Question to RBI (Indian Central bank)

Since there is a right of Information act in India I hope I have full right to ask this question.


Currently India is fighting between 2 tough choices i.e. inflation vs growth. And everyone knows RBI  has given more weight to growth than inflation.


Now my question is, who gave this right to RBI i.e. to decide "for growth of some sectors of economy, everyone must pay more for food, cloths and in fact everything" ?? I think it's a huge decision taken on behalf of everyone without asking anyone............. 


India's Inflation and RBI's response is very symbolic as in Post Stimulus world, India is first country to have 16% Inflation in Feb - Mar 2010. And so far has failed 9 times to curb that inflation. ....


Sadly enough key decision makes are ready to ignore reality that "Nearly 80 percent of India lives less than dollar (50 Rs) a day and persistent inflation mean probably less food to eat than required". They still think that  saving "Realty" sector is more important than this Reality...

Impact of Paper Currency on Equity Market, Income Inequality, Marriage rate, Divorce rate, Health....

By now I believe regular readers of our blog know that we have a Big time problem with "Paper currency system" that started on 15th Aug 1971.(Recently, writing in the Financial Times, World Bank President Robert Zoellick called for a new monetary system to replace the floating rates adopted in 1971 known as Bretton Woods II.). So there is a thought process coming in mainstream that agree on flaws of paper currency.  


In this article I have tried to see "Before 70s" vs " After 70s" pattern for many aspects. Although I don't like to use maths and stats in sensitive issues such as Marriage rate, Divorce Rate or even on Health, few graphs below were too shocking for me. So I just thought of sharing with our friends.

Historic Dow Jones Before and after Paper currency

As we all know Dow Jones Industrial Index is one of the TOP Indicator of equity health of US and in turn whole world, We can clearly see "Before 70s" vs " After 70s" pattern here.

widening income Inequality 

This is pretty interesting one. (Income inequality has Increased in Paper currencies ). There is "Before 70s" vs " After 70s" pattern here. What might be reason ? Is that the previous Graph ? are people investing in Stocks (By understanding / not understanding magic of paper currencies) becoming richer? Leaving rest all poor in comparison?  Is equity Investment only best way to make money in paper currencies?

Median Annual Earnings over decades.

Here there is co-relation for Men's income. It remains in same bracket while women's income growing steadily. This should make us proud as a human race that women's are bridging the gap of income. Although  for Woman's graph increasing trend is from mid 50s and has gone up steadily so there seems no pre 70 and post 70s correlation.

Divorce Rate over decades.

This was a simply shock to me. Here I see correlation to Before 70s and After 70s . What has changed? There was a discussion within friends on this. One said "Now a days males are having more bad habits like Smoking, over Drinking, etc... That is causing all this" Another friend who suggested that "May be women's have better income now (Previous Graph) which "helps" them to take a call if they are not happy in their married life. In old days even if women was not happy she had no option but to stick with husband as she had no economic freedom so in fact it's good development due to economy". Another more conservative friend had strong argument on that comment. He said, "Look no one divorce for pleasure. But if what you are saying is correct, then after 1st divorce, their life should be better off. In reality study shows that in US, Divorce rate for 1st Marriage is 50%, for 2nd Marriage it's 68% while for 3rd marriage it's 78%. Which means that something is wrong in thinking that capacity to take divorce is "helping" factor for happy life!!!."

I had no counter argument on that ... But what worries me is are we going in right direction as a society.

Decreasing Marriage Rate.

I see a correlation here Well. There is impact on Marriage rare as well. What may be the reason ? Need to think more ... ?

Health Data from official Web Site

What to say here .. Is easy money and credit bubble making us fat also ? at least graph shows it.

Now to counter all these arguments someone may say that these social issues have nothing to do with paper currency etc..Don't blame all our problems in paper currency...  it's a new era and this is bound to happen..... To me it makes a lot of sense in believing that all this has some co-relation with each other and is connected. But I think this is a topic of debate and I welcome comments and arguments here.

P.S:  To add the data I have taken is of 50 Years + ( Thanks to Prof Reeve Vanneman at University of Maryland for her great work on .. http://www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/vanneman/socy441/trends/divorce.html ).

8 Phase Economic Cycle in Central Banking System and Fed's Next Stimulus

                October was a busy month and hence could not write much, but a lot happened over this month. Federal Reserve started talking about confirming Stimulus II / QE II (Printing Money out of thin air and Spending it once again). It was highly anticipated since last few months. Now before jumping into impact of Quantitative Easing on us, let's try to understand some basic economic cycle in Central Banking.



Here is the presentation that I believe will be useful to understand the same. I have articulated "8 Phase Economic Cycle in Central Banking System"  that has been running since beginning of Central Bank system e.g. (1913 in US). Please open it in separate window to see completely.

