Show me the money

Most business cycle models include the money supply as a leading indicator of the economy, meaning that changes in the money supply tend to precede and signal changes in the economy in the near future. The money supply year-to-year change spiked late last year, giving some money watchers goose bumps.

According to Ryan McMaken at the Mises Institute, the money supply jumped 11.3 percent on the Austrian money supply (AMS) index late last year. Murray Rothbard and Joseph Salerno created the Austrian money supply index to provide a better measure than the Fed’s M2. That spurt in money occurred after a several years of sedate money growth. 

McMaken wrote that since 2014, money supply growth has ranged from about 7 percent to 8.5 percent. In October of last year, money supply growth hit a seven-year low of 6.8 percent. The AMS spiked to 11.3 percent in the fourth quarter, then in February it collapsed back to a year-to-year growth rate of 7.7 percent.

The case for a raging market in 2017

Trumpeting a new boss in the White House wasn’t the only cause of the recent spectacular rise in the stock market. Several economic indicators improved in the fourth quarter. Nicholas Vardy wrote,

Consumer confidence stands at its highest level since August 2001. The unemployment rate is at nine-year low. The U.S. economy is close to full employment. S&P 500 earnings are coming out of an earnings recession, and are expected to grow by double-digit percentages in 2017. 

And the money supply jumped:

The supply of US dollars accelerated during late 2016 with October's year-over-year percentage increase in the money supply hitting a 46-month high of 11.2 percent. The YOY growth rate fell slightly to 10.3 percent in November.

This comes after a long period of relatively sedate growth in the money supply through most of 2013, 2014 and 2015.

The recent surge in money supply growth suggests that the likelihood of an economic contraction in the near future has been reduced, with the next downturn being pushed out further into the future. 

Where's the growth?!!!

Decades ago an old lady yelled, “Where’s the beef?” when handed a burger in a fast food commercial. It became a catch phrase for occasions when people wanted to advertise that an idea lacked substance. So while the media proclaims the virtues of the current economy, many economists are asking, “Where’s the growth?”

The Bureau for International Settlements (BIS), the central bankers’ bank, recently issued a report card on the efforts of their client central banks to boost growth since the last recession and given them a failing grade. In the report “Unconventional monetary policies: a re-appraisal,” the BIS economists wrote:

We reach three main conclusions: there is ample evidence that, to varying degrees, these measures have succeeded in influencing financial conditions even though their ultimate impact on output and inflation is harder to pin down;

Bitcoin won't save us

Libertarians have waxed poetic about bitcoin for years. It pokes a finger in the eye of the state by breaking the state’s monopoly on money and rescues citizens from a rapidly eroding dollar. But aside from the block chain innovation and its potential use in other industries, I can’t get excited about bitcoin. Other than symbolic, what advantage does bitcoin offer?

Say you produce oil field equipment in Tulsa and made a big sale to a production company in Marrakech, Morocco and to make the sale you offered them 90 days of credit. Also, you’re local sales rep made the deal in Moroccan dirhams. So you’re worried that in the 90 days before you get paid that the value of the dirham will depreciate against the dollar (that is, it will buy fewer dollars) and you’ll lose money on the deal.

QE to Infinity and Beyond and Cantillon

Mainstream economics denies that Cantillon Effects exist. Cantillon Effects are one of those insights that Austrian economics offers followers that help us avoid nasty surprises like the Great Recession. Recently, McKinsey and Company provided research that supports the Austrian view of Cantillon effects from QE. Here is one of their charts:

Fight the Fed or profit from its profligacy?

The Federal Reserve is a century old this year, but instead of cheering, good economists are lauding the apology in the Wall Street Journal by a Fed insider, Andrew Huszar, a senior fellow at Rutgers Business School and a former Morgan Stanley managing director. In 2009-10, Huszar managed the Fed’s $1.25 trillion agency mortgage-backed security purchase program.

It’s important to call the Fed out on bad monetary policy, but the few who do will not change the Fed because it has the support of mainstream economics. The Fed is only doing what mainstream econ teaches it should do, so until mainstream economics changes nothing will change at the Fed. Changing mainstream economics will be difficult to do because the professors have a lot invested in their paradigm. Cracks in the paradigm will not change their minds. Nothing short of a nuclear explosion will work.

Fed Fail!

With Ben Bernanke's departure, it’s time to grade his portfolio of work. Ben invented new methods to expand the money supply, including buying non-government issued debt. Mainstream economists credit him with having rescued the economy from the latest recession. The economy has recovered slowly in the past five years, but should we give all the glory to the Fed? These charts should answer those questions: