“In my example, M1 would rise by a quadrillion, there would be zero
increase in output, but literally nothing would happen that would impact
anyone.”
What???
M1 is deposit money, i.e., spendable money that is held by a customer of a commercial bank. You are conflating changes in M1 with that of reserves. The big increase in reserves makes no difference IF banks do nothing. The same in M1 absolutely would.
Not making loans does not mean deposits won’t expand. Loans are not the only way banks expand deposits. They also do so when they purchase an asset from a non-bank. The only effective difference between them and the Fed in this is the banks cannot create reserves.
Also, QE does not work the way many people think it does. It is described as “buying bonds from banks.” It is no such thing. The Fed deals with PRIMARY DEALERS, which for the most part are securities outfits, not banks. For example, Wells Fargo Bank is NOT a Primary Dealer. But Wells Fargo Securities is.
Securities dealers are often part of the same holding company as a bank but they have their own demand deposit account with the bank being their clearing bank. A Fed purchase of a bond from a Primary Dealer involves a credit to the Primary Dealer’s demand deposit account and the associated bank’s reserves.
So, QE has an effect on deposits. How much depends upon how many of the bonds the Primary Dealers have obtained from non-banks. Not every bond they have comes from a bank. The Primary Dealer is acting as a conduit to the Fed. If the bond comes from a bank, there is no effect on deposits. But there is one if it comes from a non-bank.
Furthermore, during the QEs the banks have been net BUYERS of government securities, not sellers. As I stated above, when a bank buys an asset from a non-bank they do so by creating a deposit, just as they do when making a loan.
corkball
2 years ago
I completely don’t get it. Govt issues 1 quadrillion in bonds. Bank buys bonds. Fed buys bonds from bank. Bank sits on cash from the Fed. Govt spends 1 quadrillion dollars on hookers and blow, leading to inflation. What am I missing? Can someone explain with colored kindergarten blocks to me what I am obviously missing?
Mish’s point is that there are TWO actors here: the Fed (central bank) and Congress (“the government”). What the FED does during QE is buy bonds from private banks. Those bonds already exist — they are already owned by the banks. When the Fed buys them, it just owns the preexisting bonds. And when it pays for them, it does so by adding to the bank’s reserves. It does not just pay for them with cash that the bank can then spend on anything. The bank gets reserves back, which cannot be spent.
On other hand, Congress can issue NEW bonds and spend the proceeds. When Congress issues new bonds, the Treasury sells those bonds on the open market. Sometimes banks buy them. Sometimes other private groups buy them, foreign governments, or whoever.
It is Congress that can create inflation due to spending. The Fed cannot create inflation with QE because the Fed is just buying bonds *that already exist*. The Fed is prohibited from buying bonds directly from the Treasury.
Without QE, the private market will constrain spending by Congress because interest rates will start rising as demand for the new bonds drop.
The problem comes with “QE forever”, which means that Congress can sell any number of bonds on the open market, and the Fed will end up buying any number of those bonds. Then Congress’ constraint is a lot lower because the Fed will be holding interest rates down by continuing to buy the bonds on the open market. I.e. Congress borrows, the Treasury issues new bonds and sells them on the open market, then the Fed buys them back from banks. Well if Congress just borrows and spends forever, and the Fed runs QE forever, then inflation will eventually go up. But it goes up because of Congress’ spending, not because of QE.
tldr; QE *itself* does not cause inflation. It is the government spending enabled by QE that causes inflation.
Thanks for reply CMC. Wouldn’t ‘a quadrillion dollars in QE’ imply there already are a quadrillion dollars in already privately held govt bonds? Is that anywhere near plausible? The link below makes me think we are at like $20 trillion that COULD POTENTIALLY be rolled over:
Yes I believe you’re right. Mish is just using hyperbole to make his point that QE itself has little power to create inflation, since banks can’t force people to take out loans.
I should also mention that the objective of QE is supposed to be to increase bank lending. I.e. the banks get reserves for the bonds they sold to the Fed, so the banks should then be more willing to make loans. But QE fails to do this a lot of times because banks don’t have more customers to get loans. The side effect of QE is enabling more gov’t spending, though. So one may argue that would be better to just add to the bank reserves with magic money than to go through the whole QE rigamarole.
Casual_Observer
2 years ago
Oddly this was written before Covid shutdowns occurred but may be prescient.
The original definition of quantitative easing as used by Richard Werner in Japan was the buying of nonperforming loans from banks at face value to clean up their balance sheets and allow them to make more loans (“real” money). Part 2 of his plan was for the government to stop issuing bonds and borrow directly from the banks (increasing bank credit which is “real” money).
