Socialist Economic Bulletin

Why the US economy remains locked in slow growth

Why the US economy remains locked in slow growth

By John Ross
Summary
The latest US economic data confirms the US remains locked in a prolonged period of slow growth with major consequences for geopolitics and destabilising consequences for US domestic politics.
The latest US economic growth data
Almost no international issue is more crucial for economic and geopolitical strategy than economic trends within the US. It is therefore crucial to have an accurate analysis of these. Regarding such a serious issue and such powerful forces there is no merit in ‘pessimism’, underestimating US growth, and no merit in ‘optimism’, overestimating US growth – there is only a virtue in realism.
This article therefore analyses the latest US GDP data. The conclusion is clear. The data confirms the US fundamentally remains in a period of medium/long term slow growth which will last for at least a minimum of several years.
Strikingly, taking a period of 15 years after the beginning of the international financial crisis, average US growth will be slower than after the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929. Analyses which appear in parts of the media claiming the US is entering a significant new period of rapid growth are fundamentally in error – for reasons analysed in detail blow.
Such slow US growth necessarily has major geopolitical consequences and provides a backdrop for continuing instability and turns in US politics. The recent period within US politics has already seen:
  • Trump selected as Republican Party Presidential candidate against the wishes of that Party’s establishment, and elected President against the opposition of the overwhelming major of the US mass media.
  • Since Trump’s election sharp clashes have continued within the US political establishment with leaks against the President by the US security services, the President’s sacking of the FBI head, investigations by the US Congress and US police of close aides to the President, and open campaigns to force the President to change policies or to remove him from office by major US media such as the New York Times and CNN.
  • Within the Democratic Party a serious challenge mounted to the Party establishment’s candidate Clinton by the first figure declaring themselves to be a socialist to receive major US public support for almost a century – Sanders.
As US medium/long term slow economic growth will continue sharp turns and tensions in US politics will not disappear but are likely to continue.

The consequences for US relations with China flowing from this situation, and geopolitical tensions between the US and its traditional allies such as Germany shown for example at the recent G7 summit, are analysed at the end of this article. The conclusion is that China’s constructive approach to the Trump administration is clearly correct but that the risk of sharp turns in the situation must be taken into account due to the tensions within the US created by its historically low growth.

This prolonged period of slow growth in the US, and in the advanced economies in general, combines with China’s own transition to ‘moderate prosperity’, and then to a ‘high income’ economy by World Bank international standards, to create under Xi Jinping a qualitatively new period in China’s development.

The Great Stagnation

Starting with the global background to the latest US economic data, a defining feature of the present overall international situation is extremely slow growth in the advanced Western economies.

In nine years since the 2008 international financial crisis average growth in the advanced Western economies is already almost as slow as during the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1930s and by the end of 2017 it will be significantly slower. By 2016, total GDP growth in the advanced economies in the years since 2007 was only 10.1% and by the end of 2017, on IMF projections, the growth in the advanced economies after 2007 will be lower than in the same period after 1929 – total growth of 12.3% in the 10 years after 2007 compared to 15.1% in the 10 years after 1929.

Even more strikingly IMF data projects that future growth in the advanced Western economies, following the international financial crisis, will be far slower than in the same period after 1929. IMF projections are that by 2021, fourteen years after 2007, total growth in the advanced economies will be less than half that in the 14 years after 1929 – average annual growth of only 1.3% compared to 2.9%, and total growth of 20.6% compared to 49.8%.

This data is shown in Figure 1. An aim of this article is instead to carry out the necessary factual checks that the latest US data does not represent a break with long-term trends.

 
Figure 1


US GDP growth

In the 1st quarter of 2017 US GDP was 2.0% higher than in the first quarter of 2016.[1] To evaluate this 2.0% growth, given that a market economy inherently displays business cycles, it is necessary to separate purely cyclical trends from medium/long term ones. Failure to do so leads to false analysis/statistical trickery – comparing a peak of the business cycle with the trough will exaggerate growth, while comparing the trough of the business cycle with the peak will understate growth. Such cyclical effects may be removed by using a sufficiently long term moving average that cyclical fluctuations become averaged out and the long term structural growth rate is shown. Figure 2 therefore shows annual average US GDP growth using a 20-year moving average – a comparison to shorter term periods is given below.

Figure 2 clearly shows that the fundamental trend of the US economy is long-term slowdown. Annual average US growth fell from 4.4% in 1969, to 4.1% in 1978, to 3.2% in 2002, to 2.2% by 1st quarter 2017. That is, the most fundamental long term growth trend in the US economy is that it has been slowing for half a century. The latest US GDP growth of 2.0% clearly does not represent a break with this long term US economic slowdown but is in line with it.

 
Figure 2

 
Per capita

US per capita GDP growth follows the same falling trend. Figure 3 shows a 20-year moving average for US per capita GDP growth. Annual average US per capita GDP growth fell from 2.8% in 1969, to 2.7% in 1977, to 2.4% in 2002, to 1.2% by the first quarter of 2017. The latest US data shows no break with this trend of long term slowdown – it is in line with it and continues these long term trends.

This data shows clearly claims the US economy is currently ‘dynamic’ driven by a ‘wave of innovation’ are therefore factually false – a pure propaganda myth repeated by US media such as Bloomberg with no connection with factual trends. US per capita growth has in fact fallen to a low level.

This fall of US per capita GDP growth to a low level clearly has major political implications within the US and underlies recent domestic political events. Very low US per capital growth, accompanied by increasing economic inequality, has resulted in US median wages remaining below their 1999 level – this prolonged stagnation of US incomes explaining recent intense political disturbances in the US around the sweeping aside of the Republican Party establishment by Trump, the strong support given to a candidate for president declaring himself to be a socialist Sanders, current sharp clashes among the US political establishment etc.

 
Figure 3

 
Cycle and trend

Turning from long term trends to analysis of the current US business cycle it may be noted that a 5-year moving average of annual US GDP growth is 2.0%, a 7-year moving average 2.1% and the 20-year moving average 2.2%. Leaving aside a 10-year moving average, which is greatly statistically affected by the severe recession of 2009 and therefore yields a result out of line with other measures of average annual growth of only 1.4%, US average annual GDP growth may therefore be taken as around 2% or slightly above. That is, fundamental structural factors in the US economy create a medium/long term growth rate of 2.0% or slightly above. Business cycle fluctuations then take purely short term growth above or below this average. To analyse accurately the present situation of the US business cycle therefore recent growth must be compared with this long-term trend.

Figure 4 therefore shows the 20-year moving average for US GDP growth together with the year on year US growth rate. This shows that in 2016 US GDP growth was severely depressed – GDP growth in the whole year 2016 was only 1.6% and year on year growth fell to 1.3% in the second quarter. By the 1stquarter of 2017 US year on year GDP growth had only risen to 2.0% – in line with a 5-year moving average but still below the 20-year moving average.

As US economic growth in 2016 was substantially below average a process of ‘reversion to the mean’, that is a tendency to correct exceptionally slow or exceptionally rapid growth in one period by upward or downward adjustments to growth in succeeding periods, would be expected to lead to a short-term increase in US growth compared to low points in 2016. This would be purely for statistical reasons and not represent any increase in underlying or medium/long US term growth. This normal statistical process is confirmed by the acceleration in US GDP growth since the low point of 1.3% in the 2nd quarter 2016 – growth accelerating to 1.7% in 3rd quarter 2016 and 2.0% in 4th quarter 2016 and 1stquarter 2017.

President Trump’s administration may of course claim ‘credit’ for the likely short term acceleration in US growth in 2017 but any such short-term shift is merely a normal statistical process and would not represent any acceleration in underlying US growth. Only if growth continued sufficiently strongly and for a sufficiently long period to raise the medium/long term rate average could it be considered that any substantial increase in US economic growth was occurring. The latest US growth data, 2.0% year on year, however does not represent any acceleration in US growth compared to longer term averages and is therefore in line with the pattern of US slow growth and does not represent a break with it.

 
Figure 4

 
Key determinants of US growth

Turning to the causes of this slow US growth, and therefore evaluation of the possibility of overcoming it, statistical analysis shows numerous factors explain purely short term fluctuations in US growth. Factors ranging from fiscal or monetary policy, to international trade fluctuations, even to the weather may therefore affect short term US growth. However, over anything except the short term Table 1 shows clearly that two factors are decisive in US growth – total US net saving/capital creation (the sum of household, company and government saving) and US net fixed investment. Over a 5-year time frame the correlation of the percentage of net savings in US GDP and the percentage of net fixed investment in US GDP with US growth is over 0.5, more powerful than any other factors, while over an 8-year time frame the correlation of net fixed investment with GDP growth is an extremely strong 0.72.

Consequently, while over the short term numerous factors are correlated with US short term growth, making short term trends difficult to predict, over a medium-long term frame the correlation of US economic growth with US net savings and net fixed investment is decisive.

It is unnecessary for present purposes to analyse whether US net fixed saving and US net fixed investment causes economic growth, or economic growth causes high net fixed savings and net fixed investment, or a third process causes both – it is merely sufficient to note that these high correlations means that over the medium/long term US GDP growth cannot be substantially increased without an increase in either US net savings or US net fixed capital investment. As changes in US net savings and net fixed capital investment have significantly different implications for US domestic and foreign policy and politics they will be considered in turn.

 
Table 1

 
Net saving
 
Figure 5 shows the long-term trend of US net savings/net capital accumulation since 1929. The curve of long term development of the US economy can be seen clearly and the slow growth of the US economy in the present period therefore placed in a clear historical context:
  • During the deep crisis at the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929-33 US net capital accumulation was negative – the US economy was consuming more capital through depreciation than it was creating. This necessarily produced deep economic crisis. After this the rate of US savings/capital creation rose, with a powerful acceleration during World War II, to reach a long-term peak as a percentage of the US economy in 1965. This coincided with the great boom in the US economy during World War II and decades immediately following it.
  • After 1965 US net savings/capital creation steadily fell as a percentage of the US economy until it once again became negative during the ‘Great Recession’ in 2008-2009. Given the strong correlation of US net saving/capital creation with US growth this declining trend of US capital creation naturally explains the long-term growth US slowdown that was shown above.
 
Figure 5

 
Turning to the latest data for the 1st quarter of 2017, to analyse if there has been any break with the long-term trend, Figure 6 clearly shows that at the latest date available there has been no long-term recovery in US net capital creation. Naturally there has been some recovery since the extreme depth of the financial crisis, when US net capital creation again became negative, but the present level of US net saving is still below the pre-crisis period. Furthermore since 4th quarter 2015 there has been a small but definite fall in the share of net saving in the economy – a decline from 3.3% of Gross National Income (GNI) in 4th quarter 2015 to 2.3% of GNI in 1st quarter 2017. As an extremely strong correlation exists between US net capital creation and medium/long term US GDP growth a medium/long term US economic acceleration could only take place when there was a major increase in US net capital creation – which has not occurred.

As investment must necessarily be financed by an exactly equal amount of savings it may therefore be noted that no increase in the percentage of US domestic resources available for investment has taken place.

 
Figure 6

 
The implications for US domestic politics

Turning from economic trends to their implications for US politics, as US net savings are US domestic capital creation, and the total US economy is necessarily equal to consumption plus savings, any attempt to increase the level of net capital creation in the US economy has major implications for US politics as it reduces the proportion of the economy allocated to consumption by the US population.

Purely in principle, the level of US net capital creation/net savings could be raised without attacks on the living standards of the US population. In particular US military expenditure, from a technical economic point of view, is a form of consumption. Reducing US military expenditure could therefore raise US savings without lowering the proportion of the economy devoted to the population’s living standards. However, the Trump administration has rejected this policy – projecting a major increase in US military expenditure.

Other measures by the Trump administration to increase the percentage of the US economy devoted to net capital creation would necessarily be politically unpopular under conditions of slow US growth. For example

  • Reducing the proportion of the US economy devoted to wages, with the aim of increasing company profits and therefore potential company savings, would be unpopular as it would involve a reduction of the proportion of the US economy devoted to the main source of the population’s income.
     
  • Reduction of the US budget deficit (that is decreasing the level of government dis-saving) through reductions in state expenditure on health, education, social protection etc. would involve reduction in the population’s living standards.

For these political reasons, given the commitment to increased military spending, attempts by the Trump administration to increase US net savings are likely to be politically unpopular and therefore difficult. Indeed, if US taxes are cut without corresponding state expenditure reductions the resulting increase in the US budget deficit would actually reduce the US net savings level.

Net fixed investment

Turning to US net fixed investment, it should be recalled that total investment is equal to total savings.[2] However US investment does not necessarily have to be financed by domestic US savings. US investment can also be financed by foreign capital/savings and foreign borrowing. This, however, as analysed below, has major implications for US foreign policy.

Analysing the fundamental data on US net fixed investment Figure 7 shows that the overall historical trend of this follows the same historical pattern as US net savings – reflecting that in the US, as in all major economies, the main source of financing of new investment is domestic. In more detail, historically:

  • US net fixed investment was negative during the onset of the Great Depression – that is more capital was being consumed through depreciation than was being newly invested.
      
  • US net fixed investment then rose very sharply during World War II and the decades long boom following it, before declining from the mid-1960s onwards. This decline was correlated with the long slowdown of the US economy shown above in Figure 2.

The chief difference to be noted between the trends in US net fixed saving and those of US net fixed investment is that during the international financial crisis after 2007 US net fixed investment fell to a very low level but did not become negative as US net savings did. The reason for this is that during the international financial crisis the US continued to finance its fixed investment through foreign borrowing – as analysed below.

 
Figure 7

 
Turning to the latest data, for 1st quarter 2017, Figure 8 shows that there has been no fundamental recovery in the US net fixed investment level. There is again naturally a recovery from the extremely low level during the 2007-2009 international financial crisis but US net fixed investment remains substantially below pre-financial crisis levels.
Given the close correlation of US medium/long term economic growth with US net fixed investment no basis therefore exists at present for any medium/long term US economic growth acceleration.
 
Figure 8

 
The possibility of US foreign borrowing
The considerable domestic US political obstacles to increase US domestic savings were analysed above. However, an increase in US investment could in principle also be financed by foreign borrowing. What, therefore, are the practical possibilities of an increase in US investment financed from foreign savings/capital?
To analyse this precisely, it should be noted that statistically the US balance of payments on current account is necessarily equal to the US capital account balance with the sign reversed – i.e an increased positive flow of foreign capital into the US must be reflected in a corresponding increase in the negative US balance of payments on current account. Figure 9 therefore shows the US current account balance of payments. The trends are clear:
 
  • Prior to Regan’s election in 1980 the US balance of payments was close to balance. Excluding foreign transfers, which were primarily payments on US overseas military expenditure and foreign aid typically tied to US foreign policy objectives, the US balance of payments was usually in surplus. Therefore, prior to Reagan the US was not dependent on, and did not undertake, significant net foreign borrowing;
  • Under Reagan a new policy was adopted of large scale US foreign borrowing. This may be seen in the very sharp deterioration in the US balance of payments during the Reagan period – the US balance of payments on current account worsened from a surplus of 0.3% of GDP in the 4th quarter of 1980, the last quarter before Reagan came to office, to a deficit of 3.4% of GDP by the 3rd quarter of 1986. This 3.7% of GDP worsening of the US balance of payments is equivalent to over $700 billion at today’s prices.
  • Under George H. W. Bush (Bush Senior) the US temporarily abandoned large scale foreign borrowing. With foreign sources of financing US investment reduced US net fixed capital formation fell sharply, from 7.5% of GDP in the last quarter of 1988 to 4.8% of GDP in 1st quarter 1992. The US fell into recession in the last quarter of 1990/1st quarter 1991 – the unpopularity of this leading to Bush’s electoral defeat.
  • Under Clinton and George W Bush US foreign borrowing increased massively, rising to 6.3% of GDP by the last quarter of 2005 – such huge borrowing was unsustainable, was a significant contributory factor to the international financial crisis, and necessarily had to be reduced.
  • The onset of the international financial crisis forced a huge reduction in US foreign borrowing – reducing net inflows of capital into the US from 5.3% of GDP in 1st quarter 2007 to 2.5% of GDP in the 2nd quarter of 2009. The level of US foreign borrowing has since remained essentially unchanged – net inflows of capital into the US were 2.4% of GDP in the latest available data in the last quarter of 2016.
 
Figure 9

If the US once again turned to financing its investment through a major increase in international borrowing there are very clear geopolitical and political consequences.

  • Prior to Reagan US net export of capital/outward transfers from the US were a stabilising factor in the world economy – increasing the supply of capital for other countries and therefore aiding their economic development.
  • After Reagan the reliance of the US on large scale foreign borrowing to finance its investment was a destabilising factor in the world economy – decreasing the supply of capital in other countries and thereby making more difficult their economic growth.
  • As the US from Reagan onwards was dependent on large scale foreign borrowing to finance its investment, and given the strong correlation of US growth with net fixed investment, US growth became strongly dependent on sources of foreign capital.

Therefore, analysis of the ability of the Trump administration/US to tap large scale sources of foreign finance requires examining which countries could potentially supply this and the issues in US foreign policy this creates.

Can Trump achieve large scale foreign borrowing?

It was analysed above that considerable political obstacles exist to raising the US domestic savings level. However, the US obtaining capital/savings from other countries also raises significant issues in foreign policy – as becomes clear when it is analysed which countries could supply such capital/savings to the US as they possess large balance of payments surpluses. The fundamental data on this is shown in Figure 10 – in this chart the percentages at the end of the graph lines are for the country/region’s balance of payments surplus/deficit as a percentage of the US’s 2016 balance of payments deficit.

The source of the huge US foreign borrowing from Reagan to Clinton was clear – Japan. Japan’s balance of payment’s surplus was equivalent to 54% of the US balance of payments deficit under Reagan, 127% under George H.W. Bush, and 60% under Clinton. As Japan cannot defy the US on any major issue Japan could, therefore, easily be forced into policies which supplied capital to the US even if this damaged Japan’s economy – as indeed it did from the 1980s onwards in the creation of the ‘bubble economy’.[3]

However, by the beginning of the 21st century, Japan alone became too weak to finance a large part of the US deficit. During George W Bush’s presidency, 2001-2008, the percentage of the US balance of payments deficit that could be financed by Japan’s surplus fell to only 24% – too little to finance US needs. However fortunately for the US, prior to the international financial crisis, weakening of Japan’s ability to meet US financing needs did not lead to severe problems for the US as George W Bush found two additional international sources of finance. These were:

  • Middle East oil exporters, whose balance of payment surplus was equivalent to 27% of the US balance of payments deficit due to the high oil price,
  • China – whose balance of payment deficit was equivalent to 24% of the US balance of payments deficit.

The ability of the US to tap these two new sources of finance, however, necessarily entailed foreign policy choices. The easy one of these for the US was with the Middle Eastern oil exporters. Many of these (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE etc) are essentially in the same position as Japan in being entirely subservient to the US and can therefore, if necessary, be instructed/pressured to finance US deficits.

China, however, is not in that situation – it is not a semi-colony of the US or subservient to it. But George W Bush, throughout most of his presidency, maintained reasonable foreign policy relations with China – not seeking to create great tensions. This created a mutually beneficial situation in which China was content to de facto aid financing the US balance of payment deficit in return for no major trade or political tensions existing with the US.

The severe fall in the international oil price from mid-2014 onwards, however, sharply changed the situation for US borrowing by eliminating the balance of payments surpluses of the Middle East oil exporters – as shown in Figure 10. Recent aid from Saudi Arabia, following Trump’s trip to the Middle East, is useful but too small to fundamentally affect the situation of the US economy. The only countries with sufficiently large surpluses to finance very large scale borrowing by the US are China, with a balance of payment surplus equivalent to 58% of the US deficit, and Germany – with a balance of payments surplus equivalent to 64% of the US deficit.

