Central banks

Here is a rough transcription of the presentation for people who are hard of hearing. Apologies for the lack of grammar, I am working to improve the automated transcriptions -
you’re all my Saturday this while is from the daily Telegraph online who I often quote from mainly Ambrose Evans Prichard but those are some chap called brutal who won the actually won the competition to put in a proposal for the best way to break up the European Union and Jeremy Warner he seems to be the at the thrill of them seem to be the top economic people are Ambrose Evans Prichard is further mainly Europe and the world and the other two are mainly British and concentrated economic types but brutal and there are certainly economic types that is their job and the Telegraph is as newspapers go it’s all right in some ways it’s often better than the financial Times but not often anyway this is from the Lincoln be down below their arms and article about you know her Britons in the terrible state power what can walk and what can happen basically and anything else the Bank of England can do to counter these headwinds not convinced that all this talk of headwinds is brilliant but it’s the modern way of speaking so we understand what headwinds are we don’t understand what the headwinds are what particular factors they are but we understand by headwinds that they mean that seems to be something cool forcing against the goodness the wonderfulness of increasing GDP or whatever it might be possibly not monetary policy may have reached the limits of its effectiveness to do interesting comment and it’s something obviously over the next five years we don’t bump into a lot because we think we kind of believe could do anyway that the struggle is going to go on there saying it’s been five years now they seem to call it in a nursery now they said it five years now and does seems to be consensus that at least it can go on to the next five years in some form it’s on in the next five years were not just could go up through it and go into back into what could be called a normal period the next five years at least will be a struggle so the Bank of England like all central banks will struggle on with the problems and their problems are mainly obviously getting the banks to be if not profitable so they can fill the holes in their balance sheets but then also be seen to be doing something for the larger economy it’s a very difficult task for central banks because I am no consent can make up stuff that was awful lot of money at our awful something is they can do when we seen them do it over the last five years when you can just print up money but the thing is the printer money has only ever been used to buy things or swap for things assets on the outside world had gone into the central bank for example in the United States where a mortgage-backed securities 1.2 5 trillion the actual written signed partner of each asset paper is now residing in the central bank and completely new cash is out there in the world but it’s been in that case it was a there were bought and in some cases like in Europe it’s a swap where LL throw is swapping the paper for three years into the central bank for cash and the idea is after three years which is getting over two years now it’s got to be swapped back but the the ability of the central bank to invent brand-new money and put it out there in the world but in at the moment only for exchange for assets it’s quite a trick and covers an awful lot of our hiccups as we seen it do over the last five years been a very powerful tool okay Sam Ervin Summerlin is the boss man of the Bank of England rejects the idea that quantitative easing is losing its potency Something in had much potency to start with so that’s a moot point yet it is hard it is hard to point to unambiguous evidence that it is still doing any good, if a double dip recession is what we get with quantitative easing then what would things look like without it might they really be so much worse I think maybe yes I think the yarn that quantitative easing is a psychological trick that psychological tricks to work but generally they only do work for a certain amount of time till the masses is a tipping point where the masses say oh that’s only a psychological trick and I will not be tricked by any more and then the masses stop being tricked by it at the masses in this case happened to either the market masses the the Masters of the universe that manipulate paper but they are in a sort of Keynes way Kane said that the stock market is a beauty contest but not of the beauty of stocks per se but judging of what other people think will be the