Mr. Bernanke Gets His Way

Well, Mr. Bernanke has moved the Federal Reserve to a position of greater transparency. 

We now have projections of interest rates out until the end of 2014.  It is now believed by most members of the Fed’s Open Market that the Federal Funds rate will remain close to zero until the end of 2014.

What is the probability that the Federal Funds rate will be close to zero for the last six months of 2014?

In my mind, zero or close to it!

What is the probability that the Federal Funds rate will be close to zero for the first six months of 2014?

In my mind, zero or close to it!

What is the probability that the Federal Funds rate will be close to zero for the last six months of 2014?

You guessed it!

And, so on…

Seems like I don’t have a lot of confidence in these forecasts. 

What are these forecasts for, then?

I have already written my answer to this question.  These forecasts are to make Mr. Bernanke feel better. (http://seekingalpha.com/article/317453-bernanke-transparent-about-his-lack-of-self-confidence)

Mr. Bernanke doesn’t want to be misunderstood.  Apparently, in the past, Mr. Bernanke feels that he has been misunderstood.  Now, with the “new transparency” there should be no doubt where Mr. Bernanke and the Fed stand…and Mr. Bernanke should feel justified.

This is the first time in my mind that the Federal Reserve has done something of this magnitude so as to make the Chairman of the Board of Governors feel better.

I hope it achieves its goal because as far as I am concerned this new transparency program does absolutely nothing for me in terms of understanding where interest rates are going to be for the next two to three years.  It does absolutely nothing for me in terms of understanding what the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve is going to be for the next two to three years. 

If anything this new transparency program will assist, in the shorter-term, speculators in making lots of money.  George Soros, and others like him, loves a situation in which a government says it is going to maintain a price for as long as it can.  This type of government activity creates “sure thing” bets. 

The economy is in the condition it is in because there is still a lot of insolvency around.  By keeping short-term interest rates as low as they are helps financial institutions and other private or public organizations remain open hoping that they will be able to work themselves out of their insolvency. 

According to a report released Wednesday put together by the American Bankers Association and State Bankers Associations, thirty percent of the commercial banks reporting were under some form of written agreement with regulators.  A total of 1000 banks responded to the survey, so the study should be fairly representative.  Extrapolating this to the total number of banks in the banking system we would get some 1,900 banks under some kind of agreement with the regulators.   

This is when there are still some 864 commercial banks on the FDIC’s list of problem banks, which we know does not include all the banks under some kind of agreement with the FDIC. 

Many home owners still find the market values of their homes below the amount of the mortgage that exists on the property.  Commercial real estate loans are still defaulting at a very rapid pace and many businesses are declaring bankruptcy or are near filing for bankruptcy, especially small ones.

It is understood that the Federal Reserve must continue to protect against further economic deterioration and must continue to protect those individuals and institutions that are insolvent or near insolvency. 

Because of this and the consequent slow pace of economic growth the Fed must continue to keep the economy excessively liquid.

I don’t know that publishing interest rate forecasts for the next three years will convince us any more that the Fed is attempting to protect the banking system and the economy.  I guess it must help Mr. Bernanke to sleep better to know that he is releasing all this information even if it does little or nothing for anyone else.           

What the Federal Reserve is Risking

There are two articles in the Wall Street Journal today that I believe are very important responses to the announcement of the Federal Reserve that it will release interest rate projections for several years out.

The first of these by Kelly Evans says a mouthful: “Boosting Transparency, Fed Puts Its Reputation on the Line.” (http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204331304577141034029100316.html?mod=ITP_moneyandinvesting_5&mg=reno-secaucus-wsj) 

I love the quote that Evans leads the article with…it is from Abraham Lincoln: “it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”

First of all, to produce projections of interest rates three years into the future?  Come on…

And, to release the forecasts from all 17 members of the Federal Reserve’s open-market committee…

This is to produce credibility?

Come on…

Furthermore, the projections are to “make monetary policy more effective by lowering volatility and uncertainty in the market around the path of future rates.” 

Formerly, those in the Federal Reserve believed that some uncertainty should surround its goals because this allowed markets to move incrementally due to the fact that market participants had to search for where the Fed was moving.  At least this was the way it was when I worked at the Fed.

Knowing what the target will be results in markets that take discrete leaps…up or down…as market participants jump to the place where the wizards at the Fed now presume interest rates should be.

But, two points on this.  The first one is that making everything depend on the Fed’s prognostications and the persistence with which the Fed holds onto the projections, can lead to “sure-thing” bets on the part of market participants.  There are plenty of examples around in which “the market” bets against the ability of a government or a central bank to hold onto a desired “goal”.  As the pressure builds up, the probability that the government or central bank will have to adjust to the reality of the situation can approach 100 percent. 

