| Bitter Feud at ECB over Monetary Policy; BOE to Expand Stimulus; Japan's Great Deflation; Will the US Follow? Posted: 17 Oct 2010 10:05 PM PDT Although there is a huge debate amongst Fed members regarding US monetary policy, especially the merits of Quantitative Easing, that debate can easily be described as relatively friendly discussion. Things are quite different in the EU where there is a bitter feud between ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet and Trichet's rumored replacement, Bundesbank President Axel Weber. Trichet Chastises Weber Regarding Who is the PresidentIn a public display of animosity, Trichet has let Weber know who is in charge. Please consider ECB's Trichet Rejects Weber's Call to End Bond Purchase ProgramEuropean Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet rejected Bundesbank President Axel Weber's call to end the bond purchase program that has provided a lifeline for European governments and banks trying to shore up their finances.
"This is not the position of the Governing Council, with an overwhelming majority," Trichet said when asked to respond to Weber's Oct. 13 call for an end to the program, according to the a transcript of an interview published yesterday in Italian newspaper La Stampa.
Weber, who also sits on the ECB's 22-member decision-making council, said the risk of "exiting too late" from the emergency measures was greater than pulling out too soon.
"Trichet is sending a clear signal to Weber," said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING Group NV in Brussels. "The majority seems to favor a safety belt option for the moment and isn't comfortable with sending conflicting signals to the markets."
Trichet also backed the possibility of extending in some form the European Union's temporary financial backstop for financially stressed nations. "This non-standard measure, like all other such measures, was designed to help restore a more normal functioning of our monetary policy transmission mechanism," Trichet said, according to the la Stampa interview.
Trichet also said that as ECB president he is the only one who speaks on behalf of the Governing Council. Weber, who opposed the bond purchases since their inception in May, is regarded by economists as a frontrunner to succeed Trichet when his non-renewable eight-year term expires in just over a year.
"There is only one single currency; there is one Governing Council, only one monetary policy decision, and one president, who is also the porte-parole of the Governing Council," he told La Stampa.
"Trichet's comments highlight that he is not pleased with the ongoing public criticism of some council members regarding the securities market program," said Juergen Michels, chief euro-area economist at Citigroup Inc. in London. "Trichet's comments highlight that the program will continue." Trichet a Monetarist PussycatIt is interesting to see Trichet continuing as the dove just as Bernanke is at the Fed. Trichet had an undeserved reputation as a central bank hawk. The reality is quite different as discussed earlier this year in Trichet, a Monetarist Pussycat at Heart, Throws ECB Rulebook Out the WindowCurrency ImplicationsUnlike Bernanke, Trichet is due to step down October 2011. Weber had widely been viewed as the leading candidate to replace Trichet. I wonder if that is still the case after this open feud. Implications regarding the valuation of the US dollar vs. the Euro are at stake. CEBR says Bank of England Will Expand StimulusAccording to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, the Bank of England will join the Fed's currency debasement strategy. Please consider BOE Will Expand Stimulus by 100 Billion Pounds, CEBR PredictsThe Bank of England will expand its stimulus program by 100 billion pounds ($160 billion) to aid the economic recovery, the Centre for Economics and Business Research said.
The central bank will also keep its benchmark interest rate at a record low of 0.5 percent until at least "late" 2012, the London-based group said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The bank kept its stimulus plan at 200 billion pounds this month.
Britain faces the largest public spending cuts since World War II as the government tackles the record budget deficit. The British Chambers of Commerce earlier this month backed a call by policy maker Adam Posen for the central bank to expand its bond stimulus plan as recent data indicate the recovery has slowed.
"We expect the authorities to push the monetary policy levers hard in the opposite direction to the fiscal policy levers," the CEBR said in the statement.
The CEBR's forecast for economic growth in the first three months of 2011 is 0.1 percent, which implies there is almost a 50 percent chance the economy will contract during the quarter, according to the report. Japan's Great DeflationThe New York Times reports Japan Goes From Dynamic to Disheartened. Here is a somewhat lengthy snip, but the article is a full 3 pages long. Few nations in recent history have seen such a striking reversal of economic fortune as Japan.
