Bu makalemi onlara adadım. İngilizce ama olsun. Böyle başladı. Cuma'ya bitecek. Onlar, Şeyh Bedrettin, Börklüce Mustafa, Torlak Kemal cenahındandılar. Ölene dek öyle kaldılar. Yalandır yani yirmisinde komünist, kırkında da hala komünistseniz aklınız yoktur iddiası. Bu ölmüş gitmiş dörtlü çete o iddiaya karşı örnektir. Komünistlik nedir tartışılabilir de, bu dörtlü çetenin ezenler karşısında ezilenlerin yanında savaştıkları bilinen bir şeydir. Satılanlar da oluyor ama satılmayanlar da oluyor.
This
Time is Really Different
This
Time is Really Different
Are We Approaching the End of Super Imperialism?
In memory of the Gang of Four: Gunder, Giovanni, Samir, Immanuel
T. Sabri Öncü
T Sabri Öncü (sabri.oncu@gmail.com) is an economist based in İstanbul, Turkey
Congratulating Oldrich
Oldrich
Vasicek is an old friend. When I started my "quant" carrier in bonds
in January 1994 in Walnut Creek, California, Oldrich was there. A recently graduated mathematics Ph.D. was I then,
I received my first real-life finance education from him.
Oldrich,
a statistician by trait is famous for developing the first theory of term
structure of default risk-free interests rates in 1977 (Vasicek 1977). But,
despite this, he had been unfortunate until recently because his theory allowed
for negative nominal interest rates. Most people considered this a flaw because
negative nominal interest rates were unimaginable then.
And
now, the entire term structures or −in non-academic parlance− yield curves of
Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and Denmark are below zero. These are nominal
interest rates. On 15 August 2019, Finland's entire yield curve went below zero
also, but at the time of writing on 18 August 2019, Finland's longest maturity government interest
rate appeared to have gone above zero. I was almost sure it will go below zero again and it
appears that I was right. It fell below zero again on 28 August on closing, not
to mention several other intraday occasions since 18 August. Belgium and Sweden
appear to be next in line, although we do not know which one will win the
competition.
Hence,
I congratulate Oldrich.
Negative Interest Rates
Let
us forget about the theories and look at the history of nominal interest rates
starting from about five thousand years ago −who knows, maybe earlier?− when
lending for interest started (Hudson 2017). Leaving aside a few occasions since the
beginning, such as with some gold deposits at some stores turned banks during
the gold rush of 1848-1855 in California as protection costs among other things,
the "formal" start of the history
of negative interest rates goes back to 1970s.
Given
that Super Imperialism went into full gears in 1971 (Hudson 1972, 2002), it is
not surprising that the first "formal" negative interest rates had
been imposed in Switzerland from 1972 to 1978 to discourage capital inflows on
bank deposits of foreigners to ease the appreciation of the Swiss franc.
But,
what is Super Imperialism and what did happen in 1971?
