[At the invitation of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Robert Wenzel spoke and had lunch in the bank's Liberty Room on April 25, 2012. Below are his prepared remarks.]
Thank you very much for inviting me to speak here at the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
Intellectual discourse is, of course, extraordinarily valuable in reaching truth. In this sense, I welcome the opportunity to discuss my views on the economy and monetary policy and how they may differ with those of you here at the Fed.
That said, I suspect my views are so different from those of you here today that my comments will be a complete failure in convincing you to do what I believe should be done, which is to close down the entire Federal Reserve System.
My views, I suspect, differ from beginning to end. From the proper methodology to be used in the science of economics, to the manner in which the macroeconomy functions, to the role of the Federal Reserve, and to the accomplishments of the Federal Reserve, I stand here confused as to how you see the world so differently than I do.
I simply do not understand most of the thinking that goes on here at the Fed, and I do not understand how this thinking can go on when in my view it smacks up against reality.
Please allow me to begin with methodology. I hold the view developed by such great economic thinkers as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Murray Rothbard that there are no constants in the science of economics similar to those in the physical sciences.
In the science of physics, we know that water freezes at 32 degrees. We can predict with immense accuracy exactly how far a rocket ship will travel filled with 500 gallons of fuel. There is preciseness because there are constants, which do not change and upon which equations can be constructed.
There are no such constants in the field of economics, because the science of economics deals with human action, which can change at any time. If potato prices remain the same for 10 weeks, it does not mean they will be the same the following day. I defy anyone in this room to provide me with a constant in the field of economics that has the same unchanging constancy that exists in the fields of physics or chemistry.
And yet, in paper after paper here at the Federal Reserve, I see equations built as though constants do exist. It is as if one were to assume a constant relationship existed between interest rates here and in Russia and throughout the world, and create equations based on this belief and then attempt to trade based on these equations. That was tried and the result was the blow up of the fund Long Term Capital Management — a blow up that resulted in high-level meetings in this very building.
It is as if traders assumed a given default rate was constant for subprime mortgage paper and traded on that belief. Only to see it blow up in their faces, as it did, again, with intense meetings being held in this very building.
Yet, the equations, assuming constants, continue to be published in papers throughout the Fed system. I scratch my head.
I also find curious the general belief in the Keynesian model of the economy that somehow results in the belief that demand drives the economy, rather than production. I look out at the world and see iPhones, iPads, microwave ovens, flat-screen televisions, which suggest to me that it is production that boosts an economy. Without production of these things and millions of other items, where would we be? Yet the Keynesians in this room will reply, "But you need demand to buy these products." And I will reply, "Do you not believe in supply and demand? Do you not believe that products once made will adjust to a market-clearing price?"
Further, I will argue that the price of the factors of production will adjust to prices at the consumer level and that thus the markets at all levels will clear. Again, do you believe in supply and demand or not?
I scratch my head that somehow most of you on some academic level believe in the theory of supply and demand and how market-setting prices result, yet you deny them in your macro thinking about the economy.
You will argue with me that prices are sticky on the downside, especially labor prices, and therefore that you must pump money to get the economy going. And, I will look on in amazement as your fellow Keynesian brethren in the government create an environment of sticky non-downward-bending wages.
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The economist Robert Murphy reports that President Herbert Hoover continually pressured businessmen not to lower wages.
He quoted Hoover in a speech delivered to a group of businessmen:
In this country there has been a concerted and determined effort on the part of both government and business … to prevent any reduction in wages.
He then reports that FDR actually outdid Hoover by seeking to "raise wages rates rather than merely put a floor under them."
I ask you, with presidents actively conducting policies that attempt to defy supply and demand and prop up wages, are you really surprised that wages were sticky downward during the Great Depression?
In present-day America, the government focus has changed a bit. In the new focus, the government attempts much more to prop up the unemployed by extended payments for not working. Is it really a surprise that unemployment is so high when you pay people not to work? The 2010 Nobel Prize was awarded to economists for their studies that showed that, and I quote from the Nobel press release announcing the award,
One conclusion is that more generous unemployment benefits give rise to higher unemployment and longer search times.
Don't you think it would make more sense to stop these policies, which are a direct factor in causing unemployment, than to add to the mess and devalue the currency by printing more money?
I scratch my head that somehow your conclusions about unemployment are so different from mine and that you call for the printing of money to boost "demand" — a call, I add, that since the founding of the Federal Reserve has resulted in an increase of the money supply by 12,230 percent.
I also must scratch my head at the view that the Federal Reserve should maintain a stable price level. What is wrong with having falling prices across the economy, like we now have in the computer sector, the flat-screen-television sector and the cell-phone sector? Why, I ask, do you want stable prices? And, oh by the way, how's that stable price thing going for you here at the Fed?
