The End of Asia’s Strategic Miracle?

Richard N. Haass

Richard N. Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, previously served as Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department (2001-2003), and was President George W. Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland and Coordinator for the Future of Afghanistan. He is the author of A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order.

AUG 16, 2017 Project Syndicate

TOKYO – It is too soon to know whether and how the challenge posed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs will be resolved. But it is not too early to consider what that challenge could mean for a part of the world that has in many ways defied history.

The moniker “Asian Miracle” goes some way toward conveying just how extraordinary the last half-century of economic growth in many Asian countries has been. The first economy to take off was Japan, which, despite a slowdown in recent decades and a relatively small population, remains the world’s third-largest economy.

China’s ascent began a bit later, but is no less impressive: the country achieved over three decades of double-digit average GDP growth, making it the world’s second-largest economy today. India, soon to be the world’s most populous country, has lately been experiencing an impressive 7-8% annual rate of GDP growth. And the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations averaged some 5% growth in recent years.

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Nie wieder Finanzkrise?

Von André Tomfort, Wiener Zeitung, 21/07/2017

• Gastkommentar: Warum sich die Chefin der US-Notenbank fatal geirrt haben könnte.

Vor kurzem machte die Chefin der US-Notenbank, Janet Yellen, eine bemerkenswerte Aussage: Auf einer Pressekonferenz in London sagte sie, dass sie nicht mehr damit rechne, in ihrem Leben nochmals eine schwere Finanzkrise wie im Jahr 2008 zu erleben. Sie begründete ihren Optimismus mit den Reformen des Finanzsystems und damit, dass die Banken jetzt krisenfest seien.

Können wir der Fed-Chefin wirklich glauben? Der Sturm der vergangenen Finanzkrise ist abgeebbt, und die Aktien- und Immobilienmärkte bewegen sich in einem langfristigen Aufwärtstrend. Dies ist nicht zuletzt der expansiven Geldpolitik von Yellen und ihren Kollegen in der Eurozone und in Asien zu verdanken. Knapp ein Jahrzehnt lang rekordtiefe Zinsen verfehlen ihre Wirkung an den Finanzmärkten nicht, und auch die globale Konjunktur hat seit einiger Zeit wieder an Fahrt aufgenommen. Trotzdem ist die Nervosität überall zu spüren, und viele Anleger fragen sich: „Wo stehen wir heute? Und wie sicher sind unsere Anlagen?“

Die Immobilienkrise 2008 und 2009 war kein Einzelfall

Drittgrößte Bank Japans zieht wegen Brexit nach Frankfurt

1. Juli 2017, 12:29 derstandard.at

Derzeit arbeiten rund 1.000 Mitarbeiter der Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group in London Tokio – Japans drittgrößte Bank Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) wird einem Pressebericht zufolge wegen des Brexits ihre Europa-Zentrale von London nach Frankfurt verlegen. Damit sei auch ein Umzug von Beschäftigten verbunden, berichtete die Wirtschaftszeitung „Nikkei“ berichtete am Samstag, ohne dies zu beziffern. Derzeit arbeiten rund 1.000 SMFG-Mitarbeiter in London.

Die beiden größten japanischen Wertpapierhändler Nomura Holdings und Daiwa Securities haben sich bereits für Frankfurt als ihren künftigen Standort in der EU entschieden. Nach dem geplanten EU-Austritt Großbritanniens brauchen in London ansässige Finanzinstitute eine eigene Gesellschaft mit Banklizenz in einem EU-Land, um ihre Produkte und Dienstleistungen in den verbleibenden 27 Mitgliedstaaten vertreiben zu dürfen.

How an Extended Period of Low Growth Could Reshape the Financial Industry

Posted on April 6, 2017 by iMFdirect

By Gaston Gelos and Jay Surti

Versions in Français (French), Русский (Russian), and Español (Spanish)

What happens if advanced economies remain stuck in a long-lasting funk marked by tepid growth, low interest rates, aging populations and stagnant productivity? Japan offers an example of the impact on banks, and our analysis suggests that there could also be far-reaching consequences for insurance companies, pension funds, and asset-management firms.

