QE or not QE?

That is the question that commentators and even bankers at JPM are answering, declaring that the Fed’s discount window is equivalent to QE. IMO this is incorrect. QE is the open market purchase of Treasury securities and agency MBS for the explicit purpose of supporting or raising the price of said securities, thereby manipulating interest rates. Borrowing at the discount window with Treasury or MBS collateral does not involve any purchase or sale of the securities, they remain as assets of the borrower. Therefore not QE, just the Fed acting as lender of last resort. The accounting is the same in principle as any secured debt.

It is true that the borrowing increases the Fed’s balance sheet, whence comes the yammering about QE. The debt is an asset to the Fed, a liability to the borrower. The proceeds of the debt are an asset to the borrower and a liability to the Fed (reserves). The borrower is provided with additional reserves – liquidity – but no “money” is created as Fed reserves are not included in either M1 or M2. The debt to the Fed is not a deposit.

Powell On QE

Extract from the FOMC minutes 10/24/2012. Emphasis is mine:

MR. POWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So we have had Gary Cooper, the Most Interesting Man in the World, Bill Belichick, Woody Allen, and now Hamlet. [Laughter]

I support alternative B, to relieve the suspense. And as far as what is to be decided at the next meeting, it seems to me we should let it be decided at the next meeting. But I will say that if we have another good run of data, I think there would be a strong case to defer action. And I don’t see us as committed to act unless conditions warrant.

I have concerns about more purchases. As others have pointed out, the dealer community is now assuming close to a $4 trillion balance sheet and purchases through the first quarter of 2014. I admit that is a much stronger reaction than I anticipated, and I am uncomfortable with it for a couple of reasons.

First, the question, why stop at $4 trillion? The market in most cases will cheer us for doing more. It will never be enough for the market. Our models will always tell us that we are helping the economy, and I will probably always feel that those benefits are overestimated. And we will be able to tell ourselves that market function is not impaired and that inflation expectations are under control. What is to stop us, other than much faster economic growth, which it is probably not in our power to produce?

Second, I think we are actually at a point of encouraging risk-taking, and that should give us pause. Investors really do understand now that we will be there to prevent serious losses. It is not that it is easy for them to make money but that they have every incentive to take more risk, and they are doing so. Meanwhile, we look like we are blowing a fixed-income duration bubble right across the credit spectrum that will result in big losses when rates come up down the road. You can almost say that that is our strategy.

My third concern—and others have touched on it as well—is the problems of exiting from a near $4 trillion balance sheet. We’ve got a set of principles from June 2011 and have done some work since then, but it just seems to me that we seem to be way too confident that exit can be managed smoothly. Markets can be much more dynamic than we appear to think.

Take selling—we are talking about selling all of these mortgage-backed securities. Right now, we are buying the market, effectively, and private capital will begin to leave that activity and find something else to do. So when it is time for us to sell, or even to stop buying, the response could be quite strong; there is every reason to expect a strong response. So there are a couple of ways to look at it. It is about $1.2 trillion in sales; you take 60 months, you get about $20 billion a month. That is a very doable thing, it sounds like, in a market where the norm by the middle of next year is $80 billion a month. Another way to look at it, though, is that it’s not so much the sale, the duration; it’s also unloading our short volatility position. When you turn and say to the market, “I’ve got $1.2 trillion of these things,” it’s not just $20 billion a month— it’s the sight of the whole thing coming. And I think there is a pretty good chance that you could have quite a dynamic response in the market. And I would just say I want to understand that a lot better in the intermeeting period and leave it at that. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman

After you’ve read this, do you think that Powell is in the least surprised by the consequences of raising rates? I don’t know what he will do, but I doubt that he will be deterred from whatever his strategy may be.

Bank Runs

Silvergate Capital, a bank known for its ties to the crypto industry, said yesterday that it would voluntarily liquidate. Today Silicon Valley Bank, known as close to the venture capital industry, was closed by California regulators. Both are somewhat special cases, so aren’t necessarily a sign of general distress.

