The age of inflation
Mr Alan Greenspan gave various interviews ahead of his new book 'The Age of Turbulence'. In his interviews, he raised the following points:
a. The world economy looks set to enter into an inflationary phase. The last decade marked a disinflationary period due to globalisation - the integration of a billion workers from China to India to Russia had a disinflationary effect on the world economy. The result was low inflation with coupled with even lower rates producing a hefty increase in asset prices. In the next decade, the disinflationary effects will gradually ebb as the world economy reaches a new equilibrium with the additional resources
b. UK home prices look set to tumble. UK housing is more exposed than the US to adjustable-rate mortgages and these are highly interest-rate sensitive
c. Bubbles are inevitable - Humans can't seem to be able to learn from mistakes. "Human nature moves from euphoria to fear"
d. The Fed under his leadership does not prickle bubbles but instead allow a full deflation of the bubble as evident in the dot-com crash. I wonder how the Fed under Bernanke will respond to the current credit crisis - will he prick the bubble by holding rates or will he allow the credit party to continue?
The Fed convenes for a meeting tomorrow for a rate-setting decision. I am hoping that Bernake will not cut rates - this credit crunch needs to be worked off by hard labour and higher savings by the American workers/consumers, not by a bail-out from the Fed.
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