The second point is that the Federal Reserve may actually be the cause of the volatility and uncertainty it is attempting to reduce.  As the very actions of the Fed become less recognizable and as, as Evans states, the forecasts “differ significantly from reality” the authority of the Fed decreases and this, in itself, creates “volatility and uncertainty.”

I would argue very strongly that the actions of the Federal Reserve over the past four years…if not longer…have been a large part of the uncertainty it abhors and this has resulted in the increase in market volatility that it would like to reduce.  But, this increase has not been due to a lack of “transparency” on the part of the Fed but has been due to a lack of understanding on the part of the Fed.   And, this lack of understanding has been transmitted from the Fed to the financial markets.     

This is where the other article in the Journal comes in: “Fed Rate Outlook to Bite Traders.” (http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203471004577141182345031606.html?mod=ITP_moneyandinvesting_3&mg=reno-secaucus-wsj) In this piece, Cynthia Lin argues that “With its push to provide a clearer policy road map, the Federal Reserve is about to give bond traders one less reason to like medium-term bonds as it pins down yields that already are at historic lows.”

Ms. Lin quotes Kent Engelke, chief economic strategist at Capitol Securities Management as saying, “The short end of the (yield) curve is dead.” 

Ms. Lin goes on, “Some investors even are suggesting that the new policy may give little reason to trade bonds maturing as late as 2019.”

Doesn’t someone at the Fed understand this possibility?

I have always assumed that volatility was a function of the depth and breadth of the market.  If the policy of the Fed has the result that it will tend to reduce the number of traders in the market, then it would seem to me that this is a movement will have the wrong consequences for the market.

As I stated yesterday, I believe that the move made by Mr. Bernanke and the Fed to achieve greater “transparency” of Federal Reserve operations is more an effort to justify what Mr. Bernanke and the Fed have done over the past four years or so. (See “Bernanke “Transparent about his lack of self-confidence,” http://seekingalpha.com/article/317453-bernanke-transparent-about-his-lack-of-self-confidence.) 

Furthermore, I believe that what has been done to the Fed over the past decade has changed central banking in the United States more that we can possibly imagine at this time.  And, as most of you know that have read my blog over the past, almost four years, I am not convinced that the movement has been in the right direction.  Unfortunately, I believe that we will be paying for this movement, in one way or another, over the next four or five years.       

Bernanke "Transparent" About His Lack of Self-Confidence

This post is about the Fed’s latest effort to build confidence in the financial system by “providing the predictions of its senior officials about their own decision, hoping to increase its influence over economic activity by guiding investor expectations.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/business/economy/fed-to-start-publicly-forecasting-its-rate-actions.html?_r=1&ref=business)

“The inaugural forecast will show the range of predictions made by Fed officials about the level of short-term interest rates in the fourth quarter of 2012, 2013, and 2014….  It will also summarize when they expect to start raising short-term rates….”

To me, this is Ben Bernanke’s latest effort to justify himself and what he has done.  It is Mr. Bernanke’s cry to financial markets: “please understand me.”

But, the more Mr. Bernanke cries for understanding, the more he digs a hole for himself with respect to the future.  For one, who can believe that anyone can forecast short-term interest rates for a three-month period let alone for a three-year time frame?  The record of the people at the Fed is no better than that any other group of forecasters. 

Second, by telegraphing the Fed’s intention, the Fed will be setting itself up for financial markets to “bet” against it.  This is always a possibility when central banks or governments explicitly state their policy goals.  And, the “bet” many times can become a “sure thing.”  Perhaps the best, most recent example of this is the Soros “bet” against the British government in the 1990s about the value of the pound. 

Ultimately, to me, this effort at “transparency” is a sign of Mr. Bernanke’s real lack of self-confidence in his ability to lead the Federal Reserve through this difficult time.  He can’t understand why people don’t understand what he is doing and so he tries, harder and harder, to create this understanding.  His steps to gain greater “transparency” over the past six months is just evidence of his struggle.        

I will admit that I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of Ben Bernanke as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.  I was in favor of him being the Chair of the Economics Department at Princeton University…but not Chair of he Fed. 

I was against Bernanke’s re-appointment as the Chairman (http://seekingalpha.com/article/151474-exit-strategy-an-argument-against-bernanke-s-reappointment) and disappointed in President Obama for actually re-appointing him (http://seekingalpha.com/article/158762-bernanke-s-disappointing-reappointment).

In reviewing Bernanke’s record since being a member of the Board of Governors, I see nothing but a competent academic, out of his element and over-his-head in the deep water of a twenty-first century whirlpool. 

In more peaceful times when he was just a member of the Board of Governors (August 5, 2002 – June 21, 2005) he was a lackey of the then Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, developing the argument for Greenspan’s defense of recent monetary policy that used the savings of China and the Middle East to finance U. S. Treasury debt. 

