Monday, September 21, 2015

Central bankers competing in kicking the can. Will anyone win?

Is our Reserve Bank in a better position than the Federal Reserve in the US? Last week the Fed decided to hold interest rate at 0-0.25%, as at present. Our repo rate is at 7.25% which gives the RBI plenty of room to cut rates to stimulate the economy, if it wants to. The Fed is concerned about the strength of the dollar and the effect this has on exports from the US but unlike in the 1980s it cannot force a Plaza Accord on the UK, Japan and the Eurozone for a concerted action to weaken the dollar. In fact, those countries are doing just the opposite. Japan and the EU are actively buying bonds, which releases vast amounts of liquidity into the markets and weakens their currencies, and the Chief Economist to the Bank of England has warned that the UK may have to lower its interest rate from 0.5%, at present, maybe even to negative rates, which would mean that people would have to pay to keep money in banks instead of earning interest. Of course the US started it all by lowering interest rate and with 3 rounds of quantitative easing, injecting over $4 trillion into the economy. However, the damage was done even earlier when Alan Greenspan kept interest rate at low level for too long, resulting in the sub-prime crisis. This is called the 'Greenspan put', which was followed by the Bernanke put and now this one is called the Janet Yellen put. Yellen also referred to the weakness of the global economy which has been taken to mean China. Last month China devalued the yuan by 2%, which led to a sell off in currency markets, so that the central bank was forced to support the currency. The sell off was because markets expected further devaluation in the future, so capital moved out of China and inflows declined. But why is Yellen so worried about China? Is China's economy so huge that it will harm the US if it collapses, is she worried about sales of US companies suffering or is she worried that a stronger dollar will increase imports from China, making it wealthier and allow it to become stronger in defense? We do not know. The Chinese President will visit the US shortly and the US has accused China of cyber espionage. Will Obama be able to use the weakness of the Chinese economy and the threat of raising interest rate in his talks with Xi Jinping? Conspiracy theories are so spicy. Meanwhile, what of the US economy? If the Fed cannot raise rate even after 6 years does it mean that the US is going to collapse? Sub-prime buyers were a small portion of those who lost their homes in the housing crisis. Many have been predicting rising inflation, fall in share prices and fall in growth but these have not happened. It appears that no one really knows. Can they kick the can down the road indefinitely?

1 comment:

Anu Anoop said...

Great Stuff!