Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Fear of Trump Shock

Rogoff on the negative interest rates again:

There may not be enough time before the next deep recession to lay the groundwork for effective negative-interest-rate policy or to phase in a higher inflation target. But that is no excuse for not starting to look hard at these options, especially if the alternatives are likely to be far more problematic.
If we run out of time we get a midnight helicopter ride, as Nixon did.  In 1972 Nixon took us off gold and the Fed took huge monetary losses to gold bugs. It took 12 years for gold bugs to figure out investing, and prices were inflationary and distorted until then. 

What if we run out of time again?
Well, the banksters, senators and trumpsters keep meeting, and the money piles up until we get smoke, the unpricable risk is priceable.  If they negotiate too long then a deal goes away, the risk gets priced by new money technology.   At that point, the copter flies.

Ken wants the copter to fly in smaller amounts, more often.  He does not like doing this every 45 years, as that last step is a steep one. 

I want the copter to fly about every ten minutes, globally.  If the sandbox is ready before the final jam, then the sandboxers have a strong negotiating position. The sandbox, accepting to hold some debt relief, in exchange for a guarantee on the private key distribution, tamper proofing that makes the  singularity possiblre.

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