Month: July 2014

Submitted by Patrick Barron via Mises Canada,

The following are six of the most prevalent economic myths that appear time and again in the mainstream media.  I will give a brief description of each and a brief description of the economic reality, as seen from an Austrian perspective.

Myth #1: Increased money leads to economic prosperity.

This Keynesian myth postulates that increasing aggregate demand through increasing the money supply will lead to more spending, higher employment, increased production, and a higher overall standard of living.

The reality is that an increase in money leads to malinvestment. The time structure of production is thrown into disequilibrium by encouraging investment in projects more remotely removed in time from final consumption.  There are insufficient resources in the economy for the profitable completion of all projects, since individual time preference is unchanged, meaning that there is no increase in savings.  When prices rise, due to this unchanged time preference, these projects will be liquidated, revealing the loss of capital.  Production will be lower than otherwise.  Unemployment will increase while workers adapt to economic reality.

Myth #2: Manipulating interest rates leads to economic prosperity.

This is a corollary of Myth #1 but deserves its own discussion.  In the Keynesian view lower interest rates always are beneficial; therefore, it is the proper role of the monetary authorities to drive down the interest rate via open market operations.

The reality is that interest rates are a product of the market, reflecting the interplay of the demand for loanable funds and the availability of loanable funds.  Historically high or low interest rates can have multiple causes, none of which are prima facie good or bad.  For example, rates can be high because entrepreneurs have highly profitable opportunities due to reduced regulation or a breakthrough in technology.  If time preference is unchanged and, therefore, savings is unchanged, the interest rate rises and allocates the scarce savings to the most highly desired ends.  Or, interest rates can be low due to a change in time preference that leads to increased savings.  If entrepreneurial opportunities are unchanged, interest rates will fall.  Likewise, demand for loans can be high while savings is high or vice versa.  Manipulating the interest rate truly is an act of fantasy by the monetary authorities, who believe that they can know the impact of billions of ever changing decisions affecting the supply of money and demand for money.

Myth #3: Lowering the foreign exchange rate of the currency, to give more local currency in exchange for foreign currency, will lead to an export driven economic recovery.

The reality is that no country can force another to subsidize its economy by manipulating its exchange rate.  Giving more local currency subsidizes foreign buyers in the near term, but it creates higher prices in the domestic economy later.  Early receivers of the new money–exporters, their employees, their suppliers, etc.–benefit by a transfer of wealth from later receivers of the new money.  But as the price level rises from the increase in the domestic money supply, the benefit to foreign buyers evaporates.  Then the exporters demand that the monetary authorities conduct another round of exchange rate interventions.  The big winners are foreign buyers.  Intermediate winners are exporters, but their advantage ends eventually.  The losers are non-exporters, especially retired people.

Myth #4: Money expansion will not cause higher prices.

Currently the U.S. government is engaged in a propaganda campaign to convince us that it can both monetize the government’s debt and engage in quantitative easing without causing a rising price level.

The reality is that there is no escaping the fundamentals of economic law in the monetary sphere.  Ludwig von Mises and many excellent Austrian economists since, such as Murray N. Rothbard, have explained that the relationship between an increase in money and an increase in the price level is not a mechanical one.  Nevertheless, even Mises explained that the basis of all monetary theory is the “Quantity Theory of Money”, that states that there is a positive relationship between the money supply and the price level.  In other words, more money eventually leads to higher prices and vice versa.  What causes all the confusion is that the price level actually can fall even when the money supply expands, if all of the new money plus some of the existing money stock are hoarded.  Mises call this the first stage of the three stages of inflation.  The public expects prices to remain the same or even fall, so they do not increase their spending even when the money supply expands. Eventually, though, the public comes to understand that the money supply will keep increasing and that prices will not return to some previous golden age.  At this point the public will begin to increase spending to buy at lower prices today rather than higher prices tomorrow.  The price level will rise even if the money supply shrinks, because the public spends previously hoarded money faster.  This is Mises’ phase two of inflation.  In the final stage money loses its value, as the public spends it as fast as possible.  This is Mises’ stage three, the “crackup boom”.

Myth #5: More, better, and more vigorously enforced regulations can prevent loan and investment losses.

The politicians and their regulatory agencies believe that prior monetary crises were caused by a combination of stupidity, greed, and criminality by bankers and sellers of investments.

The reality is that no army of regulators armed with the most modern analytical tools and the most powerful means of regulatory enforcement can prevent malinvestment from money supply expansion.  The monetary expansion encourages longer term projects for which the cost of money is a major factor in forecasting success.  But without an increase in real savings, insufficient resources will ensure that many of these projects will never earn a profit and must be liquidated.  Bank and investor losses are inescapable.

