Apocalypse whenever, whatever

Republished from the Broad Oak Blog:

The present crisis is as much psychological as fiscal. That's not to say that it's not real - psychological stress can result in behaviour that is very real and destructive. But talk of financial limits ignores the fact that the limits are elastic.

I'm reading Simon Schama's Book "Citizens", which is about the French Revolution. He points out (p.65):

"Not only do we now know that the British per capita tax burden was three times heavier than in France, but by 1782, the percentage of public revenue consumed to service Britain's debt - on the order of 70 percent - was also considerably greater than the French equivalent."

The UK's GDP is now an estimated £1,410 billion, of which about half runs through the government's fingers. On average the interest rate on government debt is 4.3% (until we have to renew loans) and last year the forecast was that the debt would rise to some 100% of GDP. So long as we can carry on rolling over the debt, the main thing is to be able to afford the interest, which on this showing would look like being about 10% of government revenues.

Returning to Schama, he says (p.79) that in 1788 the French government debt servicing was close to 50% of its revenues - still well below what Pitt had to deal with in 1782. But in France, there was mounting resistance from the tax-farmers and foreign creditors, and the high rates the government was going to have to pay to attract additional capital triggered the crisis - which had implications for rich tax rebels that they hadn't expected. Oo-er.

We've had much worse public debt before now, even in the 20th century - see the graph below. It's not "can't pay" that will determine the course of events here, but "won't pay".

One thing that's different, and isn't shown here, is the additional component of private debt. Unlike government borrowing, private loans are usually expected to be paid-off, so the cost of debt servicing for the private individual is much higher. And if a lot of this debt is tied up in property that is gradually reducing in value, so that the debt may eventually outweigh the asset, the consumer-voter will be building up a head of resentful steam. Then there is the debt accumulated by companies and the financial sector. It all adds up: the graph below (from this site) compares the US and UK economies in terms of the total burden of debt-to-GDP:

Another difference is that the crisis is now global. The US and the UK are in serious difficulty, but so are many European countries and the European banking system that has tried to hold them up; and the increasingly productive East has become dependent on the profligate West.

Historically, says Schama, the pre-Revolutionary French government would partially default on its borrowing (e.g. the 1720s, and in 1770), as well as raise more taxes and find more lenders. Now, we seem to be trying hard to avoid default (perhaps because once it started in one place, there'd be so many following suit); taxation of various kinds is already taking well over 40% of our income, in return for a creaking system of benefits and services; and where are the lenders who will take on so much global debt? And if they do, at what price?

Yet international finance is so murky, anything could happen. Towards the end of Andrew Rawnsley's book on New Labour, "The End of the Party", he says (pp. 626-7) that at last year's G20 summit "it was reliably estimated that more than $10 trillion of private wealth was concealed in paradis fiscaux [tax havens]". I don't think it's all invested in BP shares. Maybe it's waiting for governments to come to heel; to co-operate with each other in some glum global deflation that will further enrich the "oofy", as P.G. Wodehouse would term them.

In a splendidly furious recent rant, American writer Joe Bageant said:

"If we decide to believe the money economy still exists, and that debt is indeed wealth, then we damned sure know where to go looking for the wealth. Globally, forty percent of it is in the paws of the wealthiest one percent. Nearly all of that one percent are connected to the largest and richest corporations. Just before the economy blew out, these elites held slightly less than $80 trillion. After the blowout/bailout, their combined investment wealth was estimated at a little over $83 trillion. To give some idea, this is four years of the gross output of all the human beings on earth. It is only logical that these elites say the only way to revive the economy, which to them consists entirely of the money economy, is to continue to borrow money from them."

Or as humorist J. B. Morton (aka the Daily Express' "Beachcomber") put it in his “A Dictionary For Today”, long ago:

“WORLD-PEACE: A state of affairs which would make it possible for the international moneylenders to get even more power than they possess at present.”

It's there to be taken from us: for except among the very poorest, there is so much wealth we still have, such a high standard of living. In the early 80s, businessmen strode into our insurance office with mobile phones the size of bricks tucked proudly under their arms; now, the primary-age children of the underclass have iPhones that my fingers are too fat to operate.

Underneath the polemic of many of the doomsters who now write on the Internet is, I think, a hope that in some way disaster or revolution will save us, because they cannot see us deliberately planning and achieving a better state of affairs. I think this is a dangerous line for the imagination to take: we might find we'd burned what we thought was the Phoenix, but were unable to resurrect it.

But change of some kind is certainly on the way, and in the course of it we must remember to hold onto the things that really matter, especially civil liberties and the democratic form of government. Perhaps the biggest mistake is for us to think that money is the main issue.

Apocalypse whenever, whatever

The present crisis is as much psychological as fiscal. That's not to say that it's not real - psychological stress can result in behaviour that is very real and destructive. But talk of financial limits ignores the fact that the limits are elastic.

I'm reading Simon Schama's Book "Citizens", which is about the French Revolution. He points out (p.65):

"Not only do we now know that the British per capita tax burden was three times heavier than in France, but by 1782, the percentage of public revenue consumed to service Britain's debt - on the order of 70 percent - was also considerably greater than the French equivalent."

The UK's GDP is now an estimated £1,410 billion, of which about half runs through the government's fingers. On average the interest rate on government debt is 4.3% (until we have to renew loans) and last year the forecast was that the debt would rise to some 100% of GDP. So long as we can carry on rolling over the debt, the main thing is to be able to afford the interest, which on this showing would look like being about 10% of government revenues.

Returning to Schama, he says (p.79) that in 1788 the French government debt servicing was close to 50% of its revenues - still well below what Pitt had to deal with in 1782. But in France, there was mounting resistance from the tax-farmers and foreign creditors, and the high rates the government was going to have to pay to attract additional capital triggered the crisis - which had implications for rich tax rebels that they hadn't expected. Oo-er.

We've had much worse public debt before now, even in the 20th century - see the graph below. It's not "can't pay" that will determine the course of events here, but "won't pay".

One thing that's different, and isn't shown here, is the additional component of private debt. Unlike government borrowing, private loans are usually expected to be paid-off, so the cost of debt servicing for the private individual is much higher. And if a lot of this debt is tied up in property that is gradually reducing in value, so that the debt may eventually outweigh the asset, the consumer-voter will be building up a head of resentful steam. Then there is the debt accumulated by companies and the financial sector. It all adds up: the graph below (from this site) compares the US and UK economies in terms of the total burden of debt-to-GDP:

Another difference is that the crisis is now global. The US and the UK are in serious difficulty, but so are many European countries and the European banking system that has tried to hold them up; and the increasingly productive East has become dependent on the profligate West.

