All Is Not Well In Financial Markets
It seems to be a hard time for those expressing concern about the build-up of risks in the economic and financial system: the major economies in the world are expanding at a decent clip, credit default concerns are very low, and stock and housing prices keep going up, driven by investor optimism and supported by an ongoing low interest rate environment.
Moreover, cyclical indicators do currently not suggest that something terrible is just around the corner. But of course, there is good reason not to get carried away by the “all is well” mentality that has gripped financial market action. For central banks have, by way of their monetary policies of exceptionally low interest rates, set into motion an artificial upswing (“boom”).
While the boom leads to higher output and employment levels, it also causes — beneath the surface, so to speak — malinvestment on a grand scale: the development of the economies’ production and employment structure is getting diverted from the path it would have taken had there not been a downward manipulation of interest rates on the part of central banks.
Some Theory
This becomes obvious once a sound theory of the interest rate is taken into account, as put forward by the Austrian School of Economics, in particular by Ludwig von Mises. To explain this in some detail, we have to make a distinction between the “pure,” or “originary,” interest rate and the “nominal market” interest rate.
The originary interest rate is inseparably tied to human action: each and one of us value an early satisfaction of a want more highly than a later satisfaction of the same want. In other words: we as human beings value a good that is presently available more highly than the same good available at a future point in time. This is the direct outcome of our time preference.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
