How the economic machine works, in 30 minutes.

The economy works like a

simple machine. But many people don't understand it — or they don't agree on how it
works — and this has led to a lot of needless economic suffering. I feel a deep sense of
responsibility to share my simple but practical economic template. Though it's
unconventional, it has helped me to anticipate and sidestep the global financial crisis, and
has worked well for me for over 30 years.
Let's begin. Though the economy might seem complex, it works in a simple,
mechanical way. It's made up of a few simple parts and a lot of simple transactions that
are repeated over and over again a zillion times. These transactions are above all else
driven by human nature, and they create 3 main forces that drive the economy.
Number 1: Productivity growth
Number 2: The Short term debt cycle
Number 3: The Long term debt cycle
We'll look at these three forces and how laying them on top of each other creates a
good template for tracking economic movements and figuring out what's happening now.
Let's start with the simplest part of the economy:
Transactions. An economy is simply the sum of the transactions that make it up
and a transaction is a very simple thing. You make transactions all the time. Every time
you buy something you create a transaction. Each transaction consists of a buyer
exchanging money or credit with a seller for goods, services or financial assets. Credit
spends just like money, so adding together the money spent and the amount of credit
spent, you can know the total spending. The total amount of spending drives the
economy. If you divide the amount spent by the quantity sold, you get the price. And
that's it. That's a transaction. It is the building block of the economic machine. All cycles
and all forces in an economy are driven by transactions. So, if we can understand
transactions, we can understand the whole economy. A market consists of all the buyers
and all the sellers making transactions for the same thing. For example, there is a wheat
market, a car market, a stock market and markets for millions of things. An economy
consists of all of the transactions in all of its markets. If you add up the total spending and
the total quantity sold in all of the markets, you have everything you need to know to
understand the economy. It's just that simple. People, businesses, banks and governments
all engage in transactions the way I just described: exchanging money and credit for
goods, services and financial assets. The biggest buyer and seller is the government,
which consists of two important parts: a Central Government that collects taxes and
spends money... ...and a Central Bank, which is different from other buyers and sellers
because it controls the amount of money and credit in the economy. It does this by
influencing interest rates and printing new money. For these reasons, as we'll see, the
Central Bank is an important player in the flow of Credit.
Credit: I want you to pay attention to credit. Credit is the most important part of the
economy, and probably the least understood. It is the most important part because it is the
biggest and most volatile part. Just like buyers and sellers go to the market to make
transactions, so do lenders and borrowers. Lenders usually want to make their money into
more money and borrowers usually want to buy something they can't afford, like a house
or car or they want to invest in something like starting a business. Credit can help both
lenders and borrowers get what they want. Borrowers promise to repay the amount they
borrow, called the principal, plus an additional amount called interest. When interest rates
are high, there is less borrowing because it's expensive. When interest rates are low,
borrowing increases because it's cheaper. When borrowers promise to repay and lenders
believe them, credit is created. Any two people can agree to create credit out of thin air!
That seems simple enough but credit is tricky because it has different names.
Debt: As soon as credit is created, it immediately turns into debt. Debt is both an
asset to the lender, and a liability to the borrower. In the future, when the borrower repays
the loan, plus interest, the asset and liability disappear and the transaction is settled.
Why is credit so important? Because when a borrower receives credit, he is able to
increase his spending. And remember, spending drives the economy. This is because one
person's spending is another person's income. Think about it, every dollar you spend,
someone else earns. And every dollar you earn, someone else has spent. So when you
spend more, someone else earns more. When someone's income rises it makes lenders
more willing to lend him money because now he's more worthy of credit. A creditworthy
borrower has two things: the ability to repay and collateral. Having a lot of income in
relation to his debt gives him the ability to repay. In the event that he can't repay, he has
valuable assets to use as collateral that can be sold. This makes lenders feel comfortable
lending him money. So increased income allows increased borrowing which allows
increased spending. And since one person's spending is another person's income, this
leads to more increased borrowing and so on. This self-reinforcing pattern leads to
economic growth and is why we have Cycles.