However, it is fair to say that banks are pressured on both sides of their balance sheets. On the asset side, interest rate increases have caused securities portfolios to drop in value. On the liability side, short-term Treasury securities offer a safe and highly liquid alternative to bank deposits, forcing banks to either raise the interest that they pay or accept the loss of deposits needed for liquidity. So far most banks have chosen the latter, but it is a risky choice, as evidenced by Silicon Valley Bank, which was forced to sell its entire tradable securities portfolio at a significant loss in an attempt to shore up liquidity. This situation illustrates the two ways banks can fail – on the asset side, losses on loans and securities reduce the bank’s capital so that it cannot continue or, on the liability side, withdrawals deplete the bank’s liquidity – cash if you like – so that it is unable to meet the demands of depositors.

So far the impact on the broad stock market has been negligible, probably balanced between fear of a financial meltdown and confidence that a tremor in the banking system would force Powell to pivot. GLWT.

Edit: From an anonymous VC to a portfolio company CEO: “Our view is that this is a sector-wide issue. We’re advising founders not to use a bank right now. We’re pooling together our portcos’ capital and executing a large batch transaction for Starbucks gift cards. Starbucks is likely more stable than banks (they’re on every corner and everyone drinks coffee).

To cash out, we’ll just buy a bunch of those dipped madeleines they have near the checkout. Best case we make back 98 cents on the dollar. Worst case, we have a few million cookies that have a long shelf life.”

Of course the portfolio companies will never see that cash – the cookies won’t make it past the break room at the VC outfit.

Something’s Going To Break

From past experience, we can be pretty sure that the bear market doesn’t begin until the inverted yield curve returns to a positive slope. Usually this happens because of a major disruption in the financial markets. Here are some of the opportunities for breakage.

• The average 30-year mortgage rate, as of today, is 7.13% according to Bankrate.com. Housing affordability has dropped to what Redfin deputy chief economist Taylor Marr calls the “lowest level in history.”
• Office occupancy in major city centers is ranging from 40-60% as a result of WFH practices. Pressure on bricks-and-mortar retailers from online shopping continues to build. The overall US CMBS delinquency rate jumped 18 basis points in February to 3.12%. (The all-time high on this basis was 10.34% registered in July 2012. The COVID-19 high was 10.32% in June 2020.) . Giga-investor Blackstone just defaulted on $562 million of CMBS.
• CPI/PCE inflation continues. While energy prices continue to be contained by withdrawals from the SPR, labor prices continue to increase. Fed chair Powell says that his primary measure of inflation is core PCE less housing, which implies a heavy weight on labor costs when evaluating inflation.
• The Fed continues to raise short-term interest rates to reduce business activity and therefore reduce inflation. So far with little success. Financial markets are busily fighting the Fed’s attempts to tighten financial conditions. History says this does not end well.
• There’s a war on, into which black hole the US continues to pump money and armaments. These will need to be replaced at great cost. Defense spending will be increased. The big risk is of further escalation, which could include the use of nuclear weapons.
• The primary source of inflation is deficit spending by government. Half of the government’s debt has a maturity of less than five years. The Fed’s rate increases are quickly running up the government’s interest bill, which of course will increase the deficit – that’s how the black hole works. Interest is already nearly as large a budget item as defense spending.
• China’s recovery from its draconian COVID policies is limping badly after a small initial surge. In addition, the US is actively hampering the development of technology in China and relations are a historic lows. There is a significant risk of another war, this time over Taiwan, where TSMC is the crown jewel of semiconductor manufacturing. All this means that China is unlikely to be the source of cheap manufactures goods that have helped quell inflation for the last twenty years or so.
• The US stock markets remain highly overvalued and not investable as the flood of liquidity during the COVID era has supported speculation. The options market has grown to be larger than the equity market of which it is supposedly a derivative, leading to extreme gambling activities such as 0DTE options..

Get the idea?

