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Deutsche Bank: "We Think Something Structurally Changed Since The Great Financial Crisis"
The topic of whether central banks have destroyed the global business cycle to the point where all we have is phase jumps from one bubble to another (with an intervening depression in the interim) where central banks inject record amounts of new debt-created liquidity to cover up the credit excesses of the most recent bubble, has gained prominence following the recent comments by none other than the almost-Fed head Larry Summers who advocated the creation of an even bigger asset bubble to push the economy onward and upward. Below we present some much more sober and rational thoughts on this topic by Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid.
Do we need bubbles for growth?
The worrying feature of the DM economy over the last decade or so (and perhaps longer) is that it seems that we’ve needed to pursue ever looser policy to enable us to hang on to what has actually been lower and lower trend growth. However the consequence appears to be that markets have moved from bubble to bubble. On the slowing growth front, Figure 7 tracks real GDP growth by decade for the G7. It’s quite clear that growth has been on a declining trend now for several decades with this century’s growth being very disappointing across the board in spite of very accommodative monetary and fiscal policies and the inflating of at least two major asset bubbles around the globe.
Since 2000, the US has outperformed all but Canada across its G7 peers but has averaged only 1.9% real growth. As for the rest of the G7, the average growth rate over the same period has been 2.2%, 1.7%, 1.3%, 1.2%, 1.0% and 0.3% for Canada, UK, Germany, France, Japan and Italy respectively.
Even though the US is the relative star performer in this cohort (ex Canada) this remains one of the weakest US recoveries on record and one that continues to disappoint to the downside. As regular readers know we like to monitor nominal GDP in this cycle due to the requirement to erode the still substantial debt burden. On this measure this is the second-weakest US recovery since our data begins in the early 1920s (Figure 8). The weakest was the rebound after the 1929 crash that turned into the Great Depression. Figure 9 then shows that this slowdown is a global problem. The 5-year rolling nominal GDP growth number is now at its lowest level for 80 years.

Are we now finally going to revert back to pre-crisis levels of growth or are we going to appreciate that a) the trend rate of growth for DM economies has slowed markedly (perhaps due to demographics and other structural issues), b) that current inflation is becoming dangerously low but financial market liquidity dangerously high and that c) current policies are not having as big an impact on growth as hoped or expected (i.e. we’re possibly in a liquidity trap).
We think that something structurally has changed since the GFC, a change that seems destined to continue to hold back growth in the near-term and more worryingly has lowered the longer-term trend rate of growth. In the absence of structural reforms, a lack of appetite for debt restructuring and no ability to pursue more aggressive fiscal policy, the temptation will be strong globally to continue to throw liquidity at the problem which is likely to continue to have more impact on asset prices than the actual economy. Bubbles could easily form which could ultimately be the catalyst for the imbalances that will likely lead to the next recession or crisis. So to avoid bubbles we possibly need the US and global economy to have a stronger year and for activity to withstand the impact of tapering and the inevitable higher yields that this combination would bring. The jury is still out as to whether this can happen though and it might be that the US needs very low yields by historic standards to maintain a recovery. It might also be the case that the rest of the world needs low US yields too. 2014 will be a test of this.
Our base case is that the world needs low yields and high liquidity given the huge amount of outstanding debt that we’re still left with post the leverage bubble and the GFC. There’s still too much leverage for us to believe that accidents won’t happen with the removal of too much stimulus. If we’re correct, we may see a reaction somewhere to tapering and this in turn may force the Fed into a much slower tapering path than it wants.
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just gonna leave this here.
You lost me at: Deutsche Bank: "We Think...