In a transaction, you have to give something in order to get something and how
much you get depends on how much you produce over time we learned and that
accumulated knowledge raises are living standards we call this productivity growth those
who were invented and hard-working raise their productivity and their living standards
faster than those who are complacent and lazy, but that isn't necessarily true over the
short run. Productivity matters most in the long run, but credit matters most in the short
run. This is because productivity growth doesn't fluctuate much, so it's not a big driver of
economic swings. Debt is — because it allows us to consume more than we produce
when we acquire it and it forces us to consume less than we produce when we pay it
back. Debt swings occur in two big cycles. One takes about 5 to 8 years and the other
takes about 75 to 100 years. While most people feel the swings, they typically don't see
them as cycles because they see them too up close -- day by day, week by week. In this
chapter we are going to step back and look at these three big forces and how they interact
to make up our experiences.
As mentioned, swings around the line are not due to how much innovation or hard
work there is, they're primarily due to how much credit there is. Let's for a second
imagine an economy without credit. In this economy, the only way I can increase my
spending is to increase my income, which requires me to be more productive and do more
work. Increased productivity is the only way for growth. Since my spending is another
person's income, the economy grows every time I or anyone else is more productive. If
we follow the transactions and play this out, we see a progression like the productivity
growth line. But because we borrow, we have cycles. This isn't due to any laws or
regulation, it's due to human nature and the way that credit works. Think of borrowing as
simply a way of pulling spending forward. In order to buy something you can't afford,
you need to spend more than you make. To do this, you essentially need to borrow from
your future self. In doing so you create a time in the future that you need to spend less
than you make in order to pay it back. It very quickly resembles a cycle. Basically,
anytime you borrow you create a cycle. This is as true for an individual as it is for the
economy. This is why understanding credit is so important because it sets into motion a
mechanical, predictable series of events that will happen in the future. This makes credit
different from money. Money is what you settle transactions with. When you buy a beer
from a bartender with cash, the transaction is settled immediately. But when you buy a
beer with credit, it's like starting a bar tab. You're saying you promise to pay in the future.
Together you and the bartender create an asset and a liability. You just created credit. Out
of thin air. It's not until you pay the bar tab later that the asset and liability disappear, the
debt goes away and the transaction is settled. The reality is that most of what people call
money is actually credit. The total amount of credit in the United States is about $50
trillion and the total amount of money is only about $3 trillion. Remember, in an
economy without credit: the only way to increase your spending is to produce more. But
in an economy with credit, you can also increase your spending by borrowing. As a
result, an economy with credit has more spending and allows incomes to rise faster than
productivity over the short run, but not over the long run.
Now, don't get me wrong, credit isn't necessarily something bad that just causes
cycles. It's bad when it finances over-consumption that can't be paid back. However, it's
good when it efficiently allocates resources and produces income so you can pay back the
debt. For example, if you borrow money to buy a big TV, it doesn't generate income for
you to pay back the debt. But, if you borrow money to buy a tractor — and that tractor
let's you harvest more crops and earn more money — then, you can pay back your debt
and improve your living standards. In an economy with credit, we can follow the
transactions and see how credit creates growth. A person’s spending is another person's
income and by following the transactions we can begin to see how this process works in a
self-reinforcing pattern. But remember, borrowing creates cycles and if the cycle goes up,
it eventually needs to come down. This leads us into the Short Term Debt Cycle.
