Apr 22, 2011

on Bernanke and the US

I think that Mr. Bernanke deserves a lot of credit for what he has accomplished:
The US is semi defaulting by dollar depreciation, which will indeed help the US to grow its way out of debt.

Elsewhere, the dollar depreciation will boost 'Corporate America' results, which in turn, will spur Americans to spend more, as they feel richer due to the 'wealth effect'. Needless to say, to avoid losing purchase power they have to put their dollars to work (which was an intended consequence from Ben as well), either in real assets / invested in equity, or convert them to other currencies (increases the supply of usd, the demand of the target currency, and therefore pushes the usd lower).

Given that the usd is already quite cheap by PPP and other more sophisticated valuation metrics, the first option is the most sensible: buy shares. They are still fairly priced.
It seems that the market has risen (from the lows) by more or less the same proportion as earnings have done; therefore the valuation multiples are still at around the market bottoms.
E.g.: (implied) ERP on April 1 =5.31%. Source: Prof. Damodaran

The dark side of this policy of boosting the economy by dollar depreciation is that social imbalances are growing at a faster peace than expected/desirable. The skilled professionals enjoy a labor market with little unemployment and high salaries. Especially bankers, who have received subsidies (from the taxpayer) to make their annual bonus. While the mid class is being skewed, and the low class is probably still suffering at levels that remind them of the crisis.

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Ben S. Bernanke
Was the Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, Ben Bernanke received his B.A. in economics from Harvard University -suma cum laude-capturing both the Allyn Young Prize for best Harvard undergraduate economics thesis and the John H. Williams prize for outstanding senior in the economics department. He holds a PhD. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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