* Yesterday, Macro Man cited Greenspan's "irrational exuberance" speech. Of course, less than two years later he was cutting rates in response to the LTCM, creating the "Greenspan put" and helping to kindle the tech stock bubble of 1999. While the Fed pays lip service to trying to improve economic outcomes for all economic strata, including (indeed, particularly!) the lower end of the spectrum, in reality their policies have overwhelmingly favored owners of capital and financial assets, with the trickle-down benefits fairly remote. This can be observed in the household wealth data from the Fed's survey of consumer finances, which was published by Fed a couple of years ago but got a fresh airing from the CBO this week:
* Of course, the US is hardly the only country where the wedge between the haves and have nots has grown. Unfortunately, a university degree is no longer a golden ticket to joining the haves, as young graduates in the UK have learned to their chagrin. (As an aside, this makes the cost-benefit calculation of American higher education even more farcical.)
* Not that the UK is going to slide into the sea and join Atlantis at the foot of the mid-Atlantic ridge, mind you. The hard data post Brexit has been pretty incredible...though of course that word has more than one meaning, particularly when it comes to some of the output from the ONS. Still, the trend in, say, retail sales over the past several years has been a solid one. Macro Man looks forward to Carney for taking pre-emptive credit for the robust July figures....
* The ECB minutes cited the slide in bank share prices, citing the "continued underlying weakness in bank profitability, related, inter alia, to a more prolonged period of only moderate growth and low interest rates, as well as legacy issues stemming mainly from still high levels of non-performing exposures in some parts of the euro area banking system, which continued to weigh on banks' balance sheets." To rephrase: Banks have a lot of bad loans on their books so would prefer to hold safer assets or cash, but we are charging them for those so they are completely screwed. Just imagine the carnage in the SX7E if the ECB implemented the Wu-Xia policy rate!
* The renaissance in the RMB proved to be short-lived. The CFETS basket is back at its lows as the reserve drain continues apace. It certainly feels like when rather than if the market has another go at USD/CNH....
* Of course, the US is hardly the only country where the wedge between the haves and have nots has grown. Unfortunately, a university degree is no longer a golden ticket to joining the haves, as young graduates in the UK have learned to their chagrin. (As an aside, this makes the cost-benefit calculation of American higher education even more farcical.)
* The ECB minutes cited the slide in bank share prices, citing the "continued underlying weakness in bank profitability, related, inter alia, to a more prolonged period of only moderate growth and low interest rates, as well as legacy issues stemming mainly from still high levels of non-performing exposures in some parts of the euro area banking system, which continued to weigh on banks' balance sheets." To rephrase: Banks have a lot of bad loans on their books so would prefer to hold safer assets or cash, but we are charging them for those so they are completely screwed. Just imagine the carnage in the SX7E if the ECB implemented the Wu-Xia policy rate!
* The renaissance in the RMB proved to be short-lived. The CFETS basket is back at its lows as the reserve drain continues apace. It certainly feels like when rather than if the market has another go at USD/CNH....
38 comments
Click here for commentsI see dangerous socialist tendencies rising in this blog. Next you might even be daring to suggest that the limited form of democracy we have in the West is a palliative to allow the chosen few to continue to raid the coffers of our productive base with the blessing of the ballot box where the option are 'heads I win ,tails you lose'. !
ReplyAt least socialist tendencies is what I am always accused of whenever I suggest that wealth distribution is a choice and not something predetermined just because you took out a dusty copy of a book on capitalism and found the page that says' see ,there I told you so, market enterprise is the best option'.
I'm a capitalist and have been ever since I was doing 3 jobs at 10 yrs of age. However, I happen to think it works better for the purpose of political stability IF you make it equitably inclusive. I rarely see good examples of that anymore.