Short Term Debt Cycle: As economic activity increases, we see an expansion - the
first phase of the short term debt cycle. Spending continues to increase and prices start to
rise. This happens because the increase in spending is fueled by credit - which can be
created instantly out of thin air. When the amount of spending and incomes grow faster
than the production of goods: prices rise. When prices rise, we call this inflation. The
Central Bank doesn't want too much inflation because it causes problems. Seeing prices
rise, it raises interest rates. With higher interest rates, fewer people can afford to borrow
money. And the cost of existing debts rises. Think about this as the monthly payments on
your credit card going up. Because people borrow less and have higher debt repayments,
they have less money leftover to spend, so spending slows ...and since one person's
spending is another person's income, incomes drop...and so on and so forth. When people
spend less, prices go down. We call this deflation. Economic activity decreases and we
have a recession. If the recession becomes too severe and inflation is no longer a
problem, the central bank will lower interest rates to cause everything to pick up again.
With low interest rates, debt repayments are reduced and borrowing and spending pick up
and we see another expansion. As you can see, the economy works like a machine. In the
short term debt cycle, spending is constrained only by the willingness of lenders and
borrowers to provide and receive credit. When credit is easily available, there's an
economic expansion. When credit isn't easily available, there's a recession. And note that
this cycle is controlled primarily by the central bank. The short term debt cycle typically
lasts 5 - 8 years and happens over and over again for decades. But notice that the bottom
and top of each cycle finish with more growth than the previous cycle and with more
debt. Why? Because people push it — they have an inclination to borrow and spend more
instead of paying back debt. It's human nature. Because of this, over long periods of time,
debts rise faster than incomes creating the Long Term Debt Cycle.
 Despite people becoming more indebted, lenders even more freely extend credit.
Why? Because everybody thinks things are going great! People are just focusing on
what's been happening lately. And what has been happening lately? Incomes have been
rising! Asset values are going up! The stock market roars! It's a boom! It pays to buy
goods, services, and financial assets with borrowed money! When people do a lot of that,
we call it a bubble. So even though debts have been growing, incomes have been growing
nearly as fast to offset them. Let's call the ratio of debt-to-income the debt burden. So
long as incomes continue to rise, the debt burden stays manageable. At the same time
asset values soar. People borrow huge amounts of money to buy assets as investments
causing their prices to rise even higher. People feel wealthy. So even with the
accumulation of lots of debt, rising incomes and asset values help borrowers remain
creditworthy for a long time. But this obviously can not continue forever. And it doesn't.
Over decades, debt burdens slowly increase creating larger and larger debt repayments.
At some point, debt repayments start growing faster than incomes forcing people to cut
back on their spending. And since one person's spending is another person's income,
incomes begin to go down... ...which makes people less creditworthy causing borrowing
to go down. Debt repayments continue to rise which makes spending drop even
further... ...and the cycle reverses itself. This is the long term debt peak. Debt burdens
have simply become too big. For the United States, Europe and much of the rest of the
world this happened in 2008. It happened for the same reason it happened in Japan in
1989 and in the United States back in 1929. Now the economy begins Deleveraging.
Deleveraging. In a deleveraging; people cut spending, incomes fall, credit
disappears, assets prices drop, banks get squeezed, the stock market crashes, social
tensions rise and the whole thing starts to feed on itself the other way. As incomes fall
and debt repayments rise, borrowers get squeezed. No longer creditworthy, credit dries
up and borrowers can no longer borrow enough money to make their debt repayments.
Scrambling to fill this hole, borrowers are forced to sell assets. The rush to sell assets
floods the market This is when the stock market collapses, the real estate market tanks
and banks get into trouble. As asset prices drop, the value of the collateral borrowers can
put up drops. This makes borrowers even less creditworthy. People feel poor. Credit
rapidly disappears. Less spending › less income › less wealth › less credit › less borrowing
and so on. It's a vicious cycle. This appears similar to a recession but the difference here
is that interest rates can't be lowered to save the day. In a recession, lowering interest
rates works to stimulate the borrowing. However, in a deleveraging, lowering interest
rates doesn't work because interest rates are already low and soon hit 0% - so the
stimulation ends. Interest rates in the United States hit 0% during the deleveraging of the
1930s and again in 2008. The difference between a recession and a deleveraging is that in
a deleveraging borrowers' debt burdens have simply gotten too big and can't be relieved
by lowering interest rates. Lenders realize that debts have become too large to ever be
fully paid back. Borrowers have lost their ability to repay and their collateral has lost
value. They feel crippled by the debt - they don't even want more! Lenders stop lending.
