In America Cannot Resolve Global Imbalances on Its Own C. Fred Bergsten and Arvind Subramanian look at America’s vision for not running large and persistent current account deficits and what that means for countries like China, Germany, and Japan. While this recession has reduced global imbalances, there is no guarantee that this process will continue.
Japan and imbalances:
see Japan and, read more from the Economist.com on "Rebalancing the world economy: Japan"
China and imbalances:
China’s consumption challenge
A panel of leading Chinese economists debates proposals to stoke private consumption in the world’s fastest-growing economy.
AUGUST 2009
Bolstered by a $586 billion government stimulus program and a surge in lending by state-owned banks, China may be the first major economy to bounce back from the global recession. But the composition of China’s growth remains unbalanced. Aggressive increases in government spending and investment by state-owned enterprises has cushioned the impact of weak exports. But those gains have not been matched by comparable increases in private consumption. Spending by Chinese households as a percentage of GDP is roughly half the US consumption ratio and remains significantly below private spending levels in Europe and Japan. And despite rising sales of items such as automobiles and household appliances, the ratio of private spending to GDP in China today has actually fallen relative to Chinese spending levels of a decade ago.
Why do Chinese consumers spend so little relative to counterparts in other nations? What can be done to change that? Is boosting private consumption in China’s national interest? How would that contribute to global growth? In this interview, conducted by McKinsey director Jonathan Woetzel in June 2009 in Shanghai, four distinguished members of the McKinsey China Council of Business Economists1 explore these questions. Watch the video,
source: The McKinsey China Council of Business Economists is an organization of leading economists dedicated to promoting dialogue and understanding of the Chinese economy. The four panelists in this roundtable include Wang Xiaolu, deputy director at the China Reform Foundation’s National Economic Research Institute; Cao Yuanzheng, chief economist of Bank of China International Holdings; Bai Chong’en, professor and chair of the Department of Economics at Tsinghua University; and Li Xiaoxi, director of Beijing Normal University’s Institute of Economic and Resource Management.
Yes, China manipulates its currency. Arguably, so do Singapore, Argentina, Saudi Arabia and any nation that either pegs its currency, maintains a tight trading band or oversees a “managed float” system. Even Hong Kong, routinely ranked as the world’s freest economy by the Heritage Foundation, manipulates its currency. It has to maintain its link to the U.S. dollar.
As a result of cheap money from Asia, " In America savings fell from around 10% of disposable income in the 1970s to 1% after 2005."...All four of the debtor countries in the chart enjoyed housing booms.
China's economy now is so closely intertwined with the U.S.'s that major, abrupt changes are unlikely. The U.S.-China economic relationship has become arguably the world's most important. China has been recycling its vast export earnings by financing the U.S. deficit through buying Treasurys, helping to keep U.S. interest rates low and give American consumers more spending power to buy Chinese exports. China now has roughly $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, and has continued to buy U.S. government debt -- surpassing Japan in September as the biggest foreign holder of Treasurys, by one official U.S. measure. China must continue to recycle its trade surplus if it doesn't want its currency to appreciate too quickly.
Currency devaluations (beggar thy neighbor)...
Since the credit crisis began...
which forces just the US / JPN to appreciate...if all others depreciate (or are undervalued)
examples....
1. Switzerland:
see forum posting: "what is going on in Switzerland? They are defending their currency by fighting appreciation....but, as they fight to keep their currency undervalued...that just puts additional pressure on USD ...and on JPN yen...and, if emerging eastern europe needs to fall vs. Swiss Franc (as they unwind their own carry trade)...doesnt this just push eastern europe further down vs. Dollar / YEN...if the Swiss Franc isnt allowed to appreciate? Wont this just hurt Eastern Europe?
Michael Pettis of Peking University laid out the argument in the Financial Times on December 14 2008. Professor Pettis sees the world as divided into two economic camps: in one are countries with elastic systems of consumer finance and high consumption; in the other are countries with high savings and investment. The US is the most important example of the former. China is the most significant example of the latter. Spain, the UK and Australia were mini versions of the US; Germany and Japan are mature versions of contemporary China.
China: A managed exchange rate, huge accumulations of foreign currency reserves and sterilisation of their monetary consequences, tight fiscal discipline and high retained earnings of companies have generated national savings rates of well over 50 per cent of gross domestic product and current account surpluses of more than 10 per cent. Household savings appear to generate less than a third of total savings. In turn, investment has poured into expanding supply, including of exports: the ratio of China’s exports to GDP rose from 38 per cent of GDP at the beginning of 2002 to 67 per cent in 2007 (see chart).
We are looking for help... this is a community page for open discussion about global trends.
My goal with the site is to create a community where investors and global business leaders can learn, collaborate, gain reputation by contributing content, and lead discussions. The reputation of leading a discussion on a particular topic should help to find financing, find new jobs, or find new business partners,etc..
GloboTrends is a blog network & wiki set up to discuss the important global trends in economics, finance and innovation. Our goal is to create an online forum for discussion about global trends in macro economics, trade, finance, and innovation.
In addition, we have recently been discussing with Emerginvest to syndicate content from Globotrends to their site.
Community:
Join GloboTrends
200+ people have now joined the Facebook (100+) and LinkedIn (100+) GloboTrends groups. In each group site, readers can register for free, complete a profile, join or start discussions, post or read articles, and link up with other professionals for mutual opportunities. Click the logos below to join our groups today!.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.