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Like an ancient Greek oracle, Greenspan possessed a gift for speaking almost unintelligibly of movement in both directions and thus maintain the appearance of accuracy in ordaining the future. This is why he gets both praise and blame for the “irrational exuberhance” of the late 1990s, which he alternately lauded and warned against (although he was much more worried in the early going and exuberant in 1999). By January 2000, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the “New Era,” even as he warned of a potential reversal in the stock market (see excerpt of the February 2000 issue of EWFF in additional references below).

Underneath Greenspan’s econometric meanderings was the hardened heart of realist who knew better than to get in the way of the stock and bond markets. This explains his longevity. Granted the market dealt him a great hand, but he had his chances to press his luck by bucking the markets, and Greenspan ultimately always deferred to its message; always raising Funds rate in conjunction with rising short-term Treasury rates and vice versa.

As Elliott Wave International has pointed out in the past, the revealing aspect of Greenspan’s tenure was not what he was thinking about the markets but what the marketplace was thinking about Greenspan.

The chart shows how his star rose, fell and then rose again with the fortunes of stock market investors. His most unmitigated moment of glory was clearly 2000 when he enjoyed the aura of supreme mastery over monetary policy. Within days of the all-time peak in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, U.S. Senator Phil Gramm was quoted in the Economist calling Greenspan “the greatest central banker in the history of the world.” Later the same year, Bob Woodward, who was dredging up political scandal in the preceding bear market bottom, came out with an almost worshipful book, The Maestro: Greenspans Fed and the American Boom.

By the lows of 2002, however, Greenspan’s legend was substantially deflated. Within four days of the bear market low, the same Christian Science Monitor that had identified a wave of “Exuberance Over Greenspan” at the all-time high in 2000 (top arrow on chart), now wondered aloud about “Greenspan's bubble?” and obrserved, “The Fed chairman faces criticism for past decisions.”

One sign that 2002 was not the ultimate low is that Greenspan never reached the level of outright disrepute. We expect a vehement backlash against the Fed, but the low of 2002 was just the initial leg down. With the help of a wave two bounce that reproduced the euphoria of the all-time highs, Greenspan finished out his tenure in relative tranquility. But like the rebound in stocks, Greenspan’s reputation did not make it all the way back to its former height. His “legacy” is not nearly as one-sidedly positive as it was in 2000. There is a “Chip, Chip, Chip at the Clay Feet of Alan Greenspan,” says a January 27 column in the Houston Chronicle. The same Economist that featured the above quote from Sen. Graham in 2000 now features a cover on which Greenspan hands off a baton in the form of a stick of dynamite. “Danger Time in America,” warns the accompanying headline. “The economy that Alan Greenspan is about to hand over is in a much less healthy state than is popularly assumed,” says the magazine. Even the story above about Greenspan's unprecedented "pop" cultural status notes a lingering scepticism about his eventual place in history: "Greenspan oversaw an era defined by stable inflation, relatively low unemployment and the creation of record household wealth. Yet, even with those successes, Greenspan's legacy remains in doubt." This shows the divide between his reputation in 2000 and now, but an even more ominous schism is the gap between his current pop star status and concerns about his performance running the economy. It is a divergence that does not bode well for Greenspan, the economy or the financial markets.  

Bear market revisionism will undoubtedly be unkind to Greenspan’s legacy, but Conquer the Crash pointed out that his successor will bear the brunt of the damage: “Economists who do not believe that a prolonged expansionary credit policy has consequences will soon be blasting the Fed for ‘mistakes’ in the present, whereas the errors that matter most reside in the past. Regardless of whether this truth comes to light, the populace will disrespect the Fed and other central banks mightily by the time the depression is over.”

The additional references below track some of EWI’s observations about Greenspan and the role of Fed Chairman over the last five years. As Conquer the Crash notes, Greenspan himself has stated the idea that the Fed can stop recessions makes no sense. In testimony before Congress, he even admitted that “human psychology” and the natural sway of optimism and pessimism were the real drivers behind the stock market. So, why waste time with the marionettes? I guess the best answer is that there is no better stage on which to observe the trasnformation from hero to zero that takes place when the social mood changes from up to down. In another important section, “Why the Fed Cannot Stop Deflation,” Conquer the Crash explains why the Fed will push all the wrong strings when the social psychology reverses. When you know what to look for, watching the Fed can be a fascinating passtime.

