Is the United States on the Right Track?

The debate rages on: is the economic policy of the United States on the right track? On one side of the argument we hear that not enough has been done by the government to get the economy going again and to reduce unemployment. On the other side we hear that the government is creating too much debt and that most attention needs to be given to the reduction of the looming federal deficits.

Which argument is correct?

Well, if we look at the value of the dollar for an answer to this question, it seems as if investors are leaning a little more on the side of the latter.

This chart shows the value of the United States dollar against other major currencies in the world. The grade that is being given the economic policies of the United States government is not a good one. It should be noted that this index includes the Euro and the British Pound, two currencies that have been quite weak against the United States dollar recently.

Since January 2001, the value of the United States dollar has declined by about 26% against these major currencies. At one time, in 2008, the value was about 32% lower than in January 2001, but the ‘flight to quality’ during the Great Recession allowed the dollar to recover somewhat, but it then declined again to its current level as confidence rebounded.

Even with the situation in Greece (and Portugal and Spain and Ireland and…) investors in international markets still seem to believe that the United States government is on the wrong path with respect to its fiscal and monetary policies. Federal deficits totaling at least $15 trillion over the next ten years connected with a monetary policy that is keeping its target interest rate close to zero for an unknown length of time is not a combination that builds much confidence.

It could be argued that these international investors are giving the Obama Administration about the same grade it gave the Bush (43) Administration. If it were not for events going on in other countries, the value of the dollar could be even lower.

In fact, the recent performance of the dollar indicates that the international financial community sees little difference between the performance of the current administration and that of the administrations that preceded it over the past forty-five years of so, going back to 1961. Yes, different administrations pursued different specific policies that represented what they thought was best for the country, but in terms of aggregate policies, there has been little difference overall. The general thrust has been more federal debt and more private credit. The result: an almost constant increase in credit inflation.

Now, there is the threat of a debt deflation as a consequence of the Great Recession, but world currency markets don’t seem to think that a debt deflation is the most likely prospect.

With a government whose gross debt doubled since January 2001 and is projected to double again within the next decade and with a Federal Reserve that has injected $1.1 trillion of excess reserves into the banking system, little confidence exists among international investors that the United States government can “exit” this situation without losing control.

You can say all you want to about the policy differences of the different administrations over the last fifty years, but if you look at the aggregate economic data, very little separates the performance of the Republican and Democratic Presidents. President Nixon, perhaps, spoke for all Presidents of the past fifty years: “We are all Keynesians”.

One could argue that the Clinton Administration was the exception in terms of fiscal policy. And, Paul Volcker had to overcome the fiscal prodigals, Carter and Reagan, to achieve some credibility for the United States in international financial markets.

This relatively steady performance has weakened the United States internationally and the continued weakness in the dollar indicates that investors think that the current direction of policy will weaken the United States further going forward. This decline, connected with the ascension of the BRICS and other emerging areas in the world, is shifting power relationships all over the globe. The move from the G8 to the G20 captures this change.

The thing is, power cannot stand a vacuum. If the United States is wobbling a little, China, Brazil and others are there to fill in the spaces. Other nations will not stand still so as to allow the United States to dig itself out of the hole that Bush (43) put it in. In fact, by pursuing the same kind of aggregate economic policies that were followed by the Bush (43) Administration, large deficits and extremely loose monetary policy, the Obama Administration, in many ways, just seems to be digging the hole deeper.

Ben Bernanke is even calling for the Obama Administration to produce an “exit” strategy to reduce future federal deficits. But this just highlights the problems that this administration faces. The government must “exit” both an excessively loose monetary policy as well as an excessively prodigal fiscal policy stance. It will be a truly exceptional performance if this administration can pull it off.

Right now, I believe that world markets think that they cannot pull it off. The place to watch is the foreign currency markets: keep your eye on the value of the dollar!

The Chinese Dilemma

China seems to be determined to continue to peg the value of its currency against the dollar. Then it points its finger at the United States anytime someone representing the United States raises a question about its practice.

