ExRussian

This is a guest contribution by Marshall Auerback, Braintruster at the New Deal 2.0

by Marshall Auerback

A new book by Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart, “This Time It’s Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Follies”, has occasioned much comment in the press and blogosphere (see here and here)

The book purports to show that once the gross debt to GDP ratio crosses the threshold of 90%, economic growth slows dramatically.

But that’s too simplistic: a ratio is just a number. Debt to GDP is a ratio and the ratio value is a function of both the numerator and denominator. The ratio can rise as a function of either an increase in debt or a decrease in GDP. So to blindly take a number, say, 90% debt to GDP as Rogoff and Reinhart have done in their recent work, is unduly simplistic. It appears that they looked at the ratio, assumed that its rise was due to an increase in debt, and then looked at GDP growth from that period forward assuming that weakness was caused by debt instead of that the rise in the ratio was caused by economic weakness. In other words, they have the causation backwards: Deficits go up as growth slows due to the automatic countercyclical stabilizers.They don’t cause the slow down, etc.

After the Second World War, the debt ratio came down rather rapidly—mostly not due to budget surpluses and debt retirement but rather due to rapid growth that raised the denominator of the debt ratio. By contrast, slower economic growth post 1973, accompanied by budget deficits, led to slow growth of the debt ratio until the Clinton boom (that saw growth return nearly to golden age rates) and budget surpluses lowered the ratio.

From 1991 through 2001 the growth of government debt had been falling and since then rising most recently at a faster pace. The raw data comes courtesy of the St. Louis Fed (and attached spreadsheet).

The Ratio of the rates of change of Debt / GDP is rising faster than the change in Debt indicating that both the increase in Debt and the fall in GDP are contributing to a rising Debt / GDP ratio. For policy makers who obsess about a rising Debt / GDP ratio, they fail to understand that austerity measures that cut GDP growth will cause a rise in the Debt to GDP ratio. Basically, it boils down to this simple observation: it is foolish, dangerous, and thoroughly counterproductive to treat fiscal balances in isolation. In particular, setting a fiscal deficit to GDP target equal to expected long run real GDP growth in order to hold public debt/GDP ratios at a completely arbitrary (indeed, literally pulled out of thin air) public debt to GDP ratio without for a moment considering what the means for the feasible range of current account and domestic private sector financial balance is utterly nonsensensical.

It is crucial that investors and policy makers recognize and learn to think coherently about the connectedness of the financial balances before they demand what is being currently called fiscal sustainability. As it turns out, pursuing fiscal sustainability as it is currently defined will in all likelihood just lead many nations to further private sector debt destabilization. To put it bluntly, if the private sector continues to pursue a high net saving/financial surplus position while fiscal retrenchment is attempted, unless some other bloc of nations becomes large net importers (and the BRICs are surely not there yet), nominal GDP will fall in the fiscally “sound” nations, the designated fiscal deficit targets WILL NEVER BE ACHIEVED (there can also be a paradox of public thrift), and private debt distress will simply escalate.

In fact, if austerity measures are based on measures of debt relative to economic growth there is a very real risk of a downward spiral where economic growth declines at a faster pace than government debt and the rising Debt / GDP ratio leads to ever greater austerity measures. At a minimum, focusing only on the debt side of the equation risks increasing the Debt / GDP ratio that is the object of purported concern is likely to lead to policy incoherence and HIGHER levels of debt as GDP plunges. The solution is to recognize that the increase in the ratio is in some fair measure the result of declining economic growth and that only by increasing economic growth will the ratio be brought down. This may cause an initial rise in the ratio because of debt financing of fiscal stimulus but if positive economic growth is achieved the problem should be temporary. The alternative is to risk a debt deflationary spiral that will be much more difficult (and costly) to reverse.

Yesterday I argued that Latvia’s cost-cutting efforts are evident compared to a cross-section of European Union countries. Latvia’s efforts, while commendable, were very much a function of the emergency IMF loan in December 2008 and the ensuing recession in 2009.

After an email exchange with Marshall Auerback, and thinking more about the cross-section of Europe, I now see a very scary trend emerging across Europe: the fight for exports.

To be sure, Latvia’s efforts are of note, as the acceleration in hourly labor costs dropped from a 22% pace spanning 2007-2008 to just 2.8% in the first three quarters of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008 (the Eurostat data are truncated at Q3 2009).

But look at the similar wage-cutting behavior occurring across the European Union, especially in the Eurozone hopefuls (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are preparing to adopt the euro in coming years).

The battle for exports has begun. Compared to the same period in 2008, Q1-Q3 2009 annual hourly labor costs growth are down 4.9% in Lithuania, 0.8% in the U.K., and 0.5% in Estonia. In fact, every country across the 26 countries listed except Belgium, Germany, Greece, and Spain, saw the rate of hourly wage growth decrease since 2008. The currency is pegged, so the only mechanism to increase external competitiveness is through price (wages) declines. To be sure, this growth model cannot work for the Eurozone as a whole.

Latvia’s model: drop wages to increase export income. Greece: drop wages to increase export income. France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, etc., etc. It’s impossible that the whole of the Eurozone will drop wages to increase export income. It’s especially bad for countries like Latvia or Hungary, where the lion’s-share of trade occurs withing the boundaries of Europe.

And what happens when export income does not provide the impetus for aggregate demand growth? Well, there’s not much left. Can’t devalue the currency (via printing money), and tax revenues will fall faster than a ten-pound weight: rising deficits; rising debt; rising debt service (via surging credit spreads). Sovereign default seems like a near-certainty somewhere in the Eurozone!

Rebecca Wilder

Latvia recently reported a 12% decline in average wages in Q4 2009 compared to Q4 2008. I was referred to A Fistful of Euros blog, specifically Edward Hugh’s points, regarding the economic implications of this decline (later, Morten Hansen followed up).

Edward Hugh asserts that Latvia’s progress in raising competitiveness via wage cuts is little indeed. The lat is pegged to the euro, and the economy is in deep recession so work hours are falling. Therefore, the proper measure of competitiveness is hourly wage growth measured in euros. And by this measure, the headline 12% drop measured overstates the nature of Latvia’s competitiveness.

I disagree. In order to address relative wage shifts, one must analyze a cross-section of wage data across the European Union rather than that of Latvia alone. And in that respect, Q3 labor costs – hourly labor costs measured in euros – fell at quicker pace than most of the EU countries. Furthermore, the annual trend illustrates much progress in 2009 compared to 2008.

The chart below illustrates the Q3 quarterly growth rate of hourly labor costs across 24 EU countries for which Q3 data is currently available. Latvia’s hourly labor costs are worth note, -6.8% over the quarter, or -2.7% over the year.

Although Latvia it is in good company – hourly labor costs declined in 13 of the 24 EU countries – it did see the fourth biggest drop. And compared to to Greece, +4.9% Q/Q, Latvia’s efforts certainly stand out.

But Latvia’s wage-cutting efforts are not limited to Q3 2009.

The chart above illustrates the growth of hourly labor costs in the first three quarters of 2009 over the same period in 2008 (red) compared to the 2008 annual growth rate (blue), sorted by the 2009 rates. Although Latvia’s labor cost cutting efforts are mainly a Q3 story, hourly labor costs have dropped from growing at a 22% annual pace in 2008 to just a 2.8% clip in 2009 (to date).

Latvia’s progress has been significant, but the Eurostat data is only 3/4 of the 2009 story. Latvia has released average (gross) wage growth through Q4 in lats, another -3.5% over the quarter.

Latvia’s relative economic importance in the European Union pales to that of even Greece, 2007-2008 average 0.9% and 1.9% of EU GDP, respectively. However, compared to key EU sovereigns, Latvia is taking the necessary steps toward improving its export contribution to growth. But more is needed, since exports barely crossed over the 0% threshold into positive Y/Y growth territory in December 2009, +4.4%.

