Money Makes Dhe Vorld Go Around

Update:  Do NOT read this post.  It's a massive screw up.





But not if it's buried under a rock, or in it's nearest equivalent, a secure bank vault.

Graph 1 shows some aggregate money measures, along with excess reserves, the aptly named EXCSRESNS.

Graph 1 - M Aggregates and Excess Reserves

EXCSRESNS is placed on the right hand scale, because otherwise you have Graph 2, with all the aggregates flat-lined at 0, to a reasonable first approximation.

Meanwhile money velocity is dying a slow and agonizing death.

Graph 3 - Velocity of MZM

The Federal Funds rate has been at or below 0.20% for four consecutive years.  Add on a few rounds of QE, and you get this amazing success: unemployment now down to about the level of previous peaks.

Graph 4 - Unemployment Rate (blue)and U 6 9red)

And this is accompanied by the worst out-of-recession Real GDP growth in the history of ever.

Graph 5 - RGDP, YoY % Change

Of course, runaway inflation remains a clear and present danger.

Graph 6 - CPI, YoY % Change

Then, again, maybe not.

OK, Market Monitarists, what is the FED supposed to do?

Oh - I know - NGDP targeting.

If the Fed determined that NGDP should rise at 5% per year, businesses and households should behave with the expectation that their incomes will rise 5% each year, and by behaving in such a way they thereby generate the 5% increase. Of course, not everyone's income will rise by 5% just as not everyone's prices rise 2%. But aggregated across the economy, these decisions should produce the desired outcome for the national economy.

What is this?  Hand waving?  Dog wagging?  The almighty invisible hand?  Wishing can make it so?

Expectations, right?

People in households with flat nominal and declining real incomes are supposed to act as is they expect a 5% raise this year, and that behavior will generate real growth. 

But Winter is coming and the wolves will be hungry.  How long is that supposed to last?

Besides - do you think that most ordinary struggling people have any knowledge of what the FED is, let alone some way to modify their expectations based on tongue wagging and ineffective policy actions they are, at best, only dimly aware of?

Seriously - what is the transfer mechanism?