You want a decent litmus test to see if it really is has f..ked as I think it is then look no further than the High street. Post recession we see two phenomena. One, the huge expansion of charity shops and their more profit oriented kin 'pound everything'/Aldi/Lidl. That's at one end ,because at the other we saw a boom in luxury. You know the kind of shop I am talking about where you walk in like something out of Pretty Woman and you see the customers are outnumbered by the shop assistants on a ratio of 3 or 4/1. Most anything inbetween got the shit squeezed out of it.
ReplyIn conclusion ,the more people your policy leaves behind the less bang for buck you are going to get and the latter has been diminishing for decades without anyone apparently wondering why. When I am disparaging about central banks for being one trick pony, serial bubble blowing idiots it's not really without reason. Guess that makes the tax payer who pays up big for such little talent an easy mark.
now imagine just all that in countries where the poor don't have booze or rock n' roll nor the possibility to protest - that's right you got your islamists explained
ReplyOf course because right after you have given hoping that government might protect you all you have left to rely upon is something called 'god'.
ReplyThe failure of good government is extremism.
FT: there is no good government in the long run, power corrupts. Democracy, sadly, will probably be a short lived experience. If our politicians didn't do enough, our central bankers are making sure the outcome is chaos. When the choice in a US presidential election is between a clown and a corrupt , neocon in disguise, warmonger, you know that the end is nigh.
ReplyBack on topic: I think the dollar bears are close to extending themselves and I suspect the BOJ was misread; they couldn't fire a bazooka right after the election and had to request a bullshit assessment. I think the next BOJ meeting could be full of surprises and I'm loading on yen 3M Yen puts.
I'm not a great fan of equities on those levels but neither was I in 1999. Then it was the tech bubble and now it's the CB bubble. I think there is another up-leg in the making and european dividend yields look attractive.
Checkmate, will you marry me?
ReplyA graduate degree doesn't guarantee entry to the haves, but it still gives considerable advantage and arguably has positive NPV.
ReplyThe graph with UK wages by education shows a significant gap between college grads vs non grads at the age of 25-29. Presumably the (already significant) gap widens at later ages.
Wealth gap doesn't discredit the value of a college degree. It's more a function of asset inflation. In fact the lower interest rates increase the NPV of distant future earnings gap between grads and non grads, even more so in a new normal of longer working lifes.
@ Unknown Over the course of the period covered in the chart, the price of a UK university education has risen from 0 to GBP 9k/year. At the same time, real wages for grads have actually declined, while those of the lowest educational cohort have ticked slightly higher. Obviously a degree is still an advantage, but the return on investment has plummeted. Now extrapolate that to the US, where the cost is much much higher, and the returns may not even be as high (particularly for those poor souls fooled into pursuing 'education' at a 'for profit' university)
Reply"Checkmate, will you marry me?"
ReplyYes , bigamy has both charm and appeal right up until they sentence you to a room with bars. Albeit , I am much closer to a room in a box so what would I care !
A non grad has a 3 to 4 year head start so factor in lost earning years first before you start measuring the income gap between the two groups. Next has MM points out add in the current costs of tuition at 9k pa ,but DO NOT stop there. The cost of living at Uni as opposed to living at home is not inconsiderable and I would put it at no less than another 3k pa and that's probably conservative.
ReplyThe costs to grads have gone parabolic ,but by the same token the returns have been diminished greatly by the increased supply of such in relation to static demand.Frankly demographics would suggest the skill to wipe a wrinkly old arse is likely to be a skill in rising demand. Perhaps those outside the first rank and closer to the 3rd rank could put their degree certificates to a more pragmatic use.
In Autumn 2016 the costs increase yet again due to the abolishment of maintenance mean tested grants. Frankly gents higher education is an over sold shell game that's been best suited to govts trying to keep the employment statistics looking partway acceptable. Half of the meat factory heading for the Uni gates would be best advised to get their arse into a paying job just has soon as possible.
In any case I think trying to analyse the gap in earnings between grads and non grads ,as though the latter were just one homogeneous group ,without nullifying the skew towards the upper earning 1sdt rank makes it as useful as talking about National average house prices without accounting for the skew arising from London. The focus should be on at what point in the rankings for grads does it become an uneconomical investment.