Probably has something to do w/ the death of Democracy...Congress spending money they don’t have the tax revenue to cover…thus Treasury issues debt for which it has no intention of ever paying back the principal, an ARM i/o payment scheme…we are now to the point where the “typical” 5% to 7% interest payments on this debt would eat nearly 50% of tax revenue…so the Fed pushes rates ever lower to reduce the interest payments…but the low payments even became too much so the Fed now buys all new and rollover debt and remits the interest payments to the Treasury…via this path the Fed can increase from its present 20% holding of 1yr and longer Treasury debt to X?. By this means, the Congress will never be forced to do the hard work of prioritizing spending versus taxation. This was de Toqueville’s observation and warning; “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money”…&…”A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.”
Now it all comes down to whether there are global consequences to bad governance or collusion to maintain global bad governance? Will anyone be served by scaling back or replacing the “petro-dollar”…or will the Fed turn us into Japan by domesticating our debt...or both?
All this in a world with ever less exportable energy, ever less cheap energy, ever less resources, and ever more demands for those resources. In this environment, extrapolating previous periods of inflation or growth is likely great folly…people are capable of being so smart but groups are incredibly stupid. Group think rules.
"ever less cheap energy" - please, things like "price" are really irrelevant in a "market" that no longer has a mechanism for true price discovery.
It really comes down to the calories returned relative to the calories you invested. If humanity is burning 100 calories for every 10 calories worth of energy we recover (regardless of the energy "store"), then shit will change regardless of what a bunch of sheep think.
So, what do we as individuals do for our families? Diversify.
And for most, that means get some physical gold. Those with the right skill set, energy (i'm getting old for example) can go with a producing farm, etc. Stocking up on assets like gold & silver, food & water, guns & ammo is better than doing NOTHING.
Diversification, sure, includes holding some stocks and bonds. But, times seem to have changed, things are more corrupt, I would guess at the corporate level much more so than deacdes ago.
If only 1% really own (non-jewelry) gold, then there is ONE SIMPLE ANSWER...
EDIT:
My own non-expert opinion is that cheap energy and all the other depressing things are all more likely to be true than not. Prepare.
general consensus what is being done won't "work" to make things better for average people (at least among realists of ZH...I know, lots of folks now call realists pessimists for addressing questions which have no easy, painless answers that don't require change).
I can easily make the case why every asset is destroyed or elevated to infinity. In a game without rules trying to determine how to win (or just not lose) is a tough task that can drive those willing to try to the edge...
Nice summary Ham.
So Fiat for Land sounds like a good play......
Wow, hard to get happy after reading that one!
I read the first paragraph and said to myself:
Yeah it's called a debt supercycle ya overpaid, ballwashing cocksuckers.
It's the damn debt stupid. We will continue with this shitty economy until there are some defaults and the fractional reserve banking system collapses taking the central banking parasites with them.
Does this not want to make you grab them by their pencil necks and choke the ever fucking life out of them? I cannot believe people this fucking stupid are in charge of anything more than a piggy bank.
It makes me want to grab their necks because they know where the problem lies, but they try to obfuscate it to cover their asses.
Its like thousands of people [DB employees] across the globe just figured out that hitting people with hammers might hurt them. They, and people like them, really do live on another planet.
PS DB is right there in line, bellying up to the Fed's discount window whenever they please.
I say it doesn't matter how the life goes out of them. As long as the Central Bankers die. Happy ending for the masses.
The world is addicted to debt
The most dangerous drug you can get
The patient may die
From removing the high
Is that any reason to fret?
Economic activity will only pick up when we have the debt jubilee and the citizens own assets vs debt. Currently the citizens by and large are debt slaves and they've got nowhere to go. Subsequently they don't participate for the most part other than doing what is necessary to keep their heads over water. Not everyone can serve the 1% and the consumption of the 1% is not enough to keep the economy going.
Debt jubilee which is a wealth reduction on a tremendous scale to bring back some form of balance and a chance for growth in the middle class.
In a few months, maybe couple years max the governments will agree to cut off some zeros from the debt accounting. Standard practice in a currency reform. Debts and liabilities will be reduced and assets will be revalued. They will give a window of a few weeks to exchange old money 1:1 (up to $10,000) to the new money and going to a lesser exchange after that. Every citizen will be given a few token dollars to restart the system. The winners will be all gold and silver bugs if they can hold on long enough and avoid confiscation. Exchange of gold and silver for new money will be limited and proof of ownership may be required. It will be tricky to go around that in a global reset.
