Commodity correction looming, emerging markets tethered to the western slowdown

Expect a significant correction in commodity prices by year-end, warns Sailesh Jha, MD, Asia macro strategy & sales at Jefferies. He speaks to CNBC's Karen Tso and Sri Jegarajah about why a moderation in resource prices is not a bad thing.

On similar themes, Paul McCauley of Pimco wrote yesterday:

“As strong as many of the emerging markets are, they are still tethered to the developed markets by strong global trade linkages. A greater-than-expected fall in developed countries’ current account deficits, notably in the U.S., would be a daunting challenge for the emerging market sector.”

And as for China decoupling from the west and pulling the world economy forward, McCauley reminds us of reality:

“Policy efforts to limit overheating and asset price bubbles in China have proven mostly effective, though that is no guarantee of future success. Public investment in infrastructure is key to driving China’s growth, but over the longer term, income must be shifted from state-owned enterprises to the household sectors: Wages need to rise more in line with the nation’s productivity growth. Social safety nets need to be dramatically enhanced to reduce households’ need to self-insure via super-high savings rates. China has both the ability and the will to pursue these developments over the longer term. That said, over the cyclical horizon, China’s path is unlikely to sufficiently fill the hole in global aggregate demand. “

Posted in Main Page | 1 Comment

On banksters, the TARP farce, and key "meltdown" players still in our financial sector

Professor Bill Black discusses steps to clean out key players who aided and abetted our financial crisis and are still in charge today:

James Galbraith discusses the end of TARP and how the big banks turned capitalism against America:

The CBC has also been running a good series of segments called “Meltdown” on widespread fraud in the global financial sector.
You can watch the clips to date here. (Hat tip Michael F)
It would be delightful to move forward from a focus on this dark sector, (as someone who has been aware and commenting on this for years now, I would love to, believe me) but moving forward would require us to admit, punish, and reform these players and institutions. So far they remain largely unscathed and most are still in charge and “advising” our governments on policy. Public outrage is apparently still not high enough to effect real change.

Posted in Main Page | 1 Comment

Hair of the dog…

Stocks are “soaring” today on news that the Bank of Japan cut its policy rate again from .10 (virtually zero) to 0 in another desperate effort to goose Japanese growth. If for 20 years you don't succeed….keep ramping up your government debt seems to be the play.
Meanwhile the US is signalling a similar path with ideas of Quantitative Easing 2 in the wings . QE 1 was ineffective in reviving the economy, so keep doing more of what hasn't worked, seems to be the plan.
Here is a good discussion of current themes with David Rosenberg on Bloomberg: US Economy may shrink in fourth quarter.

Posted in Main Page | 4 Comments