It is for this reason that the key foreign policy countries for the US, from an economic viewpoint, are now China and Germany – Russia is important for the US geopolitically and militarily but not economically. To revive US economic growth by foreign borrowing either or both China and Germany must be peruaded or forced into substantially increasing supplies of capital to the US. This, of course, in turn necessitates key foreign policy decisions by the US.

 
Figure 10

Geopolitical conclusions

The geopolitical conclusions flowing from these fundamental economic factors are clear – the implications for domestic political instability in the US have already been analysed. The rational US economic course, to minimise geopolitical risk and domestic political tension, would be to increase its net savings/net fixed investment via a reduction in military expenditure. This however, has already been rejected by the Trump administration. Therefore, regarding Germany and China:

  • In the run up to Trump’s election, and early in this presidency, he clearly attempted to intimidate/pressure Germany into greater economic subordination to the US. Politically this was carried out by reversing the historic US policy of support for the EU and instead seeking to weaken/break it up by supporting anti-EU currents such as Brexit and LePen in France. This led to a clear clash with Germany – for which the EU represents a decisive economic reserve and chief market. Merkel made clear Germany was not prepared to subordinate its interests to Trump’s requirement either by an inordinate increase in German military expenditure or accepting US protectionism. Germany also secured a crucial strategic political victory against Trump with the overwhelming election of Macron against LePen in the French Presidential election. These clashes between US and German policy were clearly reflected at the recent G7 summit and in Merkel’s declaration following it, in which she was clearly referring to the US, that: ‘The times in which we can fully count on others are somewhat over, as I have experienced in the past few days.’ German diplomacy followed this up actively with in rapid succession the visit of Indian Prime Minister Modi to Germany, the visit of China’s premier Li Keqiang to Germany, and the invitation of Putin to visit France by Macron – such an invitation was clearly discussed by Macron in advanced with Merkel. It is important not to exaggerate, a serious split between Germany and the US on military matters is not possible. But refusal of Germany to be intimidated into significantly subordinating itself to US economic demands blocks one of the only two major sources of large scale foreign capital which could be transferred to the US.
  • Regarding China, the other major potential foreign source of capital, Trump’s team again initially appeared to attempt intimidation – the notorious phone call with Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen in violation of the bedrock ‘One China’ policy followed by the US since establishment of diplomatic relations with China, the bringing of hard line anti-China ideologues such as Navarro and Barron into the administration etc. However, China made clear it would not accept any intimidation regarding ‘core interests’ such as the One China Policy, the South China Sea etc. China is certainly correct to propose positive ‘win-win’ policies for both the US and China, but it is not subordinate to the US as Japan was – and therefore will now allow its economy to be fundamentally damaged to subsidise the US, as Japan did, and China will not be intimidated regarding fundamental issues.

The US therefore certainly has some economies (Japan, Middle East oil exporters, Taiwan province) that are entirely subordinate to its policies and which can transfer capital to it – but, unlike in the Reagan period, these are now too economically weak to meet the needs of very large scale US foreign borrowing. The only two economies which could potentially transfer capital/savings to the US on a sufficiently large scale, Germany and China, are too strong to be economically intimated to the US. Germany and China certainly seek ‘win-win’ outcomes with the US but they cannot be intimidated into undertaking policies which would finance the US at the cost of serious damage to their own economies.

Therefore, unless either Germany or China can be persuaded/forced into large scale capital transfers to the US the basis for accelerating US economic growth through very large scale foreign borrowing does not exist at present.

IMF predictions

Finally, while the above analysis is made in terms of economic fundamentals, in case it may be argued that the above analyses suffer from a ‘pessimism bias’, an underestimation of the growth potential of the US, it worth doing a cross check against the implications of IMF projections. These show that in terms of medium/long term growth the IMF projects that the US economy will not accelerate but even slow further.

In the next six years 2016-2022 the IMF projects that annual average US GDP growth will be 2.0% – below the 20-year moving average for the US economy, although in line with the 5-year moving average. As a result, taking into account the sharp recession in 2009, US long term growth, the 20 year moving average, will actually fall further to 1.9%. This is shown in Figure 11.

 
Figure 11

Once again it is useful to make a comparison of the period since the international financial crisis to that of the Great Depression after 1929. In the 15 years after 1929 US economy more than doubled in size, growing by 112%, an annual average 5.1%. In comparison IMF projections are that in the 15 years after 2007 the US will grow by 26%, with an annual average 1.6% growth. In short in the 15 years after 1929 US total economic growth was over times four times that projected in the 15 years after 2007, which results for a post-1929 average US growth rate over a 15 year period that was over three times that projected after 2007.
Conclusion for discussion in China
Analysis of the latest US GDP data therefore leads to a clear conclusion – the US remains locked in a period of slow growth which will last for at least a number of years. Claims to the contrary in sections of the media that there will be a substantial increase US growth, in anything other than a purely short term sense already analysed, results either from ‘wishful thinking’ or basic economic errors. As China’s policy, particularly on such a fundamental issue, must be based on the principle of realism and ‘seek truth from facts’, not on wishful or confused thinking, it is therefore worth analysing the errors of some claims in part of the media that there will be a substantial increase in US medium/long term economic growth.
  • The simplest form of ‘wishful thinking’ is that it would be highly ‘helpful’ from the point of view of China’s trade and development if the US economy grew rapidly. This is undoubtedly true – but because something would be desirable does not mean it will happen!
  • Since Trump’s election China has rightly proposed numerous forms of economic cooperation with the US – setting these out comprehensively in the Ministry of Commerce’s ‘Research Report on China-US Economic and Trade Relations’. This is extremely important in foreign policy terms, showing clearly the goodwill of China to the US, the search for win-win outcomes, and that any problems in US-China relations do not arise from China. Such proposals, because they are win-win can aid sectors of both the US and Chinese economies. But the sums of finance involved are not sufficient by themselves to overcome the deep-seated problems creating slow US growth which have been analysed. To give the scales of finance involved it may be recalled that the extra foreign borrowing undertaken under Reagan would be equivalent to over $700 billion at today’s prices.
  • A confusion (whether deliberate or objective) is sometimes expressed in parts of the Chinese media between purely short term growth fluctuations and basic trends. For example, it was noted above that US growth has increased from an extremely depressed 1.3% in the 2nd quarter of 2016, and for statistical reasons it is likely that in 2017 US growth will increase from the low 1.6% annual level of 2016. Any such short-term acceleration in growth does not alter the fundamental trend of the US economy – only if such more rapid growth were continued for a significant period would it represent a basic acceleration in the rate of US growth.
  • It is sometimes claimed that the US will experience rapid economic growth due to a ‘wave of innovation’. However, as has already been shown factually, the US has not been experiencing ‘rapid growth’ but very low growth. Furthermore, while there is ample evidence that innovation embodied in increasing fixed investment leads to faster growth, there is no evidence from the US that innovation which is not accompanied by increased fixed investment leads to rapid growth.
  • It is sometimes claimed tax reductions proposed by Trump will lead to rapid growth. This is based both on errors in economic theory and wrong factual information regarding what occurred under Reagan – whose administration did cut taxes. First, tax cuts if unaccompanied by equivalent state spending reductions, increase the budget deficit and therefore reduce the overall domestic US savings level – which, because of the close correlation of net savings and growth will reduce GDP growth. Second, Reagan used massive foreign borrowing to sustain US growth as was shown in Figure 9. Certainly, if Trump could achieve huge foreign borrowing by the US growth would be expected to increase during the period of such borrowing. But as already analysed only two countries have the resources necessary for this, Germany and China, and for different reasons neither is likely to supply the huge borrowing required.

Claims appearing in sections of the media that there will be a basic acceleration of the US economy from its present state of low growth are therefore false – as such analyses have been previously tested and rejected by events during the very prolonged slowdown of the US economy analysed at the beginning of this article and was shown in Figure 2.

Practical Conclusion
The practical conclusions of this situation for China’s policy are clear and provide a clear backdrop showing the coherence of the initiatives taken by China under Xi Jinping.

The latest US data confirms there is no break in the trend of long term slow growth in the US. Numerous geopolitical conclusions affecting China follow from this – these are too numerous to analyse all here. However, some are fundamental:

  • The fact that China has to base its economic perspective on the continuation of slow US growth for a prolonged period means that while initiatives are rightly being taken for ‘win-win’ outcomes between the two countries a very rapid increase of China’s exports to the US cannot be relied on. Furthermore, as the US is not merely the world’s largest economy, but it particularly influences trends in the other advanced Western economies. overall growth in the advanced economies will remain relative slow by historical standards.
     
  • As this extremely slow growth is confined to advanced economies, and not to developing economies, it means that economic role of developing economies, and in particular the OBOR region, will be even more decisive for China. IMF projections are that total GDP growth in the developing economies from 2007-2021 will be 98% compared to only 21% in the advanced economies Measured at current exchange rates in 2016-2021 the OBOR region will account for 46% of world economic growth.
     
  • The unfolding development of geopolitical and political events is significantly affected by the fact that while long term economic growth after 2007 in the Western economies is becoming even slower than after 1929 nevertheless the form is significantly different. The slow average growth during the ‘Great Depression’ after 1929 was produced by an extremely violent recession follow by sharp recovery in the majority of advanced economies. This extreme initial recession unleased rapid political crisis. In September 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria, beginning its military attack on China; in September 1931 Britain abandoned the gold standard, resulting in collapse of the then existing international financial system; in November 1932 Roosevelt was elected US President, leading to the ‘New Deal’, in January 1933 Hitler became German Chancellor. In contrast, after 2007 the initial recession was far less severe but the long term slow growth in the crisis was prolonged. Instead of being extremely rapid the political crisis after 2007 was therefore slow building and cumulative – leading eventually to key turning points such as Brexit and Trump’s election.
     
  • Within the US as very slow growth will last for a prolonged period there will be a not rapid return to US political stability. The sharp turns represented by the election of Trump, the rise in support for Sanders, the continued severe fighting within the US political establishment over Trump and foreign policy will continue. While continuing with its correct policy of seeking ‘win-win’ solutions with the Trump administration China must, however, be prepared for sharp turns in the situation. This is why issues such as military reform, as emphasised by Xi Jinping, are correctly running side by side with economic initiatives such as OBOR and seeking win-win economic relations with the Trump administration.