Explain how this will work from a political standpoint. Someone with zero debt and a bunch of FRNs, such as myself, would not be very enthusiastic about such a scheme. Can't think of any scenario where the political class would put forth such an idea.
Are they serious? They just now figured out that the Fed's policies are keeping asset prices rising rather than any actual demand in the economy? And there it is again - the veiled threat that any reduction in loose policies will result in further financial setbacks.
[Extremely non-complimentary swearing at them removed]
Careful, you will fall victim to the manipulator's language, there are 7+ billion people on the planet all competing for a better standard of living (something that requires energy and commodities), so there is plenty of demand.
manipulating the language is an important part of the propaganda. Demand for plastic crap you don't really need, yeah, that might be going down...
That and demand for financial "products" of mass destruction...
Of course. There is always going to be demand for food, shelter, and clothing. I'm referring to intangible assets whose value is set out of thin air, fantasized rather than realized. And now the deutschebags are a bit worried about it?
I have no pity for those people. As one great ZHer said "Jump, fuckers, jump".
Cleaning up my filthy language is on my New Years Resolution list.
Ahhh...fuck that. Fuck Douche Bank too. Fuck them.
They just now figured out that the Fed's policies are keeping asset prices rising
Question: Are they rising due to old fashion demand or the upward press of inflation? All those dollars the fed is pumping will have to show up somewhere eventually, no?
Well duh. Create all the credits out of thin air that you want to, the calories (i.e. energy) that is required to actually create or do anything of real value is what it is.
Roll the guillotines already.
nothing changes otherwise.
How perceptive of Deutsche Bank - they really are way ahead of everyone with their forward thinking. Where have these dumbo's been for the last 3 years ?
No shit, Sherlock
The Fed will try a little taper...see intrest rates go up...then come back in to try and save the day...but I think the dominos will be falling by then and they will not be able to save it fast enough...maybe a trillion overnight might do it...but they will have to play catch up quick...
The only thing that might buy more time would be a completely "unforeseen" agreement by all CBs to wipe out all derivatives, bad debt, and other bullshit "assets". Even that will not stop the world's more back to sound money and away from fiat (by choice or otherwise).
I remain long sharecropping and black markets.
I agree with this basic sentiment, and consider the odds of an "orderly" unwind to be roughly equivalent to those of Rafael Nadal's girlfriend choosing me, should I throw my hat in the ring.
In many ways, I think it has already happened. Think of Japan's debt, then ask yourself, "why in the fuck is anyone still doing business with this island?"
My worst fear is that the "default" is hiding in plain site and will continue to do so until people (on a horrifically large scale) simply cannot be fed. Not because the they don't have cash (as was the case with the last great depression), but because the supply and supply lines simply don't exist. I mean, after all, the age of the dinosaurs was pretty damn awesome for certain groups, like the T-rex. look how that turned out...
same as it ever was.
There's probably more than a few TBTF entities would crash with the suggested wipe out agreement, even though others might survive with more sound and fundamental bottom lines. So thererfore we will likely keep playing the extend and pretend musical chairs game where only a single player kind of maybe loses a seat or loses privilige at any one time. And even then with bail in and printing, the pain is being spread out to those not so directly involved in any one underlying crisis.
Talk about the pain being spread out, Detroit pensioners left with .16c per Dollar. They are fronted the burdon of a motor city madness drag race to hell! The automobile manufacturing exitious was just like the steel industry closings of the 70s exept there was Brentonwoods ll that prolonged trades imbalances and excesses (To some degree)
I get dizzy just tying my shoes, after that i'm good for the whole day though.
In other news, water is wet and the sun is fucking hot.
..and he does'nt mean Stove Top Hot.
