Warum wir uns an negative Zinsen gewöhnen müssen
Kürzlich besprach ich einen Beitrag von Albert Edwards, der seine Eiszeit-These erneut verteidigte und dabei auch für die zehnjährigen US-Staatsanleihen negative Zinsen erwartet. In einem Kommentar bei Bloomberg ist Sajit Das nicht weniger pessimistisch. Er begründet, warum wir uns an negative Zinsen gewöhnen sollten:
- “Negative nominal yields involve a guaranteed loss of capital invested. (…) The only way to avoid losses in such a situation is to physically withdraw cash and hold it, or to purchase real assets or equities. (…) Those worried about security and safety will have little choice but to invest in government bonds or insured bank deposits. Also, returns are relative; it’s possible that purchasing negatively yielding securities may be the least-bad alternative available.” – bto: Viele müssen kaufen, viele wollen kaufen.
- “Some investors may be attracted by the opportunity for capital gains if they expect yields to become more negative; foreign investors may see possible currency appreciation. Others may focus on real rather than nominal returns, as even negative returns may preserve or increase purchasing power under deflationary conditions.” – bto: Es ist doch interessant, dass das Thema der Deflation wieder auf die Agenda kommt. Sie ist nämlich die Folge der hohen Schulden.
- “Negative rates are supposed to work (…) as low or zero rates – boosting asset prices to enhance the wealth effect, increasing the velocity of money and encouraging greater borrowing. In theory, savers facing the threat of losses should increase investment and consumption, helping to boost economic growth and inflation. Yet, where negative rates have been implemented, they’ve been singularly ineffective, even as they’ve created serious economic and financial distortions.” – bto: weil sie eben nur die Schuldenberge stabilisieren, nicht aber das Problem bereinigen.
- “The real reason the world is in this predicament is the failure to deal with unsustainable debt levels. Debt can only be reduced in one of four ways: through strong growth, inflation, currency devaluation (where the borrowing is from foreigners) or default. All the strategies other than growth involve some level of transfer of value from savers, either by reducing the nominal value returned or through decreased purchasing power.” – bto: So ist es und wir vergessen das immer wieder gerne. Was er noch nicht erwähnt, ist die Monetarisierung über die Notenbankbilanz.
- “Growth and inflation are weak. Devaluation is difficult if every nation tries to reduce the value of its currency at the same time. Debt defaults on the scale required would destroy a large portion of the world’s savings, not to mention affect the solvency of the financial system, triggering a collapse of economic activity. That’s why policymakers resist write-downs of trillions of dollars’ worth of debt that cannot be paid back.” – bto: Es wäre eine neue große Depression.
- “So, central banks must instead covertly use negative rates to reduce excessive debt levels by transferring wealth from savers to borrowers through the slow confiscation of capital. What negative rates are telling us is that the global economic system cannot generate sufficient income to service, let alone repay, current debt levels. The latter are so high that even current, artificially depressed rates only allow them to be barely managed. The fact remains that someone has to pay the price of the financial excesses of the last few decades. With low and negative rates, that ‘someone’ will be savers.” – bto: Das Problem mit der ganzen Sache: Die Schulden wachsen weiter schneller als das BIP. Damit wird das Problem nicht gelöst, sondern vergrößert.
→ bloomberg.com: “The World Better Get Used to Negative Rates”, 30. März 2019