He was a strong supporter of Greenspan’s effort to keep the Federal Funds rate at one percent in the 2003-2004 period to combat the possibility of the economy going into a deep recession.  This effort helped to underwrite the “bubble” that took place at this time in the U. S. housing market. 

Then, once he was became Chairman of the Federal Reserve on February 1, 2006, he was a firm advocate of pushing the target rate for the Federal Funds rate to 5.25 percent and keeping it there into August of 2007 so as to combat the possibility that inflation might get out-of-hand.  

The Fed move was in response to the financial market meltdown of “Quant” financial firms that took place in August 2007. (See book review on “The Quants”, http://seekingalpha.com/article/188342-model-misbehavior-the-quants-how-a-new-breed-of-math-whizzes-conquered-wall-street-and-nearly-destroyed-it-by-scott-patterson.)

The recession in the United States began in December 2007.

The next episode of Bernanke’s “steady hand on the tiller” came in the fall of 2008.  I have characterized Bernanke’s reaction to the Lehman Brothers failure as one of panic.  (See my post “The Bailout Plan: Did Bernanke Panic”, http://seekingalpha.com/article/106186-the-bailout-plan-did-bernanke-panic.)

But, what Bernanke and the Fed did next has been the basis for the claim that Mr. Bernanke saved the United States from a second Great Depression.  The Federal Reserve acted to increase its balance sheet from slightly less than $900 billion is assets to more that $2.0 trillion in assets by the beginning of 2009.  Through various stages of Quantitative Easing (QE), the Fed’s total assets now amount to more than $2.8 trillion.

This injection of funds into the banking system has resulted in around $1.6 trillion in excess reserves on the balance sheets of U. S. banks.  It has created little in the way of bank lending or economic growth.    

However, many people have given credit to Mr. Bernanke for saving the country and this may be an appropriate gesture on the part of a grateful country.  My concern has been that this policy is nothing more than a policy of throwing sufficient “stuff” against the wall to see what would stick.  As a consequence, monetary policy in the United States has become a tool of ignorance, not of professional competence. 

And, that is exactly where we are today.  That is why there is so little confidence in the Chairman of the Federal Reserve System in world financial markets.

Thus, that is why the Chairman of the Federal Reserve System is struggling to reach out to the financial markets to justify what he has done…and is doing.

This effort, in my mind, will achieve little or nothing…and could do much harm.

Signs of the Future: Emerging Countries vs. Developed Countries

The world goes on.  Whereas the news has tended to be dominated by what is happening in Europe, with some attention going to the United States, things are still going on in other parts of the world. 

For example, “Standard & Poor’s has become the third rating agency this year to upgrade Brazil’s sovereign debt…” (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a1c1a890-116a-11e1-9d04-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1e48y8AYK)

“Brazil’s debt fundamentals are already seen by markets as superior to many European countries with spreads on the Latin American country’s debt trading tighter than those of many eurozone countries.”

“The move…emphasizes the growing divergence between the fast-growing large emerging markets, led by China, Brazil, and India, and the advanced economies.”

Meanwhile, the central banks in emerging markets are buying gold in the largest quantities for forty years.  The forty years is important for that refers back to 1971 when President Richard Nixon severed the tie between the United States dollar and gold. 

“The scale of the purchases was bigger than previously disclosed and puts central banks on track to buy more gold than at any time since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system 40 years ago, when the value of the dollar was last linked to gold.”  (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c0025500-10ef-11e1-a95c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1e48y8AYK)

Many emerging countries, especially the BRICs, now believe that they are over-exposed to the dollar in their central bank reserves and are trying to build up gold reserves at times when the price of gold dips.  Also, there is incentive to buy as concerns grow over the role of the United States dollar as a reserve currency.

“It is a mark of creeping distrust in the unofficial reserve currency, which nervous central bankers see being printed by trillions even as America’s political leadership shows no sign of dealing with its daunting fiscal challenges.  Fiscal worries are even more acute for the number two and three reserve currencies, the euro and the yen.” (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/3/59f07c7e-113f-11e1-a95c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1e48y8AYK)

But, “Central bankers are late to the gold party.  Private buyers of ETFs alone have accumulated 15 times as much since their advent a decade ago as government bought last quarter.  But their shift should be of far more concern.” http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/3/59f07c7e-113f-11e1-a95c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1e48y8AYK)

Seemingly oblivious to these happenings, the United States continues to pursue policies that will devalue its currency.  Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke appears to be focused on keeping the world abundantly supplied with U. S. dollars while Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner continues to swear that U. S. policy is to maintain a “strong” dollar while the Obama administration continues to issue more and more debt. 

