Not content with helping people avoid tax, fiddling Libor, manipulating foreign exchange markets and helping crash the world economy, one of the big mouthed idiots at the top of HSBC is now expressing views on economics. You might as well listen to a chimpanzee on the subject.
Stephen King, HSBC’s chief economist thinks governments have run out of options for imparting stimulus because interest rates are near zero. His views there are much the same as Lawrence Summers’s “secular stagnation” idea.
As I’ve pointed out before, if you read the small print, it’s not really clear that Summers’s SS idea consists of anything remotely coherent. But if HE IS saying anything, it’s the above idea that governments are near out of options.
Anyway, the flaw in the above King/Summers nonsense is that even if interest rates are at zero, there is absolutly nothing to stop the state simply printing money and spending it on the usual public sector items: health, education, etc. Or if a right wing governemnt is in power, it can use the extra money to cut taxes, which will increase consumer spending. The latter is not as PREDICTABLE a method of creating jobs as public spending. But never mind: if a right wing party is elected to power, it is fully entitled to do what it was elected to do.
The Stephen King message, i.e. “There’s no money – we’re knackered” is unfortunately shared by many others. It’s complete nonsense.
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P.S. To be more accurate, the chimpanzee – I mean Stephen King – does seem to be aware of the above “print and spend” option. According to the Telegraph article, he thinks “The last resort may have to be "helicopter money", a radically different form of QE that injects money directly into the veins of economy by funding government spending.”
Now there’s a teensy problem there as follows. Over the last three years or so we’ve had government borrow money and spend it with bonds being given to creditors, and with the central bank then printing money and buying back those bonds (QE). Now that all comes to the same thing as “print and spend”. So unbeknown to the chimpanzee – I mean Stephen King – his dreaded helicopter option has ALREADY BEEN IMPLEMENTED, and big time.
This is the end of civilisation as we know it.
Now there’s a teensy problem there as follows. Over the last three years or so we’ve had government borrow money and spend it with bonds being given to creditors, and with the central bank then printing money and buying back those bonds (QE). Now that all comes to the same thing as “print and spend”. So unbeknown to the chimpanzee – I mean Stephen King – his dreaded helicopter option has ALREADY BEEN IMPLEMENTED, and big time.
This is the end of civilisation as we know it.
HSBC no doubt benefits from the government whether it is buying or selling sovereign bonds,(acting as a primary dealer).
ReplyDeleteThe system seems set up to help these type of financial institutions, who make nice commissions for arranging said transactions and also conveniently get classed as banks of significant systemic importance....ensuring cheap and copious loans in when they most need it.
Can't think they would be voting for helicoper drops as they stand not to make much out of that policy.As you have pointed out in the past,why don' t we just cut out the middle man here along with the implicit bailout guarantee.
But then what would all those poor bankers do?