Quantitative Easing rächt sich
Am kommenden Sonntag (4. Dezember 2022) geht es im Podcast um die Themen Bilanzrezession und adäquate wirtschaftspolitische Reaktion. Darin äußert sich Richard Koo, Präger der Idee der „Bilanzrezession“ kritisch zur Wirksamkeit der Geldpolitik in diesem Szenario. Dass die Politik nicht nur nicht wirkt, sondern auch erhebliche unerwünschte Nebenwirkungen hat, zeigt dieser Kommentar aus The Telegraph:
- „Western central banks are guilty of an enormous white lie. They led the public and the political class to believe that quantitative easing (QE) was tantamount to printing money, and that it could be reversed painlessly once the deflation threat had passed. They were throwing sand in our eyes. The process is not remotely equivalent to printing bank notes. The central banks have conducted QE in such a way that there is a liability owed to commercial banks on the other side of every bond purchase. That liability is contracted at floating rates.“ – bto: Man muss bei steigenden Zinsen also den Banken etwas bezahlen, im Zweifel deutlich mehr.
- „The US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank, among others, have borrowed short to buy long. This is a variant of the maturity mismatch that blew up Northern Rock and Lehman Brothers after the short-term funding markets froze during the global financial crisis.“ – bto: Aber Notenbanken können ja bekanntlich nicht insolvent gehen.
- „ING says the Fed has incurred a paper loss of $1 trillion (£880bn) this year on its $8.7 trillion balance sheet of US Treasuries and mortgage debt. Its holdings are trading at an average 7pc discount to par value. This is going to be hard to explain to Congress. The Fed has also racked up an annual interest bill of $170bn that must be paid to counterparties, either on the excess reserves of commercial banks or on its reverse-repo facility. The terminology is obscure. The cost is real and will eclipse the interest income from the Fed’s bond portfolio by a wide margin as US interest rates near 5pc.“ – bto: Das hatten wir im Podcast diskutiert, theoretisch eine Nachschusspflicht für den Staat.
- „The great white lie dates back to a speech in 2002 by a young Fed governor called Ben Bernanke on the risks of deflation. ‚The US government has a technology, called a printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at no cost,‘ he said.“ – bto: Wir lernen erneut, dass es kein Instrument ohne Nebenwirkungen gibt.
- „‚QE doesn’t involve ‘printing money’. The policy is more accurately seen as a maturity swap,‘ (…) The Bank has to pay interest on commercial bank reserves (the flip-side of QE) at Bank Rate, already 3pc and rising. This is a fiscal cost indemnified by the Treasury. Sir Paul Tucker, ex-deputy governor, says the Government could save £30bn to £45bn a year on its £840bn QE portfolio by limiting payments to the banks (‚tiering‘ in jargon), but acknowledges that this is not the ‚easy-win‘ that some suppose. It would amount to a windfall tax on banks at a time of mounting financial stress. Critics say it would set off a credit crunch and backfire badly.“ – bto: Es ergeht uns wie dem Zauberlehrling.
- „One can forgive the original white lie by central banks. They never imagined that QE would drag on for thirteen years, or reach such proportions. What was less forgivable was to keep buying bonds à outrance after the macroeconomic trade-offs had turned toxic and after the broad money supply (M3, M4x) had caught fire, guaranteeing inflation.“ – bto: Es wäre aber so oder so gekommen.
- „The Bank for International Settlements studied the latent risk in a joint report with officials from central banks in 2018. They concluded that a ‚snapback‘ in interest rates was potentially dangerous. The global financial system, especially the non-bank shadow sector, had been lured into positions that could not be unwound with the flick of the fingers, and could not withstand a rate shock. A liquidity crisis was likely. The report was so sensitive that publication was delayed. It was then released quietly and buried.“ – bto: Ich habe ihn nicht gefunden…
- „One paragraph catches the eye. It warned of a collateral crisis in the ‚marked-to-market value of derivative contracts‘ leading to distress fire sales. That is what happened to the UK pensions industry in September. Regulators ignored the warning.“ – bto: Weil Collateral auch knapp ist, da die Notenbanken ihn weggekauft haben.
- „Let us be clear, QE was necessary to avert an implosion of the money supply and a second great depression after the Lehman crisis. The fundamental policy failure lies with governments. They imposed premature fiscal austerity in the US, UK, and Europe before economies had recovered, and at a time when banks were slashing credit to repair their balance sheets – made worse by ill-timed regulations forcing lenders to raise capital buffers too fast during the slump. Zero rates and QE were needed to offset the self-inflicted damage.“ – bto: Etwas, das Richard Koo im Gespräch mit mir deutlich kritisiert.
- „But by pushing the experiment too far, and by misrepresenting the trade-offs so dismissively, the central banks have tainted the whole apparatus of emergency money. The bar for a liquidity bail-out in the future is henceforth exorbitantly high, and we may well need one.“ – bto: Weil die Alternative doch die Depression ist.
