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Inflation – wie der Wind sich dreht

Der brillante Martin Wolf hat in der FINANCIAL TIMES (FT) vor einigen Wochen das Thema der Inflation aus einem grundlegenden Blickwinkel betrachtet. Ich finde, es lohnt sich die “kleine Geschichte” der Inflation in Erinnerung zu rufen:

  • “A spectre is haunting investors: the return of inflation. But is it a plausible threat? And what would it mean if it did return? (…) Unexpectedly high inflation would raise interest rates, destabilise exchange rates, ignite unrest in labour markets, push the highly indebted towards default and destabilise asset markets.” – bto: Damit haben wir die Zusammenfassung des Problems. Hohe Inflation mag zwar theoretisch gut sein, wenn man sich so relativ entschulden kann. Dies setzt aber voraus, dass die Zinsen tief bleiben, was die Inflation weiter anheizt.
  • “The last time inflation exploded out of control in high-income countries was the 1970s. The UK was very much in the forefront in this story. In August 1975, year-on-year retail price inflation reached 27 per cent. In April 1980 it spiked, once again, to 22 per cent. The two oil shocks were important causes of soaring inflation. Yet there was a crucial domestic side to the narrative. A vicious spiral of high inflation, wage controls and labour militancy characterised the decade.” – bto: Es war also eine Veränderung der Angebotsstruktur, die die Inflation begünstigt hat.
  • “Among today’s Group of Seven leading high-income countries, Germany did much the best: its average rate of consumer price inflation in the 1970s was below 5 per cent, against the UK’s 13 per cent, while that of the US was 7 per cent. Germany’s relative success helped strengthen the case for an independent central bank and a counter-inflationary anchor for monetary policy.” – bto: und begründete endgültig den Ruf der Bundesbank. Lang, lang ist es her …
  • “The 1970s were an era of stagflation — high inflation and low growth. They were also, as a result, an era of terrible performance for asset prices. For the holders of bonds, (…) a decade of high inflation was a financial disaster. Stocks did terribly, too. The cyclically-adjusted price/earnings ratio (CAPE), developed by Nobel laureate Robert Shiller, collapsed from 24 in 1966, to 8 in 1974 and 7 in 1982. (…) The ratio of the value of the stock market to UK gross domestic product fell to a low of 11 per cent in 1974. In the US, the trough was 21 per cent in 1982.” – bto: Das war der Ausgangspunkt für den wohl längsten Bullenmarkt der Geschichte.
  • What had caused this disaster? First, came the inflationary fiscal and monetary policies of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the surge in the price of oil, labour unrest, failed controls over wages, price controls, and squeeze on profits, made worse by the failure to adjust taxation for the impact of inflation. Later, came the tight monetary policies of the early 1980s of Paul Volcker, chair of the Federal Reserve, in the US and Margaret Thatcher and her chancellor Geoffrey Howe, in the UK.” – bto: Es war eine Art Entziehungskur.
  • “The successful control of inflation coincided with the beginning of a prolonged and remarkable boom in asset prices. The extended bull market in bonds was an automatic consequence of rapidly declining inflation. That was further strengthened by a collapse in real interest rates to today’s negative levels. (…) In the US, the CAPE rose to 44 in 2000, an all-time high. The only bull market that came close to this one was that of the 1920s. The ratio of the value of the stock market to GDP soared to 162 per cent in the UK and 157 per cent in the US in 2000. (…) at the end of 2020, the US CAPE was the second highest on record and the stock market was worth 187 per cent of US GDP.” – bto: Dies ging einher mit einem deutlichen Anstieg der privaten Verschuldung. Das dürfen wir nicht vergessen.
  • “The success in controlling inflation was far from the only force driving this great bull market. It was part of a broader swing away from the regulated post-second world war economy towards free-market economics: the weakening of trade unions; tax cuts; trade liberalisation; financial deregulation; and the opening up of capital flows.” – bto: Es war unstrittig ein großer Erfolg. Millionen Menschen entkamen der Armut. Andererseits haben wir die Schattenseite einer überbordenden Verschuldung.
  • Und ein wichtiger Faktor kam hinzu – der Angebotsschock durch den Eintritt Chinas: “In a classic analysis, published in 2004, Harvard University’s Kenneth Rogoff argued that this increase in competitive pressure, some of it coming from China’s entry into the world economy, was a key factor behind the success of the disinflationary policy.” – bto: Es war kein Erfolg von “disinflationärer Politik”, sondern es lag an China, dass die Inflation trotz gigantischen Schuldenwachstums nur in den Assetpreisen stattfand.
  • “Another salient characteristic of the past four decades has been expanding debt, initially mainly private debt, driven by financial deregulation. After the global financial crisis in 2007 and 2008 and the eurozone crisis that followed, government debt also soared. The debt accumulation has also been the consequence of structurally weak demand across the world economy. In 2005, former Federal Reserve chair, Ben Bernanke, called this phenomenon ‘the savings glut’. More recently, former US treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers has termed it ‘secular stagnation’.” – bto: Und hier bleibe ich dabei, dass das so nicht stimmt. Ich denke eher, die Verschuldung war die Ursache und nicht die Folge.
