Explaining Global Recovery Amid Political Recession

Michael Spence

Michael Spence, a Nobel laureate in economics, is Professor of Economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Advisory Board Co-Chair of the Asia Global Institute in Hong Kong, and Chair of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on New Growth Models. He was the chairman of the independent Commission on Growth and Development, an international body that from 2006-2010 analyzed opportunities for global economic growth, and is the author of The Next Convergence – The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World.

AUG 1, 2017 Project Syndicate

MILAN – In the summer, as life slows down, there is space to reflect on fundamental issues. One of the key puzzles occupying my mind of late is the disconnect between widespread political dysfunction and relatively strong economic and financial-market performance.

Today, the world’s major economies are experiencing a steady recovery, despite the occasional setback. To be sure, economic performance is far from reaching its full potential: depending on where one looks, one can find output gaps, excess leverage, fragile balance sheets, under-investment, and unfunded longer-term non-debt liabilities. Still, financial markets show no signs of convulsion, even as monetary stimulus is gradually withdrawn.

Yet, at the same time, political conditions seem to be deteriorating. Polarization has intensified, owing partly to growing resistance to globalization and the unbalanced growth patterns that have resulted from it. In the United States, for example, the Pew Research Center reports that people not only disagree vehemently with their compatriots on the other side of the aisle; they also don’t like or respect them.

Happiness Is a Normal Yield Curve

By John Mauldin

July 29, 2017

Troublesome Facts
Yield Curve 101
Short-End Manipulation
QT Is Coming
Peak Complacency

“I never liked quantitative easing. Flattening the yield curve is not stimulative; flattening the yield curve is anti-stimulative.”

– Ken Fisher

“There is a limit to how much the United States Treasury can borrow.”

– Alan Greenspan

“In other words, we have the models we have because of inertia and theology, but also because all we can do is all we can do.”

– Kit Webster

“[T]he specific manner by which prices collapsed is not the most important problem: A crash occurs because the market has entered an unstable phase, and any small disturbance or process may have triggered the instability. Think of a ruler held up vertically on your finger: This very unstable position will lead eventually to its collapse, as a result of a small (or an absence of adequate) motion of your hand or due to any tiny whiff of air. The collapse is fundamentally due to the unstable position; the instantaneous cause of the collapse is secondary.”

– Didier Sornette, French geophysicist

Understanding Today’s Stagnation

Robert J. Shiller

Robert J. Shiller, a 2013 Nobel laureate in economics, is Professor of Economics at Yale University and the co-creator of the Case-Shiller Index of US house prices. He is the author of Irrational Exuberance, the third edition of which was published in January 2015, and, most recently, Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception, co-authored with George Akerlof.

MAY 23, 2017 Project Syndicate

NEW HAVEN – Ever since the “Great Recession” of 2007-2009, the world’s major central banks have kept short-term interest rates at near-zero levels. In the United States, even after the Federal Reserve’s recent increases, short-term rates remain below 1%, and long-term interest rates on major government bonds are similarly low. Moreover, major central banks have supported markets at a record level by buying up huge amounts of debt and holding it.

Why is all this economic life support necessary, and why for so long?

It would be an oversimplification to say that the Great Recession caused this. Long-term real (inflation-adjusted) interest rates did not really reach low levels during the 2007-2009 period. If one looks at a plot of the US ten-year Treasury yield over the last 35 years, one sees a fairly steady downward trend, with nothing particularly unusual about the Great Recession. The yield rate was 3.5% in 2009, at the end of the recession. Now it is just over 2%.

The Risks to America’s Booming Economy

Martin Feldstein

Martin Feldstein, Professor of Economics at Harvard University and President Emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research, chaired President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1984. In 2006, he was appointed to President Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and, in 2009, was appointed to President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Currently, he is on the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Group of 30, a non-profit, international body that seeks greater understanding of global economic issues.

MAR 29, 2017 Project Syndicate

CAMBRIDGE – After a long and slow recovery from the recession that began a decade ago, the United States economy is now booming. The labor market is at full employment, the inflation rate is rising, and households are optimistic. Manufacturing firms and homebuilders are benefiting from increasing activity. The economy is poised for stronger growth in the year ahead. We no longer hear worries about secular stagnation.

The overall unemployment rate is just 4.7%, while unemployment among college graduates is only 2.4%. Average hourly earnings are 2.8% higher than they were a year ago. The tight labor market and rising wages are inducing some individuals who had stopped looking for work to return to the labor force, boosting the participation rate.

A clear indication that the economy is at full employment is that the rate of inflation is increasing. The “core” consumer price index (which omits volatile energy and food prices) has reached an annual rate of 2.2%, substantially higher than the 1.8% average during the previous three years. During the most recent three months, core inflation rose at a 2.8% annual rate.