In order to prove demonstrated cycle, see graph below from Federal Reserve's site that shows both Interest Rate and (Recession periods with gray bars.) What you can clearly observe is,

# Every time recession comes i.e. we enter in gray area, Central Bank lower interest Rates.

# Baring early 90s recession for all other cases, higher interest rates have become pin for recession.



US Recessions

From 1980s till date Interest Rates are clearly going down as a trend. In US. (Reason why everyone has some connection with US monetary policy is that USD is world reserve currency and all currencies are pegged to USD except few. Hence everyone is impacted by USD in some or other way)


What differentiates 2008 crisis than all previous recessions are below facts.
# Continuing it's downward trend, Interest Rates are actually touched "0" (indicating weak and phony system) and economy still could not come up.
# So as additional measure, Lot of money was printed out of thin air in 2008-2009 (Which has never happened to this extent) and FED is speaking to "Act More"!!! 
#Graph below shows base money which is very sensitive thing. As you can see since 1910, this is the first time it has been increased this high.
#During 80s, Reason for 20% + Interest rate was to soak out 13% additional liquidity introduced in 70s. Here Base has increased by 120% and they are speaking of increasing it even more in QE II. Just imagine interest rates in 2020. 

US Money Supply

In short since we are stuck in Phase 1 out of 8 Phase cycle, as demonstrated on Presentation above, FED is printing huge money to send economy to Phase 2,3, 4. Obviously consequences are clear as there are only 3 Roads that go from here.


# If we succeed to Go to Phase 2, 3, 4 we will have great economy to begin with and very low unemployment in theory, but later it will turn out to be Zimbabwe style Hyperinflation, Price Controls and so on in whole world except few creditor nations.
# If we never succeed Go to Phase 2, 3, 4 (like till now ) we will end up in Stagflation i.e. both high unemployment and high inflation (But not hyper).
# If someone like Paul Volker comes again, who understand system better, for restoring currency value he will raising interest rates significantly and will allow severe but essential recession  (this is rare as it won't get political buy in.). But the only possible solution for survival in long term.


Let's see where we go...

Will my Mortgage Installment (Home Loan EMI) go up or down in coming Years?

Before trying to figure out what’s going to happen in coming years, let’s see what happened in last few years.

As discussed in last article, recently (2002-2007) it became very easy to borrow money as Loans were in distributed easily by banks and Assets e.g. “Real Estate” / “Equity” that were bough with borrowed money were appreciating at much higher rate than rate of interest.

So it was in fact a great time as borrower. While everything was going perfect, somewhere in 2005-06 Rate of interest started going up steadily. This created little discomfort for people in countries like India, China, Brazil as their Mortgage payment (Home Loan EMI) went up slightly. However they were not many foreclosures in those countries mainly because of better regulations e.g. 10 % Down payment, Monthly repayment must not be more than 55% of Salary. So despite slight discomfort of higher mortgage, overall picture was looking good. (This does not mean housing market in India, China and Brazil is healthy one, it’s just that it could sustain at those Interest Rates).

In western world however “system sustainability” to Increase in Interest rate turned out very poor. One may call it as pin for bubble or whatever, but “Housing Bubble Burst” It was obviously due to reasons like no down payment requirements, Sub prime lending etc.

In order to fight with this recession then Central Banks lowered interest rates to historic low and in fact pumped money into system to not allow prices fall further. Due to this borrower got relief on Interest Side but worry shifted on paycheck continuity itself. And it was genuine worry as well.

Now based on this background, let’s figure out where Rate of interest goes from here.?

In order to understand this, let’s see why rate of interest goes up or down in first place and who does it?

Rate of interest is one of the most effective tool for Central banks to reduce inflation / excess liquidity in system. In simple terms when cost of essential commodities (Food cloth and Shelter) goes upside, to curb that inflation Central banks has to raise rate of interest and suck the money out from system. To give simple perspective, if inflation is a smuggler, Interest rate is a police and Police must run faster than smuggler to catch him and arrest. Once the  excess money is removed from system, cost comes in control automatically. Countries like India, China are in middle of inflation already and hence there is no direction for interest rates than going UP. Infact in whole world they have to go up as all Central banks have artificially lowered it during recession and have pumped money. This has always led to very high inflation down the line. As in system we have more money chasing same goods.

So Real Question is how much up interest Rates can go and when?

I can imagine 3 Scenarios here.

Scenario 1) Increase by slow Speed (Interest Rate always lower than inflation)

            This is what is happening now e.g. in US they increased by .25 %. In India reserve rates has been hiked by 25 points on 3 occasions in last few months, (See Chart Below). Though these steps demonstrate willingness to tackle inflation, they won’t be enough necessarily. It’s like catching smuggler that runs faster than police. You can’t catch it just by increasing speed slightly, because then Smuggler runs even faster and you have to catch him at that high rate. So effectively you end up in much higher interest rates and Home Loan EMI in this Scenario. At the same time Home Prices may also appreciate.

