FINANCIAL TIMES: Die FED setzt auf Inflation
Der Kurswechsel der Fed wird zur Kenntnis genommen. – Doch ist es wirklich einer oder nur die noch konsequentere Fortsetzung des Kurses der letzten Jahrzehnte? Für die FINANCIAL TIMES (FT) liegt auf der Hand, die vermeintlich “sicheren Assets” bieten nur noch sicheren Verlust:
- “Looked at through the lens of history, ‘safe’ has been an odd word to describe government IOUs. Middle-class people who lived through the second world war invested heavily in government bonds to provide for old age, as they had been heavily influenced by the deflationary conditions of the 1930s. The inflation of the 1960s and 1970s eradicated much of their wealth and impoverished their retirement.” – bto: Safe sind sie ja auch nur, wenn man in MMT-Logik davon ausgeht, dass der Schuldner nicht ausfällt. Das ist natürlich sicherer als Anleihen von Unternehmen, so diese nicht auch unter dem Rettungsschirm der Notenbank fliehen können wie zuletzt in den USA. Faktisch übernimmt hier der Staat die privaten Schulden.
- “That said, governmental paper promises are, in the absence of hyperinflation, a secure and serviceable asset in the short term. (…) safe for whom? Safe, yes, for the sponsoring company of a defined benefit pension scheme looking to match its liabilities with fixed-interest assets. But for scheme members there is no safety once price rises exceed the inflation cap on their benefits.” – bto: Sie sind nominal sicher. Real ist das natürlich eine andere Sache!
- “This issue is particularly pertinent in the light of the super-loose monetary policy framework announced last week by Jay Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve. Henceforth inflation will be allowed to run above the Fed’s longstanding target to compensate for periods of undershooting. The notion of pre-emptive tightening has also been expunged from the central bank’s modus operandi. That definitively confirms the disappearance of any remaining anti-inflationary bias in US monetary policy.” – bto: und damit in der Welt, denn kein Land kann es sich auf Dauer leisten, nicht mitzumachen.
- “Thanks to the devastating impact of Covid-19 on the economy, it will take time for inflation to pick up and for interest rates to rise. But in the end they always do rise, and that will inflict serious damage on supposedly safe fixed interest portfolios.” – bto: Und es wird alles getan werden, um genau diesen Anstieg der Zinsen zu verhindern.
- “At the same time it is striking that government bonds this year have no longer been reliably providing relief when stocks fall. (…) This continues a broader theme: as central banks have pumped liquidity into markets through vast bond-purchase programmes since the financial crisis, different asset classes have tended to move more uniformly. Fundamentals no longer matter for the overall market indices.” – bto: Es geht nur noch um die Frage der Liquidität.
- “Longview Economics points out that there is a clear correlation between the S&P 500’s forward price/earnings ratio — a common measure of equity valuation — and the amount of so-called quantitative easing the Fed undertakes. In the past five months, the Fed has done close to two-thirds of the amount of QE it executed from 2009 to 2014. In this light, the dramatic re-rating of the equity market since March and its decoupling from the real economy makes more sense.” – bto: weil die Liquidität in die Finanzmärkte und nicht in die Realwirtschaft fließt.
- “(…) Big Tech is now highly cash generative. Nobel laureate Michael Spence has argued that these companies tend to have high levels of intangible assets and cost structures abnormally tilted towards fixed costs and low marginal expenses. This can make their platforms hugely scalable, which in turn confers significant pricing power.” – bto: Das heißt, sie bieten Inflationsschutz.
- “It seems counter-intuitive to think of equities as safe. (…) For long-term investors this boils down to choosing between governmental paper promises and real assets such as property, commodities and gold. It is, in the time-honoured phrase, a no-brainer.” – bto: Ja, das ist es. Real könnte es sein, dass selbst diese No-Brainer vor schlechten Zeiten stehen, falls die große Welle der Vermögensvernichtung unter dem Deckmantel der Gleichheit bevorstünde.
