Robert Samuelsson Finally Gets It

February 21, 2007 12:56 PM by Stefan Karlsson | Other posts by Stefan Karlsson | Comments (3)

In a previous post I discussed how Robert Samuelsson absurdly tried to attribute the tech stock and housing bubbles to lack of inflation rather than existence of inflation.

Now he seems to have realized how "excess liquidity" (the source of both the tech stock and housing bubbles) was the result of the policies of the Fed and other central banks.

"The concerns over "excess liquidity'' stem mainly from the low interest rate policies adopted by the United States, Europe and Japan after 2000. The aim was to avert a deep recession. The Federal Reserve cut its overnight rate to 1 percent; the European Central Bank got down to 2 percent, and the Bank of Japan actually went to zero. With low short-term rates, investors have poured money into longer-term securities with higher interest rates -- government bonds, mortgages, "junk'' corporate debt, bonds from emerging market countries -- and into stocks. Often, these investments are financed by short-term loans at low interest rates."