Borrowers stop borrowing. Think of the economy as being not-creditworthy, just like an
individual. So what do you do about a deleveraging?
The problem is debt burdens are too high and they must come down. There are four
ways this can happen. 1. people, businesses, and governments cut their spending. 2. debts
are reduced through defaults and restructurings. 3. wealth is redistributed from the 'haves'
to the 'have nots'. and finally, 4. the central bank prints new money. These 4 ways have
happened in every deleveraging in modern history. Usually, spending is cut first. As we
just saw, people, businesses, banks and even governments tighten their belts and cut their
spending so that they can pay down their debt. This is often referred to as austerity. When
borrowers stop taking on new debts, and start paying down old debts, you might expect
the debt burden to decrease. But the opposite happens! Because spending is cut - and one
man's spending is another man's income - it causes incomes to fall. They fall faster than
debts are repaid and the debt burden actually gets worse. As we've seen, this cut in
spending is deflationary and painful. Businesses are forced to cut costs... which means
less jobs and higher unemployment. This leads to the next step: debts must be reduced!
Many borrowers find themselves unable to repay their loans — and a borrower's debts are
a lender's assets. When borrowers don't repay the bank, people get nervous that the bank
won't be able to repay them so they rush to withdraw their money from the bank. Banks
get squeezed and people, businesses and banks default on their debts. This severe
economic contraction is a depression. A big part of a depression is people discovering
much of what they thought was their wealth isn't really there.
Many lenders don't want their assets to disappear and agree to debt restructuring.
Debt restructuring means lenders get paid back less or get paid back over a longer time
frame or at a lower interest rate that was first agreed. Somehow a contract is broken in a
way that reduces debt. Lenders would rather have a little of something than all of
nothing. Even though debt disappears, debt restructuring causes income and asset values
to disappear faster, so the debt burden continues to gets worse. Like cutting spending,
debt reduction is also painful and deflationary. All of this impacts the central government
because lower incomes and less employment means the government collects fewer taxes.
At the same time it needs to increase its spending because unemployment has risen.
Many of the unemployed have inadequate savings and need financial support from the
government. Additionally, governments create stimulus plans and increase their spending
to make up for the decrease in the economy. Governments' budget deficits explode in a
deleveraging because they spend more than they earn in taxes. This is what is happening
when you hear about the budget deficit on the news. To fund their deficits, governments
need to either raise taxes or borrow money. But with incomes falling and so many
unemployed, who is the money going to come from? The rich. Since governments need
more money and since wealth is heavily concentrated in the hands of a small percentage
of the people, governments naturally raise taxes on the wealthy which facilitates a
redistribution of wealth in the economy - from the 'haves' to the 'have nots'. The 'have-
nots,' who are suffering, begin to resent the wealthy 'haves.' The wealthy 'haves,' being
squeezed by the weak economy, falling asset prices, higher taxes, begin to resent the
'have nots.' If the depression continues social disorder can break out. Not only do tensions
rise within countries, they can rise between countries - especially debtor and creditor
countries. This situation can lead to political change that can sometimes be extreme.
Pressure to do something to end the depression increases. Remember, most of what
people thought was money was actually credit. So, when credit disappears, people don't
have enough money. People are desperate for money and you remember who can print
money? The Central Bank can. Having already lowered its interest rates to nearly 0 - it's
forced to print money. Unlike cutting spending, debt reduction, and wealth redistribution,
printing money is inflationary and stimulative. Inevitably, the central bank prints new
money — out of thin air — and uses it to buy financial assets and government bonds.
