“Another phenomenon on display (at the G-20 conference over the weekend) was China’s willingness to continue fighting on its own in the G-20 if necessary.” (See “G-20 skeptics wait for shift in behavior”: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1b5a9a62-3d23-11e0-bbff-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1EcmIs0vg.)
“In the face of determined and often solo opposition from China, the finance ministers did not mention foreign exchange reserves in the list of indicators (to be used in determining economic imbalances in the global economy).”
Actually, the makeup of the G-20 seems to look more like a quadrilateral. At the corners: China; and the United States; and Germany; and the rest.
China seems to be holding its own against the others: Eswar Prasad, former head of the IMF’s China division stated that “With the rest of the G-20 arrayed against it, China still managed to hold its own.” China, more and more, is feeling its rising strength in international policy discussions.
Then there is the United States. Over the weekend we heard comments from Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and Tim Geithner, United States Secretary of the Treasury.
The common thread in the remarks of Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Geithner: the problems connected with the international imbalances are the fault of China…or, everyone else. The United States is not responsible for any of the imbalances that have occurred.
But, people don’t really seem to be listening to “Ben and Tim” any more, a sign of the respect the United States now gets in the world.
Germany, well, Angela Merkel, the German leader, has problems at home. She is perceived as not tough enough and the feeling is that she has sold out to the rest of Europe. Thus, she is trying to re-establish herself and deal from the strength of the German economic position without sounding conciliatory.
And, the rest of the crop? Well, Nicholas Sarkozy has not taken the G-20 leadership anywhere and although he wanted to use it as a vehicle to regain his popularity in France…or anyplace else it seems. His agenda for the year seems to lie in tatters.
The others…there is no mention of them…well, with the exception of words from Brazil from
time-to-time.
There is no real leadership anywhere, and, there is no real current crisis that needs attending.
So, everyone can basically stake out their own claims and gripe about the others.
However, this does not satisfy anybody.
Everyone knows that there are all kinds of financial and economic problems in the world. But, no one seems to be in a position to really drive home the point that something needs to be done about them.
China and the emerging nations in the world are on their own track, economic growth seems to be robust with the prestige of this group on the upswing. Momentum seems to be on their side.
The United States, the eurozone, the UK…the developed world…seems to be experiencing some
kind of a recovery…but…nothing seems to be easy.
And, a worldwide inflation that seems to be picking up steam.
As a result…the shadow of (financial) crisis seems to looming over everything in the western world.
The eurozone has not resolved its problems, either in terms of the sovereign debt issue or the healthiness of its banking systems. Many investors are just hanging around waiting for the next round of the crisis to rear its ugly head. There still is the feeling that some nations are still going to have to write down their debt. The questions there revolve around when this might occur and just how many nations will be involved.
And, with the menace of inflation growing in Europe and the UK, mediocre economic growth is keeping the European Central Bank and the Bank of England on the sidelines with respect to raising short term interest rates. Also, raising short term interest rates might disturb the financial markets.
The United States government has the cloud of a shutdown hanging over its head. And, even if a shutdown is avoided and some reduction in the budget deficit takes place, the country is still looking at a cumulative increase in the amount of government debt outstanding in excess of $15 trillion over the next ten years. But, the United States still has the reserve currency of the world, and, as long as the United States continues to hold onto this privilege, serious concern over the debt of the government will remain muted. All seems to be posture, there is really no sense of urgency.
Concern still exists in the rest of the world concerning all the reserves the Federal Reserve has pumped into the banking system. The total of commercial bank reserve balances with Federal Reserve banks, a proxy for the excess reserves in the banking system, exceeds $1.2 trillion, a rise of more than $200 billion over the past six weeks. And, the Fed continues to keep its target short term interest rate below 25 basis points and still is not expected to allow this rate to creep up for several months more at the least.
Interest rates in the rest of the world (like in China and Brazil) continue to rise and continue to draw liquid funds from the United States and Europe.