This was not done and the term quantitative easing has been used in a different way since then, effectively meaning the purchase of government bonds by the central bank. When they buy an existing bond from a bank, the proceeds of that sale are added to bank reserves at the fed which can’t be spent (they can be used as reserves for lending when qualified borrowers want to borrow for capex, but this is not currently the case – in fact the reserve ratio has been reduced to 0 since March 2020).
If the fed institutes QE and buys new bonds, however (either directly or through banks / primary dealers), the government has “real” money to spend and I think we can safely assume that it will spend it. In this case, the money created by the fed is not unspendable reserves, but can and will be spent.
$40 trillion per month of government spending would definitely have an impact on inflation.
This is my sense as well. It is not QE per se but the government spending that QE enables. Mish alludes to this when he points out the stimulus package
What’s more, although QE in lesser amounts, ie the purchase of secondary market Treasuries only adds to reserves at the Fed, government knowledge of the existence of a QE program makes additional government borrowing easier. If the Government knows that the Fed will purchase any new debt at below market set yields, they’re free to raise funds, more funds, than they would otherwise be able to. That money will be spent. If QE wasn’t in operation, yields would be higher and the government would have to consider how viable new borrowing would be at given rates. Therefore QE allows the Government to effectively borrow as much as they want at whatever yield they effectively set. As this hasn’t caused inflation to date, I presume there have been other deflationary forces in the economy offsetting it, something Mish has previously mentioned.
QE is the biggest confidence trick in human history!
Anda
2 years ago
I’m going to disagree with you a bit on this.
From the below link which is well worth reading
“The situation changes under QE because QE, by definition, involves the central bank supplying (massive amounts of) excess reserves. This would normally push the overnight interest rate down to, or close to, zero. This is not a problem because QE is usually used as an easing policy after interest-rate ammunition has been exhausted–that is, it is combined with and comes on top of zero or near-zero interest rate policy.”
So what we are looking at with large QE is an attempt to floor rates at 0. Zero rates implies money has no time preference, or that it is worthless in terms of investment return, where even were it a positive real rate on price deflation it would be a set rate across the board for every kind of business activity, a centralised monotonous rate, which would be impossible to use in constructive business calculation. In other words it would simply imply an ultimate monetisation and destruction of the market economy.
This would also involve taking onto the balance sheet assets, and we will limit this here to government debt though as other central banks have shown a move into private assets is possible also (so making the central bank complicit in their success by exposure to possible loss from them). We stick to government debt though because it is first stop and simpler to understand:
“LH: “There are folks who want to make the Fed’s liabilities legal tender. Now, if that happens, then the inflation rate would take off.”
Note that the QE related M1 deposits are not legal tender. They cannot be spent or lent. Thus, they are not really money in the first place. “
I disagree, almost all legal tender is based on ? It is based on government debt on the central bank balance sheet. That is to say that central bank fiat money is based on its assets of government debt. The fed liabilities are actually what is legal tender. A bank note (or reserve) issued by the fed is a liability on the fed balance sheet.
Correct me though if wrong.
So QE as stated in the article really implies already the total destruction of the US economy and market has taken place, a meltdown probably because everyone is withdrawing all the cash they can due to loss of confidence in the system. They tried this before the great depression remember, maybe it wasn’t enough then, maybe they should have promised to monetise everything…. but that money would eventually be worth close to zero.
At least, that is my view – most likely the result would be government takeover of business, price setting, rationing, in open format, or social upheaval and revolution.
Paul Sheard, Chief Global Economist and Head of Global Economics and Research
simb555
2 years ago
Terrific post, learned a lot. One thing Mish did not address and I wish he would is money velocity. In past inflationary periods money velocity rose. Since 2000 mv has dropped and the latest readings are as low as what we saw in the 30s. Mish, how can we have inflation with record lows in money velocity?
Scooot
2 years ago
The proceeds from the new issuance would give the government a lot of new spending power. I suspect they’d be more supply bottlenecks and rising prices.
Lugnut
2 years ago
QE in that amount would imply new issuance in large amounts, as there isnt that much outstanding for them to buy, right? And to me the question isnt what affect that has on lending, as that is a ‘locally’ concerned statement. The question is what affect does it have on the FOREX market, if your conversation is about potential hyperinflation. I may be an investing newbie, but my spidey sense would be tingling and tell me to pour every dollar I have into shorting USDX.
Scooot
2 years ago
$40 trillion a month. There aren’t enough US Treasuries outstanding for that are there? I guess they’d be a lot of new issues.
Mish
2 years ago
Comment upgrade postponed again.
This time to Thursday
Mish
2 years ago
@quatloo
Q: What impact did a rise of 4 trillion in M1 from 14T to 18T have on lending?
“Q: What impact did a rise of 4 trillion in M1 from 14T to 18T have on lending?”
