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Public
opinion is against the Fed creating more money to support banks. This doesn't
mean that if push came to shove the Fed would not create a lot more money
with the aim of supporting the banks, although it does suggest that the Fed
will have to tread carefully in the future lest it lose any semblance of
independence¹. Public opinion is not, however, against monetary
inflation per se, and neither are most economists and financial-market
pundits. That this is true is seen in the way most people continue to vote,
in the nature of recent protests, and in the types of policy recommendations
that are commonplace in the press. The sad truth is that "the
people" are in favour of inflationary policy
provided that they see themselves as near-term beneficiaries of the
inflation. More to the point, they tend to be very much against anti-inflationary
policies that necessitate reduced "entitlements". In any case, for
the purpose of this discussion we will make the unrealistic² assumption
that the Fed's ability to directly create new money is now severely
constrained, and outline how, under such circumstances, the central bank
would still have the ability to bring about a multi-trillion-dollar expansion
of the US money supply.
The key is
the 1.6 trillion dollars of reserves that the commercial banking system holds
at the Fed. About 95% of this total reserve is defined as "excess",
meaning that it is in excess of what is legally required to back demand
deposits. Currently, banks get paid an interest rate of 0.25%/year on the
reserves they hold at the Fed. This appears to be a trivial amount, but due
to the fact that most banks are now unusually risk averse this 0.25%/year
interest rate constitutes a significant incentive to do nothing with the
reserves.
The Fed could
easily change the risk/reward equation for the commercial banks by ceasing to
pay interest on reserves defined as "excess", and if this proved to
be insufficient then the Fed could alter the risk/reward even more by
charging banks for holding excess reserves. This would force the banks to
find a way of putting their excess reserves to work, which could only be done
on an industry-wide basis via huge growth in the total quantity of demand
deposits (huge growth in the supply of money, that
is). Furthermore, this action would be fully justified in the minds of most
people, because most people believe that the current economic malaise is
partly the result of private banks holding a lot of money in reserve rather
than making loans.
In order to
convert 1.5 trillion dollars of "excess reserves" into
"required reserves", the commercial banking industry would have to
expand its deposit base by many times that amount. This prompts the question:
Would it be possible for banks to collectively lend several trillion dollars
of new deposit currency into existence over the next couple of years?
The answer is
no. For the reasons covered in earlier commentaries, there is minimal scope
for commercial banks to put their excess reserves to work by making new
business, consumer and housing loans. The reality is that a secular
de-leveraging is underway in the private sector. However, the existing stock
of Treasury debt is huge and this stock will likely be added to at the rate
of 1-2 trillion dollars per year over the next few years. This is where the
opportunity lies for commercial banks to greatly expand their deposit bases
without taking much additional risk.
We are
referring to the potential for commercial banks to make use of their excess
reserves by monetising (purchasing with
newly-created money) trillions of dollars of Treasury securities. Here's a
brief explanation of how it would work: A bank buys $100M of T-Bonds from a
hedge fund (or a pension fund or some other T-Bond investor) and settles the
purchase by depositing $100M into the investor's bank account. This results
in $100M being added to the money supply and causes $10M to shift from the
"excess reserves" to the "required reserves" category
(assuming a 10% reserve requirement).
Notice that
the Fed had no direct involvement in the above-described money supply
addition. The Fed simply created the incentive for the private bank to act as
the monetary inflation tool.
We don't know
that the next round of monetary inflation will be driven by commercial banks
putting their excess reserves to work via the monetisation
of government debt securities, but it does appear to be a neat solution for
those in power who believe that the economy needs more inflation. The economy
gets a large injection of new money, the government gets a deep-pocketed
buyer for its debt, and the Fed avoids criticism.
¹ A
central banker once said something along the lines of "if we ever
asserted our independence, we'd lose our independence", meaning, of
course, that central banks are never really independent of government.
² The
Bank of England resumed "quantitative easing" last week, and it's
only a matter of time before the Fed does the same. A modern central banker
is like the proverbial man with a hammer who views everything as a nail. In
the central banker's case, every bout of economic weakness is viewed as a
reason to pump more money into the economy. That's why we use the word
"unrealistic" when referring to the assumption that the Fed's
ability to directly create new money is now severely constrained.
Steve Saville
www.speculative-investor.com
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