Deleveraging is over — it’s time to cut the deficit

US commercial bank loans and leases bottomed in April 2011, after shrinking more than $1 trillion in the previous two years. The annual rate-of-change has now recovered to positive territory, relieving downward pressure on asset prices, including stocks and real estate. Deleveraging has come to an end and is only likely to resume if the economy suffers further financial shocks.

US Commercial Bank Loans and Leases (incl. Securitized Loans)

You would expect the gap between savings and investment to close when net debt repayments cease, but a significant shortfall between Gross Private Savings and Domestic Investment warns of continued instability.

Gross Domestic Private Investment and Savings

The Investment – Savings gap is reflected by strong, negative Net Private Investment on the chart below. If it were not for the fiscal deficit, the US would risk a significant contraction in national income.

Net Domestic Private Investment and Fiscal Deficit

For the benefit of those who may have missed my earlier coverage of this issue:

Debt repayment after a financial crisis/balance-sheet recession creates a gap between savings and investment that has serious implications for the economy. The resultant shortfall between spending and income risks a sharp contraction in national income. The gap may be relatively small but, like a puncture in a car tire, the impact can be huge. It only takes each of us to withhold 2% of what we earn (e.g. to repay debt) for a gap to appear between spending and income. A for example may earn $1.00 but now only pays 98 cents to B, who will pay 96.04 cents to C, who will pay 94.12 cents to D, and so on through the entire supply chain. By the time we get to L, they will only earn 80 cents where they previously earned $1.00.

The solution, as Keynes pointed out, is for government to offset the shortfall by running a fiscal deficit. The chart above shows that Treasury has been doing exactly that — spending more than they collect by way of taxes — in order to prevent a contraction. The problem is that continual deficits have two serious side-effects. The first is a loss of investor confidence as the ratio of public debt to GDP rises. The second is inflation — if private investment recovers and starts competing with government for ever-scarcer resources. By inflation I do not just mean an increase in the CPI, but also rising asset prices as experienced in the 2004 to 2008 housing bubble, when government ran a deficit while net private investment was positive.

As the chart shows, the fiscal deficit is being funded by net savings (plus a little help from China). So what would happen if we cut the deficit?

  • An optimistic view would be that cutting the deficit would restore confidence and encourage more private investment, shrinking the savings – investment shortfall.
  • Pessimists, however, would warn that private sector balance sheets have been impaired by falling asset prices and investors are reluctant to borrow even at current low interest rates. A shrinking deficit without a counter-balancing rise in investment would send the US back into recession.

The truth lies somewhere in between. Corporate balance sheets are generally in good shape while small-to-medium business and home-owners have suffered significant impairment. And one of the major factors inhibiting investment is the uncertain political/economic environment.

Deleveraging has ended and the time has come to start cutting back the government deficit — but cautiously. Cutting the entire deficit in one hit would be more of a shock than the economy could bear, but setting out a four-year plan to cut the deficit by say 2 percent a year would do a lot to restore confidence and set the economy on a path to recovery.

China manufacturing exports shrink

The Harper Petersen Index shows a fall in container shipping rates in the last few months, reflecting a sharp decline in manufacturing exports.

Harper Petersen Index

Bloomberg (hat tip to macrobusiness.com.au) now reports that “the cost of hauling goods to Europe from China (its largest export market) is falling faster than rates for deliveries to the U.S. The price for shipments to Europe is down 39 percent to $511 per twenty-foot box since Aug. 31, according to figures from Clarkson Securities Ltd., a unit of the world’s largest shipbroker. That’s more than double the 18 percent slide in the cost to the U.S. West Coast, measured in 40-foot units.”

Quick Overview

Looks like something positive is brewing in Europe, but I don’t want to jump the gun. China looks weak, US probably through its worst, Europe still faces plenty of pain even if fiscal reform and euro-bonds introduced. Game changer would be QE/asset purchases by Fed and ECB.

ECB Expected to Unleash QE Money Printing after Launching of Euro-Bonds :: The Market Oracle

In return for surrendering fiscal policy to Brussels, – Berlin and Paris, the key paymasters of the Euro-zone, would agree to the creation of a common Eurobond that would pool the credit ratings and collateral of all participating Euro-zone countries into a single fixed income instrument. Chancellor Merkel says that German borrowing costs will jump higher because of the creation of a Eurobond, though she is prepared to consider Eurobonds, if the legal framework is in place to ensure all countries in the zone observe the rules.

