FRA ZEROHEDGE:
Remember the vicious cycle that threatened the entire European banking sector in 2012?
It went something like this: over indebted sovereigns depended on domestic banks to buy their debt, but when yields on that debt spiked, the banks took a hit, inhibiting their ability to fund the sovereign, whose yields would then rise some more, further curtailing banks’ ability to help out, and so on and so forth.
Well don’t look now, but central bankers’ headlong plunge into NIRP-dom has created another “doom loop” whereby negative rates weaken banks whose profits are already crimped by the new regulatory regime, sharply lower revenue from trading, and billions in fines. Weak banks then pull back on lending, thus weakening the economy further and compelling policy makers to take rates even lower in a self-perpetuating death spiral. Meanwhile, bank stocks plunge raising questions about the entire sector’s viability and that, in turn, raises the specter of yet another financial market meltdown.
Below, find the diagram that illustrates this dynamic followed by a bit of color from WSJ:
In a way, the move below zero was a gamble. The theory went like this: Banks would take a hit, but negative rates would get the economy moving. A stronger economy would, in turn, help the banks recover.
It appears that wager isn’t working.
The consequences are deeply worrying. Weak banks may now drag the economy down further. And with the economy weak and deflation—a damaging spiral of falling wages and prices—looming, central banks that have gone negative will be loath to turn around and raise rates.
Moreover, central banks have few other levers to escape that doom loop. The ECB has instituted a bond-buying program, but President Mario Draghi last month indicated he was ready to launch additional monetary stimulus in March. Japan’s decision to implement negative rates follows three years of aggressive monetary easing, aimed at ending two decades of low inflation and stagnant growth.
The pushes into negative territory also amount to a sort of competitive currency war that no one seems willing to call off.
Major economies around the world are desperate to spur inflation; one way to do that is to cut interest rates, which typically would make their currencies less attractive. Lower currencies raise the prices of imported goods and boost the fortunes of exporters.
Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark have all used negative rates to help ward off inflows of foreign funds that push up their currencies. Economists said an aim of the Bank of Japan’s move to negative rates last month was to weaken the yen. It hasn’t worked: The yen shot up Thursday and is stronger than it was before the rate cut.
The move below zero compounds the miseries for lenders in those countries. Banks traditionally make a profit by lending at higher interest rates than the rates they pay on deposits, a difference called the net interest margin. Low rates have already squeezed that margin, and banks’ funding costs from other sources, such as bond markets, have surged this year.
German banks earn roughly 75% of their income from the margin between rates on savings accounts and the loans they make, according to statistics from the
Bundesbank, the country’s central bank. Plunging rates dragged German banks’ interest revenue down to €204 billion ($230 billion) in 2014 from €419 billion in 2007, according to the Bundesbank.
Negative rates cost Danish banks more than 1 billion kroner ($151 million) last year, according to a lobbying group for Denmark’s banking sector.
Consider that and then have a look at the following chart, which certainly seems to indicate that we are on step 8 in WSJ’s doom loop…
Step 9 is when things really start to go south for the real economy. So buckle
blog:
What NIRP communicates is: this sucker’s going down, so sell everything and hoard your cash and precious metals.
The last hurrah of central banks is the negative interest rate policy–NIRP. The basic idea of NIRP is to punish savers so severely that households and businesses will be compelled to go blow whatever money they have on something–what the money is squandered on is of no importance to central banks.
All that matters is that people and enterprises are forced to spend whatever cash they have rather than “hoard” it, i.e. preserve and conserve their capital.
That this is certifiably insane is self-evident. If an economy depends on bringing future spending into the present by destroying savings, that economy is doomed regardless of NIRP, for eventually the cash runs out and spending declines anyway.
But NIRP will fail completely and totally due to another dynamic— one I addressed last month in Another Reason Why the Middle Class and the Velocity of Money Are in Terminal Decline. As correspondent Mike Fasano noted, negative interest rates force us to save even more, not less:
“People like me who have saved all their lives realize that they their savings (no matter how much) will never throw off enough money to allow retirement, unless I live off principal. This is especially so since one can reasonably expect social security to phased out, indexed out or dropped altogether. Accordingly, I realize that when I get to the point when I can no longer work, I’ll be living off capital and not interest. This is an incentive to keep working and not to spend.”
If banks start charging savers interest on their cash, savers will have to save even more income to offset the additional costs imposed by central banks on their savings.
A third dynamic dooms the insane negative interest rate policy: what does it say about the stability and health of the status quo if central banks are saying the only way to save the status quo is to force everyone to empty their piggy banks and spend every last dime of cash?
What exactly are we saving by destroying savings and capital? Isn’t capital the foundation of capitalism? The answer is we are saving nothng but a rotten-to-the-core, parasitic, predatory banking system, coddled and enabled by corrupt central banks and states.
What NIRP says about central banks is that they have run out of options and are now in their own end zone, heaving the final desperate Hail Mary pass that has no hope of saving them from complete and total defeat.
NIRP also says the economy that needs NIRP is sick unto death and doomed to an implosion of impaired debt, over-leveraged risk-on bets and asset bubbles generated by stock buybacks and central bank purchases of risky assets.
The central bankers are delusional if they think NIRP will inspire confidence in investors, punters, households and enterprises. Rather, NIRP signals the failure of central bank policies and the end-game of credit expansion as the solution for all economic ills.
What NIRP communicates is: this sucker’s going down, so sell everything and hoard your cash and precious metals. If that’s what the central banks want households and enterprises to do, NIRP will be a rip-roaring success.