Conquer the Crash, April 2002
“Potent Directors”
The primary basis for today’s belief in perpetual prosperity and inflation with perhaps an occasional recession is what I call the “potent directors” fallacy. It is nearly impossible to find a treatise on macroeconomics today that does not assert or assume that the Federal Reserve Board has learned to control both our money and our economy. Many believe that it also possesses immense power to manipulate the stock market.

The very idea that it can do these things is false. Last October, before the House and Senate Joint Economic committee, Chairman Alan Greenspan himself called the idea that the Fed could prevent recessions a “puzzling” notion, chalking up such events to exactly what causes them: “human psychology.” In August 1999, he even more specifically described the stock market as being driven by “waves of optimism and pessimism.” He’s right on this point, but no one is listening.

The Chairman also expresses the view that the Fed has the power to temper economic swings for the better. Is that what it does? Politicians and most economists assert that a central bank is necessary for maximum growth. Is that the case?

This is not the place for a treatise on the subject, but a brief dose of reality should serve. Real economic growth in the U.S. was greater in the nineteenth century without a central bank than it has been in the twentieth century with one. Real economic growth in Hong Kong during the latter half of the twentieth century outstripped that of every other country in the entire world, and it had no central bank. Anyone who advocates a causal connection between central banking and economic performance must conclude that a central bank is harmful to economic growth. For recent examples of the failure of the idea of efficacious economic directors, just look around. Since Japan’s boom ended in 1990, its regulators have been using every presumed macroeconomic “tool” to get the Land of the Sinking Sun rising again, as yet to no avail. The World Bank, the IMF, local central banks and government officials were “wisely managing” Southeast Asia’s boom until it collapsed spectacularly in 1997. Prevent the bust? They expressed profound dismay that it even happened. As I write this paragraph, Argentina’s economy has just crashed despite the machinations of its own presumed “potent directors.” I say “despite,” but the truth is that directors, whether they are Argentina’s, Japan’s or America’s, cannot make things better and have always made things worse. It is a principle that meddling in the free market can only disable it. People think that the Fed has “managed” the economy brilliantly in the 1980s and 1990s. Most financial professionals believe that the only potential culprit of a deviation from the path to ever greater prosperity would be current-time central bank actions so flagrantly stupid as to be beyond the realm of possibility. But the deep flaws in the Fed’s manipulation of the banking system to induce and facilitate the extension of credit will bear bitter fruit in the next depression. Economists who do not believe that a prolonged expansionary credit policy has consequences will soon be blasting the Fed for “mistakes” in the present, whereas the errors that matter most reside in the past. Regardless of whether this truth comes to light, the populace will disrespect the Fed and other central banks mightily by the time the depression is over. For many people, the single biggest financial shock and surprise over the next decade will be the revelation that the Fed has never really known what on earth it was doing. The spectacle of U.S. officials in recent weeks lecturing Japan on how to contain deflation will be revealed as the grossest hubris. Make sure that you avoid the disillusion and financial devastation that will afflict those who harbor a misguided faith in the world’s central bankers and the idea that they can manage our money, our credit or our economy.

The Fed’s Final Card
The Fed used to have two sources of power to expand the total amount of bank credit: It could lower reserve requirements or lower the discount rate, the rate at which it lends money to banks. In shepherding reserve requirements down to zero, it has expended all the power of the first source. In 2001, the Fed lowered its discount rate from 6 percent to 1.25 percent, an unprecedented amount in such a short time. By doing so, it has expended much of the power residing in the second source. What will it do if the economy resumes its contraction, lower interest rates to zero? Then what?

Why the Fed Cannot Stop Deflation
Countless people say that deflation is impossible because the Federal Reserve Bank can just print money to stave off deflation. If the Fed’s main jobs were simply establishing new checking accounts and grinding out banknotes, that’s what it might do. But in terms of volume, that has not been the Fed’s primary function, which for 89 years has been in fact to foster the expansion of credit. Printed fiat currency depends almost entirely upon the whims of the issuer, but credit is another matter entirely.

What the Fed does is to set or influence certain very short-term interbank loan rates. It sets the discount rate, which is the Fed’s nominal near-term lending rate to banks. This action is primarily a “signal” of the Fed’s posture because banks almost never borrow from the Fed, as doing so implies desperation. (Whether they will do so more in coming years under duress is another question.) More actively, the Fed buys and sells overnight “repurchase agreements,” which are collateralized loans among banks and dealers, to defend its chosen rate, called the “federal funds” rate. In stable times, the lower the rate at which banks can borrow short-term funds, the lower the rate at which they can offer long-term loans to the public. Thus, though the Fed undertakes its operations to influence bank borrowing, its ultimate goal is to influence public borrowing from banks. Observe that the Fed makes bank credit more available or less available to two sets of willing borrowers.