Myth #6: Government can prevent hyperinflation.

This is a corollary of Myth #4.  If our monetary masters believe that money expansion will not cause higher prices, then they believe that they can prevent hyperinflation; i.e., the total destruction of the monetary unit as a universal medium of exchange.

The reality is that hyperinflation is cause by a loss of confidence in the money unit, which the monetary authorities may be incapable of preventing.  Once the panic starts, the demand by the public to hold money falls to zero.  Prices skyrocket.  Even if the monetary authorities got religion at this point and froze the money supply, the panic will run its course.  No one will want to be the last holding worthless paper.  More likely, though, the monetary authorities will aid and abet the panic, even if unwittingly, due to political pressure to increase payments to powerful domestic constituencies, such as retirees, the military, the public safety sector, government contractors, etc.  This was the case in Revolutionary France, Weimar Germany, and modern day Zimbabwe.  The mindset of today’s money masters seems little more advanced.

Conclusion

I encourage Austrian economists to point out these common myths whenever encountered.  I have had success writing letters-to-the-editor of major newspapers.  Their editors often seem genuinely pleased to receive a polite letter pointing out the Austrian view.  Perhaps it is simply  a case of controversy selling newspapers.  Furthermore, much business writing often has imbedded Keynesian assumptions that drive the narrative toward government intervention.  Most business reporters have no economic training, so Austrians should politely point out these errors, too.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1s3dmda Tyler Durden

What is the best word to describe GDP? One suggestion: changing.

Below we present select GDP data revisions over the past decade, from the initial release to the most recent, July 30 2014, nudging of historical GDP data.

First, the “old normal” ancient past:

 

Then, the Great Financial Crisis years:

 

And finally, the post-central planning period:

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1qmWWJA Tyler Durden

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of ofTwoMinds blog,

To demonstrate it hasn't failed, the Fed must taper/withdraw its monetary heroin.

That the Federal Reserve's policies have failed is now so painfully evident that even the political class is awakening to this truth. Rather than re-ignite broad-based, self-sustaining economic growth, the Fed's loose-money policies (zero-interest rate policy a.k.a. ZIRP, and quantitative easing a.k.a. QE or free money for financiers), have perversely distorted the economy and widened wealth and income inequality.

After six long years of unprecedented monetary expansion and intervention–more than enough time to have succeeded in its stated purpose of restarting the real economy– political and financial blowback is forcing the Fed to withdraw its monetary heroin.

Unfortunately for the nation, the Fed's monetary heroin has addicted the economy to ZIRP, loose credit and free money for financiers. As a result, withdrawal will be painful, financially and politically.

The abject failure of these policies to aid Main Street while heaping wealth on Wall Street greatly complicates the Fed's endgame. Given the economy's dependence on the Fed's monetary heroin, declaring victory and beating a hasty retreat is not really an option: once the Fed stops delivery of monetary heroin, the economy will go into withdrawal, and the Fed's failure will be too obvious for even its most ardent backers to deny.

But if the Fed continues pushing its monetary heroin after six long years, its failure to energize the real economy will be equally obvious–as will the unintended consequences (blowback) of monetary heroin: malinvestment, systemic risk and a pernicious faith that the Fed will do whatever is necessary to keep the stock market lofting ever higher.

There are two basic schools of thought on the Fed's real agenda.

The mainstream view is the Fed is pursuing its stated goals of stabilizing inflation and employment. The other view is the Fed's real agenda is enriching its homies, the banking cartel, at the expense of the nation.

Since Wall Street has thrived while households and Main Street have seen earned income decline, the mainstream view is left with the unenviable task of explaining exactly how free money for financiers has helped J.Q. Citizen.

Household income has declined significantly in real terms: Five Decades of Middle Class Wages (Doug Short).

The first line of defense is the wealth effect, the notion that a rising stock market will make people feel wealthier and therefore more likely to borrow and spend money on stuff they don't need. This is of course the foundation of the U.S. economy: debt-based consumption, and it just so happens to generate gargantuan profits for lenders such as banks.

Unfortunately for the Fed apologists, only the top slice of wealthy households own enough equities to feel wealthier as stocks rise. Wealth in the U.S. is an inverted pyramid: the so-called "middle class" owns a small slice near the apex while the super-rich own the entire base:

The reality is the majority of households own a trivial amount of financial assets; the number of households with debt in collection far exceeds the number benefiting from the Fed's wealth effect, which not coincidentally has greatly enlarged the wealth of financiers and the few who own most of the financial assets.

