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Title: One Bank Explains Why QE No Longer Stimulates The Economy And Only Leads To Higher Stock Prices
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URL Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/o ... only-leads-higher-stock-prices
Published: May 10, 2020
Author: Tyler Durden
Post Date: 2020-05-10 07:29:32 by Horse
Keywords: None
Views: 113
Even some of the most ardent supporters of the fraud that is Keynesian economics now admit the entire modern economic system is on the verge of collapse for one main reason: the marginal utility of debt is collapsing, with ever more debt required to generate an increase in underlying GDP. And tied to that, is another reason why any day now the current system may be the last: the marginal utility of every new QE is now declining to the point where soon virtually none of the money created by the Fed out of thin air will enter the economy and instead will be stuck in capital markets, resulting in hyperinflation for asset prices even as the broader economy collapses. Or, as BMO's Daniel Krieter writes, "QE has fed through to the real economy in a slower manner than previous QE campaigns" and for each dollar the Fed's balance sheet has grown, M1 money supply has increased about $0.32, compared to $0.96 and $0.74 in QE1 and QE2. "The expansionary policy thus far has mostly resulted in increased asset prices", BMO writes concluding what had been obvious to us and our readers since 2009. Only now we are ten years closer to what is the inevitable endgame, one where the Fed has no impact on M1, which will also be known as the "game over" phase. But let's back up. Traditionally, as BMO explains, we analyze the business cycle from a classical economic perspective where monetary authorities are more passive and “the invisible hand” guides economies (this used to be the case before the Fed went all Politburo on the USSA and decided to nationalize capital markets, crushing any "signal" the bond market may have; the final step will be the launch of Yield Curve Control which will be game over for the market). In this context, we look at interest rates, which can theoretically be defined as the rate that makes the consumer indifferent between consumption today and consumption tomorrow. R* is the (unknowable) natural rate of interest that supports full employment and stable interest rates. In theory, if rr*, consumption saving is preferable and the economy is contracting. In an expansionary phase, prices and consumption are increasing. Because prices and investment opportunities are high, demand for money among consumers/businesses is high, and interest rates (r) increase alongside borrowing. When r rises to the rate of r*, consumption slows, earnings fall, and a recession ensues. R* falls as uncertainty and risk aversion grow. This is a “business cycle” recession (and as long as the Fed is around, we will never have one of those again as the Fed has now also killed the business cycle... just as the USSR tried to do). However, a recession can also be caused by some external shock to the economy that produced further declines in r*. This is because r* is reactive to uncertainty with a strong negative correlation. The greater the uncertainty, the lower r* falls. In recession, r falls as consumption remains low as long as it is greater than r*. Defaults accelerate the drop in r. With the passage of time, r* rises slowly as the uncertainty/risk aversion surrounding the shock and/or end of business cycle fades. However the longer firms go without earnings due to low consumption, the more defaults are realized and the more r drops. At some point, the combination of falling r and rising r* results in r <= r*. Once this happens, consumption/ investment picks up and the economy enters recovery. In addition to accelerating declines in r, defaults experienced during recession also lower the cost of labor and capital goods as the resources of failed companies are returned to the economy. In addition, barriers to entry in certain industries fall as “old guard” firms go out of business. Thus, as the economy enters recovery, this combination of cheaper labor/capital goods and lower barriers to entry leads to strong business investment and increases growth potential during the ensuing expansion. This is how the world works in theory. Unfortunately, since 1913, theory has not worked due to the intervention of the Fed. So now let’s look at how all this works in reality, and introduce an active central bank with a wider range of monetary policy tools at its disposal. As the economy cools, the central bank lowers r in an attempt to spur consumption by forcing r
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