International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde says the global economy is facing ‘the risk of a new mediocre, where growth is low and uneven.’… Lagarde said Europe’s 18-nation bloc that uses the euro currency – collectively the world’s biggest economy – is facing the “not insignificant” risk of falling back into a recession. (VOA News)
Since at least the beginning of 2006, the most asked question I get after a speech is ‘Do you think we will have inflation or deflation?’ In an attempt at humor, my answer has been ‘Yes.’ I go on to try to explain that we are in a deflationary environment, but eventually we will see inflation. When QE1 was announced, there were many pundits (none of the Keynesian variety) who immediately said the risk was for significant inflation, and there were even those (like Peter Schiff) who talked of hyperinflation and the demise of the dollar. Interest rates would rise, and US government bonds would collapse.
My response at the time was that the Federal Reserve would print more money than any of us could possibly imagine (and who imagined $3 trillion?), and we would not see any inflation. My reasoning was that we were in a deleveraging world where the velocity of money was clearly falling. I explained – once again – the relationship between inflation and the velocity of money.
Beginning with last week’s letter, ‘Sea Change,’ my answer to that question for the foreseeable future will be simply, ‘Deflation.’ In Endgame Jonathan Tepper and I described the economic environment of a deleveraging world, especially that of Europe. InCode Red we described the coming world of currency wars, with Japan having fired the first shot. Sadly, we continue to see the themes of those books play out in the real world.
This post was published at Mauldin Economics on OCTOBER 22, 2014.
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