"We think something changed structurally"
Good Lord, the once proud Germans have been turned into such word-mincing pussies; hell Pussies, across the board.
Bluntly: The Communist US Government and the shyster led Fed are fiscal criminals of the worst sort.
In the mode of Sam Kinnison:
Say it! Just say it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfi4s8cjLFI
A) It took them *this* long to figure out?
B) Someone actually gets paid for this analysis?
Sonny from "A Bronx Tale" was right. The working man is a fuckin' sucker.
Interesting structural considerations are made here :
http://web.archive.org/web/20111112074159/http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
Why not look in one of the most obvious places first for causality in structural issues?
I enjoyed that piece. I did notice however that you referred to humans as a "race" when in fact we are a "species" and the fossil record is very clear that species come and go and the laws of Nature and Physics are a harsh mistress.
"...the laws of Nature and Physics are a harsh mistress."
Presumably, then, we are rapidly approaching the cock and ball torture point of the session.
You might note how I have to go to an archive to get at it now. And somebody broke several of the fun links that were touching in ways.
They really do make this game up as they go along, dont they.
"We think that something structurally has changed since the GFC, a change that seems destined to continue to hold back growth in the near-term and more worryingly has lowered the longer-term trend rate of growth"..
Code Speak for...
Give us back our Frickn gold if you want us to keep the reality message "opaque" for you.
All just speculating about how the Hells Angels biker attitude will be to decreased free crystal meth and heroin injections. The only way it ends is a murderous rampage.
Bond market says no US Fed taper, end of story.
It's keep printing over and over again.
The US Federal Reserve keeps increasing purchases of US debt. From over 30% to 50%.
george clooney matt damon bono and obarma said this was a sad day in world history.
mandinka mandela is being buried.
heres an old bit of history 3 icons meet
castro
mandela
iphone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7abiBIsuySY
The dickless, obviously white-guilt plagued, self-hating U2 frontman yet again?
Well then, I'll just pop-in to tell the hugely overrated and consistently big-mouthed Bono, to get his fucking Irish hands out of the American taxpayer's pockets.
If you want to save hopeless Africa, dig into your own hideous overcompensated pile o'Rock cash.
Four clueless wonders reading from scripts. I find it amazing that any of them have the brain capacity to keep their bodies' autonomous systems functioning, let alone the ability to walk and speak.
Like we used to say in grade school, he who smelt it dealt it.
Liquidity trap and hanging Ponzi scheme
come to mind.
This is interesting.
LL on a 2d leg down.
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/candleglance.html?LL|C
Douche Bank:
You know you're the problem, right? There can be no growth, let alone stability or price discovery, with you and other fucktards like you calling the shots. Just fucking die already, and fuck you, you fucking fucks.
DB really?
$58 billion of the total passed through AIG to foreign banks. The three largest recipients were the French bank Societe Generale ($11.9 billion), Deutsche Bank in Germany ($11.8 billion) and Barclays Bank in Britain ($8.5 billion).
Something has changed and if we do not audit the FED and liquidate the debt and flip these guys in receivership dam straight this is the new normal.
You have banks being run by oligopoly research that 'ASS U ME you can"t do second grade arithmetic on concentrating Fiat to top 1%
ya think?
What happened? Perhaps the Peak Oil camp is right....the end of growth has arrived with the end of cheap and easily-retrievable petroleum.
Very little to do with "peak oil", everything to do with continuous expansion of the tentacles of government, in all western countries, which makes it increasingly difficult for anyone to produce anything, while paying people to not work, paying farmers to not produce, and licensing (via payments to politicians) an expanding horde of parasites (including banksters, lawyers and large politically connected firms) to asset strip everyone else.
The only "growth" in US GDP for a decade or more has been the growth of asset stripping (ie where wealth is taken from one to the benefit of another without any actual value being created).
Structually there is no juice left to suck out of the host.
gabor mate said something like
"people are all tits walking around looking for the nipple."
.
and someone else said something like ..
" wall street and the industrial complexes are
the genitalia that lick themselves-itself. "
anyway ...
@"Structually there is no juice left to suck out of the host."
reminds me of the incest meme of 2009 when i entered this oh so
public discussion that has been festering for thousands of years.
sometimes i wish i never was born but that is absurd, so onward!
My stone isn't bleeding anymore.
Now what?
We have excessive debt and excessive government. Is it that difficult to figure out?
If the FED weren't a giant tapeworm in the gut of the country they could end QE and set long term rates at 6%.
Problem being that the de-worming pill to kill the FED would also kill the TBTF: amoeba in the brain, lice on the head, and ticks in the groin.
Central Banks began an all out war against everyone after the GFC. They are destroying the world as they steal everyone's money. They are bankers. That's what bankers do.
Arrest them. Don't let them get away.
Is "increasing liquidity" another way of saying "stealing from the productive to give to the unproductive?"
in the immortal words of J. Wellington Wimpy
"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ6xBaZ92uA
The TBTF thought the FED was Popeye's SPINACH BUT TURNED OUT TO BE SUPERMAN'S Kryptonite.
UNFORTUNATELY NOT FICTIONAL RESULTS.
I'll tell WTF has changed, you Bankster Douchbag: You and your ilk will never get a Fucking cent of what I earn for the rest of my working and investing career.
That's what has changed AssHoles, and I doubt I am alone.
Such enlightening revelations from the most fucked up bank on the planet. And these guys get paid how much to tell us what's obvious to anyone with 2 brain cells?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tooGwkFZU1c&list=PLx-NqdCl-FTM-LWN46-40y6...
Money Snooks Eaglin
.
Dr. Gabor Maté: Attachment and Brain Development
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKES1nyitAg
Read more at http://www.maxkeiser.com/2013/12/why-our-consumer-debt-dependent-economy...
.
attention deficit disorder and addiction gone societal,
could be.
"....temporary state become a long term trait." look out.
and
"when society becomes an addict" by anne wilson shaef 1987
yea, something happened all right.
.
Joni Mitchell - Raised On Robbery
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RH7m3ssPlo
"central banks inject record amounts of new debt-created liquidity to cover up the credit excesses crimes of the most recent bubble"
Small line edit for ya. Without QE, the mortgage-backed securities are just sitting inside the banks, ripe for the picking with subpoenas and document requests from litigation. Those documents are replete with more layers of fraud than a lasagna has noodles. And please don't start with the 5-year statute of limitations on fraud excuse. For one thing, fraud on the court--which many of these documents facilitated and abetted in connection with robo-signing and fraudulent foreclosures--carries no such statute of limitations. Like murder.
QE also helps the criminal banking enterprise hide its own insolvency.
well said!
- overstating the obvious and talking the Euro's book, nothing more ...
YOU ARE INSOLVENT DEUTSCHE BANK - ALONG WITH JPM, BOFA, BARCLAYS, ETC...
AS INSTITUTIONS, YOU ARE ROTTED AND UNETHICAL AND CRIMINAL.
OF COURSE YOU NEED FREE CURRENCY. YOU ARE A BLACK HOLE OF ACCOUNTING. YOU WILL ROB YOUR SOLVENCY FROM THE LABOUR OF THE PEOPLE.
MY WORDS TO THE BANKING CARTEL - "EAT MY SH*T!"
It's too late to fix it and too early to hang anybody...
Let me think what it could be... Oh yeah a broken social contract... the end of the rule of law... a government of men. That should do it. Next question please.
Far from being fiscally irresponsible in 2008 Spain’s sovereign debt was 35% of GDP and Ireland’s was also far better than Germany’s. It was the collapse of their private banks that pushed up these countries sovereign debt. If they had allowed those banks to go to the wall it would have been German banks that would have been obliterated – Germany was been the biggest source of capital in the bubble period – net exporters of goods are necessarily net exporters of capital.