This scenario continues to promise volatility in financial markets. If the global problems are not resolved and the financial imbalances continue to exist, the world will remain unsettled and funds will flow here and there as dramatic movements take place…in financial markets…in commercial banks…in commodities…in whatever markets seem to be the most unstable for the moment.
Is it going to take another major crisis to get action? We had a major financial crisis just a year ago or so and the response to it was pathetic and remains so. Do we really need another one to get people to move?
Here is where China…and Brazil…and a couple of other countries are setting in the driver’s seat. And, the west doesn’t seem to see the situation as a game of chicken. China…and Brazil…and others are not going to blink as long as the United States and Europe continue to drive their midget car against the huge SUV being driven against them. Right now, China does not believe it has to budge from its position. The United States and Europe argue that China is being “unfair”. And, Chinese confidence seems to grow every day. The recent G-20 meeting just reinforces this picture.
Showing posts with label US Treasury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US Treasury. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Monday, November 1, 2010
"Remember Bush Appointed Bernanke"--President Obama
Almost everything that Bernanke has done has been wrong. The only thing people can really give him credit for is for throwing enough spaghetti against the wall in late 2008 so that some of it would stick to the wall. But, even this action may have resulted in action from an emotional scare that was something less than rational. See “The Bailout Plan: Did Bernanke Panic?” (http://seekingalpha.com/article/106186-the-bailout-plan-did-bernanke-panic)
Now we stand on the verge of another round of spaghetti tossing. The Fed, and many other central banks around the world, are meeting this week. “This week’s meetings are the greatest concentration of monetary-policy action by leading central banks since the first week of October 2008, when they met in emergency sessions to fight the global financial crisis.” (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-01/thirty-three-hour-marathon-may-induce-ecb-surrender-as-fed-weakens-dollar.html)
The Washington Post puts it very bluntly: “Federal Reserve’s Bernanke on Line with New Move to Boost Economy” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/31/AR2010103103818.html?hpid=topnews). “The Federal Reserve is preparing to put its credibility on the line as it rarely has before by taking dramatic new action this week to try jolting the economy out of its slumber.”
This action just re-enforces the desperation of current policy makers. Their model is wrong, yet they persist in trying to make it work. (http://seekingalpha.com/article/232971-international-capital-mobility-the-united-states-dilemma) People are always their most desperate when they are losing control. In an effort to re-gain control they try more and more of the same old medicine.
How do you like this quote? “We’re very concerned about what to do. One thing we know is that when the bond rally ends, it will not end well.” This quote is attributed to Bob Michele, the chief investment officer at JPMorgan Asset Management. (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d7abb7c2-e51d-11df-8e0d-00144feabdc0.html)
In addition, this behavior on the part of the Federal Reserve System and of the Obama administration is undermining confidence in political relationships around the world. “Traders are losing confidence in Group of 20 finance officials’ pledge to avoid foreign-exchange manipulation, less than a week after the leaders vowed to stop devaluing currencies to prop up their economies.” (See “Currency Swings Show G-20 Faith Fading as Korea Eyes Controls,” (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-01/currency-swings-show-traders-losing-faith-in-g-20-as-korea-eyes-controls.html).
This comes after the feeble attempts of Treasury Secretary Geitner to get China to act in the interests of the United States. Again, this can be seen as a seemingly desperate try to put the blame on someone else.
The G-20, under these circumstances, is incapable of making an enforceable pledge. (See “The Do-Nothing G-20”: http://seekingalpha.com/article/232007-the-do-nothing-g20.)
As long as the United States continues to persist in its current policy stance things will not change. The Obama administration, plus the Federal Reserve, has made it very clear what their policy is going to be. And, since the rest of the world knows what the Federal Reserve policy will be, the rest of the world will act accordingly,
Consequently, this just makes the United States a sitting duck!
But, Bush 43 appointed Bernanke. Oh, yes, President Obama re-appointed him, but like TARP and some other things, a president cannot just eliminate the past. A president has live with some of the decisions of his predecessor. Right?
