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The Fed Cannot Fix Credit Exhaustion
By Joseph Sherman

Written by Hugh Smith via ZeroHedge
Thus will end the central banks’ bombastic hubris and the public’s faith in central banks’ godlike powers.
Having fixed the liquidity crisis of 2008-09 and kept a perversely unequal “recovery” staggering forward for a decade, central banks now believe there is no crisis they can’t defeat: Liquidity crisis? Flood the global financial system with liquidity. Interest rates above zero? Create trillions out of thin air and use the “free money” to buy bonds. Mortgage and housing markets shaky? Create another trillion and use it buy up mortgages.
And so on. Every economic-financial crisis can be fixed by creating trillions of out thin air, except the one we’re entering–the exhaustion of credit. Central banks, like generals, always prepare to fight the last war and believe their preparation insures their victory.
China’s central bank created over $1 trillion in January alone to flood China’s faltering credit system with new credit-currency. Pouring new trillions into the financial system has always restarted the credit system, triggering renewed borrowing and lending that then powered yet another cycle of heedless consumption and mal-investment–oops, I meant development.
The elixir of new central bank money isn’t working as intended, and this failure is now eroding trust in the central bank’s fixes. Central banks can issue new credit to the private sector and it can can buy bonds, empty flats and mortgages, but no central bank can force over-indebted borrowers to borrow more or force wary lenders to lend to uncreditworthy borrowers.
Let’s be honest: the entire global “recovery” since 2009 has been fueled by soaring debt. The output of more debt is declining, that is, every additional dollar of debt is no longer generating much in the way of positive returns. As with any stimulant, increasing the stimulant leads to diminishing returns.
Then there’s the issue of debt saturation and debt exhaustion: those who are creditworthy no longer want to borrow more and those who are not creditworthy cannot borrow more, unless lenders want to eat the losses of default a few months after they issue the new loan.
The evidence is plain enough: defaults of student loans and auto loans are already at monumental levels, and the recession hasn’t even started. Zero-percent financing for vehicles is a thing of the past, and those borrowers with average credit ratings are paying 6% or more for a new vehicle loan.
To read the full article, visit ZeroHedge: The Coming Crisis The Fed Can’t Fix: Credit Exhaustion | ZeroHedge
