Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Elvira Nabiullina: Central Banker of the Year

Elvira Nabiullina.
I am handing out a central banker of the year award to Russian central bank chair Elvira Nabiullina.

Despite being under incredible pressure as the Russian ruble collapses on foreign exchange markets, she is staying calm and collected and is not calling for any kind of government interventions that would only make things worse. She seems to get that markets will resolve things themselves.

From RT:
The plunging ruble is a signal for the Russian economy to adapt to new conditions, Russia’s Central Bank Chair Elvira Nabiullina said, following the surprise midnight decision to hike the key interest rate to 17 percent.

The regulator decided to increase borrowing costs by 6.5 percentage points to stymie wild inflation and the ruble, which has fallen to record lows after the bank stopped spending billions of dollars intervening. The hike shocked the ruble, bringing it down from 67 to 60 rubles to the dollar. At the time of publication, the ruble exchange rate was 65.59 against the US dollar.

“We must learn to live in a new reality, to focus more on our own resources to finance projects and give import substitution a chance,” the bank chief said in a televised address Tuesday...
The Central Bank has yet to hint they would start a stimulus project, or money printing, to avoid recession.

“If anything there will be support, not stimulus for banks. It is a priority of the Central Bank to maintain and stabilize this sector,” Vladimir Pantyushin, a senior analyst at Sberbank CIB, told RT.
Contrast this coolness with the panic in the eyes of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson during the 2008 financial crisis, when they caused the US government to intervene one hundred different ways and bail out the banksters.

She has also cut money supply growth to single digit levels from the 15.3% money growth that was going on when she first took the helm at the Bank of Russia.

Elvira Nabiullina is my hero!

3 comments:

  1. Yes, but how do we know that 17% is the correct rate of interest? Why do we assume the market can discover the price of milk, shoes and a million other things, but somehow the price of borrowing must be managed by bankers?

    Central banking is nothing but a looting machine (although some loot more than others). The entire institution needs to be scrapped. You can't have sound money and a central bank. Pick one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Spot on. That we're being fooled into not picking one is a credit to the elites.

      Delete
  2. still be happier when she, and Yellen and co, all quit.

    ReplyDelete