Note: You can follow the IMF updates on Latvia’s progress here.

Rebecca Wilder

This is a guest contribution by Marshall Auerback, Braintruster at the New Deal 2.0

By Marshall Auerback

My colleague, ExRussian, recently concluded a “Tale of Two Recoveries: Malaysia vs Germany“ which brought back memories of my own time in the Far East and some of the advisory work I did for the government of Malaysia during the financial crisis of 1997/98.

Before the historical revisionists get hold of this period, it is important to note that Malaysia’s initial response to the crisis was a textbook illustration of how to exacerbate, not alleviate, a financial crisis. Of course, it was a consequence of taking stupid and economically ruinous advice from the International Monetary Fund, which is to economic development what John Meriwether is to asset management. If anybody had any doubts, those of us who observed the crisis first hand realized that the IMF and the so-called “Committee to Save the World” were more interested in saving the first-world banks who were exposed than caring about the local citizens who were scorched by harsh austerity programs. Same old, same old.
It was only when the Deputy PM/Finance Minister was ousted from the Cabinet and his pro-IMF policies completely repudiated, that Malaysia’s economy began its long road back to successful recovery.

There is little question that former PM Mahathir Mohammed was a political thug, but not an economic illiterate. But his sacking of Anwar from the Cabinet and decision to press ludicrous sodomy and abuse of power charges against his former heir apparent foolishly undermined his economic legacy. It is certainly wrong, however, to criticise his response to the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98. Vindicated now with the benefit of hindsight, at the time his embrace of exchange controls, and a 180-degree reversal away from the policies of austerity advocated by the Fund, were viewed as dangerously anti-free market, destined to render Malaysia an investment pariah.

Before the temporary triumph of the so-called “Washington consensus” school of economics in the late 1990s, the so-called “interventionist” East Asian alliance model of capitalism was highly lauded by institutions such as the World Bank and even the IMF itself. A common thread characterizing the economic development of countries such as Thailand, Korea, Singapore, and, yes, Malaysia, were policies which transferred resources away from “unproductive” toward “productive” uses—often in the form of transfers from unproductive groups to productive groups and sometimes in the form of policies to convert unproductive groups into productive ones. Creating “rents” (above normal market returns) by “distorting” markets through industrial policies was essential, first, to induce more-than-free-market investment in activities that the government deemed important for the economy’s transformation, and second, to sustain a political coalition in support of these policies. Disciplining rent-seeking so that it remained consistent with these two objectives was also essential.

It was precisely this model that came under such sustained attack during the late 1990s. Then Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, his Deputy, Lawrence Summers, and their lieutenants saw the crisis as the perfect opportunity to destroy this model once and for all, and to do this, they wanted the International Monetary Fund to impose conditions on the economies of emerging Asia that went far beyond the Fund’s traditional boundaries. Thus the U.S. Treasury kept steady pressure on Fund officials to extract more and more concessions from South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia including instant resolution of all trade related issues in favor of the United States. The exasperated Asians were soon accusing the IMF of always raising new issues at the behest of the United States—something that the Fund officials readily acknowledged later.

Foremost in the minds of Treasury officials was also the interest of Wall Street, especially American financial services firms. These biases were manifested in the types of IMF conditions imposed on the emerging Asian economies during the height of the crisis, which clearly served the brokerage firms on Wall Street far better than the needs of emerging Asia.

In the early 1990s the economies at the core of the world economy (the U.S., “Euroland,” Japan), began to generate hugely excessive liquidity. In the early 1990s, mutual funds, pension funds, other institutional investors, hedge funds and—last but not least—banks became awash with deposits. They scoured the world for high returns. Investment houses like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley sought the business of arranging the privatizations, securities placements, mergers, and acquisitions that surged on the wave of liquidity—business that became their main growth area. As a consequence, financial capital poured in to “emerging markets” (middle-income countries of recent interest to institutional investors).

