Global Debt, Global Currency » Golem XIV – Thoughts

Global Debt, Global Currency » Golem XIV – Thoughts. (source)

With the latest installment of the ‘US debt ceiling’ melodrama over, for now, perhaps it’s a good time to ask, what was it all about really?

I know that officially it was supposed to be an edge of your seat, high stakes thriller about how much debt the US government can carry before some disaster strikes, and who has the authority to decide. But I think that behind the lumbering domestic stage show there was actually a different, larger battle, with different stakes, being played out. The debt ceiling debate was, to my mind, something of a proxy war. Real for those caught up in its angry rhetoric, but seen from further away, clearly just a local manifestation of something deeper, and something being directed by different people than those making speaches in the spot-light.

Actually I think the fight over the US debt ceiling is a proxy for who controls the world’s real reserve currency. And that currency is not the dollar. I suggest we would understand events more simply if we recognized that the world’s real reserve currency is debt -pure debt.  We should not be confused by the fact that debt, globally, is denominated in several forms. Much like the dollar comes in bills of ten and twenty,  so the debt currency comes in dollars, euros, Yen and Yuan. But they are not the currency itself they are just the different bills it comes in.

In Britain we have pound notes issued by the Bank of England but also by the Royal Bank of Scotland, Clydesdale and Ulster Bank, but they are not different currencies, they are all pounds no matter whose logo in on the notes. I think globally we are now in the early and perhaps not quite recognized days of a similar situation. It is debt which is globally traded and used to settle and value all deals everywhere. The problem is this global debt system is not yet fully formed. It is still umbillically tied to the old system of national currencies and their issuers. And like mummies everywhere the old issuers like to think they are in charge long after they no longer are.

If you are willing to accept this idea, at least for argument’s sake, then the domestic dramas in different countries over how much of this or that kind of debt backed note, with this or that logo on it, should be permitted, take on a different character. I am not saying that the domestic arguments over how many dollars or euros can be printed up, how much debt should be carried are unimportant. They are important and do have profound real life consequences for people and businesses. But I am saying that the driving logic is not domestic and nor is it controlled or even understood by most of the domestic players.

Think of the Vietnam war. In Vietnam it was North vesus South. But for the wider world North and South were just proxies for a much deeper conflict of Communism versus America. And the politicians of South Vietnam were not really in charge of very much. I think this is increasingly the situation of domestic politicans when it comes to finance, debts and currency. Only they don’t yet know this one vital fact. Thus we have the dis-spiriting spectacle of watching the fag ends of our representative democracy argue about things most of them do not understand. An endless stage show where the actors strut and fret, and deliver their lines with gusto, pulling with all their puffed-up might on the familiar levers of power available to them, expecting applause. Yet all the while their drama and the levers of power they squable over are less and less connected to the actual engines of change.

The Democrats and Republicans think they are arguing over who should control the amount of debt the Fed will take on. Not realizing that neither of them, neither Republican nor Democrat controls the matter over which they are arguing. Neither do they realize – not fully at least – that theirs is no longer a theatre of power, it is mostly just a theatre. Power, fundamental power,  has moved elsewhere.

What the debt-celing debate was about, I suggest, was a fight between those who think they control the Fed and the currency (because once they did) and those who do control it but would prefer we not quite realize this.

I think the real battle going on is between the financial players led by the global banks, assorted funds and Insurers, all of whom are very much addicted to fiat debt-money, and a dwindling cadre of politicians who still think central banks control the currencies and elected officials decide how much debt is enough.

This latter group seemingly cannot understand why they can’t get the Fed or the ECB to do what they both said, ever since 2008, they would do, which is to ‘exit’ or to use the prefered term ‘taper’ the ‘extraordinary’ and ‘temporary’ measures they took in 2007, then took again in 2008 and again in 2009 and again in 2010 and 2011 and 2012 and 2013. Which is, let’s be fair to our puzzled politicans and pundits, a confusingly frequent use of ‘extraordinary’ and a long time for ‘temporary’. Hence their confusion.

What our politicians – most of them but crucially not all of them – seem reluctant to underdstand is that neither the FED nor the ECB nor any other central authority, can limit the amount of debt that is issued into the global markets. The banks issue the debt not governments. But that debt, conjured into existence by extending loans does then, particularly in periods of market uncertainty, ‘need’ – or rather or ‘demand’  – backing from a national currency. This creates a pressure on central banks to ‘issue’ more sovereign debt paper to provide the backing for the ALREADY created debt.

The big banks issue the reserve currency. It is a global reserve currency and replaced the dollar some time ago, only no one noticed becaue they kept the old brand name going. It’s not even as if it is just American financial intitutions which issue dollar debt which the Fed finds itself being forced to cover – foreign banks do it to. And anyone who issues dollar denominated debt has a hand on the strings which move the Fed around. Obviously the same is true for other major currencies and their central banks.