Scenario 2) Increase Rate of interest higher than Real Inflation and keeping them there for couple of years.

            In this Scenario Interest Rate  (Police) runs faster than real inflation (Smuggler) Keeps him in custody for couple of Years. It sucks money out of system and actually do not allow that money going back in circulation. Once system is stable, central bank may lower interest rates slightly to make a comfortable level (leaving smuggler in society after 2 years punishment).

            Though, this is the best possible solution, this obviously has side effect. I.e. it can crash real estate market completely and can create “politically Incorrect situation”. It may mean Total outstanding Loan money on Mortgage much more than market value of the Property. Not only in real estate, but also in many other sectors businesses with weak fundamentals will die.

Scenario 3) Let anything happen with inflation don’t raise rate of interest.

            This will be dream scenario for “Borrowers” as inflation itself will take care of everything. Wages will increase in dramatic way making it cakewalk to repay loan, Also asset inflation will be so dramatically high that it will create huge wealth illusion. If there is too much of delay then no matter how high we raise rate of interest, inflation just goes out of control. E.g. in Weimar Republic (Today’s Germany) They raised Interest rates to 900% but it was too late to avoid currency collapse. Also in Zimbabwe recently they raised it to 800% but still inflation was so high that it just could not save currency and economy.

Scenario 4) Continued Recession or Double Dip .. 

              In this scenario also Interest rates will be down for a while. But then Housing prices also will be down. I think this is a very remote chance looking into "commitment" of central banks to fight against it. And even if it happens it will be temporary.

Concluding, Rate of Interest and Mortgage / Home Loan EMI has no direction but to go UP. Sooner Interest Rate  (police) Catch Inflation (Smuggler) it’s better for society in long term. Of course its not comfortable for 
governments. So let’s see how it goes in coming years.

Interest Rate United States

US Long Term Interest Rates US.. Yes they were 21 % in 1980!!

Interest Rate India

Interest Rate China

Thanks

Amaresh Ashok Gangal

Lending, Borrowing, Then and Now

Lending and Borrowing has been going on since history of mankind. It used to be Lender’s game earlier. In other words one who has capital always had upper hand in loan transactions and not the one who receive loan. In early days, on some very good reference + convincing business plan + some conditions (Interest rate 20%, timeline 1 Year) lender would lend money to Borrower say (10000 Rs). Borrower then uses that capital, adds his hard work, talent and performs business activity (Say starting a small workshop). With combination of capital and hard work he earns money say (15000 Rupees) and become successful. Now he has enough money that he can return principal + interest (12000 Rs after year 1). Money that he saves after returning what he owes to lender becomes his capital (3000 Rupees).

At end of day borrower used to be very much thankful to lender. In a country like India that young entrepreneur who received loan in his early days; would talk about lender and one who gave reference as “They are like god for me. They are the one who trusted me when I had nothing in my hand”. As time passed both lender and borrower became comfortable to transact with bank (Which I would define as big-brother between lender and borrower who reduce risks on both sides). But even while approaching bank, borrower had to provide viable project plan that would get questioned + guarantor who is responsible to pay loan back if lender fail to do so...................

Gone all those old days and somewhere in 2004-5 time, while working in office, I got call on office phone saying, “Sir you have got loan approval of 50000 Rs. No guarantor required. Interest rate only 7%. Should I send pay order to home or office address?”. First time when I received this call I was about to fall down from my chair. Quickly enough I told them “I am not interested in any Loan at moment”.  But conversation did not stop there. Some boy / girl in their early 20s advised me in polite tone that “Sir you keep the money it will be useful for you, you can invest in equities, also let me know if you are interested in Home Loan our bank has very attractive interest rates on Home Loan”. Somehow I used to politely refuse those people but also a thought used to touch my mind “Should I have taken it?”

So something had changed dramatically. From time when borrower used to convince lender on viability of his plan to a time when bank (representing lender here) is busy convincing new and new borrowers who have never applied for loan. The concept of taking capital adding hard work and becoming successful had gone. New concept was take capital (loan), buy shares / home / land / anything; it will raise in value automatically you will get success -- no hard work required. Many people called it “Golden Era” but I never believed so. Time that allow people to succeed without hard work cannot be golden era on other hand it undermine hard working people and set a wrong message that just by buying and selling something everyone can be prosperous.

Back then we were not smart enough to understand what is “easy monitory policy” and how central banks can inflate all these bubbles. Now when we have learned some of this, I am amazed to see efforts by governments to go back to “that kind of era” via simulation. One of the key parameter that made lending as borrower’s game was “Interest Rate”. In next articles we will see how interest rate can inflate bubbles and crash those.