  • “The big shock to the system was the global financial crisis, which was met by a huge monetary and fiscal response. Some worried then that this would end the era of low inflation. That fear turned out to be misplaced. Premature fiscal tightening and a weak monetary policy response, especially in the eurozone, led, instead, to a disappointing recovery and persistently sub-target inflation in the US and eurozone.” – bto: Oder war es die Folge einer Politik, die auf eine Fortsetzung genau jener Schuldenpolitik setzte, die erst zur Krise geführt hatte?
  • “Covid-19 (…) was met by extraordinary fiscal and monetary action, to stabilise the economy and people’s incomes. Is this second huge shock in 12 years going to trigger what the global financial crisis did not — the shift towards high inflation, which many on the right then feared, and the revolt against capitalism, which many on the left then desired?” – bto: Beides ist zu befürchten. Vor allem, wenn jetzt auch noch gefordert wird, mit dem gleichen Instrumentarium wie gegen Corona gegen den Klimawandel vorzugehen.
  • “Central banks hope that, with higher inflation and inflation expectations, they would be able to raise interest rates well above zero. This would give them more room for manoeuvre in future, in response to negative shocks. Furthermore, central banks believe that, in today’s economy, the response of wages to unemployment is very weak. This means they are able to run economies ‘hot’, with little fear of an unduly strong rise in inflation.” – bto: Mag sein, auf der anderen Seite produzieren wir gerade einen Angebotsschock durch die Klimamaßnahmen. Dies wird inflationär wirken.
  • “The ideas of ‘Modern Monetary Theory’ — the view that the only constraint on monetary financing of government is inflation, which, in turn, is best controlled by fiscal policy — has won much intellectual favour on the left. So, too, has the conviction that there must be a rebalancing of the relationship between labour and capital, in favour of workers. These new perspectives have now come to fruition with the passage in the US of a $1.9tn fiscal stimulus programme supported by an expansionary monetary policy expected to last at least until 2024, even though the Fed forecasts US GDP growth as high as 6.5 per cent this year. The administration is also thinking of a further $3tn in spending on longer-term priorities, including the green economy. In total, these programmes would amount to almost a quarter of US GDP. That is transformative policymaking.” – bto: Das dürfte letztlich auch den Europäern gefallen.
  • “If this happens in the US, worldwide spillovers are quite likely, not least in the UK. But in other high-income countries, too, household savings are high, fiscal deficits large and monetary policy expansionary. The kindling needed to light an inflationary fire can be seen almost everywhere.” – bto: Das stimmt und dürfte zumindest temporär relevant werden, bevor dann die drastische Verteuerung der Energie durchschlägt.
  • “In the 1970s, the British economist, Charles Goodhart, propounded what came to be called Goodhart’s law: ‘Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.’ This ‘law’ could help explain the failure of monetarism. This law may have a corollary: ‘A statistical relationship, once ignored, will become relevant.’ If so, the Phillips curve, which links unemployment and inflation, or the relationship between broad money and spending might come back to bite us.” – bto: vor allem auch deshalb, weil die Zeichen für eine Verknappung von Arbeitskräften immer deutlicher werden.
  • “High inflation tends to distort the economy, partly because taxes are imperfectly adjusted for inflation. It will raise long-term interest rates. That will undermine the solvency of many debtors, including corporate debtors, as debt is rolled over.” – bto: Wir bekommen erheblichen Margendruck.
  • “(…) an inflationary overshoot will trigger a disinflationary response from central banks. That will mean much higher policy rates. That could lead to waves of default (…) This time, the debt crises could be almost everywhere, because there is so much more debt.” – bto: Deshalb werden es die Notenbanken nicht tun. Sie werden die Zügel lange locker lassen auch in ihrem Kampf gegen den Klimawandel.
  • “These risks could also interact with the structural threats laid out by Goodhart and Manoj Pradhan in The Great Demographic Reversal. The economic regime that began in the 1980s is, they argue, coming to an end, with rising protectionism and rapid ageing in all the important economies, including China.” – bto: hier und im Podcast diskutiert …
  • “As labour forces shrink (…) the number of consumers will rise relative to the number of producers, thereby raising prices. Fiscal pressure will rise inexorably, as the population ages. If governments have to choose between inflation and fiscal tightening, they will choose the former. Finally, if interest rates rise too high for comfort, governments will force central banks to lower them.” – bto: Das sehe ich ganz genauso.
  • “Inflation has not come back. It may never do so. But the political and policy shifts we are seeing today, after Covid, together with the longer-term changes in the world economy, have raised the chances of an inflationary shock of some kind. Investors must take this possibility into account.” – bto: und nicht nur die Anleger!

→ ft.com (Anmeldung erforderlich): „The return of the inflation spectre“, 26. März 2021