Since the start of the Fed, prices have increased at the consumer level by 2,241 percent. that's not me misspeaking: I will repeat, since the start of the Fed, prices have increased at the consumer level by 2,241 percent.
So you then might tell me that stable prices are only a secondary goal of the Federal Reserve and that your real goal is to prevent serious declines in the economy, but since the start of the Fed, there have been 18 recessions including the Great Depression and the most recent Great Recession. These downturns have resulted in stock-market crashes, tens of millions of unemployed, and untold business bankruptcies.
I scratch my head and wonder how you think the Fed is any type of success when all this has occurred.
I am especially confused, since Austrian business-cycle theory (ABCT) — developed by Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard — has warned about all these things. According to ABCT, it is central-bank money printing that causes the business cycle and, again you here at the Fed have certainly done that by increasing the money supply. Can you imagine the distortions in the economy caused by the Fed by this massive money printing?
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According to ABCT, if you print money, those sectors where the money goes will boom; stop printing and those sectors will crash. Fed printing tends to find its way to Wall Street and other capital-goods sectors first; thus it is no surprise to Austrian School economists that the crashes are most dramatic in these sectors, such as the stock-market and real-estate sectors. The economist Murray Rothbard in his book America's Great Depression went into painstaking detail outlining how the changes in money-supply growth resulted in the Great Depression.
On a more personal level, as the recent crisis was developing here, I warned throughout the summer of 2008 of the impending crisis. On July 11, 2008, at EconomicPolicyJournal.com, I wrote,
SUPER ALERT: Dramatic Slowdown In Money Supply Growth
After growing at near double digit rates for months, money growth has slowed dramatically. Annualized money growth over the last 3 months is only 5.2 percent. Over the last two months, there has been zero growth in the M2NSA money measure.
This is something that must be watched carefully. If such a dramatic slowdown continues, a severe recession is inevitable.
We have never seen such a dramatic change in money supply growth from a double digit climb to 5 percent growth. Does Bernanke have any clue as to what the hell he is doing?
On July 20, 2008, I wrote,
I have previously noted that over the last two months money supply has been collapsing. M2NSA has gone from double digit growth to nearly zero growth .
A review of the credit situation appears worse. According to recent Fed data, for the 13 weeks ended June 25, bank credit (securities and loans) contracted at an annual rate of 7.9 percent.
There has been a minor blip up since June 25 in both credit growth and M2NSA, but the growth rates remain extremely slow.
If a dramatic turnaround in these numbers doesn't happen within the next few weeks, we are going to have to warn of a possible Great Depression style downturn.
Yet, just weeks before these warnings from me, Chairman Bernanke, while the money-supply growth was crashing, had a decidedly much more optimistic outlook. In a speech on June 9, 2008, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's 53rd annual economic conference, he said,
I would like to provide a brief update on the outlook for the economy and policy, beginning with the prospects for growth. Despite the unwelcome rise in the unemployment rate that was reported last week, the recent incoming data, taken as a whole, have affected the outlook for economic activity and employment only modestly. Indeed, although activity during the current quarter is likely to be weak, the risk that the economy has entered a substantial downturn appears to have diminished over the past month or so. Over the remainder of 2008, the effects of monetary and fiscal stimulus, a gradual ebbing of the drag from residential construction, further progress in the repair of financial and credit markets, and still-solid demand from abroad should provide some offset to the headwinds that still face the economy.
I believe the Great Recession that followed is still fresh enough in our minds so that it is not necessary to recount in detail as to whose forecast, mine or the chairman's, was more accurate.
I am also confused by many other policy-making steps here at the Federal Reserve. There have been more changes in monetary-policy direction during the Bernanke era then at any other time in the modern era of the Fed. Not under Arthur Burns, not under G. William Miller, not under Paul Volcker, not under Alan Greenspan have there been so many dramatically shifting Fed monetary-policy moves. Under Chairman Bernanke there have been significant changes in direction of the money supply growth five different times. Thus, for me, I am not at all surprised at the current stop-and-go economy. The current erratic monetary policy makes it exceedingly difficult for businessmen to make any long-term plans. Indeed, in my own "Daily Alert" on the economy, I find it extremely difficult to give long-term advice, when in short periods I have seen three-month annualized M2 money growth go from near 20 percent to near zero, and then in another period see it go from 25 percent to 6 percent.
I am also confused by many of the monetary programs instituted by Chairman Bernanke. For example, "Operation Twist."
This is not the first time an Operation Twist was tried. An Operation Twist was tried in 1961, at the start of the Kennedy administration. A paper was written by three Federal Reserve economists in 2004 that, in part, examined the 1960s' Operation Twist.
Their conclusion:
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