2.03.2012

Bill Gross on the Dark Side of ZIRP

While the Fed seems to think free money forever will save the world, prominent people living and investing in the real world disagree.

PIMCO's Bill Gross:

Duration risk and flatness at the zero-bound, to make the simple point, can freeze and trap liquidity by convincing investors to hold cash as opposed to extend credit. 


Where else can one go, however? We can’t put $100 trillion of credit in a system-wide mattress, can we? Of course not, but we can move in that direction by delevering and refusing to extend maturities and duration. Recent central bank behavior, including that of the U.S. Fed, provides assurances that short and intermediate yields will not change, and therefore bond prices are not likely threatened on the downside. Still, zero-bound money may kill as opposed to create credit. Developed economies where these low yields reside may suffer accordingly. It may as well, induce inflationary distortions that give a rise to commodities and gold as store of value alternatives when there is little value left in paper.

Where does credit go when it dies? It goes back to where it came from. It delevers, it slows and inhibits economic growth, and it turns economic theory upside down, ultimately challenging the wisdom of policymakers. We’ll all be making this up as we go along for what may seem like an eternity. A 30-50 year virtuous cycle of credit expansion which has produced outsize paranormal returns for financial assets – bonds, stocks, real estate and commodities alike – is now delevering because of excessive “risk” and the “price” of money at the zero-bound. We are witnessing the death of abundance and the borning of austerity, for what may be a long, long time.
It may as well, induce inflationary distortions that give a rise to commodities and gold as store of value alternatives when there is little value left in paper. Mmmmm-hmmmm.

When a bond guy tells you to buy gold, you'd better listen. And look who else has a boatload of gold: Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher!  Yet you're still going to listen to the pointy-headed academics who tell you gold is a bubble?

1 comment:

K T Cat said...

Yeah, the longer this goes on, the worse the deleveraging is going to be.

Happy Super Tuesday!