Others within the Federal Reserve System continue to back up the Fed effort to continue to inflate the world.  The President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley, says that “the central bank isn’t out of ammunition “ and that “monetary policy must do its part” to support economic growth. (http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204517204577044481934030256.html?KEYWORDS=michael+derby&mg=reno-secaucus-wsj)

And, the pressure in Europe is intense to get the European Central Bank to engage in much more aggressive actions to save the European Union and the euro.  Is quantitative easing in the future for Europe? (http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203611404577042302226590104.html?mod=ITP_pageone_0&mg=reno-secaucus-wsj)

The emerging nations are seeing the “crack in the door” and are steadily moving to take advantage of the fact that the developed countries must currently keep their focus on current distractions.  By following such a policy they see “the door” opening wider and wider.

To me, the real report card is the value of the dollar.  The credit inflation of the last fifty years in the United States, first, forced the United States off the gold standard, and, second, resulted in a secular decline in the value of the dollar.  The U. S dollar still fluctuates near the lows reached over the past forty years since its value was floated.

 

Looking at the value of the dollar against twenty major currencies one can see that news lows were hit around August of this year.  One can note that the three periods of recovery from the lows reached in 2008 were periods when there was a “rush to quality”.  The first was during the “Great Recession” and the other two spikes came during the sovereign debt crises in Europe. 

The economic policies of the United States government aim at a devaluation of the United States dollar.  Still the United States dollar is the reserve currency of the world and is the currency of the country that remains the strongest country economically.  This is why the United States dollar is still the haven for others when there is a movement to “quality.” 

Since the second world war, the United States…with western Europe tagging along…has dominated the world, economically as well as militarily.  During this time, the United States has basically acted independently of all others.  It is still “Number One” in these areas but is finding that its voice is growing weaker and weaker.  Current examples of this are the position the U. S. had to take in the actions in Libya and the back seat it took in the G20 meetings in Cannes, France.  And, more and more it is finding that with its fiscal position that it just does not have the money to “throw at things” that it used to have in the past. 

One way or another, the separation between the developed countries and the emerging countries is going to be a major factor in the world going forward.  Most analysts have moved up the time they expect some of the larger emerging nations to catch up with America and western Europe.  Within this environment, the currency conflicts and the financial conflicts are just going to grow

Europeans Facing More of a "Haircut" Than Preciously Thought

News is leaking out that the “haircuts” on European Sovereign debt are going to be greater than imagined just several weeks ago!  “EU looks at 60% haircuts for Greek debt.” (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/66bdcbc0-fc11-11e0-b1d8-00144feab49a.html#axzz1bRwsVH3F)

Three months ago European officials agreed to a 21 percent haircut.  Then, in the last several weeks, the figure moved to around 50 percent.

And, still officials are dawdling.

European banks are troubled, and we hear about how the “French Banks Fought Oversight.“  Seems as if French banks and French regulators consistently ignored the reality of the situation within the banks claiming that no problems ever existed. 

Of course, bankers are notorious for claiming that problems do not exist on their balance sheets!  But, this is not new. (See my http://seekingalpha.com/article/300076-european-bankers-balk-at-big-write-downs.)  The bankers’ denial of any problems on their balance sheets is maintained right up to the time hey begin to argue that “It was not our fault!”

The problem I have with all this is that attention is being deflected from the real issues while blame is being diverted from the real culprit.

The real culprit, to me, is the post-World War II attitude in America, the UK, and Western Europe that the creation of debt, especially by governments, could keep unemployment at low levels and this would end the possibility of social unrest caused by masses of unemployed persons.  The result was that the latter half of the twentieth century became the “poster child” for the benefits of what can be called credit inflation. 

Creating debt, especially government debt, was not just a policy of the left, but it was also the policy of the right.  The creation of debt would resolve almost all social issues since it kept people at work.  This would also help politicians get re-elected.

In the 1960s we added to the goal of keeping people working the goal of seeing to it that every family owned their own home.  This was especially the case in the United States.  I was working for a cabinet secretary in the early 1970s in a “conservative” administration, and one of the major goals of this administration was the development of mortgage-backed securities.

The reason for the development of this instrument was certainly not an economic one.  The reason for the development of the mortgage-backed security was to get politicians re-elected.  The argument was that if more Americans owned their own home, the more willing they would be to re-elect those Senators, Representatives, and Presidents that supported this goal. 

The government’s development of the mortgage-backed security, of course, brought several new things to the financial markets, like ‘slicing and dicing’ cash flows, that paved the way for the financial innovation that was to take place later in the century.

Of course, the major driver behind all of this was the continual efforts of the national governments to create credit through deficit spending to hire large numbers of people themselves, to almost continuously stimulate the economy to keep unemployment low, and to continue to find ways to put more and more people into their own homes. 