As long as China continues to follow this policy, the United States is locked into a corner with no really good options.

The problem of the United States is the problem of a country that has lost its discipline: a person, an organization, a nation, that loses its discipline is only left with painful decisions. And, given an adversary like China that knows when it has a favorable advantage over another, the bad situation only becomes worse.

The assumption of United States supremacy which most presidential administrations worked with since the 1960s created an aura of invincibility, a feeling that the government could conduct its monetary and fiscal policies without regard for the rest of the world. The Bush administration “strutted” into power in its cowboy boots and its Colt 45s ready to enforce this attitude on other nations.

Unfortunately, for the United States this assumption no longer holds. Although the United States is still the most powerful nation on this planet, both in terms of its economic machine and its military presence, it is not in the same place it once was relative to other nations. As a consequence, the country pays a price if it tries to disregard the rest of the world in the conduct of its monetary and fiscal policies.

The prodigal nature of Bush 43 resulted in the value of the dollar, using almost any measure, declining by about 40% between early 2002 and the summer of 2008. Obviously, the monetary and fiscal policies of Bush 43 were not well received by the international financial community.

After the flight to quality into the dollar during the financial crisis of 2008, the value of the dollar has dropped about 14% from its near-term peak in March 2009 to the present time. World financial markets are not approving the economic policies of the United States government!

Meanwhile the Chinese sell goods to the rest of the world and live off of an export driven economy.

And, what happens if the United States does nothing about this?

The value of the dollar will continue to decline and the prestige of the United States in the world will continue to fall. And, the carry trade will continue to prosper and big financial institutions and financial players will continue to rake in billions of dollars in profits by borrowing dollars at ridiculously low United States interest rates, selling the dollar, and investing in higher interest rates throughout the world.

The big banks will continue to get stronger…and bigger. The rest: well that is their problem!

The two major alternatives being suggested are either to raise interest rates and try to moderate the rise in government debt or to raise protective barriers against international trade.

The first of these alternatives does not seem realistic to expect at this time. With unemployment at current levels and with foreclosures and bankruptcies remaining high, the political interests in the United States are not going to condone higher interest rates and a less expansionary fiscal policy. Using monetary and fiscal policy to stem the decline in the dollar is, it seems to me, just not going to happen.

The other major alternative now being floated: greater protection for United States manufacturing and industry. Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize-winning economist, writes about “Chinese New Year” in last Thursday’s New York Times (see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/opinion/01krugman.html). He concludes as follows:

“there’s the claim that protectionism is always a bad thing, in any circumstances. If that’s what you believe, however, you learned Econ 101 from the wrong people — because when unemployment is high and the government can’t restore full employment, the usual rules don’t apply.

Let me quote from a classic paper by the late Paul Samuelson, who more or less created modern economics: “With employment less than full ... all the debunked mercantilistic arguments” — that is, claims that nations who subsidize their exports effectively steal jobs from other countries — “turn out to be valid.” He then went on to argue that persistently misaligned exchange rates create “genuine problems for free-trade apologetics.” The best answer to these problems is getting exchange rates back to where they ought to be. But that’s exactly what China is refusing to let happen.

The bottom line is that Chinese mercantilism is a growing problem, and the victims of that mercantilism have little to lose from a trade confrontation. So I’d urge China’s government to reconsider its stubbornness. Otherwise, the very mild protectionism it’s currently complaining about will be the start of something much bigger.”

If unemployment remains high and economic growth continues to stagnate, and the value of the United States dollar continues to decline, the argument that Krugman presents will become more and more convincing, especially as we move to an election. Krugman is now saying that a double-dip economy is more probable than it was a month or two ago and the current stimulus will disappear after the middle of the year. Thus, tighter monetary and fiscal policies, toeing this line, are not appropriate.

This alternative can, therefore, become a real threat and we could experience a rising tide of interest in greater amounts of protectionism as 2010 proceeds. Once the ball gets rolling in this direction it becomes hard to stop and other nations must respond in kind to protect themselves. This would just be a replay of the 1930s, when an earlier death spiral of globalization took place. Even a person who was generally in favor of free trade like John Maynard Keynes became, for a while, a supporter of protectionism because the British government was doing nothing else.

