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The Anatomy of the Coming Recession

The Anatomy of the Coming Recession

Unlike the 2008 global financial crisis, which was mostly a large negative aggregate demand shock, the next recession is likely to be caused by permanent negative supply shocks from the Sino-American trade and technology war. And trying to undo the damage through never-ending monetary and fiscal stimulus will not be an option.

NEW YORK – There are three negative supply shocks that could trigger a global recession by 2020. All of them reflect political factors affecting international relations, two involve China, and the United States is at the center of each. Moreover, none of them is amenable to the traditional tools of countercyclical macroeconomic policy.

The first potential shock stems from the Sino-American trade and currency war, which escalated earlier this month when US President Donald Trump’s administration threatened additional tariffs on Chinese exports, and formally labeled China a currency manipulator. The second concerns the slow-brewing cold war between the US and China over technology. In a rivalry that has all the hallmarks of a “Thucydides Trap,” China and America are vying for dominance over the industries of the future: artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, 5G, and so forth. The US has placed the Chinese telecom giant Huawei on an “entity list” reserved for foreign companies deemed to pose a national-security threat. And although Huawei has received temporary exemptions allowing it to continue using US components, the Trump administration this week announced that it was adding an additional 46 Huawei affiliates to the list.

The third major risk concerns oil supplies. Although oil prices have fallen in recent weeks, and a recession triggered by a trade, currency, and tech war would depress energy demand and drive prices lower, America’s confrontation with Iran could have the opposite effect. Should that conflict escalate into a military conflict, global oil prices could spike and bring on a recession, as happened during previous Middle East conflagrations in 1973, 1979, and 1990.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. Currency Wars With China—Past And Present

In a purely political move, the Trump administration (read: the U.S. Treasury) has branded China as a currency manipulator. This is an act of war. After President Trump announced that even more tariffs would be imposed on China, the markets took the value of the Chinese yuan down a notch or two. So, who was “manipulating” the yuan, Beijing or Washington? Well, it looks like Washington is engaging in yet another Asian currency war.

As it turns out, the United States has a long history of waging currency wars in Asia. We all know the sad case of Japan. The U.S. claimed that unfair Japanese trading practices were ballooning its bilateral trade deficit with Japan. To “correct” the so-called problem, the U.S. demanded that Japan adopt an ever-appreciating yen policy. The Japanese complied and the yen appreciated against the greenback from 360 in 1971 to 80 in 1995 (and 106, today). But, this didn’t close the U.S. trade deficit with Japan. Indeed, Japan’s contribution to the overall U.S. trade deficit reached almost 60% in 1991. And, if that wasn’t enough, the yen’s appreciation pushed Japan’s economy into a deflationary quagmire.

Today, the U.S. is playing the same baseless blame game with China. And why not? After all, China’s contribution to the overall U.S. trade deficit has surged to 47%.

America’s recent declaration of economic war against China isn’t the first time the U.S. has used currency as a weapon to destabilize the Middle Kingdom. In the early 1930s, China was still on the silver standard, and the United States was not. Accordingly, the Chinese yuan-U.S. dollar exchange rate was determined by the U.S. dollar price of silver.

During his first term, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered on his Chinese currency stabilization “plan.” It was wrapped in the guise of doing something to help U.S. silver producers and, of course, the Chinese.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Weekly Commentary: “Hot Money” Watch

Weekly Commentary: “Hot Money” Watch

In the People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC) Monday daily currency value “fixing,” the yuan/renminbi was set 0.33% weaker (vs. dollar) at 6.9225. Market reaction was immediate and intense. The Chinese currency quickly traded to 7.03 and then ended Monday’s disorderly session at an 11-year low 7.0602 (largest daily decline since August ’15). While still within the PBOC’s 2% trading band, it was a 1.56% decline for the day (offshore renminbi down 1.73%). A weaker-than-expected fix coupled with the lack of PBOC intervention (as the renminbi blew through the key 7.0 level) rattled already skittish global markets.  

