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Americans have been reminded of at least two things of late: In the end, deflation is significantly about jobs. Secondly, and also according to Ben Bernanke, while we wait for the jobs we must realize that “central bankers alone cannot solve the world’s economic problems.” These may be the most important words Bernanke has uttered during his tenure as Fed chief.
There is a lot of untapped potential for addressing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure when 9 million Americans are picking up June unemployment checks. So what’s missing? When the financial crisis hit in 2008, Wall Street’s biggest concern was a survival plan for Wall Street bettors, not Main Street jobs. Inscrutably, when the Obama administration took power it veered toward the financial intelligentsia’s “recovery” plans, not a technologically robust infrastructure overhaul vision.
Many taxpaying Americans are understandably concerned about a congressional leader’s trial balloon proposal to hike the normal Social Security retirement age to 70. (The proposal would apply to workers at least 20 years from retirement.) Millions of Americans over age 55 cannot find suitable full-time work. A higher retirement age may mean more years of trying to get by on marginal employment.
Investment markets have been unsettled of late, resulting in the worst quarter for major American stock indices since 2008. Are European G20 leaders correct in declaring there is too much debt in the world? Or is President Obama’s team right in pushing for more stimulus? Who holds the real economic insights? Those who say we must borrow our way forward to recovery?
The emerging bank reform legislation might be viewed in a singularly positive light if the reforms were not the byproduct of a skewed capital system that made several million Americans undeservedly powerful and rich while Congress slept. One could feel downright hopeful about the future of American banking if moral hazard had not contaminated the land. But too much polluted water has gone under the bridge. The good in the reforms is counteracted by the poisons that produced the need for remedial interventions.
As long as the value of the yuan in international trade is not an issue addressable by the international community, China’s policy of growing its money supply (M1 & M2 equivalents) at over 20% annually is the same thing as China declaring war on the world. As thinking people have come to understand, a large country’s monetary policies can impact the long-term economic sovereignty of other countries in the global trade era as effectively as military policies.
If the truth sets people free, why is America becoming less free on the heels of twenty-five years of “free market capitalism”? Granted, banks could not do every last thing they pleased (although hedge funds pretty much could). But banks did receive enormous breadth of latitude for self-regulation. The theory was that the free market profit motive would facilitate naturally functioning checks and balances. Instead, the whole world got a taste of what happens when virtue sits on the sidelines while greed is empowered as the referee.
Free markets and their attentive politicians are always serving up something new. May’s service — an 872 point Dow Jones blowout — clearly dampens recovery hopes. Is it right that financial markets impact the underlying economy so remarkably? Could a different financial architecture help mitigate this problem — an architecture that does not shortchange honorable merit when it comes to financial rewards?
The market’s recent plunge to new closing lows complicates the recovery picture for many market bulls, including people who believe the regulatory reforms underway will eventually cure whatever ails us. Recent market action — including the May 6 ‘Flash-Crash’ — should be unsettling to individuals who think free market mechanisms are all we need.
The U.S. Congress appeared taken by surprise in October of 2008 as the financial crisis on Wall Street unfolded. Congress was in a state of shock and awe, amazed to see their policymaking implicated in the speculative bubble and its collapse. But why were they surprised? How did these legislative engineers fail to see the hazards of their fiscal deficits? Had they been pawns? Were they errantly advised? Or were they led astray by false theories and their own greed?