Capital flows to developing nations in Asia and Latin America jumped from about $50bn a year before the end of the Cold War to about $300bn a year by the mid-1990s. From 1992-96, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines were all experiencing money and credit growth rates of between 25-30 per cent a year. Emerging market stock markets boomed, nearly doubling their share of world capitalization between 1990 and 1993.

Proponents of capital liberalization justified these inflows on the grounds of (a) maximizing the efficiency of capital worldwide, (b) allowing a specific country to invest more than could be financed from its own savings, (c) bringing modern financial institutions into the country, and (d) deepening the liquidity of the country’s financial system and lengthening investor horizons, thereby making markets more efficient and more stable. In the end the case for free capital flows came down to the classic theory of comparative advantage, as though trade in dollars was essentially similar to trade in widgets.

In reality, however, the funds went into increasingly marginal and speculative developments and simply exacerbated an underlying credit bubble. Although they did not speak out at the time, a number of prominent economists and financiers have since pointed out the dangers of such “gypsy capital”. Joseph Stiglitz, for example, argued that the origins of the Asian financial crisis rested, in the first place, with the excessively rapid financial and capital market liberalization that the U.S. Treasury had pushed on these economies, on behalf of Wall Street, and over the protests of the Council of Economic Advisors, of which he was the chairman. “At the Council of Economic Advisors we weren’t convinced that South Korean liberalization was a matter of U.S. national interest, though obviously it would help the special interests of Wall Street” (Globalization and Its Discontents, New York: W. W. Norton, 2002, p. 102).

Similarly, Jagdish Bhagwati, one of free trade’s most passionate supporters for developing nations, argued that the idea of free trade had been “hijacked by the proponents of capital mobility”.

The end result of this drive to liberalise capital accounts in immature emerging economies was a series of booms and busts, culminating in financial crisis. Capital flows into emerging markets turn out to be less a diversification of assets, more another instance of “investment herding”, especially within regions, where market allocation was propelled less by differences between countries in their “fundamentals” (including “good” or “bad” policy) than by “push factors”—macro push factors like the amount of excess liquidity in different parts of the core zone of the world economy; and micro push factors like the incentives on institutional money managers and the corresponding drive to match the “benchmark weightings” devised by pension fund consultants, many of knew nothing of the various underlying markets. Money managers tend to be evaluated relative to the median performance of money managers in the same asset class. This encourages them to move in and out of markets together, producing “herding” or “trend chasing” or “positive feedback trading” and the crisis of 1997/98 was a textbook illustration of that phenomenon.

Malaysia was heading down this road in 1997. The currency, the ringgit, was collapsing, as the contagion effects from Thailand, Korea and Indonesia gradually extended into the country. Although Anwar had not placed the country under a formal imf program, he had been following the imf recipe: to forestall capital flight, fiscal policy was tightened and interest rates were hiked in order to protect the external value of the currency.

Based largely on their experience in Latin America, the Fund had already imposed directly these measures on Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea. The problem, however, is that whereas fiscal deficits have tended to be large and inflation chronic in Latin America, in the economies of emerging Asia, budgets had long been roughly in balance. In addition, as the Funds’ economists were unschooled in the links between macro conditions and corporate balance sheets, they failed to perceive the danger of high real interest rates in economies with high debt/equity ratios and low inflationary expectations. High real interest rates have deflationary and crisis-signalling consequences that prompt capital outflows regardless of the attractions of the high rates themselves.

Which is precisely what began to occur in Malaysia. The Malaysian economy experienced a contraction of credit growth from 30 percent in 1997 to minus 5 percent in 1998, reflecting a massive pullback of bank loans. The ringgit plunged, as capital outflows accelerated. A real estate collapse loomed.

