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What does “excess liquidity sloshing around the financial system” mean?

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Re: What does “excess liquidity sloshing around the financial system” mean?

#41

I was hoping that the OP would address a related idea that I find rather weird: it’s sometimes said that “this excess liquidity has to go somewhere” and that “the excess liquidity has gone into [housing/stocks/commodities/other asset class]”. But I don’t get this: It might seem plausible that if stock prices go up they absorb liquidity from the system. But (ignoring new stock issues / newly build houses) in every tra…

Excess liquidity gets eventually absorbed in the form of broad inflation. I.e. the money loses the excess value.

Re: What does “excess liquidity sloshing around the financial system” mean?

#42

Until there is a widely available open source model of how the economic system works (here and now) people will go on beating about the bush in eternal cycles. The elements for this to happen are actually there. We are not talking about a detailed replica with real time data, but a reasonably accurate model that includes all the public data from central banks, private bank statements, public market valuations etc. Wi…

It's the economists paradox, any sufficiently good model will drive decisions and policy, changing the conditions away from the assumptions included in the model.

Re: What does “excess liquidity sloshing around the financial system” mean?

#43

Until there is a widely available open source model of how the economic system works (here and now) people will go on beating about the bush in eternal cycles. The elements for this to happen are actually there. We are not talking about a detailed replica with real time data, but a reasonably accurate model that includes all the public data from central banks, private bank statements, public market valuations etc. Wi…

It's the economists paradox, any sufficiently good model will drive decisions and policy, changing the conditions away from the assumptions included in the model.

This might apply to a dynamic model of the entire economy including agent preferences etc. But that is not what is required to educate and elevate the debate. Accounting what the economic system does at any given moment is not subject to assumptions.

Re: What does “excess liquidity sloshing around the financial system” mean?

#44
post #31
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both posts are important here, IMHO. We have two signals to arrive at economic and productive decisions in our society, which favors distributed decisionmaking: democratic votes and price. There are all kinds of problems with the former, as for the latter: we rely on individuals to make efficient decisions, however this requires some kind of scarcity. Scarcity which is largely in effect for the majority of the popula…

> which favors distributed decisionmaking: [...] price Seeing as the top 10% hold over 60% of the wealth (in the US, globally we have a dozen people with as much wealth as the bottom 50%), I don't see how this follows.

I'm not sure how saying 10% of people control decision isn't distributed decision making.

Re: What does “excess liquidity sloshing around the financial system” mean?

#46
`Liquidity` = `Value` minus `Debt`

`Excess liquidity` simply means we were in the middle period where valuations increased, and debt levels hadn't yet caught up, so new credit was being issued fast, and money from loans was entering the system accelerating the cycle.

Re: What does “excess liquidity sloshing around the financial system” mean?

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What am I getting wrong? You are correct when taking the view of the financial sector as a whole - every asset purchase merely swaps who has the cash and who has the asset. You're not getting much of anything wrong, merely missing a behavioral trait of many market participants: they desire a fixed ratio between their various financial assets. An extreme example of this is an index fund, which has a formulaic relatio…

So let's say that the entire world is index funds (plus the stocks they own). An index fund has "too much cash", so they buy stocks. Some other index fund sees that the price is attractive, and sells, but then that fund has too much cash. But the funds each keep some amount (1%?) of their assets in cash. So isn't the net result that stock prices go up until the value of the stock is 99 times the amount of cash in the…

Yes. Except there is also a group of people that sit on the side scamming everyone by building assets that promise to fit in the index but are just trash and return nothing.

:Cough: VC and Growth-based startup :cough:

Re: What does “excess liquidity sloshing around the financial system” mean?

#48
Here's a mental model I find helpful for understanding current circumstances:

"Quantitative easing" means issuing new money -- a government obligation that pays no interest -- to purchase treasury (and agency) bonds -- government obligations that pay interest. Until very recently, for good reasons (a global financial crisis, a global pandemic), the Fed and other central banks around the world have been engaged in quantitative easing at an unprecedented scale, replacing government-issued financial instruments that pay interest (bonds) with government-issued financial instruments that pay no interest (money). The result has been an unprecedented increase in private cash balances -- what many call "liquidity sloshing around."

Last year, some central banks started doing the opposite, "quantitative tightening," i.e., selling previously purchased bonds (or letting them mature), removing liquidity (government-issued money) from financial markets and replacing it, directly or indirectly, with financial instruments that pay interest (government/agency-issued bonds). The result has been a gradual decrease in private cash balances -- one could call it "liquidity evaporating."

For example, you can see the value of the financial instruments the Fed owns (i.e., it has purchased them in the past and continues to hold them) here:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...

--

PS. I'm talking only about readily observable facts, not about "excess liquidity" in the abstract sense, e.g., as described by economists who call themselves Keynesians.

Re: What does “excess liquidity sloshing around the financial system” mean?

#49
post #23
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While good as a cynical or satirical answer, our younger readers might want to learn the correct answer first...

Both posts are important here, IMHO. We have two signals to arrive at economic and productive decisions in our society, which favors distributed decisionmaking: democratic votes and price. There are all kinds of problems with the former, as for the latter: we rely on individuals to make efficient decisions, however this requires some kind of scarcity. Scarcity which is largely in effect for the majority of the popula…

> If individuals make decisions without constraints, they tend to go off track real quick. IMHO, this is the main problem of wealth inequality: rich people make stupid decisions. And stupid, in this case, means unproductive for the society/enviroment etc etc in general.

i must be missing the point you’re trying to make, or the framing, or something. why would i want to be rich if not to direct more resources to achieving my own preferences? of course this is not maximally productive for society: if all money was required to be directed based on where it were maximally productive then it would no longer mean anything to own money; money would have no value to the individual.

Re: What does “excess liquidity sloshing around the financial system” mean?

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What am I getting wrong? You are correct when taking the view of the financial sector as a whole - every asset purchase merely swaps who has the cash and who has the asset. You're not getting much of anything wrong, merely missing a behavioral trait of many market participants: they desire a fixed ratio between their various financial assets. An extreme example of this is an index fund, which has a formulaic relatio…

So let's say that the entire world is index funds (plus the stocks they own). An index fund has "too much cash", so they buy stocks. Some other index fund sees that the price is attractive, and sells, but then that fund has too much cash. But the funds each keep some amount (1%?) of their assets in cash. So isn't the net result that stock prices go up until the value of the stock is 99 times the amount of cash in the…

Yes, Exactly.

So if you double amlunt of money is the system, house prices will double.

It is not 'inflation' because food prices do not react in the same way. You 'normal' inflation could stay at zero.

You can create housing shortage through financial system alone, without changing population/ housebuilding rates

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