Recession 2017? Things Are Happening That Usually Never Happen Unless A New Recession Is Beginning

By Michael Snyder, on February 8th, 2017, The Economic Collapse

Is the U.S. economy about to get slammed by a major recession?  According to Gallup, U.S. economic confidence has soared to the highest level ever recorded, but meanwhile a whole host of key economic indicators are absolutely screaming that a new recession is beginning.  And if the U.S. economy does officially enter recession territory in 2017, it certainly won’t be a shock, because the truth is that we are well overdue for one.  Donald Trump has inherited quite an economic mess from Barack Obama, and it was probably inevitable that we were headed for a significant economic downturn no matter who won the election.

One of the key indicators to watch is average weekly hours.  When the economy shifts into recession mode, employers tend to start cutting back hours, and that is happening right now.  In fact, as Graham Summers has pointed out, we just witnessed the largest percentage decline in average weekly hours since the recession of 2008…

The Abandonment of Progress

 

Jean Pisani-Ferry

Jean Pisani-Ferry is a professor at the Hertie School of Governance (Berlin) and Sciences Po (Paris). He currently serves as Commissioner-General of France Stratégie, a public policy advisory institution.

JAN 2, 2017 Project Syndicate

PARIS – Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan are remembered for the laissez-faire revolution they launched in the early 1980s. They campaigned and won on the promise that free-market capitalism would unleash growth and boost prosperity. In 2016, Nigel Farage, the then-leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) who masterminded Brexit, and US President-elect Donald Trump campaigned and won on a very different basis: nostalgia. Tellingly, their promises were to “take back control” and “make America great again” – in other words, to turn back the clock.

As Columbia University’s Mark Lilla has observed, the United Kingdom and the US are not alone in experiencing a reactionary revival. In many advanced and emerging countries, the past suddenly seems to have much more appeal than the future. In France, Marine Le Pen, the nationalist right’s candidate in the upcoming presidential election, explicitly appeals to the era when the French government controlled the borders, protected industry, and managed the currency. Such solutions worked in the 1960s, the National Front leader claims, so implementing them now would bring back prosperity.

What Should Trump Do?

By John Mauldin, November 20, 2016

Setting the Stage

Will There Be a Recession in 2017?
What Should Trump Do?
A Few Final Thoughts

“The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.”

– Winston Churchill

“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.”
–  C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

“I must have a prodigious amount of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!”
– Mark Twain

No matter who won the presidency, the economic way forward was not going to be easy. The Republican team understands they must “stand and deliver.” But as we will see in today’s letter, that is not going to be easy. I’m going to depart from the normal format of my letters, where I talk about the economic realities we face and how we should invest, and instead offer my view of what I think the Trump administration and the GOP-led Congress should do.

Out of Ammunition to Combat Recession?

Michael J. Boskin

Michael J. Boskin is Professor of Economics at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was Chairman of George H. W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1989 to 1993, and headed the so-called Boskin Commission, a congressional advisory body that highlighted errors in official US inflation estimates.

OCT 21, 2016 Project Syndicate

STANFORD – Economic forecasts for 2017 project continued frailty in the global economy, and subpar growth for most countries and regions. Obvious economic problems include Europe’s weak banks, China’s distorted property market, political uncertainty in the West, historically high private and public debt – 225% of GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund – and the reluctance of heavily indebted Greece and Portugal to comply with IMF programs.

Additional global economic risks, such as a major oil-market disruption that could drive prices up, are not as obvious, and thus receive less attention. Economists call such events “shocks” precisely because they come unexpectedly and can have far-reaching consequences.

Economists Believe a Recession Is Likely Within Next Four Years

Date: 13-10-2016

Source: The Wall Street Journal

In WSJ survey, GDP forecasts are little changed at 2.2% in 2017, 2% in 2018

The U.S. must face one of two scenarios: Either the next president will face a recession in office, or the U.S. will have the longest economic expansion in its history.

Odds are that the recession is more likely.

Economists in The Wall Street Journal’s latest monthly survey of economists put the odds of the next downturn happening within the next four years at nearly 60%.

Start Moving Some Dirt

By John Mauldin, October 2, 2016

 Coming: The Next Recession

Failing Grades
Finding the Money for Infrastructure
What Happens If We Do Not?

“Economic stimulants produce Bridges to Nowhere. Strategic investment in infrastructure produces a foundation for long-term growth.”

– Roger McNamee

“Our American ancestors prioritized growth and investment in our nation’s infrastructure.”
– Cory Booker

“There are two Americas – separate, unequal, and no longer even acknowledging each other except on the barest cultural terms.”
– David Simon

 

I, along with about 80 million of my fellow US citizens, watched the Clinton/Trump debate last Monday night. I am sure that we all have our own takeaways, and I won’t add my own thoughts on who won. But today’s letter is going to be about one of the few things the candidates agreed on: they both believe we need more infrastructure spending.

I am often asked to provide a summary to open my letter, and for this letter it really does make sense to offer one. I am going to make the following points herein: