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Pensions Now Depend on Bubbles Never Popping (But All Bubbles Pop) October 3, 2018 We're living in a fantasy, folks. Bubbles pop, period.
The nice thing about the "wealth" generated by bubbles is it's so easy: no need to earn wealth the hard way, by scrimping and saving capital and investing it wisely. Just sit back and let central bank stimulus push assets higher. The problem with bubble "wealth" is it's like an addictive narcotic: now our entire pension system, public and private, is dependent on the current bubbles in stocks, real estate, junk bonds and other risk assets never popping. But a funny thing eventually happens to financial bubbles: they all pop. And when the current bubbles pop, they will gut pension reserves, projections and promises. Take a look at the chart below of taxpayer contributions to Calpers, the California public pension fund. Note that in the heady days of Bubble #1, the dot-com era, enormous gains in Calpers' stock holdings meant taxpayers' contributions were a modest $159 million annually. Based on bubbles never popping and monumental annual gains continuing forever, Calpers projected taxpayer contributions in 2010 of $6.6 billion. But since Bubble #2 had popped in 2008-09, stock market gains had cratered and as a consequence taxpayers had to pay almost four times the Calpers projection: $24.6 billion. In a few short years, taxpayer contributions have nearly doubled, despite the outsized returns generated by Bubble #3, the largest of them all. By 2015, taxpayer contributions to Calpers totaled $45 billion, even as Calpers reaped huge gains in its stock portfolio. So what happens to taxpayer contributions when all the asset bubbles pop? They go through the roof right when taxpayers are themselves facing staggering declines in their own personal wealth and the inevitable declines in income that accompany recessions. (What's a recession? I thought the Fed banned those.)
Here's a chart of the three stock market bubbles. Note the current bubble is the most extreme bubble.
Stock bubbles inflate on the euphoric belief that corporate profits will soar ever higher, forever and ever. But history suggests corporate profits tend to crash in global recessions and financial crises.
Meanwhile, household net worth and asset valuations have disconnected from the real world. GDP has risen modestly while assets have skyrocketed.
Private retirement assets (401Ks and IRAs) have bubbled higher, creating the temporary illusion of a "safe, secure" retirement because hey, past bubbles popped but the current bubble will never pop because the Fed won't let it pop.
We're living in a fantasy, folks. Bubbles pop, period. The Dow and SPX rose week after week and month after month in the 1999-2000 bubble, and again in the 2007 bubble, and so did junk bonds and housing. Everything rose in lockstep, lending support to the magical-thinking belief that this bubble will never pop because (insert excuse of the moment): housing never drops, the Fed has our back, etc.
Bubbles pop. To avoid this reality, commentators claim this is not a bubble.
Since it's not a bubble, it won't pop. But calling a bubble not-a-bubble doesn't mean
it's not a bubble. Wordplay doesn't change reality.
My new book Money and Work Unchained is now $6.95 for the Kindle ebook and $15 for the print edition.
Read the first section for free in PDF format.
 (Kindle ebook $9.95, print $20 )
This is the most important book I have written. It started when I asked myself a question: when we dream of the future of our society, are we hoping for the right things? The current conventional-wisdom view of our soon-to-be future is rose-tinted: automation will free millions of people from the drudgery of work, then by taxing the robots doing all the work, we can pay everyone Universal Basic Income (UBI), enabling a life of leisure and artistic pursuit for all. The result: A future of Universal Happiness. But is this accurate? Is this what UBI is actually capable of doing? More importantly, is this what we want? And even more importantly: will this “future” be our best future? Will it account for and manage the practicalities of work, money and automation, given the limits of endless growth on a finite planet? Money and Work Unchained drags the now-popular concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) from the shadows of Pundit blather into a harsh, illuminating light, and in doing so presents an entirely new view of the future that upends our conventional, foundational, understanding of work and money. This book lays out a practical pathway that realigns work, money and human fulfillment into a sustainable system that sheds the inequalities and injustices of the status quo in favor of a human-scale way of living. And – it gives us a future to truly hope for. Kindle ebook $9.95, print $20)
Recent entries: Pensions Now Depend on Bubbles Never Popping (But All Bubbles Pop) October 3, 2018 The Labor Shortage Is Real October 1, 2018 How Do We Change Our Lives in a System That's Broken? September 30, 2018 Fixing Infrastructure Isn't as Simple as Spending Another Trillion Dollars September 28, 2018 Droit du Seigneur and the Neofeudal Privileges of Class in America September 26, 2018 The Four Disastrous Presidential Policies That Are Destroying the Nation September 24, 2018
On Turning 60
September 23, 2018
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"There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity." (Douglas MacArthur) "We are what we repeatedly do." (Aristotle) "Do the thing and you shall have the power." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." (E.F. Schumacher, via Tom R.) "He who will not risk cannot win." (John Paul Jones) "When we drink coffee, ideas march in like the army." (Honore de Balzac) "Progress is not possible without deviation." (Frank Zappa, via Richard Metzger) "Victory favors those who take pains." (amat victoria curam) "The man who has a garden and a library has everything." (Cicero, via Lee Bentley) "A healthy homecooked family meal and a home garden are revolutionary acts." (CHS) "Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organize anything." (Napoleon Bonaparte) "The way of the Tao is reversal" Or "Reversal is the movement of Tao." (Lao Tzu) "Chance favours the prepared mind." (Louis Pasteur) "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." (Winston Churchill) "Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasures." (Rumi) "The realm of gratitude is boundless." (CHS, 11/25/15) "History doesn't have a reverse gear." (CHS, 12/22/15) Smith's Law of Conservation of Risk: Every sustained action has more than one consequence. Some consequences will appear positive for a time before revealing their destructive nature. Some consequences will be intended, some will not. Some will be foreseeable, some will not. Some will be controllable, some will not. Those that are unforeseen and uncontrollable will trigger waves of other unforeseen and uncontrollable consequences. (July 8, 2014)(thanks to Lew G. for retitling the idea.) Smith's Neofeudalism Principle #1: If the citizenry cannot replace a kleptocratic authoritarian government and/or limit the power of the financial Aristocracy at the ballot box, the nation is a democracy in name only. The Smith Corollary to Metcalfe's Law (The Network Effect): the value of the network is created not just by the number of connected devices/users but by the value of the information and knowledge shared by users in sub-networks and in the entire network. (CHS, 4/6/16) My Credo of Liberation: I no longer care if the power centers of our society--the distant, fortified castles of our financial feudal system--are changed by my actions, for I am liberated by the act of resistance. I am no longer complicit in perpetuating fraudulent feudalism and the pathology of concentrated power. I no longer covet signifiers of membership in the Upper Caste that serves the plutocracy. I am liberated from self-destructive consumerist-State financialization and the delusion that debt servitude and obedience to sociopathological Elites serve my self-interests. (Thank you, Klaus-Peter L., for reminding me) "We've become a culture of excuses rather than solutions: solutions always require sustained effort and discipline." (CHS 4/9/16) "Fraud as a way of life caters an extravagant banquet of consequences." (CHS 4/14/16) "Creativity = problem solving = value creation." (CHS 6/4/16) "Truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems." (CHS 7/21/17) "We live in a system of human emotions that masquerades as a science (economics)." (CHS 1/1/18) "Always remember, your focus determines your reality." George Lucas "Diversity is for poor people. Sameness is for the successful." GFB |
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