Reply'latter' should have been 'former'
ReplyEuropean banks need to hire some risk-seeking PMs. (-:
ReplyCheckmate, sorry to leave you at the Alter, but I withdraw my proposal. You talk WAY too much.
ReplyI have an issue with the lament that too few high school graduates are following STEM studies. The top 5% o the academic cohort have always found careers. Pushing moderately above average students into science and maths creates poorly paid lab assistants, public servant statisticians and taxi drivers. Often now with an unmanageable student debt to boot.
Replyoh snap - is this blog about to be re-named checkmate-man?
Replyjokes aside, I think the failure has been in the winner takes all nature of wall street and silicon valley, combined with central bank liquidity which has kept the pot at the end of the rainbow in plain sight - WTF would any aware smart undergrad decide to go make things and earn 100k/yr (leading to an equal society down the line) when his buddies tell him the lifestyle of the rich and famous, thrust in his or her face by all day long TV, is easily attainable (!) by going to a fund or pvt equity or bank?
In the end to make things work well you need capitalism without materialism - good luck with that.
MM interesting how quiet things have become out of China - some anecdotal evidence from west coast brokers that the chinese money fueled frenzy in real estate is beginning to cool down noticeably, which may have something to do with the dollar not looking like a one way bet - also, if thats the case housing prices may have put in a local top for this cycle, which has other implications.
Interesting comments about University education, equality and CB liquidity. FWIW, I think the link between all of them is technology and real estate, two of my favorite topics
Reply1) The current university status quo is finished. Today's kids grow up with technology embedded in everything they do. Its inevitable that MOOC (Coursera, Udacity etc) or some form of them, will drastically push down the price of higher education, especially in STEM. Technology has always disrupted, initially in products and now finally in services. It still takes time but there is no reason to expect the unsustainable trend in rising Health Care or University costs will continue to keep rising as more and more technology is applied to them
2) Regarding inequality, for sure there is some labour inequality, but what about real estate inequality. You happened, 30 years ago to decide to buy in London, NYC or HK. Sure real estate prices were always expensive there, but compared to many other spots you simply won the lottery. Now try tell that to someone from Vancouver of Sydney (which are both very beautiful cities, but so is Boulder Co).
Real estate has two very important aspects today, 1) outside of a few burned out owners in Mobile Alabama, most global investors have only seen (or only remember) appreciating prices. if you dont think this has real wealth and economic effects, you need to study China. yes there is a real productivity boom but all that wealth went into Chinese real estate. And i'm sure the reason why Auz hasnt had a recession in 20 odd years has more than a little to do with a boom RE market
Similarly, when we talk about Debt, we are almost always talking about 2 things 1) Government Debt 2) Real estate debt. Sure there is corporate debt but it pales in comparison with the size of real estate debt. The whole US debt deflation is really just mortgages going down.
3) now linking all these ideas with CB liquidity. CB's have decided to play the only game they know, manipulate interest rates/money supply. So we live today in a world with excess money. That means people have too much money and its value is trivial. Cash is trash right. So money flows to the next best alternative. Real Estate, bingo. Old and new money want trophy properties. And hey it never goes down. And maybe there are even some investments better than real estate, its called the US stock market, it has volatility but over a long horizon it too never goes down (never mind the experience in EU or JP, they are not American so it doesnt count).
Funny what is driving US and to a good extent EM right now is tech/tech enabled companies. Amazon, FB, AAPL, GOOLE, Tencent, Bidu, Celgene etc all are proving to markets that yesterday's business valuation models can be thrown out the window when you have disruptive tech. Dont believe me, FB, looked absolutely expensive when it IPOed but it has grown so much that if it were at $40 still it would be a steal. The operating leverage in these companies is massive. But the economy as a whole isnt growing, the FB's and AMZN's are just taking share.
