Economics

Enquête sur les dommages des faibles taux d’intérêt

Dec 14, 2017 Anders Åslund

WASHINGTON, DC – Pendant des années après la crise financière de 2008, les décideurs se sont félicités d'avoir permis d'éviter une seconde Grande Dépression. Ils avaient réagi à la récession mondiale en mettant en œuvre le type de relance budgétaire et monétaire keynésienne que le moment requérait.

Néanmoins, neuf ans se sont écoulés et les taux d'intérêt officiels sont toujours en vol stationnaire autour de zéro, alors que la croissance a été médiocre. Depuis 2008, l'Union européenne a affiché un taux de croissance annuel moyen lamentable, de seulement 0,9%.

Le large consensus keynésien qui a émergé immédiatement après la crise est devenu le dogme économique qui prévaut aujourd'hui: tant que la croissance reste inférieure à la normale et que l’inflation annuelle reste inférieure à 2%, stimuler davantage est jugé non seulement approprié, mais nécessaire.

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B Wilds Dec 15, 2017

The policy of rapid credit expansion while an interesting concept often brings with it negative consequences. Currently, it is being put to the test as new problems emerge in China where we saw the amount of GDP growth generated by each infusion of money decrease over the last four years.

Savers are suffering from these low-interest rates. The leading edge of the massive Boomer generation knows that every dollar spent is a dollar it cannot re-earn or replenish. Lower rates in effect have caused many older Americans to hoard their wealth. On the flip-side, many people with little savings have rushed out to buy cars and expensive items they really can't afford and pulled consumption forward. The article below looks at some of the unhealthy side-effects of low-interest rates.

http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2017/03/low-interest-rates-carry-hidden-cost.html
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Steve Hurst Dec 14, 2017

Policy did what it was supposed to - Protect the Establishment which also included Banks - And abstract wealth from Savers, who else was wealth to be abstracted from. Protection ensured assets were secured. If they were unsecured then the pyramid collapsed. The overshoot was inevitable because the downside was too big a risk and the boundary was indeterminate. Its a crock of ... wrapped in a bow but at least there was a crock
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Paul Daley Dec 14, 2017

Aslund doesn't answer the question he asks - could policy-makers have avoided the long term use of low interest rates? Some believe that the paralysis of governments forced that choice. But the paralysis of governments didn't make low interest rates so ineffectual that they had to be continued for eight years. That was a product of the use to which the low interest funds were put. Channeled to asset markets, they served primarily to boost asset prices, in effect driving a wedge between asset prices and underlying income flows.

If central banks are going to substitute for governments effectively, then they are going to have to act like governments in supplementing incomes and sustaining demand for goods and services. That means using the funds created by quantitative easing to fund infrastructure and other projects, or to direct loans to taxpayers through withholding systems. Simply pumping asset prices will only produce the long, slow, fragile and unequal recovery that we have seen this decade.
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https://prosyn.org/c11KnJxfr

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