저자: PeterSchiff · 외국인
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결론: 인플레이션은 이기고 연준은 결국 인플레이션에 항복해 침체·금융위기 대응으로 금리 인하와 양적완화에 나설 것이다. 연준 정책 전망: 시장은 2023년 인플레 둔화로 연준이 긴축을 완화할 것으로 보지만, 나는 그 이유가 인플레 승리가 아니라 항복이라고 본다. 금리 인하 가능성이 높고, 금리 인하 여부와 무관하게 양적완화로 돌아갈 가능성이 더 크다. 소비자 부채: 평균 신용카드 금리는 19.6%이며 신용카드 잔액은 2023년 중 1조 달러를 넘을 것으로 본다. 전년 대비 15% 증가는 20년 만의 최대 증가폭이고, 전체 소비자 신용은 16.9% 증가했다. 후불결제(BNPL): 후불결제 업체들은 고객의 미지급 약정액을 신용기관에 보고하지 않아 부채가 과소평가되고 있다. 결국 결제는 신용카드로 넘어가므로 신용카드 부채의 지연된 형태다. 연체 구조: 신용카드 보유자의 46%가 매달 잔액을 이월하며 전년 39%에서 상승했다. 잔액을 이월하면 신규 구매분에도 즉시 이자가 붙어 장기간 이월 시 원금이 사실상 두 배가 될 수 있다. 저축률 급락과 겸업(부업) 급증은 임금만으로 생활이 어렵다는 신호다. 도덕적 해이: 파산이 예상되는 소비자는 파산 전 최대한 과소비하는 유인이 생기며, 신용카드사가 한도를 줄여야 한다. 최근 소비 지출 증가는 경제 강세가 아니라 약세의 신호다. 리스크: 금리 인상 지속 시 소비 위축, 재정 악화, 침체 및 금융위기 가능성이 있다. 미국 정부의 재정 취약성도 부담 요인이다. 종목·자산 언급: 금 등 실물자산 선호 의도가 암시되나 구체적 목표가나 기간은 제시되지 않았다. 연준 완화 시 달러 약세, 금·실물 자산 강세 맥락으로 해석 가능하나 명시적 종목 추천은 없다.
다듬은 글
foreign is hanging their hat on the fact that inflation is going to come down in 2023 and because inflation is going to come down the FED is not going to have to be as aggressive as many people suspect the FED will be able to ease up on the rate hikes and in fact if enough progress is made out inflation many people expect the FED to reverse course and begin cutting interest rates before the end of the year now I agree with that camp I think there is a good chance that the FED will cut rates in fact there's probably an even better chance that they will go back to quantitative easing whether they cut rates or not but I do expect the Federal Reserve to ease policy in 2023 but not because of a victory in the war against inflation no they're going to surrender inflation is going to win that war the fed's gonna run to fight another battle at least it's going to try to fight because it's going to lose that battle too and that battle is going to be recession maybe Financial crisis maybe a battle to try to prop up the U.S government whose insolvency is becoming a bigger problem with Rising interest rates the average credit card interest rate is now 19.6 percent that's the average so obviously some people are paying higher than 20 so we have near record debt but we have record high interest rates and of course I'm sure that we have record debt by now because it doesn't count the debt from December and that was what a lot of consumers had a buy Christmas presents or take vacations and I'm sure the cost of a lot of that travel and those gifts were put on a credit card so I'm sure we're at all-time record highs in fact sometime in 2023 I expect credit card debt to surpass one trillion dollars but what's also a big deal about this increase and the year-over-year increase is 15 that is the biggest year-of-year gain in credit card debt in 20 years and in fact if you look at total Consumer Credit it's up 16.9 percent and I think this is understating it because a lot of consumers have been taking advantage of buy now and pay later and I don't even know if that counts as credit I know that those buy now pay later companies are not reporting to credit agencies the amount of money that their customers have committed to pay later and in fact if it wasn't for the proliferation of all these buy now and pay later companies I'm sure credit card debt would already be a lot higher because a lot of the merchandise that was purchased using that gimmick would have been put on a credit card and the irony of it is most of these buy now pay later companies when it comes time to paying later you end up paying on your credit card so all these buy now pay later companies when it's time for the consumer to pay all those charges are going to end up on credit cards there's just a delay between the time the consumer buys something and when the amount that he owe shows up on his credit card 46 of credit card holders now are carrying a balance every month and that's up from 39 into prior year so that's a big jump in the number of people who have a balance and that's significant because if you pay off your credit card every month the interest rate is irrelevant because you don't get charged interest in fact you end up getting an interest-free loan from the credit card company for example I put a lot of stuff on my credit card and a lot of people do that too because they get points or they get airline miles or cash back there are a lot of reasons that people use credit cards to buy things even though they have the cash they just pay the bill in full when they get it but if you look at how these billing Cycles work as long as you don't carry a balance let's say I buy something today on my credit card by the time I actually have to pay the bill and maybe it's six or seven weeks later that the bill is due that includes that charge there's no interest during that six or seven weeks so I get that loan now that loan is a lot more valuable today in a higher rate environment than it was when rates are at zero but here's the problem for people who carry your balance the minute you carry a balance on your card meaning you didn't pay it off when it was due and there was some money left over not