Where The Fugawi?

The flightless Fugawi bird lives in the tall grass of the African savannahs. Unfortunately, this bird is not as tall as the grass that surrounds it, hence its mournful call. The mavens of Wall Street seem to share the bird’s frustration as they focus on fractional changes in economic data, in the hope that they will foreshadow a return to the peaceful, sunlit uplands of free and flowing money.

Alas, it is not to be. We are fated to do battle with the multi-headed Scylla of inflation and, if we win, it is only to be sucked into Charybdis’ whirlpool of depression. Massive increases in government debt have, inevitably, increased private sector savings and pulled consumption forward in time. If these increases continue, Scylla will dine well as hyperinflation ruins the dollar. If they do not, consumption will, of necessity, fall as the credit impulse reverses. Charybdis’ whirlpool is a fine metaphor for the negative feedback cycle that will result from bankruptcies and defaults. If I do say so myself.

Jeff Gundlach Interview

Jeffrey Gundlach is the billionaire founder and CEO of DoubleLine, a Los Angeles based investment boutique mainly specializing in bonds, ranks among America’s highest-profile investors. His bold calls and correct prediction of the 2007 housing crash have earned him a solid reputation. A recent interview is most interesting in that he clearly, if intuitively, understands the instability inherent in the Fed’s attempts to control the economy by hindsight.

The next shock is that we’re having to put in a big overreaction to the inflation problem which we created from our initial reaction of excess stimulus. My guess is that we will end up creating momentum that’s more deflationary than a lot of people believe is even possible.

Of course he is very probably correct. A deflationary economic collapse is very likely to follow the inflationary phase. So long as the Fed is willing to make massive interventions in the economy without understanding the dynamics of control, we are utterly screwed. There comes to mind a well-known class of control systems known as bang-bang control.

Dummies?

When seeming professionals propose ideas that are internally contradictory I really start to question professionalism in the financial services industry.

The idea proposed was that since inflation was caused by limited supply, which the Fed cannot control, the Fed would simply raise its inflation target and resume easy money to resume growth, driving stocks to infinity and beyond.

Excuse me, but doesn’t limited supply itself limit growth?

Since when has the Fed ever been able to control supply? The money printers go b-r-r-r but there are no gas wells or potash mines at the Fed building. The Fed’s manipulations are intended to control demand.

And by the way, how is the economy to grow when businesses wanting to expand cannot hire the employees that they need?

The bubble is still with us.

That’ll Buff Out

Well I got that one wrong, fortunately my trading system had no dog in the hunt. Yes, Powell did hint at slowing rate increases. But the markets were shocked, shocked I say, by his acknowledgement of the 15 years of futile attempts to curb inflation before Volcker took matters in hand. That an economist should consider history rather than models and calculus is pretty much unprecedented, at least in modern times. His academic credentials may be called into question. The calculus thing was introduced because economists – it was called, correctly, “political economy” at the time – felt they were underpaid, relative to the physical sciences, and therefore needed to emulate them. It helped their prestige but not their forecasts.

Sarcasm aside, it’s a good thing. But the bad thing is there is way too much money in circulation. Consider the following mantra from Milton Friedman in 1963, years before the 1970s inflation.

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”

Then please consider the following:

That’s going to take a lot of buffing. And yes, Mr Powell, it is the product of years of central bank economic idiocy and arrogance. First chart St. Louis Fed, second John Hussman.

Friday

Friday is the Jackson Hole retreat, where the US taxpayer hosts a gathering of the people who believe they are the masters of the world economies.

Our esteemed Fed Chair, Jerome Powell, is expected to speak about, inter alia, Fed policy. Much digital ink is being spent on speculation about what he will say. So I will join in and spend a little.

It is important to remember that he, and many other attendees, claim to be economists. They are a dangerous species, especially when they attempt to manipulate economies and markets, as the records of booms and busts show.

Chair Powell has stated that he intends to curb inflation by slowing growth, not by slowing the economy, as in the R-word. In my personal opinion, as they say in Japan, we are going to have a deep and dark recession regardless of what Chair Powell says or does. But back to Friday. This means that he will at least hint at slowing rate increases. Of course this is not a “pivot”, more like a “swivel”. But it will be friendly to the stock and bond markets, at least for a little while.