But the bubbles popped in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Japan fell into a slow but relentless decline that neither enormous budget deficits nor a flood of easy money has reversed. For nearly a generation now, the nation has been trapped in low growth and a corrosive downward spiral of prices, known as deflation, in the process shriveling from an economic Godzilla to little more than an afterthought in the global economy.
The downsizing of Japan's ambitions can be seen on the streets of Tokyo, where concrete "microhouses" have become popular among younger Japanese who cannot afford even the famously cramped housing of their parents, or lack the job security to take out a traditional multidecade loan.
These matchbox-size homes stand on plots of land barely large enough to park a sport utility vehicle, yet have three stories of closet-size bedrooms, suitcase-size closets and a tiny kitchen that properly belongs on a submarine.
In 1991, economists were predicting that Japan would overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2010. In fact, Japan's economy remains the same size it was then: a gross domestic product of $5.7 trillion at current exchange rates. During the same period, the United States economy doubled in size to $14.7 trillion, and this year China overtook Japan to become the world's No. 2 economy.
But perhaps the most noticeable impact here has been Japan's crisis of confidence. Just two decades ago, this was a vibrant nation filled with energy and ambition, proud to the point of arrogance and eager to create a new economic order in Asia based on the yen. Today, those high-flying ambitions have been shelved, replaced by weariness and fear of the future, and an almost stifling air of resignation. Japan seems to have pulled into a shell, content to accept its slow fade from the global stage.
As living standards in this still wealthy nation slowly erode, a new frugality is apparent among a generation of young Japanese, who have known nothing but economic stagnation and deflation. They refuse to buy big-ticket items like cars or televisions, and fewer choose to study abroad in America.
"A new common sense appears, in which consumers see it as irrational or even foolish to buy or borrow," said Kazuhisa Takemura, a professor at Waseda University in Tokyo who has studied the psychology of deflation. Demographic Pendulum in Motion"We're not Japan," said Robert E. Hall, a professor of economics at Stanford. "In America, the bet is still that we will somehow find ways to get people spending and investing again."Robert Hall, like most others, does not understand the deflationary impacts of the entire gamut of changing socioeconomic trends and attitudes. After 20+ years of deflation fighting tactics, Japan has nothing to show for its deflation fighting efforts but massive public debt. To be sure, one can point out that US demographics are more favorable than Japan's. However, US consumers have a much bigger and much more deflationary pile of leveraged debt on their balance sheets than do most Japanese families. Inflation Targeting MadnessNot only has Japan's two decades of failure shown the futility of fighting consumer attitudes, common sense alone would suggest that it is futile to fight changing social trends with monetary policy. Unfortunately that has not stopped the Fed with reckless proposals on top of reckless proposals. Please see Inflation Targeting Proposal an Exercise in Blazing Stupidity; Fed Fools Itself for further discussion. Will the US Follow?As I stated in June of 2008, we are now on the back side of peak consumption and Peak Credit. Regardless of what Bernanke of the Fed does, the demographic pendulum is in motion. There is no going back. Once attitudes hit extreme then reverse, there is nothing the Fed or anyone else can do about it. Thus, the question is not whether the US will follow the footsteps of Japan, the question is whether the US or Japan blows up first from misguided central banks fighting a battle that cannot be won. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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| Reluctant Breadwinners, Downsized Housing; Demographic Pendulum in Motion Posted: 17 Oct 2010 10:32 AM PDT Because of losses in construction and manufacturing, unemployment has taken its toll on more men than women. Please consider More Wives Head for Work Angela Patterson is working as an insurance agent in New York while her husband looks for construction jobs in North Carolina. Diana Gomez had been staying home to care for an ill daughter. When her husband lost his job, she became an administrative assistant in a dentist's office. Michelle, a social worker and mother of three young children in Baltimore, who asked that her last name not be used, switched from part-time to full-time work when her husband was laid off last year. She kept to that schedule after he found work earlier this year—at two-thirds his former salary.
They are the reluctant breadwinners: Women who wanted to stay home until their income suddenly became critical to the well-being of their families. In some cases they are increasing their hours to keep the bills paid. Others are taking up employment for the first time as their husbands struggle to find work. With the anemic recovery keeping the job outlook uncertain, the accelerated gender shift is likely to stick, creating new challenges for U.S. families.