Ultimately, seeing the failure in these policies, Prime Minister Mahathir sacked Anwar, and re-imposed capital controls to insulate his economy from the deleterious consequences of rapid hot money outflows. (The trumped-up political charges, which led to the latter’s imprisonment, only came later.) Monetary and fiscal policy became expansionary, the ringgit was pegged to the US dollar, and crisis credit conditions began to diminish as domestic rates were reduced drastically. Although Western finance ministries and institutional investors protested apocalyptically and predicted that Malaysia would remain beyond the pale of the investment world for the foreseeable future, six months later even The Economist, one of the IMF’s great apologists, was forced to acknowledge that the embrace of capital controls had done “short-term wonders” in assisting recovery.

This is all old history. But it is worthwhile recalling the actions of the Fund in the context of what it is advising countries like Iceland and Latvia to do today. Or when considering the hair shirt economics which seems to be championed by Germany’s economic elites.

Here’s a piece that I wrote on Angry Bear.

Turkey’s on my mind. Let me sum up my point – that the outlook for the Turkish economy hangs very much in the balance – from the following news excerpts.

From the Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review on February 8 :

the Legislation for the [fiscal] rule, which will limit the size of the budget deficit as a proportion of gross domestic product, will be submitted to Parliament in the next few months, Babacan said. The government has announced a formula setting the framework for annual budget preparations. Elements in the formula, such as the target level of the deficit and variables that define the speed at which the country will reach its target for the debt stock, have not been set.

From BusinessWeek, via Bloomberg, on February 19:

S&P lifted the country’s sovereign credit rating to BB with a positive outlook, two levels below investment grade, from BB-, according to an e-mailed statement today. Reductions in government debt and a “solid” banking system were cited as two of the reasons for lifting the rating. “The upgrade reflects our view of the Turkish government’s improving economic policy flexibility as a result of its strong track record in steadily reducing the debt burden,” said S&P analysts including Frank Gill in London.

And then from the Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review on March 1:

A constitutional reform package is at the center of Turkey’s ruling party’s attention after the recent crisis between the judiciary and the government. With a long list of to-do items, the ruling party is likely to seek consensus from opposition parties first before presenting its suggestions to Parliament and may have to barter for progress

The AKP (majority party) made a 180-degree turn from tackling economic reform in a country with twin deficits to potentially very contentious constitutional reform. (IHS Global Insight, subscription required, forecasts Turkey’s current account deficit to be 3.3% of GDP in 2010 and the fiscal deficit to be 5.1% of GDP). Constitutional reform is difficult and necessary, given that the current version was imposed after the 1980 military coup. However, it does put the economic recovery at risk.

Confidence, and thus the recovery, is on the line. Currently, Turkey has the highest misery index across 16 O.E.C.D. countries selected by yours truly.

Turkey’s misery index was 18.6% in November 2009: 13.1% unemployment plus 5.5% inflation. Inflation has since risen to 8.2% in January, so the misery index likely worsened. (It wouldn’t be too crazy to claim that Turkey’s misery index is setting world records, but I did not construct indexes for the world.)

Rising misery drags consumer confidence, and thus demand, with near-certainty. I don’t think that it’s a stretch to expect recent political volatility to drag the consumer confidence even further.

Misery and waning consumer confidence has already driven a wedge between demand and supply (industrial productions), suggesting that recent gains in the production sector are most likely unsustainable.

But business confidence is also on the line. Emre Deliveli (please see his blog for updates on Turkey) points me to the survey results of the American Business Forum in Turkey. An excerpt from the 2009 report:

65% of US company executives are concerned about receiving fair treatment when bidding on government contracts and find commercial courts to be unresponsive to the needs of business. The transparency and efficiency of decision-making in the public sector remains a key concern as in previous years. High electricity costs are a negative factor, and personal and corporate income taxes are considered to be complicated and not competitive with other countries. There are also concerns regarding credit costs and financing opportunities. Only 30% of executives find that there is adequate protection of intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks and copyrights.

