The Phony US-China Truce

Dec 8, 2018 Barry Eichengreen, Project Syndicate

Barry Eichengreen is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former senior policy adviser at the International Monetary Fund. His latest book is The Populist Temptation: Economic Grievance and Political Reaction in the Modern Era.

There is no shortage of precedents for the approach to the escalating trade dispute taken by Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. But if the US economy shows signs of falling into recession, Trump will need to blame someone – and in this case, we can be relatively certain about who that will be.

BEIJING – On December 1 in Buenos Aires, US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, agreed on a 90-day moratorium on increases in import tariffs to provide a window for negotiations. Unfortunately, this approach to mediation does not always succeed, and investors were not impressed – as was evident in the 800-point fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on December 4. And if markets were skeptical then, they will be even more skeptical now, with the arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou for violating US sanctions on Iran.

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European Threats

By John Mauldin

December 7, 2018

Monetary Drug Withdrawal
European Disunion
Trade Threats

Someone asked recently how many times I had “crossed the pond” to Europe. I really don’t know. Certainly dozens of times. It’s been several times a year for as long as I remember.

That makes me an extremely unusual American. Most of us never visit Europe, except maybe for a rare dream vacation. And that’s okay because our own country is wonderful and has a lifetime of sights to see. But it does affect our perspective on the world. Many of us don’t fully grasp how important Europe is to the US and global economy.

We may soon get a lesson on that. I’ve talked about Italy’s ongoing debt crisis, which is not improving, but Europe has other problems, too. Worse, events are coalescing such that several potential crises—all major on their own—could strike at the same time, and not too long from now. As I’ve been saying for about three years, there is no reason for the US to have a recession on its own. I think events elsewhere will push us into it, and Europe is a really big current risk. I know from my visits to Europe and discussions with friends there, they see all sorts of problems with Trump and particularly his tariffs.

However, another concern is that the various actors in Europe are not playing nice with each other. I tell my European friends the same forces that yielded Trump are coming to a European country near them. In some places, they already have.

News from Euroland – recession imminent

By Victor Hill 30 November 2018, masterinvestor

17 mins. to read

When the money tap went dry…

Across Europe, and particularly in the 18-member Eurozone, the economic news is sobering. It’s now clear that the credit crunch in emerging markets which has played out over most of this year, plus the slowdown in China, are having negative consequences in Europe. Yet, despite the ongoing trauma of Brexit, the UK is cruising along relatively smoothly – for now.

A number of critical events are about to coincide. Firstly, the ECB will cease printing money by means of quantitative easing (QE) in December. The principal measure of the money supply across Europe, M3, was growing by around 5 percent per year when the ECB was buying up to €80 billion of bonds a month in 2013. That rate slowed to 2.1 percent in Q3 this year and will prospectively fall to zero in Q1 2019.

QE was instigated by ECB President Mario Draghi who took over the reins on 1st November 2011. At the beginning of 2012, at the height of the European Sovereign Debt Crisis, he pledged that the ECB would do everything it takes to save the Euro. First came a programme of soft loans to Eurozone banks (the so-called LRTO); then came a massive programme of government and then corporate bond-buying following the example set by America’s Federal Reserve in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008.

The Eurozone Economy’s Coming Downturn

Nov 27, 2018 Lucrezia Reichlin, Project Syndicate

Lucrezia Reichlin, a former director of research at the European Central Bank, is Professor of Economics at the London Business School.

Until recently, the prevailing narrative in Europe was that the economic crisis was over. But there are signs that the eurozone may be facing an economic slowdown – a development that could change significantly the discourse leading up to next May’s European Parliament election.

MILAN – Next May’s European Parliament election is likely to be haunted by Europe’s inner demons, from the clash with Italy’s populist government over its budget to the xenophobic front that has formed in the Visegrád countries. The crisis of the traditional centrist parties, which have been essential to building and maintaining consensus in the European Union – even as they have struggled to implement needed reforms – is also far from resolved. But if, as current indicators suggest, Europe is facing an economic slowdown, the pre-election discourse could change significantly.