This is the essence of credit inflation!  And, the central banks, fundamentally, helped the national governments to write the checks.

The undisciplined creation of debt, however, does not end well.  This is the story that Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff tell in their book “This Time is Different.”  And, for the United States, the UK, and Western Europe, this time was not different and financial crisis arose.

The point I am getting at is that the resolution of a financial crisis is not a unique action.  However, many of those in authority are crying out “This time is different”!

One of the boldest “criers” is Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.  I have written my opinion of him in an earlier post. (http://seekingalpha.com/article/300076-european-bankers-balk-at-big-write-downs)  But, Mr. Bernanke is not the only authority at the central bank that is searching for a new or better way to conduct monetary policy. (http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203752604576643510352250474.html?mod=ITP_pageone_0&mg=reno-secaucus-wsj)

Gillian Tett also writes in the Financial Times that “Central Bankers must update outdated analytical toolkit.” (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/877b7bfa-fb21-11e0-bebe-00144feab49a.html#axzz1bRwsVH3F)  

Let me just say in answer to this situation we are in: This time is not different!

The problem is too much debt!  The cause of the problem was 50 years of credit inflation in the United States, the UK, and Western Europe.  This debt must be worked off and it takes time to work off excessive amounts of debt.  Again, I recommend you check the Reinhart and Rogoff book.  I have also just written a post on this: http://seekingalpha.com/article/300450-the-u-s-economy-will-continue-to-grow.

And, the lessons from this experience are not new.  Don’t issue too much debt!  Don’t just focus on short-run goals…like fiscally stimulated low unemployment, like everyone owning their own home, like governments hiring all their own supporters…and so on and so forth.

The problem is not financial innovation or greed or speculators.  These things will never go away. 

The problem has been that the credit inflation created in the last 50 years has created huge incentives to develop financial innovation, to exercise greed, and to benefit from speculation.  And, in the frenzy, things got out-of-control.

That is where we are today.  The haircuts that are now necessary are large and if something is not done about them soon, the haircuts will get even larger!  What if the write-down on Greek bonds were 90 percent?  What if the write-down on the bonds of Italy were 50 percent?  Portugal…60 percent? Spain…?  And, France…?

Over the last fifty years or so, people in the United States, the UK, and Western Europe have been living pretty well.  They can live well again.  But, we need to get away from Keynesian policies that promise something for nothing and return to some fundamentals that have played well over the years.

This time is not different!  Discipline and integrity are winners and have always been winners.  But, in a state of chaos, returning to discipline and integrity is difficult and painful.  The historical lesson, however, is that if people do not return to a condition of discipline and integrity the pain and suffering does not end…and in many cases it will only get worse!   

Oh, My Gosh! We Now Need "Forward Guidance"!

Poor Ben Bernanke. 

To me, the kindest thing that can be said about him is that he is suffering the fate of those who are in charge of large institutions with little or no practical experience in administering any other organization of consequence.  He just does not seem to understand how to lead such an organization and he does not seem to have the capacity to adapt how he does things so as to achieve a better performance. 

Where one can criticize Mr. Bernanke and the Fed, as I have done in the past, for claiming that solvency problems are just liquidity problems, one can also criticize Mr. Bernanke and the Fed for claiming that their problems with the market are ones of the appropriate information flow and not one of credibility.

Now we are presented with the specter of something called “Forward Guidance.”  To quote Mr. Bernanke, “forward guidance and other forms of communication about policy can be valuable even when the zero lower bound is not relevant (short-term rates are not around zero).  I expect to see increasing use of such tools in the future.” (http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20111018a.htm)

Mr. Bernanke came into the position of Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System promising to provide greater openness and transparency to what the Federal Reserve is doing.  He has been consistently more available to the press and others than any previous Fed Chairman.  His latest effort has been to talk directly with the press after four regularly held meetings of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee to explain what the Fed is doing.  The first such meeting was less than rousing. 

Yet, apparently, Mr. Bernanke is unsatisfied with the results of this accessibility.  Why else would we need to have something dangled in front of us like this so-called “Forward Guidance.”

Roughly, “Forward Guidance” provides banks and financial markets with an explicit idea of what the Federal Reserve is attempting to achieve in the future in much the way that the August 2011 statement that the Fed would keep short-term interest rates low until mid-2013.

And, there are other forms the “Guidance” could take.  For example, Mr. Bernanke has been an advocate of “inflation targeting” something other central banks in the world have adopted.  For example, the Fed, during the regime of Mr. Bernanke, has had an informal target for inflation of 2 percent.  Under the new effort to keep the public better informed, this policy effort, tying interest rate levels to an inflation target, would be made more formal and explicit.