This glaring disconnect between the Fed's publicly stated agenda and the results of its policies has created a political problem for the Fed. In the mainstream media's gauzy perception, the Fed is a god-like assembly that is above the grime of politics.

In truth, the Fed is as intrinsically political as any other branch of the Central State. The thundering gap between the Fed's stated goals and the results of its policies have, after six long years, reached the toadies and lackeys of the political class, who are now reluctantly stirring to the public demand to examine the Fed's closely played cards.

In other words, the failure of the Fed's policies has generated unwelcome political blowback. A few brave politicos have interrupted their campaign fund-raising long enough to grasp that the Fed has not just failed in some random fashion: the Fed is the problem, not the solution.

As a refresher, here is the Fed's Balance Sheet, bloated with over $3 trillion of freshly created money that was mainlined into the financial system:

Debt has skyrocketed under the guiding hand of the Fed's policies; GDP, not so much:

There is no mystery why the Fed's policies have failed. Fed policies have diverted interest income that once flowed to households to the banks, they've enabled the Federal government to borrow and squander trillions of dollars in deficit spending with no political trade-offs or consequences, and they've greatly incentivized malinvestments and risky bets.

Federal debt is borrowed from future generations. If it is squandered on consumption, it is effectively stealing from future generations, as their income will be devoted to paying interest on the trillions of dollars we have borrowed and blown propping up a bloated and ineffective Status Quo.

Perhaps most perniciously, the Fed has nurtured a belief that has now taken on a quasi-religious certainty that the Fed will never let the stock market go down. The Fed has bolstered this faith by launching a new free money for financiers program every time the stock market faltered.

As a direct result, nobody believes the Fed will actually reduce its monetary heroin or allow interest rates to normalize, i.e. rise: traders, money managers and the financial punditry are convinced that the Fed will soothe any tantrum thrown by Wall Street with another dose of monetary heroin.

This greatly complicates the Fed's endgame, because nobody will believe the Fed is serious about ending its monetary heroin until it allows the stock market to plummet off a cliff without rushing to save it with more free money for financiers.

The Fed is hoping to manage expectations and perceptions with such perfection that nobody notices the monetary heroin is no longer flowing. But this is an absurd fantasy: having addicted the stock market and the economy to monetary heroin over the past six years, how can the addict go through cold turkey withdrawal without being completely disrupted?

And in a delicious irony, should the Fed come to the rescue with another round of monetary heroin (free money for financiers), that will only demonstrate the complete and utter failure of the Fed's policies to generate sustainable growth in the real economy.

If the Fed has to rescue Wall Street yet again after six years and trillions of dollars of free money for financiers, that will prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the Fed has failed.

To demonstrate it hasn't failed, the Fed must taper/withdraw its monetary heroin.If the stock market tanks as a result, and the Fed rushes to the rescue with more free money for financiers, that will also prove the Fed has failed: if the economy and financial system is as robust as the Fed claims, why does it need to be rescued yet again after six lo
ng years of unprecedented injections of monetary heroin?

It's a double-bind with no escape. No matter what the Fed chooses to do, the failure of its policies to help households and Main Street while enriching wall Street and the banks will be revealed to all.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1u08ogE Tyler Durden

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of ofTwoMinds blog,

To demonstrate it hasn't failed, the Fed must taper/withdraw its monetary heroin.

That the Federal Reserve's policies have failed is now so painfully evident that even the political class is awakening to this truth. Rather than re-ignite broad-based, self-sustaining economic growth, the Fed's loose-money policies (zero-interest rate policy a.k.a. ZIRP, and quantitative easing a.k.a. QE or free money for financiers), have perversely distorted the economy and widened wealth and income inequality.

After six long years of unprecedented monetary expansion and intervention–more than enough time to have succeeded in its stated purpose of restarting the real economy– political and financial blowback is forcing the Fed to withdraw its monetary heroin.

Unfortunately for the nation, the Fed's monetary heroin has addicted the economy to ZIRP, loose credit and free money for financiers. As a result, withdrawal will be painful, financially and politically.

The abject failure of these policies to aid Main Street while heaping wealth on Wall Street greatly complicates the Fed's endgame. Given the economy's dependence on the Fed's monetary heroin, declaring victory and beating a hasty retreat is not really an option: once the Fed stops delivery of monetary heroin, the economy will go into withdrawal, and the Fed's failure will be too obvious for even its most ardent backers to deny.

But if the Fed continues pushing its monetary heroin after six long years, its failure to energize the real economy will be equally obvious–as will the unintended consequences (blowback) of monetary heroin: malinvestment, systemic risk and a pernicious faith that the Fed will do whatever is necessary to keep the stock market lofting ever higher.