Eventually the game stops but I still see a few more rounds of the same game before we either 1) ditch government money for Gold/Bitcoin, 2) Global real estate implodes, 3) Tech earnings peak 4) Interest rates start rising secularly
FWIW, my view on markets is that we are near a cyclical top in corporate profits but that you should probably buy any big sell off.
"capitalism without materialism "
ReplyThat old red herring yet again. No, what may be required is to get people thinking that by raising everybody up together we are 'materially' better off than suppressing a goodly part of our society. The downside of the latter can be seen in various guises from political instability to an increase in mental health issues. I think the problem is people struggle to quantify these issues therefore assume there is no cost to them.
Apologies for being longwinded today ,but it happens when I have done a shitload of business in a short period of time and I'm left with a vacuum to fill. Thank you for being my vacuum or should I now say Dyson?
"49% of the jobs in the top wage quartile (>$58,000/yr) value coding skills."
ReplySee this jobs report: http://burning-glass.com/wp-content/uploads/Beyond_Point_Click_final.pdf
Based on BLS statistics and analysis of 26 million job postings scraped from job boards, newspapers, and other online sources in 2015.
Coding jobs represent a large and growing part of the job market. There were nearly 7 million job openings in the U.S. last year for roles requiring coding skills. This represents 20% of the total market for career-track jobs that pay $15 an hour or more. Jobs with coding skills are projected to grow 12% faster than the job market overall in the next 10 years. IT jobs are expected to grow even more rapidly: 25% faster than the overall market.1
Programming skills are in demand across a range of industries. Half of all programming openings are in Finance, Manufacturing, Health Care, and other sectors outside of the technology industry.
Jobs valuing coding skills pay $22,000 per year more, on average, than jobs that don’t: $84,000 vs $62,000 per year. The value of these skills is striking and, for students looking to increase their potential income, few other skills open the door to as many well-paying careers. Slicing the data another way, 49% of the jobs in the top wage quartile (>$58,000/yr) value coding skills.
"No, what may be required is to get people thinking that by raising everybody up together we are 'materially' better off than suppressing a goodly part of our society"
ReplyUm, the whole point of materialism is to value personal possessions and physical comfort over that kind of sublime thought - thx for making my point - so no, not a red herring. You want the productivity raising collective benefit of capitalism without the personal greed incentive that ultimately undermines it - like I said, good luck.
You miss the point perhaps because I did not make it clearly. Personal desire to own stuff is not the issue. The issue is that when capitalism doesn't work effectively you start to get political instability , probably some degree of breakdown in law and order , associated health issues likely inclusive of mental issues that give rise to some nasty stuff. All of this will come at a cost to every individual from the simple act of taking on more personal security through to health issues. All of this is at a cost and just because you do not see it on your supermarket bill doesn't mean you are not at all times paying for it either directly or indirectly. This is hardly contentious stuff, just go live in some other parts of the world to experience the fullblown effects ,but consider those effects also exist right now probably n the country you live in ,but to a lesser degree.
ReplyThe issue here is finding the balance for equitable inclusion that optimises societies productive capability and distribution of same. Ghettos and no go areas in many Western countries/cities suggests to me we have quite some way to go in finding the right formula. I certainly do not think 30%+ unemployment amongst European youth is even anywhere in the right f..g direction . Do you?
A from Robert Buckland on how corporate cash allocation is playing into all this:
Reply"Inflation Is The Endgame
This global shift away from capex towards shareholder payouts is entirely logical. In a world plagued by deflationary excess capacity it makes sense for shareholders to pressurize companies to cut back. In a world starved of income it makes sense for shareholders to pressurize companies to increase dividends.
It may not feel like it, but global equity market is doing its best to bring back inflation. If capex stays weak then output gaps should close faster than expected and pricing power return earlier than expected. We totally understand that policymakers are frustrated by the failure of corporate investment to respond to low interest rates. Of course that will keep global economic activity muted but we fail to see how deflation will be slayed if companies build even more unwanted capacity. Japan has shown us how that one ends up. Instead of using ultra cheap money to build deflationary new capacity, companies are using it to finance M&A. This should also be inflationary given that it tends to concentrate market share and increase pricing power.