You might argue that this scenario of economic malaise has already materialized; after all, interest rates and economic growth have been low since the financial crisis in 2008. The question is whether the post-crisis landscape represents a temporary departure from the pace of growth we’ve come to expect since World War II, or whether it’s the start of a new normal.

Notwithstanding the recent increase in long-term yields in some advanced economies, the Japanese experience suggests that we cannot be sure whether an exit from a low-growth/low interest rate trap is imminent or permanent.

Die Baustelle wird smart

von: Martin Kölling, Handelsblatt.com

Datum: 28.03.2017 17:04 Uhr

Selbst Bagger und Bulldozer werden in Zeiten der Digitalisierung smart. Mit Drohnen, künstlicher Intelligenz und Datenauswertung will der Hersteller Komatsu die Baustelle revolutionieren – und sein Geschäftsmodell.

 

Tokio. Die Baustelle der Zukunft sieht unscheinbar aus. Nicht ganz einen Hektar ist die Sandfläche in einem Vorstadthafen Tokios groß, auf der ein Bulldozer und ein paar Bagger herumrollen. Die Innovation bemerkt nur, wer den Führern der Baumaschinen genau auf die Hände schaut. Ein Bulldozerfahrer nimmt die Hände vom Steuer, dennoch bleibt sein Arbeitsgerät präzise in der Spur. Denn vernetzt mit einem Steuerzentrum in der Datenwolke und aufgerüstet mit zentimetergenauen dreidimensionalen Karten, Kameras und künstlicher Intelligenz kann die Maschine schon einen Teil ihrer Arbeit halbautomatisch verrichten.

„Smart Construction“ nennt der japanische Baumaschinenhersteller Komatsu das Konzept, mit dem die globale Nummer zwei der Branche nun den Weltmarkt erobern und gleichzeitig sein Geschäftsmodell umbauen will. Dabei bauen die Japaner auf ihr Komtrax-System auf, das durch die Vernetzung mit dem Internet schon seit Jahren die Fernwartung von Maschinen erlaubt. Doch nun gehe es nicht mehr allein um den Verkauf von immer selbständigeren Maschinen und ihrer Wartung, erklärt Chikashi Shike, der Chef der Komatsu-Sparte für Smart Construction. „Wir wollen unser Angebot erweitern.“

Supersmart Robots Will Outnumber Humans Within 30 Years, Says SoftBank CEO

Date: 02-03-2017
Source: The Wall Street Journal

Futuristic forecast spurs investment wave from Japanese telecom company

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son

BARCELONA—Within 30 years, artificial intelligence will be smarter than the human brain.

That is according to Masayoshi Son, chief executive of SoftBank Group Corp., who says that supersmart robots will outnumber humans and more than a trillion objects will be connected to the internet within three decades.

These beliefs underpin the wave of large and surprising deals the Japanese internet and telecommunications company has pulled off in the past year, he said Monday. These include starting a $100 billion technology-investment fund with a Saudi sovereign-wealth fund, buying British microprocessor designer ARM Holdings PLC for $32 billion and acquiring U.S. asset manager Fortress Investment Group PLC for $3.3 billion.

This 30-year forecast created urgency, Mr. Son said in a speech at the telecom industry’s biggest trade show, Mobile World Congress. “That is why I’m in a hurry to aggregate cash to invest.”

In a brief interview after his speech, Mr. Son said his $100 billion project with the Saudis, dubbed the SoftBank Vision Fund, was bigger than the $65 billion in combined investments from the venture-capital world. He said the SoftBank Vision Fund would be focused. “Artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, smart robots: Those are the three main things I’m interested in,” he said.

Why shocks to large banks cause big GDP swings

Mary Amiti, David Weinstein

Mary Amiti

Assistant Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York

David Weinstein

Carl S. Shoup Professor of the Japanese Economy and Associate Director of Research at the Center for Japanese Economy and Business

12 February 2017, voxeu

We are living in a world in which banks are large relative to the economies they serve. This column uses comprehensive data on Japanese banks from 1990 to 2010 to examine how the fates of individual banks matter for aggregate performance. Much of the fluctuation in Japanese aggregate investment appears to be driven by the idiosyncratic successes and failures of a limited number of institutions, and there is good reason to believe that the situation is similar in many developed countries.