If the losses on the German loans to peripheral borrowers were realised in the 2008 crash then obviously all of Germany’s gains from six years of trade surpluses would have been eliminated at a stroke. This is the usual fate of persistent (and therefore unsustainable) trade & capital imbalances – particularly trade surpluses extracted by a wealthier country at the expense of a poorer one (in defiance of comparative advantages that should accrue to the poorer party). In the event of southern banking default the level of German state support for the German financial system would have been both immediate and enormous.
Basically the Spanish and Portuguese taxpayers (and their rapidly growing army of the unemployed) are now subsidising German banks and the bailout loans (with German guarantees) have simply been offered as for profit bridging finance to enable this southern subsidy to continue.
Obviously this funding was raised on the market and no actual German money was “transferred”. The bailout funds purpose was all about preserving the paper value of German junk loans at the lowest cost to Germany and for the highest future return. The bailouts were paid to enforce full Southern debt repayment at grotesquely inflated bubble values. It was certainly not about the economic welfare of the peripheral economies who were not being bailed out but tied down and bled to death according to the medieval doctrines of austerity.
So the periphery had to have “conditionality” imposed over their national budgets (famously German MP’s were allowed to scrutinise the Irish budget before the Irish representatives were permitted to view them). Some states even had to have their governments deposed, referendums cancelled and EU apparatchiks appointed. All state policy in the periphery had to be directed towards the repayment and reduction of the debt burden. No write downs and no burden sharing was the German plan and they successfully translated this narrow and self serving agenda into EU policy. A massive fiscal and monetary contraction was imposed on economies already crippled by a massive collapse in private demand. The subsequent economic meltdown in the periphery was therefore deliberately engineered in order to insulate German banks and German bondholders from the consequences of their own poor decisions.
The contracted pension pledges made to the Greek retired have been broken and their pensions have been slashed to fund the “conditionality” of making Greece’s debt payments. Greece has been ordered to cut all expenditure that isn’t immediately connected to servicing the debt schedule. Now all funding provided by the Troika goes straight to foreign bondholders – none of it is available for essential services in Greece. So there has been no waiting for better days for Greeks - their economy has collapsed by nearly 30% in value since the Troika took charge of their economic affairs. Poverty levels have grown by nearly 40% - with youth unemployment reaching 60% poverty is now Greece’s only growth industry. “Destroy yourselves now” has been both the command and the effect of the Troika regime.
This is why German policy has had (and continues to have) so invidious an impact on the welfare of tens of millions of Europeans. This is not to demonise Germany but to clearly demonstrate the objective culpability that Germany carries for this disaster. Modern Germany is not being criticised here for the war(s) or for the genocide(s) of the past – she is being criticised for deliberately perpetrating a new crime against Europe. It seems to me that only a comprehensive absence of self awareness can be offered as a reason why the Germans are not now very alarmed at the price that they will ultimately pay for this newly minted crime against Europe. Of all nations Germans should be acutely aware that deliberately damaging the interests of her European neighbours brings the inevitable destruction of Germany in its wake…….
Mobydick,
Nice summary. Helped me.
It is not the German nation, it is the fascists in Germany, France, Japan, Great Britain, Italy and America(and so on).
Did you supose they went away?
Hell no, bigger and better than ever, better organized.
And ever more ruthless
It will end the way it always does. After loses for us they will be pushed back to burn in Hell for eternity.
Or beg for compassion.
Bill
Dr Doom Albert Edwards of Soc Gen made exactly the same point in Nov:
Similarly, investors? perceptions of the ?normal? length of an economic cycle are strongly
influenced by their own working experience. In that context the last three economic cycles
have been unusually lengthy, averaging 95 months from trough to peak (see chart below). But
these cycles were perversions of the economic cycle, as the Fed manipulated the private
sector credit cycle to extend the cycle which became known as The Great Moderation. The
longer the cycle lasts, the more investors convince themselves that it has been abolished and
lower their guard in relation to overpaying for cyclical investments (aka risk).