion yen ($284.9 million) as of August 23.

"Investors are seriously treating our gold ETF as a legitimate asset class, just like investing in equities, bonds and currencies," said Osamu Hoshi, deputy general manager at Mitsubishi UFJ Trust.

"They see a need to diversify their assets after seeing volatile moves in currencies and stocks and others," Hoshi said.

There is a serious disconnect here. Hoshi says that people need to diversify their assets, yet they sell their gold? And what do they buy? Stocks? Bonds? Paper currency?! Oh yeah, those have done especially well over these last 20 + some years.

What do they say, "A fool and his money are soon parted."

A downgrade of the U.S. sovereign debt rating amid a deteriorating outlook for the world's largest economy, as well as a spreading European debt crisis, have triggered a rush to gold that has boosted prices by 14 percent this month.

Yeah... For people like this dumb lady who sold her gold, they need to wake up and smell the coffee...She doesn't need to sell her gold, she needs to hold on to it... For those of you who don't have any gold or silver, you need to buy it.

It's the only asset that has done well over these last ten years.