He left out the big hitter, depression.
Interesting scenario. There is one big item that is not even mentioned, Mortgage Debt.
What role will this interloper play. It's certainly not the same as 29 with this factor.
Anyone want to take a slice at that ?
The system hasn't been permitted to clear itself of the 90's bubble. Instead, the excesses and nonproductive activities are now being supported to present the illusion that all is well. In the mean time, the underlying economy becomes weaker and weaker.
Richard W.
The underlying proposition here, advanced generally by present day fed economists, the monetarists (led by Dr. Milton Friedman), and the popular media, is that the depression was caused by failure of the Monetary Authorities (the Fed) to provide sufficient liquidity in the form of money supply.
The first, perhaps most important point made by the author, Frank Shostak is that this is just plain wrong on the record--it's another one of those self serving propositions that when said often enough, is accepted as fact even though a cursory examination of the real data demonstrates that it is a fraud.
Many years ago, when I was in college, the cause of the Great Depression was still a contentious issue--the lead, and best economics professor at the University was an accused card carrying Communist in the 30's because he believed that the depression was the necessary result of internal faults in the free enterprise system.
I took Economic Cycles from a visiting Harvard economics professor who parroted the same lines. However one class session was conducted by an individual who had been on the Fed staff in the 30's. He said the modern monetarist line is nonesense--"What do people think we were doing back then anyway? Did they think we were asleep? Did they think we were not reading the data?"
As a committed believer in the free enterprise system, I spent a lot of time researching to develop my own political economic understanding of what really happened.
This article only refutes the popular legend. The issue however is what in fact is the cause of the economic condition that led to the great depression and is leading to the greater depression today. The answer is clear--the data is readily available; and the analysis is simple.
The depression of the 1930's was caused by the excessive liquidity created by the fed in the 1920's. As the author points out excess liquidity resulting from injection of bank reserves gets into the economy through the debt process. In the 1920's, the principal engine was stock market margin debt--everyone was in the stock market, creating a bubble with margin debt. When it became clear that underlying values (earnings) did not support prices, prices collapsed leaving the debt to be repaid from other sources.
How does debt result in deflation? Debtors of any class, government, business, or individual, have limited liquidity. That is why the debt (borrowed liquidity) was needed in the first place. Debtor liqudity may come from tax revenues, business earnings, or monthly earned income--but it is limited. The portion of available periodic liquidity commited to payments on debt curtails liquidity for other purposes--instead of buying a new car this month, the debtor makes a payment on his new house.
There is no reliable data on what the real limits are--how much of current income can be paid on residential mortgage debt, or credit cards or whatever without creating a deflationary economic environment. Historically, mortgage lenders had rules of thumb however we have now exceeded those limits significantly.
Point is that in the macro economy, you reach a point where aggregate debt service by government, business and individuals consumes so much of periodic liquidity that the entity involved can no longer afford to make additional purchase commitments. Buyers disappear.
In the business environment, pricing power disappears and prices begin to drop; so do profits. Tax revenues drop because they are based on economic activity (income and spending). Jobs disappear; or compensation on continuing employement drops.
Deflation becomes imbedded--because new debt is incurred, not to buy additional assets but instead to make payments on existing debt.
Mortgage debt and the housing market? What has happened is that the users of residential real estate no long have enough current liquidity to pay for the right to use the asset at current market prices which have been inflated by excess available credit to marginally qualified buyers. There are other factors at work in the housing market--property taxes and insurance, both based on the inflated bubble price and taxes raised to support expansionary economy levels of government activity that no longer are required. So we have skipped payments; interest only months; rising default rates and mortgage foreclosures. Monthly payments are made with additional credit card debt. A general decline in market prices is probably not too far ahead.
This is a fair summary of the current economic environment. As Shostak points out, the historical experience is that additional lending has been counterproductive (in the US in the 30's; and in Japan). Reason why is of course set out above.
How do we get out of this mess? Well you have to see how people get additional liquidity other than through the debt process. You have to expect new jobs to be created and employment to go up; compensation has to go up; business income has to go; tax receipts must go up. If anybody sees any positive signs on any of these items, or if anybody can see any reason why any of these things might happen, they should post immediately. I don't.