November 25, 2008

Around the world, central banks will now start buying up assets. It hath been foretold.

Get ready folks. One big mop up on aisle five is about to commence.

And now, the central banks buy up the banks. And the commercial paper. And a whole bunch of everything else.

It hath been foretold.

"Since the downturn is now in the broader economy and no longer confined to the toxic end of debt, the best way to put cash into the pockets of consumers and companies is for the world’s main central banks together to buy mainstream securities, unlike under the initial US troubled asset relief programme.

But these must be targeted to relieve the critical credit blockages impeding recovery. Many of the assets discussed below are now at the lowest real prices seen in decades. The influx of cash and credit will regenerate global activity, increasing the real value of most of these assets. In due course, the central banks will be able to sell back the assets to the private sector at an overall profit. The timing of such sales can be designed to stabilise the next boom."

John Muellbauer, professor of economics at Oxford, Financial Times, November 25, 2008

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Central banks to 'buy' assets ? those guys that print dollars for free ? Wouldn't that be the ultimate market intervention ? Plus why should we trust that once they had 'bought' all those assets that they would ever want to sell them ?
Isn't this just a way of saying let the central banks take over. USA owned. Game Over.

Anonymous said...

Boom/Bust without the boom.

Anonymous said...

Good. We deserve to be owned.

Who would have thought radioactive granite countertops and stainless steel garbage disposals and of all things, used-house peddlers (and a stupid, imbecile president)would KILL America and cause the Great Depression v2.0?

Hungry yet? I'll trade you straight across this gallon of milk for your SUV...

DIE U PIGS

Anonymous said...

Wow that's great. I love how economists make it sound so easy, everyone wins in the end, and how there's no other choice. But there's something very sinister about governments buying up banks and other assets.

To start with, I don't want my tax money being used to prop up the stupid decisions of genius, overpaid bankers. It should be going to healthcare or education or getting our transportation system out of the 1970's.

Economists, I used to respect you. Now you're just above Realtwhores® and stock analysts. And we do deserve what's coming to us.

Anonymous said...

The news is so bad in each corner of life. Everything is so fagile.

Is the common denominator good or bad?

If it's good, we seem to be going about preventing the inevitable in an ass backward manner.

What, in fact, will be worth rebuilding?

Anonymous said...

It started in 1913. Even Lincoln and Jackson could not stop this monster. Was Orwell only wrong with the date?

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