When we analyze our current crisis, focusing on the past few years of economic activity blinds us to the history and context that are vital to understanding the root cause. What we have been experiencing is not the result of an unforeseen economic crash that appeared out of the blue with the collapse of the housing market. It was certainly not brought on by people who bought homes they couldn’t afford. To frame this crisis around a debate on economic theory misses the point entirely. To even blame it on greedy bankers,…
You couldn’t find a more divergent view of the future of the US economy than those offered up today by Bill Gross of Pimco and Tim Bond from Barclays. Gross is not deviating from his persistent call of chronic low growth while Bond says we have it all wrong, a boom is coming.
Gross spends an interesting first couple of paragraphs in his monthly newsletter castigating other investment managers for the fees they charge. It’s not revolutionary stuff and it’s a bit self-serving, nevertheless he makes a good point about fees.
He then gets into the meat of his presentation which is an argument that we have for decades the country has operated on an assumption that nominal GDP would grow at around 5%. This is in fact what hat has happened and accordingly the structure is geared towards that sort of growth. Now we have slipped below that number and he sees constraints in getting back there.
Gross argues that the economy can not get back to the 5% level on its own due to overcapacity and is destined to wander in either a recessionary spiral or some sort of stagflationary environment. The remedy for this is for government to substitute for the private sector. Gross contends that government this time is limited in its responses. Government leverage, in his view, is less robust than private leverage and thus will not contribute as much to recovery. Additionally, he believes that both domestic and international political constraints exist that prevent government from doing much stimulus over and above what it has already committed to. The bottom line is his expectation for nominal GDP growth of around 3% once a recovery takes hold.
Here is his concluding paragraph:
Investment conclusions? A 3% nominal GDP “new normal” means lower profit growth, permanently higher unemployment, capped consumer spending growth rates and an increasing involvement of the government sector, which substantially changes the character of the American capitalistic model. High risk bonds, commercial real estate, and even lower quality municipal bonds may suffer more than cyclical defaults if not government supported. Stock P/Es will rest at lower historical norms, and higher
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.