Historically, says Schama, the pre-Revolutionary French government would partially default on its borrowing (e.g. the 1720s, and in 1770), as well as raise more taxes and find more lenders. Now, we seem to be trying hard to avoid default (perhaps because once it started in one place, there'd be so many following suit); taxation of various kinds is already taking well over 40% of our income, in return for a creaking system of benefits and services; and where are the lenders who will take on so much global debt? And if they do, at what price?

Yet international finance is so murky, anything could happen. Towards the end of Andrew Rawnsley's book on New Labour, "The End of the Party", he says (pp. 626-7) that at last year's G20 summit "it was reliably estimated that more than $10 trillion of private wealth was concealed in paradis fiscaux [tax havens]". I don't think it's all invested in BP shares. Maybe it's waiting for governments to come to heel; to co-operate with each other in some glum global deflation that will further enrich the "oofy", as P.G. Wodehouse would term them.

In a splendidly furious recent rant, American writer Joe Bageant said:

"If we decide to believe the money economy still exists, and that debt is indeed wealth, then we damned sure know where to go looking for the wealth. Globally, forty percent of it is in the paws of the wealthiest one percent. Nearly all of that one percent are connected to the largest and richest corporations. Just before the economy blew out, these elites held slightly less than $80 trillion. After the blowout/bailout, their combined investment wealth was estimated at a little over $83 trillion. To give some idea, this is four years of the gross output of all the human beings on earth. It is only logical that these elites say the only way to revive the economy, which to them consists entirely of the money economy, is to continue to borrow money from them."

Or as humorist J. B. Morton (aka the Daily Express' "Beachcomber") put it in his “A Dictionary For Today”, long ago:

“WORLD-PEACE: A state of affairs which would make it possible for the international moneylenders to get even more power than they possess at present.”

It's there to be taken from us: for except among the very poorest, there is so much wealth we still have, such a high standard of living. In the early 80s, businessmen strode into our insurance office with mobile phones the size of bricks tucked proudly under their arms; now, the primary-age children of the underclass have iPhones that my fingers are too fat to operate.

Underneath the polemic of many of the doomsters who now write on the Internet is, I think, a hope that in some way disaster or revolution will save us, because they cannot see us deliberately planning and achieving a better state of affairs. I think this is a dangerous line for the imagination to take: we might find we'd burned what we thought was the Phoenix, but were unable to resurrect it.

But change of some kind is certainly on the way, and in the course of it we must remember to hold onto the things that really matter, especially civil liberties and the democratic form of government. Perhaps the biggest mistake is for us to think that money is the main issue.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Economic apocalypse and The Terror

I'm putting these links onto Bearwatch because they're too hot to include on the Broad Oak Blog, where I try to maintain a cooler view of the economy and investment. But pace my attempts at sanity and balance, it may be that the urbane attitude is fatally mistaken, and that matters are approaching a crisis of apocalyptic proportions.

Let's start with an absolutely magnificent rant by Joe Bageant, whose fireball sermon takes as its text the principle that "at ground zero of human species economics [...] the only currency is the calorie" - here he is.

I came upon that link from a comment on this blog, which foresees a new feudalism that begins by victimising the poor and goes on to terrorise the middle class. Again, as we slide into accepting permanent structural unemployment, I begin to doubt the continuance of democracy as I grew up knowing it. On the way, this post tells me things about mainstream Eng Lit icon poet and preacher John Donne that I almost wish it hadn't. And bloggers should take note of the fate of protesters against the Outland-style Virginia Company: "For making “base and detracting” statements against the governor, the Company managers ordered one servant to have his arms broken, his tongue pierced with an awl, and finally to be beaten by a gauntlet of 40 men before being banished from the settlement. For complaining that the Company’s system of justice was unfair, a man named Thomas Hatch was whipped, placed in the pillory, had an ear cut off, and sentenced to an additional seven years of servitude." Read the whole post here.

And in its turn, that came from the sidebar of Jesse, an investment / economics commentator who has been turning (or progressively revealing himself to be) more radical over the last year. His archly-named section "Matières à Réflexion" contains much that is indeed worthy of reflection.

More than once I have quietly challenged James Higham on his "Them" conspiracy theory, but that was to see if he really could prove the links. Perhaps such proof is impossible, just as (thanks to the careful exclusion of fussily minuting civil servants) it is impossible to know exactly what was said by whom at Tony Blair's sofa-style inner Cabinet meetings. Coming from the financial angle, all I can say is that there seems to be growing unease at what many feel to be a crooked manipulation of the entire economic system for the benefit of a rich and powerful elite - to the point where the system may break down altogether. Which, to quote the now tarnished Johne Donne, "makes me end, where I begun": do read Bageant - I think the drink and drugs have merely fuelled his oratory, rather than turned his brain.

Protest! Index-Linked Savings Certificates withdrawn!

I have just looked at NS&I's website and found that Index-Linked Savings Certificates (and some other products) are no longer on sale. I've spoken to a rep and she confirms that they've been withdrawn as of today (19 July 2010). NS&I cite the extreme popularity of the products, evidenced in unexpectedly high sales volumes that have led to the Treasury's sales targets being fulfilled.

This product was introduced at the beginning of the high inflation in the 1970s. The point of it is to preserve the value of your hard-earned savings against the surreptitious theft of devaluation.

As I pointed out last month, anyone invested in it for the 12 months ending in May would have an effective 6.5% tax-free gain, 100% securely. Find that on the High Street.

This is a government that was going to sort out the system for the benefit of the citizens. It's started with a big fat failure. If my hunch about future inflation is correct, you are about to be stuffed by the financial system.

Protest! You can call 0500 007 007 and ask to make a complaint. They'll take brief details, give you a complaints reference number and have a member of their complaints team contact you.

Please pass this on. Know anyone in the news industry?

UPDATE (3 p.m.): BBC News has caught up with this story:

"Building societies are likely to welcome the move as it removes a strand of competition from the market... NS&I, which is backed by the government, works under rules that state that it must not dominate the savings and investments market." So when artificially low interest rates rob the saver, the government must follow suit.

"It has withdrawn both products from the market for new customers and has not set a date for when they might be offered again." I can't remember when this last happened - if it ever did.

FURTHER UPDATE (Weds 8 a.m.): Indeed this hasn't happened before, as The Guardian reports. Hit quote: "Rival banks and building societies have lobbied intensively to make sure the rates offered by NS&I and other government-owned banks are not so competitive that they restrict the flow of funds into other banks."

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Protest! Index-Linked Savings Certificates withdrawn!