The governments and central banks can try to influence the creation of debt though interest rates or ‘stress tests’ and setting levels of ‘regulatory capital’ that must be held. But all of these can be and are gamed by the banks. And when gaming is not sufficient then a debt crisis can be brought in to play to force the reluctant politicians to do what they ‘must’. And that last ploy is the debt ceiling.

Once private debt has been created the central banks are under-pressure to create public debt with which to back it. They know this is how it works they are on record as saying so. But they are caught in a dilemma. The politicians and the public think the government and central banks are in charge and can tell the markets how much debt is enough. The central banks know they do not really have this power because in reality it is the markets not the central banks who are in charge and  decide how much debt is good for THEM.

What can the central banks do? Nominally they work for the government. The people even think they work for them (ho ho!) Whereas the logic which controls lies in the markets and the levers are in the banks. If the Central banks were to come clean and tell the government and the public who is really in charge, who they really work for, what would happen? So they don’t come clean, at least not in public, leaving the poltiicans to argue fatuously amoung themselves for our entertainment.

There are only a limited number of end games I think. The issuance of debt will go on despite the increasing drama of the decisions. The question for the banks will be how best to manage it with the minimum of fuss and least chance of the real situation becoming too clear too early.

Debt issuance will go on because the present economic system, fueled as it is by debt, requires growth above the rate of interest they are all charging each other. The Pension companies require more growth than that because they have long term obligations to pay out at a higher rate. In boom times growth takes care of itself. In bad time that growth ‘must’ be provided by ‘stimulus’ AKA public debt. The minimum growth they want for the headlines is 3%. Which seems reasonable till you do the maths and find 3% growth means a doubling every 17 years. Given the frequency of ‘busts’ built into the debt based system and how much they cost the public each time – (and they are built in – I explained one aspect of this in the last part of the Securitization series. (For completeness here are parts 1 and 2.)  This series is my take on the same logic than Minsky had of course already come to before and more fully) – it is clear how much ‘growth’ is going to be based on public debt. So the debt will grow.

But while it does, other parts of the economic system and their political friends will complain about the size of the debt. So there will continue to be a pressure to stop the debt ‘getting out of control’. How to sqaure this idiot’s circle? The answer is already here only in its infant form. Public Debt created to back private debts will be ‘required’ to grow. Public debt for other things will therefore be under pressure to be cut. So far what has been cut has been the easy and the small beer.

The sums ‘saved’ have been tiny in comparison with the sums created in order to ‘help’ the financial system, even though the misery created in cutting them has been huge. But who cares about miserable poor people when you’re a rich happy one? Nevertheless the sums saved through ‘austerity’ are not going to be sufficient over even the medium term of the next decade. The ‘savings’ need to be orders of magnitude greater. For that the only option is to target the long term, ‘unfunded commitments of health, state pension and long term welfare. These are what the bankers will target when people have been softened up and the next bust hits.

The option I think they will go for is complete privatization of health, welfare and state pension.

All these long term ‘unfunded obligations’ as they are called appear in public debt accounts as future liabilities, future debts. But as soon as the same obligations are shifted to the private sector they become future profits rather than future debts. No matter that people might not be able to pay for them – accountants are not paid to worry about such details. To you and me it might seem daft to think that by moving things from one column to another , from public to private that this will suddenly make things better. And of course it won’t. The private sector will argue it will be ‘better’ because they are so much more ‘efficient’. Believe that if you like.  But the main thing is the acounting exercise will make the number in the public debt column go down.

The important thing for any discussion of public debt levels, is that removing these ‘obligations’ from the public account suddenly cuts the future public debt. Freeing up all that now uncommitted future debt to be available for pumping into the private financial sector . Which it would suddenly make ‘good economic sense’ to help, given the now very buoyant future demand for private health, pensions and welfare provision.

Public debt is always seen by the financial world as a drain, an obligation. The same obligations re-cast as serivces are seen as a source of future profit. Thus I think we will see in the next few years an all out attack on every aspect of public service provision.  Libertarians amoung you might cheer at this point. I think you will not cheer when you see what is going to replace what you currently dislike.

I believe the era of the Nation-State is coming to an end not because of attack from outside enemies but because Nation-States are being dismantled from the inside – by the  State itself.  But the State has no itention of losing power. It is simply changing jobs and employer. The big welfare state is being dismantled but in its place is going to come an even bigger and certainly more repressive Corporate State.

But the End of the Nation-State and the emergence of a global system of  Technocratic, Managed rather than democratic Corporate-States is a larger discussion I am still writing.

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