저자: NourielRoubini · 외국인
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루비니는 2023년 3월 미국 은행 위기가 금리 상승에 따른 듀레이션·시장 리스크를 간과한 결과라고 진단했다. 미국 은행 증권 평가손실 약 6,200억 달러, 대출 포함 총손실이 약 1.8조 달러로 자본 2.2조 달러에 근접하며, 소형은행 수백 곳이 사실상 지급불능 상태라고 주장했다. 구조적 위험으로는 1970년대식 공급충격에 더해 선진국 부채비율이 GDP 대비 420%로 높아, 물가 안정·경제 성장·금융 안정을 동시에 달성할 수 없는 '트릴레마'에 직면했다고 봤다. 중앙은행이 금리정책과 유동성 지원을 분리해 운용할 수 있다는 분리원칙은 개별 기관 유동성 문제에만 통하고, 체계적 지급불능과 경기침체가 겹치면 작동하지 않는다고 평가했다. 지역은행 예금 유출, 무보험 예금 이탈, 증권 손실이 겹쳐 대출 긴축이 불가피하며, 대출 증가율이 연 10%에서 0%대로 떨어져 중소기업과 중산층이 신용경색을 겪을 것이라고 전망했다. 재택근무 확산으로 노동시장이 타이트해 임금상승률이 5~6%에 머물고, 이로 인해 물가가 2%로 내려가지 않아 연준이 5% 이상으로 금리를 더 올려야 한다고 봤다. 연준이 경기·금융 붕괴 우려로 금리 인상을 멈추면 기대인플레이션 탈앵커와 임금-물가 악순환이 발생해 1970년대식 스태그플레이션으로 갈 수 있다고 경고했다. 자산별 구체적인 가격 목표나 종목 추천은 제시되지 않았다.
다듬은 글
This seems like something incredibly basic. Your freshmen at NYU already know that when rates go up, when yields go up, the price of bond assets goes down. Is this the simplest explanation for what happened with the banking crisis here in the US? And were these just specific problems with bank managers who didn't know what they were doing?
Yes , to a large extent it is . Bank managers, regulators, and investors have forgotten about duration risk and market risk. When yields are higher, bond prices are lower. Last year, investors lost 20% on 10-year Treasury bonds. The S&P 500 fell only 15%. And for US banks in general, we have about $620 billion in unrealized losses on securities with capital of $2.2 trillion.
And for some regional banks, these figures are much higher. But it's not just about depreciated securities. Many banks issued loans like 30-year fixed-rate mortgages when interest rates were 1%, whereas now they are three-and- a-half or 10-year Treasury bonds. Consequently, the market value of these assets has also decreased.
Therefore, people have estimated that the total losses of the US banking system due to rising interest rates on both securities and loans are equivalent to 1.8 trillion with capital of 2.2 trillion. Hundreds of smaller banks are literally insolvent. So this is a fundamental problem. When interest rates rise, the value of securities and loans falls, and then we have massive liquidity and solvency problems.
Your recent book is called " Megathreats: 10 Dangerous Trends Threatening Our Future," and I'm wondering if this is among them. You know, interest rates at 5% or even 6% don't seem like a mega-threat. We had rates as high as 20% in recent history, in the early 80s, but we have much more debt now than we did then, which means the costs of servicing it are much more painful.
Is this higher- stakes regime a mega-threat, Ariel? This is because in the 1970s, when we had the stagflation shock that led to inflation and recession, debt ratios in advanced economies were just 100% of GDP, private and public debt combined. Today it's 420. So we have the worst of the 70s in terms of a negative supply shock that reduces growth and causes inflation.
And we have debt ratios that are much higher than they were after the global financial crisis. And during the global financial crisis, we had a debt problem, mortgage debt, bank debt. But we had negative demand shocks and a credit squeeze, which led to deflation. So we could implement massive monetary, fiscal, and credit easing.
Now we are entering a recession and financial instability, forced to raise rates because inflation is too high. So we have a contradiction and a trilemma. We cannot simultaneously achieve price stability , sustain economic growth, and have financial stability. So ultimately we are facing economic and financial collapse.
I mean, central banks say they can do both of those things. Good morning to you, Nuriel. They say they can ensure financial stability and control monetary policy because these are different levers for solving different problems. Do you doubt this? Yes. There is a separation principle that says that we will use interest rate policy for price stability, and liquidity to support the financial system.
But this only works when the financial system's problems are purely liquid and limited to individual institutions. When there is a systemic problem and the risk of insolvency, plus an economic recession, it takes us from duration and market risk to credit risk. You essentially cannot use just supporting bank liquidity as a way to insure the system.
There is a mismatch between price stability and financial stability. We are heading towards a hard landing, a credit squeeze, and significant losses for both borrowers facing higher rates and depositors as rising rates reduce the market value of their assets. So you have financial, price and economic instability.
Nouriel, you used the phrase "credit crunch," and we all used the term "credit crunch" in the late 2000s. We know that this led to the financial crisis and everything that followed. How serious do you think the credit crunch will be this time? We've heard that the Fed and many others are uncertain about how much we'll see in the supply of credit.
Well, most of the financing for companies and households in the US comes not from the big banks, but from these regional banks. And these regional banks are in trouble. There is an outflow of deposits. There are uninsured deposits. There are fundamental losses on securities. There will be a tightening of lending and credit standards .
They will have to be more careful. They will have to raise capital. So, they will lend less. Lending growth is likely to fall from 10% per annum to closer to zero . And so a significant portion of America's small businesses and middle class will face a significant credit squeeze. This will only increase the risk of a harder landing for the real economy.
I want to change the subject a little, Nouriel, and talk about another threat that Steve Ratner raised in an article for the New York Times. He believes that working from home is a real problem for America, for American productivity, especially as Europeans and representatives of other cultures return to offices.
Do you believe this will become a problem if we don't go back to working 5 days a week? Will this be a performance issue? Well, there are different views on this. Some believe that the optimal situation, like now— two or three days at home, two or three days at the office—is acceptable, depending on the profession.
But I think the biggest problem with the labor market right now is that the unemployment rate is very low. We have an aging population. Our labor force participation rate is falling. We have restrictions on migration. We are seeing the beginning of labor conflicts, strikes, etc. We have a "big resignation." So, we have wage inflation of about 6%, and people don't want to go back to work because the labor market is tight, and they have the power, and that means inflation won't fall to 2%.
Since in the service sector the main cost is labor costs. And if wage inflation remains at 5-6%, given the shortage in the labor market and the ability for people to work from home, then inflation will not fall. Therefore, the Fed will have to raise rates much higher than 5%. And if they don't do it because of fears of economic and financial collapse, eventually there will be a decoupling of inflationary expectations, a wage-price spiral, and we will get high inflation, recession, and stagflation, like in the 1970s . It
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