(2020-05-22) Cecchini No Free Lunches

Peter Cecchini: No Free Lunches. We maintain that the recent rally is a bear market bounce and that the correction over the past couple of days is the start of a more sustained selloff. We believe market participants will eventually catch on to the fact that THERE ARE NO FREE LUNCHES OVER THE LONG-TERM.

Budget Deficits may not matter when myopically considering they can be monetized, but monetization does not happen in a vacuum. Monetization occurs at a cost to the monetary authority in the form of opportunity cost.

monetization of deficits without taxation as a source of funds for spending presents potentially existential problems for a capitalist democracy.

if debt monetization is a panacea, then what of taxation as the source of funds for government spending? If one argues no taxation is needed, the entire system of taxation and spending comes into question. Why even bother to tax? Taxation, authorization and appropriation are some of Congress’ most important roles. If there’s no need to tax to fund spending, then what does that mean for a legislative system based upon that basic equality? Are we as Americans once again (as during the reign of the English monarchy) ceding authority to undemocratic institutions (i.e. – the Fed)? What incentives does such a system create to spend without limitation on any pet project that a Congressman or Congresswoman deems suitable for their district – as long as the Fed chooses to monetize it? It seems clear that it creates a world rife with economic inefficiency, corruption and moral hazard.

Do other nations simply sit by and watch the U.S. and Japan monetize their debts without trying to do the same?

Of course not. They will certainly try and have already started

This will likely not end well as it risks destroying the creditworthiness of already challenged EM economies. Their growth is essential to the world.

This discussion goes well beyond esoteric considerations of monetary policy and Modern Monetary theory (MMT). It ultimately cuts to the heart of sustaining our democracy and the checks and balances that make it work. U.S. democracy works because of these checks and balances, which exist in a fragile equilibrium that the Fed’s willingness to monetize deficits will now upset – unless it is checked by a newly created system of checks and balances.

This lack of efficacy (at best) or harmful side-effects (at worst) are what ultimately pushes the Fed to focus on ‘wealth effect’ or ‘confidence’ channels. This is what led it to buy corporate bonds. It had nothing left.

Both traditional monetary policy (through open market operations that manage to Fed fund target rates) and extraordinary policies like quantitative easing (that suppress the term premium of interest rates) work through a rates mechanism

Recently, long-thought-dead bond vigilantes jumped out of their graves in the face of Treasury issuance need to fund deficits. Figure 1 shows the dislocations in March 2020 when the Treasury market began to absorb the fact that long-dated coupon issues would explode to fund the deficits needed to combat the pandemic.

When rates are near or below zero, these policies maintain the status quo – at best. They lose marginal benefit. In fact, they may even do more harm than good because they encourage ‘malinvestment’ and create overcapacity (as in U.S. E&P). This oversupply leads to price disinflation and even deflation.