Topics discussed by Dr. Peter Linneman:
- Does it all come to an end if interest rates rise?
- Is a recession just around the corner? What warning signs should we look for?
- What does the new Administration and Congress mean for real estate and the economy?
- Audience questions
- And more!
Fall 2016 Linneman Associates Capital Markets Webinar Transcript Sample
1. Fall 2016
Linneman Associates
Capital Markets
Webinar
Dr. Peter Linneman, CEO
Linneman Associates
Moderated by Bruce Kirsch, CEO
Real Estate Financial Modeling
November 29, 2016
Copyright (c) 2016 by Linneman Associates. Reproduction permitted only with proper attribution.
2. Global Economic Outlook Web Conference Transcript November 29, 2016
Linneman Associates Page 1
Bruce Kirsch
Good afternoon everyone, this is Bruce Kirsch, Founder and CEO of Real Estate Financial
Modeling. We are very pleased to have a terrific webinar for you today. This is the fall 2016
Linneman Associates Capital Markets webinar. I would like to introduce Dr. Peter Linneman.
Dr. Peter Linneman
Thank you very much. One thing you left out of the introduction is that you were a very
good former student of mine, you’ve helped a lot with the book, and you have also been a
great friend. We will start with the first chart, which says Cumulative Percent Increase in Real
GDP. It tracks the increase in GDP over the recoveries after the six post-WWII recessions. You’ll
notice that this recovery is at the bottom and has lagged all previous GDP recoveries. It has
been a slow, long recovery, which is abnormal because typically the deeper the recession, the
faster the recovery. Secondly, you’ll notice that not all recoveries turn down after the same
number of quarters. Not all recoveries have the same lifespan. Two of the recoveries, marked in
red and orange, already started a GDP decline at this point in the recovery, while in the other
recoveries, GDP continued moving up smartly at this point in the recovery. The notion that this
is an old recovery doesn’t hold much relevance.
Moving to the next slide, you will find the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index. It is
believed that when the rules of the game are known and stable, there is higher growth. When
they are unstable and unknown, growth is lower. The red line shows the average, and the blue
shows where we are at now. We had a lot of political uncertainty in the late 1990s and again
right after 9/11. We had low uncertainty and high growth in the early 2000s, then we had this
abnormal period of high uncertainty, which relates to that long period of slow growth as
opposed to robust growth. If you don’t know the rules of the game, it’s very difficult. We’ve
normalized a lot in the last few years but gained more volatility leading up to the election,
which is not surprising to see. This data is not updated to include post-election, but this is going
to be high for a month or two until people have a sense of who is on board, what is being done,
what the priorities will be, and so forth. On the other hand, the fact that we are down from this
high period of uncertainty is good for the economy.
If you go to the next chart, you see real GDP year-over-year percentage growth. You
can see that we had GDP growth averaging 1.5-2.3% per annum, which is adequate but not
great, and well below its historic norm. You can also see how steep the decline was during the
recession, in 2009 and 2010. It was a very deep recession in terms of the drop in GDP. Moving
to the next chart, I mentioned that we are getting 1.5-2.5% annual growth, but the long-term
historic norm is closer to 3%, which is comprised roughly of 2% productivity growth per year, of
those already here, and about 90 basis points of population growth. You’ll see that the long-
Copyright (c) 2016 by Linneman Associates. Reproduction permitted only with proper attribution.
3. Global Economic Outlook Web Conference Transcript November 29, 2016
Linneman Associates Page 2
term trend I have on this chart extends from 1969 to 2007. However, I’ve done a similar chart
that goes back to 1800, and it doesn’t look very different. The blue line is real GDP, meaning
adjusted for inflation. It is at an all-time high, as it has risen from its drop, and it is the highest
on a per capita basis that it has ever been. So in that sense, the economy is doing better than it
has ever done.
But the malaise – the feeling that something is wrong – is that there is a $3 trillion gap
on a $19 trillion economy. There’s a $3 trillion gap between where we are and where we should
be. It’s a little bit like if you’re on an expressway and used to going 65-70 miles/hour, but traffic
is only letting you go 40 miles/hour. It is not as if 40 miles/hour is slow, and traffic is still moving
along at a decent pace, but it is not going as fast as you think it should be. This gap amounts to
six or seven thousand dollars per person, which is very significant. About half of the gap is
related to the sluggish and abnormally slow recovery in the housing sector, in particular the
single-family housing sector, which employs a lot of middle class workers (e.g. title insurance,
construction). This gap is largely due to housing and related activities, and it raises the question
of why single family housing has been so slow. If you understand why, you have a better grasp
of where we are and what is needed to have a more robust and continuing recovery.
The next chart just shows Actual versus Trend GDP, the two lines shown on the
previous graph. This chart expresses it as a percent of GDP rather than an absolute number.
