Send this article to a friend: December |
How Could They? Say what you want about Bill Gross, but the legendary bond investor is absolutely spot on in the following paragraph from his latest, December, investment outlook:
How Could They?
Ah, nursery rhymes! Intended for kids no less! The above little ditty could serve as a modern day NFL domestic playbook, I suppose, while a century ago it was but one of many "lesson plans" on what not to do when you grow up. There was Jack and Jill, and Little Miss Muffet – all of whom had to be careful – the Muffet Ms. especially so if she ever sat on a tuffet; spiders were lurking! Then there was the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, the moral being that if you lived in one, lots of kids would drag you down for the rest of your life. Honestly – conception must have been pretty awkward for the old gal, maneuvering between laces and all. And instead of scented candles, well, you get the picture. Even Buster Brown's dog, Tige, wouldn't have lived in there. The Punch and Judy rhyme pretty much exposes the early 20th century for what it was: male dominated and domestic violence permitted. Actually, back then, the way comic strips allowed women to get revenge was a metaphorical frying pan in the kitchen. Watch out, Dagwood – here comes Blondie! Today, all of that is frowned upon and so much the better. Outside of comic strips and nursery rhymes, the AMC series "Mad Men" takes us back to the bad old days when everyone smoked in the office and right next to you on airplanes, no less. "How could they?!!" is the almost immediate response, because we have adapted and adjusted to a different set of social, moral and ethical standards. Race, gender, sexual orientation, you name it … things are moving forward. You could shriek a "How could they?" for all of the above while understanding perhaps why they did. Maybe they didn't know any better, maybe the time wasn't right, maybe they just needed a Martin Luther King, a Betty Friedan, or a Harvey Milk to lead the way. In each case the "How could they?" can only be answered by "they did – but now they don't as much." What I find equally interesting is to project forward and try to guess what things we are doing now as a society that our grandchildren will ask, "How could they?" That indeed is a tough one, because like cigarette smoking on "Mad Men" in the '60s, it's difficult to conceive of an alternative environment. Perhaps it will be food and cuisine oriented. Corn in everything we eat and drink; genetic modification – "How could they?" Perhaps it will be robot driven cars, prompting our grandchildren to ask, "How could they? No wonder there were so many fatalities." Maybe going to college will top the charts of future unthinkables. "Spending $200,000 for four years of partying – how could they?" We shall see, or better yet, our kids will. They will mold their own world as their environment, and developing ethical standards will mold them in turn; a wheel within a wheel. Punch and Judy would be amazed. Speaking of the future and life's lessons, there is an ongoing process of discovery taking place amongst the world's central bankers which they hope will rejuvenate their respective economies without creating the inflationary horror of the 1970s. If Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen were the fictional Little Miss Muffet, she would be hoping to eat the "curds and whey" of 2% to 3% real economic growth while avoiding spiderous increases in future prices. If European Central Bank President Mario Draghi were the old fashioned "Punch," he might figuratively be attacking German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her tight monetary and fiscal heritage. "Take that Judy/Angela!" I don't know who to compare Bank of Japan's Governor Haruhiko Kuroda to – perhaps little Jack Horner hoping to stick his thumb into a Christmas pie, pulling out a plumb and exclaiming, "What a good boy am I!" Ah, policymakers. Perhaps the last five years have been one giant nursery rhyme. But each of these central bankers is trying to achieve the same basic objective: Solve a debt crisis by creating more debt. Can it be done? A few years ago, I wrote that this uncommonsensical feat could be accomplished, but with a number of caveats: 1) Initial conditions must not be onerous; 2) Both monetary and fiscal policies must be coordinated and lead to acceptable structural growth rates; and 3) Private investors must continue to participate in the capital market charade that such policies produced. Let me explain each of these three caveats in turn.
With each of my three primary caveats coming up short in an answer to my earlier question: "Can a debt crisis be cured with more debt?" it is difficult to envision a return to normalcy within my lifetime (shorter than it is for most of you). I suspect future generations will be asking current policymakers the same thing that many of us now ask about public smoking, or discrimination against gays, or any other wrong turn in the process of being righted. How could they? How could policymakers have allowed so much debt to be created in the first place, and then failed to regulate their own system accordingly? How could they have thought that money printing and debt creation could create wealth instead of just more and more debt? How could fiscal authorities have stood by and attempted to balance budgets as opposed to borrowing cheaply and investing the proceeds in infrastructure and innovation? It has been a nursery rhyme experience for sure, but more than likely without a fairytale ending. Markets are reaching the point of low return and diminishing liquidity. Investors may want to begin to take some chips off the table: raise asset quality, reduce duration, and prepare for at least a halt of asset appreciation engineered upon a false central bank premise of artificial yields, QE and the trickling down of faux wealth to the working class. If the nursery rhyme theme is apropos to the future, as well as the past, investors should remember that while "Jack and Jill went up the hill," that "Jack fell down, broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after." Someday soon, perhaps. -William H. Gross |
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