Friday, May 20, 2016

We have been told the problems, what is the solution?

The world seems to be locked into a cycle of low growth where the weakness of advanced economies, such as the US and Europe, reduces demand for the output of manufacturing economies, such as China, Japan and South Korea, who cut their import of commodities, hurting countries, such as Australia and Brazil. India is shining only because " In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king," according to the Governor of the Reserve Bank. His words caused a lot of commotion because they were deemed to be politically incorrect, when there is a growing demand to stop censoring movies and student rabble agitating for 'freedom of expression' to show solidarity with terrorists. Apparently, there are 3 narratives for global growth. One is that growth will remain weak for a prolonged period because advanced economies will take a long time to recover. The second view is that central banks will become increasing ineffective in stimulating growth and the third view is that financial markets will be volatile. Low growth is blamed for the popularity of anti-establishment candidates like Donald Trump in the US and Nerbert Hofer of the far right Freedom Party in Austria. British Prime Minister, David Cameron is desperately trying to keep Britain within Europe. The year started with huge volatility in stock markets around the world and there was fear of another recession. Long term low growth results in higher unemployment, long term unemployment results in loss of skills, which in turn, leads to lower growth. Central banks moved quickly to supply more liquidity to markets by slashing interest rates to negative which is supposed to force people to spend more and banks to lend more, by making it expensive to park extra funds with the central bank. Bond prices rose with investors willing to accept negative rates to keep their money safe. With so much cheap money in rich countries and borrowing costs at near zero emerging markets saw a flood of money looking for investment opportunities, resulting in overheating, inflation, asset-price bubbles and currency appreciation. Global value of real estate rose to $217 trillion in 2015, which is 3 times the value of the entire GDP of the world, Of this, 75% or $162 trillion is in residential properties. Raghuram Rajan has warned that unconventional monetary policies are becoming less effective, while costs are rising. As last ditch effort economists are seriously discussing the possibility of 'helicopter money', which was first proposed by Milton Friedman. The idea is to hand out wads of cash to people, presumably the poor, which will increase spending and thus stimulate the economy. India has been pursuing similar strategies for decades, as in MGNREGA, and cannot compete against other nations in tit-for-tat devaluation of currency to help exports, because India is one of the few countries where inflation is always a threat. We are doing very well at present. Hope this continues. 

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