During social-mood uptrends, this strategy appears to work, because the borrowers – i.e., banks and their customers — are confident, eager participants in the process. During monetary crises, the Fed’s attempts to target interest rates don’t appear to work because in such environments, the demands of creditors overwhelm the Fed’s desires. In the inflationary 1970s to early 1980s, rates of interest soared to 16 percent, and the Fed was forced to follow, not because it wanted that interest rate but because debt investors demanded it.

Regardless of the federal funds rate, banks set their own lending rates to customers. During economic contractions, banks can become fearful to make long-term loans even with cheap short-term money. In that case, they raise their loan rates to make up for the perceived risk of loss. In particularly scary times, banks have been known virtually to cease new commercial and consumer lending altogether. Thus, the ultimate success of the Fed’s attempts to influence the total amount of credit outstanding depends not only upon willing borrowers but also upon the banks as willing creditors.

Economists hint at the Fed’s occasional impotence in fostering credit expansion when they describe an ineffective monetary strategy, i.e., a drop in the Fed’s target rates that does not stimulate borrowing, as “pushing on a string.” At such times, low Fed-influenced rates cannot overcome creditors’ disinclination to lend and/or customers’ unwillingness or inability to borrow. That’s what has been happening in Japan for over a decade, where rates have fallen effectively to zero but the volume of credit is still contracting. Unfortunately for would-be credit manipulators, the leeway in interest-rate manipulation stops at zero percent. When prices for goods fall rapidly during deflation, the value of money rises, so even a zero interest rate imposes a heavy real cost on borrowers, who are obligated to return more valuable dollars at a later date. No one with money wants to pay someone else to borrow it, so interest rates cannot go negative. (Some people have proposed various pay-to-borrow schemes for central banks to employ in combating deflation, but it is doubtful that the real world would accommodate any of them.)

When banks and investors are reluctant to lend, then only higher interest rates can induce them to do so. In deflationary times, the market accommodates this pressure with falling bond prices and higher lending rates for all but the most pristine debtors. But wait; it’s not that simple, because higher interest rates do not serve only to attract capital; they can also make it flee. Once again, the determinant of the difference is market psychology: Creditors in a defensive frame of mind can perceive a borrower’s willingness to pay high rates as desperation, in which case, the higher the offer, the more repelled is the creditor. In a deflationary crash, rising interest rates on bonds mean that creditors fear default.

A defensive credit market can scuttle the Fed’s efforts to get lenders and borrowers to agree to transact at all, much less at some desired target rate. If people and corporations are unwilling to borrow or unable to finance debt, and if banks and investors are disinclined to lend, central banks cannot force them to do so. During deflation, they cannot even induce them to do so with a zero interest rate.

Thus, regardless of assertions to the contrary, the Fed’s purported “control” of borrowing, lending and interest rates ultimately depends upon an accommodating market psychology and cannot be set by decree. So ultimately, the Fed does not control either interest rates or the total supply of credit; the market does.

There is an invisible group of lenders in the money game: complacent depositors, who — thanks to the FDIC (see Chapter 19) and general obliviousness — have been letting banks engage in whatever lending activities they like. Under pressure, bankers have occasionally testified that depositors might become highly skittish (if not horrified) if they knew how their money is being handled. During emotional times, the Fed will also have to try to maintain bank depositors’ confidence by refraining from actions that appear to indicate panic. This balancing act will temper the Fed’s potency and put it on the defensive yet further.

In contrast to the assumptions of conventional macroeconomic models, people are not machines. They get emotional. People become depressed, fearful, cautious and angry during depressions; that’s essentially what causes them. A change in the population’s mental state from a desire to expand to a desire to conserve is key to understanding why central bank machinations cannot avert deflation.

When ebullience makes people expansive, they often act on impulse, without full regard to reason. That’s why, for example, consumers, corporations and governments can allow themselves to take on huge masses of debt, which they later regret. It is why creditors can be comfortable lending to weak borrowers, which they later regret. It is also why stocks can reach unprecedented valuations.