Safe haven assets were bought aggressively. Gold surged $23, or 1.6%, Monday to $1,441, the high going back to 2013 (trading to all-time highs in Indian rupees, British pounds, Australian dollars and Canadian dollar). The Swiss franc gained 0.9%, and the Japanese yen increased 0.6%. Treasury yields sank a notable 14 bps to 1.71%, the low going back to October 2016. Intraday Monday, 10-year yields traded as much as 32 bps below three-month T-bills, “the most extreme yield-curve inversion” since 2007 (from Bloomberg). German bund yields declined another two bps to a then record low negative 0.52% (ending the week at negative 0.58%). Swiss 10-year yields fell two bps to negative 0.88% (ending the week at negative 0.98%). Australian yields dropped below 1.0% for the first time.  

It’s worth noting the Japanese yen traded Monday at the strongest level versus the dollar since the January 3rd market dislocation (that set the stage for the Powell’s January 4th “U-turn). “Risk off” saw EM currencies under liquidation – with the more vulnerable under notable selling pressure. The Brazilian real dropped 2.2%, the Colombian peso 2.1%, the Argentine peso 1.8%, the Indian rupee 1.6% and the South Korean won 1.4%. Crude fell 1.7% in Monday trading. Hong Kong’s China Financials Index dropped 2.5%, with the index down 4.4% for the week to the lowest level since January. European bank stocks dropped 4.1%, trading to the low since July 2016.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

4 Reasons To Expect Even More US-China Trade (And Currency) War Escalation

4 Reasons To Expect Even More US-China Trade (And Currency) War Escalation

As we noted earlier when summarizing some of the more notable Wall Street reactions to China’s jarring trade war escalation, we highlighted the take of Morgan Stanley’s chief US public policy strategist, Michael Zezas, who said that he saw incentives for the U.S. to escalate quickly. Specifically, referring to the now viral chart of the circular dynamic of Trump-Powell interaction…

… Zezas said that if the administration understands the Fed’s trade policy reaction function – which it clearly does after it unleashed a new round of tariffs less than 24 hours after the Fed’s rate cut which has the market now pricing 33% odds of 2 rate cuts in September (see more here) – then it may also perceive that a more rapid escalation could deliver one or more of three beneficial points ahead of the 2020 election:

  1. A quicker, potentially more aggressive Fed stimulus response that could help the economy heading into the election;
  2. More time to re-frame the potential economic downside; and
  3. A major concession by China (not our base case, but it is, of course, a possibility).”

“The dynamics of U.S.-China negotiation and macro conditions mean the next round of tariffs will likely be enacted, and investors are likely to behave as if further escalation will follow in 2019 until markets price in impacts,” Zezas wrote. “This supports our core view of weaker growth and skews the Fed dovish.”

Zezas also highlighted several key global trade risks amid the rising geopolitical uncertainty, which he expects to keep rising:

  • WTO Courts at risk
  • US/EU confrontation set to intensify
    • Nov 15th auto deadline
    • OECD negotiations
  • US/China resume escalation

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Currency War Begins: Chinese Yuan Crashes Past 7 To New Record Low; Global Markets Tumble After Beijing Suspends US Agri Imports

Currency War Begins: Chinese Yuan Crashes Past 7 To New Record Low; Global Markets Tumble After Beijing Suspends US Agri Imports

Update 3: The carnage from yuan volatility is starting to spread…

Chinese bond yields are tumbling…

Dow futures are down 300 points…

S&P futures below 2900…

UST yields are collapsing…

And the yield curve is cratering…

*  *  *

Update 2: – China’s central bank has confirmed that it is, indeed, on, saying that it is able to keep the yuan exchange rate at a reasonable and balanced level – whatever that means – while acknowledging that the Yuan plunging beyond 7 per dollar is due to market supply and demand, trade protectionism and expectations on additional tariffs on Chinese goods.

