I just noted that Paul Krugman posted something on his blog on "safe asset shortage," apparently based on an IMF paper. He is, of course, skeptical of that story. I cannot carefully read all that, but I'll make a quick note and then go on with my day.
I think that this is a *real* issue. That Treasuries or USD money market deposits are now viewed as a safe asset is a very fragile social structure, if I can put it that way. In a (capitalist) social environment that feeds "uncertainty," all social structures (including entire markets and even states) are subject to fads. They are not very hard to unravel, because people can behave in weird ways that feed back into themselves. Sometimes people like strawberry ice cream and there are shortages of strawberry ice cream, and the next day they find that strawberry ice cream increases their cholesterol and all of a sudden there's an oversupply of the thing. I am not predicting anything. For all we know at this point, Treasuries and USD deposits may be the safest store of value in the universe, and monetizing debt can only lead to higher employment, which will then reinforce the social structures underpinning it. But we should not leave the assumptions that underlie such predictions unexamined, just because we like the usual (pro-job) policy conclusions that flow from them. That's all I'm saying at this point. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
