Monday, December 17, 2007

Debt Is A Zero Sum Game

Are bonds an asset class? I bet that if I ran a poll amongst financial professionals, 99% of them would instantly answer yes. They would be wrong, however, because the correct answer is concurrently yes and no, meaning that the question itself is incorrect. Blame it all on the double-entry accounting system, so ingrained in peoples' minds ever since it was invented by Luca Pacioli, in 1494. More on that later.

Debt is a zero sum game: one person's liability is another's asset - it all depends on your circumstance, your point of view. If you own debt you consider it an asset, whereas if you owe it you consider it a liability. On an overall net basis, debt cancels out - it cannot exist by itself. The only "real" assets are real estate and ownership of means of production, i.e. equities. Thus, ultimately debt is based on consensual fiduciary trust, backed by ownership of land, stocks and human capital.

What's the use of debt, then? Because it is not equally spread amongst people, debt can be used to selectively leverage ownership and thus the temporary monetary value of real assets. Debt can never exceed the value of real assets, of course, but the rate at which it expands or contracts vs. the value of assets, can. When we expand debt faster than the value of assets we create temporary credit bubbles, which ultimately pop to restore balance.

For the past 15 years, total debt in the United States has been rising significantly faster than the value of stocks or real estate, pointing to the creation of incipient bubble conditions, at least on a localized basis. Globalization has spread out the boundaries of asset ownership and thus the effects of debt, but I for one am not ready to view the global financial system as homogeneously efficient and impartial. There is no global society as of yet, despite pronouncements that The World is Flat.

Data: World Federation of Exchanges, FRB

To close, let's go back to Luca Pacioli, the "father of modern accounting". Why did it take human beings so long to come up with the double-entry system? After all, it was nothing more than a simple logical arithmetic process, and people had been trading goods and keeping accounts for thousands of years before him. Why didn't the Greeks with their superb mathematical skills come up with double-entry - or at least the Romans, with their meticulous bureaucracy?

The answer is simple: they didn't need it - but the Venetians, Milanese, Genovese and Sienese did. By the 15th century the city-states of Italy had become trading giants whose merchants' debts (mostly bills of trade) could be traded as "money" - asset and liability at once. Not surpisingly, then, the oldest bank in the world is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, founded in 1472. We've been wondering about "what is money" ever since, but I think the Sienese bankers had it all figured out a long time ago. They became rich enough to make their city one of the most beautiful in the world.

Santa Maria dei Servi, Siena

24 comments:

  1. I am a CPA and am often surprised with how many economists and financiers do not understand double entry accounting. I read about houses as "ATMs". Wait a minute, how does borrowing against one's house and spending the proceeds increase GDP? Ask the economists. If the books balance, it means there was capital consumption somewhere that is not captured in the GDP calculation.

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  2. Dear CPA,

    Financiers use exclusively the triple-entry accounting system:
    Assets, liabilities, bonus.

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  3. I also found it curiously counterintuitive the first time I heard that a bank counts its deposits as liabilities, and its outstanding loans as assets.

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  4. Financiers use exclusively the triple-entry accounting system:
    Assets, liabilities, bonus.


    Excellent but so true :)

    I've been working in Human Resources most of my time. Remuneration scheme for bankers should be service-based to a large extent.

    They still are in Paris too a large extent. Mostly in absence of credible alternatives. And that's definitely a good point.

    What's the hell is performance for a banker? I still wonder.

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  5. H. If you 'stacked' the RE amount on top of the Stocks amount in the histogram, they would almost equal the Total Debt amount: is this correct?

    However, if both RE and S decrease in value simultaneously, but TD continues to increase ... ...!!!

    Credit is virtual. Dept is real, as is the compound interest on the debt.

    You only need a writing implement and a tablet to create credit/debt.
    However, you need legal-tender or metal to repay the debt + interest.
    I have not yet heard how this financial 'Houdini' feat is to be accomplished - absent lots of cash, that is! Bankruptcy?? Indenture??

    Brian

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  6. Dear Brian,

    Please ask yourself the question posed at the end of the post..."what is money?" To help you out, I'll throw in some relevant questions: How is money created? What is the relationship between money and debt?

    Best.

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  7. I'm not sure which is the world's oldest bank, but I think the Medici bank is older. And even before the Medici bank started, perpetual bonds known as the Prestitti traded, starting in the 1300s and continuing for more than a hundred years.