The character of the international period

Finally, this continuation of very slow US growth confirms one of the two key features defining the present period facing China under Xi Jinping:

  • Domestically, China is making the transition first to ‘moderate prosperity’ and then within a decade to a ‘high income’ economy by World Bank classification.
  • Internationally China faces a situation of slow growth in the US and advanced economies.

This combination of domestic and international trends constitutes a new period in China’s development and has not faced any previous Chinese leader. This may therefore be understood as a background to the distinct policies launched under the Presidency of Xi Jinping. * * *

The original version of this article originally appeared in Chinese at Sina Finance Opinion Leaders.

Notes

[1] For economic specialists’ differences between the way GDP data is presented in the US and in China are explained here.

Some media reported US GDP growth in 1st quarter 2017 as 1.2%. This reflects the way the US Bureau of Economic Analysis presents the data – ‘real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.2% in the first quarter of 2017.’ But it is not sufficiently widely understood that US GDP data is presented in a different way to China’s data.

US data in the above form is presented as the percentage growth between one quarter and the next on an annualised basis. That is, the new US data in that form is presented as the growth of 1st quarter 2017 compared to 4th quarter 2016 presented on an annualised basis. Actual US GDP growth between 4th quarter 2016 and 1st quarter 2017 was 0.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis – 1.2% on an annualised basis.

China however emphases presentation of GDP growth year on year growth – China’s GDP growth of 6.9% in 1st quarter 2017 was the change compared to 1st quarter 2016.

What may appear a technical issue has considerable significance due to a serious and known problem in the US data. The US method has the disadvantage that for accurate data the seasonal adjustment between quarters must be correct – different quarters of the year have features which strongly speed or slow growth in that period. But as is widely known among Western analysts the seasonal adjustment in US data for the 1st quarter of the year is inaccurate as it understates growth – the US statistical authorities are aware of this but have not so far succeeded in resolving the problem. To avoid this, it is better to use the system of comparing the 1st quarter of 2017 with the 1st quarter of 2016 – as this automatically avoids the need for seasonal adjustment. On that basis US year on year GDP growth was 2.0% not 1.2%. In order to avoid understating US growth this 2.0% is used in this article.

A second issue is that a market economy inherently displays business cycles. It is therefore necessary to separate purely cyclical trends from medium/long term ones. Such cyclical effects may be removed by using a sufficiently long term moving average that cyclical fluctuations become averaged out and the long term structural growth rate is shown – as is done in this article.

[2] From a theoretical point of view US savings and investment includes inventories as well as fixed investment. However taking a quarterly average since 1947 97% of US gross investment has been fixed investment and only 3% inventory formation, therefore by focusing here only on fixed investment and not dealing with inventories no significant distortion of trends occurs.

[3] To allow capital to flow out of Japan to the US, particularly after the 1987 Wall Street stock price crash Japan’s interest rates were held at a low level, therefore creating huge financial bubbles within Japan’s economy which duly exploded in the 1990s.

For the many, not the few. Vote Labour on June 8

For the many, not the few. Vote Labour on June 8
Over 100 economists have endorsed the Labour manifesto for this election. For good reason. The manifesto sets out to defend public services and improve living standards. It will seek to balance current spending over the business cycle and improve public services by increasing taxes on big business and the highest-paid 5%. It will also see to improve prosperity, pay and jobs with an investment-based industrial strategy.

Labour is the only party promising this. The Conservatives intend to the do the opposite, renewed austerity to make workers and the poor pay for their own disastrous economic mismanagement, including Brexit. There is only one choice to defend living standards.

 


Tories want to drive living standards lower. Corbyn wants to end austerity

Tories want to drive living standards lower. Corbyn wants to end austerityBy Tom O’Leary

During the current crisis the UK has experienced the longest-ever recorded fall in living standards. The biggest part of that fall is not the cuts to government spending, even though these have had severe effects. Instead the largest factor contributing to the fall in living standards is the decline in real wages. The Resolution Foundation calls this decade the worst for falling pay in over 200 years

This fall has now resumed once more because of the combination of stagnation in wage growth and rising prices. The rise in prices is a Brexit effect, after the sharp devaluation of the pound following the referendum result in June 2016. It is ridiculous for Theresa May to suggest the falling pound and therefore the fall in real wages, is not the result of the Brexit vote.

Chart 1 below shows the recent acceleration of the inflation rate as measured by the CPI, up to 2.7% from a year ago in April. Other measures are worse. The RPI, which the ONS has replaced with the CPI shows the inflation rate at 3.5%.

Chart 1. UK CPI Inflation Accelerates

Mainstream economists, including the former and current chairs of the US central bank bemoan the fact that wages are often ‘sticky’. This means that ordinarily, outside ferocious attack, authoritarian dictatorship or worse, it is hard to get workers to accept cuts in their pay in cash terms. This is regarded as a necessary condition for capitalist recovery, as wages fall and profits rise. But the most effective way of driving down real wages is to hold wages down and let prices rise. This can be supplemented by other factors, such as freezes to the pay of the public sector and casualisation of the workforce. This is what has happened.

As Chart 2 shows, the pace of the fall in real wages in the UK currently has begun to resemble the decline at the start of the recession. It is precipitate. The 1-month data and the 3-month average are both shown. The latter is highlighted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as it smooths out fluctuations. This now shows real wages declining once more. But the 1-month data is useful in highlighting turning-points, as SEB has previously argued. On this measure, real wages are down 0.5% from a year ago. With further devaluation-induced price rises in the pipeline, the fall in real wages has much further to run.

Chart 2. UK Average Real Wage Growth, 1-month and 2-month measures, year-on-year
 

The cumulative scale of the decline in real wages over this crisis is shown in Chart 3 below. On a monthly basis, real weakly wages peaked at £531 in February 2008, just as the recession was about to begin. They had fallen to £497 in March of this year.

The peak in wages was in part because wages are ‘sticky’, they were still rising even as the economy was just about to slump and prices had been slowing. There was also the last hurrah of the financial boom, and reflects the City bonuses paid then.

In essence the whole of the austerity policy can be understood as a conscious effort to overcome this stickiness, that is to drive down wages and to get workers and the poor to bear the brunt of the recession while allowing big business and the rich to be shielded from it.

Chart 3. UK Real Average Weekly Earnings, £
 

Average weekly earnings data only applies to those in full-time work. But it seems unlikely that those in part-time work or in the swollen ranks of the fake ‘self-employed’ will have fared better than those in full-time employment.

There are currently just under 32 million in workers in the UK. As already noted, average real weekly pay has fallen since just before the recession by £34. Even if we take the less erratic quarterly data, it has fallen to £496 from £520 in the 1st quarter of 2008. This is a real fall of £24 per week, or effectively a fall of £1,250 per year. For 32 million workers that is approximately an aggregate decline of £40 billion in real wages from the 1st quarter of 2008 to the same period in 2017. Even if only the 23.5 million full-time workers are considered and part-time workers ignored entirely, the fall in their real wages amounts to over £29 billion.

By contrast, despite severe reductions in the growth rate of public spending and cuts to all types of social welfare, Government Consumption expenditures have actually risen over the same period. According to OECD data Government final consumption expenditures have risen by £32 billion since the 1st quarter of 2008.

This may seem strange, given the harsh burden of austerity that hits workers and the poor. But the rise in real Government Consumption reflects the almost inescapable rises in government spending, on items such as pensions, the NHS, education and so on, even where these do not keep pace either with growing demand or the specific inflation in those sectors. The latest Tory Manifesto, with cuts to all types of social welfare is an attempt reduce these outlays, while maintaining tax cuts for the rich and big business.

But the maths are plain. The biggest factor in driving living standards lower is the fall in real wages. This has now resumed. The Tory Government will be hoping to turn that to good effect using the fall in wages to drive up the profit rate, where they previously failed. At the same time it will reduce the automatic rises in some areas of the Budget, further reductions on those areas of spending which otherwise rise automatically.

This Tory plan is built around a Hard Brexit. Leaving the Single Market will hurt both wages and profits, as trade barriers are introduced and investment is diverted towards larger markets. In those circumstances, the Tories are attempting once more to ensure that the greater share of that loss is on wages, not profits.

By contrast, this Labour leadership is opposed to austerity in all its forms. It will attempt to shield workers and the poor from the crisis and therefore should be wholeheartedly supported even on those grounds alone.

Some on the left reject these arguments on wages, and refuse to accept that Brexit is driving living standards lower. This is an error, reflecting their misconceived support for Brexit. The left should always be the best defenders of living standards for the overwhelming majority of society, and propose arguments that would reverse the falls that are imposed during a crisis. To do that, it must first recognise reality, that real wages are falling once more from a combination of stagnant cash wages and rising prices caused by the Brexit currency devaluation. Any sober assessment would suggest that further falls in wages and living standards must be expected as the Tories attempt to get workers and the poor to pay for the Brexit crisis.

The big trade unions are sure to offer resistance to the new offensive, as will this leadership of the Labour Party. The same cannot be said of any of Corbyn’s opponents in the Parliamentary Labour Party, who either embrace austerity or offer fake opposition to it. 

The left as a whole needs to be clear about the very negative consequences of Brexit and stand with the unions and the Corbyn leadership who will resist job cuts and lower pay. It also needs to be clear about how this renewed crisis came about in order to end it.

Why the ‘Belt & Road’ region will be the main locomotive of the world economy

Why the ‘Belt & Road’ region will be the main locomotive of the world economy By John Ross

The importance of the Belt and Road (B&R) summit for China and participating countries is well known. What is not so widely grasped is that the B&R region is now by far the most powerful locomotive not only of the regional but of the global economy. To be precise:

· Measured at current exchange rates the IMF projects that in the next five years’ growth in the B&R region measured in absolute dollar terms will be almost twice that in North America and four times that in Europe.

