Art Cashin - Money Supply Going Parabolic, Gold & Inflation

"Today 50-year veteran Art Cashin warned King World News that money supply is now going parabolic and may cause problems for the Fed and also create explosive inflation.  Cashin, who is Director of Floor Operations at UBS ($650 billion under management), also spoke about John Paulson and others positioned in gold.

Eric King:  “Art, you brought up the Fed and the distortion in the markets.  What about the Fed distorting the markets and is there a danger of something like the 1987 stock market crash coming out of all of this?”

 

Cashin:  “You are in uncharted territory in many ways.  This is what the ancient mapmakers would call, ‘Terra incognita, or ‘Land unknown.’  That is why you see people like John Paulson, brilliant, made more money than just about anybody in the housing collapse, and he’s long gold and handcuffed and tied in.

Many of the other hedge fund managers bought gold.  Why did they buy it?  They bought it for classical economic reasons.  They believed that if the Fed was going to print money relentlessly, hand-over-fist, it must follow, as night follows day, that you will have a burst of inflation that will shake the Earth.  They think back to the Weimar Republic.

We have not had any of that because the people are so frightened.  So money has no velocity.  Inflation lies dormant so far, and that’s why gold is having such a tough time.”

Eric King:  “Art, you’ve warned so many times and you keep watching the St Louis Fed money indicators to look for growth in the money supply.  What about that situation because when you warn so many times about things you are always right, and it’s because you’ve been doing this for half a century.  What Paulson is looking for, and others, it’s coming isn’t it? 

Cashin:  “The ingredients are set up for spontaneous combustion.  It’s not there yet.  Particularly since QE3, if you look at the St. Louis Fed and you look at the monetary base or money stock, which is the raw material for money, this is the one the Fed really has control over, and it was not moving up for months.

Well, we stopped moving sideways months ago, and it (money supply) has gone nearly parabolic.  The amount of raw material, money pumped in by the Fed and others shot up like a rocket.  Can you have explosive inflation?  Certainly you can.  When people start to lend it and spend it step back, because the Fed may not be able to put that Genie back in the bottle.”

at http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/5/18_Art_Cashin_-_Money_Supply_Going_Parabolic,_Gold_%26_Inflation.html