What Happens Next

Well 2022 is just about over. I traded badly this year but that is behind me, I hope. Especially annoying since I have been expecting this bubble to burst for a long time. The big question is, where do we go from here. Some thoughts:

• Housing. Sales volumes are falling very rapidly because affordability is poor, but prices are holding as sellers are reluctant to drop their expectations. In the last housing bubble pop, it took a year and a half for this process to work through so that sellers finally acknowledged that prices could actually fall. This means that housing costs, which make up a disproportionate share of CPI, will be sticky.
• Employment. The pandemic significantly reduced the labor pool as many people retired or just dropped out. In China, the pandemic and measures to suppress it have badly damaged the economy and look to continue to do so. It seems likely that the offshoring that reduced labor demand in the US is over, and will be replaced by onshoring and relocation of production. Either way, labor demand is likely to remain relatively strong well after consumption growth falls. Labor looks to reclaim at least part of the loss of its share of economic output, at the expense of capital, i.e. profits.
• Energy. The idiocy of belief that minor reductions in CO2 output will have a material affect on the climate is hampering investment in energy sources. Of course this will throttle growth in energy production and keep prices high, even as a slowing economy will reduce demand for other commodities. I was amused to find that DNA recovered from northern Greenland revealed that during the region’s warm period, when average temperatures were 20 to 34 degrees Fahrenheit (11 to 19 degrees Celsius) higher than today, the area was filled with an unusual array of plant and animal life, including aurochs and mastodons. Then of course there are the (hopefully temporary) supply constraints that have been caused by the sanctions on Russian production.
• Food. The good news is that more CO2 in the atmosphere helps food production. But modern farming depends heavily on diesel fuel for big equipment and natural gas for fertilizer production. Fossil fuel prices directly affect food prices, because even though yields may be good, farmers will not plant crops on which they cannot make a profit. In addition to high prices, shortages of some crops will develop as farmers pivot to crops which require less of these costly inputs.
• Interest Rates. It seems that no-one believes that Fed Chair Powell will actually carry out the attack on inflation that he has outlined. Some argue that a recession will “force” him to abandon his current goals and resume ZIRP and QE, redefining his goals in the process to accept a higher level of inflation on an ongoing basis. Others believe that the recession will cause inflation to fall quickly and make the question moot as his goals, such as positive real rates across all maturities, will be automatically met.It is certainly true that this long-suppressed business cycle is moving fast, but there is a long way to go to normal. My personal view is that his vision for his legacy is an economy that does not depend on massive growth of debt relative to GDP as has been the case in recent years, and he will do “whatever it takes” to get there

In summary, inflation will prove sticky although not runaway, and Powell will accept a recession. But as the recession gains hold, it will accelerate as defaults reduce credit availability regardless of Powell.

Disintegration

The world is disintegrating. Trust has been lost, both within countries and between countries. Without trust, economic relationships cannot operate.

China

China is a poor country, despite the glitz and glamor of its big cities and its showpiece infrastructure, with a per-capita annual GDP of about USD 11,000.

Chairman Xi presented his plan for world domination at the opening of the party congress. Not going to happen, sir. Your country is an economic and social house of cards that is in the process of collapsing. The housing market, investment of choice for the masses, is a bubble bursting and desperate local governments are even buying their own land use rights from themselves or one another because retail buyers have left the building. So to speak. Your Covid-zero policy has shaken the people’s faith in the benign CCP, while wreaking destruction on millions of small businesses. Unemployment is high and rising, college graduates cannot find jobs. Biden’s withdrawal of support for your semiconductor industry has condemned it to a bleak future without the production technology that your people cannot build. Export demand from the rest of the world is shrinking fast. Sir, your country is likely heading for a deep economic depression and social turmoil. This will further weaken China’s positioning for the world hegemony which you desire.

United States

In the USA, we live in a world now that George Orwell and Aldous Huxley would readily recognize. The state has commandeered the legacy media, as well as the new social media, to not only put out the “progressive” state’s version of reality but to identify, spy on, ostracize and  punish critics and dissenters.

President Biden, your “progressive” policies are not working. Democrat-run inner cities are being abandoned to crime and homelessness. Illegal immigrants are flooding in without any prospects for employment or training. You are continuing to feed the inflation which is mostly damaging the people you claim to represent. Your support for expansion of NATO triggered the invasion of Ukraine, with severe economic and social consequences.

You and your Democratic predecessors, notably Hillary Clinton, have created a deeply divided society, with those who have drunk the purple Kool-Aid and accept the state’s lies and propaganda on one side, and those with a more traditional view of reality on the other. Neither side trusts the other, respects the other’s views, or is willing to compromise. Both sides are preparing for more direct conflict as the sporadic clashes increase in frequency and severity. This is a recipe for a failing state with extremism on both sides. Negative economic consequences are to be expected.

