Supposedly, banks lend 10 times (or more) what they have on deposit. Yet in June last year, it was estimated that total UK consumer borrowing (mortgages, loans and credit cards) stood at £1.444 trillion, and in October savings and deposits reportedly totalled £1.17 trillion - a ratio of c. 1.2 to 1.
By contrast, total U.S. household debt at the beginning of last year was estimated at $14.4 trillion, and in October the Mises Institute reckoned the True Money Supply to be $5.5 trillion, a ratio of around 2.6 to 1.
On the face of it, the American consumer is in twice as dire a state as his British counterpart.
I expect that's an oversimplification - but simplicity is in very short supply. I'd like to understand more, but I can't find reliable, user-friendly data on where all the money and debt is. There's far too much secrecy, complexity and obfuscation in this business.
Showing posts with label credit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label credit. Show all posts
Monday, February 02, 2009
Monday, December 22, 2008
Why banks?
Banks require re-capitalisation. The capital is required to cover losses. Capital is also needed for assets returning onto their balance sheet (as the vehicles of the “shadow banking system” are unwound). This capital is required to restore bank balance sheets. Additional capital will be needed to support future growth. Availability of capital, high cost of new capital and dilution of earnings will impinge upon future performance.
Satyajit Das (htp: Jesse)
Nope. Banks need destroying, as does all this bank-created debt. The mistake is to try to keep things as they are. How did we come to buy houses "on tick", then cars, and now our clothes and groceries? Why is there any lending for consumption, seeing how it only means reduced future consumption? Why should banks be kept going, requiring a significant proportion of our earnings, so that wages have to be high for us to live on what's left, making us uncompetitive with the developing world?
I am reminded of the pitiless response of the Comte d'Argenson to the satirist, Desfontaines:
Desfontaines: I must live.
D'Argenson : I do not see the necessity.
Satyajit Das (htp: Jesse)
Nope. Banks need destroying, as does all this bank-created debt. The mistake is to try to keep things as they are. How did we come to buy houses "on tick", then cars, and now our clothes and groceries? Why is there any lending for consumption, seeing how it only means reduced future consumption? Why should banks be kept going, requiring a significant proportion of our earnings, so that wages have to be high for us to live on what's left, making us uncompetitive with the developing world?
I am reminded of the pitiless response of the Comte d'Argenson to the satirist, Desfontaines:
Desfontaines: I must live.
D'Argenson : I do not see the necessity.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
A credible, horrible warning
In a fearsome, plain-speaking guide to the long-standing debt problem, Karl Denninger explains why he believes we are now in dire crisis. If the insolvent continue to be bailed out with money that the government itself must borrow from elsewhere, the American government's own credit will be destroyed. And non-Americans are in an even worse plight, in fact may trigger the explosion:
We may be days away from an international credit incident originating outside of the United States. Foreign nations, banks, and businesses have "levered up", or taken more risk, than we have. They too have chosen to lie.
This will hammer the stockmarket:
You have already seen nearly half of your money disappear.
You could see another half disappear - within days.
This is an implication of the graph I did on Sunday (see below), looking at the Dow adjusted for CPI inflation since 1928. A return to 4,500 points would seem to be reversion to the long-term norm - but to have it happen all at once, from its peak last October, is a scary prospect.
UPDATE
We may be days away from an international credit incident originating outside of the United States. Foreign nations, banks, and businesses have "levered up", or taken more risk, than we have. They too have chosen to lie.
This will hammer the stockmarket:
You have already seen nearly half of your money disappear.
You could see another half disappear - within days.
This is an implication of the graph I did on Sunday (see below), looking at the Dow adjusted for CPI inflation since 1928. A return to 4,500 points would seem to be reversion to the long-term norm - but to have it happen all at once, from its peak last October, is a scary prospect.
UPDATE Tyler concurs, with respect to the UK economy, because of our dependence on income from financial services and associated services:
"Brown's boom was built on a group of industries that are now facing an Almighty bust..."
Sunday, October 12, 2008
"An inflationary holocaust" - Jim Rogers
TBRRob posts a very useful YouTube interview with big investor Jim Rogers (the best analyses come from people who back their own judgments with their own money).
