Quantitative Easing

Money-printing turns out to be the grift that keeps on giving. The US stock markets retraced all their October jitter lines, and bonds plumped up nicely in anticipation of hot so-called “money” wending its digital way from other lands to American banks. Euroland, too, accepted some gift inflation as its currency weakened. The world seems to have forgotten for a long moment that all this was rather the opposite of what America’s central bank has been purported to seek lo these several years of QE heroics — namely, a little domestic inflation of its own to simulate if not stimulate the holy grail of economic growth. Of course all that has gotten is the Potemkin stock market, a fragile, one-dimensional edifice concealing the post-industrial slum that the on-the-ground economy has become behind it.

"Perhaps sooner rather than later, investors must recognize that modern day inflation, while a necessary condition for survival, is not a sufficient condition for increasing wealth at a rate necessary to satisfy future liabilities associated with education, health care, and a satisfactory retirement. The real economy needs money printing, yes, but money spending more so, and that must come from the fiscal side – from the dreaded government side – where deficits are anathema and balanced budgets are increasingly in vogue. Until then, deflation remains a growing possibility – not the kind that creates prosperity but the kind that’s the trouble for prosperity."

When a central bank buys an asset directly (often government bonds), it drives up the price of this asset, the demand for which increases. But the prices of the other asset classes increase only if the economic agents that have sold the first assets to the central bank use the money received to buy these other asset classes. This transmission of increases in asset prices to all asset classes is therefore unstable, since it depends on the behaviour of investors and savers. There is therefore no stable monetary policy "risk channel"; the only asset prices that are controlled by central banks in the longer run are those of the assets that central banks buy directly... hence Japan has now resorted to buying Japanese stocks directly.

Japan’s aging population needs rising prices like a hole in the head. The more “successful” Mr. Kuroda becomes in forcing prices up, the less money people will have to spend and invest. The economy will weaken, not strengthen, as a result. The advantages the export sector currently enjoys are paid for by the entire rest of the economy. moreover, even this advantage is fleeting. It only exists as long as domestic prices have not yet fully adjusted to the fall in the currency’s value. If one could indeed debase oneself to prosperity, it would long ago have been demonstrated by someone. While money supply growth in Japan has remained tame so far, the “something for nothing” trick implied by the BoJ’s massive debt monetization scheme is destined to end in a catastrophe unless it is stopped in time. Once confidence actually falters, it will be too late.

The Federal Reserve is saying one thing, but is actually doing the complete opposite...

"Do we really need QE every time the market gets nervous? Right now the world is a very vulnerable place... we are in the midst of a big bubble that will - down the line - be referred to as 'The QE Bubble'"

This is only going to usher in the next round of the Great Crisis that much faster. Only this time around, entire countries will go bust, NOT just banks.

Marty Fridson, CIO at Lehmann Livian Fridson Advisors, has been a leading figure in the high-yield bond market since it was known as the "junk bond" market — and he sees as much as $1.6 trillion in high-yield defaults coming in a surge he expects to begin soon... “And this is not based on an apocalyptic forecast,” he warns.

Bankruptcies in Japan more than doubled in the first nine months of 2014 compared with the same period a year ago. Japan has embarked on a radical monetary experiment to spur inflation. But it may backfire and lead to stagflation and in a worst case scenario a German ‘Weimar’ style hyperinflation ...

From a market perspective the move today was almost perfectly timed coming on the heels of a Federal Open Market Committee meeting which ended quantitative easing and expose the big difference on future monetary paths between the BoJ and the Fed. There is, however, a dark side to this big move.. telling a story of how central banks, even the desperate ones like BoJ, are and remain one-trick-pony institutions: "this is the final round – Japan was ALWAYS going to give it one more shot – now it happened."

Central banks are printing rules almost as fast as they’re printing money. The consequences of these fast-multiplying directives — complicated, long-winded, and sometimes self-contradictory — is one topic at hand. Manipulated interest rates is a second. Distortion and mispricing of stocks, bonds, and currencies is a third. Skipping to the conclusion of this essay, Jim Grant is worried: "The more they tried, the less they succeeded. The less they succeeded, the more they tried. There is no 'exit.'"

The question that remains to be answered is whether the economy and the financial markets are strong enough to stand on their own this time? The last two times that QE has ended the economy slid towards negative growth and the markets suffered rather severe correction...

When the next crisis comes there will no doubt be economists and commentators who blame it on some proximal event, like the failure of a large important financial institution. Don’t be fooled. The seeds of the next crisis are already sown. Fed policy under Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen has distorted the economy in a way that makes it precariously fragile, and susceptible to collapse.

"Remember, the Fed has injected into the market nearly 4 Trillion dollars. That’s $4,000,000,000,000.00. To put this into perspective... the equivalent in dollar amounts to have purchased 510 B-2 Stealth Bombers, 72 Nimitz Class Air Craft Carriers, 120 Ohio Class Submarines. and still have Two TRILLION or so left in my pocket left to spend." As far as what we have to show for all this spending at the end of QE this month? Who knows, but I do know – we didn’t even get a lousy T-shirt.

"Steady as she goes" was expected... having kept the "considerable time" dream alive last month, the FOMC ended QE3 on schedule but remained 'data-dependent' on reviving it... (even as Kocherlakota dissented)

• *FED ENDS THIRD ROUND OF QUANTITATIVE EASING AS PLANNED
• *FED SEES `SOLID JOB GAINS' WITH LOWER UNEMPLOYMENT
• *FED REPEATS RATES TO STAY LOW FOR `CONSIDERABLE TIME'

And so now the "flow" has stopped; given that "bond buying" did not work, we are reminded of Alan Greenspan's warning that  "I don’t think it’s possible" for the Fed to end its easy-money policies in a trouble-free manner. Full redline below.