Europe

Neither China nor Europe are democracies – by design. The architects of the European Union claimed that, since democracy had enabled Hitler, it could not be a part of the EU’s structure. As a result, bureaucrats who suffer no consequences for their failures and care little for the fate of the citizenry run the EU. Ursula van der Leyen is no less of an autocrat than Xi. Deep rifts have emerged as democratically elected governments have resisted the orders of the bureaucrats. These rifts are between rich north and poor south as well as conservative east and “progressive” west. It is only a matter of time before a second country leaves the EU, and that will spark a rush for the exits.

The coming winter is going to be hard, as the bureaucrats’ energy policy has been disastrous. Immigration policies have resulted in shocking increases in crime, with many countries reporting zones where the police dare not go in fear for their lives. Mario Draghi’s “whatever it takes” has left a legacy of irresponsible debt, as in the USA. As  interest rates increase, this is going to be a huge problem

Russia and Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has no winners. Regardless of the outcome, the invasion is an economic disaster for both of them. Their economies depend heavily on the export of commodities, such as food, energy and metals. The volumes of these commodities are large, and their absence are also a problem for the countries that have come to depend on them.

Conclusion

I could go on, but it is time to recognize that the future is not bright. Economies will get worse. Much worse. Be careful out there. Don’t focus on the narrative of the “Fed pivot.” The Fed is irrelevant.

One Thing Right

Fed Chair Powell got one thing right: He observed that the current situation was outside historical norms. Well, duh. This is the largest, most extreme financial bubble in history, so throw away any analysis that depends on history.

During the last two or three decades, China took over as the workshop of the world and flooded the rest of the world with cheap goods, largely suppressing inflation while destroying the goods-producing cores of western economies.  Governments and central banks did “whatever it takes” to support employment by lowering interest rates and monetizing government debt. But, as in California’s forests, fuel built up as fires were suppressed, in this case piles of cash instead of dry underbrush. We do know that government deficit spending is the primary cause of inflation. As China’s growth sagged and supply chains reached their limits of capacity, government deficit spending accelerated… and here we are.

Where do we go from here? No-one knows, we are in uncharted territory. Governments continue to spend like drunken sailors, but at least the Fed has stopped monetizing the debt with its balance sheet around 36% of GDP (against a historical norm of around 6%). Japan continues to lead the monetizers, with the BoJ balance sheet now around 135% of GDP, forcing the Japanese government to intervene in forex markets to prop up the yen this morning, for the first time in 24 years. This observer would welcome to a return to more peaceful times, where the world did not revolve around central bankers roiling markets and economies while attempting the impossible. Pass the peanuts.

The Cash Economy

Large-scale money printing was launched by Alan Greenspan, who believed that additional liquidity would be needed to cushion the shock of the millennium rollover. The shock never happened, but the easy money continued as the dot-com bubble popped, eventually leading to the housing bubble and its culmination with the failure of Lehman and the 2008 financial crisis. The Fed’s response was to turn on the afterburners. The December 2007 monetary base was 0.84 trillion dollars. By December 2019, it had risen four-fold to 3.4 trillion. And the the Fed lit the JATO bottles as well and we got real liftoff, as by December 2021 the monetary base had risen to 6.4 trillion dollars.

This matters because it means the economy is awash in cash. Monetary velocity has fallen from a pre-2009 low of 1.65, set in Q4 of 1964, to 1.15 as of Q2 of 2022. That means that much of the cash is idle, not being spent. All that cash is buying power in the hands of people and institutions. This means that interest rates and availability of credit are less important, and the Fed’s mission to reduce inflation by reducing demand faces an uphill battle. The Fed has begun reducing the monetary base by selling its pile of Treasuries and MBS. This is far more important than raising rates, but it will be a long time before its effects start to be felt because the current position is so extreme.

The poster child of the 2008 crisis was the NINJA (No Income, No Job or Assets) home buyer. The NINJA borrower has been replaced by the US government. Federal debt has nearly quadrupled since 2008.

This is why we have inflation. It is not going away until the deficit spending is reined in. Every dollar of new federal debt becomes a dollar in savings – and potential spending – for the private sector.

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.