Other central banks around the world that could, printed a lot of money, too. By buying
financial assets with this money, it helps drive up asset prices which makes people more
creditworthy. However, this only helps those who own financial assets. You see, the
central bank can print money but it can only buy financial assets. The Central
Government, on the other hand, can buy goods and services and put money in the hands
of the people but it can't print money. So, in order to stimulate the economy, the two must
cooperate. By buying government bonds, the Central Bank essentially lends money to the
government, allowing it to run a deficit and increase spending on goods and services
through its stimulus programs and unemployment benefits. This increases people's
income as well as the government's debt. However, it will lower the economy's total debt
burden. This is a very risky time. Policy makers need to balance the four ways that debt
burdens come down. The deflationary ways need to balance with the inflationary ways in
order to maintain stability. If balanced correctly, there can be a Beautiful Deleveraging.
You see, a deleveraging can be ugly or it can be beautiful.
How can a deleveraging be beautiful? Even though a deleveraging is a difficult
situation, handling a difficult situation in the best possible way is beautiful. A lot more
beautiful than the debt-fueled, unbalanced excesses of the leveraging phase. In a beautiful
deleveraging, debts decline relative to income, real economic growth is positive, and
inflation isn't a problem. It is achieved by having the right balance. The right balance
requires a certain mix of cutting spending, reducing debt, transferring wealth and printing
money so that economic and social stability can be maintained. People ask if printing
money will raise inflation. It won't if it offsets falling credit. Remember, spending is what
matters. A dollar of spending paid for with money has the same effect on price as a dollar
of spending paid for with credit. By printing money, the Central Bank can make up for
the disappearance of credit with an increase in the amount of money. In order to turn
things around, the Central Bank needs to not only pump up income growth but get the
rate of income growth higher than the rate of interest on the accumulated debt. So, what
do I mean by that? Basically, income needs to grow faster than debt grows. For example:
let's assume that a country going through a deleveraging has a debt-to- income ratio of
100%. That means that the amount of debt it has is the same as the amount of income the
entire country makes in a year. Now think about the interest rate on that debt, let's say it
is 2%. If debt is growing at 2% because of that interest rate and income is only growing
at around only 1%, you will never reduce the debt burden. You need to print enough
money to get the rate of income growth above the rate of interest. However, printing
money can easily be abused because it's so easy to do and people prefer it to the
alternatives. The key is to avoid printing too much money and causing unacceptably high
inflation, the way Germany did during its deleveraging in the 1920's. If policymakers
achieve the right balance, a deleveraging isn't so dramatic. Growth is slow but debt
burdens go down. That's a beautiful deleveraging. When incomes begin to rise, borrowers
begin to appear more creditworthy. And when borrowers appear more creditworthy,
lenders begin to lend money again. Debt burdens finally begin to fall. Able to borrow
money, people can spend more. Eventually, the economy begins to grow again, leading to
the reflation phase of the long term debt cycle. Though the deleveraging process can be
horrible if handled badly, if handled well, it will eventually fix the problem. It takes
roughly a decade or more for debt burdens to fall and economic activity to get back to
normal - hence the term 'lost decade.' Of course, the economy is a little more complicated
than this template suggests. However, laying the short term debt cycle on top of the long
term debt cycle and then laying both of them on top of the productivity growth line gives
a reasonably good template for seeing where we've been, where we are now and where
we are probably headed. So in summary, there are three rules of thumb that I'd like you to
take away from this: First: Don't have debt rise faster than income, because your debt
burdens will eventually crush you. Second: Don't have income rise faster than
productivity, because you will eventually become uncompetitive. And third: Do all that
you can to raise your productivity, because, in the long run, that's what matters most. This
is simple advice for you and it's simple advice for policy makers. You might be surprised
but most people — including most policy makers — don't pay enough attention to this.
This template has worked for me and I hope that it'll work for you. Thank you.