In a study published this September in the journal Family Relations, researchers Marybeth J. Mattingly and Kristin E. Smith of the University of New Hampshire found that wives were more likely to enter the job market or increase their hours when their husbands were out of work between May 2007 and May 2008 than when their husbands were out of work amid prosperity four years earlier. These women were also three times more likely to enter the labor force than women whose husbands were working and 51 percent more likely to increase their hours. Smith says difficult times may push women to take jobs they wouldn't consider when the economy is strong. "They have to work," she says. "As families lose their primary breadwinner, they're making ends meet with a lower-earning spouse."
By now, the impact of the recession on the American male is well chronicled: Men accounted for more than 71 percent of the job losses as sectors like manufacturing and construction were crushed. Even when job losses spread to traditionally female-friendly areas like retail and education, women continued to fare better. The latest unemployment figures stand at 9.8 percent for men 20 or over and 8 percent for their female counterparts, with women making up 47 percent of the total labor force.
The recession has accelerated a trend that first became apparent years ago—wives entering the workforce to boost family earnings. The difference now is that what might have been viewed as optional income has become critical. As Manpower (MAN) Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey A. Joerres points out, "the reality is that Joe is not finding a job anytime soon." Daily Femme Chimes InAshleigh, writing for The Daily Femme takes issue with the story in her commentary Are we "reluctant breadwinners"?Am I the only one who feels like this is a decidedly outdated sentiment? Sure, there are plenty of women who would prefer to stay home and care for their families, and far be it from me to judge them. But the assertion that women going back to work will create "new challenges" seems a little stale. Women have been working outside the home for some time now, and any challenge (real or imagined) that this creates is certainly not new.
The Bloomberg article has a very "'50s" feel to it, alluding that many women are essentially being forced to work outside the home because they have no choice and that this spells disaster for American families. But it at least outlines one of the biggest issues of gender inequality in today's workforce: men continue to be paid more. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports women's median weekly earnings were 83 percent of men's in the second quarter of 2010. This gap persists despite the fact that women earn 60 percent of all bachelor's and master's degrees. The gap also reflects the fact that many of the sectors that attract women generally pay less than the sectors traditionally dominated by men.
This article has some legitimate information, but really the only question I had after reading it was, "why is this news?". Why should it be deemed breaking information that women are working to support their families? Changing Social Trends The Real StoryWhile admittedly the BusinessWeek story does have that "50's feel", Ashleigh misses the point. The point is families are being disrupted by changing social trends, whether the story has a "50's feel" or not. Here are some more examples of pertinent changing social trends. Student Debt Tens of thousands of students graduate from college each year without a job, deep in debt, and many of them are doubling up households or moving back home. This disrupts family formation with impacts on housing and demand for goods and services. Boomers did not graduate from college deep in debt. Tuition was $250 a semester when I started at the University of Illinois, and about $400 a semester the final semester. Walmart GreetersTake a look at the average age and sex of the greeters at Walmart. Are those people, mostly women, in those jobs because they want to, or because they have to? Jobs are so few that grandparents compete against their kids and grandkids for those jobs! If you were an employer, who would you hire to fill those positions: someone in their 30's or 40's raising a family in need of expensive health care coverage, or someone past retirement age on Medicare? That women dominate such jobs offers one of the reasons women make less. Another reason is some women have disrupted their careers to raise families. How many women engineers are there compared to men? Geologists? Physicians? Social Workers? Construction workers? Comparing degrees is not a valid way of determining whether or not women are underpaid relative to men. Deflationary Impact of TrendsAs boomers head towards retirement, and students deep in debt cannot find jobs that will allow them to quickly pay down that debt, all kinds of unfavorable demographic trends are playing out. Importantly, the downsizing of boomer lifestyles will put pressure on high end housing for a long time. Trends in HousingI was in North Carolina these past two week, staying in a beach house owned by a person on my blog who posts under the name "Black Swan". Thanks Swan! Swan developed and sold many properties on Topsail Island. I met another developer on the Island, and both of them are downsizing the sizes of the units they are building and intending to build. While not "breaking news", it certainly is another piece of the puzzle. Smaller homes means less lumber, less granite, less drywall, less