Gold’s swoon has triggered a good deal of schadenfreude, some subtle, some less so.
It’s hardly a surprise after eleven years of gains and often tiresome crowing from its more partisan supporters. Question is, apart from the emotional satisfaction of putting the boot in, are these critics justified?
Their complaints seem to revolve around four principal themes: Continue reading “Ah! Gold.”
Markets, indeed economies as a whole, are complex adaptive systems. Like biological ecosystems, they continuously and spontaneously order themselves in response to unfolding influences, large and small, internal and external.
When it comes to nature, we’re both part of it and a profound external influence. We shape the world around us for ill and sometimes for good, not only through deliberate actions but also, of course, merely by being here. Some of our activities and their consequences in the natural world, were we only willing to listen, could teach us much about how to better manage man-made systems such as the markets and the economy.
Forestry management provides a striking example. Our natural inclination is to put fires out wherever we can, not only to safeguard valuable property but also to protect the forests themselves and their many wild occupants.
In pursuing this practice, however, subtle changes take place over time. Dead trees and fallen branches accumulate and the undergrowth becomes thicker and much more widespread. Finally a fire occurs that we’re unable to stop, one that feeds on all the detritus to produce firestorms so powerful they can at times fundamentally change a whole ecosystem.[1]
The analogy to our economic management in recent decades is obvious, particularly when it comes to the financial system. There too, fires were continuously put out, all with the laudable goal of sidestepping the pain and distress of downturns. Continue reading “Macroeconomic Resilience”
Credit booms generate economic and financial imbalances. The longer a boom lasts, and the more extreme the expansion, the greater these will be.
The results show up in balance sheets and income statements. Whether it’s an individual household, economic sector or the external position of a country, that entity’s financial statements tell the tale.
In Australia’s case, sectoral debt figures show remarkably divergent trends in credit growth.[1]
At 73.1%, non-financial business debt as a percentage of GDP is only 7% higher than in 1988. The high point in the intervening years was 85.6% in Sept 2007. General government debt (federal and state combined) actually declined, from 42.1% in 1988 to 22.7% now. Prior to the crisis, it hit a low of 13.4%.
The real action was in the household sector, where debt to GDP started at 42% in 1988 and is now 109.7%.
In international terms, Australia’s non-financial business debt is middle-of-the-pack, our government debt perhaps the lowest in the developed world but our households rank near the top. There are countries with higher levels (Switzerland, for example, at 118% in 2007), but there aren’t many of them. Continue reading “Australia’s Mixed Diagnosis”
Money, Credit & Financial Systems 