I have just looked at NS&I's website and found that Index-Linked Savings Certificates (and some other products) are no longer on sale. I've spoken to a rep and she confirms that they've been withdrawn as of today (19 July 2010). NS&I cite the extreme popularity of the products, evidenced in unexpectedly high sales volumes that have led to the Treasury's sales targets being fulfilled.

This product was introduced at the beginning of the high inflation in the 1970s. The point of it is to preserve the value of your hard-earned savings against the surreptitious theft of devaluation.

As I pointed out last month, anyone invested in it for the 12 months ending in May would have an effective 6.5% tax-free gain, 100% securely. Find that on the High Street.

This is a government that was going to sort out the system for the benefit of the citizens. It's started with a big fat failure. If my hunch about future inflation is correct, you are about to be stuffed by the financial system.

Protest! You can call 0500 007 007 and ask to make a complaint. They'll take brief details, give you a complaints reference number and have a member of their complaints team contact you.

Please pass this on. Know anyone in the news industry?

UPDATE (3 p.m.): BBC News has caught up with this story:

"Building societies are likely to welcome the move as it removes a strand of competition from the market... NS&I, which is backed by the government, works under rules that state that it must not dominate the savings and investments market." So when artificially low interest rates rob the saver, the government must follow suit.

"It has withdrawn both products from the market for new customers and has not set a date for when they might be offered again." I can't remember when this last happened - if it ever did.

Massive inequality

See this series of slides for some eye-openers about the distribution of income and wealth, e.g.:

1. In the US, the top 10% have 81.5% of all the wealth, and 90.4% of financial wealth such as stocks, bonds and mutual funds.
2. Of OECD countries, the UK has the 3rd most unequal income distribution, after the US and (can we perhaps ignore it?) Luxembourg.

The first point may be significant for market speculators, since the top 10% are so wealthy that they are unlikely to be forced into dumping investments simply to make ends meet. But one wonders what they might be doing on the quiet - moving into land and commodities? That's if they anticipate inflation. On the other hand, Charles Hugh Smith thinks they'll be happy to see a deflationary economy as long as they hold Treasury bonds.

It's getting very "us and Them" these days, rather worrying if you're not able to sit it out like Cicero on his country estate at Arpinum, 70 miles from Rome. But even he could not hide forever, and Antony's thug Herennius found him at Formiae.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Alas, we don't know

The system has become so distorted - some might say crooked, which includes the connotation of cheating - that economists are turning from their financial models to speculate about the future actions of governments.

Even Steve Keen, having come up with a model that shows the economic machine can shake itself to bits, admits that the State can throw a spanner into it first: "There’s a lot more work to do before the model is complete–notably including the impact of a goverment sector that can add its own spending power to a depressed economy."

Now John Mauldin, on his way to the annual Agora conference in Vancouver, notes that even among the pessimists, opinion is divided as to the severity of the economic consequences, and especially as to turning-points.

And as the sovereign debt crisis rolls on, differences between countries get to look more interesting. Mauldin considers the relationship between cyclical debt (owing to periodic upturns and downturns in the economy) and structural debt - the type that demands long-term cutbacks in spending. Hearteningly for any Italian readers, their nation doesn't look too bad, especially when (as he points out) it will be so easy to save money, for example on official Maseratis.

But after looking at the US, just look at the state of the UK. I fear that our new and amicable coalition government is asking us to clap hands to save Tinkerbell.


DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Blow you, Jack, I'm all right

One of the 20,000 professional economists who didn't expect the Global Financial Crisis gives thanks for other people's unemployment. To quote Mel Brooks: "I cut my finger. That's tragedy. A man walks into an open sewer and dies. That's comedy."

This leather-armchair contemplation of other people's difficulties in abstract, aggregated terms tempts me into unfair comparisons with Ebenezer Scrooge, Dives and Lazarus, or the savage philosopher-tyrants of the East in the twentieth century. But it would be more charitable of me to ascribe his views to limited imagination, rather than hard-heartedness. Let him be, in his Flint ivory tower (or would that be the pleasanter purlieus of Washington?), while the State of Michigan slides into insolvency . Economics is only a dismal science for others.

More on drugs

I break the silence again, because yet again the high-ups are trying to get more drugs legalised; in this case it's the Chairman of the Bar Council. I've taken on the redoubtable (and courteous) Charon QC and expect to be hit over the head repeatedly by third-party Bolly-swiggers, but fear not the struggle naught availeth. I give below my objections, perhaps Devil's Kitchen will reappear and deny yet again that he's hooked.

M’learned friend has opened a can of worms. Those who would welcome liberalisation should first read, in a fair-minded way, the experiences and views of the former Birmingham prison doctor Anthony Daniels, aka the Spectator’s “Theodore Dalrymple.” (See his 1997 City Journal article here: http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_2_a1.html)

Readers may also wish to consider the different reasons for taking drugs. Some in the more successful and privileged levels of society may take them as a pleasure trip to stave off boredom, or to alleviate stress and mental overstimulation as they continue to pursue wealth and fame. A proportion will be caught in the toils of addiction, but their network of friends and their financial resources often (though not always) help cut them free.

Lower down, drugs licit and otherwise are a form of medication against unrelenting misery, even if that misery is carpeted and centrally heated. And they are a trap, just as much as the benefits system. They destroy initiative and ambition. This gestalt of hopeless idleness and fuddled fecklessness is then passed on to another generation, with the addition of negligent and abusive parenting. My teaching assistant also works in the evenings at a chemist, and told me yesterday how she was struck that practically everyone in Quinton (west Birmingham) was on a drug she didn’t recognise, so she Googled it up and discovered it was an antidepressant.

When I was at school, the futurologist’s choice was Huxley’s Brave New World or Orwell’s 1984. We now have a miserable coalition of both. Speaking of coalitions, there is a most unfortunate agreement between a government wanting to save money and so eyeing the allegedly unwinnable war on drugs, and a social elite (including members of the government) who grew up with drugs-for-fun and don’t see why anybody should be allowed to prevent one doing as one wishes. This glosses over the obligation to set an example to the less fortunate and to succour them. Much of the libertarian philosophy I read today seems to be a clever gloss on callous selfishness.

[Charon then directs me to a podcast interview with an American judge who also thinks the war is lost.]

OK, have now skimmed the transcript (for which, thanks). Now let’s have a look at some of these worms wriggling out of the can:

Racism: yes, a lot of non-whites in jail. Connect that to justice being like the Ritz. Also (maybe) more usage at the desperate end, and less ability to stay out of sight of the cops – no haciendas to fall apart on. And please consider what I have heard black colleagues in the looked after child system say more than once: the whites permit the plague of drugs, because it keeps the blacks down.