One could also do the same thing with respect to an unemployment goal. 

When this effort of communication does not work, I wonder what Mr. Bernanke will try next.  His increasing attempts to inform the public about how the Fed will operate given the policy parameters it is watching seems to be constantly falling short of what Mr. Bernanke and the Fed have expected.  Hence, the need to try different things.

In my mind, Mr. Bernanke and the Federal Reserve have followed one basic policy since late 2007.  This policy can be described as throwing as much “stuff” as possible against the wall to see how much of the “stuff” can stick to the wall.

The term “stuff” can apply to many things.  An early example of “stuff” was the Term Auction Credit (TAC), which first showed up on the Fed’s balance sheet on December 26, 2007.  During 2008, the Fed became the banker to the world lending to the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank, among others, through swap lines of credit.  The Fed’s line item, Other Federal Reserve Assets, which includes these central bank transactions, rose from about $56 billion on December 26, 2007 to $105 billion on August 27, 2008.  Added to this was the Fed’s assumption of assets from the Bear Stearns transaction, which first showed up on July 2, 2008.  Then in the fall of 2008, the door swung wide open. 

Whereas the earlier efforts did not expand Federal Reserve credit appreciably during most of 2008 (this measure rose from about $874 billion on December 26, 2007 to $884 billion on August 27, 2008 as the Fed reduced other categories of assets to expand credit where it seemed to be needed) by December 31, 2008, Federal Reserve credit reached $2.250 trillion!

On October 12, 2011, Federal Reserve credit stands at almost $2.845 trillion!

We have had QE1, and QE2, and now we have “Operation Twist.”  Excess reserves in the commercial banking system have risen from less than $2.0 billion in December 2007 to about $770 billion in December 2008 to over $1.550 trillion in September 2011.

Bank lending remains anemic, at best, and economic growth stays modest. 

What is the Fed’s monetary policy?  The Fed’s monetary policy is to flood the banking system with “cash”.  What else needs to be explained? 

“Operation Twist” and “Forward Guidance” and “QE2” and whatever do not change the general thrust of the Fed’s monetary policy.  The Fed is throwing as much “stuff” against the wall as it possibly can.  And, it will continue to do so for as long as Mr. Bernanke and the Fed feel that it is necessary.

But, Mr. Bernanke does not feel that this is enough.  And, so he tries this and tries that to increase the “openness and transparency” of the Fed to the rest of the world.  I believe that he is concerned about this more to calm his own mind than to calm the mind of the banking system and the financial markets.

The problem is that people are attempting to reduce their debt loads.  The fifty years or so of credit inflation released on American families and businesses by the United States government since the early 1960s has resulted in a situation where these same families and businesses feel that they are burdened by too much debt.  Consequently, they are attempting to reduce their debt loads. (See my post, “The US economy will continue to grow”: http://seekingalpha.com/article/300450-the-u-s-economy-will-continue-to-grow.)

However, de-leveraging takes time.  Unfortunately, given the current circumstances, the only thing that would stop the de-leveraging is a rapid build-up of inflation making debt “economically valuable” again.  In one sense, this is what it looks as if Mr. Bernanke and the Fed are trying to do.

But, with modest economic growth and tepid inflation, families and small- and medium-sized businesses will continue to reduce the amount of debt on their balance sheets.  These people will not come back into the debt market for some time.  This is  consistent with the research published by Reinhart and Rogoff in their book, “This Time is Different.” 

Even if this is true, Mr. Bernanke and the Fed, for the history books, do not want to look as if they did not do everything in their power to combat a second Great Recession…a double dip, if you will.  Consequently, they will stand ready to throw as much “stuff” as they feel they need to against the wall and will continue, in an open and transparent way, to tell the world that they are doing everything within their power to get the economy moving again.  To me, this is a lack of confidence that does not enhance their credibility.

Something is Missing...

The Dow-Jones Stock Index dropped almost 400 points today. European stocks also dropped substantially…the FTSE 100 dropped by over 4 and one-half percent. 

European sovereign debt continues to grab headlines a the interest spreads on ten year bonds of troubled countries versus the yield on ten year German bonds remained near peaks. 

Today, the Economic Union moved to speed up the recapitalization of banks that did not show well in the recent stress tests administered to more than 90 banks.  “The move would affect mostly mid-tier banks. Seven are Spanish, two are from Germany, Greece and Portugal, and one each from Italy, Cyprus and Slovenia.” (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/49d6240e-e527-11e0-bdb8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1Yj4RAJ9F)  But, there is little confidence that this move will resolve things because the stress tests were such a joke!

Moody’s downgraded Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup…and a couple of days ago a few European banks…that passed the stress tests. 

