Silver, Financial Repression And Economic Recovery

Ryan Jordan

Earlier this week, noted economist Carmen Reinhart posited once again that western economies are enduring another period of financial repression. In the simplest sense, financial repression means savers are subjected to additional taxation in the form of negative real interest rates (meaning you are losing money on your bank deposits after accounting for inflation.) The last period of negative real interest rates occurred in the wake of huge public sector deficits after World War II. In Reinhart's opinion, government-mandated negative real interest rates persisted from 1945 to 1980. This was a thirty-five year war on savers.

I found the timing of this article interesting, since so many people in the financial world are touting some sort of economic recovery, especially here in the United States. I have to admit things are going well on Wall Street: broader stock indexes have, in many cases, finally broken above levels not seen since before the collapse of Lehman in 2008. I would point out that in a qualitative sense, the word "recovery" feels out of place in a country where I doubt we can return to the world before 2007. Still, I am a good sport and willing to play along with the idea that the economy is on some sort of a rebound. (At least until the end of the world in December, mind you.)

So what does this "recovery" mean for people looking for places to put their hard earned savings? After all, the appearance of Reinhart's article on financial repression sort of throws a bit of cold water on anyone who equates recovery with the positive real rates of the 1980s and 1990s. Reinhart is implying that the heavy hands of the state and central banks are fiddling with the scales, manipulating the truth about the damage inflation can do to real economic growth, as well as to real investment returns.

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