April 27, 2019

Central banks seem not able to tell their magic porridge pot to stop

Sir, Robert Armstrong, Oliver Ralph, and Eric Platt make a reference to the fairy tale of the magic porridge pot writing “Every working day, $100m rolls into Berkshire — cash from its subsidiaries, dividends from its shares, interest from its treasuries. Something must be done with it all. The porridge is starting to overrun the house.” “‘I have more fun than any 88-year-old in the world’” Life&Arts, April 27.

And the magic porridge pot fairy tale ends this way on Wikipedia: “At last when only one single house remained, the child came home and just said, "Stop, little pot," and it stopped and gave up cooking, and whosoever wished to return to the town had to eat their way back”

Sir, the excessive stimuli injected by means of QEs, fiscal deficits, ultra low interest rates and incestuous debt credit relations, like the 0% risk weighting of the sovereign that provides credit subsidies to who provides banks with deposit guarantees, or loans to houses increasing the price of houses allowing still more loans to houses, against very little capital… all of that is the porridge of our time.

And it’s clear central bankers everywhere, have no idea of how to tell their pot to stop.

Will we be able to eat our way back? Not without sweating it out a lot at the gym. You see too much porridge, meaning too much carbs, and too little proteins, meaning too little risk taking, produces an obese not muscular economy. 

@PerKurowski