Moral Hazard

Apparently Biden the inflation-fighter has another huge spending program to put away the beast. This is forgiving a portion of outstanding student loans, a program estimated to cost between $300 billion and $900 billion over the next ten years.

The Federal government should never have been in the student loan business in the first place. It has caused massive hikes in college prices, far outstripping inflation, purely because the students can borrow the money to pay whatever the colleges ask. Then the students are saddled with big debts. The right solution is for colleges to have a financial commitment to the future success of their students, with a positive return on their education investment. Colleges should accept a share of future income instead of up-front fees, encouraging them to invest in the quality and relevance of education rather than lavish facilities and top-heavy administration.

The inevitable result of this program is more moral hazard. Students will expect further bailouts, and colleges will charge more.

Government Subsidy

Biden triumphantly put a $7,500 credit out there for electric vehicles. This caused Ford to increase the price of its electric pickup by $7,000 to $8,500, while Chevy added $6,250, to its electric Hummer. Piling another $7,500 of debt onto the taxpayers for each vehicle. So there’s a double whammy of inflation. Another self-inflicted wound. And by the way these vehicles will consume huge amounts of energy due to their weight – 6,000 lb for the Ford and a staggering 9,000 lb for the Hummer. These vehicles are on the wrong side of the curve – heavy to start with, they need lots of heavy batteries which make them even heavier in a vicious circle.

Edit: According to the industry group, Alliance for Automotive Innovation, “there are 72 EV models currently available for purchase in the United States including battery, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell electric vehicles. Seventy percent of those EVs would immediately become ineligible when the bill passes and none would qualify for the full credit when additional sourcing requirements go into effect. Zero.” So, Ford and Chevy, I take it back. But I still think these massive trucks are a bad idea.

Pivot – To What?

It seems as if every financial writer has no more important subject to opine upon than the exact date of the Fed “pivot,” when the Fed will be “forced to” resume supporting wild speculation.

Such opinions may be successful clickbait, but any such pivot is economically meaningless. Just look at the last employment report. The number of jobs increased significantly, but the number of employed persons hardly moved. People are taking on more jobs in order to, as President Bush put it, “put food on their family.” This can only go so far, for obvious reasons, and it means there are insurmountable limits on the economy’s ability to grow. Production equals labor hours times productivity. Productivity is slow and hard to improve, so not any help. Labor hours are pretty close to the wall, as shown by the average workweek which has flatlined at 34.6 (FRED). This all means that the economy cannot grow in response to stimulus. Easy money and/or a return to QE will simply result in more inflation, which will do as much or more damage to the economy and corporate profitability than higher interest rates. I cannot believe that the Fed is unaware of this reality. There is no free lunch. Pain is coming, regardless of what the Fed may or may not do. Look back at the Great Depression when the Fed thrashed around, trying everything because nothing “worked.”

Kumquat?

From ECRI’s Lakshman Achuthan:

WH saying no recession & Sec Yellen saying it’s a “transition” reminds us of Carter admin economist Alfred Kahn who, when forbidden to mention “recession,” used the word “banana” instead. Banana growers protested, so he switched to “kumquat.” What’s the fruit for recession today?

The Price Of Moderation

From my last blog post of 2020:

William Greider, in his book, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs The Country, reports Nixon (’69-’74) as saying: “We’ll take inflation if necessary, but we can’t take unemployment.” The nation eventually had to take both. Note that Fed Chair Powell has indicated a willingness to let inflation “run hot” to encourage economic growth. That’s what they thought in the 1960s, too.

Well, inflation is running hot. Too hot for comfort. Discretionary spending is falling rapidly as the cost of essential goods and services takes more of people’s income. Fed Chair Powell is raising interest rates in baby steps, presumably in an attempt to quell inflation without slowing the economy significantly. People seem to think that raising rates to 2 1/2 percent will achieve this result, and are competing to time the “pivot” when the Fed returns to easy money. All I can say is good luck with that. History says that once inflation starts to surge – as it has – it is not easy to stop, as all kinds of feedback loops keep driving prices higher. Weakness now will only make the pain worse.