Posted on 06/05/2018 8:33:33 AM PDT by Liberty7732
From 2008-2018, U.S. debt virtually doubled while the M2 money supply compounded at 6%. This should have caused rapid inflation. It didn’t. In fact, inflation decreased to 56-year lows during the period from 2009 to 2017.
The Federal Reserve and leading economists say they don’t know why. Here’s the explanation.
To have inflation, commodity prices must perform better. Commodities are non-correlated to stocks and bonds while they are highly correlated to inflation, volatile interest rates, and high or rising GDP growth rates. All of these were at historic U.S. 240-year lows over the last nine years. Using the CPI to represent inflation, inflation made continuous new lows ending in 2017 at a compounded rate of 1.61% on a 10-year rolling annual basis. The five-year rolling annual rate also made new lows but has since recovered by 7 basis points. Since 1961 the five-year low was 1.36% (2012-2016), but now from 2013-2017 is 1.43%.
The reasons for the decline in these economic barometers were the policies of President Obama.
The “change” brought to the nation included increased regulations (Todd-Frank), higher taxes for everyone (the end of the Bush tax cuts in 2012), and the creation of Obamacare. The ACA was effectively a huge tax on the middle class disguised as an insurance policy, which was then redistributed to the lower class, who got healthcare insurance policies at way below the market prices, by subsidizing the insurance companies. As a consequence, Obama transformed America into a virtual Corporatist/quasi-Socialist State.
Today the U.S. is essentially an oligarchy of party leaders and federal judges, who are controlled and heavily influenced by multinational corporations and outside special interests. They operate much like cartels. In short, we now have government similar to that of a banana republic.
Therefore, with 0% nominal Fed Funds rates for seven years and three large Quantitative Easing (QE) programs, combined with an increase in the Federal Reserve Balance sheet from $800 billion to $4.5 trillion, why isn’t inflation at least approaching historic compounded levels of 3.10% that were seen between 1913 and 2017?
The primary reason is: when you execute extraordinary amounts of printing of paper money via QE, i.e. buying government debt, and other assets, such as mortgages, the cash created “out of thin air” goes only to the very few investors who own those assets in large quantities. No inflation occurs, as those investors don’t spend that money, but rather invest it in assets such as equities, real estate, other debt and art. Prices for these assets rose to historic levels as a consequence.
This is called “wealth creation” instead of inflation. This Fed monetary and tax policy is also encouraging corporate stock buyback programs, which caused the velocity (or turnover) of money (via M2) to decline to the lowest level in 60 years, or 1.4 times. This, coupled with a lack of investment in new plant and equipment — causing capital expenditures to decline — resulted in a major decline in productivity to 0.7. That in turn led to stagnant medium incomes over the last 20 years. (This doesn’t take into account the Free Trade thinking that caused the 19.8 million manufacturing jobs to decline to 11 million since NAFTA was enacted.)
If the bulk of people don’t get the money, they can’t spend beyond their revolving credit card limits. Household non-revolving credit debt (house equity and auto loans) is at record highs as of January 2018. Total household debt is $13.2 trillion, also a new record. Credit card interest rates average 19.9% and range from 9.9% (often only as a promotional rate) to 29%.
Contrast this to corporate debt which despite being at record levels costs around 3% to 3.25% on seven-year term debt. This is the rate corporations are paying to borrow money to buy back stock. Inequality exponentially increases while the middle-class standard of living steadily declines; meanwhile low but steady inflation still takes its toll (for which nobody blames the Federal Reserve?).
Since 2008, “financial repression” has been in effect with interest rates below inflation. This is why stocks go up but no major actual inflation occurs. In effect, it is a method of government theft of individual savings; inflation is a stealth tax. So, people hoard more as they earn less and their savings decline. For example, the 90-day Treasury Bill yield at the end of March was 1.71%, while the CPI was 2.36% year over year.
This makes government and corporate borrowing virtually free. Historically (since 1926) T-Bills have traded at a compounded rate of 70 bps above CPI, not 75 to 50 bps below CPI. This is what is meant by “Government is created to serve the rich, while enslaving the poor.”
Moreover, these increases in government debt are not sustainable.
This is an existential threat to our Constitutional Republic’s political structure. Normally a nation with a printing press never defaults by bankruptcy, but rather by hyperinflation. This in turn historically has led to authoritarian dictatorships (see Napoleon and Nazi Germany). I should also mention schemes of “Universal Basic Income” such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is proposing would most likely cause hyperinflation, as people would get free money estimated at $36,000 a year per family, and certainly they would spend it.
In June 2017 the CBO projected that total stated debt would grow to $30.7 trillion in 2028 (up from the current $21 trillion). However, in March 2018 that estimate was increased to $33.2 trillion, or an additional $254 billion per year. Interestingly, they also raised their revenue estimate over the same period by over $1 trillion (even after the latest tax cuts). So, these higher debt projections already take into account increasing revenue! This assumes no recession during the period, which I estimate would increase debt by additional $12 trillion (making U.S. debt $45 trillion). Not to mention our unfunded liabilities which could be anywhere from $100 trillion to $220 trillion in 10 years going forward.