Of course, CEOs may be missing out on profitable opportunities by favouring payouts over capex, but their caution is understandable given past mistakes and shareholder cynicism. This is brutal capitalism at work. Having financed excess capex and growth in the last cycle, shareholders are doing the opposite in this. This is clearly in their interests but it may create de-stabilising forces in wider society. Indeed, we suspect that the general discontent so evident right now reflects a perception that policies adopted since the financial crisis have done more to benefit the 1% than the 99%. Indeed, if policy makers really do want to get investment going, they should probably do it themselves. That’s one of the attractions of helicopter money – any subsequent capex does not need to be approved by wary shareholders.
Ultimately, we expect pricing power will come back to the corporate sector and investors will become more tolerant of capex. As that occurs, interest rates should rise and the income-obsessed bond refugees can head back home. In this environment we would expect portfolios which favour capex over shareholder payouts to perform better. But it could be a long wait."
speaking of the eternal exponential spiral of freely created credit into the only linearly expanding pool of paper claims, is anyone here running a gold/gold option book?
ReplyEuropeanBull
Replythank you for sharing it's brilliant
@abee -1:57 Loads of money out there, unless one needs to earn it. Agglomeration is capitalised into land prices, and land rents absorb excess wages and savings. Land/homeownership easily the most epic social-transfer welfare scheme.
ReplyIYR beginning to dramatically under-perform. Some of this reflects woes at the mall in the US, other than that, maybe a concern about rates? This group of investors (REIT longs) are abnormally well-informed, imho, and often begin to move early.
ReplyCrude has been a show the last two weeks into futures expiration. Rig count rising, an ongoing massive glut in products and overflowing storage of crude everywhere. We are getting short the USO again here - and adding IWM and CADUSD to the mix. The loonie may be especially vulnerable once the world hears the air exiting the Vancouver RE bubble.
Interesting comment about yen shorting, we just don't fancy that - and until there is clear technical strength in USDJPY would be more likely to err in the other direction and be long JPY in anticipation of the moves when that carry trade unwinds. There are a lot of Japanese institutions that may need to buy back the yen if US yields move up and they are forced to sell USTs.
@European Bull - yes, nicely stated. Capex would have only served to widen the output gap these last few years as aggregate demand has lagged.
Another week, another chunk of option tickers is vanished into the eternity (eventually they will resurrect in a back-testing algos). In opposite, their premium is fully accrued to my cash balance.
ReplyBut do you really think I create less value to the society than those people who buy Czech 10y bonds at 30bp?
Actually, no. On the one hand, my purpose is to protect the bond market from the Boy Plungers and ensure that American firms (including HY) can get cheap financing to buy back their stock and so to make the shareholders happy. On the other hand, I need to supply volatility and support stock prices so that firms' executives can exercise their stock options handsomely.
Of course, I need the help of the FED to operate on the full scale, but I also give something back in return.
As a matter of fact, my contribution to the real economy is huge: two mansions with servants, personal yacht with the crew, the jet, the fleet of classic cars, the art collection, personal chef, masseur, PA, etc... I do believe that the FED need a person like me on the top to spread the money down across the food chain.
In the end, I know that a regime change will come at certain time in the future. But I am not afraid - once rates will rise to an acceptable level (say 5% on 30y), I will cash-in. I will go out of the business and, instead I will buy 30y treasuries on all my capital to live off the coupons. Actually, I will be happy to do so, because then I can finally achieve my long-term ambition to devote the rest of my live entirely to the golf...
P.S. I know some of you dreading to get long vol. Forget about it: being a discretionary trader there is no way you can make money on long vol systematically in the long-term. The converse is also true, outright selling vol is a mug's game. It take years to get a proper understanding of the vol risk-premia and develop quant models to harvest it. There is one thing which is crucial to understand what trading vol is all about. If you want to learn how to make money in options systematically, pass by the nearest community college and look for an econometrics textbook to start with.
enlighten me Sigma. Which topic is it in the econometrics textbook?
