Een terugblik vanuit de toekomst op 2007/2008

Een terug­b­lik vanu­it de toekomst op 2007/2008

Een kijk­je naar onze wereld in 2007 vanu­it 2020. Een mogelijk sce­nario met naar mijn smaak een kern van waarheid. 

Onder­staand artikel van Mark Gilbert heeft veel raakvlakken met mijn artikel van afgelopen vri­jdag ​‘Waar­voor kiest u: bankpres­i­den­ten of moed­ert­je aarde? ’ Onder­aan is dit artikel opnieuw opgenomen

Jan van Gemeren www​.gan​ntrad​er​.nl

Grand­dad, Did You Believe in Cen­tral Banks Once?: By Mark Gilbert 

​“Grand­dad Ben­ny, is it true that cen­tral bankers used to believe they could steer the glob­al econ­o­my with quar­ter-point twitch­es in overnight rates?” 

Grand­dad looked up from his Google­Soft iSpread­sheet, where a flash­ing red ​“health care” box was block­ing 2027’s planned expen­di­ture from match­ing the income cell. ​“Yes, Joel. For about a decade we all believed cen­tral banks could ensure peo­ple had jobs, and could afford food and hous­ing and such. That all changed after the Gigan­tic Glob­al Bub­ble Burst of 2008.” 

Joel put down his Man­darin dic­tio­nary. ​“That’s what my socio-eco­nom­ics teacher says we’ll learn about next week. She called it the Giglobubu. What hap­pened in 2008, Granddad?” 

​“We’re still not sure, Joel,” Grand­dad said. ​“At the time, some accused the New Zealand cen­tral bank, some said it was the bond mar­ket, while oth­ers blamed the after­shocks of a slump in the U.S. hous­ing mar­ket. If she’s smart, your teacher will prob­a­bly spend a lot of time talk­ing about China.” 

​“Did Chi­na cause the Giglobubu, Granddad?” 

​“It played a big part, Joel. At the start of the cen­tu­ry, Chi­na start­ed to engage with the glob­al econ­o­my. We were able to buy stuff like clothes and tele­vi­sions real­ly cheap­ly from Chi­na’s fac­to­ries, mak­ing every­one feel wealthy enough to spend and bor­row instead of putting some­thing aside for a rainy day. 

​“All of that bor­rowed mon­ey had to come from some­where, and most of it came from Asia. When Chi­na stopped turn­ing up at bond auc­tions in 2007 and start­ed invest­ing direct­ly in com­pa­nies instead, alarm bells should have rung. They didn’t. 

Bil­lions of Spenders 

​“What every­one failed to real­ize was that the bil­lions of peo­ple in Chi­na, Viet­nam and oth­er Asian coun­tries did­n’t want to spend the rest of their lives liv­ing in huts in the coun­try­side and work­ing in fac­to­ries for a pit­tance. They start­ed to demand and get high­er wages and a bet­ter stan­dard of liv­ing, and went on a spend­ing spree of their own. Their gov­ern­ments, mean­time, built roads and hos­pi­tals and schools to keep peo­ple happy. 

​“Even though cen­tral bankers in the West had been puz­zled by low bond yields and wage increas­es, they still took the cred­it for slow infla­tion! So when prices start­ed to surge at the begin­ning of 2008, they were sur­prised when rais­ing rates turned out to be pow­er­less in the glob­al econ­o­my. They were even more shocked when ener­gy costs soared and they real­ized Chi­na con­trolled most of the world’s pow­er-pro­duc­ing capacity.” 

Three Strikes and Out 

Joel whis­pered ​“2008 Giglobubu Caus­es” into his Apple iWatch, and watched as the holo­graph­ic mul­ti­me­dia dis­play scrolled into life six inch­es above his wrist. ​“Grand­dad, it says here that the New Zealand cen­tral bank made things worse?” 

Grand­dad rubbed his beard as Joel’s watch beamed graphs and charts into the air. ​“Well, that’s a bit unfair. They were quick to spot that prices were ris­ing, and tried to curb infla­tion by dri­ving up bor­row­ing costs. Their mis­take was try­ing to stop their cur­ren­cy, the New Zealand dol­lar, from ris­ing. After the first two attempts failed, they should have giv­en up. When the third attempt went wrong, peo­ple pan­icked because they start­ed to real­ize how impo­tent the finan­cial author­i­ties were.” 

​“Grand­dad, it also says here that hedge funds and the deriv­a­tives mar­ket made things worse. What are hedge funds and the deriv­a­tives market?” 