    The income from the bonds was collected from good old-fashioned coercion of subjects.

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  8. To anon.

    The Medici did establish banks slightly before the Sienese. I should have more accurately said "the oldest bank still in existence" about MPS.

    I didn't know about the prestitti - who issued them?

    Thks much

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  9. H. Thanks for the 'thought exercises'

    Presumably I will arrive at a point that I have to make specific assumptions - assumptions which may or may not be shared - or possibly even valid.

    Brian P

    ps. That Bookstaber book is VERY good!

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  10. H. Thanks for the 'thought exercises'

    Presumably I will arrive at a point that I have to make specific assumptions - assumptions which may or may not be shared - or possibly even valid.

    Brian P

    ps. That Bookstaber book is VERY good!

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  11. Independent Accountant,

    You're forgetting there is a time element to debt. The housing ATM increases GDP today at the expense of GDP in the future.

    Hellasious,

    How are you calculating the value of real estate and stocks? Are you using market values or discounted cash flows based on future earning and rents?

    I'd like to see a chart comparing the total value of housing, stocks, and human capital based on discounted cash flows compared to total debt.

    Since debt pays interest it isn't really a zero-sum game. To me, a credit bubble in when credit growth exceeds the income needed to pay that debt. At that point, debt becomes a ponzi scheme where new debt creation is needed to pay interest on old debt.

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  12. The values on the chart are market values: stocks from the World Federation of Exchanges, housing from the Fed's z.1 report.

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  13. Re: Prestiti

    The prestiti were long term loans floated by the Republic of Venice. Subscriptions were obligatory on wealthy citizens in proportion to their wealth (Homer and Sylla, A History of Interest Rates, page 95).

    Table 7 has prestiti prices from 1299 to 1403. In 1377, there was a very large debt expansion at a time of war, suspension of interest payments and removal of tax exemption on interest. Consequently, the bond prices collapsed by 50 to 80% in a matter of 3 or 4 years although they recovered partially thereafter.

    Gee, now I wonder if that could that happen to modern day sovereign bonds?

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  14. What's the hell is performance for a banker?


    Merrill Lynch spent $17 billion in salaries and bonuses last year. It had 64,200 employees as of Sept. 30.

    That makes an average salary of $264,797

    That's performance!

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  15. I just wanted to note the following. The sub prime problem is now 'contained' to the boundary of rural Australia:

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/594344de-ac42-11dc-82f0-0000779fd2ac.html

    Going back to previous posts where there have been discussions on whether the notional amounts of CDS matter or not (as CDS Trader says, gains and losses 'net out' ), I think the problem is that not everyone is 'netted'. Then the sheer size of the notional volume causes problems to pop up everywhere.

    There are lots of organisations that are going to be left holding very loud and unhappy CDO and CDS babies. Unsophisticated organisations who don't know what CDO's and CDSs really are, such as rural councils in outback Australia...

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  16. Hey, there is more than one Independent Accountant here. Don't have anything to add right now, but enjoy the blog quite a bit.

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  17. Is the liquidation of dollar denominated debt bullish on the dollar because it creates a demand for dollars?

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  18. Dude, I am amazed that you know so much about finance, but your knowledge of history is soooo limited. As I told you before, no, civilization did not start in 1300-1400 in Italy. People in China, India and Persia were playing with numbers, when your European ancestors were jumping from trees to trees.

    The word Algebra came from 'al jibr' an Arabic word. That Luca dude did not write the first book of Algebra, neither did he invent double-entry accounting. Both came from Arabs.

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  19. Greenie,
    Civilisations build on top of each other. Certainly, there have been great technological advances in many parts of the world including Asia and Europe. As you say, the concept of zero originated in India, the Arabs created algebra and then later Europeans created calculus.

    Your comment about europeans jumping from tree to tree has somewhat unpleasant undertones. Remember we are all human.

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  20. kicker, right, it is not truly zero sum and, as I think Hellasious implies, even if it were that in no way prevents the total mass from increasing...perhaps, with the new and improved abilities to transform liabilities into assets, even in excess of total real market 'values'. The wonders of fictitious capital are truly manifold, at least that is until, recognizing its own nature, it is deflated.

    anon,

    isn't there some debate whether zero originated in India or Meso America - but sure enough we're all human.

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  21. A clear and informative explanation of the sub-prime lending practice from the BBC:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7073131.stm?

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