The world is waiting for the results of the meeting of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on November 2 and 3. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the Reserve Bank of Australia also have meetings scheduled for this week. We may look back on this week as another significant date in the history of the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and its aftermath.
Unfortunately for President Obama, the legacy appointment of Ben Bernanke may play a large role in the definition of his place in history.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The BRICs Are On The Move!
In the midst of the current economic and financial crisis the world is radically changing. Comparisons are constantly being made between the collapse of the global economy that is now being experienced and the collapse the world went through in the 1930s. Whereas most of the discussion has limited itself to the extent of the downturn and the methods being used by policymakers to avoid a repeat of the severity of the earlier depression, I would like to focus on another area in which comparisons can be made. The specific area I would like to focus upon is the relative shifts that are taking place in economic and financial power in the world.
At the start of World War I there was no question that Great Britain was the number one economic and financial power in the world. The 1920s and the 1930s represented a turning point in the economic structure of the world and a change in the location of the center of financial power. The change in economic structure related to the final triumph of the industrial sector over the agricultural sector in the most advanced countries in the world. This movement favored the United States over Europe. The center of financial power in the world shifted from London to the United States. The changes in industrial structure helped to explain parts of the economic dislocations of the Great Depression that were not fully absorbed until World War II. The shift in financial power was not really recognized until after the war.
An important and interesting history of this period can be found in the book “Lords of Finance” by Liaquat Ahamed. I have written a review of this book for Seeking Alpha and this can be found at http://seekingalpha.com/article/121616-financial-collapse-a-lesson-from-the-20s.
I am bringing up this history because I believe there is a similar shift in economic structure and financial power that is going on in the world at the present time. It is important to understand these changes because they are going to influence what is going on in the world for a long time.
Like the 1920s and 1930s there is an economic restructuring going on. To me, the emerging dislocations in the world are related to advances in information technology and the global changes in energy needs. I have no idea how these dislocations are going to work themselves out but there are huge changes coming. The innovation in financial instruments markets over the past forty years or so are the result of the new information technology and the intense study of what are now called “Information Markets” is going to lead to transactions and trading opportunities that have not fully been realized yet. I believe that the collapse of the auto industry is just one part of the mammoth changes that are coming in the area of energy sources and uses.
The other shift that is taking place is in the location of financial power within the global marketplace. Yesterday it was announced that Russia and Brazil will each acquire $10 billion of bonds from the International Monetary Fund (See Brazil, Russia Trade T-Bills for IMF Clout, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124463884266502011.html). China is planning to purchase $50 billion in IMF bonds and it is said that India will also make a similar purchase. The BRIC countries are on the move!
The reason given for the purchase of the IMF bonds is to increase the clout that these emerging nations have on world economic and financial affairs. The BRIC nations believe that they have earned and therefore deserve to play a bigger role in what is going on globally. Hence, the movements of these countries are not surprising and are not uncoordinated. The leaders of the BRIC nations have been meeting regularly and communicating frequently. Their next group meeting begins June 16 in Russia.
The important thing for the leadership in the United States to realize is that they must take the world into consideration when making decisions relating to U. S. fiscal and monetary policy. I have gotten comments on my recent posts about the dollar that question the need for policy makers to be concerned about the value of the dollar in their decision making. I agree with Paul Volcker that the most important price in a country is the price of its currency. The United States, even more than in the past, will not be able to afford to ignore what the rest of the world is saying about the direction its budget policy and monetary policy are going. All too often in the past, and especially in the past eight years, American leadership has thumbed its nose at world opinion. The rise of the BRICs indicates that this time is over and real attention needs to be paid to what others are saying and doing. Although the United States will continue, in the near term to be the major financial power in the world, the times are changing and will continue to move in the current direction over the next ten to twenty years.
There are two reasons for saying this. First, Brazil, Russia, India, and China are going to continue to become more powerful economically and financially. Whereas there may not be an absolute shift in world power in these areas, there will be a relative shift with the BRIC nations becoming relatively more powerful. This, in my mind, is not going to stop.