Despite the recent strengthening of the dollar, he is buying Japanese yen and Swiss francs; and commodities (especially agriculture), because they lead the way out of recession and their fundamentals are (he says) sound.
In the interview, he is challenged on his inflationary hypothesis: surely we are seeing "deleveraging" (reduction in borrowing) and don't we need more money in the system to deal with the liquidity crisis? Rogers cites past history and sticks to his guns
I think it was Marc Faber's comments that first helped me understand why all this public-money-throwing isn't going to help. It's NOT a liquidity crisis: liquidity is what has caused the problems (and anticipating the movement of the money tides is what has helped Faber grow his funds!).
It's a SOLVENCY crisis. If all your possessions are worth less than your total debts, borrowing more money will not help. So when the government creates massive extra funds for you to use, you will not wish to use them. And if your fellows are in the same position, you certainly won't wish to lend them any money you still have.
When you are insolvent, there are two ways out. One is to declare bankruptcy, in which case the money invested in you is lost and so excess liquidity goes down the drain. Good, though it's also painful (personal fortunes lost, people laid off).
The other way is to be unbelievably lucky, and have someone else pay-off your debts. When the government chooses to do the latter for the banks, it has to get the funds from somewhere, and ultimately that is the citizen/loyal subject. In this case, the liquidity is still in the system, and there is no drain to take it away. Sooner or later, it leaks out into the general economy and prices rise, because there is more cash to bid for the usual limited amount of goods and services.
(Or the government increases taxes, and uses the extra to pay-off debt. Nice idea, but increasing taxes slows the economy and creates more benefit dependants, which requires more taxes even as less revenue is coming in because business is suffering because people now have less spending money because taxes are higher, and...)
So there are two problems created: inflation, and moral hazard - the people who have been bought out in this undeserved way have no incentive to change their habits.
You may think that it's only a temporary problem and the government will recoup its investment when things get back to normal. The trouble is, "normal" means house prices dropping to about half what they were worth last year, because they doubled for no good reason in the five-year period before that. In the long term, I understand, houses are priced at 3 times income, not 6 times as during the recent period of monetary inflation.
So either the value of the excess credit is destroyed by bankuptcy, or by inflating away the money saved by more prudent people. Either the guilty (or foolish) suffer, or the innocent.
And here's another either/or: either we go this process again and again, or banks are prevented in future from increasing the money supply in the way they just did.
And the guilty must be punished.
Despite the recent strengthening of the dollar, he is buying Japanese yen and Swiss francs; and commodities (especially agriculture), because they lead the way out of recession and their fundamentals are (he says) sound.
In the interview, he is challenged on his inflationary hypothesis: surely we are seeing "deleveraging" (reduction in borrowing) and don't we need more money in the system to deal with the liquidity crisis? Rogers cites past history and sticks to his guns
I think it was Marc Faber's comments that first helped me understand why all this public-money-throwing isn't going to help. It's NOT a liquidity crisis: liquidity is what has caused the problems (and anticipating the movement of the money tides is what has helped Faber grow his funds!).
It's a SOLVENCY crisis. If all your possessions are worth less than your total debts, borrowing more money will not help. So when the government creates massive extra funds for you to use, you will not wish to use them. And if your fellows are in the same position, you certainly won't wish to lend them any money you still have.
When you are insolvent, there are two ways out. One is to declare bankruptcy, in which case the money invested in you is lost and so excess liquidity goes down the drain. Good, though it's also painful (personal fortunes lost, people laid off).
The other way is to be unbelievably lucky, and have someone else pay-off your debts. When the government chooses to do the latter for the banks, it has to get the funds from somewhere, and ultimately that is the citizen/loyal subject. In this case, the liquidity is still in the system, and there is no drain to take it away. Sooner or later, it leaks out into the general economy and prices rise, because there is more cash to bid for the usual limited amount of goods and services.
(Or the government increases taxes, and uses the extra to pay-off debt. Nice idea, but increasing taxes slows the economy and creates more benefit dependants, which requires more taxes even as less revenue is coming in because business is suffering because people now have less spending money because taxes are higher, and...)
So there are two problems created: inflation, and moral hazard - the people who have been bought out in this undeserved way have no incentive to change their habits.