Modern finance has increasingly been characterised by higher financial concentration. Federal Reserve data show that in 2010 the three largest US institutions – Bank of America, JP Morgan, and Citigroup – held 49% of all banking assets. In Japan, the three largest ‘megabanks’ (SMBC, Mizuho, and MUFG) account for just over half of all lending to listed corporations, and evidence from Buch and Neugebauer (2011) for Europe suggests that these examples are not exceptions – they are the rule. We are living in a world in which banks are large relative to the economies they serve.

Why Trump Can’t Bully China

Kenneth Rogoff

Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University and recipient of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003. The co-author of This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, his new book, The Curse of Cash, was released in August 2016.

FEB 9, 2017 Project Syndicate

CAMBRIDGE – As US President Donald Trump proceeds to destabilize the post-war global economic order, much of the world is collectively holding its breath. Commentators search for words to describe his assault on conventional norms of leadership and tolerance in a modern liberal democracy. The mainstream media, faced with a president who might sometimes be badly uninformed and yet really believes what he is saying, hesitate to label conspicuously false statements as lies.

But some would argue that beneath the chaos and bluster, there is an economic rationale to the Trump administration’s disorderly retreat from globalization. According to this view, the US has been duped into enabling China’s ascendency, and one day Americans will come to regret it. We economists tend to view abdication of US world leadership as a historic mistake.

It is important to acknowledge that the roots of the anti-globalization movement in the United States run much deeper than disenfranchised blue-collar workers. For example, some economists opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (a 12-country trade deal that would have covered 40% of the global economy) on the questionable grounds that it would have harmed American workers. It fact, the TPP would have opened Japan far more than it would have affected the US. Rejecting it only opens the door to Chinese economic dominance across the Pacific.

The three Rs behind global banks’ recovery

Date: 05-01-2017
Source: The Economist: Schumpeter

Soaring share prices suggest the end of the tunnel for big banks

IN THE Bible, seven years of feast were followed by seven years of famine. For banks there have been ten lean years. Subprime-loan defaults started to rise in February 2007, causing a near-collapse of the industry in America and Europe. Next came bail-outs from governments, then years of grovelling before regulators, mass firings of staff and quarter after quarter of poor results that left banks’ shareholders disappointed. Now, a decade later, the moneylenders are quietly wondering if 2017 is the year in which their industry turns a corner.

Over the past six months the FTSE index of global bank shares has leapt by 24%. American banks have led the way, with the value of Bank of America rising by 67%, and that of JPMorgan Chase by 39%. In Europe BNP Paribas’ market value has risen by 52%. In Japan shares in the lumbering Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group—the rich world’s biggest bank by assets—have behaved like those of a frisky internet startup; they are up by 57%. Predictions about global banks’ future returns on equity have stopped falling, note analysts at UBS, a Swiss bank. Some of the biggest casualties of the financial crisis are even expanding. On December 20th Lloyds, bailed out by British taxpayers in 2009 at a cost of $33bn, said it would buy MBNA, a credit-card firm, for $2bn.

The International Barriers to Trump’s Economic Plan

Mohamed A. El-Erian

Mohamed A. El-Erian, Chief Economic Adviser at Allianz, the corporate parent of PIMCO where he served as CEO and co-Chief Investment Officer, is Chairman of US President Barack Obama’s Global Development Council. He previously served as CEO of the Harvard Management Company and Deputy Director at the International Monetary Fund. He was named one of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. He is the author, most recently, of The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse.

DEC 19, 2016 Project Syndicate

DUBAI – US President-elect Donald Trump should have a relatively clear road ahead at home for the implementation of his economic program: with Republicans holding majorities in both houses of Congress, he seems likely to benefit from a break in the political gridlock that has paralyzed the body for the last six years. But the United States economy does not exist in a vacuum. If Trump is to succeed in delivering the high growth and genuine financial stability that he has promised, he will need some help from abroad.

Trump has established infrastructure investment, tax reform, and deregulation as central components of his strategy to boost the US economy’s actual and potential growth.that his plan can unfold as intended, he has set ambitious targets, including GDP growth approaching 4% per year.