Board-Ansicht
Mix-Ansicht- Liquidität: Greenspan denkt auch an Laufzeitverlängerung der Treasuries - kingsolomon, 18.11.2002, 19:38
Liquidität: Greenspan denkt auch an Laufzeitverlängerung der Treasuries
-->Auschnitt aus dem heutigen Kommentar von Bill Murphy auf LemetropoleCafe
GREENSPAN, FOLLOWING FED'S INTEREST RATE CUT, CLAIMS
THERE'S NO LIMIT TO PUMPING LIQUIDITY INTO SYSTEM.
In testimony to the Congress' Joint Economic Committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the interest rate cut should help get the economy through a"'soft patch' that is not something which is the precursor of far more significant weakening." He then admitted the rate cut was considered by the Federal Reserve as the right policy if the U.S. is not going through a short-term soft patch, but something worse.
The economy is not close to a"deflationary cliff," he said, but, if we get to that point, and the Federal funds rate had been lowered to 0%, the Federal Reserve could still increase the liquidity of the system by purchasing long-term Treasury securities and increasing the maturity of Treasuries."There's virtually no meaningful limit to what we could inject into the system, were that necessary," he claimed.
Note that"increasing the maturity of Treasuries" is not a tool for injecting additional liquidity into the system if it only pertains to newly issued Treasuries, because selling new Treasuries takes money out of the system rather than putting it in. However, increasing the maturities of Treasuries that are already in the hands of the public-- saying, for example, that a 90-day T-bill will be paid off in 30 years rather than in 90 days--does inject liquidity into the system, because it reduces the volume of new Treasuries that will have to be sold to fund ongoing government operations. Since new sales take liquidity out of the system, it follows that reducing the need for new sales by increasing the maturities of previously issued Treasuries has the effect of increasing the liquidity in the system.
Thus Greenspan has essentially admitted that default--refusing to honor the terms of issuance of presently existing Treasuries--is on the table as an option, if it turns out that the U.S. economy is not merely"going through a short-term soft patch, but something worse." And, as he put it"There's virtually no meaningful limit to what we could inject into the system, were that necessary."
There is, however, one tiny fly in the ointment: the very instant the authorities default on Treasuries by"increasing their maturities" or convince the general public that they are contemplating doing that, vast numbers of store-of-value transactions will begin to flow into gold and out of Treasuries. Shortly thereafter Mr. Greenspan will discover that there most assuredly is a meaningful limit on the amount of gold he can inject into the system, because whatever supplies central banks have left will be quickly consumed in the resulting conflagration. At that point the price of gold and other storable commodities will begin to soar, putting a distinct whiff of inflation into the air. Result: people will begin to reduce their average holding times for fiat money, the velocity of circulation of money will explode, an out-of-control hyperinflationary spiral will begin, and the era of central banking and irredeemable paper money will be over.
--Mitchell Jones
Thread gesperrtgesamter Thread:
