Those of us who lived through the turbulent economic times of the early 1980s remember when then-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker slowed the growth of the US money supply to defeat inflation which had caused NY Prime to go to 21%. That unilateral action was swift and left agriculture and other sectors of the economy that depend upon borrowed money and exports in a lurch. Today, we are faced with the high level of the Bush Administration deficient spending, and add to that the Obama stimulus package, leading to a suspicion that inflationary pressure might be right around the corner, with tightening of the money supply by the Fed’s Ben Bernanke soon to follow. Will history replay itself? I recently sat in on a webinar put on by ICBA Securities and came away convinced that history will not repeat itself. Let me share some of the highlights.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is still shrinking although it’s first quarter 2009 level of -5.5% is slightly better than 4th quarter 2008. Unemployment is at 9.5% and is expected to climb to over 10%, although there are 109,000 fewer initial jobless claims this quarter vs. last (674,000 vs. 565,000). Continuous jobless claims have not come down yet, peaking at 6,702,000. All of housing statistics are what you’d expect with housing starts at the lowest level since they began keeping records in 1969. The one favorable chart is that the supply of new homes for sale peaked in January of 2009 at 12.4 million and now sits at 10.2 million, but neither number includes foreclosed properties. The Institute for Supply Management measures such things as new orders, inventory levels, exports, imports, and backlog orders. Their composite index has improved by 4.7% over the past month. Businesses are still liquidating inventories and will eventually need to rebuild their stock of goods once the economy turns around.
The bottom line in all this is as follows: A)There are no signs of inflation for at least two years as the US Personal Consumption Expenditure index and Consumer Price Index (Core) are at 1.8% and are headed to 1.5%. Last month oil was priced at $69/barrel compared to its current level of $60. The question is now will it get to $50. B) Savings rates have spiked to 6.9% meaning that Americans are finally getting serious about making it through these hard times. C) The economy should bottom out during 2009 with a very slow recovery process. The restructuring of the American auto industry, for example will take years as car companies develop new technologies for more efficient cars and determine the proper level of production. In the past five years, GM, Ford and Chrysler simply built too many cars that were too expensive and it will take time to work all these things out. D) Interest rates into the foreseeable future will remain low since there is a surplus of liquidity and the demand for money is not expected to increase for many, many months.
The bond trader that put on the seminar said, “We have been going down so long, that small drops in the key numbers, look like up.” Right now, American consumers are saving their money, while living in a home that might have a debt on it that is close to its value. Just like the painful lessons that we learned in the 1980s, if we are patient and have sufficient capacity to weather this storm, the future will eventually be brighter.
David W. Johnson, Chairman
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