Meanwhile, resorting to its old, tired and worn out tricks, Dow Jones reports that the PBOC will crack down on short-term Yuan speculation, and anchor market expectations.

Which is great… if only the PBOC didn’t say exactly the same back in May, when it warned currenct traders that  those “shorting the yuan will inevitably suffer from a huge loss.

Three months later, it’s currency traders 1 – Beijing 0.

* * *

Update 1 – China is firing all the big guns tonight, because just an hour after Beijing effectively devalued the yuan, when it launched the latest currency war with the US, Bloomberg reported that the Chinese government has asked its state-owned enterprises “to suspend imports of U.S. agricultural products after President Donald Trump ratcheted up trade tensions with the Asian nation last week.”

China’s state-run agricultural firms have now stopped buying American farm goods, and are waiting to see how trade talks progress.

Translation: trade talks, even the fake kind, is now over, dead and buried, and the only question is how Trump will react.

* * *

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trade War With China Morphs Into Currency War: Biggest Loser is the EU

Those who think “trade wars are good and easy to win” need to stop and reflect on currency wars.

Trade Wars Easy to Win


When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!


Trump’s “logic” rests on the notion that China has a huge trade surplus and the US can hurt China more than China can hurt the US.

Such logic is seriously misguided.

  1. Trade is not a zero sum game. One does not gain by losing less. Losing is losing.
  2. Yes, Trump is correct that the US can place more tariffs on Chinese goods than China can place on US goods. However, Trump cannot ignore US farmers, but the unelected leaders in China can suppress all dissent.
  3. The US dollar floats, the Renmimbi (Yuan) doesn’t. Thus, China can manipulate it currency, albeit with risks of capital flight, to mitigate some or all of US tariffs.

Currency charts can be confusing. Sometimes up is down and sometimes down is up, It depends on which currency is fist. The lead chart shows a 7.4% decline in the yuan vs the US dollar since April 16.

Meanwhile the dollar index itself has advanced.

US Dollar Index

Relative to the overall US Dollar Index Weighting, the Yuan has effectively declined 13.8%.

Combined with China’s counter-tariffs on US goods, that relative decline effectively counteracts most, if not all, Trump’s tariffs.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

America Loses When The Trade War Becomes A Currency War

America Loses When The Trade War Becomes A Currency War

There has been a longstanding narrative in economic circles that no matter what crisis occurs the U.S. dollar is essentially invincible.  I have never been one to buy into this assumption.

Reason 1: Because I remember distinctly just before the derivatives and credit crisis in 2007/2008 the majority of mainstream economists were so certain that U.S. housing and debt markets were invincible, and they were terribly wrong. Whenever the mainstream financial media are confident of an outcome, expect the opposite to happen.

Reason 2: Because karma has a way of crushing grand illusions. When you proudly declare a Titanic “unsinkable,” nature or fate often tests that resolve and finds it wanting.

Reason 3: Because I understand that a primary goal of the internationalist, globalist, anti-sovereignty and New World Order crowd is to diminish U.S. economic performance dramatically, and this includes ending the reserve status and petro-status of the dollar in order to make way for a single global currency unit dictated by a single global economic administrator.

Mindless blind faith in the dollar (and U.S. treasury debt) seems to switch sides politically according to whose narrative it best suits. During the Obama administration, conservatives and Republicans witnessed unprecedented fiat currency creation and dollar devaluation by the Federal Reserve and rightly drew the conclusion that this would eventually trigger a currency crisis as various systems absorb and then regurgitate all these dollars back into the U.S. We saw the biggest foreign trading partners of the U.S. launching bilateral trade agreements that cut out the dollar as the reserve currency, and we witnessed many foreign creditors questioning the viability of U.S. debt.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Brazil Steps Up Intervention to Support the Real: Reflections on Currency Wars

Winning currency wars is easy. As with trade wars, one may not care for the end result.