beauty of the words you’re judging what other people think is beautiful in the stock market not what actually is beautiful in the stock market and that is a psychological thing now you will pay a market that incident will be thinking our if he is she are they mentally manipulated are they being still tricked by this quantitation easing or not and when there’s enough dinner parties or interaction that they find out that no he and she and they are now not being tricked as super me wasn’t ever tricked by this and that is the tipping point in the mean goes the other way might they really be so much worse are because the UK has gone into a double dip recession and nothing nothing serious just kind of if it was just had slightly below the water minus very little how about something even more radical I asked him at a press conference at today’s press conference this was last Thursday I think it was when that Mervyn had his Bank of England a press conference for the inflation report buying at a beard so are representing the Telegraph obviously Warner went down there and asking why not for instance simply cancel gilts gilts are British Treasury is the Bank of England has bought to cancel so the Bank of England to put out cash and birth in the depths of paper these bits of paper that will not mortgage is their gilts which the equivalent of treasuries that government bonds much as 10 up and then the Treasury in the United Kingdom could then tear up the equivalent on their books and that’ll drop the debt to GDP because that debt number would drop down 21 offers and simply cancel gilts the Bank of England has bought thereby substantially reducing the national debt and creating the fiscal space for tax cuts fiscal spaces you drop the hand debt of the country down by just tearing up the gilts at the central bank and then the guy government has that space again because they were safe today at hand like the UK like the United States is paying very little on it gilts its treasuries so if they cancelled got the space the fiscal space fiscal is government spending to spend back up to that amount on our stimulus measures because you know if you spend back up to the amount that will do am good to the economy and you’ll only get back up to where you wear today and that where you wear today was acceptable today and probably would be acceptable in say the years time when you spend back up to it and that money you spend will do good in the economy is the idea here rather than spending money on future bond purchases perhaps he should states simply distribute it to consumers to spend Milton Friedman’s famous suggestion of helicopter drop and this is very difficult because of its easy to say it’s been a bailout for the banks what about a bailout for the people but the banks have something to give the central bank to balance their books I know they just invent the money but to balance the books they they balance it off with assets they buy assets and it’s a completely different home thing just to give the money away that is a completely different thing again and giving the money away all and buying or swapping are keeping in it is basically an accounting thing and that’s the reason the main grungy reason why it’s not done this accounting thing are but during the money away you can imagine the beauty contest of that what would the market think what will they think they will think this is terrible am sure there would buy the way her winner goes on neither of these ideas will die remotely support he doesn’t want the central bank to tout the treasuries and the government to have the fiscal space space to do more harm stimulative spending nor would he want our money just given out to the people by the way neither of these ideas I would remotely support there is no reason why quantitative easing as present as presently practised should prove seriously inflationary this is good Warner has now he’s picked up and used it dinner parties from the fact that it’s not seriously inflationary because the money isn’t being lent out At the that’s what he will be thinking he’s not quite up with what we’ll call Steve Keane and what we discussed in five that the the the quantitative easing money at their swap the assets into the central bank the central bank money goes in their reserve: which is huge at which is technically banks money but banked with the central bank and you got reserves and excess reserves O’Connor goes well called in the film Popeye you got user as their then excess reserves will all will go stacked up on top access reserves the just call reserves: what you like cash cash on the banks of the books THE BANKS AND CENTRAL BANK IT’S ALL THE SAME TOTAL CASH BUT THEY DON’T NEED THAT CASH ACTUALLY TO LEND THERE IS NO REASON WHY QUANTITATIVE EASING AS IT PRESENTLY PRACTISED SHOULD PROVE SERIOUSLY IMPRESSED INFLATIONARY CE IS NOT QUITE SURE HIMSELF BECAUSE HE’S PUTTING SERIOUSLY INFLATIONARY ECONOMY HEADS THAT HE DOESN’T HE’S NOT QUITE SURE WHO TO BELIEVE OR TO PAMPER WITH THESE WORDS PROVIDED IT IS QUICKLY REVERSED ONCE THE ECONOMY PICKS UP AND WE GO NOW NOW WHAT YOU MEAN BY THAT JEREMY PROVIDED IT IS QUICKLY REVERSED ONCE THE ECONOMY PICKS UP NOW THIS IS THE SORT OF THINKING THAT WAS PREVALENT ABOUT FOUR YEARS AGO AND OBVIOUSLY STILL PREVALENT NOW ENCIRCLE CERTAIN CIRCLES IS THE IDEA THAT THIS MONEY THAT THESE BITS OF PAPER HAVE GOT TO BE SWAPPED BACK TO THE BANKS AND THE CASH HAS GOT TO COME OFF THE BANKS BOOKS AND BACK SOLIDLY INTO THE CENTRAL RESERVE INTO THE CENTRAL BANKS BOOKS ONLY AND THEN THE BANKS ONLY HAVE BITS OF PAPER THEY DO NOT HAVE ACTUAL CASH WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO IT JEREMY WARNER DOES BELIEVE THAT THE BANKS DO LEND THAT STACKED UP AMOUNT OF CASH THAT THEY NOW HAVE FELT FROM THE CENTRAL BANKS HAVING THEIR BITS OF PAPER THAT OBVIOUSLY WHAT HE BELIEVES PROVIDED IT QUICKLY REVERSED ONCE THE ECONOMY PICKS UP AND I THINK WE ALL COMING WE PICKED UP ON THIS ABOUT FOUR YEARS AGO THAT THEY’D NEVER BE REVERSED NOW IT CAN’T BE REVERSED PARTICULARLY BASE THE MONEY BASE IS THIS STACKED UP RESERVES IS THE THE CASH THAT NO CASH PLUS ALL THIS WILL INCLUDE CASH NOT BITS OF SIGN PAPER ASSETS BUT ACTUAL CASH ARE CALLING IT ON THE BANK SPOKESWOMAN CENTRAL BANKS BOOKS I AM RESERVES THAT THE MONETARY BASE BUT IF THE MONETARY BASE IS PERMANENTLY EXPANDED LIKE SAYING IS IT WILL BE EITHER BY MONETISING THE DEFICIT OR OTHERWISE GIVING MONEY AWAY TO SUPPORT SPENDING MONETISING THE DEN TO DEFICIT WOULD BE THE TEARING UP THE OTHERWISE GIVING THE MONEY AWAY TO SUPPORT SPENDING SEAT NOW YOU KNOW HE’S LOST HE HASN’T GOT A CLUE WHAT HE’S TALKING ABOUT BECAUSE GOES THE SECOND PART OF THAT OTHERWISE GIVING THE MONEY AWAY TO SPARE SUPPORT SPENDING GIVING THEM MONEY AWAY IT IS NOW THE BANKS MONEY CENTRAL BANK GAVE IT TO THE BANKS IN EXCHANGE FOR PAPER THESE ASSETS THE BANKS AREN’T AND GIVE IT SO HE’S COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY CONFUSED HIMSELF OTHERWISE GIVING THE MONEY AWAY TO SUPPORT SPENDING EEGS CAN NOW TO HELICOPTER DROPS WHERE THE BANK HAS GOT TO SEARCH SOMEHOW GET THE MONEY OUT THAT THE PEOPLE WITH NO NO NO RED RECOMPENSE AND IT’S JUST WELL HAVE YOU DO THAT TO THE CENTRAL BANK HAS IN IT CAN’T DO THAT BUT THE ONLY WAY GET MONEY OUT OF PEOPLE IS TO BUY THINGS OFF THE PEOPLE IT CAN BUY YOUR GOLF CLUBS OFF YOUR IT CAN BUY YOUR WASHING MACHINE BUT IT CAN’T JUST GIVE YOU MONEY IF IT IS EVER TO GIVE YOU MONEY IT MUST GIVE YOU MONEY VIA THE GOVERNMENT THE GOVERNMENT MUST GIVE YOU THE MONEY AND THE CENTRAL BANK MUST DO OUR MANIPULATION IS BEHIND-THE-SCENES CENTRAL BANKS CAN NOT GIVE YOU MONEY CENTRAL BANK BANKS CANNOT GIVE BANKS MONEY THEY MUST ALWAYS DO IT IN EXCHANGE FOR BITS OF PAPER BECAUSE CENTRAL BANKS LIKE BANKS HAVE TO HAVE THEIR BOOKS BALANCED SO YOU CAN’T JUST GIVE MONEY AWAY BECAUSE YOU CAN IMAGINE WHAT AN UNBALANCING EFFECT THAT WOULD HAVE ON YOUR BOOKS GOVERNMENTS CAN WRITE A NEW RULE TO SAY THAT THEIR BOOKS DO NOT HAVE TO BE BALANCED CENTRAL BANKS AND BANKS CANNOT WRITE LAWS DIRECTLY THEY CAN ONLY INFLUENCE THE WAY GOVERNMENTS WRITE LAWS WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO WHICH IT IS THE GOVERNMENTS HAVE ALL THE POWER NOT THE CENTRAL BANKS ALL THE BANKS IF BANKS AND CENTRAL BANKS HAVE POWER IT IS AT THE DISCRETION OF GOVERNMENT AND SAYS AT THE END THAT WAY LIES WEIMAR WHICH IS JUST AN UTTERLY RIDICULOUS THING TO SAY WHICH IS A SHAME BECAUSE OTHERWISE THE ARTICLE IS NOT BAD BECAUSE IT EXPLORES SOME INTERESTING THINGS AND GIVES US GOOD DISCUSSION POINTS BUT TO SAY WEIMAR IT’S JUST MADNESS IT’S MADNESS LIKE THE GERMANY THE WEIMAR BASICALLY YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE BEEN BEATEN IN A WORLD WAR BUT WHEN IT COMES TO THAT SORT OF HYPERINFLATION REACTION AND THAT WHAT HE’S TALKING ABOUT BEING THRASHED IN A SECOND IN IN IN THE WORLD WAR ARM REALLY IS JUST ABOUT AM AN ESSENTIAL ASPECT OF HAVING YOUR ECONOMY GOING TO HYPERINFLATION WITHOUT BEING THRASHED IN THE WORLD WAR YOU’RE GOING TO REALLY STRUGGLE TO GO FOR HYPERINFLATION SO IS TALKING NONSENSE AS ARE THE MODERN-DAY GERMANS WHO LATELY HAVE NOT BEEN BEATEN IN A WORLD WAR AND THEY REALLY DOING RATHER WELL AND THE CHANCES OF ANYTHING HYPERINFLATIONARY HAPPENING IN GERMANY OR ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WESTERN WORLD IS JUST ABOUT ZERO BACK