It’s obvious that reform is necessary. But whether or not constitutional reform leads to productive microeconomic reform is a serious question, in my view. One thing is for certain: if constitutional reform supplants economic reform over the near-term, the economic prospects are less sanguine. In fact, the medium-term fiscal metrics are at risk as well.

Rebecca Wilder

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is making tough decisions right now. Its mandate, “to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates”, is a seriously tall order given current economic conditions.

The unemployment rate sits at 9.7%, while prices have bounced back to 2.6% Y/Y in January. On the surface of it, inflation appears to be gaining some traction; but the big numbers are representative of base effects, and that is really all. The drag on prices remains very real.

But there is one little kink in the headline figures of unemployment that complicates an already complicated task: extended unemployment insurance. From the FOMC’s Jan. 26-27 minutes:

Though participants agreed there was considerable slack in resource utilization, their judgments about the degree of slack varied. The several extensions of emergency unemployment insurance benefits appeared to have raised the measured unemployment rate, relative to levels recorded in past downturns, by encouraging some who have lost their jobs to remain in the labor force. If that effect were large–some estimates suggested it could account for 1 percentage point or more of the increase in the unemployment rate during this recession–then the reported unemployment rate might be overstating the amount of slack in resource utilization relative to past periods of high unemployment.

Why would extended unemployment benefits increase the unemployment rate? In order to claim unemployment benefits, one must be “in the labor force”; and that means looking for work. Therefore, some workers who would otherwise be classified as “not in the labor force” remain in the work force as “unemployed”. Therefore, the current unemployment rate is elevated above the rate that would occur without the extended benefits. The Fed suggests this differential to be roughly 1% point.

I am in no way proposing that the extended benefits be rescinded; nor am I deluding myself into thinking that the labor market is anything short of awful. But Fed policy is calibrated to the non-inflation-generating level of the unemployment rate. And the current unemployment rate may be closer to the long-run level than the headline number suggests.

I have talked about this before (see this post) from another angle: the long-run level of unemployment may be a moving target right now, i.e., it’s likely rising. Therefore, if the long-run level of unemployment is rising and subsidies are masking the true level of the current unemployment rate, then we may very well get some inflation while the economy is still weak.

Of course, I do not believe that we are even near such a threshold level; but it does complicate an already complicated situation. A modified Taylor rule demonstrates the implications for policy.

The chart above illustrates the estimated Taylor Rule using the current unemployment rate (in blue line) versus one in which 1% point is shaved off the unemployment rate for every month since January 2008 (green line). The modified rule does suggest that the Fed policy rate is currently at (or now below) the prescribed rate.

Just some food for thought. Rebeca Wilder

This is expansionary monetary policy…

… this is expansionary monetary policy on drugs

Note: Japan’s M1 growth is labeled on the RHS, with range -1.5% to 1.5%.

Any questions?

I know, kind of corny; and I did grapple over which set of economies should be labeled “on drugs”, the BIICs or the Majors.

And BIICs is NOT a typo. I’m going with BIICs now – Brazil, Indonesia, India, and China. This is a modified version of Jim O’Neill’s famous cohort, the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), whose economies in $ terms are expected to jointly transcend the G6 by 2050. Russia’s been ousted for reasons that I will discuss at a later time.

Soon to come: Indonesia vs. Russia.

ExRussian

Today, North America saw the Q4 2009 GDP figures for Malaysia and Germany. In my view, the two releases accurately depict the developed vs. developing picture of economic recoveries: one is causing the other.

Malaysia’s real GDP, population 29,992,577 in 2008 according to the World Bank, grew 4.5% compared to the same period one year ago. The impetus behind headline number was domestic demand (GDP minus net exports), +3.9% Y/Y and external demand (exports), +7,3%.

The recovery in Malaysia is healthy. Domestic private consumption improved 1.7% Y/Y, while investment surged 8.2% over the same period (up from -7.9% in Q3).

