As of January 1, 2016, enough time will have passed for us to be able to judge whether the Federal Reserve's policy shift to the Evans rule plus an open-ended $1 trillion a year of balance sheet has been a success or not.
Stephanie Kelton is almost certain it will not be a success. I think it might well work. Mike Woodford is almost certain that it will work. It seems to me that there is an opportunity here for me to lock in a profit of some sort here…
The first stage of this is crafting a bet that Stephanie Kelton would accept for what states of the economy on January 1, 2016 would qualify as success for the Fed, and what states of the economy would qualify as failure. She does expect a better economy in three years--She expects private sector deleveraging to continue at its slow pace And as a result the forces making for balance sheet recession to ebb. Success would, for her, have to count as stronger than expected improvement in the economy given this positive underlying trend.
How should I phrase the bet? And then what bet should I offer Mike Woodford when I run into him by accident in San Diego?