The United States is in a corner and there are no real good choices available to it. As said earlier, when one loses their discipline nothing becomes easier. Bush 43 was totally undisciplined and we are currently paying the price for it. No one seems to have a good idea how to get out of the current malaise and so alternatives like protectionism are bound to gain ascendency.

The Beat Goes On Concerning the Dollar

More headlines this morning on the dollar strategy of the Obama administration. First, the main headline in the Wall Street Journal contains the blast: “U. S. Stands By as Dollar Falls.” (See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125498941145272887.html#mod=todays_us_page_one.) Then the lead editorial follows up with “The Dollar Adrift.” (See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574461473511618150.html.)

We also learn that the administration was worried enough about this type of thinking to send out Chairman Bernanke and presidential advisor Larry Summers to indicate how serious the Obama Administration is in maintaining a strong dollar.

Again the phrase “Watch the hips and not the lips” comes to mind. There is very little the administration can do right now to introduce fiscal responsibility into what they are proposing. The die has already been cast and no one sees a quick reversal of the administration’s mindset.

And, this is the problem. Time-after-time in the last half of the 20th century countries got themselves into predicaments like the one being faced by the United States. Uncontrolled government budgets with the promise of growing amounts of debt outstanding. Connected with this fiscal irresponsibility was the concern that central banks were really not independent of the national government. This is a situation not unlike that currently in place in the United States.

There were a number of books that came out in the late 1980s and early 1990s that basically asked the question: “Is national economic policy in the hands of unknown bankers and financial interests around the world?” The general scenario depicted was that of a national government that proposed large and growing budget deficits that seemed unsustainable without the support of a captive central bank that would monetize the debt as pressure on local interest rates grew. The reaction of these “unknown bankers and financial interests” was to sell the currency of that nation and force the national government to reverse direction and introduce fiscally responsible budgets.

The primary example of such a historical event was that which occurred during the presidency of François Mitterrand in France. The French Franc came under such pressure that Mitterrand backed off his budget proposals and became fiscally quite conservative and supported the independence of the French central bank.

The issue here is not so much the size of the deficits, although that can be important, or the ratio of the deficits to GDP, or the ratio of government debt to GDP. The question relates to whether or not the government is acting in a fiscally responsible way and will it continue to do so in the future. The side question to this is the independence of the central bank.

Absolute numbers are fine, but it is the direction those numbers are going that are the crucial concern.

The facts to me are as follows: since the 1960s, the United States government has erred on the side of fiscal ease in terms of the budgeting process. This has not been a Republican or a Democratic fault. The leadership in both parties has contributed to the stance of fiscal leniency that has existed within the federal government over this time period.

During this time the value of the dollar has trended downward, with one or two side-trips.

During the Bush (43) administration fiscal irresponsibility got way out-of-hand. The fiscal irresponsibility was supported by monetary irresponsibility. Thus, we get to the current situation.

Nothing has changed!

Financial markets are seeing the same behavior in the current administration that they observed in the previous administration. O’Neill, Snow, Paulson, and Geithner are all of one package. Greenspan and Bernanke are linked at the hip. And, the words coming out of the mouths of our leaders seem to be “pre-recorded.”

I have been trying to call attention to this issue for four or five years now. Very little attention has been paid to the issue even though at one time in the Bush (43) administration the value of the dollar had declined by about 40%.

The problem is that there are no good solutions to the situation when you let it go for that long. The obvious picture is that of a binge drinker that has been an alcoholic for a lengthy period of time. More and more people are going to get hurt and this will just add to the many that are feeling pain at the present time. But, that is what happens when people lose their discipline and become addicted.

The event we see over and over again in economics is that ultimately the system has to correct, either on its own or with the help of those that are a part of the system. And, the correction takes place sooner, or, later, but it eventually takes place. Unfortunately along the way, as with alcoholics, some of the best attempts of “friends” to cure the patient only end up exacerbating the situation.