Greenspan himself worried about all the hot money chasing investments when he opined late in Clinton's last term about how federal budget surpluses would impact the investment climate. As you said, "stupid money" but the problem is that all this paper, liquid wealth needs to be put to work somewhere, and as the ratio of that wealth to what is needed to finance reasonable economic conditions increases, what is to be expected of the excess, other than to create bubbles? That is until the excess goes poof when too much of it is tapped due to demographics or other factors.
Anybody know of a source for data which would show US "wealth" by asset class vs time? What I'd like to see is total wealth vs corporate hard asset value (value of buildings, machinery, inventory, etc, but stripped of cash, securities, and intangibles like goodwill, IP, etc). My guess is that the ratio of these two has grown significantly over the last century, but perhaps I'm incorrect. |
