Matt Nolan

Japan’s hole, the US hole, our hole?

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I just took a peak at an interesting Business Week article from March 2006 called “How Japan fell into the Hole“.

The key message for me was this:

This shift to debt minimization, however, completely disrupts the normal workings of the economy. That’s because the corporate sector no longer borrows the funds saved by the household sector, even at ultra-low interest rates. With no one borrowing, those personal savings — plus the debt companies are repaying — pile up unused in the banks, effectively shrinking aggregate demand by the same amount. Left unattended, this deflationary gap will continue to shrink the economy until almost everyone becomes too poor to save any money.

In order for the disruption to become severe, we need reserves to be built up – money will need to be hid under pillows.  In this case, if the government can get hold these resources and put them to use (or say, if people are only willing to lend to government because of a substantially negative economic outlook) we avoid the paradox of thrift.

Fundamentally, for our demand deficiency to really get kicking, we need one of our prices (interest rates) to get “stuck” at a level which is “too high” leading to excess savings.  We are seeing a similar situation in the US, the question is – will we run into the same thing here in little old NZ?

Matt Nolan

September GDP preview

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So on Christmas eve we get a special present – confirmation that we have so far had a three quarter recession 🙁

The main market in town, iPredict, is spot on with the 95% pick for a negative GDP quarter.

Let us discuss 🙂 :
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Matt Nolan

Compulsory redundancy payments

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I see there is some talk of compulsory redundancy payments after this sad story.

Now even though it would be nice if those people hadn’t been left high and dry after all their years of commitment, it is important that we try to get an objective idea about the costs associated with the scheme.
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Matt Nolan

Make expansionary fiscal policy work – give it to the technocrats

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I have no doubt that my views here will be contentious – but they need to be put forward nonetheless.

I think that Treasury (or some mix of part of Treasury and IRD) should function at arms length in the same way as the Reserve Bank, and that they should set tax rates in the same way that the RBNZ sets interest rates.

Now, let me discuss why.

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Matt Nolan

Defending the Bank’s attack on “prices”

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Yesterday I said that I thought the Bank’s speech on bringing down the price level was ridiculous. Not only is asking for a decline in prices a strange thing for a central bank to do, the mentioning of “oil companies” was slightly off the mark – given that they have slashed prices in the face of falling crude oil (although to be fair the Bank was just asking them to keep going – it was the Dom Post that exaggerated it – or maybe I was being generous!).

Now I am going to defend it.

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Matt Nolan

Correcting a slight swipe on forecasters

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Over at Financial Armageddon they state that:

Analysts naturally factor in the number of people who are out of work when they try to figure out future consumption patterns. But there is more to it, of course. People who are afraid they might lose their job are just as likely to economize or clamp down on spending as those who have no real choice in the matter. In fact, some might say that changes in the attitudes and behavior of the 85-95 percent (depending on which statistics you believe) of those who are employed matter much more than the financial wherewithal of those who aren’t

Now this implies that analysts don’t look at the feeling of those who are employed and as a result will not expect as sharp a fall in consumption. However, as an analyst I can say that we do pay attention to this fact – which is why we put such a weight on the unemployment rate when we forecast.
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