GLOBAL ECONOMICS AND POLITICS

Leo Haviland provides clients with original, provocative, cutting-edge fundamental supply/demand and technical research on major financial marketplaces and trends. He also offers independent consulting and risk management advice.

Haviland’s expertise is macro. He focuses on the intertwining of equity, debt, currency, and commodity arenas, including the political players, regulatory approaches, social factors, and rhetoric that affect them. In a changing and dynamic global economy, Haviland’s mission remains constant – to give timely, value-added marketplace insights and foresights.

Leo Haviland has three decades of experience in the Wall Street trading environment. He has worked for Goldman Sachs, Sempra Energy Trading, and other institutions. In his research and sales career in stock, interest rate, foreign exchange, and commodity battlefields, he has dealt with numerous and diverse financial institutions and individuals. Haviland is a graduate of the University of Chicago (Phi Beta Kappa) and the Cornell Law School.

 

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MARKETPLACE CLIFFS © Leo Haviland June 25, 2012

Ongoing and mounting concern regarding European problems, especially within the sovereign debt and banking sector, has distracted many marketplace observers from concentrating closely on similar major American issues. The global economic crisis is a long way from being surmounted. Fiscal, banking, debt, and leverage challenges in Europe and the United States (and elsewhere) remain substantial. For the near term, the international crisis probably will worsen. Many perceive the S+P 500 as a rough benchmark measure for overall economic strength. The S+P 500 will head downhill, perhaps precipitously at times. It probably will decisively break beneath its early June 2012 low at 1267.

The International Monetary Fund’s “Fiscal Monitor” (“FM”, April 2012) provides helpful numbers. Analysts can debate which tables illuminate the situation best. Events since April 2012 would adjust the data somewhat.

The FM “general government” tables include state and local government debt with that of the national governments. Look at Table 1, General Government Balance. The United States was -9.6pc (a deficit) of GDP in 2011. The FM predicts -8.1pc in 2012 and -6.3pc in 2013. The overall Euro area deficit is actually lower for these years than the American one; it was -4.1pc in 2011, with -3.2pc for 2012, and -2.7pc in 2013. The US deficit falls only to -4.4pc in 2017, notably above the Euro area’s -1.1pc that year. What about some specific Euro area nations about which many tremble? In 2012, Italy’s general government balance is -2.4 percent, well under that of America’s. Portugal’s 2012 hole was -4.5pc. Spain’s 2012 balance, -6.0pc, also is beneath America’s (though an update to the FM probably would raise Spain’s deficit, placing it closer to the US 2012 range).

Review Table 7, General Government Gross Debt. The US gross debt was 102.9pc of GDP in 2011 (soaring from 66.6pc in 2006). The IMF predicts it will be 106.6pc in 2012 and 110.2pc in 2013. It stays at a plateau with 2017’s 113.0. Thus there is no progress in reducing it. Moreover, the US gross debt percentage exceeds that of the Euro area. Euro area gross debt was 88.1pc of GDP in 2011. The FM predicts 90.0pc in 2012, 91.0pc in 2013, and 86.9pc in 2017. Thus the US fiscal situation is worse than that of the Euro area as whole from this viewpoint as well.

In addition, note the US’s 2012 out to 2017 gross debt levels in comparison with those of Euro area crisis/bailout nations other than Greece. Admittedly Greece’s gigantic 153.2pc is larger, and its problems interrelate with those of the Eurozone as a whole. In 2012, Italy’s debt is 123.4pc of GDP, Spain’s 79.0pc. That of Ireland is 113.1pc, Portugal’s 112.4 pc. The average for 2012 of Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal is 107.0pc. However, this is almost exactly that of the US’s 2012 debt of 106.6pc.

So this perspective underlines that as the Euro area has a scary fiscal (sovereign debt) problem, so therefore does the US.

Yet travel further and look at US total credit marketplace debt US (nonfinancial, financial, and rest of the world sectors combined), not government debt alone. In 1951, it was about 132.4pc of nominal GDP. It ascended gradually to 168.1pc by 1981. It climbed to 250.8pc in 1995, marching to just under 300 percent in 2002. During the marvelous Goldilocks Era economy, total US credit marketplace debt flew even higher, touching 362.8pc of GDP in 2007. It advanced more as the economic crisis emerged, reaching a pinnacle of 381.6pc in 2009.

So where is this total credit marketplace debt now? At the end of 1Q12, it remained at a very lofty altitude, 353.6pc. Not only does the long run increase in total credit marketplace debt display devotion to (economic reliance on) debt. The only slight slide from the 2009 peak to the 1Q12 level indicates that at some point more debt reduction (deleveraging) for “America as a whole” lies ahead, and thus a significant probability of a weaker economy (and even recession).

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Marketplace Cliffs (6-25-12)

SWEET TALKING, SLICK BANKING: FEDERAL RESERVE POLICY © Leo Haviland, February 14, 2012

In love and commerce, taking implies giving. On Valentine’s Day and throughout the year, undoubtedly the prudent Federal Reserve remembers the benefits of having and needs of both debtors and creditors. This regulatory chaperone surely would declare that they passionately strive to perform their very best (do what’s most reasonable according to their interpretation of their regulatory duties) for all parties concerned. Besides, they must balance competing interests. Besides again, the Fed has a long run horizon. The Fed’s recent policies nevertheless imply not only an ethics of inflation, but also manifest somewhat greater affection for debtors than creditors.

Japan’s general government gross debt as a percent of its GDP is gigantic, at 241.0 percent for 2012 (IMF, Fiscal Monitor Update, Table 1, 1/24/12). This dwarfs America’s 107.6pc and the Euro area’s 91.1pc. Japan’s general government debt has been huge for several years. How does it keep financing this massive total? And if Japan can keep doing it, doesn’t America really have a lot of room to go (and time to wait)?

Japan may have more domestic savings than America, or be more of a nation of savers from an overall cultural perspective. Japan has run a current account surplus for quite some time, in direct contrast to the bulging United States current account deficit. (See the September 2011 World Economic Outlook, Statistical Appendix, Table A10.)

However, Japan’s ability to accumulate and finance its big general government deficit also may be due to its more favorable treatment of creditors. And despite low interest rates! Creditors of the Japanese government have earned, and have earned for quite some time, a net positive return due to deflation alongside low government interest rates.

So how long will the Fed and US Treasury get away with offering negative (or very low) real returns on US government debt?

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Sweet Talking, Slick Banking- Federal Reserve Policy (2-14-12)

FISCAL FINE PRINT © Leo Haviland, February 7, 2012

To create a sustained and substantial recovery, gurus and their audiences agree that much matters on the fiscal front. In the darker days of the economic crisis, most financial sentinels and their allies proclaimed that large sustained fiscal deficits were good (or at least acceptable, up to some point). Whatever have been the short term benefits of enthusiastic deficit spending campaigns in America and elsewhere, epic fiscal measures only shifted some of the debt (and leverage) burden from the private sector to the public one.

However, nowadays big sovereign debt generally is viewed as a problem. Most of the public hopes that noteworthy fiscal progress to reduce terrifying deficits has been made, is being achieved, or eventually (and soon enough) will be accomplished.

Let’s spend time surveying some fine print regarding the fiscal landscape, paying particular attention to Europe and America. At best, only limited advances have been made in recent wars against huge deficits. Actually, judging from their very modest results, these struggles to slash them look more like skirmishes than pitched battles.

A Financial Times front page headlines the European Union’s “tough fiscal treaty” (1/31/12; this refers to the “Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union”). Many applaud this treaty for its alleged fiscal hard line. It indeed takes a step towards resolving Europe’s sovereign debt and banking crisis, but a small step is not a giant leap. Despite the stagecraft of European leaders, the region’s fiscal challenges are not near to being resolved.

Though many states and municipalities face scary times, let’s focus on the federal deficit. The US fiscal situation remains fearful.

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Fiscal Fine Print (2-7-12)

THE STRONG YEN, THE WEAK DOLLAR, A SHAKY WORLD © Leo Haviland, August 2, 2011

The Japanese Yen has remained powerful relative to other currencies “in general” since autumn 2010. On an effective exchange rate basis, as well as against the United States dollar in particular, the Yen is around major resistance. However, the Yen probably will advance further over the next several months. Though many intertwining variables influence currency levels and trends, the fragility of the current worldwide recovery and the continuation of the global financial crisis that erupted in 2007 will play a key role in the continued Yen rally.

Assume America resolves its current battles related to the federal debt ceiling. Proposals likely to be enacted, though representing progress in cutting deficits over the next decade, are modest. In addition, these Washington fiscal fixes will not be significant in relation to the scope of the underlying long run deficit problem. Therefore, any Yen weakness derived from short-term solutions of United States fiscal deficit issues probably will be temporary.

US policy makers preach their desire for a strong dollar from time to time. Their practices over many months, however, underline their desire for (or at least toleration of) a rather weak TWD. The weak dollar policy may help to boost growth and reduce unemployment, right? Don’t many developing nations want their home currency to be relatively weak? One method by which the US can better compete with many developing (and other) nations, at least in some trade domains, is to depreciate its currency.

Roughly speaking, Japan is a creditor nation. Roughly speaking, and despite its wealth, America is a debtor nation.

FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW to download this market essay as a PDF file.

The Strong Yen, the Weak Dollar, a Shaky World (8-2-11)