Finally got around to this. Great piece. Reminded me of a recent paper by Goldstein and Tian which shows there has actually been a decline in the number of financial rentier households during this period across most countries. One of the biggest reasons they find is lower interest rates (not usually accounted for in the kind of QE = wealth inequality narratives you critique). I've also shown lower rates have sharply reduced non-financial sector "financialization." To the extent this kind of financialization exists (I think it's a very exaggerated phenomenon despite some orthodoxy) and is said to be driving inequality, it's telling most of those effects were pre-crisis / pre-QE.
You make a persuasive case that net-net lower interest rates benefit workers. Do you think there is a place for rationing of credit - making it harder to borrow money for LBOs and other financial engineering, but still making it easier to borrow for investment? That seems like a synthesis of keeping full employment, which we agree is extremely good, while trying to curb some of the financial profiteering that accompanies low interest rates.
Finally got around to this. Great piece. Reminded me of a recent paper by Goldstein and Tian which shows there has actually been a decline in the number of financial rentier households during this period across most countries. One of the biggest reasons they find is lower interest rates (not usually accounted for in the kind of QE = wealth inequality narratives you critique). I've also shown lower rates have sharply reduced non-financial sector "financialization." To the extent this kind of financialization exists (I think it's a very exaggerated phenomenon despite some orthodoxy) and is said to be driving inequality, it's telling most of those effects were pre-crisis / pre-QE.
LInk to the Goldstein and Tian paper:
https://academic.oup.com/ser/article/20/4/1567/5940652
Yeah, that:
https://twitter.com/AnthPB/status/1560649203767992321?t=xEf49XrSdt9vf4xJaKVxfw&s=19
You make a persuasive case that net-net lower interest rates benefit workers. Do you think there is a place for rationing of credit - making it harder to borrow money for LBOs and other financial engineering, but still making it easier to borrow for investment? That seems like a synthesis of keeping full employment, which we agree is extremely good, while trying to curb some of the financial profiteering that accompanies low interest rates.