It's a continua. If we raised rates 0.00001% it clearly wouldn't "trigger a recession", if we raised rates to 25%, it would.
Powell has shown himself to be an effective chairman, I doubt the fed will trigger a recession with rates.
The point was not "raising interest rates at any level will trigger a recession" but rather "raising interest levels an amount capable of combating inflation will trigger a recession".
A 0.00001% hike may not cause a recession, but it also wouldn't affect inflation.
*Since you are a self-described consequentialist, it may be just that you feel what was stated is all that matters and not what was intended
I don't believe the current rate of increase is anything close to what was projected.
Also, the chart on debt held by the public is very interesting. Raising rates has some big impacts, even small changes.
The Fed stopped buying in 2014, held the assets for a few years, and they started going away in 2018:
Not only can it, but more importantly it can fight it without interest rates by gradually unwinding the remaining QE (which it is likely to do, starting either next month or December, from current indications)
> since the corporate lending market is now saturated with low or no interest loans, any attempt to raise interest rates at all will likely trigger a massive recession
Well, no not “any attempt at all”, but its probably true that the effect of any interest rate hike on slowing the overall economy and demand will be greater than it otherwise would be, for any given size of rate hike.
But that's positive for ability to fight inflation with interest rates, as it means each quarter-point increase in the rate target will have more effect on slowing inflation than it otherwise would, and that fewer of them should be necessary, even before considering the effect of QE unwinding which will start before rate increases.
Where if they would just be honest with people today, sure we will have a recession but that is preferred to depression or economic collapse which is where all of this is heading
These are demand side factors that would work against inflation (but also aren’t happening; unemployment and underemployment are dropping, though still above pre-pandemic levels.)
> and back-rent payments still due by millions of americans who will likely declare bankruptcy at some point.
What does this have to do with inflation?
Part of the inflation rate is housing, in many regions there are still blocks on evictions, foreclosures, etc.
This reduces inventory and increases prices. Evictions and Forclosures are critical to the market, if a person can just stay put and not pay rent it is a double whammy for inflation as they will use their rent money on other things increasing demand where supply is restricted (aka inflation) and their housing unit is removed from the supply also increasing inflation
That's...not what was cited.
I am asking about back rent payments due and bankruptcy potential which is what was cited upthread.
The LandLord would use the money to pay Plumbers, landscapers, and/or invest some of the money, and/or build more housing units
The Tenant would use it to Paydown other debt, buy a Graphics card, or other things in the consumer market.
If interest rates go up to 5%, you have $250k in service costs. Most businesses operate close to break-even (in efficient markets), and many will immediately go under. If businesses go under, that triggers a recession cycle: Those businesses lay off employees, who stop buying, driving down revenue for everyone else. People anticipating layoffs/furloughs/etc. stop buying. Hiring goes down too, since businesses start planning for rough times.
People buying on credit (anyone with a credit card debt) also find purchasing much more expensive, together with higher bills on existing debt.
A whole bunch of business opportunities also disappear in a poof of smoke. If a business has even a 1% expected real return, and interest rates are zero, it makes sense to borrow money to start that business (especially if inflation is also high, giving effective negative interest rates). If a business has an expected 1% return and interest rates are 12%, then I'm bleeding money. For these kinds of opportunities, think less SV startup, and more just normal businesses (e.g. I buy something and sell it a month or two later).
All of this piles on to form a recession.
Then they are not managing risk properly and actually need to go under.
Investopedia chalks much of it up to psychology and… higher rates means less lending means less spending means less earnings. https://www.investopedia.com/investing/how-interest-rates-af...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discounted_cash_flow
Notice the denominator in the series - (1+r)^n where r = interest rates and n = number of years out. The more r rises, the more terms at the end of the series drop out because they're so close to zero. So that effectively means a company that's getting its value from cash flow 10+ years from now loses a lot of its value if interest rates are rising.
unexpectedly*
stocks tend to fall when interest rates rise unexpectedly.
many actual interest rate increases are followed by stocks rallying because a larger rate increase was expected & priced in.
Right, but that just means more than 100% of the fall due to the rate increase occurred earlier when it was anticipated, so the rate increase still caused the fall, in effect.
Interest rates on 10 year debt have gone up about 0.75% in the past year or so already (based on US 10 year treasuries, a common benchmark). They currently are at about 1.5%, a little below the average for the past decade of around 2%.
I'm curious which companies, specifically, you think will "immediately" go bankrupt if interest rates come back up to 2% - a rate they were paying as recently as 2 years ago.
Do you know which rates are the ones the Fed sets?
These threads always bring out the people who don't understand how the economy works.
The feds sets the prime rate which then works its way down into the corporate markets. Corporations right now are borrowing at 1 or 2% interest rates, but if the fed rate goes to 5% then those corporations will have to roll over their existing debt at 5 or 6%.
BTW, I majored in finance in college and worked at Merrill Lynch. 12 years ago I started my own company and have 200 full-time employees. I think I know a little bit about how the economy works.
No.
The Fed sets the target for the Federal Funds Rate (currently, as a range target, used to be a single rate target), which is an interbank lending rate, but don't actually set that actual rate (but it is usually very close to or within the target range.)
Currently, the actual Fed Funds Rate is 0.25%, the target range is 0-0.25.
The prime rate, a measure of available commercial rates, is set by banks lending decisions. It is pretty invariably higher than the Fed Funds Rate; currently, its 3.25%.
> if the fed rate goes to 5%
...it would be an enormous jump from the lowest its ever been to the highest since before the 2009 crisis.
Just to clarify, the Fed doesn't directly set the prime rate, though it does have influence on it:
>...Although the Federal Reserve has no direct role in setting the prime rate, many banks choose to set their prime rates based partly on the target level of the federal funds rate--the rate that banks charge each other for short-term loans--established by the Federal Open Market Committee.
As an intern, yes? I know enough people working sell-side to know that it doesn't give you an intimate understanding of the economy, and certainly not after an internship.
> Corporations right now are borrowing at 1 or 2% interest rates, but if the fed rate goes to 5% then those corporations will have to roll over their existing debt at 5 or 6%.
Fair enough. I don't think we will be seeing 5% anytime soon, nor do I think that will be necessary for a price level increase largely driven by disruption to real output due to the pandemic.
since the corporate lending market is now saturated with low or no interest loans, any attempt to raise interest rates at all will likely trigger a massive recession. this is called the corporate debt bubble
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_debt_bubble
EDIT: this is due to the QE taper failure of 2012 as a point of evidence as it alone resulted in a 700 point market crash that forced the fed to reverse course immediately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#United_Sta...
the fed is therefore stuck hammering news outlets and the government with hopeful rhetoric about "transient" inflation that will somehow clear up after Covid, despite rising unemployment, underemployment, lingering state debt from the covid crisis, and back-rent payments still due by millions of americans who will likely declare bankruptcy at some point.
EDIT: Generally, bankruptcy is a positive influence on the economy. It allows consumers to find a way out of massive debt so they can once again start engaging in the economy through buying goods, services and large-scale assets such as vehicles and real estate. unfortunately personal bankruptcy stokes a permanent US underclass that are denied rental housing in nearly every market. Bankruptcy is also prohibitively expensive for many americans to formally declare, and so the debt remains in an unserviceable limbo on books (eventually becoming an unseen toxic asset.) Bankruptcy can also factor into your employment screening.
and this doesnt even begin to touch supply chain constraints like the semiconductor shortage and the ongoing international shipping gridlock, ergo most of what we're seeing now is the Fed treading water until a major recession inevitably hits.