Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog [11],
This is just plain sick. Hardly a day after the greatest central bank fraudster of all time, Maestro Greenspan, confessed that QE has not helped the main street economy and jobs, the lunatics at the BOJ flat-out jumped the monetary shark. Even then, the madman Kuroda pulled off his incendiary maneuver by a bare 5-4 vote. Apparently the dissenters - Messrs. Morimoto, Ishida, Sato and Kiuchi - are only semi-mad.
Never mind that the BOJ will now escalate its bond purchase rate to $750 billion per year - a figure so astonishingly large that it would amount to nearly $3 trillion per year if applied to a US scale GDP. And that comes on top of a central bank balance sheet which had previously exploded to nearly 50% of Japan’s national income or more than double the already mind-boggling US ratio of 25%.
In fact, this was just the beginning of a Ponzi scheme so vast that in a matter of seconds its ignited the Japanese stock averages by 5%. And here’s the reason: Japan Inc. is fixing to inject a massive bid into the stock market based on a monumental emission of central bank credit created out of thin air. So doing, it has generated the greatest front-running frenzy ever recorded.
The scheme is so insane that the surge of markets around the world in response to the BOJ’s announcement is proof positive that the mother of all central bank bubbles now envelopes the entire globe. Specifically, in order to go on a stock buying spree, Japan’s state pension fund (the GPIF) intends to dump massive amounts of Japanese government bonds (JCB’s). This will enable it to reduce its government bond holding - built up over decades - from about 60% to only 35% of its portfolio.
Needless to say, in an even quasi-honest capital market, the GPIF’s announced plan would unleash a relentless wave of selling and price decline. Yet, instead, the Japanese bond market soared on this dumping announcement because the JCBs are intended to tumble right into the maws of the BOJ’s endless bid. Charles Ponzi would have been truly envious!
Accordingly, the 10-year JGB is now trading at a microscopic 43 bps and the 5-year at a hardly recordable 11 bps. So, say again. The purpose of all this massive money printing is to drive the inflation rate to 2%. Nevertheless, Japanese government debt is heading deeper into the land of negative real returns because there are no rational buyers left in the market - just the BOJ and some robots trading for a few bps of spread on the carry.
Whether it attains its 2% inflation target or not, its is blindingly evident that the BOJ has destroyed every last vestige of honest price discovery in Japan’s vast bond market. Notwithstanding the massive hype of Abenomics, Japan’s real GDP is lower than it was in early 2013, while its trade accounts have continued to deteriorate and real wages have headed sharply south.
So there is no recovery whatsoever—-not even the faintest prospect that Japan can grow out if its massive debts. The latter now stands at a staggering 250% of GDP on the government account and upwards of 600% of GDP when the debts of business, households and the financial sectors are included. And on top of that there is Japan’s inexorable demographic bust—–a force which will shrink the labor force and squeeze even further its tepid growth of output as far as the eye can see.
Stated differently, Japan is an old age colony which is heading for bankruptcy. It has virtually no prospect for measurable economic growth and a virtual certainty that taxes will keep rising —since notwithstanding the much lamented but unavoidable consumption tax increase last spring it is still borrowing 40 cents on every dollar it spends.
So 5-year JGBs yielding just 11 bps are an insult to rationality everywhere, and a warning that Japan’s financial system is a disaster waiting to happen. But even that is not the end of it. Having slashed its historic holdings of JCBs, the GPIF will now double it allocation to equities, raising its investment in domestic and international stocks to 24% each.
Stated differently, 50% of GPIF’s $1.8 trillion portfolio will flow into world stock markets. On top of that—the BOJ will pile on too—-tripling its annual purchase of ETFs and other equity securities. This is surely madness, but the point of the whole enterprise explains why the world economy is in such extreme danger. A Japanese market watcher caught the essence of it in his observation about the madman who runs the bank of Japan,
“Kuroda loves a surprise — Kuroda doesn’t care about common sense, all he cares about is meeting the price target,” said Naomi Muguruma, a Tokyo-based economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co., who correctly forecast more stimulus today.
That’s right. Its 2% on the CPI…..come hell or high water. There is not a smidgeon of evidence that 2% inflation is any better for the real growth of enterprise, labor hours supplied and economic productivity than is 1% or 3%. Its pure Keynesian mythology. Yet all the world’s central banks are beating a path toward the same mindless 2% inflation target that lies behind this morning’s outbreak of monetary madness in Japan.
Folks, look-out below. As George W. Bush said in another context…..this sucker is going down!