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  • ModernMystic

    So NO COMMENTS YET!!!

    Are you kidding me?????

    If you don’t participate, you can’t keep up PEOPLE

  • ModernMystic

    I bust my ass every day keeping this site going and all I get is the same five people saying the same lame stuff over and over. This is the apocalypse folks; peal oil, fucking global warming, bankers printing money for themselves until nothing’s left. You can’t just sit on your hands saying ” Mystic will warn me before the military comes with jackboots” not going to happen. If you don’t participate you will be fucked. Every one of you that trolls here without commenting.

    • John_by_the_creek

      Is this oft repeated post meant to be witty in some way?  Your mother is calling from upstairs.  It’s time to leave the basement, venture into the sunlight, and change the kitty’s’ litter box.  Best see to it, or she might (mercifully) take away your internet privileges.

      • John_by_the_creek

        And feel free to delete my post as well.  The products of incestuous lust suffer from unimaginable cognitive impairments due to genetic regression.  It is not right to expect from them, the civility and maturity we take for granted, as offered by everyone else posting thoughts here.

  • Modern Mystic

    More Comments folks. You must participate

  • Willbick

    I thought UK quarterly GDP april-june was -0.7%. that’s quite a long way below the waterline no?

    • Willbick

      p.s. does MMT (sorry i dont understand it much) mean that all these ‘attempts to get the banks lending’  (e.g. ’80 billion Funding for Lending scheme’) are completely pointless? Does this mean that the likes of Mervyn King dont understand how bank lending works??! Or are they just trying to prop up the banks whilst knowing that it wont affect lending?

      • windslice

        I am certain that Merv understands how banking works. I am also fairly certain that by now he has told the schoolboys how it all functions. But there is NO way that the schoolboys can come clean and announce to the population at large that all the QE has ended up back in the Bank of England as excess reserves. I suspect that they were all hoping some recovery would have been underway by now, and so that little matter could be swept under the carpet. Now they have to call it furniture and carefully walk around it.

        Nick has already said it. As long as the peeps believe that something is being stimulated it sort of helps the level of optimism. The bigger issues will happen after the harsh reality hits. I cannot believe that the smoke and mirrors will continue to perform their magic for another five years or more.

        QE has helped the banks from having to fire sale their assets. Which has propped up the property market and stock market. It has also reduced the level of interest that the government pays on debt to a record low level.

  • Modern Mystic

    Folks

    I am not doing this for my health. Keep the comments coming

  • Bigcollapso

    I am just watching the slow motion train wreck happen, and prepping. There are a least three failure modes ready to end this thing. The best than the Central Banks can do is nurse it until all three happen at the same time. It looks to me like they are actually accomplishing that.
    I have been watching some Bernanke speeches lately, and I wonder if he is trying to build sympathy. He sure isn’t doing anything that makes sense to anyone that I listen to. There are rumors of Gold and Silver shortages, if these turn out to be real, things will get very interesting this fall.

    • Guest

      The rumors of PM shortages have been going around amongst the nutty-burgers for several years, yet nobody seems to have difficulty buying the stuff ;-)

      • windslice

        The problem is that all the paper promises of physical stuff can’t be redeemed with metal.

        But as long as they can keep the illusion going…..

        • Guest

          Where’s the problem, exactly? And what is this illusion you speak of? (or put another way, do you think the people buying gold and silver futures really want to take physical delivery?) 

          • windslice

            I don’t know whether it is a problem or not. It is too opaque for me to work out.

            The futures market originally developed out of the need of producers such as farmers. It has developed into a gambling casino.

            There are the people who own the real stuff, people who borrow and bet with leverage, people who have bits of paper believing they have a claim on the real stuff and the financial industry taking a cut on the deals.

            My feeling is that the last three parties involved are in some way extracting a rent from the owners of the real stuff. I do not find that these activities are beneficial to creating work and a healthy economy.

          • Bigcollapso

             Like any Ponzi scheme, more claims have been created that wealth can be delivered. It is just a matter of time until the brightest claim the wealth, the music stops. and there are no chairs for the masses. It is pretty simple stuff that has been repeated by crooks over and over throughout history.
            The amazing thing this time is that it is so easy to see it coming.

      • Bigcollapso

         What are nutty-burgers?

  • pw

    Hi, If we have massive central bank asset purchases that will not ultimately be balanced, then this would have the same effect of increasing base money ( non-asset (loan) backed money).

