Sunday, February 24, 2019

Government lender of last resort

If Central Banks Are the Only Game in Town, We’ve Lost
Just since December 2018, central banks have collectively injected as much as $500 billion of liquidity to stabilize economic conditions. The U.S. Federal Reserve has put interest rate increases on hold and is contemplating a halt to its balance-sheet reduction plan. Other central banks have taken similar actions, fueling a new phase of the “everything bubble” as markets careen from December’s indiscriminate selling to January’s indiscriminate buying. The monetary onslaught appears a reaction to financial factors -- falling equity markets, rising credit spreads, increased volatility -- and a perceived weakening of economic activity, primarily in Europe and China. 
If they heeded Walter Bagehot’s oft-cited rule, central banks would act only as lenders of last resort in times of financial crisis, lending without limit to solvent firms against good collateral at high rates. Instead, they’ve become lenders of first resort, expected to step in at any sign of problems. U.S. central bankers are currently debating whether quantitative-easing programs should be used purely in emergency situations or more routinely.

Satyajit Das the author misses the central bank space of operation, though he identifies the cycle of operation. Central banks bail out their governments, they have no choice, their authority is a government grant. They bail them out when the government fails to get things done, on time. You get 'bailouts/time'.

We are not lost, we are at predictability, we have actually completed the sequence and know the next step. We are just about at 1972 and the millennials are taking charge. 

The decision, today, is how do we recover some of the melted ice the boomers left behind. I am doing my part, I am negotiating with the IRS for a few thousand in back taxes, and I have agreed to accept the Arc De Bullet monument as valid art. I am also proposing the three way plan, though I wouldn't trust myself, being as I am from a Narco State.

But, not lost, rather, planning to do a 1972 and do it 60%  better, our national goal.


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