Until a few months ago, the prevailing narrative was that the economic crisis was over, even for the hard-hit countries of the eurozone’s periphery. As a result, Europeans had shifted their attention to other issues, such as refugees and security, that were threatening political stability and eroding consensus for the European project.

The Global Impact of a Chinese Recession

Nov 7, 2018 Kenneth Rogoff, Project Syndicate

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.

Most economic forecasts suggest that a recession in China will hurt everyone, but that the pain would be more regionally confined than would be the case for a deep recession in the United States. Unfortunately, that may be wishful thinking.

CAMBRIDGE – When China finally has its inevitable growth recession – which will almost surely be amplified by a financial crisis, given the economy’s massive leverage – how will the rest of world be affected? With US President Donald Trump’s trade war hitting China just as growth was already slowing, this is no idle question.

Typical estimates, for example those embodied in the International Monetary Fund’s assessments of country risk, suggest that an economic slowdown in China will hurt everyone. But the acute pain, according to the IMF, will be more regionally concentrated and confined than would be the case for a deep recession in the United States. Unfortunately, this might be wishful thinking.

First, the effect on international capital markets could be vastly greater than Chinese capital market linkages would suggest. However jittery global investors may be about prospects for profit growth, a hit to Chinese growth would make things a lot worse. Although it is true that the US is still by far the biggest importer of final consumption goods (a large share of Chinese manufacturing imports are intermediate goods that end up being embodied in exports to the US and Europe), foreign firms nonetheless still enjoy huge profits on sales in China.

Debt Alarm Ringing

By John Mauldin

October 26, 2018

Addicted to Debt
Lost Exorbitant Privilege
Trigger Points

Is debt good or bad? The answer is “Yes.”

Debt is future spending pulled forward in time. It lets you buy something now for which you otherwise don’t have cash available yet. Whether it’s wise or not depends on what you buy. Debt to educate yourself so you can get a better job may be a good idea. Borrowing money to finance your vacation? Probably not.

Unfortunately, many people, businesses, and governments borrow because they can, which for many is possible only because central banks made it so cheap in the last decade. It was rational in that respect but is growing less so as the central banks tighten their policies.

Earlier this year, I wrote a series of articles (synopsis and links here) predicting a debt “train wreck” and eventual liquidation—an event I dubbed The Great Reset. I estimated we have another year or two before the crisis becomes evident.

That’s still my expectation… but I’m beginning to wonder again. Several recent events tell me the reckoning could be closer than I thought just a few months ago. Today, we’ll review those and end with a few suggestions on how to prepare.

Addicted to Debt

As noted, debt can be appropriate—even government debt, in some (rare) circumstances. I am glad FDR issued war bonds to help defeat the Nazis, for instance. Now, however, governments go into debt not because they face existential threats, but simply to keep their citizens and benefactors comfortable.

Similarly, central banks enable debt because they think it will generate economic growth. Sometimes it does, too. The problem is they create debt with little regard for how it will be used. That’s how we get artificial booms and subsequent busts.

Another economic downturn is just a matter of time

Date: 13-10-2018
Source: The Economist

It will be harder to fight than the last one, says Ryan Avent

JUST SOUTH of Indiana’s border with Michigan lies the city of Elkhart, with a population of just over 50,000. Apart from a small, shop-lined high street near where one river, the Elkhart, flows into another, the St Joseph, the city is mostly shapeless, tree-lined and suburban. Scattered around the outskirts are the factories of several of America’s largest producers of recreational vehicles (RVs). Rows of the finished products rest outside the giant sheds in which they are made.

Modern RVs are impressive, leather-upholstered land yachts fitted with flat-screen televisions and gas fireplaces, the perfect vessels in which to navigate the American continent. The RV business is one of the economy’s most strongly cyclical. Sales of big-ticket items like homes and cars inevitably rise and fall with the business cycle, but RVs are especially susceptible to such swings. It is only once cars and homes have been upgraded that consumers consider splashing out on rolling living quarters. And when financial fear stalks the land, RV-makers have a particularly hard time.