​“Well, they are ille­gal now, Joel. As the glob­al econ­o­my start­ed to crum­ble under the weight of soar­ing raw mate­r­i­al costs, finan­cial mar­kets melt­ed down, with prices of stocks and bonds whip­saw­ing. Hedge funds were sup­posed to be clever investors; it turned out that they had all made the same bet on the glob­al econ­o­my stay­ing won­der­ful for ever. 

Tan­gled Webs 

​“Com­pa­nies thought they’d bor­rowed mon­ey from their bankers. Instead, hedge funds had bought up all of the IOUs. When com­pa­nies start­ed strug­gling to make their debt pay­ments, instead of hav­ing a friend­ly chat with their bank man­agers, they found them­selves eye­ball-to-eye­ball with the hedge funds’ lawyers, who weren’t inter­est­ed in the sur­vival of the com­pa­nies and just want­ed their mon­ey back. 

​“Lots of the banks had sold insur­ance on those IOUs and on a bunch of oth­er stuff that they bun­dled togeth­er into deriv­a­tives called col­lat­er­al­ized debt oblig­a­tions. When those invest­ments start­ed to blow up, we all real­ized that nobody knew who owed what to whom. And banks and hedge funds had become such a big part of the glob­al econ­o­my that they dragged every­thing else down with them.” 

​“I’ve been mean­ing to ask you, Grand­dad; what are all those fun­ny lit­tle rec­tan­gles of green paper in that big frame on the wall next to your desk?” 

​“They’re called dol­lars,” Grand­dad said. ​“We used them to buy things in the old­en days. In 2015, a group called the Sin­gle Glob­al Cur­ren­cy Asso­ci­a­tion con­vinced the Bank for Inter­na­tion­al Set­tle­ments, which by then was run­ning the world’s finan­cial sys­tems, that every­one should switch to one type of money.” 

​“And they did­n’t choose the dol­lar, Granddad?” 

​“No, Joel. There was a glob­al ref­er­en­dum to make the deci­sion on which cur­ren­cy peo­ple want­ed. Which is why we now use the yuan all around the world. Any­way, it’s get­ting late. Back to your Man­darin home­work, young Mas­ter Bernanke.” 

(Mark Gilbert is a Bloomberg News colum­nist. The opin­ions expressed are his own.) To con­tact the writer of this col­umn: Mark Gilbert in Lon­don at magilbert@​bloomberg.​net
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Waar­voor kiest u: bankpres­i­den­ten of moed­ert­je aarde?

Heer­lijk gevoel is dat toch. 

De rente sti­jgt met meer dan 10% in enkele weken, de inflatie vliegt de pan uit (voed­ing sti­jgt met meer dan 10% op jaar­ba­sis, de oliepri­js staat op een 9 maands high, de Dow duikt met 150 pun­ten naar bene­den, hedge­funds gaan onderuit (Bear Stearns) en.….….….…..de AEX die noteert onderveran­dert. Een rots in de brand­ing? Of is er iets anders aan de hand?

Mijn gevoel zegt van wel en ik denk dat de meeste andere beleg­gers ook met ver­baz­ing naar de huidi­ge beur­son­twik­kel­ing kijken. Mijn aan­de­len? Die ruim ik alle­maal op. Aan­de­len zijn nu een lucht­spiegeling, gebakken lucht. Gebaseerd op vertrouwen in een op hol ges­la­gen mon­di­ale geld­groei. De inflatie sti­jgt sneller dan aandelen. 

Ik koop wat goud, olie en soft com­modi­ties. Grond­stof­fen zijn echte pro­ducten die kan ik aan­rak­en, ruiken, zien. Die zijn echt. En het belan­grijk­ste ze zijn niet onbeperkt. 

Geld is papi­er met een beet­je inkt. Wist u dat het mak­en van een 10 dol­lar­ce­nt meer kost dan de waarde van deze munt. Hoe meer geld je maakt, hoe min­der geld waard wordt. Grond­stof­fen zijn er slechts in beperk­te maakt. Hoe grot­er de vraag, hoe grot­er de waarde. Geld komt van bankpres­i­den­ten. Grond­stof­fen komen van moed­ert­je aarde.

Geni­eten van het lev­en en de ren­de­menten op mijn grond­stof­fen die komen de komende jaren vanzelf. Nu voel ik me pas echt goed.

Zo maar een gedacht­e­spin­sel, neem boven­staande niet al te let­ter­lijk. Ik wil alleen maar aan­to­nen dat we in een bij­zon­dere tijd lev­en. Een bij­zon­dere tijd die plot­sel­ing een real­i­ty check kan kri­j­gen met alle gevol­gen van dien. Ik hoop dat u dit gedacht­e­spin­sel op pri­js stelt.

Jan van Gemeren