And, the top officials in the European Union continue to argue over this issue and they continue to argue over that issue and resolve little…but still hope to kick the can down the street a little further.  No one seems to be facing the real issues because their solutions appear to be so painful.   

In the United States, Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve attempt to grasp another straw in the wind as they continue to throw “stuff” against the wall, hoping that some of it sticks.  For three years now the Fed has thrown “stuff” against the wall but it must be too wet…for very little is sticking to the wall.  The Fed’s current monetary policy is to make sure that they throw all the “stuff” they have against the wall so that no one writing future history books can accuse them of not leaving any unused “stuff’ in the …

And, President Obama has come up with his new economic re-election platform disguised in the form of a jobs program, which includes new proposals to finance the program with various tax increases.  Since this combination is a part of the re-election campaign it must contain a little of this and a little of that to appeal to different parts of his voter base.  The problem with something like this is that it just makes the tax code more complex and provides incentives for the more heavily taxed…in the words of George Shultz, the former Secretary of the Treasury, ”the wealthy and General Electric”...to find ways to avoid bearing the burden of the tax. (See my post from Tuesday, September 20, “The Case Against the Obama Taxes”, http://maseportfolio.blogspot.com/.)   

Something is missing!

My answer has been and continues to be, that the something that is missing is leadership!

The problem is that there are no easy answers…no painless answers. 

People in Europe and the United States have been living high for fifty years.  The goals of high levels of employment and income re-distribution through the spread of home ownership have produced their consequences…excessive amounts of debt in households, businesses, national, state, and local governments. 

The economic policy of almost consistent application of credit inflation for the past fifty years has produced, in the United States, an 85 percent reduction in the purchasing power of the dollar, an under-employment rate of at least 20 percent, and the widest skewing of the income/wealth distribution in recent history.  If this is what credit inflation achieves…I don’t want it. 

Continuing to apply the policies of the past fifty years to the current situation will only exacerbate things.  We are facing an extended period of economic stagnation, at best, and a double-dip recession, at the worst.  Little or no growth in this situation will be accompanied with continued increases in the under-employment rate.  And, of course, continuing with all this stimulation with little of no economic growth will result in even more decline in the purchasing power of the dollar.

And,  as a consequence of the uncertainty related to the attempt to solve these problems, volatility continues to plague the financial markets.  Experts predict that the volatility of these markets will not subside until things settle down on the policy side and some true leadership is shown amongst our governmental officials and regulators.  That is, the volatility will continue until someone steps up to the plate and initiates a real solution to the existing situation.

The problem is that the main job of politicians is to get re-elected.  It is very clear to most politicians that resolving the debt-situation is going to be painful and many are already hearing the discontent of their constituents.  Riots in the streets of Greece and Spain are just a small indication of the disruptions that the politicians fear.  But, there is the fear that if they do too much they will not get re-elected.  The are caught in the trap of having to do something…but not too much.   

The financial markets…the economy…are getting no clear vision of what the future may look like.  They don’t know what their taxes are going to be.  They don’t know what the rate of inflation will be. 

All the financial markets…and the economy…can do is go up…and go down…

Something is missing and the problem with this is that no one in the financial markets…or the economy…can identify where the leadership is going to come from. 

Can you?

Wil Bernanke Policy "Destroy Credit Creation"? Bill Gross is Worried It Will--The Role of Financial Innovation

Yesterday I discussed the concern Bill Gross, founder and co-chief investment officer of PIMCO, has about the current Federal Reserve policy of keeping short-term interest rates low for the next two years.  The concern extends to the possibility that the Fed will attempt to “twist” the term structure of interest rates by buying more and more long-term government securities in an attempt to bring longer-term interest rates in line with the very low short-term interest rates.  Gross sees the efforts extending to the seven- and eight-year maturity range.

The concern Gross has is that a flat yield curve will cause banks and other financial organizations to de-leverage even further and faster than they would under conditions the of un-sustainable debt levels created by the previous fifty years of credit inflation.  Gross, in his Financial Times article (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/04868cd6-d7b2-11e0-a06b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1XGri4Us6), argued that the Federal Reserve consistently maintained a positive slope to the yield curve throughout this fifty year period (with the exception of periods of tight monetary policy) so that the banks and other financial institutions would continually provide “credit creation” so that the economy would continue to expand and create jobs. 

The positive slope to the yield curve provided the mechanism for this credit creation through three channels that I have written about on a regular basis.  First, the positive slope to the yield curve meant that banks and other financial institutions could borrow short at relatively low interest rates and lend long at higher interest rates.  The mis-matching of maturities increases interest-rate risk but then if the yield curve, on average, remains positive, the positive yield spread can be maintained over time.

