I Know Nothing! I See Nothing!
May 27th, 2010 - 5:10 pm
A tidbit from a story on the arcane subject of money supply might be the scariest thing I’ve seen in a week chock full of scary things:
Mr Bernanke no longer pays attention to the M3 data. The bank stopped publishing the data five years ago, deeming it too erratic to be of much use.
This may have been a serious error since double-digit growth of M3 during the US housing bubble gave clear warnings that the boom was out of control. The sudden slowdown in M3 in early to mid-2008 – just as the Fed raised rates – gave a second warning that the economy was about to go into a nosedive.
That’s right. Our central bank chief doesn’t care how much money there is.
Bernanke sounds like the dude who doesn’t pay attention to the balance in his checkbook. It’s “too erratic”. Why bother?
Bernanke, Geithner and the lot of them are all committed Keynesians. Why would anyone expect them to give one second of thought to the Friedman monetarist world.
One of the few things I don’t care for about Glen Beck is his pushing of gold. But, um, perhaps he has a point about it?
The stupid doesn’t stop at the top, it starts there. This is yet another fine example for all to see.
Well, I have my issues with Bernanke and all Keynesians for that matter, but it is a step too far to conclude that he doesn’t care how much money there is until he confirms that he’s not following M1 or M2 (I believe that most modern economists, Keynesians in particular, focus on M1). M3 was the least liquid of the measures which is why it may have shown big expansion during the bubble, and also why it hasn’t been followed for years since so much of the thought and focus seems to be on short-term measures.
That said, apparently Greenspan was trying to conclude that M2 didn’t necessarily correlate with economic performance, according to the NY Fed, which is highly, well, at least interesting if not troubling.
Interesting discussion on the money supply measures here:
http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed49.html
I Know Nothing! I See Nothing!
Just don’t look at the awful thing,
and maybe it will go away.