In the past, liquidity implied economic growth. When the Federal Reserve loosened monetary policy, the increase in consumer demand caused an increase in the output of goods and services. Stock prices would rise anticipating higher profits. But in recent years financial markets have not been driven by fundamentals, which are adverse, but by the liquidity that the Federal Reserve has pumped into the banking system in order to save a handful of over-sized banks and insurance giant AIG, all of which should have been allowed to fail. The liquidity had to go somewhere and it went into the prices of stocks and bonds, causing a tremendous asset inflation.
What sense does it make to have zero interest rates when high inflation is eating away the real value of money? What sense does it make to have high price/earnings ratios when the consumer market cannot expand? What sense does it make to have a stable dollar when the Federal Reserve has created far more dollars than the economy has created goods and services? What sense does it make to undermine the financial condition of pension funds and insurance companies with zero interest rates, leaving them with no fixed income hedge against the stock market?
It makes no sense. We are in a trap in which collapse seems the only way out. If interest rates reflected the real rate of inflation, the hundreds of trillions in derivatives would blow up, the stock market would collapse, unemployment could not be hidden with under-measurement, budget deficits would rise. What would public authorities do?
When crisis hits, what happens to corporations that used profits and borrowed money, that is, debt, to buy back their own stocks in order to keep the price high and, thereby, executive bonuses high and shareholders happy and disinclined to support takeovers? Chaos and its companion Fear take over from Contentment. Hell breaks loose.
Is more money printed? Does the money find its way into consumer prices? Do we experience simultaneously massive inflation and massive unemployment?
Don't expect the presstitutes, the politicians, or Wall Street to confront any of these questions.
When the crisis occurs, it will be blamed on Russia or China.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
8
5
5