Judge Kane compares the “unwinnable” war on drugs to Prohibition. I understand that by and large, Prohibition worked. It was repealed after the Great Crash because the government needed a way to raise more revenue.

Legalisation means pure drugs, clean needles – point taken, so to speak. But I expect customers also got clean straw during the Gin Epidemic. “If it is available like an aspirin, then there is no market for it.” May I ‘umbly draw His Honor’s attention to the aforesaid epidemic.

Prisons are overcrowded: build more. This freeing of offenders for reasons of accommodation is part of the feedback system that tells the offender that the law has no teeth and will only gum you gently after the 150th offence. A firm – and class-blind – approach would send the message very quickly. I read not so long ago about a magistrate in a Scottish court (in the 60s?) who warned publicly that carrying a knife would be punished as severely as possible; the next offender got 10 years; knife crime ceased abruptly, immediately and for the remainder of the magistrate’s time on the Bench.

Prisons are expensive: not so much as crime. Cost of a year at Her Majesty’s pleasure £30k, savings in costs of crime £300k I have read recently. Perhaps a proportion of insurance premiums should be hypothecated to the prison system so the connexion might be made more explicit.

Legalisation means “no need to rob”. So how come liquor store robberies?

The war on drugs is unwinnable in the same sense that the war on murder, robbery etc are unwinnable. What you don’t see in advance is what will happen when the restraints are off; but we have historical precedent to teach us. The judge speaks of a steady 1.7% addiction rate to heroin and opium, but forgets (a) that there are now many other drugs available and (b) that in a far wealthier and more leisured society legalisation and ready supply could spread use and multiply addicts much, much faster.

Doubtless I’ll be told how pernicious tobacco and alcohol are; I agree, and I am also in favour of increasing restriction on both. The former shortened both my parent’s lives by some 20 years, I believe; and I recall when the latter was available from pub, offies and vintners, but not from supermarkets, garages, post offices etc and often at all hours. I recall one of my looked after children went home to celebrate his father’s release from prison; the poor sap of an adult drank everything in the house and then went out and got caught stealing a bottle of vodka from his local shop. Back in the jug agane.

I think the real driver in all this handwringing declamation of failure is the reluctance of the authorities to prosecute famous people as they will in cases of tax evasion.

Now, Charon will you read Daniels for me?

The case continues.

S&P dividend yield suggests 50% fall appropriate

A good metric to determine the valuation of stocks is the dividend yield. The current dividend yield on the S&P is a paltry 2.1%. The historical average dividend yield is a much greater 4.36%. The lowest dividend yield was 1.11%, which was reached in August of 2000. The highest dividend yield was 13. 84%, this was achieved in June 1932. Therefore, on a dividend yield basis, the market is currently significantly overpriced.

Michael Pento

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

The real villains of the Global Financial Crisis: teachers

Headline radio news today: a London primary headteacher earned £276k. Imagine! Actually, read the news item linked above to find out that it wasn't just for being a headteacher; then decide whether you think he's earned his corn.

Of course, it's still only about two-thirds of what Fred Goodwin, slayer of the Royal Bank of Scotland, gets as a pension (early, to boot); and Fred would have had twice that if he'd got his way.

And it's not a patch on the bonuses at Goldman Sachs and other doers of "God's work".

Who sets the news agenda?

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Will the workers of the world end up on the same wages?

Yes, unless the US (and the PC-obsessed UK) take real, hard-fact-and-logic education and R&D seriously again:

Question. Why do workers in developing nations earn a fraction of the wages American workers earn? While protective and regulatory factors such as trade barriers, unionization, and differences in labor laws have some effect, the main reason is fairly simple. U.S. workers are, on average, more productive than their counterparts in developing countries. While the gap between U.S. and foreign wages can make open trade seem very risky, it is simply not true that opening trade with developing nations must result in a convergence of wages. The large difference in relative wages is in fact a competitive outcome when there are large differences in worker productivity across countries.

The main source of this difference in productivity is that U.S. workers have a substantially larger stock of productive capital per worker, as well as generally higher levels of educational attainment, which is a form of human capital. This relative abundance of physical and educational capital has been a driver of U.S. prosperity for generations. Neither advantage in capital, however, is intrinsic to American workers, and it will be impossible to prevent a long-term convergence of U.S. wages toward those of developing countries unless the U.S. efficiently allocates its resources to productive investment and educational quality. This is where our policy makers are failing us.

John Hussman (who says in the same piece that the US stockmarket is 40% overvalued - get ready for a correction).

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Sinking together

BRYAN DAWE: Why are people selling the European currency and buying the US dollar?

JOHN CLARKE: Because the US economy is so much stronger than the European economy.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. Why is that Roger?

JOHN CLARKE: Because it's owned by China.

Read the rest of this Australian truth-spoof here (htp: Brian Gongol)

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

British victory as octopus scores 100%

Weymouth-born psychic octopus Paul got all his predictions perfectly right in the World Cup. What more important questions should we ask him?

Here come higher interest rates - and inflation?

An article in yesterday's New York Times - hat tip to Michael Panzner - points out that some $5 trillion in short-term borrowing by banks has to be renewed within the next couple of years. American banks have to refinance $1.3 trillion, but Europe's $2.6 trillion - twice as much in cash terms, and still nearly double the USA's burden in terms of the relative size of their economies (GDP).

Competition among borrowers will strengthen the hand of lenders, so expect interest rates to rise.

In turn, this will hit the trading value of existing bonds (because their income is fixed and so will become less attractive). It will put further downward pressure on house prices as mortgages become more costly and harder to get. And investment banks will be less keen to borrow cash to speculate on the market, so quite possibly shares will fall as debt-fuelled gambling reduces; besides, businesses will find it harder to make a profit if they pay more for their borrowing at the same time as their customers have less money to spend, and the rate of profit obviously impacts on share prices.

From what I read, much of Britain's public debt is in the form of bonds with longer maturity dates, so that part of the government's debt servicing won't be hit so soon as in the USA, where more comes due earlier. But the UK is projected to increase public borrowing for some years yet, so any increase will be funded at a higher cost. And, as I've said before, private debt in Britain is greater than public debt, so the economy is likely to slow as credit cards, variable rate mortgages etc become more expensive and Joe Public trims his personal spending - there is already clear evidence of this in the USA. Expect businesses that rely on discretionary expenditure to be hit particularly hard (except, perhaps, those that service the richer end of the population - inequality has grown in Britain and the USA).

