Stanley Druckenmiller Reviews Key Issues That In His Opinion Will Effect The U.S. Economy

Posted By on September 11, 2013

Pay attention everybody, there will be a quiz on this….Stanley Druckenmiller (one of the most successful money managers of all time) addresses key issues for the U.S. economy going forward. Here are a few  snip-its.

On what he is most uncomfortable about:

“Let’s first set the table and looking at what is going on in the last 35-years. Then I want to get into the demographic problem and why it is so scary from here and why I don’t understand the current dialogue that is taking place over the situation. It is completely uninformed. If you go back to 1960 when I was sever years old, about 20-percent of the federal budget government outlays were transfer payments or what we call entitlement. That number has gone up to 72-percent over this 35 year period. The problem with that, first of all, the good news on that, as I said, seniors are much better off, it’s been a tremendous accomplishment, poverty rate is way down for seniors, but these are transfer payments and there is no productive investment or no looking to future coming out of this. If you look at how we get form 20-percent to 70-percent, almost all of that money went to the elderly. If you took an elderly person back in 1960, 40-percent of government outlays per capita went to them. That number is 71-percent all stop where did that come out of? It came out of children, came out of investments and things like education, infrastructure, thing like that. And that crowding out effect creates a problem going forward because these are not productive investments.”

“It is important shaping the debate. We have always heard the term, ‘you don’t want to leave the next generation with less than the current generation If you are A 29-37 year old in this country, your net worth is less than 29-37 year old in 1983. Those are staggering statistics. This is the first generation where a 30-year old is worth literally is worth less than his parents. If you look at older people, their net worth has doubled over this timeframe. Again, because this money has been transferred.

Druckenmiller continues…..

On what we see in asset prices is illusory:

“My first mentor and boss, Dr. Ellison from Pittsburg used to tell me, it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to manipulate a stock up but the minute you have this phony buying stock, it can go down on no volume. It can just re-price immediately. I personally think as long as this game goes on, assets will stay elevated. When he removed that prop, let’s face it, the Fed says they’re targeting asset prices. Those prices can adjust immediately. June was instructive. If you did not believe before the exit was going to be tough, the mere hunt that maybe in three months, if the economy is good, we might go from $85 billion a month to buying $65 Billion a month, cause that kind of havoc and risk around the world. How in the world does anyone think when the actual exit happens that prices are not going to respond? It is silly.”

 And….

On what asset class has been manipulated most because of QE:

I would say stocks. I have been really wrong on the bond market in the last three or four months. I have been waiting for this decline for two years and completely missed it. First of all, the stuff we were talking about earlier in the show, that is too far down the road in my opinion, for the bond market to pay attention. I have always found in bonds, if you can predict a relative change in the economy, relative to consensus, you will make money in bonds if you get that equation right… Yes [even in the world of QE]. Two or three months ago, I thought people were overly optimistic on the U.S. economy. It is my judgment that assessment turned out to be correct. But bonds went down anyway for not economic reason because we have the unwind going on. For whatever reason. While I anticipated down the road, I did not think it would happen while the economy was softening.”

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