You really need to watch this video of a recent conversation between Ray Dalio and Paul Tudor Jones. Their part is about the first 40 minutes.
In this video, Ray highlights some problematic similarities between our times and the 1930s. Both feature:
a change in the world order, in this case the rise of China and the potential for trade wars/technology wars/capital wars.
He threw in a few quick comments as their time was running out, alluding to the potential for the end of the world reserve system and the collapse of fiat monetary regimes.
Maybe it was in his rush to finish as their time is drawing to a close, but it certainly sounded a more challenging tone than I have seen in his writings.
Currency Wars
It brought to mind an essay I read last week from my favorite central banker, former BIS Chief Economist William White.
He was warning about potential currency wars, aiming particularly at the US Treasury's seeming desire for a weaker dollar. Ditto for other governments around the world. He believes this is a prescription for disaster.
One possibility is that it might lead to a disorderly end to the current dollar based regime, which is already under strain for a variety of both economic and geopolitical reasons. To destroy an old, admittedly suboptimal, regime without having prepared a replacement could prove very costly to trade and economic growth.
Perhaps even worse, conducting a currency war implies directing monetary policy to something other than domestic price stability. There ceases to be a domestic anchor to constrain the expansion of central bank balance sheets.
Should this lead to growing suspicion of all fiat currencies, especially those issued by governments with large sovereign debts, a sharp increase in inflationary expectations and interest rates might follow. How this might interact with the record high debt ratios, both public and private, that we see in the world today, is not hard to imagine.
I called Bill to ask if he thought this was going to happen. Basically, he said no, but it shouldn't even be considered. It was his gentlemanly way of issuing a warning.
Currency devaluations against gold were part of the root cause of the Great Depression. Coupled with protectionism and tariffs, they devastated global economic growth and trade.
The Repeat of the 1930s?
Do I think it will happen in any significant way in the next few years?
It is not my highest probability scenario. Butimagine a recession that brings the US deficit to $2 trillion, possibly followed by a governmental change that raises taxes and spending.
This could bring about a second "echo" recession with even higher deficits. This would force the Federal Reserve to monetize debt in order to keep interest rates from skyrocketing, thereby weakening the dollar.
Couple this with a concurrent crisis in Europe, potentially even a eurozone breakup, resulting in countries all over the world trying to weaken their currencies with the potential for higher inflation in many places.
In such a scenario, is it hard to imagine a desperate president and Congress, toward the latter part of the next decade, regardless of which party is in control, instructing the US Treasury to use its tools to weaken the dollar?
Can you say beggar thy neighbor? Can you see other countries following that path? All as debt is increasing with no realistic exit strategy except to monetize it?
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