You may think that it's only a temporary problem and the government will recoup its investment when things get back to normal. The trouble is, "normal" means house prices dropping to about half what they were worth last year, because they doubled for no good reason in the five-year period before that. In the long term, I understand, houses are priced at 3 times income, not 6 times as during the recent period of monetary inflation.
So either the value of the excess credit is destroyed by bankuptcy, or by inflating away the money saved by more prudent people. Either the guilty (or foolish) suffer, or the innocent.
And here's another either/or: either we go this process again and again, or banks are prevented in future from increasing the money supply in the way they just did.
And the guilty must be punished.
Friday, August 15, 2008
The US owes China a trillion dollars - Setser
"... China’s government already plays a significant role in determining the allocation of credit inside the US economy, not just the allocation of credit inside China’s economy..."
Brad Setser (htp: Jesse's Cafe Americain)
Setser reported to Congress a year ago on the USa's vulnerability to foreign creditors and investors. See my blog here and here.
Brad Setser (htp: Jesse's Cafe Americain)
Setser reported to Congress a year ago on the USa's vulnerability to foreign creditors and investors. See my blog here and here.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
All our banks are sub-prime
The Mail on Sunday reports plans by the British Government to borrow money from the Middle East, on Islamic Sharia terms - that is, without, technically, paying interest.
Never mind the Islamophobic subtext: Islam is not the only religion to object to charging interest (which was illegal in France up to the Revolution of 1789). According to The Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review by Isaac Smith Homans, William B. Dana (1849) (found by Google search here):
The Jewish law prohibited all usury between Jew and Jew, although it was allowed between Jews and foreigners. (Ex. 22 : 25 ; Levit. 25 : 36, 37 : Deut 23 : 19, 20. Compare Ps. 15 : 5 ; Ezek. 18 : 8, 13, 17, Ac.) The reason of this distinction, according to Father Ambrose, was, that God designed usury as one of the ways of making war upon the Canaanites and other heathen nations.
The Canon Law, as it is called, i. e., the ecclesiastical law of the Roman Catholic Church, pronounces the taking of interest, even the least, to be a mortal sin, and declares those who defend the practice to be heretics.
The interpretation of usury as a form of warfare is resonant.
There is also the unreligious technical point, that the money supply must increase to cover the interest charged. Either that, or ultimately all the money in the world will end up in the hands of the money-lenders.
This may not have mattered quite so much when the world was not so monetized - when we built our own houses, grew our own food, drew water from wells and rivers, and made our own clothes. It has to be said that none of it, generally, was as nice as today (though at least water didn't come in plastic bottles that took seven times as much water to make); but as more and more of reality nowadays has a price ticket on it, the inexorable demands of interest must either create unbounded inflation, or by seizing all our assets, enslave us. Perhaps usury is indeed a form of aggression.
Which leads me to wonder where money came from in the first place. How can you invent something, define the world with reference to your new creation (and possession), and use it to claim - to seize - ownership of the world? This is to make the money-issuer - originally the King or Emperor - lord of all the Creation he can control. So is power the only game in town? Maybe civilised life, the quiet enjoyment of one's own hard-won personal property, is merely an illusion, a time-out in the game. But impoverish the middle class and all bets are off - as Germany found out in the 20s and 30s. How foolish must a State be, to allow its mismanagement of finance to threaten the social order. Still, the Germans weren't entirely responsible for the WWI peace treaty that led to the total wreck of their economy; by contrast, look at this latest from Karl Denninger on the current, State-permitted mess.
The power of the State to coin money is nothing to the way the banks multiply it. Something like a mere 3% of all money is in notes and coins; the rest is deposits and credit - i.e. promises. Instead being charged a modest fee for guarding your cash (which is, I understand, the practice of the traditional Swiss bank), you're paid what you think is a nice rate of interest - but thanks to fractional reserve banking, your deposit can be multiplied and loaned out, at even higher rates. No wonder the banks always seem to have the nicest locations, including converted Tudor houses in little Warwickshire villages.
