Quote of the Day: Why High Profits have a depressing effect on investment

Profit margins reflecting internal yields on US corporate assets have increased in the last few years. According to what Andrew Smithers disparagingly refers to as “stock broker economics”, high rates of profit are good for stocks. The Austrian economist Jesús Huerta de Soto makes an under-appreciated point about profit margins and stock prices. Pervasively high or increasing rates of profit may show that the rate of time preference is increasing, implying that the capital stock is shrinking. If not time preference, then the perception of risk may be increasing, which would have a similar depressing effect on investment.

(bold mine)

This is from Austrian economist Robert Blumen explaining the impact of Say’s Law on the stock market at the Ludwig von Mises Canada website.

So when the mainstream crow about high profits as justifying high valuations, beware the "curse" in disguise.

Rebalancing The Chinese Economy

Below is a video from the Economist on its macroeconomic perspective of the structural imbalances of the Chinese economy. Along with it, is its "simplified" prescription for resolving the predicament.

Pls click on the link below:

Nonetheless, here is an excellent counterbalanced perspective from Robert Blumen (all bold highlights mine),

``A mercantilist policy of subsidizing export industries does not make a country more prosperous. Economic growth can only mean an increase in the ability of an economic system to produce more consumption goods. In the global economy, the system is the entire world, with each nation contributing some portion of a single integrated capital structure. Producing a lot of capital goods - factories, shipping terminals, etc. -- does not necessarily contribute to economic growth if the physical stuff is not economic capital. Economic capital means that it is integrated into the global structure of production through economic calculation.

``The purpose of exporting is not to create more factories per se, nor is it to "create jobs". The purpose of production is for the producers, is to gain the ability to afford to purchase more goods -- either capital goods or consumption goods. Producing things at a loss consumes capital and makes the producer poorer.

``Nor is there such a thing as consumer-driven economic growth. Consumption is the result of economic growth -- savings and investment drives it. The idea that a country can "switch" from "export-driven growth" to "consumer-driven growth" ignores the specific and heterogeneous nature of capital. The fact that people are talking about this so much only indicates that a lot of the physical infrastructure in China is not economic capital. If the existing capital structure in China was to be used to create a different mix of goods - say low-end consumer goods for Chinese consumers with lower incomes than Western consumers -- then the values of these factories under economic calculation would be marked down considerably, in many cases below their costs."