Lower profits mean less tax revenue and more unemployment. Some fear that our governments will be in such a squeeze that they will crack and begin creating money to buy their own debts - bailing themselves out as they did the banks. Inflation is a threat to savers, who for the last 10 years would generally have been better off in cash than in the stockmarket. We could be approaching a turning point. (Contrariwise, Steve Keen thinks inflating our way out can't be done, nor will debt be defaulted or written off - he is predicting another Great Depression - see his last paragraph.)

There's more than one type of inflation. We tend to think of it as higher prices, and certainly there's been some of that, as evidenced by the cost of petrol, food, energy; but the effects aren't universal - my first car cost £6,000 in 1989 and its equivalent today costs the same. We could see price inflation hitting the poor worse than the rich.

Monetarists see inflation differently: they define it as an increase in the amount of money and credit in the economy. If the money supply grows faster than the economy, then in general (in theory) we'd expect an increase in wages and prices. However, since global trade sets the workers of the world against one another, median wages in the UK and the USA have not progressed much for decades. The improvement in standards of living has come from cheap imports, increasingly financed by personal debt.

If the monetary base in one country increases, then normally you'd expect the currency to devalue against that of stronger, foreign economies. But the situation has now become very complicated: many economies are in a similar crisis, so their currencies are falling together against commodities (like gold) whose supply cannot easily be expanded. Other economies (e.g. China) have become dependent on trade with the spendthrift countries, and therefore have a strong incentive to keep down the relative value of their currency, so as not to price themselves out of the market.

Can the show continue forever?

Traditional economists assume that the economy is self-righting, and that debt doesn't matter much because it ripples throughout the system and raises both wages and prices; and currency exchanges will adjust international trade so that it comes back into balance, eventually. Their harmonious conception is now challenged, just as the mediaeval concept of an orderly universe was challenged and replaced with a vision of colliding worlds.

Leading this modern Copernican-style revolution is maverick Australian economist Steve Keen, who models finance in a way that shows the system tends to increasing instability and breakdown.

Yet the economy is not a fixed machine - not even a self-destructive one. Its workings can be changed, for example by the action of governments. As the philosopher Henri Bergson said:

It is of the essence of reasoning to shut us up in the circle of the given. But action breaks the circle.

The economist can suggest what will happen if, if, if. The politician trying to avert disaster and get re-elected will then try something to avoid the consequences of his and our actions. The economy is dynamic, changing and with many intelligent and competing players. It's more like poker than Meccano; perhaps more like war than poker.

UPDATE (13 July): John Mauldin agrees with Keen that deflation seems unavoidable, and predicts that government bonds will increase in value because they are safe. But as I've suggested here, that's the first part of the game; the question is, whether governments will indeed find a way to reflate out of the hole - effectively part-paying-off debt by stealing value from savers. As John Hussman says (my emphasis):

From an inflation standpoint, is important to recognize the distinction between what occurs during a credit crisis and what occurs afterward. Credit strains typically create a nearly frantic demand for government liabilities that are considered default-free (even if they are subject to inflation risk). This raises the marginal utility of government liabilities relative to the marginal utility of goods and services. That's an economist's way of saying that interest rates drop and deflation pressures take hold. Commodity price declines are also common, which is a word of caution to investors accumulating gold here, who may experience a roller-coaster shortly. Over the short-term, very large quantities of money and government debt can be created with seemingly no ill effects. It's typically several years after the crisis that those liabilities lose value, ultimately at a very rapid pace.

For commodity speculators, the second highlighted point is a challenge: wait for the bottom and then ride to the top, or get in now because you may not be able to make the purchases during a really rapid rise (especially if you don't trust "paper gold" and only want the real, tangible stuff)?

So much of what I read among the experts is about timing the market in the short term, which is OK if that's your day job; I don't put myself up against these "gunslingers", as George Goodman (aka "Adam Smith") terms them.

Counter-argument: Charles Hugh Smith says that the rich and powerful simply won't let inflation destroy wealth, since they have most of it.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

The Economist: UK houses 33% overpriced

The Economist magazine has produced a table comparing rents with house prices to give an idea of fair value in different countries. According to this, the average UK house is 33% overvalued, or in other words should drop 25% to return to its long-term price/rent ratio.

A word of warning: Mike Shedlock (where I found this) points out that the US is too diverse to make these statistics precise and universally applicable. I would say the same for the UK, small as we are. Nevertheless, it corroborates my feeling that houses are generally still too expensive here.

Addendum (19:37): Charles Hugh Smith gives some reasons why owning a home may not be the Holy Grail, anyway. I was suggesting selling up and buying a caravan to my dearest some years ago, but women love plumbing.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Signs of the times - Acocks Green, Birmingham on Sunday 4 July 2010

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

David Cameron may face his Major/Lamont moment

There was tension in our insurance office on Wednesday, 16th September 1992. The British government was fighting to remain in the Exchange Rate Mechanism, which pegged the pound to 2.95 Deutschmarks. George Soros, we later discovered, had started a run on the pound with a massive "short" that would soon net him one of his several billions.

The government was using the interest rate as its defensive weapon. The rate had leapt from 10% to 12% at lunchtime. Still unconvinced, the currency traders continued dumping the pound, which the government frantically bought by the billion to support its value.

Then came the moment of truth - or rather, an utterly implausible bluff, instantly called: the Chancellor shoved the rate up to 15%. While we in the office were dazedly contemplating the effect on our mortgage clients, the market knew it had won. 15% just couldn't be done. Britain was ejected from the ERM like a pip from a crushed lemon.

As every teacher, as every parent knows, you musn't threaten what you cannot perform. When you overreach, your credibility is busted. And I fear that David Cameron may be skirting very close to that point.

Cameron has let the papers know about wargame economic scenarios to cut public spending by as much as 40%, a figure that would have barely-conceivable consequences. Clearly this is to scare policymakers and departments into crystallising proposals for much lesser reductions.

Yet there is a whiff of desperation in this big-stick-waving and weekend-news-leaking, and if the markets scent fear and self-doubt at the heart of government, the hunt may begin.

The initial figure of £6 billion in savings, yet to be turned into concrete plans, was merely a stopgap to reassure the bond markets that the new government intends to get control of the budget. Compared to the accumulated and increasing public debt, this first cut is a drop in the ocean. It's held off the short-sellers for now and we retain our official AAA credit rating, which allows us to keep down the interest rate.

Unofficially, our rating has already fallen to "AA", according to the credit insurance market. If interest rates go up, debt servicing becomes much more difficult, not only for the government but even more so for the worker-consumer - private debt in the British economy is far greater and Joe Public pays above the bank lending rate, so he can support all those people in glass-and-marble offices who send him his mortgage and credit card statements.

