Monday, November 24, 2008 9:27:02 AM
Wall Street Journal
NOVEMBER 24, 2008
The Fed Is Out of Ammunition
A discredited dollar is a likely outcome of the current crisis.
By CHRISTOPHER WOOD
With an estimated $4 trillion in housing wealth and $9 trillion in stock-market wealth destroyed so far in the United States, there is little doubt that we are witnessing a classic debt-deflation bust at work, characterized by falling prices, frozen credit markets and plummeting asset values.
Chad Crowe
Those who want to understand the mechanism might ponder Irving Fisher's comment in 1933: When it comes to booms gone bust, "over-investment and over-speculation are often important; but they would have far less serious results were they not conducted with borrowed money."
The growing risk of falling prices raises a challenge for one of the conventional wisdoms of the modern economics profession, and indeed modern central banking: the belief that it is impossible to have deflation in a fiat paper-money system. Yet U.S. core CPI fell by 0.1% month-on-month in October, the first such decline since December 1982.
The origins of the modern conventional wisdom lies in the simplistic monetarist interpretation of the Great Depression popularized by Milton Friedman and taught to generations of economics students ever since. This argued that the Great Depression could have been avoided if the Federal Reserve had been more proactive about printing money. Yet the Japanese experience of the 1990s -- persistent deflationary malaise unresponsive to near zero-percent interest rates -- shows that it is not so easy to inflate one's way out of a debt bust.
In the U.S., the Fed can only control the supply of money; it cannot control the velocity of money or the rate at which it turns over. The dramatic collapse in securitization over the past 18 months reflects the continuing collapse in velocity as financial engineering goes into reverse.
True, this will change one day. But for now, the issuance of non-agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in America has plunged by 98% year-on-year to a monthly average of $0.82 billion in the past four months, down from a peak of $136 billion in June 2006. There has been no new issuance in commercial MBS since July. This collapse in securitization is intensely deflationary.
It is also true that under Chairman Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve balance sheet continues to expand at a frantic rate, as do commercial-bank total reserves in an effort to counter credit contraction. Thus, the Federal Reserve banks' total assets have increased by $1.28 trillion since early September to $2.19 trillion on Nov. 19. Likewise, the aggregate reserves of U.S. depository institutions have surged nearly 14-fold in the past two months to $653 billion in the week ended Nov. 19 from $47 billion at the beginning of September.
But the growth of excess reserves also reflects bank disinterest in lending the money. This suggests the banks only want to finance existing positions, such as where they have already made credit-line commitments.
Monetarist Bernanke and others blame Japan's postbubble deflationary downturn on policy errors by the Bank of Japan. But he and others are about to find out that monetary gymnastics are not as effective as they would like to think. So too will the Keynesians who view an aggressive fiscal policy as the best way to counter a deflationary slump. While public-works spending can blunt the downside and provide jobs, it remains the case that FDR's New Deal did not end the Great Depression.
There are no easy policy answers to the current credit convulsion and intensifying financial panic -- not as long as politicians and central bankers are determined not to let financial institutions fail, and so prevent the market from correcting the excesses. This is why this writer has a certain sympathy for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, even if nobody else seems to. The securitized nature of this credit cycle, combined with the nightmare levels of leverage embedded in the products dreamt up by the quantitative geeks, means this is a horribly difficult issue to solve.
Virtually everybody blames Mr. Paulson for the decision to let Lehman Brothers go. But this decision should be applauded for precipitating the deflationary unwind that was going to come sooner or later anyway.
The Japanese precedent also remains important because the efforts in the West to prevent the market from disciplining excesses will have, as in Japan, unintended, adverse, long-term consequences. In Japan, one legacy is the continuing existence of a large number of uncompetitive companies which have caused profit margins to fall for their more productive competitors. Another consequence has been a long-term deflationary malaise, which has kept yen interest rates ridiculously low to the detriment of savers.
Meanwhile, the most recent Fed survey of loan officers provides hard evidence of the intensifying credit crunch in America. A net 83.6% of domestic banks reported having tightened lending standards on commercial and industrial loans to large and midsize firms over the past three months, the highest since the data series began in 1990. A net 47% of banks also indicated that they had become less willing to make consumer installment loans over the past three months.
Consumers are also more reluctant to borrow. A net 48% of respondents indicated that they had experienced weaker demand for consumer loans of all types over the past quarter, up from 30% in the July survey. This hints at the Japanese outcome of "pushing on a string" -- i.e., the banks can make credit available but cannot force people to borrow.
What happens next? With a fed-funds rate at 0.5% or lower in coming months, it is fast becoming time for investors to read again Mr. Bernanke's speeches in 2002 and 2003 on the subject of combating falling inflation. In these speeches, the Fed chairman outlined how policy could evolve once short-term interest rates get to near zero. A key focus in such an environment will be to bring down long-term interest rates, which help determine the rates of mortgages and other debt instruments. This would likely involve in practice the Fed buying longer-term Treasury bonds.
It would seem fair to conclude that a Bernanke-led Fed will follow through on such policies in coming months if, as is likely, the U.S. economy continues to suffer and if inflationary pressures continue to collapse. Such actions will not solve the problem but will merely compound it, by adding debt to debt.
In this respect the present crisis in the West will ultimately end up discrediting mechanical monetarism -- and with it the fiat paper-money system in general -- as the U.S. paper-dollar standard, in place since Richard Nixon broke the link with gold in 1971, finally disintegrates.
The catalyst will be foreign creditors fleeing the dollar for gold. That will in turn lead to global recognition of the need for a vastly more disciplined global financial system and one where gold, the "barbarous relic" scorned by most modern central bankers, may well play a part.
Mr. Wood, equity strategist for CLSA Ltd. in Hong Kong, is the author of "The Bubble Economy: Japan's Extraordinary Speculative Boom of the '80s and the Dramatic Bust of the '90s" (Solstice Publishing, 2005).
I may not agree with what you say, but have fought and will continue to fight for your right to say it. USArmy 1966-1975
Recent GOLD News
- Barrick and Zijin Contribute $1 Million to Support Papua New Guinea Landslide Victims • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 06/07/2024 11:18:39 AM
- Form SD - Specialized disclosure report • Edgar (US Regulatory) • 05/29/2024 08:01:04 PM
- Barrick’s Sustainability Strategy Delivers Real Value to Stakeholders • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 05/15/2024 11:00:00 AM
- Barrick Announces Extensive Exploration Partnership with Geophysx Jamaica • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 05/01/2024 10:15:00 AM
- Barrick to Ramp Up Production As It Remains On Track to Achieve 2024 Targets • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 05/01/2024 10:00:00 AM
- Barrick Declares Q1 Dividend • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 05/01/2024 09:59:00 AM
- Barrick Announces Election of Directors • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 04/30/2024 08:15:55 PM
- Barrick On Track to Achieve 2024 Targets • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 04/16/2024 11:00:00 AM
- Notice of Release of Barrick’s First Quarter 2024 Results • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 04/09/2024 11:00:00 AM
- Strategy-Driven Barrick Builds on Value Foundation • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 03/28/2024 09:20:38 PM
- Barrick Hunts New Gold and Copper Prospects in DRC From Kibali Base • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 03/20/2024 02:00:00 PM
- Barrick Opens Academy at Closed Buzwagi Mine • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 03/18/2024 08:00:00 AM
- Barrick to Grow Production and Value on Global Asset Foundation • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 03/15/2024 11:53:01 AM
- Loulo-Gounkoto Delivers Another Value-Creating Performance • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 03/10/2024 10:00:00 AM
- Passing of the Right Honorable Brian Mulroney • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 03/02/2024 01:17:35 AM
- Kibali and DRC Partner to Promote Local Content • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 03/01/2024 02:22:43 PM
- Tanzanian Parliamentary Committee Lauds Barrick’s Work at North Mara • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 02/23/2024 12:00:00 PM
- Form 6-K - Report of foreign issuer [Rules 13a-16 and 15d-16] • Edgar (US Regulatory) • 02/14/2024 10:28:08 PM
- Form 6-K - Report of foreign issuer [Rules 13a-16 and 15d-16] • Edgar (US Regulatory) • 02/14/2024 08:05:25 PM
- Clear Strategies and Strong Partnerships Set Barrick Up to Outperform, Says Bristow • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 02/14/2024 11:00:00 AM
- Barrick Announces New Share Buyback Program • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 02/14/2024 10:59:00 AM
- Barrick Declares Q4 Dividend • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 02/14/2024 10:58:00 AM
- NGM Strongly Positioned for Growth • GlobeNewswire Inc. • 02/10/2024 01:00:16 AM
- Form SC 13G - Statement of acquisition of beneficial ownership by individuals • Edgar (US Regulatory) • 02/08/2024 03:03:08 PM
- Form 6-K - Report of foreign issuer [Rules 13a-16 and 15d-16] • Edgar (US Regulatory) • 02/08/2024 12:46:55 PM
Last Shot Hydration Drink Announced as Official Sponsor of Red River Athletic Conference • EQLB • Jun 20, 2024 2:38 PM
ATWEC Announces Major Acquisition and Lays Out Strategic Growth Plans • ATWT • Jun 20, 2024 7:09 AM
North Bay Resources Announces Composite Assays of 0.53 and 0.44 Troy Ounces per Ton Gold in Trenches B + C at Fran Gold, British Columbia • NBRI • Jun 18, 2024 9:18 AM
VAYK Assembling New Management Team for $64 Billion Domestic Market • VAYK • Jun 18, 2024 9:00 AM
Fifty 1 Labs, Inc Announces Acquisition of Drago Knives, LLC • CAFI • Jun 18, 2024 8:45 AM
Hydromer Announces Attainment of ISO 13485 Certification • HYDI • Jun 17, 2024 9:22 AM