The pace of contraction in German real GDP, population 82,140,043 according to the World Bank, slowed to -1.7% Y/Y from -4.7% Y/Y in Q3. On the surface, the trend is sound: the annual economic deterioration is slowing markedly. But below the hood, the true nature of the beast is present: only external demand and government spending are stabilizing GDP.

The growth rate in domestic demand is essentially moving laterally; it fell to -2.8% Y/Y from -1.6% Y/Y in Q3, and is now essentially unchanged from Q2 (-2.7% Y/Y) . Pockets here and there are improving – the decline in imports and machinery slowed somewhat; spending on machinery jumped 3 points to -18% Y/Y in Q4 (this is not much of an improvement).

Is this a country-level illustration of the world growth schism? Are Emerging Markets providing the impetus growth for all? I think so.

Rebecca Wilder

An article I wrote on Angry Bear:

Forget the Eurozone for just a minute. Japan’s problems are big: Toyota is a major exporter/employer. Last year 48% of all new standard passenger vehicles sold in Japan were Toyota (or its Lexus brand). The WSJ article describes Toyota’s status in Japan as the following:

In short, Toyota is to Japan what General Motors Corp., in its heyday, was to America. And for a beleaguered country that has suffered a series of institutional blows in recent months—the collapse of the long-ruling political party, the bankruptcy of its champion national airline, a renewed bout of deflation— the global humiliation of Toyota may be the most psychologically damaging blow of all.

Psychological blow, what about an explicit economic blow! Toyota is certain to drag the only Asian G7 economy down due since auto exports are big in aggregate export income.

Japan’s single largest export category in December was, of course, manufacturing: 22% of total exports. And a huge 14% of the total value of exports in December came from motor vehicles (auto sales, that is – separate from parts).

The Japanese economy grew 1.14% in Q4 2009 with a huge 0.67% contribution from exports. The second major contributor was private consumption, which added 0.39%. Going forward, consumption and export contributions are likely to wane from the major Toyota recall campaign that is underway.

First the direct export channel will probably crumble as demand for Toyota cars derails. Second, there will be a lagged labor market effect. Sure, workers will be needed to address the recalls; but the the loss in hours stemming from a drop is sales is likely to be much larger, and the net jobs effect negative.

Toyota is a major employer in Japan that currently has 320,808 employees and has already shuttered doors (at least temporarily) in other countries. It’s only a matter of time before the effect hits the home labor market.

This is big. I wouldn’t be surprised if the IMF downgraded their forecast of Japan based solely on Toyota’s misstep.

ExRussian

Beginning of the year economic blues in the US? I think so. Just looking over Spencer’s CPI post; here is an excerpt (the first paragraph):

The CPI report was encouraging. The total CPI rose 0.2% and the year over year increase is only 2.6%. Although real average hourly earnings fell, real weekly earnings were unchanged.

The core CPI actually fell for the first time since 1982, bring the year over year change in the core CPI to 1.6%. The 6 month SAAR for the core CPI is 0.8%. Despite all the worries about inflation the normal pattern is for the best cyclical reading on the core CPI to occur in the first year or two after a recession. If the economy follows the normal pattern, the core CPI should continue to moderate for another year or two.

My first thought is that I don’t think that this is encouraging at all; and I’m not alone. Core prices fell; these prices are typically very, very sticky. For example, shelter prices are biased upwards in their calculations, but have been declining or unchanged for every month since August 2009. I know that the output gap is not directly observed, except by proxy in the capacity utilization numbers or the unemployment rate; but it must be huge to do this to housing costs.

Look at it differently: the velocity of money improved in October and November of 2009…

… but then took a step back in December of 2009. If this trend continues, non-energy prices are sure to back down much further. There’s just no support for price action at this time – the Fed can’t pull back… it probably should be putting more in.

Rebecca Wilder

Note on data: Macroeconomic Advisers now publishes a blog where they make available their calculated monthly GDP series (nominal and real) to the public (thank you).