I am a Bear. I have been wrong (in the main) about the following things (which I have copped to previously)
1. The stock market from Oct 2011 to present.
2. That the US was going to go into a recession by summer 2012.
The Fed by doubling down on QE prevented a recession and blew and stock market bubble.
Things I have been (mostly) right about.
China growth is slowing (will it come in for a hard landing?)
European malaise.
US growth coming out of the Great Recession has been much slower than anticipated.
Japan is still in an economic crisis.
Public debt continues to rise at a rate faster than GDP growth in OECD countries.
Income inequality-trade-intergenerational wealth mobility are significant and linked..
Oil demand volatility would be of significance and oil supply would abundant over the course of the next decade.
The basic bear position(at least mine on these pages) is that monetary policy alone would not be sufficient to resolve global imbalances(so far true); that the global overreliance of extraordinary central bank intervention would lead to higher inequality less stable democracies (true so far), financial instability (we are seeing the plus side to variance now) and that the ultimate costs and unintended consequences of this free lunch (banquet) would cause significant ex-post regret (well the jury is still out but I don't think those in charge of policy at central banks are going to be putting up "mission accomplished" signs at the press conferences anytime soon -but if they do I want to record it for future reference on this blog.).
The fundamental issues that brought us to the Great Recession have not been resolved or addressed in a meaningful way by policy makers. Monetary policy has done all the heavy lifting. Will monetary policy alone be sufficient? This question still needs to be answered.
1. The stock market from Oct 2011 to present.
2. That the US was going to go into a recession by summer 2012.
The Fed by doubling down on QE prevented a recession and blew and stock market bubble.
Things I have been (mostly) right about.
China growth is slowing (will it come in for a hard landing?)
European malaise.
US growth coming out of the Great Recession has been much slower than anticipated.
Japan is still in an economic crisis.
Public debt continues to rise at a rate faster than GDP growth in OECD countries.
Income inequality-trade-intergenerational wealth mobility are significant and linked..
Oil demand volatility would be of significance and oil supply would abundant over the course of the next decade.
The basic bear position(at least mine on these pages) is that monetary policy alone would not be sufficient to resolve global imbalances(so far true); that the global overreliance of extraordinary central bank intervention would lead to higher inequality less stable democracies (true so far), financial instability (we are seeing the plus side to variance now) and that the ultimate costs and unintended consequences of this free lunch (banquet) would cause significant ex-post regret (well the jury is still out but I don't think those in charge of policy at central banks are going to be putting up "mission accomplished" signs at the press conferences anytime soon -but if they do I want to record it for future reference on this blog.).
The fundamental issues that brought us to the Great Recession have not been resolved or addressed in a meaningful way by policy makers. Monetary policy has done all the heavy lifting. Will monetary policy alone be sufficient? This question still needs to be answered.
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