Steve Roth — The Global “Capital” Glut

What Bain capital has to say about the global capital glut.

So what about Bain Capital, Romney’s shop? Here from their December 10, 2012 report (PDF; hat tip to the always-remarkable Izabella Kaminska, and to Climateer Investing).

World awash in nearly one quadrillion of cheap capital by end of decade, according to new Bain & Company report
Their takeaways include:

The capital glut will be accompanied by persistently low real interest rates, high volatility and thin real rates of return. 

Sound like secular stagnation to you?

 Also:

The ever-present danger of asset inflation will contribute to an overall steepening of the investment risk curve… companies will need to strengthen their bubble-detection capabilities

In short, there’s a huge amount of money floating around out there relative to income and production. (In Steve World, all financial assets embody money, and the money stock is the total value of financial assets — including dollar bills, deeds, or other formal financial claims — regardless of how currency-like those things are. Equating currency and currency-like things with money is conceptually incoherent.)

This is an excerpt. If this is your interest, read the whole thing and follow the link at the end.

Hint: it’s about what the herd does with all that money.

Asymptosis
The Global “Capital” Glut

Steve Roth