· Measured in purchasing power parities (PPP’s) growth in the B&R region will be almost five times that in North America and more than five times that in Europe.

Growth in the B&R region, in summary, will dwarf that in North America and Europe.

This fact that the B&R region has now emerged as the most powerful locomotive of the world economy is due to two simultaneous developments:

· Rapid growth in the B&R region,

· Extraordinarily slow growth in the West by historical standards.

The aim of this article is therefore to put more precise orders of magnitude on these trends. The data used is the five-year growth projections of the IMF. It should be made clear that using these figures does not at all mean that they are being taken as a 100% accurate prediction of what will occur. But the IMF data clearly establishes that the economic growth potential of the B&R region is so much greater than that of either North America or Europe that entirely implausible assumptions of future development patterns would have to be made for the far stronger growth of B&R not to be strikingly apparent.

This data therefore clearly establishes that the B&R region will be the main locomotive of the global economy during the next period.

Slow growth in the Western economies

The first feature creating this new situation in the international economy is the quite extraordinarily low growth in the Western economies by historical standards. The statement sometimes made in the Chinese media that the period commencing with the international financial crisis of 2008 is the West’s ‘worst economic crisis since the Great Depression’ is somewhat misleading put in that form as in one crucial way it understates the problem. The overall slow growth and stagnation in the Western economies is already almost equivalent to that after 1929 while the factual projections for the next five years lead to the conclusion that the cumulative slow growth/stagnation of the Western economies will be worse, although different in form, from that during the period following 1929. To show this Figure 1 illustrates three sets of data:

• Growth trends in the advanced Western economies after 1929.

• The factual trend in the advanced Western economies from 2007-2016;

• The latest IMF predictions for 2016-2021.

The data in Figure 1 of course shows that the onset of the ‘Great Depression’ after 1929 was far more violent than that of the international financial crisis in 2008. After 1929, during only three years, overall GDP of the advanced Western economies plunged by 15.6% compared to only 3.3% after 2007.

But it is not so widely understood that after the initial post-1929 economic collapse recovery during the 1930s was rapid and post-crisis growth was strong – the US being the most important exception. This can be clearly seen in Figure 1 and by examining the situation in 1938, the last year before World War II. By a convenient statistical coincidence, 1938 was nine years after 1929, and 2016, the most recent year for current factual data, was nine years after the last pre-international financial crisis year of 2007. Therefore, in comparing 1929-38 with 2007-16 the same length of time is being analysed.

The strong recovery of most advanced economies following the post-1929 recession is demonstrated by the fact that by 1938 the GDP of most major advanced economic centres was substantially above 1929 levels. To be precise by 1938:

• Japan’s GDP was 37% above its 1929 level;

• Germany’s GDP was 31% above its 1929 level;

• UK GDP was 18% above its 1929 level;

• Western Europe’s GDP was 13% above its 1929 level;

• The overall GDP of the advanced economies 7% above its 1929 level.

The US was an exception – US GDP in 1938 was still 5% below its 1929 level.

However, in contrast after the 2008 international financial crisis there was no rapid recovery and strong growth as there was after the post-1929 collapse. By 2016, nine years after the last financial crisis year, the recovery from the crisis in the advanced economies was almost as slow as during the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1930s and by the end of 2017 it will be significantly slower. More precisely due to the slow growth by 2016, total GDP growth in the advanced economies in the nine years after 2007 was only 10.1%. By the end of 2017, on IMF predictions, the growth in the advanced economies after 2007 will actually be lower than after 1929 – total growth of 12.3% in the 10 years after 2007 compared to 15.1% in the 10 years after 1929. Furthermore IMF data shows that the future growth in the advanced Western economies after the international financial crisis will be far slower than in the same period after the 1929. IMF projections are that by 2021, fourteen years after 2007, total growth in the advanced economies will be less than half that in the 14 years after 1929 – average annual growth of only 1.3% compared to 2.9%, and total growth of 20.6% compared to 49.8%.

Figure 1

Developing economies

To grasp the present pattern of global development, and the background of B&R, it should however be noted that the data given above is specifically for advanced economies. Growth in developing economies is far faster both than in the advanced economies after 2007 and in the advanced economies after 1929. As shown in Figure 2 on IMF projections total GDP growth in the developing economies from 2007-2021 will be 98% compared to only 21% in the advanced economies. Annual average growth in developing economies in 2007-2021 will be 5.0% – not merely faster than the annual average growth of the advanced economies of 1.3% in the same period but much faster than the average 2.9% in the advanced Western economies in the 14 years after 1929.

The extreme slowing of economic growth in the present period is therefore specifically an issue of the advanced Western economies.

Figure 2

The B&R

Turning specifically to the B&R, which as will be seen is the most powerfully growing region among the developing economies, this is of course closely connected with China – which is now one the three great centres of the world economy with the US and the EU.

Comparing these three economic centres it is well known that measured at current exchange rates China’s economy is smaller than either the US or the EU – in 2016 China’s GDP was $11.2 trillion compared to $16.4 trillion for the EU and $18.6 trillion for the US. Measured in PPPs China’s economy is actually larger than the US but to avoid discussion of PPP calculations, and because data on savings is not available in PPPs, in this article all measures are at current exchange rates unless specified otherwise.

However, while China’s GDP is smaller than the US or EU it is not yet sufficiently widely understood that China already enjoys a decisive advantage over these other economic centres in one decisive field – savings, that is finance for investment. Furthermore, China’s considerable lead in this will get bigger with time. As shown in Figure 3 by 2016 China total annual savings – that is the sum of company saving, household saving and government dissaving – was $5.1 trillion compared to $3.5 trillion for the US and $3.6 trillion for the EU. By 2021 on IMF projections China’s annual finance created for investment will be $6.9 trillion, compared to $4.2 trillion for the EU and $4.0 trillion for the US.

In summary, while China’s GDP is smaller than the US China has already overtaken the US as a financial ‘superpower’. It is this which enables China to take initiatives such as AIIB and international fixed investment and infrastructure initiatives which are crucial in the B&R.

Figure 3

B&R as locomotive

Based on these economic fundamentals the comparative growth potentials of the B&R region, North America and Europe may now be analysed. As B&R is a regional initiative IMF data for North America, including Canada and Mexico, is given – rather than simply that for the US. For Europe the European Union (EU) as a whole is taken. Given this framework then:

· Measured at current exchange rates projections from IMF data from 2016-2021 shows that in the next five years the B&R region will account for 46% of world economic growth – compared to 24% for North America and 10% for the European Union – as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4

The situation in 2016

Turning now to the impact of the different growth potentials in the main world economic centres on the structure of the global economy, as a starting point Figure 5 shows that in 2016 the GDPs of the B&R region and the North American region were approximately equal in size while the EU was slightly smaller than either – B&R being equivalent to 27.5% of World GDP, North America 28.1%, and the EU 21.8%.

Figure 5

However, as the average growth rates in countries in the B&R region are much faster than those in either North America or the EU within five years the structure of the world economy will be sharply changed – as is shown clearly by Figure 6 and Figure 7. By 2021 the GDP of the B&R region, calculated from IMF data, will be $29.7 trillion, compared to $21.1 trillion for North America and $18.3 trillion for the EU. In percentage terms the B&R region will be 31.3% of world GDP – compared to 27.3% for North America and 19.2% for the EU.

Figure 6

Figure 7

Can another country block B&R?

The fundamental economic data also makes clear why no other individual country can block the success of B&R – specifically India cannot block B&R. This is due to the fact that while B&R is open to numerous countries economic realities make clear which countries are indispensable for B&R’s success.

Four large economies are within the B&R region – in descending order of GDP size China, India, Russia and Indonesia. Together these make up 79% of the GDP of the B&R region in 2016 and 85% of its projected growth in 2016-2021. However no other country makes up even 5% of the GDP of the B&R region or 2% of its projected growth – therefore no single other country than these four is by itself large enough to ensure the B&R initiative did not succeed.

Of these four large economies Russia and Indonesia are strong supporters of B&R and their presidents will attend the Beijing summit. India is therefore the only large economy in the B&R region which has indicated at the time of writing it will not participate in the Beijing summit.

This reticence is regrettable, and India’s enthusiastic participation in B&R would undoubtedly strengthen B&R. But in 2016 India was only 11% pf the B&R region’s GDP and 15% of its projected growth in 2016-2021. Put in other terms, 89% of the GDP of the B&R region and 85% of its growth potential was outside India. Given this weight India could not block B&R’s development even although its participation would be extremely valuable.

Tasks for the B&R

These macroeconomic trends naturally do not mean there are no problems for B&R. The advantage of North America and the EU is that their per capita GDPs are much higher than the B&R region, and both NAFTA and the EU have an institutional structure which B&R does not have nor is projected to have at present. But the much greater growth performance in the B&R region compared to any other, and therefore the vastly greater market expansion of the B&R region than any other, is much stronger than the institutional framework of the relatively stagnant North American and European economic centres.

It is clear that the B&R region is aided by, and can build on, the existence of a number of partial institutional frameworks within its area. These include the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the existing Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU – Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The wider proposed initiatives include the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) promoted by China. The wider concept of a Eurasian Union promoted by President Putin clearly overlaps with the B&R – as President Putin states.

The Beijing summit on 14-15 May will therefore have numerous tasks to work on not only its own projects but building and integrating existing initiatives. But the reshaping of the world economy by the B&Rs much greater growth potential than any other region is clear.

Conclusion

It may be seen from the data above that the differences in growth potential between the B&R and other major economic centres are not small – that is within the margin of error of five year economic forecasting . On IMF data projections:

· In the next five years, the B&R region will account for 46% of total world growth.

· The growth of the B&R region in the next five years will be almost twice that of North America, and over four times that of Europe.

· By 2021 the B&R region will account for a substantially higher share of world GDP than North America or Europe.

No plausible margin of error therefore alters the fundamental fact that in the next five years the B&R region will be by far the most important locomotive of the world economy. In particular, that the growth potential of the B&R region far exceeds that of North America and Europe. This reality must therefore be the basis of economic strategy in the coming period.