So if the market senses a panicky bluff, up go the rates and down goes the pound, real estate, the stockmarket and the trading value of bonds.

Mr Cameron will have to talk tough, just enough.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

China and gold mining in Alaska

China has reached her first gold target, expanding holding from 600 tonnes to 1,000 as of last month. But she has stated her intention to boost stocks by 10,000 tonnes over the next decade. This source reports on a new long-term contract to purchase gold ore from the Kensington Mine in Alaska.

The mine is about 400 miles from the Klondike, so unfortunately not quite justifying the inclusion of photos of grizzled - they always are, aren't they? - prospectors from the late nineteenth century.

Another difference - perhaps typical of the modern (what is post-modern?) age - is that this is a high-level government deal. It's not about the individual struggle for enrichment and independence. Central banks have also reversed their long-term policy of releasing gold onto the market to depress its value and are now beginning to buy, as Mark O'Byrne suspected 18 months ago.

These developments are likely to support the price of gold, even though it has quadrupled (in dollar terms) in the last 10 years. But the expansionary plan could also be seen as a straw in the wind, for those who see gold as a store of wealth in increasingly uncertain times.

Just for fun (and a little right-brain stimulus), here's a picture of Chinese gold prospectors in California:

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Keen: debt and deflation

Steve Keen, a non-mainstream economist who is one of a mere handful to have predicted the Great Financial Crisis, has put his latest academic paper on his website. It has a lot of mathematical equations and technical terms, as you'd expect, but I think it's possible to get the general drift if you don't get disheartened by all that. As a non-pro myself, I'll try to pick out some of the main points that appear relevant to investment (I am sorry that I cannot yet reproduce his graphs but in any case that might infringe his copyright).

Keen attempts to model the economy including the role of debt, which appears to be a major factor insufficiently considered by classical economic theory. Using past data, he observes that from 1920 -1940 "rising debt was strongly correlated with falling unemployment" (p.4).

But in the last 20 years private debt has risen far faster than production (fig. 5, page 5) and rising debt now appears to be associated with rising unemployment (fig. 12, page 11). Keen blames what he forthrightly calls "Ponzi finance", i.e. speculative money poured into assets, causing them to become overpriced. In the aftermath of the 1929 Great Crash, the biggest debt load was among businesses and government; now, most of the debt is concentrated in the financial sector and households (fig. 13, page 12). Running his model, Keen finds (fig. 14) that there is an inbuilt tendency for speculative debt (as opposed to debt-financed investment in production) to take off and ultimately account for almost all the debt in the economy.

Another of Keen's themes is that economics has confused the amount of money with the flow of money. This has misled the USA into supporting banks on the assumption that the latter would lend out the usual multiple of their deposits (they didn't), whereas in Australia the emphasis was on financial support to households. Consequently, unemployment in the USA has doubled to 10%, but in Oz it seems to have stabilised at around 5% (fig. 23).

It seems that as total debt reaches a critical size, there is an alteration in the way in which money and the economy interact (I think chemists call this sort of thing a "phase change"). Prior to this point, the system appears to be settling down, rather as milk does in the saucepan before suddenly frothing over and burning on the hob. Kenn quotes (p.12) Hyman Minsky: "Stability—or tranquility—in a world with a cyclical past and capitalist financial institutions is destabilizing".

In Keen's model, the first effects of the crackup are felt by workers: wages spiral around from 100% of GDP, centring towards c. 70%, but then suddenly collapse down to below 50% (fig. 33, page 43). For about 10 years in this final decline, business profits appear fairly unaffected; then they slump catastrophically into deep losses (page 44). At the same time, the banker's share of national income soars. Economic growth turns into economic contraction, and we move from an apparent settling-down of the inflation rate into a savage deflation exceeding 35%.

As with any mathematical model, there is always the question about how far it fits observed reality, and in economics it seems hard to get exact figures and generally-agreed definitions, especially where debt is concerned (see my previous post). But Keen's seems to be a model operating on strict internal logic based on clear theoretical data and correlations, with outcomes that chime with phenomena we've see so far. His model has very worrying implications for the next part of the cycle.

An unknown factor is what government will do. Whatever the economic machinery, politicians are liable to throw a spanner into it, if only to be seen to be doing something. Keen's prediction of a housing price collapse was refuted by the financial measures the Australian government introduced to help householders, and internationally it is widely feared that governments will ultimately attempt to mitigate the effects of deflation by debauching the monetary system and introducing hyperinflation; hence the shrilling of the "gold bugs".

So every economic model will have to be updated to incorporate the new cogs, axles and valves invented by our desperate leaders. The value of Keen's model is, I think, not so much to offer accurate predictions of the future as to show that the system as it stands appears to tend to equilibrium but actually is highly unstable. He is predicting the burning of the Phoenix, not its reincarnation.

UPDATE: Keen's dynamic model, with its self-reinforcing trends, has something in common with George Soros' ideas of market feedback loops. Soros terms this process "reflexivity" and set out his theories in his 2008 book "The New Paradigm for Financial Markets". In his speech at Berlin's Humboldt University last week, Soros argues that Germany would be damaged by an exit from the Euro and should be less purist about financial rectitude at a time when weaker Eurozone countries are struggling to support their banking systems.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

How bad is the debt problem?

The things we really need to know seem to be the hardest to find out, at least here in the UK. I look again and again for figures on our debt and each time get a different answer.

Sometimes, with public debt, it's because of problems of definition - for example, the "National Debt" is different from the "Public Sector Net Debt". Even then, there's the question of what has yet to be included in the accounts, and what has been designed not to appear in the accounts at all (e.g. the Private Finance Initiative, or PFI). Official statistics say "government debt" in 2009 was almost 70% of GDP. According to this source, the Bank of England put it at 60% in January 2010. But reportedly, the Centre for Policy Studies estimated that the true figure at the end of 2008 was 103.5%, including public sector pensions and PFI. Even the lower, official figure for Public Sector Net Debt is forecast to rise steeply in the years to come, to around 80% (a similar story is told here).

Then there is private debt. A couple of years ago, personal debt in the UK broke above 100% of GDP, according to Grant Thornton. In the USA, private indebtedness has soared to something like 300% of GDP (recently reconfirmed by Australian economist Steve Keen here).

But we also have to factor in business debt. This graph from Moneyweek adds business and private debt together to show the UK's figure running at around 250% of GDP. - and the graph is out of date. It's fair to guess that we're as badly off as the Americans.