    This begs the question “how are currencies are valued and revalued”. This appears to be a seperate accounting system to the banking 5′s.

    Do we have a model/explanation which describes this?

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       Sorry ….. I don’t understand the question~!?

      • pw

        The 5′s model accounts for the bank tokens but how do they value a bank token in nation A. vs. nation B.

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

           They don’t ………. That is a beauty contest.

    • CSArichardo

      I think I follow what you are saying ?   If all these countries who issue currency do such a great job of tracking it (the 5s stuff) what determines the value of a currency in terms of other currencies ?  Especially when you are trading in that currency.  You are on to something…..because for example we talk about an account at the central bank so I am assuming that it is an account say in US dollars.  Is there another clearing account in say Euros too ?

      • joebhed

        In answer to who / what determines ‘relative’ currency values – that is, vis-a-vis other currencies – since we have been off the Bretton Woods standard, the free-market in currency exchange determines the relative values.
        That’s what ForEx does 24 hours every day.
        Or was that a different question?
         

      • pw

        Times tight at the moment but I do have an item on my list ” look more in to the workings of the Fx markets”.

  • pw

    More thoughts / questions on the central bank asset purchases svp.

    What would be the effect of the state just printing money to pay its bills vs. the other scenario of central banks buying bonds on a non-redemable basis? Both produce a wad of “mystic banking tokens”

    • Guest

      The effect would be that the nutty-burgers would get their knickers in a twist and cry about it not being “fair”.

    • windslice

      The State is not allowed to simply pay its bills by printing money. That is illegal.

      Central banks buying debt and holding it forever is legal.

      Both have the same result, as the central bank can be considered as part of the government.

      They just have to follow a legal process.

      Changing the law so that governments can simply pay the bills by issuing money is impossible. The BIS, the IMF and then the financial industry would have a word directly in the ear of any politician who even remotely thought about such a thing.

      • joebhed

         Not sure why you think the government paying its Bills by printing (money-creation) would be bad.
        And its not so much illegal as out of vogue, and as such would require a legal-mechanism for doing so without destroying the economy.
        http://kucinich.house.gov/uploadedfiles/need_act_final_112th.pdf

        Greenbacks were paper money issued to pay government Bills.
        They circulated at par value with other money for over a hundred years.
        Actually, between us, the IMF is having a serious thought about these implications.
        I just heard that there will be a presentation by an IMF chap at the American Monetary Institute’s conference on modeling the Chicago Plan reforms – the FDR-era version of the Kucinich Bill.

        But,yeah, the one-percent will not like it a bit.

        • windslice

          Quite the opposite, I believe that the money creation process should belong to the government and not the private banks.

          I find it ludicrous that we are paying interest in some way to the banks on almost every money that is in existence, and that even the government has to pay interest to the banks on its deficits.

          This has ensured that the bankers are wealthy beyond belief, and given them the power to control the economy by the amount of credit they make available and the interest that they charge.

          • Joebhed

             gotcha.

    • Bigcollapso

       The main difference is that the legal right to print money is a very powerful right, and the subject of much political wrangling.
      Beyond that printing money to pay bills without creating a debt, leaves the bankers with less control. Here is why. The monetary system is an exponential system where the debt increases exponentially and the money gets to be in exponentially shorter supply. I think the number is right now about 5 * more debt than money. This must increase as a function of time or the system collapses.
      If money was printed without debt, the money could be “owned” by people. That is they could keep it and do with it what they wanted. This could potentially be very inflationary.
      With the existing system since the banks are owed 5* as much money as there is actual money their political power increases as a mathematical function of time. It increases both because there is a severe shortage of money to pay the debts, and there is a severe shortage of wealth to cover the debt. Because they get more and more political power as a function of time, they hope to be able to control hyper-inflation by sucking all of the money (because it is all theirs) in by raising interest rates if they don’t like the inflation.

  • windslice

    Regarding the latest “Funding for Lending” scheme

    http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/markets/Documents/explanatory_notefls120713.pdf 

    I have emailed the BoE asking them exactly how this is going to help. Unlike previous email, this one seems to have disappeared without trace. I’ll send it again….. Normally they have been fairly prompt in replying to other questions.

    I also asked,

    “if the BoE takes on collateral from the banks’ loan book against T-Bills, who then receives the interest from those loans?”

    If the banks lose the interest payments, which are presumably set at a commercial level, then I can’t see the attraction of paying the BoE for the facility, unless the reduction in interest rates that the banks can get by using the T-Bills as collateral against MM funding is greater.

    More smoke and mirrors.