There was a failure to grasp the most critical lessons from that terrible boom and bust episode: Aggressive monetary stimulus foments market distortions, while promoting risk-taking, leveraged speculation and latent risk intermediation dysfunction. Years of deranged finance ensured unprecedented economic imbalances and deep structural impairment. There was no predicting a global pandemic. Yet today’s acute financial and economic fragility – and the risk of financial collapse – are directly traceable to years of negligent monetary management.
I have to adjust my message for today’s post-Bubble backdrop: I understand we can’t allow the system to collapse, but Please Don’t Completely Destroy the Soundness of Central Bank Credit and Government Debt. Does anyone realize what’s at stake?
I don’t see another Bubble on the horizon. Each reflationary Bubble must be greater in scope than the last. Mortgage finance was used for post-“tech” Bubble reflation. Policymakers unleashed the “global government finance Bubble” during post-mortgage finance Bubble reflation. Massive international inflation of central bank Credit and sovereign debt went to the heart of global finance – the very foundation of “money” and Credit.