* * *

This article originally appeared in Chinese at Sina Finance Opinion Leaders.

What is at stake in France?

What is at stake in France?By Tom O’Leary

Although they are broadly similar in terms of GDP and population size, France is a more important country than Britain in the EU. Any move by France to exit the EU and the Single Market would have a far greater impact than the self-inflicted damage to living standards in Britain arising from Brexit. As a founder member of all the EU’s forerunners and an economy more deeply integrated into the Eurozone economy, a French departure would have a shattering effect. At the very least a number of other countries could also be expected to depart, including Spain, Portugal and Italy.

Marine Le Pen is vying for the lead in the Presidential race, and she proposes a referendum on a French exit. The continued strength of Marine Le Pen’s far right and overtly racist Front National in the opinion polls is evidence of a deep malaise in French society. The FN continues to record about one quarter of the vote, while many other candidates also play a similar anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim tune in a lower register.

France, like many European countries including Britain, does not have an immigration crisis. It has an economic crisis in which immigrants and minority ethnic and/or religious communities are used as scapegoats. Without its migrants, and the daughters and sons of migrants, the economic crisis would be even more grave. 

The road to socialism is very unlikely to lead through the EU. Under certain circumstances, where a socialist programme of taking control of the means of production to increase investment was being offered, exit could lead to far better outcomes than sticking with the EU. Even then, the new government would need great skill in minimising the disruption to trade. But of course, this is not what the overtly racist Le Pen proposes, but nor does any other candidate.

The French crisis

Like every other phenomenon, the analysis of current economic situation must begin from evidence, not myth or rhetoric. The outline of the crisis is evident from Chart 1 below. It shows the change in real GDP since the crisis began and the change in the main components of GDP.

Chart 1. France Change in Real GDP & Components, 2007 to 2016
 
Real GDP has risen by just €104 billion since the crisis and after 8 years is only 5.2% higher than in 2007. This is equivalent to an annual average growth rate of little more 0.6%. Once again, we find that Consumption growth has been unable to lead the economy. Consumption has risen more strongly than GDP itself. Contrary to widespread belief, Government Consumption is also higher. It has risen by 13.8% over the period and in percentage terms is actually the strongest component of all.

The drag on GDP has come from the weakness of Investment, which has fallen by €8 billion since 2007. This combination of rising Consumption and falling Investment has led to a widening trade deficit. As falling Investment means declining competitiveness any increase in consumer and other demand is disproportionately met by rising imports. Statistically, the widening deficit on net exports has been the biggest factor subtracting from GDP. 

The fall in Investment has also been reflected in a decline in both industrial production and construction over the period. The French crisis is a crisis of investment.

Investment-led growth

In the corresponding 10-year period up to 2007, Investment rose by 39%. Simply in order to achieve that pace, Investment would need to rise now by €90 billion, equivalent to 4.2% of GDP. It would then need to continue to rise faster than GDP. The private sector, which accounts for the bulk of Investment in all capitalist economies, is either unwilling or unable to raise its level of Investment. French profits have not even kept pace with meagre GDP growth, up €63 billion in nominal terms since 2007 compared to a €280 billion rise in nominal GDP. As a result, the public sector is the only other agent that could increase Investment.

Is this even possible within the EU and operating under the EU Commission’s ‘Trimester’ of national budget oversight, the ‘six-pack’ and the strictures of the ECB?

The reality is that no country has tried. While a number of countries have a higher proportion of GDP directed towards Investment than France, they have all been cutting Investment. In virtually every European country (including the UK) public spending has been rising (on Consumption) while public sector Investment has been cut.

What would be required is a 180-degree turn. Public spending should be maintained, but public Investment should be very substantially increased. In terms of the main candidates, Le Pen says nothing coherent about the economy at all. Her entire programme and campaign is racist scapegoating. Macron says he would initiate a €50 billion public investment programme. But this is just €10 billion a year, when €90 billion and more is required. At the same time he would tear up worker protections, and slash taxes for businesses and the rich. This would lower living standards, and probably increase the public sector deficit, with even the meagre investment pledge the first likely casualty. Fillon’s policies are similar, if more right wing. He talks of €35 billion in public investment, but as this is conditional on private investment it has more of the character of a subsidy than an investment programme. By contrast, the only left candidate in the race is Melenchon who would invest a much more substantial €102 billion.

In EU terms, France is a very important country, the second most important after Germany. As a French exit risks destroying the entire EU, it has a very great weight within the EU and could use that for its own benefit and for the whole of Europe. A menu of measures could include:

  • a derogation from (or better, rewrite of) the EU fiscal rules to exempt public borrowing for investment from all fiscal targets
  • a large increase in public borrowing for investment
  • a large increase in the budget and lending of the European Investment Bank across Europe
  • an increase in the EU Budget for investment purposes
  • ECB bond purchases to widen to include the debt of the state-owned enterprises and semi-state sector, public bodies, regions and municipalities linked to their increased investment
  • Europe-wide investment programmes in renewable energy, integrated energy storage and distribution networks, hi-speed rail, improved broadband and telecommunications links, and in higher education
  • using their balance sheet strength, increase borrowing for investment by the still substantial French state-owned sector, including railways, energy, cars, telecoms, post, airports and others
  • altering the tax code to penalise companies paying exorbitant salaries or shareholder dividends, and to benefit companies increasing their level of investment and training.
Naturally, this is only an outline programme, and those with specific knowledge could improve and refine it substantially. It should be accompanied by a series of measures boosting wages, capping prices, and improving public services to ensure living standards rise and to bolster public support. The tax revenues from rising investment-led activity can be used to fund these.
What then, if the EU Commission and the ECB said no? In that event, the logical course would be to begin to implement these measures on a national basis. This would have a strongly positive effect on growth, albeit diminished if they are not EU-wide.
There would be huge risks if there was an attempt to sabotage this series of reforms. France could refuse to pay all fines or penalties that might be imposed by the Commission, secure in the knowledge that its bargaining position was greater than almost any other EU country. If then the ECB cut French banks adrift from its liquidity operations (as it did with Greece), this would be taken as a notice to quit the Euro.
In that circumstance, the EU institutions would be trying to prevent polices which were evidently in the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population. The French government would be trying to enact them. At that point, would the institutions risk the entire European edifice in order to block sensible reforms? This is an unknown, as it has not yet been tried. 

Austerity has only half worked. New, more radical measures will be attempted

Austerity has only half worked. New, more radical measures will be attemptedBy Tom O’Leary

The latest GDP data show that austerity has only been effective in driving down wages. It has not been effective at all in boosting profits, which is its purpose. As a continuation of existing policy may simply yield the same results, new and more radical measures will be needed.

Wages down, but profits not up

The purpose of austerity is to increase the share of national income that goes to business and the rich, that is, to boost the profit rate. It has nothing to do with deficit-reduction, which is much more readily achieved by polices that boost growth and thereby increase tax revenues. To boost profits, wages have been frozen or cut, while the total level of social spending has been frozen. Taxes have been cut for business and the rich. So, the UK began the crisis with a main Corporate Tax rate (on profits) of 28%. It is now 20% and is due to fall to 17% in 2020. At the same time, taxes paid by workers and the poor have risen, especially VAT.

But the UK version of austerity has only produced the effect of depressing wages and the incomes of the poor. Real wages have begun to decline once more. But austerity has not succeeded in transforming the profitability of UK businesses. Table 1 below shows the distribution of national income as a proportion of GDP in 2013, when the current very modest recovery properly began. It also shows the proportionate distribution of national income of the £200 billion rise in nominal GDP between 2013 and 2016.

Table 1. Distribution of UK National Income as a Proportion of GDP
Source: Calculated from ONS data (Schedule D of ONS national accounts release)

The share of profits (Gross Operating Surplus) has not risen at all. From 2013 to 2016 nominal GDP rose by £200 billion. The Compensation of Employees has risen by just £84 billion. Austerity has been very ‘successful’ in driving down workers’ share of incomes, from 50.5% of GDP in 2013 to just 42% of the change in GDP from 2013 to 2016. (In real terms, the effect of inflation is that total compensation has risen minimally over the period). 

But austerity has not been successful at all in driving up the profit share of private corporations. In the financial sector profits have actually fallen even in nominal terms. For non-financial private companies as a whole profits have only just about kept pace with the moderate rise in GDP. There has been no profits bonanza for private producers.

Instead, there has been a sharp increase in the ‘Other income’ share of national income. This includes a variety of income streams, and mixes profits and incomes of the non-profit institutions, households and others. Partly it reflects the growth of spurious ‘self-employment’.

To demonstrate this is not a quirk of using the year 2013 as a starting-point, the same exercise is repeated in Table 2 below. This shows the distribution of national income as a proportion of GDP in 2007, the last year before the recession. It also shows the proportionate distribution of national income in the £409 billion rise in nominal GDP between 2007 and 2016.

Table 2. Distribution of UK National Income as a Proportion of GDP
Source: Calculated from ONS data (Schedule D of ONS national accounts release)

The outcome is that austerity has worked to driven down the wage share, but it has not boosted the profits of companies. Without boosting their profits there will be no significant increase in business investment. As raising profitability remains the aim of policy, so further more radical measures will be required.

This government will try to impose radical measures to further curb wages and spending on public goods to boost profits. The mechanism for this will now be the opportunities afforded by Brexit. It seems likely, given the ineffective outcome of policy to date, that this project would have been attempted in any event within the EU. But removing the protections on workers’ rights, the environment, consumer safeguards and so on provides greater room for manoeuvre.

Weak starting-point

For the year 2016 real GDP grew by 1.8%. This is the second weakest annual rate of growth since the crisis began. Tory government policy temporarily boosted consumption in 2014 as part of its re-election campaign. Growth has been decelerating since.

Real UK GDP growth in 2016 was marginally less than that of the EU as whole (1.9%) and a little greater than the US (1.6%). Of course, it was a fraction of Chinese GDP growth (6.7%).

The effect of the Brexit vote has been mainly felt through a decline in the pound, which has both lifted prices and should boost exports. Those trends will not continue indefinitely. Instead, the act of leaving the Single Market will create a new situation. The GDP data provide evidence of what that new situation will look like and how the current contradictions will be resolved.