Swelling the capital within the economy ultimately pushes up prices, though as money-lenders become more cautious and call loans back in, the opposite happens; but meanwhile, the expanded money supply also builds-in massive future inflation, because interest must come back, as well as all the existing capital. Even if some of this fake capital is lost because of asset write-offs, the lenders will seek to make up for it by charging more interest on the loans that haven't defaulted. And the difference between the small interest paid out to you on your little deposit, and the larger interest demanded on the much greater loan base, pays for all the overheads and leaves over enough, and more than enough.
Meanwhile, the temporarily bloated money supply inflates assets, including assets that really you must have, such as a roof over your head. In the UK, the M4 measure of money supply has approximately doubled since 2000 - and house prices have done almost exactly the same. But I don't have the power to say, I don't believe in borrowing money so I won't pay so much for your house. And since you (quite understandably) will refuse my lower offer, I will have to rent instead - at a rate that reflects the price of houses. What would houses cost - what would rents be - if home loans were illegal?
So now, in the wake of sub-prime (and other, earlier financial bubbles), we're all clapping our hands to save Tinkerbell's life. The government pumps yet more funny money into the economy to shore up the confidence tricks of bankers, and in the case of Northern Rock, their own voter base. If we understood what this "Tinkerbell" is really like, and what she's been up to, perhaps we'd be better off letting her die.
Except the law's on her side, and she'd take us and our families down with her. After all, by agreeing to borrow, we fix an obligation in nominal terms, even if (owing to events beyond our control, but not necessarily beyond that of the money-makers, and money-fakers) the assets decline in nominal terms. In fact, by first expanding and then contracting the money supply, it is possible for lenders to take your assets and any additional capital that you personally contributed, then reinflate the assets later. Hey presto, they've grabbed your cash. No wonder some Americans trash the house before mailing back the keys.
I think that for those who have the liberty to do so, escape comes in two stages: get your cash out, then buy whatever you need so that in future, you depend on the money system as little as possible. You should also stay mobile - the State needs captives, and a house is an excellent way to tie you by one leg. And the licence plate on a car is the next best thing to a tag clipped onto your ear. Unfortunately, in an overcrowded island like ours, this doesn't seem realistic, but maybe that's why an Irish girl told me, years ago, that farsighted (and typically pessimistic) Germans were buying into rural Ireland. Perhaps in America, or some other land blessed with a lower ratio of population to fertile land, we may escape with the raggle taggle gypsies. Velvet-clad slavery, or freedom and poverty?
What care I for a goose-feather bed?
With the sheet turned down so bravely, O!
For to-night I shall sleep in a cold open field
Along with the raggle taggle gypsies, O!
Never mind the Islamophobic subtext: Islam is not the only religion to object to charging interest (which was illegal in France up to the Revolution of 1789). According to The Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review by Isaac Smith Homans, William B. Dana (1849) (found by Google search here):
The Jewish law prohibited all usury between Jew and Jew, although it was allowed between Jews and foreigners. (Ex. 22 : 25 ; Levit. 25 : 36, 37 : Deut 23 : 19, 20. Compare Ps. 15 : 5 ; Ezek. 18 : 8, 13, 17, Ac.) The reason of this distinction, according to Father Ambrose, was, that God designed usury as one of the ways of making war upon the Canaanites and other heathen nations.
The Canon Law, as it is called, i. e., the ecclesiastical law of the Roman Catholic Church, pronounces the taking of interest, even the least, to be a mortal sin, and declares those who defend the practice to be heretics.
The interpretation of usury as a form of warfare is resonant.
There is also the unreligious technical point, that the money supply must increase to cover the interest charged. Either that, or ultimately all the money in the world will end up in the hands of the money-lenders.
This may not have mattered quite so much when the world was not so monetized - when we built our own houses, grew our own food, drew water from wells and rivers, and made our own clothes. It has to be said that none of it, generally, was as nice as today (though at least water didn't come in plastic bottles that took seven times as much water to make); but as more and more of reality nowadays has a price ticket on it, the inexorable demands of interest must either create unbounded inflation, or by seizing all our assets, enslave us. Perhaps usury is indeed a form of aggression.