Second, some form of international organization is going to evolve that will oversee global financial institutions and financial markets. The IMF is a natural place to look for such leadership. In the past it has not quite lived up to its possibilities. Now, however, it looks as if there is a new focus on the possibilities it presents. The BRIC nations seem to be eying the IMF as a place where they might be able to exert their growing economic and financial clout to attain the recognition and influence they want and believe they deserve. The IMF is certainly not an unwilling recipient of such attention and is actively seeking more funding.
What does all this mean for investors? I would like to focus on just two points related to the financial issues. First, the United States seems headed for a clash with the rest of the world in terms of monetary and fiscal policy. The current and future budget deficits appear to be unsustainable and the Obama administration has not yet presented any credible plans to reduce the amount of debt the government will be creating. In addition, the Federal Reserve has already put so much liquidity into the financial system that Bernanke’s statements about removing the liquidity as the crisis retreats seem less than serious. The added concern is what role the Fed will play in helping the Treasury place all the debt that it must issue. As I have stated before, history has repeatedly shown that this is not a good combination either for keeping interest rates low or for keeping the value of the currency up. Such movements over time will be brought on by the international markets. The only response that will avoid this is to bring the budget under control and take the pressure off the central bank to support the placing of the debt.
The second point refers to the shift in world economic power. If the BRIC countries find that they can work with the IMF, a new power structure will emerge in global finance. Financial and non-financial companies in emerging markets will become much more relevant. Important financial centers will be distributed throughout the world rather than being concentrated in just one or two cities. As with the evolution of the financial power in the 1920s and 1930s, these changes will not take place overnight. What I am suggesting, however, is that we are seeing the beginning of a shift in financial power in the world that will continue to evolve over the next ten to twenty years.
This has important ramifications for the regulation or re-regulation of the United States financial system. As usual, Congress and the Administration are fighting the last war. Right now the policy makers in charge in Washington D. C. are responding to the populist discontent being expressed in the country. Get rid of greed! Regulate salaries and bonuses! Emasculate the role of derivatives! This is not the way to prepare the economic and financial system for the future.
Yes, the world is changing. The economic base of the global economy is shifting and the resulting need to restructure is the reason for the severity of the current recession. Financial power in the world is being re-distributed and this trend is just beginning to show itself. These movements are going to define the conditions for investment in the coming years. It will require new and creative thinking.
At the start of World War I there was no question that Great Britain was the number one economic and financial power in the world. The 1920s and the 1930s represented a turning point in the economic structure of the world and a change in the location of the center of financial power. The change in economic structure related to the final triumph of the industrial sector over the agricultural sector in the most advanced countries in the world. This movement favored the United States over Europe. The center of financial power in the world shifted from London to the United States. The changes in industrial structure helped to explain parts of the economic dislocations of the Great Depression that were not fully absorbed until World War II. The shift in financial power was not really recognized until after the war.
An important and interesting history of this period can be found in the book “Lords of Finance” by Liaquat Ahamed. I have written a review of this book for Seeking Alpha and this can be found at http://seekingalpha.com/article/121616-financial-collapse-a-lesson-from-the-20s.
I am bringing up this history because I believe there is a similar shift in economic structure and financial power that is going on in the world at the present time. It is important to understand these changes because they are going to influence what is going on in the world for a long time.
Like the 1920s and 1930s there is an economic restructuring going on. To me, the emerging dislocations in the world are related to advances in information technology and the global changes in energy needs. I have no idea how these dislocations are going to work themselves out but there are huge changes coming. The innovation in financial instruments markets over the past forty years or so are the result of the new information technology and the intense study of what are now called “Information Markets” is going to lead to transactions and trading opportunities that have not fully been realized yet. I believe that the collapse of the auto industry is just one part of the mammoth changes that are coming in the area of energy sources and uses.
