Sunday, November 18, 2018

My WSJ Published Comment To "Why Central Bankers Missed the Crisis"

My Wall Street Journal published comment to "Why Central Bankers Missed the Crisis: The lesson of 2008, a top economist says, is that monetary maestros don’t pay enough attention to financial markets. Are they making the same mistake again?" by Joseph C. Sternberg:
We have seen that central planning of the production side of the economy does not work and leads to misallocation of resources and shortages. Why should central planning of the monetary side of the economy work any better? The Great Recession began in Dec 2007. M1, ready accessible cash held by banks, was flat for several years prior and velocity and private debt were increasing. Stock market indices started their decline in Oct 2007. Without available cash, banking and economy wide leverage increased. The unnoticed recession lowered home prices which prevented Bear Stearns from rolling over short term debt collateralized by housing. From then on, government interference created a crisis. The Fed needs more wisdom of the crowd, market source info, like TIPS, but related to future GDP. Markets beat models.

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