Which leads me to wonder where money came from in the first place. How can you invent something, define the world with reference to your new creation (and possession), and use it to claim - to seize - ownership of the world? This is to make the money-issuer - originally the King or Emperor - lord of all the Creation he can control. So is power the only game in town? Maybe civilised life, the quiet enjoyment of one's own hard-won personal property, is merely an illusion, a time-out in the game. But impoverish the middle class and all bets are off - as Germany found out in the 20s and 30s. How foolish must a State be, to allow its mismanagement of finance to threaten the social order. Still, the Germans weren't entirely responsible for the WWI peace treaty that led to the total wreck of their economy; by contrast, look at this latest from Karl Denninger on the current, State-permitted mess.
The power of the State to coin money is nothing to the way the banks multiply it. Something like a mere 3% of all money is in notes and coins; the rest is deposits and credit - i.e. promises. Instead being charged a modest fee for guarding your cash (which is, I understand, the practice of the traditional Swiss bank), you're paid what you think is a nice rate of interest - but thanks to fractional reserve banking, your deposit can be multiplied and loaned out, at even higher rates. No wonder the banks always seem to have the nicest locations, including converted Tudor houses in little Warwickshire villages.
Swelling the capital within the economy ultimately pushes up prices, though as money-lenders become more cautious and call loans back in, the opposite happens; but meanwhile, the expanded money supply also builds-in massive future inflation, because interest must come back, as well as all the existing capital. Even if some of this fake capital is lost because of asset write-offs, the lenders will seek to make up for it by charging more interest on the loans that haven't defaulted. And the difference between the small interest paid out to you on your little deposit, and the larger interest demanded on the much greater loan base, pays for all the overheads and leaves over enough, and more than enough.
Meanwhile, the temporarily bloated money supply inflates assets, including assets that really you must have, such as a roof over your head. In the UK, the M4 measure of money supply has approximately doubled since 2000 - and house prices have done almost exactly the same. But I don't have the power to say, I don't believe in borrowing money so I won't pay so much for your house. And since you (quite understandably) will refuse my lower offer, I will have to rent instead - at a rate that reflects the price of houses. What would houses cost - what would rents be - if home loans were illegal?
So now, in the wake of sub-prime (and other, earlier financial bubbles), we're all clapping our hands to save Tinkerbell's life. The government pumps yet more funny money into the economy to shore up the confidence tricks of bankers, and in the case of Northern Rock, their own voter base. If we understood what this "Tinkerbell" is really like, and what she's been up to, perhaps we'd be better off letting her die.
Except the law's on her side, and she'd take us and our families down with her. After all, by agreeing to borrow, we fix an obligation in nominal terms, even if (owing to events beyond our control, but not necessarily beyond that of the money-makers, and money-fakers) the assets decline in nominal terms. In fact, by first expanding and then contracting the money supply, it is possible for lenders to take your assets and any additional capital that you personally contributed, then reinflate the assets later. Hey presto, they've grabbed your cash. No wonder some Americans trash the house before mailing back the keys.
I think that for those who have the liberty to do so, escape comes in two stages: get your cash out, then buy whatever you need so that in future, you depend on the money system as little as possible. You should also stay mobile - the State needs captives, and a house is an excellent way to tie you by one leg. And the licence plate on a car is the next best thing to a tag clipped onto your ear. Unfortunately, in an overcrowded island like ours, this doesn't seem realistic, but maybe that's why an Irish girl told me, years ago, that farsighted (and typically pessimistic) Germans were buying into rural Ireland. Perhaps in America, or some other land blessed with a lower ratio of population to fertile land, we may escape with the raggle taggle gypsies. Velvet-clad slavery, or freedom and poverty?
What care I for a goose-feather bed?
With the sheet turned down so bravely, O!
For to-night I shall sleep in a cold open field
Along with the raggle taggle gypsies, O!
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Stuffed at both ends
A duck and a crane being stuffed with food in Ancient EgyptI overheard a classroom assistant talking about her monster mortgage and how it's gone up another £300 a month - just as the Council is planning to cut the pay of thousands of workers in order to tackle its huge budget deficit. Should she sell? Just as everybody else is considering the same course of action?
We look at our situation and grumble that we're stuffed, but Dr Housing Bubble (Financial Sense, yesterday) demonstrates how we're force fed with credit and high prices at the front end, too.
The figures will differ from one person to another. Do your own math, and work out what you should do - soon.
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