Janet Yellen And The Weak Money Parade (Money Multiplier And Velocity At All-time Lows)

Confounded Interest ^ | 09/22/2013 | 09/22/2013

[whitedog57]

Poor Larry Summers. He withdrew his candidacy as the Federal Reserve Board Chairman over fears of a brutal Senate confirmation hearing. Now we are left with former University of California labor economist Janet Yellen as the leading candidate.

Yellen was (allegedly) the architect of the quantitative easing programs to reduce unemployment (better known as the weak money rally). And Yellen is the darling of the labor unions because of her activist policies on labor. Hence, President Obama and Democrats are proudly supporting her appointment.

“The philosophy of Janet Yellen is activism of government policy to achieve objectives,” said Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics Inc.

Oh great. We have activist Supreme Court and Federal judges. Now we will likely have an activist Federal Reserve Chairman.

But the US employment problem is mostly structural and cannot be undone by “easy money.” Moving labor intensive jobs off shore and putting Americans on food stamps and other forms of welfare has not worked out too well. Throw in the disastrous Obamacare that creates the environment for part-time labor, and Houston .. we have a problem.

We have had “easy money” or “cheap money” since 2008. Yet labor force participation continues to fall. Along with M2 Money Velocity.

lfpm2v

And the M1 Money Multiplier has fallen to below 1 for the first time since 1984.

m1v

Here is a chart of Currency In Circulation divided by the Monetary Base. YIKES!

yikes

True, unemployment rates are falling (here is the U6 Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons). We are at 13.7%, still the highest since U6 began.

u6

The Federal Reserve keeps buying Treasuries and Agency MBS securities, swelling its balance sheet.

frb090913

And US debt to GDP is now at 101.58% (as of Q1 2013).

GFDEGDQ188S_Max_630_378 (2)

So, the Federal government and The Fed have thrown everything at the employment problem … and the results are meager. Even the Washington Post noticed that real median household incomes are below levels last seen in 1989.

medianhouseholdincome

Of course, the big “what if?” is … what would have happened if The Fed hadn’t done quantitative easing? Who knows?

But what we do know is that weak money has certainly benefit investors in the stock market.

04-qe-timeline

Will Yellen keep on with weak money policies? Time will tell, but don’t bet against it.

Sarpeidon_prosecutor

Sorry. That was the prosecutor from the Star Trek episode “All Our Yesterdays.“

Here is a photo of Janet Yellen.

OB-YN272_yellen_G_20130813101819

And here is a photo of the 1896 Sound Money Parade in New York City. My how times have changed.

MNY63606

[expat_panama]

...A pro-commerce Executive could work miracles by simply opening up the market...

--or just someone who's not at war with business.  What people are finding out is that the law of supply and demand is like the law of gravity --they're not laws someone can disobey and evade. 

...breakthrough apps that replace a medical degree for diagnosis.

A good friend of mine is a medical doctor that speaks flawless English and she's working full time as a translator.  My thinking is that folks like her could make more money as online human medical doctors.  Things are changing so fast; medical tourism is booming because the cost of a plane ticket plus a same-day medical appt. in Latin America is less than a U.S. appt for next month.

[1010RD]

The benefit of the IRS scandal is that it gives more ammo for eliminating taxation of any corporation. That will really help grow the economy.

Only people pay taxes must be made clear. I don’t think, though, is that voters really get supply and demand. That’s why I think a suspension of Obamacare is the way to go. There is no excuse for Democrats. It focuses the public’s attention on the fact that government is the cause of the majority of the problems our nation faces.

[Wyatt's Torch]

Hopefully this article and associated will help to kill the silly notion that “printing money” is, in and of itself, inflationary. Much less the just stupid comments that “hyperinflation is coming!!!” It’s just not supportable. Deflation is a far more clear and present danger. That is what killed the economy in the 1930’s and why Bernanke is so willing to be accomodative now.

[Wyatt's Torch]

On to your second point, the economy is dying because it is being choked off by regulation ,uncertainty, and the most anti-business government in American history.

[expat_panama]

kill the silly notion that "printing money” is, in and of itself, inflationary.

--and it's necessary and it's not causing a stock market boom and it's not enabling fiscal deficits.  What amazes me is how so very few people of our view are heard from these days.

...the most anti-business government in American history....

Roosevelt and Truman seemed to have that problem too, but I'm not aware of either of them having referred to the business community as "the enemy" for whom he "wasn't elected to do any favors for".

[1010RD]

A lot of the most cogent posters on economics and fiscal policy were purged or quit. The issue the economy faces as regards the FED is that its accommodation isn’t getting to market. Banks are retaining the cash and a credit crunch still exists. Even the nonbank lenders and investors are extremely wary. As has been mentioned, there are too many unknowns.

The one big known is that the Cook County Communists that make up Obama’s inner circle, including his wife, hate business and the market economy and are willing to use any lever to harm it.

They’ve worked hard to create an atmosphere of continual economic despair.

[Wyatt's Torch]

Solid post all the way around. Exactly right.

[expat_panama]

Banks are retaining the cash and a credit crunch still exists.

You got my interest up so I checked  total lending/borrowing --it's up $5T since the crisis.   IOW there really is not a "credit crunch" if you look at total borrowing.   Just the same we're still stuck with the big question that my wife asked me this morning --what is it that people are doing with all the money?  

The fact is that private borrowing is down a $trillion, and commercial borrowing is down  more than a $T.  After checking why we're still up $5T I found out that the rest of the borrowing is being done by (you guessed it) the government --which has gone further into debt by almost $7trillion.  This an enormous unprecedented overwhelming of the private sector --off of which the government is supposed to draw its sustenance.  The American people simply can not afford this. 

Bottom line here is that there may be a credit crunch in the private sector but its been way overshadowed by government borrowing.

[1010RD]

That’s classic crowding out. It’s something I don’t like about the GDP calculation - the G isn’t part of the productive sector, yet its spending raises GDP.

The credit crunch I am referring to is in the productive sector. It is literally being starved by this Administration. Ironically, it is the little guy taking it in the shorts and the Democrats always care about the little guy.

You should post those graphs. They’re the most telling as to why government is the problem. It’s hard to measure the drag on the economy of taxes and regulation, but those graphs show just how badly the productive economy is doing under Obamanomics.

[EVO X]

WHERE is all the bad stuff? It SURE AIN'T HERE???

Has it dawned on you why the FED feels the need to continue it unprecedented stimulus operations if everything appears to be fivers...?

[1010RD]

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/09/23/how-do-you-say-fixed-rate-full-allotment-overnight-reverse-repo-facility-in-english/

What do you think of this?

[Wyatt's Torch]

I believe that the vast majority of the increases in consumer credit come from student loans where the government is artificially creating demand. As of now banks aren’t bundling those loans and selling AAA rated CDO’s and AIG isn’t insuring the other side of the CDS’s but I could be wrong... :-)

[expat_panama]

believe that the vast majority of the increases in consumer credit come from student loans

Had me wondering a minute too, but it's not even close:

It's true that student loans has surged even while total consumer credit's been leveling off but student loans still only amount only to a half $billion while total consumer credit's up in the $trillions.