It should be noted that the longest recovery since 1854 — when the NBER began to keep track of such statistics — was 120 months. We would reach 121 months in our current recovery in July 2019. To think (via the CBO projections) the U.S. can go 10 more years in recovery (for a total of 227 consecutive months) is like assuming the U.S. will win the lottery; it may not be impossible, but it is highly unlikely. That is, unless you’re a politician (or the CBO) who lies for a living.
Certainly, the borrowed times we live in will not be the future we assume we know.
At the bottom line are two fallacies. The first is the idea that paper money wealth will protect you, and what you see in asset prices around the world is accurate. Interest rates are manipulated by governments to the extremes in the history of civilization. Therefore, we come to the second fallacy: the belief that prices are real — based on a real foundations.
How is this mindset allowed to persist, and why is this growing danger consistently ignored? This kind of thinking is based on “perception policy” to keep the sham going. The situation was best described by Ayn Rand in her novel The Fountainhead: “The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident, which everybody has decided not to see.
To have price inflation, wages must rise. Hence the push for a higher minimum wage. Raise the floor and you also raise the ceiling.
That is an utter F***ing lie. I've never seen inflation so horrible as it has been between 2009-2017. I've been keeping track. Virtually everything I buy on a regular basis doubled in price. I could give you a list.
Inflation was 200% since that idiot Obama took office. He just ordered the FedGov to lie about real inflation.
There are many other reasons. Production of physical goods is much easier with modern technology. With automation, we can produce more with less effort, and with computerization, we know how much to produce.
Agreed—inflation in many consumer goods is very real.
Confession—I just bought coffee at a Starbucks this morning (ducking under desk.. :-) ).
The price just rose for the second time in the past year—for their lousy overpriced coffee.
There is also shrink-flation where the package size shrinks while the package stays the same.
Health care costs, college costs, house prices and rents—the list goes on and on.
Computers and printers are cheaper, but really...
I have seen prices rise as well, especially in the last year or so.
But I was puzzled about the lack of obvious inflation in the early Obama years.
The idea that quantitative easing put money into the hands of people who spent it where it did not contribute to price inflation is an intriguing idea. The stock market certainly shot up in price! Stocks are not considered part of any inflation index that I know of.
You know, stuff that actually matters to people. The reason Obastard did this was because it would have shown him to be the total incompetent moron he truly was/is.
Yes, electronics are cheaper, everything is is quite a lot more expensive than it was. Adding $2,500.00 in cost for every man woman and child in the US, (Obamacare idiocy) could not help but drive up inflation.
Agree - from the price of meat to the shrinking of packaging - prices in the grocery store and restaurants went up a great deal in that time frame.
But hard drives are cheaper than ever. I think I’ll fry up a 2 gigabyte hard drive with my overpriced eggs.
Ding! Ding! We got a Winner!
Ditto
I’ve always wondered how they managed to hide inflation when everyone knows prices have gone way UP!
Unaccounted for inflation. Consumer debt. Wage stagnation.
That sums it up for me.
The Obama administration removed food and fuel from the inflation calculations they used to determine "inflation." I've often said the Trump administration needs to recalculate all the Obama job numbers and inflation calculations using the earlier method, and let that stupid bastard Obama go down in history as the piece of sh*t idiot he really was.
And yes, the Stock Market is highly inflated. No real value increase, but massive stock value increases. That's where a lot of the "quantitative easing" ended up.
Affirmative Action Man from Corrupt Chicago simply ordered his agencies to lie about it. Lying Media bastards on the Democrat side of the Aisle covered up this very blatant lying by not reporting it.
The affects of money printing are asymmetric. Certainly, bankers were the main beneficiary, and then anyone with access to cheap money and assets.
No inflation? That’s BS. Want to rent an apt. in a big city? buy farmland? Paid for healthcare recently? How about college tuitions? Cost of running a state or local government?
Obama's recession, hard to have real inflation.
Groceries and gas. Many grocery items have shown significant increases.
‘Shrinkflation’ is also alive and well. I have noticed some product content shrinkage in a couple of different grocery stores, but the prices stayed the same.
Just last week I bought some coffee filters. I had been buying them for $1.19 for several years. Last week, they were $1.65 per pack.
Didn’t Bill Clinton change the cost of living formula to allow substitution and thus manipulate the inflation index in 1992?
So many silly errors.
arrogance of power, stupidity, terrorism, whatever?
Yes, yes, good for you for dropping cable years ago, and for using a Cricket Wireless flip phone for $19/month. I'm talking about the average middle class family, not the average FReeper family.
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