저자: MarcFaber · 외국인
요약 보기
현재 경제는 자산가와 일반인의 이중경제 구조이며 실질임금 하락으로 체감 경기는 침체 수준. 유가 상승은 지속되고 물가 상승이 가속될 전망. 증시는 통화 발행 덕에 버틸 수 있으나 금리·물가 압력으로 장기 채권 금리는 높아야 하고 채권이 주식보다 손실이 적을 것으로 봄. 개인 투자자의 고점 매수 행태를 경고하며 본인은 채권 보유 중이라고 밝힘.
다듬은 글
In my opinion, we have long been in a state even worse than stagflation. We have a dual economy. We have an economy of ordinary people in the world. These people are salaried or have small businesses. And in real terms, taking into account inflation. What has happened is that their cost of living is increasing faster than their incomes or wages.
So in real terms, they live worse than, say, 20 years ago, or their standard of living is lower than their parents' standard of living . You know, GDP figures are misleading. They always show some growth because the government publishes them, and the government, of course, never admits that it was wrong or that its measures were flawed.
But in reality, for most people, we are in a recession, except for asset owners. Let's say you have a house, I have portfolios, financial assets, real estate, etc. So printing money increased the value of all these assets, and if you think back to the 70s, there were one or two billionaires in the world.
In 1980, there were about six billionaires in the world , and now there are thousands of people in every country with a billion dollars because money has depreciated. The purchasing power of money has decreased. We have created a certain illusion of wealth that is true for the 1% of the population—the asset owners—but the majority of people, about 60% of the population, have no assets and live worse than their parents.
So the Federal Reserve's money printing and the government's debt explosion have increased the wealth of a very narrow group of people, and their economies are doing fine. But the economy of a typical American or European is not developing in the best way. They live from paycheck to paycheck. I believe that even without further shocks, the price of oil will remain elevated, as the damage has already been done, and even if the Strait of Hormuz were to open tomorrow, which it probably won't, there would certainly be some relief .
But the price increases that are happening now will be with us for a long time . So I think you'll see that prices have already increased, and that increase will accelerate in the next few months. So, in my opinion, the economy won't perform well, but the stock market can hold up as long as they keep printing money.
In my opinion, the Trump administration , and particularly Mr. Trump himself, have been kind of dragged into this war. Perhaps Netanyahu had compromising material on him and somehow pushed him to participate. And then the Trump administration tried to justify the war, saying we had to do it because the Iranians were building nuclear weapons, etc.
So, they had to justify it somehow. And now they suddenly realize that although the US actually does not need Middle Eastern oil and is in a better position than other countries, the prices of petroleum products are also rising, and midterm elections are approaching. That's why Trump wants to do well in the midterm elections.
And one of the main concerns of voters is women who go grocery shopping, and if they see that the prices of groceries are going up, etc., they start complaining . So I think the Trump administration is now backing away from war in order to somehow not destroy the economy too much. People in America, ordinary people, don't even know where Iran is, but they know the prices at the grocery store, at McDonald's, at gas stations, when they fill up with gas, and when they pay their electric bills, and so on.
That's why the Trump administration is now backing down because it wants a deal to end the conflict and reduce or at least contain price increases. So, in my opinion, they're in a terrible mess. And the problem, of course, is that the Israelis and Netanyahu must be unhappy about this, because he really wanted regime change in Iran, and that's not going to happen.
He continues his war in Lebanon, and this gives the Iranians a certain advantage in negotiations. I think they will find a short-term solution. OK. But this short-term solution, if you look closely, solves nothing and improves nothing compared to what was before the war. This conflict is the most absurd one imaginable.
Like Ukraine—it doesn't make any sense. But some people seem to benefit from the war effort, huge sums of money flow to arms dealers and weapons manufacturers, and war can stimulate economic activity for a while. And the Americans will say: " Well, we are suffering the least in this conflict ." But this is not entirely true, because as a result of this war, interest rates on the national debt are rising or not falling as they would otherwise .
And then the interest payments on the debt become burdensome. They are already the largest spending item in the US budget. And if they increase, more money will have to be printed to finance the deficit, and this already affects the level of inflation. Inflation is rising and bond prices are falling.
I think someone told Trump that this war could cost a lot of money and actually prevent interest rates from going down . This is my opinion. The market doesn't take into account that interest rates may not be able to drop significantly due to price pressures, because everything will become more expensive.
Secondly, at this point, printing money was very beneficial for corporate profits. But I survived the 70s. I can say that one of the main problems in the 70s for corporations was that costs were rising faster than the prices of their products, so profitability began to decline. Margins and profits were relatively low due to rising interest rates.
Price-to- earnings ratios on stocks have come down, and I have to say, given the current level of inflation—and let's define inflation as the increase in the cost of goods and services—if these costs are rising faster than real wages, then real wages are falling. In my opinion, interest rates are probably too low already today; they should be higher.
But for many sectors of the economy, interest rates are already high. For example, if you own commercial real estate in Baltimore, Chicago, or somewhere else, and its prices are falling, the current interest rates are already very high. You see, in my asset allocation—and most of your viewers will disagree with me —I own fixed income securities, and I'll tell you why.
I think we're entering a period where you'll probably lose less money on bonds than on stocks that fall 90%. I mean, just look at the last few years. Generation Z, they bought cannabis stocks a few years ago, and those stocks , like ACB, etc., first skyrocketed and then crashed. Then they bought GameStop and AMC, those stocks skyrocketed and then crashed, and so on .
And then they bought meme stocks in 2021, and most of them fell by 80-90%. And now they're all playing with cryptocurrencies, semiconductor stocks, and so on. In my opinion, it might be better to hold bonds because you will lose less money if a catastrophe occurs . Do you understand? But I don't think the 10-year Treasury bond has a particularly attractive yield right now.
I would be much more willing to buy 10-year Treasury bonds now if the yield was 6%. But the central bank doesn't control long-term rates , it controls short-term rates. And with the help of short-term rates, they can manipulate long-term rates to some extent. For example, if the Fed lowers the federal funds rate and I can only earn 1% on deposits or short-term investments, the incentive to buy Treasury bonds at 4% is very high.
So they can manipulate investors' appetite for long-term Treasury bonds to some extent. But my point is that the market, because of its size—we're talking about $39 trillion in Treasury debt today , and it's growing by a few trillion every year because of deficits. And the deficit, as I've already explained, cannot be significantly reduced until interest rates are lowered.
And they cannot significantly decrease as long as the war increases government spending. This war is expensive. You know, everyone has to decide for themselves. But I just watch the public buy like there's no tomorrow. Like they have to buy today because the stock will go up overnight and they'll make a profit on the options or the stock or whatever.
And here you have a profit, essentially, with the largest cash position in history. Isn't that interesting? Maybe he's wrong, but I'd rather be wrong with Buffett than with all those investors, individual investors, who traditionally buy high and sell low.
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