Brazil’s central bank bolstered efforts to shore up the currency after it tumbled to the weakest level since former President Dilma Rousseff’s tumultuous impeachment in 2016.

The real has weakened 12 percent since the end of March, the worst performance among 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg, as investors grow concerned that October elections could usher in a new president less attuned to investors and business. Fear that moves seen as key to fixing fiscal problems would be derailed have exacerbated what’s already been a lackluster year in emerging markets. The real fell 0.9 percent to 3.7791 per dollar as of 11:55 a.m. in New York, and earlier reached 3.8056, the weakest since March 2016.

Brazil Declares Currency War

Brazil has declared a fresh “currency war” on the US and Europe, extending a tax on foreign borrowings and threatening further capital controls in an effort to protect the country’s struggling manufacturers.

Guido Mantega, the finance minister who was the first to use the controversial term in 2010, said the government would not “sit by passively” as developed nations continue to pursue expansionary monetary policies at the expense of Brazil.

When the real appreciates, it reduces our competitiveness. Exports are more expensive, imports are cheaper and it creates unfair competition for businesses in Brazil,” he said on Thursday after announcing changes to the so-called IOF tax.

What a Hoot

Note the irony. The Brazil currency war was really about trade.

This was my comment at the time: “Mathematically speaking, the desire for every country to be net exporters is impossible. Massive trade wars are on the horizon as a result.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Will Trump Launch a Currency War, Too?

A bank teller counts Chinese currency 100 yuan (or Renminbi) notes China Photos/Getty Images

Will Trump Launch a Currency War, Too?

Last month, Donald Trump personally announced a series of import tariffs and other measures to restrict the flow of Chinese goods and capital into the United States. Clearly, Trump views China as a significant economic threat, so it may be only a matter of time before he sets his sights on the renminbi as well.

SANTA BARBARA – In recent weeks, the Trump administration has rolled out a series of trade and investment measures that put China squarely in its crosshairs. Clearly, Trump and his advisers view China as America’s chief “economic enemy.” The question now is whether they will follow up with an attack on the renminbi, China’s increasingly popular currency.

So far, the US has imposed of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum, which Trump personally announced early last month. Since then, the administration has carved out exemptions for certain US allies, while using the tariffs as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from others.

China, for its part, is not a major supplier of steel or aluminum to the United States. But Chinese overcapacity has been putting downward pressure on steel and aluminum prices globally, to the detriment of US producers. So, the Trump administration’s aim is to force China to reduce its own output sharply.

Even more dramatically, the Trump administration has unveiled plans to impose import tariffs on a wide range of Chinese goods, valued at up to $60 billion. It is also tightening restrictions on corporate acquisitions and investments by foreign firms; and it has signaled its intention to challenge China’s forced technology transfers at the World Trade Organization.

Moreover, the administration is moving to bar Chinese companies from investing in sensitive US sectors such as semiconductors and 5G wireless-communications technologies. Trump has already blocked a $117 billion bid by Broadcom – a Singapore-based firm with close ties to China – to acquire the US tech giant Qualcomm.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Unloading Dollar Assets Would Be Most Effective” – Chinese State Media Unveils Trade War ‘Countermeasures’

“Unloading Dollar Assets Would Be Most Effective” – Chinese State Media Unveils Trade War ‘Countermeasures’

After President Trump declared “economic war” with China, seemingly following Bannon’s strategy to maintain hegemony

“We’re at economic war with China,” he added. “It’s in all their literature. They’re not shy about saying what they’re doing. One of us is going to be a hegemon in 25 or 30 years and it’s gonna be them if we go down this path.

Bannon said he might consider a deal in which China got North Korea to freeze its nuclear buildup with verifiable inspections and the United States removed its troops from the peninsula, but such a deal seemed remote. Given that China is not likely to do much more on North Korea, and that the logic of mutually assured destruction was its own source of restraint, Bannon saw no reason not to proceed with tough trade sanctions against China.

