'..Indeed, I have fully expected reckless monetary mismanagement to ensure a global crisis much beyond 2008. From my analytical perspective, the global Bubble has followed the worst-case scenario.
It sounds archaic, but sound money and Credit are fundamental to sound financial systems, sound economic structure, cohesive societies and a stable geopolitical backdrop..''At this point, Treasury yields have little association with the U.S. economy. The structure of the Treasury curve (along with Federal Reserve monetary policy) has detached from U.S. economic performance. Treasuries are instead caught up in an unprecedented global market phenomenon. Sovereign debt, after all, has traded for hundreds of years. Yet bonds have never traded with negative yields. Never have global bond prices spiked in unison, with yields collapsing to unprecedented lows across the globe.
I understand why market professionals, pundits and journalists focus on the conventional “recession risk” explanation for sinking Treasury yields and the inverted curve. For one, there is insufficient awareness as to the deep structural impairments that today permeate global finance. Besides, no one wants to contemplate that global bond yields might portend serious problems ahead – that global yields are signaling the reemergence of Crisis Dynamics.
Throughout this decade’s long Bubble period, I’ve often written and stated, “I hope things are not as dire as I believe they are.” Along the way, Bubble Analysis has appeared flawed and hopelessly detached from reality. And that’s exactly how these things work.
But I’ve never wavered from the view that this would end badly. Never have I believed that manipulating and distorting markets would achieve anything but epic Bubbles and inevitable terrible hardship. I’ve not seen evidence to counter the view that the longer the global Bubble inflates the greater the downside risk (moreover, such risk grows exponentially over time). And not for one minute did I believe zero rates and QE would resolve deep financial and economic structural issues. Indeed, I have fully expected reckless monetary mismanagement to ensure a global crisis much beyond 2008. From my analytical perspective, the global Bubble has followed the worst-case scenario.
It sounds archaic, but sound money and Credit are fundamental to sound financial systems, sound economic structure, cohesive societies and a stable geopolitical backdrop. The most unsound “money” in human history comes with dire consequences. Global finance now suffers from irreparable structural impairment. Economies across the globe are deeply maladjusted. Global imbalances are unprecedented. The trajectory of geopolitical strife is frightening.
Meanwhile, central banks are locked in flawed inflationist doctrine. Their experiment is failing, yet in failure they will resort to only more reckless market manipulation and monetary inflation. This analysis is corroborated both by collapsing sovereign yields and a surging gold price. The clear and present risk is of an abrupt globalized market dislocation, financial crisis and resulting economic and geopolitical instability. It may sound like crazy talk, except for the fact that such a scenario is alarmingly consistent with signals now blaring from global bond markets.
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..what could be more fascinating than Bubble Analysis? My analytical framework owes a debt of gratitude to Charles Kindleberger’s work. I’ll interject my definition: “A Bubble is a self-reinforcing but inevitably unsustainable inflation.” This “unsustainable” facet has become critical in this bizarro world of central bank finance and accompanying runaway Bubbles. At a decade and counting, it is reasonable to assume that the realm of central bank supported bull markets is everlasting. Such optimism is today dangerously misplaced.
I’ll take somewhat exception to John Authers’, “[Bubble] has become overused and debased.” The key issue is that Bubble Dynamics took root across asset classes and across the world. Never has “Bubble” applied to so many markets in so many places – never has finance created Bubble Dynamics on an almost systemic basis.
I have argued post-crisis monetary stimulus unleashed a historic global Bubble in “financial assets” more generally, a “global government finance Bubble” that fueled hyperinflation in prices for stocks, bonds, structured finance, real estate, private businesses, collectibles, and so on around the world. The word “Bubble” has not been overused and debased, as much as the overuse of central bank and government Credit has worked to debase “money” more generally.
Authers also states: “But if we treat it rigorously, the bubble concept is still vital in navigating financial markets.” The problem is markets love Bubbles – jump aboard and make easy “money.” And for the past decade central banks have incentivized speculation and speculative leverage across assets classes and around the world.
Bubble Analysis is vital for both navigating markets and for policymaking. For a decade now, speculators have been playing Bubbles, while central bankers have been denying their existence. Global bond markets have become convinced the Bubble is faltering, with the expectation that central banks have no alternative than to drive rates even lower while monetizing further Trillions of government bonds (throwing in some corporate debt and even equities for good measure). This expectation of additional aggressive monetary stimulus has bolstered the view within the risk markets that the bottomless central bank punchbowl will keep the party rocking.
At this point, the overarching issue is not the U.S. vs. China trade war, and it’s not specifically the vulnerable Chinese economic boom. The U.S. economy is certainly not the focal point of global market dynamics. Importantly, the trade war is a catalyst for pushing China’s vulnerable economy to the downside. After a historic Bubble inflation, a faltering Chinese economy is a catalyst for pushing China’s fragile Credit and financial systems beyond the precipice. And as the marginal source of global finance and economic growth, faltering Chinese Credit and economic systems will be a catalyst for bursting Bubbles around the globe.
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It’s been a full decade of government and central bank backstops, with the “Trump put” a relatively late addition. It sure appears the Trump, central bank and Beijing “puts” have lost some potency. And in about a month we’ll have a better read on the “Fed put.” It’s a reasonable bet the stock market will go into the September 18th FOMC meeting with a gun to its head: “50 bps or we’ll shoot!”
Much can happen in a month – especially at the current mercurial clip of developments. But the Fed will be in a really tough spot. Don’t give the market 50 bps and ultra-dovish commentary and risk getting hit with a heated market tantrum. Give markets what they demand and risk a “sell the news” response and a critical change in market sentiment. It has the feel that a decade of egregious monetary inflation and speculative Bubbles is about to get Some Comeuppance.'
- Doug Noland,
Comeuppance, August 17, 2019
Context'..I’ll assume the flow of “hot money” away from global risk markets has commenced.''..a world of debt, a historic global securities Bubble..''..an unsustainable Bubble that creates escalating risk to a deteriorating financing environment.'(Banking Reform) - '..dynamic efficiency .. creativity and coordination driven by human beings’ entrepreneurship.'