Conversely, when fear makes people defensive, they again often act on impulse, without full regard to reason. One example of action impelled by defensive psychology is governments’ recurring drive toward protectionism during deflationary periods. Protectionism is correctly recognized among economists of all stripes as destructive, yet there is always a call for it when people’s mental state changes to a defensive psychology. Voting blocs, whether corporate, union or regional, demand import tariffs and bans, and politicians provide them in order to get re-elected. If one country does not adopt protectionism, its trading partners will. Either way, the inevitable dampening effect on trade is inescapable. You will be reading about tariff wars in the newspapers before this cycle is over. Another example of defensive psychology is the increasing conservatism of bankers during a credit contraction. When lending officers become afraid, they call in loans and slow or stop their lending no matter how good their clients’ credit may be in actuality. Instead of seeing opportunity, they see only danger. Ironically, much of the actual danger appears as a consequence of the reckless, impulsive decisions that they made in the preceding uptrend. In an environment of pessimism, corporations likewise reduce borrowing for expansion and acquisition, fearing the burden more than they believe in the opportunity. Consumers adopt a defensive strategy at such times by opting to save and conserve rather than to borrow, invest and spend. Anything the Fed does in such a climate will be seen through the lens of cynicism and fear. In such a mental state, people will interpret Fed actions differently from the way that they did when they were inclined toward confidence and hope.

With these thoughts in mind, let’s return to the idea that the Fed could just print banknotes to stave off bank failures. One can imagine a scenario in which the Fed, beginning soon after the onset of deflation, trades banknotes for portfolios of bad loans, replacing a sea of bad debt with an equal ocean of banknotes, thus smoothly monetizing all defaults in the system without a ripple of protest, reaction or deflation. There are two problems with this scenario. One is that the Fed is a bank, and it would have no desire to go broke buying up worthless portfolios, debasing its own reserves to nothing. Only a government mandate triggered by crisis could compel such an action, which would come only after deflation had ravaged the system. Even in 1933, when the Fed agreed to monetize some banks’ loans, it offered cash in exchange for only the very best loans in the banks’ portfolios, not the precarious ones. Second, the smooth reflation scenario is an ivory-tower concoction that sounds plausible only by omitting human beings from it. While the Fed could embark on an aggressive plan to liquefy the banking system with cash in response to a developing credit crisis, that action itself ironically could serve to aggravate deflation, not relieve it. In a defensive emotional environment, evidence that the Fed or the government had decided to adopt a deliberate policy of inflating the currency could give bondholders an excuse, justified or not, to panic. It could be taken as evidence that the crisis is worse than they thought, which would make them fear defaults among weak borrowers, or that hyperinflation lay ahead, which could make them fear the depreciation of all dollar-denominated debt. Nervous holders of suspect debt that was near expiration could simply decline to exercise their option to repurchase it once the current holding term ran out. Fearful holders of suspect long-term debt far from expiration could dump their notes and bonds on the market, making prices collapse. If this were to happen, the net result of an attempt at inflating would be a system-wide reduction in the purchasing power of dollar-denominated debt, in other words, a drop in the dollar value of total credit extended, which is deflation.

The myth of Fed omnipotence has three main counter-vailing forces: the bond market, the gold market and the currency market. With today’s full disclosure of central banks’ activities, governments and central banks cannot hide their monetary decisions. Indications that the Fed had adopted an unwelcome policy would spread immediately around the world, and markets would adjust accordingly. Downward adjustments in bond prices could easily negate and even outrun the Fed’s attempts at undesired money or credit expansion.

The problems that the Fed faces are due to the fact that the world is not so much awash in money as it is awash in credit. The amount of outstanding credit today dwarfs the quantity of money, so debt investors, who can always choose to sell bonds in large quantities, are now in the driver’s seat with respect to interest rates, currency values and the total quantity of credit. So they, not the Fed, are also in charge of the prospects for inflation and deflation. The Fed has become a slave to trends that it has fostered for seventy years and to events that have already transpired. For the Fed, the mass of credit that it has nursed into the world is like having raised King Kong from babyhood as a pet. He might behave, but only if you can figure out what he wants and keep him satisfied.

In the context of our discussion, the Fed has four relevant tasks: to keep the banking system liquid, to maintain the public’s confidence in banks, to maintain the market’s faith in the value of Treasury securities, which constitute its own reserves, and to maintain the integrity of the dollar relative to other currencies, since dollars are the basis of the Fed’s power. In a system-wide financial crisis, these goals will conflict. If the Fed chooses to favor any one of these goals, the others will be at least compromised, possibly doomed.