“To me,” Bannon said, “the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we’re five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we’ll never be able to recover.”

China state media immediately signaled the nation would hit back against any trade measures, as it has done in past episodes, and now, thanks to a treatise in Chinese official mouthpiece, China People’s Daily newspaper, we have an idea of what those countermeasures could be…

China could take three countermeasures against the recent “Section 301” investigation initiated by the U.S. government, experts told Chinanews.com.

With growing trade friction between the two largest economies, the spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Commerce made a strong response on Monday, saying China strongly opposes unilateral and trade protectionism acts conducted by the U.S., and will take all appropriate measures to safeguard its legitimate interests.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Now, a Trade War — Is a Shooting War Next?

Now, a Trade War — Is a Shooting War Next?

A popular thesis since the 1930s is that a natural progression exists from currency wars to trade wars to shooting wars. Both history and analysis support this thesis.

Currency wars do not exist all the time; they arise under certain conditions and persist until there is either systemic reform or systemic collapse. The conditions that give rise to currency wars are too much debt and too little growth.

In those circumstances, countries try to steal growth from trading partners by cheapening their currencies to promote exports and create export-related jobs.

The problem with currency wars is that they are zero-sum or negative-sum games. It is true that countries can obtain short-term relief by cheapening their currencies, but sooner than later, their trading partners also cheapen their currencies to regain the export advantage.

This process of tit-for-tat devaluations feeds on itself with the pendulum of short-term trade advantage swinging back and forth and no one getting any further ahead.

After a few years, the futility of currency wars becomes apparent, and countries resort to trade wars. This consists of punitive tariffs, export subsidies and nontariff barriers to trade.

The dynamic is the same as in a currency war. The first country to impose tariffs gets a short-term advantage, but retaliation is not long in coming and the initial advantage is eliminated as trading partners impose tariffs in response.

Trade wars produce the same result as currency wars. Despite the illusion of short-term advantage, in the long-run everyone is worse off. The original condition of too much debt and too little growth never goes away.

Finally, tensions rise, rival blocs are formed and a shooting war begins. The shooting wars often have a not-so-hidden economic grievance or rationale behind them.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump’s Currency War Battle with China Goes

Trump’s Currency War Battle with China Goes Live

Welcome to the currency wars. The Trump administration has entered a new low in relations with China. The change comes after the White House announced it is officially beginning to take aim at China’s economic strategy.

As friction between the world’s greatest economic powers deteriorates toward a high stakes currency war, the global economy could see spillover in financial, geopolitical and trade arenas.

The White House recently announced its plan to open up fresh investigations into Chinese trade and intellectual property practices. Now that China’s 100 days are upfollowing Trump’s meeting with President Xi Jinping, the White House is no longer holding back on contempt for China.

President Trump campaigned on a hardline message on China, but seemingly backed off of rhetoric after entering office. That approach changed after his geopolitical targeting on Twitter that lashed out at the Chinese government and the lack of action toward North Korea.


I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet.

hem to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet…


Conditions on the Korean peninsula appear as though they will continue to escalate, and as they do the expectation is that it will drive a major wedge between the U.S and China. What that means is conditions are extremely ripe for a trade and currency war between the respective economic powers and their global trade operations.

All hope is not lost, yet. That is primarily because a significant amount of pressure has been placed on the North Korean regime. Seemingly, as goes the China-North Korean relationship so swings the pendulum of the Trump administration.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The FX Mexican Standoff

Theodor Horydczak Lincoln Memorial 1925

There has been quite a bit of talk lately over the need for a new Plaza Accord, something several parties saw happening during this weekend’s G20 summit in Shanghai -hence the term ‘Shanghai Accord’-. (On September 22, 1985 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, France, West Germany, Japan, the US, and the UK signed an accord to depreciate the US dollar vs the Japanese yen and German Deutschmark by intervening in currency markets).