…..Once fiscal integration is agreed upon, Berlin is expected to agree to the creation of Eurobonds issued by member states that could be purchased in massive quantities (monetized) by the ECB. Countries would be liable for each others’ debts, but the ECB could make much of their debt disappear with its electronic printing press. Eurobonds would either be financed with higher taxes on the working class, through austerity measures, or through the inflationary effects of the ECB’s money printing machine. With French banks alone holding more of their debts than the entire €440-billion European Financial Stabilization Fund, a default by these countries would likely bankrupt the French financial system. Thus, Paris has been pushing hard for the ECB to monetize debt on a massive scale.

via ECB Expected to Unleash QE Money Printing after Launching of Euro-Bonds :: The Market Oracle :: Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting Free Website.

The German Hour – Jean Pisani-Ferry – Project Syndicate

Germany should be bold and use its leverage to offer a new contract to its eurozone partners: mutual guarantee of part of their public debt in exchange for strict debt limits and a new legal order in which a eurozone authority can veto an enacted budget even before it is implemented. Only such boldness will deliver the certainty that markets need – and it is Germany’s responsibility to be bold.

via The German Hour – Jean Pisani-Ferry – Project Syndicate.

OECD Sounds Warning on Global Economy

The OECD now forecasts the eurozone economy to be in a six-month recession lasting through the first quarter of 2012, followed by a slow recovery that will leave the 17-nation bloc with only 0.2 percent growth next year. Despite the OECD’s warning, European markets enjoyed one of their best sessions in weeks amid hopes that radical plans were being readied for the Dec. 9 meeting of EU leaders in Brussels. The Stoxx 50 of leading European shares ended 3.6 percent higher at 2,208.89.

via OECD Sounds Warning on Global Economy.

Canberra is fighting the last war – macrobusiness.com.au

As we know, the Western world has passed an historic moment when credit driven growth is no longer viable. We are in the early years of a decades long deleveraging. And, as we know from the sectoral balances of macroeconomics, an economy can only grow through the expansion of the external sector or by expanding credit in either the government or private sectors. Is it useful, therefore, to be comparing Treasury’s triumphant victory over the seventies bogies of wage breakouts and inflation via a tradable goods destroying currency appreciation when the world is now set on a course in which the ONLY economic growth that has lasting value in this new milieu is that driven by expansion in the external sector?

For me the answer is absolutely not.

Treasury is busy fighting the last war. The new war is for export revenues to drive investment and growth to offset the enormous debt stocks that exist in the public and private sectors of Western economies, including Australia. That’s why destroying parts of your tradable goods sector in order to make room for other tradable goods is about as sensible as cutting off a leg so that you’ve lost weight. Sure you have, but now you just gonna sit there and eat.

via Canberra is fighting the last war – macrobusiness.com.au | macrobusiness.com.au.

Asia rallies

Asia rallied Monday on encouraging signs from Europe, with the Nikkei 225 testing 8300, the Seoul Composite (KOSPI) jumping to 1815, and Hang Seng above 18000. But a look at the quarterly chart of the Nikkei shows a long-term, bearish divergence on 63-day Twiggs Momentum, while the index is headed for a test of key support at 7000/7500. Unless we see a break above the descending trendline, the trend remains downward.

Nikkei 225 Index

South Korea’s Seoul Composite index is headed for another test of 1650 according to the weekly chart. 63-Day Twiggs Momentum oscillating well below zero indicates a strong primary down-trend. Failure of support would offer a target of 1350*.

KOSPI Index

* Target calculation: 1650 – ( 1950 – 1650 ) = 1350

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index recovered above 18000 Monday but the long-term trend remains downward. Steeply descending 63-day Twiggs Momentum warns of a strong primary down-trend.

Hang Seng Index

* Target calculation: 16 – ( 20 – 16 ) = 12

The Shanghai Composite index did not share the enthusiasm of other Asian markets, testing support at 2375.  Reversal of 13-week Twiggs Money Flow below zero warns of rising selling pressure. Failure of support at 2300 would offer a target of 2050*.

Shanghai Composite Index

* Target calculation: 2300 – ( 2550 – 2300 ) = 2050

India warns of primary decline, Singapore may follow

India’s SENSEX broke through support at 15800/16000, signaling a primary decline to 14000*. Reversal of 13-week Twiggs Money Flow below zero confirms strong selling pressure. The index later recovered above 16000 Monday; we will have to wait to see whether the new support level holds.

BSE SENSEX Index

* Target calculation: 16 – ( 18 – 16 ) =14

The monthly chart shows Singapore’s Straits Times Index headed for a test of primary support at 2500. Long-term bearish divergence on 63-day Twiggs Momentum indicates a primary down-trend. Failure of support would signal a primary decline to 2100*.

Straits Times Index

* Target calculation: 2500 – ( 2900 – 2500 ) = 2100