Government
officials are legally allowed to lie to the public; something about Plato and
the good of the Republic.
Central bankers
are not. Thus the common quality among them for obfuscation and rhetoric. But
in their last minutes they did lie about consumer sentiment, or they can’t
think straight, maybe both. They also can’t predict things very well, wrong
much more than they are right. Clouded thinking derived from their own academic
hubris. Their analysis is more selected than stochastic. Someone once mentioned
an ivory tower. And now the Prince of them all is advising PIMCO. Good luck.
We have
negative nominal interest rates in Switzerland. I can’t tell you why until my
final exam question is answered, but I bring it up to talk about the
ridiculousness of it.
Capitalism
doesn’t work at zero and negative interest rates. The price of money is nothing
or worse? Think about that. How does anyone save to invest; capital formation
stops. Everyone runs for the stock market. They borrow money to buy stocks
even, the greatest carry trade ever. Margin debt is untenable.
And our central
bankers convince the masses that this is perfectly legitimate. Consumer
sentiment is now saying it’s not, something is very wrong. Pension funds are
solvent because they insist they can earn 8% on their assets in a 0%
world; if they were realistic they would all be underfunded. What happens when
they go to sell their stocks that they have piled into pretending they can pay
for their liabilities? Who is going to buy from this mass exodus.
The 4 men in a
room who manipulate the stock market think they can. Heck they buy everyday
smoothing out any corrections, keeping the ball rolling and the rich socialists
happy. Socialism locks in the wealth of the already wealthy and stifles nasty
competition they don’t want. The 4 men have infinite capital to do this, or so
they think. When real selling comes knocking they will find out they really
don’t.
Until then they
just keep on keeping on. They have directives so it’s not their fault. Their
directors have directives, so no one can be faulted.
The public
ignores this when things are going well. People are inductive not deductive,
preferring empirical evidence before they change their minds. But markets
though non-linear are ultimately deterministic so the rub will come. Then they
will have new empirical evidence supporting the old empirical evidence they
have already forgotten.
Central banks
have fostered $50 trillion more in global debt since the last debt collapse,
amassed at much lower interest rates and most of it government debt which has
zero productivity. That’s economic socialism and is sowing the seeds to destroy
the last vestiges of capitalism.
John Succo graduated from Indiana
University with a graduate degree in finance concentrating in option pricing
theory in 1984. His work bio includes stints at Morgan Stanley, Paine Webber,
Lehman Brothers, Alpha Investments, and Vicis
Capital. In 2012 he became an adjunct professor for Indiana University and
created IU Capital, a synthetic multi-asset fund where students manage risk
around a variety of asset classes including equities, fixed income, currencies,
commodities and derivatives.
Hey John, its 8 men and 4 women in the room. If "money" is endogenous to the economy, the problem of bank supplied liquidity may not be as large as you speculate.
ReplyDeleteDear John. In his intro Larry said you’d be pessimistic. An inventor once told me cynicism derives from experience—this after I cast doubt on the marketability of the new product concept he presented to me. I concluded that he did not discount my feedback to him. I do not discount your pessimism/cynicism.
ReplyDeleteJamie Dimon is charging a “balance sheet utilization fee” of 1 percent annually on deposits in excess of the money customers need for their operations. Given prevailing rates on deposits this amounts to customers paying JPMC to hold their money. This from Bloomberg Bizweek April 27, which goes on to say JPMC’s move is intended to drive cash deposits away and that central banks are contemplating three ways to “foil cash hoarders”: 1. Abolish paper money 2. Tax paper money 3. Sever the link between paper money and central bank reserves. Apparently the current low interest rates on cash deposits are stimulating thought into forcing customers to use electronic accounts. This consideration seems draconian, but given economies’ inabilities to grow (China excepted and the U.S. if you want to consider <2% as growth . . . .) and pay their debts it’s plausible paper currency might lose its utility. (What benefit is hard currency if debts are simply written off because the masses are forced to socialize the loss?) However, the bitcoin “experiment?” has proven fleeting so maybe that phenom will inform those contemplating doing away with paper currency.
Your reference to pols as liars, central bankers as purposefully opaque ‘cause they can’t read the tea leaves, economic socialism in the form of $50 trillion international debt (probably much will be written off), and JPMC’s “innovation” toward negative value cash portend the perfect conditions for deflation and/or massive asset and debt bubbles—pop pop signals the return to stagflation. So much for Keynesian and liberal/regressive policies that stifle growth and jobs.
The empirical evidence to which you refer can easily be shown to be the old adage, “Live within your means.” Apparently those advocating debt and big government haven’t learned the lesson of 2007-2008.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/05/06/yellen-lagarde-conversation/70886172/
ReplyDeleteSo, Janet Yellen told Christine Legarde that stock values are quite high and interest rates are low. I suppose they were wink-wink, nod-nod during te entire conversation. "It is true that a low interest rate environment increases the need to be sensitive and watchful for risks to financial stability." Boy, does she ever earn her money!