Unless all the G20 finance ministers and central bankers gathered in China are in close and secretive cahoots, though, it doesn’t look like it is going to happen. And that seems to both make sense and not. What those advocating such an accord are calling for is a -large- devaluation of the Chinese yuan (RMB) vs the USD and yen -perhaps even the euro-, but the climate simply doesn’t look ripe for it.

Still, the problem is, if they don’t do it, they open the doors to a whole lot more volatility, unpredictability and losses in the markets. All things that those markets do not want. Because, like it or not, the yuan is overvalued, China’s fabricated trade numbers are increasingly under scrutiny, and a large devaluation could settle things at least for a while.

However, Beijing looks too full of hubris and pride -and inclusion in the IMF basket of currencies is an issue too- to do what seems natural. Lest we forget, no matter how much China seeks to obfuscate the numbers, everybody already knows that numbers like producer prices and exports, and most importantly imports, have seen steep falls, and for a long time too.

China’s oil tanks look as close to overflowing as the American ones, and without those oil imports, who knows who bad import numbers would have looked?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

This is How the Trade Pact Escalates the Currency War

This is How the Trade Pact Escalates the Currency War

When negotiators from 12 nations and hundreds of lobbyists from around the world, after years of horse-trading, agreed on a “trade deal” on Monday – a deal that remains secret except for the sections that have been leaked – President Obama gushed that it “reflects America’s values.”

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pries open markets for American goods and services and impose rules on our trading partners that give “our workers the fair shot at success they deserve,” he said.

Similar praise ricocheted around the Pacific from Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Canada, and from politicians and heads of state in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the other participating countries. China isn’t part of the deal, but what the heck.

The free trade deal isn’t actually about “free trade.” Many provisions that have been leaked deal with reshuffling the power structure between corporations and democratic states at the expense of citizens and taxpayers.

So now this thing has to be ratified in the 12 countries involved. There might be one or the other hiccup – for example, Hillary Clinton has just come out against it to gain points in her battle to the presidency. “As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it,” she told PBS, thus flip-flopping beautifully from when she, as Secretary of State, had backed the deal.

Despite these potential hiccups, delays, flip-flops, and re-flip-flops, I expect it to get ratified eventually by all 12 countries. Too many deep pockets have lined up behind it to let some elected politician screw it up.

Alas, there remains a little problem: does it really promote exports, which is what they all claim it does, or is that just hype?

That’s the question Krishen Rangasamy, Senior Economist at Economics and Strategy, National Bank Financial, in Canada asked in a note – and then provided the answer: um, no.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How the Chinese Will Establish a New Financial Order

How the Chinese Will Establish a New Financial Order

For many years now, it’s been clear that China would soon be pull­ing the strings in the U.S. financial system.

In 2015, the American people owe the Chinese government nearly $1.5 trillion.

I know big numbers don’t mean much to most people, but keep in mind… this tab is now hundreds of billions of dollars more than what the U.S. government collects in ALL income taxes (both cor­porate and individual) each year. It’s basically a sum we can never, ever hope to repay – at least, not by normal means.

Of course, the Chinese aren’t stupid. They realize we are both trapped.

We are stuck with an enormous debt we can never realistically repay… And the Chinese are trapped with an outstanding loan they can neither get rid of, nor hope to collect. So the Chinese govern­ment is now taking a secret and somewhat radical approach.

China has recently put into place a covert plan to get back as much of its money as possible – by extracting colossal sums from both the United States government and ordinary citizens, like you and me.

The Chinese “State Administration of Foreign Exchange” (SAFE) is now engaged in a full-fledged currency war with the United States. The ultimate goal – as the Chinese have publicly stated – is to cre­ate a new dominant world currency, dislodge the U.S. dollar from its current reserve role, and recover as much of the $1.5 trillion the U.S. government has borrowed as possible.

Lucky for us, we know what’s going to happen. And we even have a pretty good idea of how it will all unfold. How do we know so much? Well, this isn’t the first time the U.S. has tried to stiff its foreign creditors.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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