In Elkhart, more than a quarter of people in employment work on RVs. When the global financial crisis in 2007-08 plunged the world economy into its worst downturn since the 1930s, employment in the city’s factories fell by nearly half. The unemployment rate almost quintupled, to 20%. Incomes and population dropped. Elkhart was among the first places President Barack Obama visited after his inauguration in 2009: it exemplified the extraordinary economic challenge facing his administration.

Next time will be different: In fighting the next recession, politics will be crucial

Date: 13-10-2018
Source: The Economist

But are political leaders able and willing to co-operate?

IN THE DARK days of the Great Depression, the balance of economic terror was measured out in movements of gold from one country to another. Physically, though, the gold more or less stayed put. Most central banks kept their gold in the vaults of the Bank of England. Flows were accomplished by placing gold bars on a trolley and wheeling them from one pile to another a few feet away. Told that the economic cataclysm was the product of too much gold on one side of the vault rather than another, Britain’s ambassador to Germany sighed: “This depression is the stupidest and most gratuitous in history.”

Once again, the world is at risk of bumbling into an unnecessarily painful economic mess. If the next global slump takes a turn towards the catastrophic, it will not be because of a dearth of ideas for how to pry an economy out of a rut. Rather it will be because politicians given a long list of ways to pump money into an economy badly in need of it proved unwilling or unable to choose any. Sadly, such an outcome is all too real a possibility.

The next recession

Date: 11-10-2018
Source: The Economist

Toxic politics and constrained central banks could make the next downturn hard to escape

JUST a year ago the world was enjoying a synchronised economic acceleration. In 2017 growth rose in every big advanced economy except Britain, and in most emerging ones. Global trade was surging and America booming; China’s slide into deflation had been quelled; even the euro zone was thriving. In 2018 the story is very different. This week stockmarkets tumbled across the globe as investors worried, for the second time this year, about slowing growth and the effects of tighter American monetary policy. Those fears are well-founded.

The world economy’s problem in 2018 has been uneven momentum. In America President Donald Trump’s tax cuts have helped lift annualised quarterly growth above 4%. Unemployment is at its lowest since 1969. Yet the IMF thinks growth will slow this year in every other big advanced economy. And emerging markets are in trouble.

This divergence between America and the rest means divergent monetary policies, too. The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates eight times since December 2015. The European Central Bank (ECB) is still a long way from its first increase. In Japan rates are negative. China, the principal target of Mr Trump’s trade war, relaxed monetary policy this week in response to a weakening economy. When interest rates rise in America but nowhere else, the dollar strengthens. That makes it harder for emerging markets to repay their dollar debts. A rising greenback has already helped propel Argentina and Turkey into trouble; this week Pakistan asked the IMF for a bail-out.

The Makings of a 2020 Recession and Financial Crisis

Sep 13, 2018 Nouriel Roubini ,  Brunello Rosa, Project Syndicate

Professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and CEO of Roubini Macro Associates, was Senior Economist for International Affairs in the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration. He has worked for the International Monetary Fund, the US Federal Reserve, and the World Bank.

Brunello Rosa is co-founder and CEO at Rosa & Roubini Associates, and a research associate at the Systemic Risk Centre at the London School of Economics.

Although the global economy has been undergoing a sustained period of synchronized growth, it will inevitably lose steam as unsustainable fiscal policies in the US start to phase out. Come 2020, the stage will be set for another downturn – and, unlike in 2008, governments will lack the policy tools to manage it.

NEW YORK – As we mark the decennial of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, there are still ongoing debates about the causes and consequences of the financial crisis, and whether the lessons needed to prepare for the next one have been absorbed. But looking ahead, the more relevant question is what actually will trigger the next global recession and crisis, and when.

The current global expansion will likely continue into next year, given that the US is running large fiscal deficits, China is pursuing loose fiscal and credit policies, and Europe remains on a recovery path. But by 2020, the conditions will be ripe for a financial crisis, followed by a global recession.