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Unlike in recessions, when cutting interest rates and creating more money can rectify this imbalance, in deleveragings monetary policy is ineffective in creating credit. In other words, in recessions (when monetary policy is effective) the imbalance between the amount of money and the need for it to service debt can be rectified by cutting interest rates enough to 1) ease debt service burdens, 2) stimulate economic activity because monthly debt service payments are high relative to incomes and 3) produce a positive wealth effect; however, in deleveragings, this can’t happen. In deflationary depressions/deleveragings, monetary policy is typically ineffective in creating credit because interest rates hit 0% and can’t be lowered further, so other, less effective ways of increasing money are followed. Credit growth is difficult to stimulate because borrowers remain over-indebted, making sensible lending impossible. In inflationary deleveragings, monetary policy is ineffective in creating credit because increased money growth goes into other currencies and inflation hedge assets because investors fear that their lending will be paid back with money of depreciated value.

In order to try to alleviate this fundamental imbalance, governments inevitably a) create initiatives to encourage credit creation, b) ease the rules that require debtors to come up with money to service their debts (i.e., create forbearance) and, most importantly, c) print and spend money to buy goods, services and financial assets. The printing of and buying financial assets by central banks shows up in central banks’ balance sheets expanding and the increased spending by central governments shows up in budget deficits exploding.

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Typically, though not necessarily, these moves come in progressively larger dosages as initial dosages of these sorts fail to rectify the imbalance and reverse the deleveraging process; however, these dosages do typically cause temporary periods of relief that are manifest in bear market rallies in financial assets and increased economic activity. For example in the Great Depression there were six big rallies in the stock market (of between 21% and 48%) in a bear market that totaled 89%, with all of these rallies triggered by these sorts of increasingly strong dosages of government actions which were intended to reduce the fundamental imbalance. That is because a return to an environment of normal capital formation and normal economic activity can occur only by eliminating this fundamental imbalance so that capable providers of capital (i.e., investors/lenders) willingly choose to give money to capable recipients of capital (borrowers and sellers of equity) in exchange for believable claims that they will get back an amount of money that is worth more than they gave. Eventually there is enough “printing of money” or debt monetization to negate the deflationary forces of both debt reduction and austerity. When a good balance of debt reduction, austerity, and “printing/monetizing” occurs, debt burdens can fall relative to incomes with positive economic growth. In the U.S. deleveraging of the 1930s, this occurred in 1933-37.

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As implied by this, a big part of the deleveraging process is people discovering that much of what they thought was their wealth isn’t really there. When investors try to convert their investments into money in order to raise needed cash, the liquidity of their investments is tested and, in cases in which the investments prove illiquid, panic-induced “runs” and sell-offs of their securities occur. Naturally those who experience runs, especially banks (though this is true of most entities that rely on short-term funding), have problems raising money and credit to meet their needs, so they often fail. At such times, governments are forced to decide which ones to save by providing them with money and whether to get this money through the central government (i.e., through the budget process) or through the central bank “printing” more money. Governments inevitably do both, though in varying degrees. What determines whether deleveragings are deflationary or inflationary is the extent to which central banks create money to negate the effects of contracting credit.
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In depressions, as credit collapses, workers lose jobs and many of them, having inadequate savings, need financial support. So in addition to needing money to provide financial support to the system, governments need money to help those in greatest financial need. Additionally, to the extent that they want to increase spending to make up for decreased private sector spending, they need more money. At the same time, their tax revenue falls because incomes fall. For these reasons, governments’ budget deficits increase. Inevitably, the amount of money lent to governments at these times increases less than their needs (i.e., they have problems funding their deficits), despite the increased desire of lenders to buy government securities to seek safety at these times. As a result, central banks are again forced to choose between “printing” more money to buy their governments’ debts or allowing their governments and their private sector to compete for the limited supply of money, thus allowing extremely tight money conditions.

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Because governments need more money, and since wealth and incomes are typically heavily concentrated in the hands of a small percentage of the population, governments raise taxes on the wealthy. Also, in deleveragings, those who earned their money in the booms, especially the capitalists who made a lot of money working in the financial sector helping to create the debt (and especially the short sellers who some believe profited at others’ expense), are resented. Tensions between the “haves” and the “have-nots” typically increase and, quite often, there is a move from the right to the left. In fact, there is a saying that essentially says “in booms everyone is a capitalist and in busts everyone is a socialist.” For these various reasons, taxes on the wealthy are typically significantly raised. These increased taxes typically take the form of greater income and consumption taxes because these forms of taxation are the most effective in raising revenues. While sometimes wealth and inheritance taxes are also increased,7 these typically raise very little money because much wealth is illiquid and, even for liquid assets, forcing the taxpayer to sell financial assets to make their tax payments undermines capital formation. Despite these greater taxes on the wealthy, increases in tax revenue are inadequate because incomes – both earned incomes and incomes from capital – are so depressed, and expenditures on consumption are reduced.

The wealthy experience a tremendous loss of “real” wealth in all forms – i.e., from their portfolios declining in value, from their earned incomes declining and from higher rates of taxation, in inflation- adjusted terms. As a result, they become extremely defensive. Quite often, they are motivated to move their money out of the country (which contributes to currency weakness), illegally dodge taxes and seek safety in liquid, non-credit-dependent investments.