The other shift that is taking place is in the location of financial power within the global marketplace. Yesterday it was announced that Russia and Brazil will each acquire $10 billion of bonds from the International Monetary Fund (See Brazil, Russia Trade T-Bills for IMF Clout, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124463884266502011.html). China is planning to purchase $50 billion in IMF bonds and it is said that India will also make a similar purchase. The BRIC countries are on the move!
The reason given for the purchase of the IMF bonds is to increase the clout that these emerging nations have on world economic and financial affairs. The BRIC nations believe that they have earned and therefore deserve to play a bigger role in what is going on globally. Hence, the movements of these countries are not surprising and are not uncoordinated. The leaders of the BRIC nations have been meeting regularly and communicating frequently. Their next group meeting begins June 16 in Russia.
The important thing for the leadership in the United States to realize is that they must take the world into consideration when making decisions relating to U. S. fiscal and monetary policy. I have gotten comments on my recent posts about the dollar that question the need for policy makers to be concerned about the value of the dollar in their decision making. I agree with Paul Volcker that the most important price in a country is the price of its currency. The United States, even more than in the past, will not be able to afford to ignore what the rest of the world is saying about the direction its budget policy and monetary policy are going. All too often in the past, and especially in the past eight years, American leadership has thumbed its nose at world opinion. The rise of the BRICs indicates that this time is over and real attention needs to be paid to what others are saying and doing. Although the United States will continue, in the near term to be the major financial power in the world, the times are changing and will continue to move in the current direction over the next ten to twenty years.
There are two reasons for saying this. First, Brazil, Russia, India, and China are going to continue to become more powerful economically and financially. Whereas there may not be an absolute shift in world power in these areas, there will be a relative shift with the BRIC nations becoming relatively more powerful. This, in my mind, is not going to stop.
Second, some form of international organization is going to evolve that will oversee global financial institutions and financial markets. The IMF is a natural place to look for such leadership. In the past it has not quite lived up to its possibilities. Now, however, it looks as if there is a new focus on the possibilities it presents. The BRIC nations seem to be eying the IMF as a place where they might be able to exert their growing economic and financial clout to attain the recognition and influence they want and believe they deserve. The IMF is certainly not an unwilling recipient of such attention and is actively seeking more funding.
What does all this mean for investors? I would like to focus on just two points related to the financial issues. First, the United States seems headed for a clash with the rest of the world in terms of monetary and fiscal policy. The current and future budget deficits appear to be unsustainable and the Obama administration has not yet presented any credible plans to reduce the amount of debt the government will be creating. In addition, the Federal Reserve has already put so much liquidity into the financial system that Bernanke’s statements about removing the liquidity as the crisis retreats seem less than serious. The added concern is what role the Fed will play in helping the Treasury place all the debt that it must issue. As I have stated before, history has repeatedly shown that this is not a good combination either for keeping interest rates low or for keeping the value of the currency up. Such movements over time will be brought on by the international markets. The only response that will avoid this is to bring the budget under control and take the pressure off the central bank to support the placing of the debt.
The second point refers to the shift in world economic power. If the BRIC countries find that they can work with the IMF, a new power structure will emerge in global finance. Financial and non-financial companies in emerging markets will become much more relevant. Important financial centers will be distributed throughout the world rather than being concentrated in just one or two cities. As with the evolution of the financial power in the 1920s and 1930s, these changes will not take place overnight. What I am suggesting, however, is that we are seeing the beginning of a shift in financial power in the world that will continue to evolve over the next ten to twenty years.
This has important ramifications for the regulation or re-regulation of the United States financial system. As usual, Congress and the Administration are fighting the last war. Right now the policy makers in charge in Washington D. C. are responding to the populist discontent being expressed in the country. Get rid of greed! Regulate salaries and bonuses! Emasculate the role of derivatives! This is not the way to prepare the economic and financial system for the future.
Yes, the world is changing. The economic base of the global economy is shifting and the resulting need to restructure is the reason for the severity of the current recession. Financial power in the world is being re-distributed and this trend is just beginning to show itself. These movements are going to define the conditions for investment in the coming years. It will require new and creative thinking.
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