Stocks, Flows, and Pimco (Wonkish). Paul Krugman says Bill Gross is wrong to dump US Treasuries

New York Times ^ | 04/20/2011 | Paul Krugman

[SeekAndFind]

I’ve been getting questions about what happens when the Fed wraps up QE2 — related especially to Bill Gross’s public view that interest rates will shoot up. This is related to the question of the extent to which QE2 has kept interest rates low. So a quick exposition of my theoretical position, which also happens to be more or less standard economics.

So: I basically think of asset prices in a Tobin-type stock equilibrium framework (pdf). People make portfolio choices, allocating their wealth among bonds, stocks, etc.. Asset prices – including the famous “q” – rise and fall to match these portfolio choices to the actual asset supplies.

On this view asset purchases matter because over time they change the stocks of assets available : by buying long term federal debt, the Fed takes some of that debt off the market, and hence drives up the price of what’s left, reducing interest rates. The flow – the rate of purchases – matters only to the extent that it affects expected returns.

[SeekAndFind]

IOW, The Slime’s In-House Nobel Laureate does not buy the notion that rates are low only because the Fed is doing QE2.

Krugman argues that if there were really a problem with the marketability of US debt, rates would be high regardless.

So, he does not expect rates to spike when QE2 ends.

[screaminsunshine]

Is this the same guy who said not to buy Silver when it was 7 bucks an ounce a couple years ago?

[screaminsunshine]

When QE2 ends QE3 starts.

[dagogo redux]

Is this guy a sccessful investor, or just an opinion factory.

[scooby321]

I tend to follow I guy who uses his money than an idiot who uses paper to write on.

Paulie when I see you put your money where your mouth is then come back.

[BfloGuy]

Krugman says Bill Gross is wrong to dump US Treasuries

If Krugmans says that, then get rid of 'em now!

[screaminsunshine]

Well good luck. I hope you are right...really I do.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Is this guy a sccessful investor, or just an opinion factory.

I don’t know, all I know is he won a Nobel Prize in Economics /s

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Is this the same guy who said not to buy Silver when it was 7 bucks an ounce a couple years ago?

I don’t know about his views on precious metals, I do know that he was bullish on ENRON just over a year before it fell.

I then learned that in 1999 Paul Krugman was paid $50,000 by Enron as a consultant on its “advisory board,” and that same year he wrote a glowing article about Enron for Fortune magazine.

Then, After Enron collapsed in 2001, Krugman wrote several columns excoriating the company.

[Qbert]

The famed Enron advisor propping up another Ponzi scheme.

[Night Hides Not]

I got into an argument with a big lib last week over economics. He takes everything Krugman says with a big spoon.

To refute what I was saying, he said "So, do you have a Nobel Prize like Krugman?"

My reply? "Obama's got a Nobel, too. So what? My training in economics came from the late, great Dr. Erwin Graue, whose common sense brilliance included maxims such as 'there are no free lunches'."

Seriously, Dr. Graue forgot more economics than Krugman could ever hope to learn.

One of the classes I took with him had a grand total of five students. There was no place to hide, and it was brutal when one answered his question incorrectly, which for me was far too often.

He was my advisor my first two years in college, and he kept hammering at me to change my major from management to public accounting. Midway through my sophomore year, I did exactly that, and it turned out to be one of the best moves I ever made.

[American Quilter]

Paul Krugman: the economist who understands nothing about economics. It doesn’t bother him, though. In his universe, wrong is right, so he believes he’s right no matter what the real evidence shows.

[calico_thompson]

Paul Krugman resigned from the Enron Board of Directors in 1999. I believe his gig there paid him $50,000/year. Some would say Bernie Madoff is a genius worthy of a Nobel too.

[CPT Clay]

All the more reason to support the fact that Bill Gross is right.

Krugman is an ass

[chuckee]

Why does this sleazy partisan Krugman not invest all of his retirement funds in long term treasuries today? What do you think are the chances? Simply because he does not truly believe that treasuries will not decline precipitously. The man has no conscience when it comes to other people’s money. He is wrong all the time about just about everything.He would disprove the old saw that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Timocrat]

Now I can rest easy. I had been worried about my heavy over-weighting in precious metals and rare earths. If Krugman says Treasuries are OK it’s a lock that they are doomed.

[detective]

“the fact that the Fed is currently buying some large fraction of debt issuance is irrelevant; interest rates are determined by the willingness at the margin of private investors to hold the existing stock of debt”

This statement is simply stupid. Interest rates are determined by the time value of money, the risk of inflation and the risk of default. If the Treasury starts issuing debt again (and it will need to to pay for the irresponsible levels of government spending) buyers will demand higher interest rates. If those who hold existing debt wish to sell that debt, those buyers will also demand higher interest rates.

Paul Krugman has almost always been wrong. He said stock prices were going to go up at the peaks and go down at the lows. He said commodity prices were not going up. His Nobel Prize says more about the corruption of the Nobel selection process than it does of his ability.

[Clink]

Is this the same guy who said not to buy Silver when it was 7 bucks an ounce a couple years ago?

I'm trying to find something which would verify this, so that I can forward to a Paul Krugman "fan". Can you point me in the right direction? I'm having no luck.

[Grampa Dave]

“Paul Krugman has almost always been wrong. He said stock prices were going to go up at the peaks and go down at the lows. He said commodity prices were not going up. His Nobel Prize says more about the corruption of the Nobel selection process than it does of his ability.”

Do the opposite of what Krugman, the Madoll of the Ny Slimes re shaming the American sheeple, says.