Chart1. UK GDP Growth Is Slowing

Commentators have tended to focus on the rundown in the household savings ratio to a new low of 3.3%. This is an average rate and clearly implies that a large and growing proportion of households are able to save nothing at all or are becoming more indebted.

Household Consumption grew by a full percentage point faster than GDP in 2016, 2.8% versus 1.8%. As Household Consumption accounts for about three-quarters of all Consumption in the UK this would usually mean total Consumption was rising strongly. If Consumption could lead growth this would be a positive development.

For ‘keynesians’ who persist in arguing that Consumption does lead growth, the UK economy is a text book case. Except that the argument is wrong. Strong Consumption has not led to rising Investment, as the ‘keynesians’ suggest. The rise in Consumption cannot be sustained by a persistently declining savings rate. Instead, at a certain point households will decide they cannot or will not continue to support rising Consumption when incomes are not rising as fast and will restrain spending, maybe sharply. Sustained rises in Consumption requires sustainably rising incomes. This is only generally possible if the economy itself is growing.

Falling business investment

Rising growth itself depends on increasing trade and rising investment. Yet business Investment fell in the final quarter of 2016, down 0.9% from a year ago. This is in line with 2016 as whole, where business investment fell by 1.5% from 2015 to 2016. Rising Consumption has not led to rising Investment as Chart 2 shows.

Chart 2. Annual levels of business investment and annual growth rates of business investment
Source: ONS

Private Investment is driven by anticipated profits. This is not the same as preceding profits, which businesses judge can and do vary considerably. Chart 3 below shows there is a close correlation between the change in Profits (blue line) year-on-year and the change in Business Investment (red).

Chart 3. UK Profits and Business Investment, % Change, 1997 to 2016

As the purpose of private investment is to realise profits, in general changes in profits tend to lead changes in business investment. But in 2016 business investment fell while profits grew very modestly. Businesses expect profits to be significantly lower in future. 

Naturally businesses can be wrong. A rise in exports could have a sustained positive impact on production and profits for export. This could be a response to the fall in pound, compensating for the rise in prices and fall in real incomes that is underway.

But there is no evidence that this is the case. Exports rose by 1.8% in 2016, not faster than GDP as a whole. By contrast imports rose by 2.8%. So the trade gap actually widened from £45 billion in 2015 to £52 billion in 2016. Economists speak of ‘J-curve’ effects on the trade balance after currency devaluations. This simply describes a process where the trade balance initially deteriorates and only improves years later as the effect of rising import prices fades and exporters win market share based on lower export prices.

That might be possible, although it would run contrary to established UK custom, where devaluations are used simply to hike prices, while investment is kept low so that any competitive gain is quickly eroded. If UK producers were gearing up for a global export drive, they would be using the windfall of the more competitive currency to restrain export price increases and raise investment. Neither of these two potential developments are taking place. As previously noted, business investment is falling. Remarkably too, UK producers have chosen to raise export prices at a faster rate than the rise in import prices (see Chart 4, below).

Chart 4. Indices of UK Export prices and UK Import Prices January 2015 to January 2017
Source: ONS
While the level of Investment in the UK economy is stagnant or falling it is almost impossible for real wages to increase significantly. Wages are not set primarily by the supply and demand for labour, but by the struggle between workers and their employers. To raise wages and conditions on the docks, it was necessary to end the system of day labouring through unionisation, not to reduce the number of dockers needing work.

Over the medium-term growth is driven by Investment. Without growth, workers would have to engage in enormous struggles in order to increase their wages by wresting capital’s share of total income. Real wages look set to fall further, and will be part of the government strategy for boosting capacity.

Brexit and the crisis

Using the Rahm Emmanuel dictum of ‘let no good crisis go to waste’ the government has embarked on a policy which will use the new-found freedom of Brexit to get rid of ‘red tape’ (workers’ rights such as restrictions on the working week or maternity leave, environmental protection and consumer standards).  

The claim is that the UK will be moving closer to the Singapore model of development. This is untrue. Singapore’s per capita GDP is US$85,382 versus the UK’s $41,756, according to World Bank data. This primarily arises from two factors. First, Singapore’s openness to trade is nearly 6 times greater than the UKs (326% of GDP versus 56.5%). Secondly, Investment (Gross Fixed Capital Formation) is a higher proportion of that much higher per capita GDP (25.5% versus 16.9%). Contrary to myth, Singapore also exercises a large degree of public control over investment, including outright state investment.

Chart 5 UK Average Weekly Earnings

The blue arrow points to the date in 2016 of the UK’s EU Referendum

Brexit will not include any of this. In the words of leading leave campaigner Michael Gove, the aim is that the UK’s relationship with the EU will not be like Norway or Switzerland, but like Albania. The UK is severing its links with its closest markets, whereas Singapore has thoroughly integrated itself into the regional South East Asian economy and the rest of the world. In the UK the low level of investment is declining. The state will not be a directing hand over investment. It will be increasingly laissez-faire. In 2012 the Tories commissioned, but were unable to implement the main measures of, the Beecroft Report, calling for the wide-ranging removal of workers’ right.

So far, austerity has ‘worked’ only to drive down wages. It has not driven up profits. New, more radical solutions will be attempted if a real recovery in profitability is to be achieved, facilitated by Brexit. 

What China achieving ‘moderate prosperity’ means for China and the world

What China achieving ‘moderate prosperity’ means for China and the world

By John Ross

China’s recently concluded “two sessions,” the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, reaffirmed China’s strategic medium term goal to create a “moderately prosperous society in all respects” by 2020. But “moderately prosperous” is a specifically Chinese term. To give a clearer idea internationally of what achieving this would mean, it is enlightening to give a global comparison for China’s goal of “moderate prosperity.”
The result is extremely striking. If China successfully attains “moderate prosperity” by 2020, then at current exchange rates:
  • Only 19 percent of the world’s population will be in countries with a higher per capita GDP than China,
  • 62 percent of the world’s population will be in countries with a lower per capita GDP than China.
China will have overtaken almost every developing country. Its level of economic development will have become higher than several countries in Eastern Europe. A country’s level of economic development, its per capita GDP, is an overwhelming determinant of improvement in overall living and social standards. Internationally almost three quarters of life expectancy, the single most sensitive all round indicator of human conditions, is explained by per capita GDP. The difference in life expectancy between a low-income economy and a high income one by international standards is twenty years – 61 compared to 81.
Pre-1978
It is necessary to note that in 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was created, China was almost the world’s poorest country – in 1950 only 10 countries out of 141 for which data can be calculated had lower per capita GDPs. In 1949 China’s life expectancy was 35 – only 73 percent of the world average.
From 1949 to 1978 China achieved a “social miracle” without precedent in world history. From 1949 until Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, China’s life expectancy rose by 29 years – from 35 to 64, increasing by more than one year for each chronological year, or from 73 percent of the world average to 105 percent. There has never been such a sustained rapid increase in life expectancy in any other major country in human history.
But if in 1949-78 China’s social achievements were historically unprecedented, its economic growth was only approximately in line with the world average.
Trends after 1978
After the 1978 “reform and opening up,” as is well known, China’s economic growth became the world’s highest. Taking World Bank data:
  • Between 1978-2015 China’s annual average growth rate was 9.6 percent compared to a world average of 2.9 percent – China’s growth rate was more than three times the world average.
  • As China’s population growth was relatively slow, China’s global growth lead in per capita GDP was even greater. In 1978-2015 China’s annual average per capita GDP growth was 8.6 percent compared to a world average of 1.4 percent – China’s per capita GDP growth rate was more than six times the world average.
The result was the dramatic continuing rise in China’s relative position in terms of world economic development. The relevant data, showing the proportion of the world’s population living in countries with higher and lower per capita GDPs than China, is set out at current exchange rates, China’s preferred measure, in Figure 1. In internationally comparable prices (purchasing power parities – PPPs), the measure preferred by international economic institutions, the data is shown in Figure 2.
For clarity it should be noted that the sharp oscillations in China’s relative global position measured at current exchange rates during the 1980s do not reflect shifts in China’s productive economy but merely exchange rate shifts between China and India. Taking first the starting point:
  • In 1980, measured in PPPs, only 2 percent of the world’s population lived in countries with a lower per capita GDP than China, while 75 percent were in countries with a higher per capita GDP.
  • Measuring in current exchange rate is more complex, due to the changes in exchange rates in 1981-82. But if an average is made of 1981-82, then at that date 14 percent of the world’s population was in countries with a lower per capita GDP than China and 64 percent higher than China.
By either measure, of course, China’s relative position in the world at the beginning of “reform and opening up” was low.
The situation in 2016
By 2016, due to rapid economic development, China’s situation was entirely transformed.
  • In PPPs, only 26 percent of the world’s population lived in countries with a higher per capita GDP than China, while China had a per capita GDP higher than 55 percent of the world’s population.
  • At current exchange rates 26 percent of the world’s population lived in countries with a higher per capita GDP than China and 55 percent in countries with a lower per capita GDP than China.
In summary, by 2016 approximately only one quarter of the world’s population lived in countries with a higher per capita GDP than China, while the majority of the world’s population lived in countries with lower per capita GDPs than China – a total transformation of China’s situation.
Figure 1
17 03 15 Figure 1 Current Exchange Rates
Figure 2
17 03 15 Figure 2 PPP

2017-2020
From 2017-2020, the final period during which China projects “relative prosperity” to be achieved, economic projections must be made. Those used for calculations here are from the IMF’s October 2016 World Economic Outlook. These are chosen as they are conservative – exaggeration is of no use in analysing serious matters. The IMF data assume lower growth rates than China’s targets – an average 6.0 percent growth in 2017-2020, compared to the 2017 target of 6.5 percent and those for the 13th five-year plan (2016-2020). By 2020 on this data:
  • At market exchange rates only 19 percent of the world’s population in 2020 will be in countries with a higher per capita GDP than China and 62 percent in countries with a lower per capita GDP.
  • Measured in PPPs, 24 percent of the world’s population will be in countries with a higher per capita GDP than China and 58 percent in countries with a lower per capita GDP.
China has already overtaken in per capita GDP or in PPP all of the world’s other largest developing economies – India, Indonesia and Brazil. By 2020 China’s per capita GDP will be higher than several Eastern European countries.
As China has 19 percent of the world’s population, quite literally never in human history has anything approaching such a large proportion of the world’s population had its conditions of life improved so rapidly. That will be the astonishing measure of China’s success in achieving “moderate prosperity” – it is, without comparison, literally the greatest economic achievement in human history.
*   *   *
This article originally appeared at China.org.cn.