Second, credit inflation “bails out” riskier loans so the banks and other financial institutions could lend money on riskier deals and thereby earn an even larger interest rate margin.  To paraphrase Warren Buffet…if credit inflation tide is rising, it is hard to tell bad assets from good assets.  Only when the credit inflation tide recedes and the water level drops do we discover who is not wearing a bathing suit.   Tell me about the sub-prime mortgage mess…

Third, narrow interest margins can be turned into substantial returns on equity by the use of financial leverage.  And, if competition brings net interest margin levels down, banks and other financial institutions can maintain the levels of return on equity they had previously earned by adding more and more financial leverage to their balance sheets. 

This third component of the growing risk exposure of a period of credit inflation can only succeed if the banks and other financial institutions are “liability managers”.  In terms of the last fifty years, financial institutions became liability managers through the process of financial innovation.  Most financial institutions were locked into their balance sheets before the 1960s because money and capital markets were not developed to the extent that banks and others could buy or sell all the funds they wanted a the going market interest rate.

Commercial banks, at this earlier time, could only obtain funds through “local” markets and these funds were not very interest sensitive.  Hence, these organizations were “asset managers” limited to what Leo Tilman calls “Balance Sheet Arbitrage”.  (See a review of Tilman’s book “Financial Darwinism” at http://seekingalpha.com/article/221607-making-money-in-the-21st-century-financial-darwinism-create-value-or-self-destruct-in-a-world-of-risk-by-leo-tilman.) Balance sheet arbitrage is the “old” way of commercial banking where banks are “local” in nature and obtain funds from demand deposit accounts and savings accounts which pay very low interest rates and lend the funds out to borrowers, many of whom have no other sources of funding so that the interest on these loans are relatively high.  Thus, the banks worked with nice interest margins that were relatively stable and reliable. 

Liability management came into pay through the financial innovation of the 1960s.  Negotiable CDs and Eurodollar deposit along with holding company issue Bankers Acceptances became the innovation of choice in the larger banks and this freed up the balance sheets of banks so that they were no longer limited to “local” constraints on the choice of funding sources.  Funding sources became world wide and the understanding was that, at most times, banks could now buy or sell as many funds as they wanted at the going market interest rate. 

In essence, commercial banks could now “leverage up” as much as regulation…or accounting rules…would allow!

And, as regulation eased up, banks and other financial institutions got into other financial and organizational innovations.  Tilman lists these as moves into “Principal Investments” (private equity and venture capital, investments in hedge funds, or, capital allocations to internal proprietary trading desks) and “Systematic Risks” (which included interest rate risks, credit risks, currencies, commodities, and equity indices). This created an environment I have called the “New Liquidity.” (See http://seekingalpha.com/article/289579-let-s-move-on-from-keynes-and-accept-the-new-liquidity.)

The result? Bill Gross nails it in his article: “Thousands of billions of dollars were extended…” It seems as if capital requirements were non-existent.  Credit could expand almost without limit.

And, why are we interested in credit inflation and not price inflation?  Why do we focus on credit creation and not money? Focus, in the past, was placed on money because people were concerned about what was happening with consumer prices…”flow” prices.  “Flow” prices relate to the prices paid for goods and services that are consumed in a relatively short period of time.  “Flow” prices are to be differentiated from “asset” prices. 

“Flow” prices are in many ways “constructed” prices.  For example, in the construction of the Consumer Price Index, the price of a house is not included because that is the price of an asset.  The “flow” of housing services is what people consume and the “price” of this flow of services is called “rent”.  In the construction of the CPI, the “rental price” of housing services is, to a large extent, estimated.  And, as it turns out, since the consumption of housing services is such a large component of consumer expenditures, the “rent” component turns out to be the largest part of the CPI.

Theoretically, the price of an ‘asset” (the price of a house) should be equal to the discounted present value of the future cash flows relating to the purchase of the housing services provided by the house (the rent or rental value of the housing services).  In the world these two prices can differ from one another for a substantial amount of time as they did during the 2000s where housing prices were severely inflated and estimates of rental values lagged far behind. 

This is true of other asset categories like equity shares that are traded on the stock markets (take for example the Internet bubble of the 1990s).

Thus credit and credit inflation are of crucial interest to the behavior of prices…all prices…in the economy.  And this is why we must be interested in cumulative credit inflations that become unsustainable and turn into cumulative debt deflations that create a “formidable headwind” (thank you Mr. Bernanke) that must be overcome by any fiscal or monetary policy hoping to stimulate growth in the economy. 

The problem seen by Mr. Gross, however, is that the monetary policy now being followed by the Mr. Bernanke and the Federal Reserve that promotes a flat yield curve will just exacerbate the situation because it will accelerate the debt deflation taking place.  One could also argue (ala Mr. Gross) that the situation created by recent financial innovation, the “new liquidity”, will further add to the volatility of the whole situation.