Tuesday, February 10, 2015

How about real rates in the US economy?

Here is the chart, the ten year rate minus the implicit price deflator. The over all trend is down. But before we go there, lets examine that sharp jump just after the 2008 crash.  That was the year of the stimulus! So how does Krugman explain that DC can borrow huge quantities without driving up rates?  It seems to me the Keynesians had a jolly time driving up real rates, and they almost caused a double dip. And we all saw that before the stimulus could be stopped, the jobless rate had started to climb again.

But why is the overall trend down? Mainly because growth is down and that is mainly because of government debt. As time proceeds more of the available cash is devoted to interest payments, and since we have a fouled up currency system, there is no adjustment except low growth.

But, as you can see, the real rate today is about where it was in 2006, 1.25%.

How did real rates do with QE? We looked and saw that nominal rates go up when the Fed does QE, and on real rates the story is similar with one difference, about half way through the second stimulus we did see real rates drop.

What should we make of Krugman's claim that DC can borrow huge quantities? Mostly manure.  What we really see is bad government, and most of the Republican bad government.  And now bad government has gotten the central bank permanently involved and we will soon have a new monetary regime.

No comments: