Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Negativzin is a strafzin and investors are not happy with rates



The ECB has a solution for economic growth in Europe, more pain for savers. Germans don't refer to rates as negative but as a punishment, "straf". You will be punished until you are willing to consumer more and stop this silly idea of savings for future uncertainty. 

As a final act, president Draghi reopened their QE program and lowered rates to inflict more savings pain. Of course, in Rube Goldberg fashion, the ECB idea is to lower rates but actually not have the impact felt too much by depositors. This is a policy of selective pain. Can the policy-makers nudge the banks to lend without hurting the banks through crushing the earnings of financial institutions.

This rate policy does not change government spending behavior so there is no coordination between monetary and fiscal policy. There is no end is sight for negative rates. These expectations means that investors haver to either buy riskier assets for yield or save more not less. Capital flows will move to those places that have higher relative rates. Negative rates will be exported around the world with no solution 

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