Finally, we have to consider who are creditors are. How much of the debt is owed "within the family", so to speak, and how much to foreigners? 18 months ago, the Spectator magazine's Fraser Nelson reported an estimate (by Michael Saunders of Citigroup) of total "external" debt among the G7 nations:

The point of this is that not only are we very heavily in hock, but we are particularly vulnerable to pressure from foreign creditors.

In another post, I plan to consider our options, and the extent to which the recent "emergency Budget" has helped solve the problems we face.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

"Jesse" predicts gold will appreciate 500%

We've seen the price of gold in dollars quadruple since the beginning of the new Millennium. Compared to inflation, gold is above its long-term average - but still below its 20th century peak in 1980, when the American economy was under severe strain.

Some "gold bugs" think that our current and worsening problems will cause a very significant flight to the historic preserver of wealth - in my previous post I link to one who predicts $50,000 per ounce (in real terms, apparently). I find it hard to believe that you will be able to buy a 3-bed semi in Birmingham for a handful of gold weighing little more than a packet of winegums.

But the total private and public debt in the USA is now far higher than before the Crash of 1929, and similar problems affect us here in the UK and across much of Europe. In today's Daily Mail, Peter Oborne (not normally an alarmist commentator) discusses the danger of a return of recession and of the Euro collapsing, and the risks of depositing more than £50,000 with any one bank, especially Santander and its subsidiary Abbey National. Against such a background, we could see a scramble into anything that offers a secure nest for our savings.

On the internet, "Jesse" (to all appearances a technically expert and sober-minded investor) is bullish on gold without going quite as far as the most excited of the gold bugs:

Gold has been gaining, on average about 70% every three years. So what is the end point?

Just for grins, I would expect gold to hit $6,300 near the end of this steady bull run, but will the bull market will end in a parabolic intra-month spike towards $10,000. This is likely to occur around 2018-2020.

Three points I'd make:

1. There is something like 100 ounces of gold "on paper" for every ounce of gold you can hold in your hand. I now often see online comments recommending the possession of physical gold because of concerns over delivery on all those paper promises. This then gives you the challenge of getting it and storing it safely, plus being taxed on gains if it appreciates; and remember that President Roosevelt confiscated gold from private investors in 1933. (UPDATE: Note that Saudi Arabia revealed this week that it is sitting on twice as much gold as we previously thought.)

2. There are other assets that have intrinsic value - farmland, houses etc - and even if they may lose some wealth, they won't lose it all. The billionaire Duke of Westminster is in no hurry to get rid of his properties in London's Mayfair and Belgravia, the foundation of the family fortune established when Sir Thomas Grosvenor married heiress Mary Davies in 1677, so acquiring 500 acres of then-rural land near the capital.

3. If you're looking to preserve what you have, rather than beat someone else in the investment game and take their stake, there is a government-backed product designed to achieve this: the NS&I Index-Linked Savings Certificate. We can argue about what is the correct measure of inflation, and if the Russians invade all British government promises are void*; but otherwise it's a safe bet and all you have to do is give up some spending now to have its true worth again later on.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

*It's how my mother's family lost their farm in East Prussia, now a heavily-militarised sliver of Russian Federation land with access to the vital open-in-winter Baltic seaport of Kaliningrad. The Russkies threatened to base missiles there in 2008 in a Cuban Crisis-style response to US plans for missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. Perhaps some wealth in portable form wouldn't be a bad idea, after all - it would certainly have helped my family on their flight westwards.

"Jesse" predicts gold will appreciate 500%

We've seen the price of gold in dollars quadruple since the beginning of the new Millennium. Compared to inflation, gold is above its long-term average - but still below its 20th century peak in 1980, when the American economy was under severe strain.

Some "gold bugs" think that our current and worsening problems will cause a very significant flight to the historic preserver of wealth - in my previous post I link to one who predicts $50,000 per ounce (in real terms, apparently). I find it hard to believe that you will be able to buy a 3-bed semi in Birmingham for a handful of gold weighing little more than a packet of winegums.

But the total private and public debt in the USA is now far higher than before the Crash of 1929, and similar problems affect us here in the UK and across much of Europe. In today's Daily Mail, Peter Oborne (not normally an alarmist commentator) discusses the danger of a return of recession and of the Euro collapsing, and the risks of depositing more than £50,000 with any one bank, especially Santander and its subsidiary Abbey National. Against such a background, we could see a scramble into anything that offers a secure nest for our savings.

On the internet, "Jesse" (to all appearances a technically expert and sober-minded investor) is bullish on gold without going quite as far as the most excited of the gold bugs:

Gold has been gaining, on average about 70% every three years. So what is the end point?

Just for grins, I would expect gold to hit $6,300 near the end of this steady bull run, but will the bull market will end in a parabolic intra-month spike towards $10,000. This is likely to occur around 2018-2020.

Three points I'd make:

1. There is something like 100 ounces of gold "on paper" for every ounce of gold you can hold in your hand. I now often see online comments recommending the possession of physical gold because of concerns over delivery on all those paper promises. This then gives you the challenge of getting it and storing it safely, plus being taxed on gains if it appreciates; and remember that President Roosevelt confiscated gold from private investors in 1933. (UPDATE: Note that Saudi Arabia revealed this week that it is sitting on twice as much gold as we previously thought.)

2. There are other assets that have intrinsic value - farmland, houses etc - and even if they may lose some wealth, they won't lose it all. The billionaire Duke of Westminster is in no hurry to get rid of his properties in London's Mayfair and Belgravia, the foundation of the family fortune established when Sir Thomas Grosvenor married heiress Mary Davies in 1677, so acquiring 500 acres of then-rural land near the capital.

3. If you're looking to preserve what you have, rather than beat someone else in the investment game and take their stake, there is a government-backed product designed to achieve this: the NS&I Index-Linked Savings Certificate. We can argue about what is the correct measure of inflation, and if the Russians invade all British government promises are void*; but otherwise it's a safe bet and all you have to do is give up some spending now to have its true worth again later on.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

*It's how my mother's family lost their farm in East Prussia, now a heavily-militarised sliver of Russian Federation land with access to the vital open-in-winter Baltic seaport of Kaliningrad. The Russkies threatened to base missiles there in 2008 in a Cuban Crisis-style response to US plans for missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. Perhaps some wealth in portable form wouldn't be a bad idea, after all - it would certainly have helped my family on their flight westwards.

Fun with gold

As the crisis continues, the gold bugs cheerily anticipate rocketing gold prices. Some fling about wild notions like $50,000 per ounce, others try to be a bit more sober (or less drunk) and guess at $10,000. But there are so many imponderables, as I comment:

Can of worms, FOFOA. We live in a relativistic universe. How does gold relate to other things? And which other things in particular? And what is the role of debt in pricing?

