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本帖最后由 星洲炒米 于 2017-10-2 22:09 编辑
美联储现在最有可能当选下任主席的人选是Kevin Warsh,他的老婆是Estee Lauder老板的女儿,Estee Lauder老板Ronald Lauder是川普的最铁的哥们, 他们是宾夕法尼亚大学的同窗。Kevin Warsh可是一个超级鹰派的,一旦上台会快速疯狂加息的,当年因为坚决抵制QE辞职。人很年轻,如果他上台只能加利息更快,缩表更快。
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ste ... umber/#7524e9b016b8
Kevin Warsh: Are We Sliding Into Another Financial Crisis?
Kevin Warsh, Fed governor from 2006 to 2011 and now a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, appeared on CNBC this morning and shared some important thoughts on Federal Reserve policy and its impact on markets.
“The markets,” he said, “have been absolutely spoiled by the Federal Reserve and its accommodative monetary policy since the depths of the 2008 financial crisis.”
"Now, I would say the markets are exhausted because the Fed keeps deciding that there's a new set of benchmarks. Before it was forward guidance. Now it's, 'Just kidding about forward guidance!' The Fed said, “Once we get to 6.5% unemployment, we are going to get going and raise rates.” But it's now 5.5 percent or even 5 percent. Markets are exhausted by all this.”
“The ‘taper tantrum’ back in the days of quantitative easing bond purchases and now the ‘dollar tantrum’ ahead of possible rate hikes forced central bank policymakers to reconsider their timing.”
“The financial markets think they have Fed Chair Janet Yellen's number. This is a very dangerous development, when markets think they can control things.”
Inflation is not a real issue
Warsh was asked whether low inflation was a good reason for not raising rates.
“The inflation excuse for not rushing into rate hikes isn’t sound. The reality is inflation is not a problem. Core inflation, which excludes the volatile food and energy components, is running at about 1.5 percent—only slight lower than the Fed's 2 percent target. What's the difference to the real economy?"
"I don't like policies that are being changed based on what's happening on our ticker machine. Contrary to the tradition for some thirty years, the Fed has started talking about the dollar. The Federal Reserve should be focused on what's happening three or four years out, not recent data being skewed by harsh winter weather or the dollar.”
“Quantitative easing was designed as an emergency policy in a state of emergency. We shouldn’t use emergency policies when things are ok.”
The mis-allocation of resources is real
“The Fed talks about the great successes of Quantitative Easing. But the average wage earner without a big balance sheet hasn’t seen the benefits. Instead we have mis-allocation of capital. What it means is that we haven’t seen investment in plants and equipment. What it means that corporate profits appear to have peaked and are going down. What it means is that we are stuck in what the Fed seems to believe is secular stagnation. We have fallen into the secular stagnation trap suggesting that the economy can’t do more than this."
“We have pursued policies which are stagnating. The underlying economic results are poor. Too many in ‘the secular stagnation crowd’ say that it was inevitable. People can’t see what would have happened if policies had been different.”
“But what’s not invisible is the front page of the Financial Times today: ‘Another great quarter for Mergers and Acquisitions. (M&A)’ M&A volumes are up 21%. It’s a terrific year. Investments are going into share buybacks and financial engineering to try to find some top-line investment. Companies stay in business far longer than they ever should have been, because they can roll over debt and not fail when they should have.”
Going into a crisis with great complacency
“We now have negative real interest rates," said Warsh. "We have done this twice before in our history. From 1974 to 1976, we had a persistent level of negative real rates driving mis-allocations of capital. That experiment didn’t turn out too well. From 2002 to 2004, we had negative real interest rates for a persistent period. That didn’t turn out too well. Will it turn out well this time? None of us know. This is an experiment that we should be doing with great care and great modesty without obvious conviction that there are no financial stability risks.”
CNBC asked whether Warsh was surprised that negative real interest rates have lasted this long.
“I am not surprised,” said Warsh, “that markets continue to want to drink the Kool-Aid. I’m not surprised that investors think the good times can happen forever. We have done this before and gone into a crisis with great complacency and we are seeing it again.”
The alarming explosion of “covenant-lights”
Warsh was asked about "covenant-lights."
If you had never heard of credit default swaps before 2008, you have probably never heard of “covenant lights.” The term “covenant-lights” is financial jargon for risky loan agreements that do not contain the usual protective covenants for the benefit of the lender. In such loans, the lender cannot intervene if the financial position of the borrower or the value of underlying assets deteriorates. Around 2006, there was a "race to the bottom", with syndicates of banks competing with each other to offer ever less invasive terms to borrowers in relation to leveraged buy-outs. Such loans are very profitable for banks and their traders in a low interest rate environment. But they are riskier because they lack the early warning signs that lenders would otherwise receive through traditional covenants. Where risks are further dispersed through derivatives, the scale and location of the risks are opaque, with significant implications if things turn bad: nobody knows who owes what to whom. This can lead to the whole financial system freezing, precipitating a major crisis. Covenant-lights were a significant factor in the 2008 financial meltdown.
Now, apparently, covenant-lights are back.
“Covenant-lights” said Warsh, “are two and half times the level they were back in 2007. Investors’ willingness to take on these loans has never been higher. Chair Yellen said on Friday that the gradualist approach is not without risks. This is the central bank understatement that we have come to expect. We would feel better about these risks if our understanding of these risks and macro-prudential policing had improved dramatically since 2007. The new ways of policy monitoring are important but they are still nascent in their creation.”
Bottom-line
Warsh argues that the Fed has paid most of its attention to the risks of raising rates. It should now pay more attention to the risks of keeping rates low too long. Chair Yellen can easily show the markets that they don't have her number--simply by starting to raise rates, and not backing off, when spoiled-brat traders throw a temper tantrum.
Kevin Warsh, Don Kohn on quantitative easing and inequality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AggsvII90eQ
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