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

Fed cuts to zero

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Well well well, the Fed has decided to actually set its cash rate target at a range of 0-25bps.

Note:

The focus of the Committee’s policy going forward will be to support the functioning of financial markets and stimulate the economy through open market operations and other measures that sustain the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet at a high level

I suppose we can see the Federal Reserve jumping into the Treasuries market and getting deeper into mortgage backed securities.

the Federal Reserve will also implement the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility to facilitate the extension of credit to households and small businesses

Looks like the Fed is taking its role as lender of last resort to heart 😉

Matt Nolan

Promoting consumer debt in the US: Should we?

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I have to admit that I am confused. The US wants to pump a bunch of money into the economy in order to get consumers borrowing again – why?

I thought that one of the primary issues was that the US consumer has borrowed too much in the past, supposedly to make up for a “glut in savings”. This had to give way at some point surely.

Of course the Fed and the US Treasury should be looking at loosening credit constraints that have appeared – but are they there. Megan McArdle was able to get hold of a good number of credit cards, and as I noted there seems to be some “throwing of funds” at consumers in LA at least.

Now, businesses over there (and potentially here) are suffering from credit constraints – so why doesn’t the Fed and Treasury work on loosening the constraint on business borrowing, instead of trying to knock down mortgage rates. Businesses that haven’t shut down don’t lay off all their staff!

Matt Nolan

Why the price on deposit insurance is too low – at least in the US

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So the deposit insurance schemes being introduced around the world have the explicit aim of “saving the world economy from Armageddon”.  Even so, when I spent a couple of weeks in the US I got the distinct impression that this scheme will lead to more (even more substantive) issues down the track.

Here is a list of interesting things I heard on Ads (or saw on billboards) in the US:

  1. Now, thanks to the deposit insurance scheme, we don’t have to check your credit (Ad),
  2. The world is America’s ATM (Billboard),
  3. Need a $200,000 loan to start a business – with no credit check? (Ad).

Add to this the already poor nature of savings in the US, and the fact that there is no individual responsibility in the housing market or even in the realm of taxes (every third ad is either about getting a lawyer to lower your taxes or getting a lawyer to push the government to give you extra benefits).

Ultimately, I think the US has some structural issues that need sorting – trying to keep consumers borrowing to maintain short-term growth feels like the government is creating a ponzi game in favour of the initial consumers that were involved.

Matt Nolan

The paradox of thrift and demand deficiency

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The paradox of thrift is one of the key lessons taught to macroeconomics students during their first undergraduate year.

Fundamentally it states that if everyone in society decides to save more right now, then it reduces consumption, with reduces economic activity and thereby incomes – and as a result it may actually decrease aggregate savings, and it will definitely reduce economic activity.

It is still widely applied, with recent Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman appealing to it in order to explain why the US needs to jump on in and get consumers spending again.

Of course this does not mean the theory is necessarily right. The paradox of thrift does not have a supply side – as long as prices and quantities can adjust to an economic shock this paradox, and the suggestion of government intervention in the face of it, does not hold water. For government intervention to be a possible solution we need a MARKET FAILURE, a market failure that causes a special macro-economic situation called “demand deficiency”. (Note: This is effectively the difference between Say and Keynes).

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Matt Nolan

Mortgage markets: Australia (and NZ) vs the US

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Following today’s terrible house price figures (I don’t have to see them to know they would be bad 😛 ) I thought it would be appropriate to go back to the comparison of NZ (and Aussie) to the US – at least for housing.

Greg Mankiw links to an article in the Wall Street Journal.  Read this:

When Australians borrow money to buy a house, they know that if they default and the mortgaged property doesn’t cover the debt, they will be responsible for the shortfall. And the lender will chase them for it. It’s a neat way of reminding Australians to borrow responsibly.

In America, where populist post-Depression laws in many states have mandated loans be nonrecourse, the opposite is true. Americans can take out a mortgage more or less as a one-way bet. If you can’t afford the repayments and can’t refinance, you just send the keys back to the bank. Borrowers wipe their hands of liability.

Surely hearing how moronic lending practices are in the US makes us all feel better about the relative outlook for our banking and housing sectors.  Although I bet to spite me that a major Aussie bank has gone bankrupt while I’ve been out of the country 😉 (again this was written on Sunday Nov 2)