How the massive monetary expansion will end: Two scenarios
The new strategies of central banks in OECD countries are leading to extremely rapid and probably permanent growth in the money supply. How can we analyse i t? There is no longer a link between money creation and income (nominal GDP), so for the time being there is no link between money supply growth and inflation; We are currently in a logic of investment money and not transaction money: money must represent a stable share of wealth, and there is therefore a link between money creation and the value of wealth, and therefore between money supply growth and growth in prices of financial and real estate assets; The problem is that the money supply and wealth move in tandem and faster than income: in the long term, wealth will become larger and larger relative to income, which leads to two possible scenarios if the monetary expansion is not interrupted; In the first scenario, the continuous increase in wealth eventually leads to an increase in demand for goods and services, and there is eventually inflation (in goods and services prices) that stabilises the ratio between wealth and income (nominal GDP), through this indirect mechanism: the effect of wealth on demand for goods and services; In the second scenario, wealth is not spent and continues to increase, but it becomes fictitious: asset prices are so high relative to income that there is no longer any possible buyer for these assets. If their owners try to sell them, their price will collapse (this is the scenario seen in Japan in 1990). In both cases, the end of this monetary experiment is tragic: a return of inflation (even hyperinflation) or a collapse in asset prices.