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MUST READ: DEEP THOUGHTS FROM ALBERT EDWARDS
Deep Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Deep thoughts here from SocGen’s Albert Edwards:
It’s almost as if the biggest credit bubble in history never occurred. Investors are increasingly convinced that a sustainable global recovery is emerging out of the wreckage. All praise to the central bankers (and Gordon Brown) for saving the world! I’m waiting till someone writes about the return of The Great Moderation and suggests Ben Bernanke is the new Maestro. Then I’ll know the lunatics have taken over the madhouse…..yet again!
When you look at the ever shrinking rate of bank lending to the private sector around the world it is clear as the nose on my face that the global economy is still very, very sick. As we have repeatedly highlighted, one key lesson from Japanese boom and bust is that banks are not the problem. Bankers bonuses are not even the problem. The pigmies that populate the political and monetary elites prefer to genuflect to the court of public opinion in a pathetic attempt to deflect blame from their own gross and unforgivable incompetence. It is the monetary and regulatory authorities that are responsible for this mess. It is not obvious in retrospect. It was obvious from the very start.
The problem is that after the boom there will be a bust. The issue now is one of deleveraging and the deflation that is starting to unfold. The problem is that Bernanke is a slave to Milton Friedman’s view of the Great Depression (at Friedman’s 90th birthday Bernanke promised that the Fed would never allow another Great Depression to occur). The Australian economist Steve Keen’s observation that “Bernanke’s dilemma is that he is living in a Minskian world while perceiving it though Friedmanite eyes explains his actions to date. It also explains why he will fail.
Source: FT & SocGen