Imagine a worldwide Jubilee Year: all debts paid or defaulted and no new debts contracted. What would assets be worth then? What, for example, would houses be worth if no-one had a mortgage?

Besides, in the past, far less of life was monetized. You could go into the woods, clear land, build a house, grow crops, keep animals. Money (or trade tokens like conch shells) was only to facilitate the exchange of surplus production. Now, money seem to be more important than people themselves.

Whether gold has any use depends on context. If we are hit by major ecological/economic disaster, gold may be no more than the equivalent of a word in a long-dead language.

But just for fun, let's assume everybody trades gold for productive land (arable/pasture/wood). Playing around with figures trawled on the Net I find that the ratio of gold above ground to said land is about 1 kilo to 73.5 acres, or 13.6 grams of gold per acre.

This farmer (http://thebeginningfarmer.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-much-land-do-you-need.html) reckons maybe 160 acres to support a family - though that depends on the standard of living you'd expect (Papua New Guinea would set a different standard). Say a couple of kilos of gold. At today's gold prices, that family farm would have to cost about $88,000 US.

Latest (Jan. 1) estimates from the US Department of Agriculture value US agricultural land and buildings at $2,100 per acre. The same 160-acre farm would therefore currently be priced at some $336,000, or c. 52 grams of gold per acre.

So if (as seems most unlikely) gold was simply used as a medium of exchange for farmland, gold would shoot up to 4 times its present level. Say $5,000 dollars an ounce. On the other hand, in an equalized world unencumbered by debt, maybe farmland in the US would simply drop in value by 75% as priced in weight of gold.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Email to clients, 20 June 2010

Dear Client

If you have been expecting to hear from me recently, please accept my apologies - we have had a family healthcare emergency that has taken up much of our available time and energy for many weeks. And now, for the next few days, I must devote time to answering many detailed questions for the FSA's regular periodic reviews. But I plan to re-contact you soon thereafter if you are ready to re-examine your financial plans.

In the meantime, I hear people around me saying that since house prices have dropped "so much" and the bank and stockmarket problems seem to have been sorted by the government actions of 18 months ago, things have returned to normal. I think it's too early to say that and my general approach is still very cautious. The price of our (or our leaders') follies has yet to be paid, and the economic consequences of national budget reviews here and in Europe may be challenging for some time to come.

Like many expert commentators, George Soros sees as us as between two acts in a longer drama (some describe it as "the eye of the storm") - please see my latest post on the Broad Oak Blog here: http://broadoakblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/soros-thinks-markets-still-overpriced.html

Soros is worth listening to - after all, he is personally worth some $7 billion dollars, which is slightly more than most of us - though even Warren Buffett can make mistakes (the latter recently told a Congressional committee that he hadn't anticipated the scale of the 2008 crisis).

I feel we are in a quandary. Commit new money to investment and you could be caught in another correction from which it could take some time to recover. Hold cash, and your savings could be affected by inflation if the government fails to get public finances under control.

But there are some fairly safe options still available to most of us - in particular, National Savings Index-Linked Savings Certificates. These are backed by the government and offer returns in line with RPI, plus 1% p.a. It does mean locking up money for 3 or 5 years, and yes, if the stockmarket suddenly booms you'll miss out on those wonderful, effortless gains we came to regard as normal in the 1980s.

On the other hand, the official change in RPI over the 12 months to May 2010 was 5.5%, so with an extra 1% on top that would have been a pretty good tax-free and risk-free return.

Anyhow, although this isn't a personal recommendation (we have to consider how such things fit in with your other plans) it's something to think about and possibly discuss with me. Do please call if I can help further.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Soros thinks markets still overpriced

June 11: Multi-billionaire George Soros gives his views on the present systemic crisis. He argues that since complete catastrophe was averted by government action in 2008, free-market discipline (failure and bankruptcy) no longer applies and must be replaced by official regulation and management - or the "superbubble" will eventually burst. I give below some extracts, but the piece is worth reading in its entirety.

... life support consisted of substituting sovereign credit for the credit of financial institutions... But the collapse of the financial system as we know it is real, and the crisis is far from over.

Indeed, we have just entered Act II of the drama, when financial markets started losing confidence in the credibility of sovereign debt... budget deficits are essential for counter cyclical policies, yet many governments have to reduce them under pressure from financial markets. This is liable to push the global economy into a double dip...

When there is a significant divergence between market prices and the underlying reality I speak of far from equilibrium conditions. That is where we are now.

The European authorities face a daunting task: they must help the countries that have fallen far behind the Maastricht criteria to regain their equilibrium while they must also correct the deficiencies of the Maastricht Treaty which have allowed the imbalances to develop. The euro is in what I call a far-from-equilibrium situation.

He will speak more on the latter subject in Berlin this Wednesday. In the meantime, please note his comment on market prices, which I have highlighted. Some people seem to think that the corrections in stocks and residential property have brought us back to normality - I don't think so.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Banks - growing worry

There is growing concern about banks again, reflected in what is known as the "Ted Spread" - the difference between the yield (effective interest rate, compared to trading price) of government debt (3-month US Treasury bills) and interbank lending (the LIBOR rate). According to Paul Nolte, the difference has widened over the last three months from 10 basis points (0.1%) to over 50 b.p. (0.5%). In other words, investors are willing to accept a lower income from government debt, in exchange for greater confidence that they will be able to get their money back.

The Ted spread can be a significant indicator - I passed on concerns about it in December 2007, months before the great credit crisis slammed into us. But to put it into perspective, at that time the spread was 2%, or four times higher than now. Nevertheless, a straw in the wind.

And evidence that there are those in the market who know (or have good reason to suspect) what's going on, long before it's disclosed to the rest of us by our alert and expert news media. Still, the latter can hardly be blamed - Peston the messenger was shot at by many, even when his message came rather late.

Perhaps I should take an insanely insouciant, upbeat angle on it all, like the Book in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Many men of course became extremely rich but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor, at least no one worth speaking of." On the same note, James Quinn's latest post includes the following graphs:





DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Credit crunch, bailouts and unemployment - according to Steve Keen

Steve Keen, Australian post-Keynesian economist and one of only about 16 (previously estimated at 12) out of 20,000 econ pros to have predicted the "credit crunch" (aka GFC - Global Financial Crisis), looks at economic models and produces his own. The one I find most striking is the last, Fig. 22:

There are several implications I see here:

1. It is better to bail out borrowers than banks
2. The disruption takes c. 15 years to settle
3. Whatever is done or not done, we are left with permanently elevated levels of unemployment

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.