bathrooms, less furniture, less everything. Needs of Downsizing Boomers Aging boomers will be dependent on their children to look after them, yet the children do not really want their parents moving back in. Taking those factors into consideration, "Black Swan" has plans to put two smaller homes on one parcel, say a 1200-1500 square foot home as well as separate 500 square foot home on the same lot. Demographic Pendulum in MotionFew understand the deflationary impacts of the entire gamut of trends that is playing out, or the stress these trends place on families. It is futile to fight changing social trends, but that has not stopped the Fed with reckless proposals on top of reckless proposals. Please see Inflation Targeting Proposal an Exercise in Blazing Stupidity; Fed Fools Itself for more details. As I stated in June of 2008, we are now on the back side of peak consumption and Peak Credit. Regardless of what Bernanke of the Fed does, the demographic pendulum is in motion. There is no going back. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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| Smoking Gun: New Evidence of How Wall Street Shafted Pension Funds by Misrepresenting Mortgages; Rep Miller Calls for Full Audit of Fannie Mae Posted: 16 Oct 2010 11:55 PM PDT Josh Rosner, who heads the research firm Graham Fisher, presents new proof that banks knew they were selling bad loans. The following video is as discussion between Rosner and Elliot Spitzer about the smoking gun and what to do about it. It's well worth a listen. Partial Transcript of " Inside Job" SPITZER: What I would be doing right now would be to drop a subpoena on every investment bank saying, I want to track this information, these documents came from Clayton, the due diligence firm, see where in the company they went, who saw them, who knew about them, who had a conversation about them, and what did they do? And somebody who saw these documents, and as Josh said, saw that there was 29 percent noncompliance and still pushed these mortgages into the security, boom, charge them right there -- failure to apply the rigorous standards. Charge them, recover all the money. And this time, I would hope the ax comes done, no bailout, we claim every...
ROSNER: Eliot raised an interesting question: What if the trading desk saw the due diligence documents, knew that 29 percent didn't meet the underwriting standards, knew that those were sold as securities to investors and then with that knowledge traded against that by going short these securities.
SPITZER: Let me explain what you're saying, because this is such a huge point. At the hearings and in this movie, there is an outtake of Lloyd Blankfein saying, we traded against the very documents and very mortgages that we sold to the entire investment community, meaning we shorted them, we were betting on them going down, not up. If they did that when they had knowledge from these documents that they we're now talking about, that in fact they were going to blow up because 29 percent or more were not compliant, that is trading on inside information, could create critical liability. So again, the critical issue is who saw these documents, when, what did they do with that information? This is a swamp, a cesspool and somebody should be dropping 1,000 subpoenas right now on this.
ROSNER: And by the way, this information has been sort of floating around in the ether, in the public ether, in the law enforcement ether, for the past three years and there's been...
SPITZER: Why is the SEC not jumped all over this to see if these mortgages were safe and secure...
ROSNER: True. Very good question.
SPITZER: You know, I'm just flabbergasted when, you know, you called me a while back and you had seen about these things and we began to talk. This is, it seemed to me, the Holy Grail that explains and is the blueprint for unmasking how absolutely venal the behavior was inside these investment banks.
Dylan Ratigan ShowDemocratic congressman Brad Miller calls for an audit of all the loans at Fannie and Freddie to see if they were conforming to the standards necessary to get government backing. Partial TranscriptMILLER: There are $trillion of mortgage backed securities out there that are very much in doubt. The pension funds have been pushing for some time now to get information about whether the securitizer, the big banks that bought the mortgages and put them in pools, and sold the mortgage backed securities, whether the securitizer should have to buy back the mortgages for not meeting the contractual requirements.
If those banks have to buy back that stuff it's a big liability.
RATIGAN: Let's not kid ourselves, it's lights out.
MILLER: I've pushed the Obama administration to ... find out exactly what mortgages are in those pools that Fannie and Freddie on the securities for and figure out if they have the requirements. And if they don't, to push and make the banks buy them back so that we [taxpayers] don't get stuck. ... If you do not pursue the legal rights, it's another back door subsidy, back door bailout. If we have legal righst to reduce taxpayer exposure, we need to pursue it.
I pushed secretary Geithner, I pushed the Obama administration, and I plan to keep pushing. Miller also said another TARP will not happen, "not in this lifetime", and if banks have to take back enough mortgages the resolution authority will have to deal with it. I would sure like to see it come to that, but it won't. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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