Re:Companies Use Borrowed Billions to Buy Back Stock, Not to...
by aeternus on Monday August 12, 2019 @03:08AM
(#20673144)
Buying existing assets only results in asset inflation if you lack a free market.
Otherwise, buying existing assets (such as houses) will increase the price which will trigger increased production of that asset.
Increasing a bank's ability to lend doesn't mean they will necessarily do it; the reserve ratio is an upper bound.
Also, even when they do make a loan, it also doesn't mean it will necessarily go towards building or improving productive assets. Sometimes loans go towards buying existing assets (such as houses) in a way that might just result in asset inflation. (As in, for example, stock buybacks.)
The idea of a "global savings glut" is somewhat controversial but not obviously nonsense. We can't learn anything by defining it away.