The Fed may have taken its steps to eliminate reserve requirements with these conflicts in mind, because whether by unintended consequence or design, that regulatory change transferred the full moral responsibility for depositors’ money onto the banks. The Fed has thus excused itself from responsibility in a system-wide banking crisis, giving itself the option of defending the dollar or the Treasury’s debt rather than your bank deposits. Indeed, from 1928 to 1933, the Fed raised its holdings of Treasury securities from 10.8 percent of its credit portfolio to 91.5 percent, effectively fleeing to “quality” right along with the rest of the market. What path the Fed will take under pressure is unknown, but it is important to know that it is under no obligation to save the banks, print money or pursue any other rescue. Its primary legal obligation is to provide backing for the nation’s currency, which it could quite merrily fulfill no matter what happens to the banking system.

Local Inflation by Repatriation?
Other countries hold Treasury securities in their central banks as reserves, and their citizens keep dollar bills as a store of value and medium of exchange. In fact, foreigners hold 45 percent of Treasury securities in the marketplace and 75 percent of all $100 bills. Repatriation of those instruments, it has been proposed, could cause a dramatic local inflation. If in fact investors around the world were to panic over the quality of the Treasury’s debt, it would cause a price collapse in Treasury securities, which would be deflationary. As for currency repatriation, if overall money and credit were deflating in dollar terms, dollar bills would be rising in value. Foreigners would want to hold onto those remaining dollar bills with both hands. Even if foreigners did return their dollars, the Fed, as required by law, would offset returned dollar currency with sales of Treasury bonds, thus neutralizing the monetary effect.

March 2001, EWFF
What’s wrong with Alan Greenspan?
In January we speculated that the “divide between the Fed’s chairman’s popularity and the central banks historic post-mania impotence is a recipe for grand disappointment” and added that the first hints of trouble would show as soon the “bear goes back to work.” The bear did and the expected response from the media was immediate. “Greenspan was too tight last year.” He was too loose in 1998/1999. He used to be against tax cuts, and now he’s for them. One day he says the economy is fine, the next he says its falling apart at the seams. As we said in January , the time has come for the Greenspan’s image to take it on the chin.

January 2001, EWFF
As Paul Montgomery (Universal Economics, 757-873-3300), points out in his January 1 letter, the near universal esteem toward the Fed is the opposite of the populist ire the Fed faced in the wake of the 1980 bottom for stocks. Montgomery dates the low in antipathy toward the Fed as December 7, 1981 when a distraught man entered the confines of the central bank with a sawed-off shotgun. According to one account, the assault finally convinced Paul Volcker that a full-time bodyguard was a good idea. “Clearly, the Fed chairman has transmuted from a hated devil to be taken at gunpoint to the Giver of all Good Gifts,” notes Montgomery, as today, the “depth and pervasiveness of Greenspan worship is unprecedented.” Maestro: Greenspan’s Fed and the American Boom is a current best seller now being marketed as the story of “the real president of the United States.” According to Montgomery’s best seller indicator, the book is at a major sell signal; its idolatrous tone marks a positive extreme for the Fed, the boom it symbolizes and its mythological power over the market. The divide between the Fed chairman’s popularity and central banks’ historic post-mania impotence is a recipe for grand disappointment. Look for his image to fall hard. The first hints of trouble should show as soon as the Fed-induced buying frenzy of January 3 subsides and the bear goes back to work.

February 2000, EWFF
Because it believes the public’s “refusal to panic has steadied the market in rocky times,” the media heralds this development as another giant stride forward. The truth, however, is the opposite. The potential for a rapid and chaotic descent has been enhanced by the loss of strong hands to orchestrate an orderly liquidation of asset prices. The market’s response to Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s latest warning about the stock market signals a complete loss of respect for financial authority. “This could be one of the euphoric speculative bubbles that have dotted human history,” he said January 13. Days later, The Wall Street Journal noted, “Stocks have historically taken a hit after Mr. Greenspan said something skeptical about the market. But more and more it sometimes lasts no more than a few hours. In this case, there was no hit at all.” In finally succeeding to tune out the sincere concerns of Alan Greenspan, the foremost financial hero of the bull market, the public has signaled that its potential to experience tragedy is now fully formed. When the bear market starts, we will see how sophisticated the little guy has become.