only do you pay interest on the balance but every time you charge something you immediately pay interest on the money from the day you charge it so in other words if I'm carrying a balance on my credit card because I didn't pay it off in full and I go and buy something tomorrow and then I don't get a bill for six or seven weeks the first time I get my bill and I see that charge from six or seven weeks ago it's already got six or seven weeks worth of Interest tacked onto it so even if I pay the bill in full at that moment the interest is already there because it was assessed from the minute I charged something because I had a balance but if you pay your balance off in full every month then that never happens but because we have more and more people who can can no longer afford to do that credit card interest is becoming even more problematic just at the moment in time where it's at an all-time record high well you're talking about 20 interest that is an enormous additional cost that doesn't even show up in the inflation rate because everybody who is forced to put something on a credit card because they can't afford it whatever the price is they're paying that plus 20 percent per year so if you carry that balance for many years think about that after four or five years or so you practically doubled the price that you paid because of all the interest that you've paid along the way so the fact that credit card debt is skyrocketing as savings rates are plunging this is very problematic for the economy it shows that Americans are struggling to make ends meet not only do they have multiple jobs you have Moonlighting surging as people are taking second and third jobs but even that's not enough even with multiple paychecks they still can't pay the bills so they are resorting to credit cards what the FED really needs to do with its rate hikes is raise rates significantly enough to cut off all that consumer credit credit card companies have to stop lending people money so those people will spend less and save more but as long as credit is plentiful available and even though interest rates are 20 apparently that's not discouraging the borrowers what we need is for the lenders to wake up to the reality that a lot of the people who are borrowing this money are never going to pay it back we need credit card companies to cut off these consumers because I think most consumers are going to keep on borrowing as long as the credit card companies are dumb enough to keep on lending one of the big moral hazards that nobody really talks about in the credit card industry is the more money that you owe on the credit card once you've gone beyond the point where you know you can't pay it back so you're already in so deep that you know you can never repay your debt and that eventually you're going to file for bankruptcy between now and then well the sky's the limit just run up as big a tab as you possibly can because if you know at the end of the day you're filing bankruptcy and you're not going to pay for any of the stuff that you buy using your credit card you are going to buy as much stuff on that credit card as you can before you file bankruptcy so it's up to these credit card companies to take a look at how much debt their customers have already racked up and cut them off because once you know you're just playing with the House's money if I have fifty thousand dollars in credit card debt and I'm going to default on it well why not run it up to a hundred thousand if I can it's not going to hurt my future credit any worse to go bankrupt owing a hundred thousand than it will owing fifty thousand so I can still borrow the extra 50 I might as well do it because after I file for bankruptcy I can't do that anymore because now I've ruined my credit for a while so I might as well buy as much as I can now knowing that after I go bankrupt I'm not gonna be able to buy anything and when you buy a bunch of stuff on a credit card and then don't pay for it because you declare bankruptcy the credit card company doesn't take your stuff everything that you bought you get to keep and so there is a massive moral hazard there because if you know you're not going to pay your credit card bill you're basically getting stuff for nothing well if you can get stuff for nothing Well buy as much as you can why not buy it if it doesn't cost anything the reason that people don't buy things is because they're too expensive if everything was free well you would take whatever you can get and that's what happens in fact that may be one of the reasons that we're seeing a lot of consumer spending even though the underlying economy is weak the consumers are simply doing the smart thing because they have so much debt they know they're never going to pay it back they're going to go bankrupt and they want to go out with a bang and they want to buy as much as they can now so this is not a sign of how strong the economy is but how weak the economy is it's not a sign of consumer strength it's a sign of weakness but it also proves that the consumers aren't idiots
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