Your question makes sense if asked in the context of reserves. It does not make sense wrt M1. The increase in M1 is an increase in the money supply held by the public and corporations that has already taken place. You do not want to see the actual money supply go up by $100 trillion.
oldsketpic
2 years ago
Not quite. The bankers would find a way to shuffle the money around and pay themselves hundreds of billions of dollars in fees and commissions.
increase in output, but literally nothing would happen that would impact
anyone.”
Yes I believe you’re right. Mish is just using hyperbole to make his point that QE itself has little power to create inflation, since banks can’t force people to take out loans.
This is my sense as well. It is not QE per se but the government spending that QE enables. Mish alludes to this when he points out the stimulus package
What’s more, although QE in lesser amounts, ie the purchase of secondary market Treasuries only adds to reserves at the Fed, government knowledge of the existence of a QE program makes additional government borrowing easier. If the Government knows that the Fed will purchase any new debt at below market set yields, they’re free to raise funds, more funds, than they would otherwise be able to. That money will be spent. If QE wasn’t in operation, yields would be higher and the government would have to consider how viable new borrowing would be at given rates. Therefore QE allows the Government to effectively borrow as much as they want at whatever yield they effectively set. As this hasn’t caused inflation to date, I presume there have been other deflationary forces in the economy offsetting it, something Mish has previously mentioned.
I’m going to disagree with you a bit on this.
From the below link which is well worth reading
“The situation changes under QE because QE, by definition, involves the central bank supplying (massive amounts of) excess reserves. This would normally push the overnight interest rate down to, or close to, zero. This is not a problem because QE is usually used as an easing policy after interest-rate ammunition has been exhausted–that is, it is combined with and comes on top of zero or near-zero interest rate policy.”
So what we are looking at with large QE is an attempt to floor rates at 0. Zero rates implies money has no time preference, or that it is worthless in terms of investment return, where even were it a positive real rate on price deflation it would be a set rate across the board for every kind of business activity, a centralised monotonous rate, which would be impossible to use in constructive business calculation. In other words it would simply imply an ultimate monetisation and destruction of the market economy.
This would also involve taking onto the balance sheet assets, and we will limit this here to government debt though as other central banks have shown a move into private assets is possible also (so making the central bank complicit in their success by exposure to possible loss from them). We stick to government debt though because it is first stop and simpler to understand:
“LH: “There are folks who want to make the Fed’s liabilities legal tender. Now, if that happens, then the inflation rate would take off.”
Note that the QE related M1 deposits are not legal tender. They cannot be spent or lent. Thus, they are not really money in the first place. “
I disagree, almost all legal tender is based on ? It is based on government debt on the central bank balance sheet. That is to say that central bank fiat money is based on its assets of government debt. The fed liabilities are actually what is legal tender. A bank note (or reserve) issued by the fed is a liability on the fed balance sheet.
Correct me though if wrong.
So QE as stated in the article really implies already the total destruction of the US economy and market has taken place, a meltdown probably because everyone is withdrawing all the cash they can due to loss of confidence in the system. They tried this before the great depression remember, maybe it wasn’t enough then, maybe they should have promised to monetise everything…. but that money would eventually be worth close to zero.
At least, that is my view – most likely the result would be government takeover of business, price setting, rationing, in open format, or social upheaval and revolution.
Terrific post, learned a lot. One thing Mish did not address and I wish he would is money velocity. In past inflationary periods money velocity rose. Since 2000 mv has dropped and the latest readings are as low as what we saw in the 30s. Mish, how can we have inflation with record lows in money velocity?
The proceeds from the new issuance would give the government a lot of new spending power. I suspect they’d be more supply bottlenecks and rising prices.
QE in that amount would imply new issuance in large amounts, as there isnt that much outstanding for them to buy, right? And to me the question isnt what affect that has on lending, as that is a ‘locally’ concerned statement. The question is what affect does it have on the FOREX market, if your conversation is about potential hyperinflation. I may be an investing newbie, but my spidey sense would be tingling and tell me to pour every dollar I have into shorting USDX.
$40 trillion a month. There aren’t enough US Treasuries outstanding for that are there? I guess they’d be a lot of new issues.
Comment upgrade postponed again.
This time to Thursday
Q: What impact did a rise of 4 trillion in M1 from 14T to 18T have on lending?
A: None. why would another 10T matter? 100T?
Not quite. The bankers would find a way to shuffle the money around and pay themselves hundreds of billions of dollars in fees and commissions.
there is literally nothing to pass around.
“I suppose there could be a temporary knock on psychological effect over the size of the announcement but that would be short-lived.”
How can you be so confident how the market would react psychologically? Logic does not seem like the guiding force in the markets.