There are two basic schools of thought on the Fed's real agenda.

The mainstream view is the Fed is pursuing its stated goals of stabilizing inflation and employment. The other view is the Fed's real agenda is enriching its homies, the banking cartel, at the expense of the nation.

Since Wall Street has thrived while households and Main Street have seen earned income decline, the mainstream view is left with the unenviable task of explaining exactly how free money for financiers has helped J.Q. Citizen.

Household income has declined significantly in real terms: Five Decades of Middle Class Wages (Doug Short).

The first line of defense is the wealth effect, the notion that a rising stock market will make people feel wealthier and therefore more likely to borrow and spend money on stuff they don't need. This is of course the foundation of the U.S. economy: debt-based consumption, and it just so happens to generate gargantuan profits for lenders such as banks.

Unfortunately for the Fed apologists, only the top slice of wealthy households own enough equities to feel wealthier as stocks rise. Wealth in the U.S. is an inverted pyramid: the so-called "middle class" owns a small slice near the apex while the super-rich own the entire base:

The reality is the majority of households own a trivial amount of financial assets; the number of households with debt in collection far exceeds the number benefiting from the Fed's wealth effect, which not coincidentally has greatly enlarged the wealth of financiers and the few who own most of the financial assets.

This glaring disconnect between the Fed's publicly stated agenda and the results of its policies has created a political problem for the Fed. In the mainstream media's gauzy perception, the Fed is a god-like assembly that is above the grime of politics.

In truth, the Fed is as intrinsically political as any other branch of the Central State. The thundering gap between the Fed's stated goals and the results of its policies have, after six long years, reached the toadies and lackeys of the political class, who are now reluctantly stirring to the public demand to examine the Fed's closely played cards.

In other words, the failure of the Fed's policies has generated unwelcome political blowback. A few brave politicos have interrupted their campaign fund-raising long enough to grasp that the Fed has not just failed in some random fashion: the Fed is the problem, not the solution.

As a refresher, here is the Fed's Balance Sheet, bloated with over $3 trillion of freshly created money that was mainlined into the financial system:

Debt has skyrocketed under the guiding hand of the Fed's policies; GDP, not so much:

There is no mystery why the Fed's policies have failed. Fed policies have diverted interest income that once flowed to households to the banks, they've enabled the Federal government to borrow and squander trillions of dollars in deficit spending with no political trade-offs or consequences, and they've greatly incentivized malinvestments and risky bets.

Federal debt is borrowed from future generations. If it is squandered on consumption, it is effectively stealing from future generations, as their income will be devoted to paying interest on the trillions of dollars we have borrowed and blown propping up a bloated and ineffective Status Quo.

Perhaps most perniciously, the Fed has nurtured a belief that has now taken on a quasi-religious certainty that the Fed will never let the stock market go down. The Fed has bolstered this faith by launching a new free money for financiers program every time the stock market faltered.

As a direct result, nobody believes the Fed will actually reduce its monetary heroin or allow interest rates to normalize, i.e. rise: traders, money managers and the financial punditry are convinced that the Fed will soothe any tantrum thrown by Wall Street with another dose of monetary heroin.

This greatly complicates the Fed's endgame, because nobody will believe the Fed is serious about ending its monetary heroin until it allows the stock market to plummet off a cliff without rushing to save it with more free money for financiers.

The Fed is hoping to manage expectations and perceptions with such perfection that nobody notices the monetary heroin is no longer flowing. But this is an absurd fantasy: having addicted the stock market and the economy to monetary heroin over the past six years, how can the addict go through cold turkey withdrawal without being completely disrupted?

And in a delicious irony, should the Fed come to the rescue with another round of monetary heroin (free money for financiers), that will only demonstrate the complete and utter failure of the Fed's policies to generate sustainable growth in the real economy.

If the Fed has to rescue Wall Street yet again after six years and trillions of dollars of free money for financiers, that will prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the Fed has failed.

To demonstrate it hasn't failed, the Fed must taper/withdraw its monetary heroin.If the stock market tanks as a result, and the Fed rushes to the rescue with more free money for financiers, that will also prove the Fed has failed: if the economy and financial system is as robust as the Fed claims, why does it need to be rescued yet again after six long years of unprecedented injections of monetary heroin?

It's a double-bind with no escape. No matter what the Fed chooses to do, the failure of its policies to help households and Main Street while enriching wall Street and the banks will be revealed to all.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1u08ogE Tyler Durden

Well that didn’t last long…

Desk chatter of large institutional selling and concerns over a forthcoming G7 statement on Russia are being blamed for now…

 

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1u08nct Tyler Durden