Tuesday, November 23, 2021

If the US Fed is so bad, why do we follow?

"In the last decade or more, the topic of inequality has occupied centre-stage in America," wrote Prof V Anantha Nageswaran. "In August, its Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published its report on distribution of household income for 2018. "A problem of inequality does come through in the report, but it is vastly overstated." The US government taxes income on a rising scale, with the rate of taxation rising with the total amount earned in a financial year, Bankrate, and then transfers money to poorer households to supplement their after-tax income. Since 1979, the post-tax, post transfer (post-T&T) income of the bottom quintile (20%) increased by 91%. Income for the middle three quintiles (the middle 60%) increased by 53%. The problem is that "incomes in the top 0.01%, grew by a cumulative 538% from $4.9 million to $31 million over the past four decades". Because, "for the top 0.01%, in 2018, nearly 70% of income was capital income or gains". Nageswaran blames the Federal Reserve for its loose monetary policy to support banks hit by the subprime crisis in 2008, Investopedia, which has raised asset prices, leading to enormous capital gains. The Fed has decided to start reducing its bond buying program, in which it has been buying $120 billion worth of treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, by $15 billion every month, Forbes, but retained its Funds Rate at near 0%. Nageswaran was a member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, ET, which was reconstituted in October, but has nothing to say about the massive liquidity injected into the Indian economy by our Reserve Bank (RBI). Taking asset price bubbles, the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the US increased from an average of 25,046 in 2018 to 33,882 in 2021, which is an increase of about 33%, macrotrends, while the BSE Sensex in India jumped from 38,000 in 2018 to an all-time high of 60,000 on 24 September 2021, a colossal increase of around 58%, wikipedia. The US has doubled its balance sheet from around $4 trillion in 2018-19 to $8.7 trillion as on 17 November, AAF. The RBI's balance sheet has grown from Rs 41.02 trillion in 2018-19 to Rs 53.34 trillion, BT. "At Rs 200 lakh crore (Rs 200 trillion) GDP size, the balance sheet is now around 26 percent of the GDP." "European Central Bank's balance sheet has grown to over 50 percent of the GDP of euro zone countries. Similarly, the US Federal Reserve's  balance sheet has risen to over 32 percent of the GDP of US." Instead of controlling inflation, "The RBI has expanded the list of tools in its armoury to influence interest rates, the exchange rate, liquidity in general and liquidity targeted at specific segments of end-borrowers to be mediated by different financial intermediaries," ET. Predictably, "With a total wealth of $92 billion, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries, topped the rich list for the 14th year in a row -- adding $4 billion to his net worth in 2021, as per Forbes Rich List," BS. "Gautam Adani & family earned Rs 1,002 crore (Rs 10.02 billion) a day in the last one year to quadruple their wealth to Rs 5,05,900 crore (Rs 5.06 trillion) from Rs 1,40,200 crore a year-ago," ET. Many countries, including new Zealand, South Korea, Russia and South Africa, have increased interest rate, Global Rates, to prepare for any change in the US but not the Reserve Bank of India. Hope the RBI is not caught with its pants down. That will be calamitous.       

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