Going back to 1880, we have had many times when we were above trends and many when we
were below, but we have always reversed the trend historically. However, the Great Depression
was a deviation, and it took 40 years to close the deviation, despite people thinking it would
never reverse. I believe that a lot of market regulations, interventions, and distortions are
responsible for the gap, which is 14.2% of GDP.
Also responsible is a Fed that has artificially set interest rates near zero and killed the
economy. Low prices set by the government, outside the market, do not encourage economic
activity. For example, we have about $2.1 trillion in excess cash being held versus the long-term
trend because at a zero percent interest rate, there is no opportunity cost to holding cash and
people are not going to invest in a 10% risk investment for a 4% return, so they sit on cash. Cash
does not create a lot of jobs or GDP growth, and in fact, if you took the $2.1 trillion in excess
cash out, that occurs right as interest rates plunge. In fact, the growth in excess cash is right in
line with what you would predict to happen when interest rates are kept that low for that long.
This excess cash amounts to about 90 basis points of GDP being lost. If instead this were
invested at an 8% rate of return, it would generate about 90 basis points of GDP today, and this
number is growing over time.
Interest rates are just a price. If you set a price artificially at zero, a lot of lenders cannot
find good loans or good borrowers. The second part of it is that if you believe low interest rates
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4. Global Economic Outlook Web Conference Transcript November 29, 2016
Linneman Associates Page 3
are a good thing, then set oil prices to zero, steel prices to zero, and all the rents in the
economy to zero to stimulate demand. That would be crazy. You do not stimulate demand by
setting prices artificially low, but rather by letting the market have some general direction in
determining supply and demand. If you set prices at zero, you have a lot of people who want it
but few who will produce it. We’re sitting on a lot of cash that people want, but that few are
willing to provide, which is creating this gap.
We’ll next take a look at the labor market. You can see that the unemployment rate for
youth, including part time workers, skyrocketed during the recession and has since come down
pretty much in line with the norm at this point. The overall unemployment rate is down at
4.9%; it’s gotten lower but it looks fairly healthy. Moving to the next chart, you can see the
employment-to-working age population ratio, which used to be low but rose as women
entered the labor market and as baby boomers aged; but then it plummeted during the
recession. Over the last few years it has crawled back up, but it is still pretty low. Part of the
reason why it’s still low is that millennials are still in high school and college, not in the labor
market. Millennials are a big population group, so that is pulling the ratio down, but there are
also still a lot of people sitting on the bench. Many of them are in their 50s and 60s, and when
the bad times happen they declare themselves disabled in order to qualify for disability. While
they don’t live well, they live well enough for them and are therefore unlikely to come off the
bench. This ratio will stay low for a while, but as the millennials come into the labor force, it will
rise.
If we take a look at this next chart one will get another view of the labor market. This
shows weekly unemployment insurance claims, which is a real time and very accurate number.
The red line indicates the average since 1967. Basically, whenever it is below 300,000, it signals
a good labor market. Currently, we are down to approximately 250,000 weekly initial
unemployment insurance claims, which is quite strong. This is a weekly indicator that I
frequently tweet about, and the underlying data is quite readily available. When it rises, it does
so quite rapidly. If it rises very quickly within a 3-month period, then it is time to be concerned.
However, at the moment, this indicator reveals the labor market to be quite good, and it is
consistent with real wages rising.
This graph on the percent of people unemployed by duration provides another look at
the labor market. It is the ratio between transitional unemployment and long-term
unemployment; those returning to work within 5 weeks to those who remain unemployed for
longer than 26 weeks. One would like to see this trending upward, which means lots of
transitional unemployment and relatively very little long-term unemployment. You can observe
that this plummeted during the recession. It is now coming back, and the duration in
unemployment is falling. However, it is still not quite back to normal, as it remains below the
Copyright (c) 2016 by Linneman Associates. Reproduction permitted only with proper attribution.
5. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28
Percent
Quarters Into Recovery
2007 2001 1990 1981 1973 1957
Cumulative Percent Increase in Real
GDP from Start of Recovery: Remains
The Weakest Recovery
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6. 0
50
100
150
200
250
300
1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005 2009 2013
Economic Policy Uncertainty Index:
Pre-Election Jitters Not Too Bad
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7. -6
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
8
10
1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014
Percent
Real GDP YOY Percent Growth:
Adequate But Not Great
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8. 4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
$Trillions
Actual Trend (1969-2007)
Actual vs. Trend Real GDP:
A Huge Gap Mostly About Housing
} $3T
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9. -15
-10
-5
0
5
10
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Percent
Actual vs. Trend Real GDP: Low Interest
And Regulations Have Hurt The Recovery
14.2%
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10. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
1969 1974 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014
Percent
All Workers 16-19 Year Olds
Civilian Unemployment Rate:
Recovering Especially Among Youth
7Copyright (c) 2016 by Linneman Associates. Reproduction permitted only with proper attribution.