ReplyMM, the wealth data is interesting. Look at tax data over same period. While year to year there are years that show increases (though some of that is noise, namely 2012), from 1998 to 2013 (last year available) share of AGI of each group, namely top 1%, top 5%, top 25% and top and bottom 50% has stayed about the same. Now, non taxed cash benefits have increased over period, as has earnings volatility (I have no data on that point), so I think better argument is income inequality has decreased from 1998 to 2013. Why has wealth data gone so far the other way?
ReplyLB, oil has looked strong, surprising me. And I am oil bull (though a bull in 2017, not today). We are in weak shoulder season, and still seeing inventory draws and IEA saying market is more or less in balance with production still dropping in non OPEC world. But you are still a bear on oil?
I believe that AGI is not a good indicator for wealth. The appreciation of asset value increases your wealth, but it will not be included in AGI unless you sell those assets. Guess who own those assets, top 1% or bottom 50%?
ReplyAnd there are many legitimate ways to reduce your AGI if you can afford a good tax attorney.
Anon 5:06, let's agree to disagree. The tax data comes from IRS records where every US taxpayer is required to report income under oath, using a standard method and is motivated to reduce income.
ReplyThe wealth data comes form surveys, with normal sampling errors, non response errors, no standard method of valuation or measuring "wealth" and where everyone thinks their assets are worth more than the market price (but that may not impact data over time).
Which is more reliable?
One would think if asset appreciation were key factor, over time it wold bleed into AGI data.
I am a good tax lawyer. We are looking at relative changes in AGI over time. The ability of a US individual to reduce AGI have decreased over time, so that factor does not explain data.
@Flowthrough,
ReplyWhich non-taxed cash benefits have increased? Probably quite a few -- just thinking some through -- health care, 401(k), Soc Sec, SNAP, TANF -- those have probably all increased in nominal dollars. Isn't the question whether they have increased more than CGI over that time?
- Whammer
I meant CPI.....
Replyhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/21/death-of-neoliberalism-crisis-in-western-politics
ReplyI suggest that this article identifies with some clarity the points I was trying (badly) to make above. When capitalism isn't equitably inclusive it perforce is likely to give rise to political instability in the from of take your pick ,Brexit , or dare I say it the election of someone like Trump. You see policemen shot down in the street because they are no longer respected has arbiters of law and order. In other words the establishment is no longer accepted has being a true and equitable representative for a significant part of the voting population. The real failure of capitalism is not that capitalism doesn't work, it is that it was sold or badly interpreted to mean that individual success could lead to a overall greater material outcome than the sum of the collective moving parts. It can't . That approach just means that for some time the pot get's apportioned in a particular way ,but a way that will be nullified by increasing system costs.
A lot of the 0.001% lagg motivating real-world ideas what to do with their ever growing financial powers beside playing games, robbing on and beeing antisocial butheads. Neoliberalism might have worked too well for them. Slaves need some hope to accept their fate. While the hope fades even for the 1%, i guess a lot of the 0.001% might be surprised one day when they realize one last time they lagg the necessary Charisma to survive the unhappiness of our times
Replywhammer, I think the question is how have the increases in non taxes cash benefits impacted the income inequality changes (or lack of any change) shown by the tax data from 1998 to 2013.
ReplyIn other words, has the non cash tax benefits increased more for bottom 50%, top 1%, or some other group.
If 1998 is starting point, I think it is clear that non cash tax benefits have increased more for bottom 50%, namely Obamacare and food stamps. So the lack of increase in income inequality show by tax data is likely a decrease in income inequality when non cash tax benefits are included.
Relying on taxes as a proxy for income growth rates seems specious, as it assumes a standard tax rate across and within income cohorts. In fact, the SCF from 2013 does provide a read on income cohorts: the gap narrowed from the period immediately before the GFC, but was still wider than it was in the mid 1990's.
Reply
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