June 20, 2014
That appears to be the central claim of Kevin Warsh and Stanley Druckenmiller in a Wall Street Journal column criticizing the Fed’s asset buying program. The central claim appears to be that because asset prices have been rising, companies have been discouraged from undertaking productive investment. While Warsh and Druckenmiller are certainly right that the asset buying program has had limited benefits for the real economy, it doesn’t follow that the economy would be stronger without it.
First, they misrepresent the wealth situation when they tell readers:
“The aggregate wealth of U.S. households, including stocks and real-estate holdings, just hit a new high of $81.8 trillion. That’s more than $26 trillion in wealth added since 2009.”
The sharp rise in wealth since 2009 was due to a sharp plunge in the financial crisis. The notion of a “record” is misleading since the economy is growing we expect wealth to continually hit records. The ratio of wealth to GDP was 4.78 in the first quarter of 2014. By comparison, it was 4.86 for 2006. The Fed’s policies have simply brought the ratio of wealth to GDP back to pre-recession levels.
More importantly, Warsh and Druckenmiller seem to turn causality on its head when they say:
“Meanwhile, corporate chieftains rationally choose financial engineering—debt-financed share buybacks, for example—over capital investment in property, plants and equipment.”
Low interest rates encourage corporations to invest in stock rather than bonds. If interest rates were higher, then presumably they would do the opposite. Low interest rates (and high stock prices) make it easier to borrow to finance capital investment in property, plants and equipment. It is hard to imagine why they think firms would be investing more, if it cost them more money to make these investments.
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