The economic logic behind Trump’s foreign policy – why the key countries are Germany and China

The economic logic behind Trump’s foreign policy – why the key countries are Germany and China

By John Ross
This article was published in Chinese before the recent summit between Chancellor Merkel and President Trump – which strongly confirmed its analysis.
The first steps by Trump as US President confirmed that he will pursue an anti-China policy but also that he will use different tactics to Obama and Clinton. Simultaneously Trump has launched a serious conflict with Germany, supporting countries leaving the EU and demanding European states rapidly increase their military spending – policies rejected by Merkel at the recent Munich Security Conference. What, therefore, is the internal logic uniting such apparently different actions as:
  • Trump bringing hard line China forces into the core of his administration;
  • New Defence Secretary Mattis’s first foreign trip being to Japan and South Korea to emphasise support for THAAD and US military support for Japan;
  • A new US policy by Trump of attempts to weaken or break up the EU, as opposed to supporting it;
  • Trump’s criticisms of Germany;
  • Trump’s deliberate confrontation with Mexico and fierce criticism of Australia,
  • Trump’s announced economic strategy.
There is clarity regarding Trump’s actions towards China – the Tsai phone call, THAAD deployment in South Korea, Trump’s initial attempts in interviews to challenge the ‘One China’ policy and then his necessary acceptance of it in his phone call with Xi Jinping. But some actions by Trump’s are incorrectly seen as unrelated to China, as being counter-productive, or even as ‘bizarre’ – for example virulent criticism of Germany, one of the US’s most important allies, or a telephone shouting match with another close US ally, Australia’s prime minister. But the internal logic of these actions becomes clear when the real economic situation facing Trump is understood. Once the real US economic situation is analysed Trump’s foreign policy steps fall logically into place, and it will be seen that Trump’s actions towards Germany, Australia, Japan etc are indeed related.
To most adequately understand and respond to Trump’s policy, therefore, it is necessary to clearly understand its aims, its internal logic, and the ways it differs from Clinton/Obama. This article, therefore, focuses on the constraints on Trump’s economic policy and the way these determine his administration’s foreign and military strategy. First the real situation of the US economy will be demonstrated and then the possibilities for Trump to improve this analysed. From analysis of these realities the coherence and constraints which dictate Trump’s tactics in his foreign policy can be clearly understood.
The economic situation facing Trump
Self-evidently Trump’s goal is to strengthen the position of the US compared to all other states (‘America First’) and he recognises that improving the position of the US economy is the key to all aspects of this – including sustaining his promised US military build-up. But to understand the possibilities available for Trump to achieve this it is necessary to analyse accurately the situation of the US economy.
Various forces which either simply repeat propaganda without comparing it to facts present a myth that the US is undergoing ‘strong growth’ allegedly driven by ‘dynamic innovation’. This creates disorientation and inability to understand the logic of Trump’s actions. For the exact opposite is the case – it is the difficulties of the US economy which create the internal logic of Trump’s approach.
It was precisely because of the problems in the US economy that Trump was elected. US median wages are lower than in 1999 while simultaneously inequality has risen to the point where the total income of the top 20% of the US population is now greater than the combined income of the bottom 80%. It was deep popular economic discontent created by this situation which led to the candidates of the traditional Republican elite being swept aside in favour of Trump during the Republican primaries and to manual working class votes in previously Democrat voting states supporting him at the presidential election.
The real long term situation of the US economy is therefore demonstrated in Figure 1 which shows US annual average GDP growth, using a 20-year moving average to remove all purely short term fluctuations due to business cycles. This data shows clearly that the most profound trend in the US economy is a half century long economic slowing – the peaks of US growth progressively falling from 4.9% in 1969, to 4.1% in 1978, to 3.5% in 2003, to 2.3% by the latest data for the 4th quarter of 2016.
Figure 1
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The immediate situation of the US economy
Turning to the more immediate situation for the US economy, this is shown in Figure 2 which confirms clearly the sharp slowdown in the US economy during 2016.
  • US GDP growth fell from 2.6% in 2015 to only 1.6% in 2016 – that is during 2016 the US economy slowed down by almost 40% from its previous growth year’s rate.
  • US per capita GDP growth fell from 1.9% in 2015 to only 0.9% in 2016 – US per capita GDP growth therefore declined to under half of its previous year’s growth rate, and fell to less than an annual 1%, which is approaching stagnation.
These trends show clearly that the claim of ‘strong recovery’ of the US economy during 2016 was entirely a myth. In fact, the US economy was slowing sharply compared even to the previous years
Figure 2
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Comparison to other major economic centres
This data on the slowdown of the US economy is still more striking when compared to the statistics for the other two major world economic centres – China and the EU. What this data shows is that far from the US undergoing ‘strong recovery’, the US was the slowest growing of the major world economic centres in 2016
Final data for 2016 for China and the US is already published. Final data for the EU is not yet available, but it is published up the 3rd quarter of 2016, showing growth at 1.9%. The October 2016 IMF World Economic Outlook, based on the most up to date statistics, concludes this growth rate will continue until the end of the year. Given the closeness of this data to the end of the year it would be unlikely the final figure would differ greatly from this projection.[Note publication of the final EU data confirmed its 2016 growth rate at 1.9% – JR]
Given these trends GDP growth in 2016 would be:
  • China – 6.7%
  • EU – 1.9%
  • US – 1.6%
Therefore, not merely did the US economic decelerate sharply in 2016 but the US was the slowest growing of the major economic centres.
Figure 3
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The present US business cycle
Finally, the position of the US economy can be seen particularly clearly by comparing this US business cycle to previous ones.
As an economy is cyclical, for the most accurate analysis it is crucial that equivalent positions in the business cycle are compared. If only chronological measures are used then, for example:
  • comparing a position at the peak of a business cycle to one at the bottom will give an exaggerated indication of economic growth,
  • comparing the bottom of a business cycle to the top will understate average growth.
The peak of the last US business cycle was in the 4th quarter of 2007. The latest data for the US is for the 4th quarter of 2016 – exactly nine years since the peak of the previous US business cycle. Figure 4 therefore compares growth in the nine years between the 4th quarter of 2007 and the 4th quarter of 2016 with growth nine years after the peak of US previous business cycles in 1973, 1980, 1990, and 2000. This shows clearly that US growth in this business cycle is weaker than in any of these previous business cycles. Total US GDP growth after nine years during this business cycle is only 12.1%, compared to 14.7% after 2000, 18.9% after 1973, 33.2% after 1990, and 33.3% after 1980.
In summary, the factual situation is that far from Trump inheriting a US economy undergoing ‘strong growth’ due to ‘innovation’ Trump has inherited a US economy growing very weakly compared to its previous economic performance. It is therefore necessary to assess Trump’s possibilities to reverse such slow US growth.
Figure 4
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Short term trends in the US economy
Confronted with this reality of very slow growth in the US economy Trump has claimed he will accelerate annual US GDP growth – he has announced a target of 4% annual growth. To accurately evaluate the chances of Trump’s success in this, given that the US economy is cyclical, it is necessary to separate short term from medium/long term trends.
In calculating the medium/long term rate of growth of the US, trends are severely affected by any period which includes the Great Recession of 2008-09. Any short-term calculation including the Great Recession will necessarily show a very depressed US growth rate – long term trends will average out such effects. To analyse US growth trends Table 1 therefore shows 5, 7, 10 and 20 year moving averages for annual US GDP growth. The 10-year period, commencing in 2006, diverges strongly from the others as it shows a very low annual US growth rate – due, as noted, to the huge impact of the Great Recession. However, the 20-year moving average, which is a sufficiently long period to average out the impact of the Great Recession, and the 5 and 7-year growth rates all show US GDP growth rates relatively close together in the range of 2.0% – 2.3%. The medium/long term growth rate of the US economy, which should be used for evaluating the effects of Trump’s policies, may reasonably be calculated to be around 2% or slightly above.
Table 1
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Short term upturn
To evaluate purely short term trends as was noted above in 2016 as a whole US GDP only grew by 1.6%. This is significantly below the average long term growth rate of the US economy. Taking quarterly data, in the year from the 4th quarter of 2015 to the 4th quarter of 2016 US GDP growth was 1.9% – an acceleration from the very slow growth in the first half of 2016 but still below the US long term average. Therefore, US economic growth in 2016 was below its long-term average.
Figure 5 therefore shows a comparison to the 4th quarter of 2016 compared to the 20-year average – other comparisons can easily be calculated from Table 1. It may be seen that by any measure, except the 10-year average, which is severely depressed for reasons already noted, the US economy in 2016 was growing below its trend rate. The conclusion that flows from that is that there should be a short-term acceleration of growth during the early period of the Trump presidency, for the simple statistical reason that in 2016 the US economy was growing significantly below its long-term average and a move of the US economy up towards its long-term average growth rate will therefore create the illusion that the US economy is improving during the early period of Trump’s administration – when it is in reality a predictable statistical effect.
As this would coincide with the initial period of Trump’s presidency this would lead to the claim ‘Trump is improving the US economy’. But this is false, such acceleration would be expected purely for statistical reasons. The key question, however, is whether Trump can raise the long-term growth rate of the US economy?
Figure 5
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The determinants of US growth
Turning from purely short term trends to assessing the potential for medium and long term US growth the reasons for the US long term slowdown already shown in Figure 1 are easy to analyse. The most fundamental of all features of the US economy is that it is a capitalist economy. This means when there is a high rate of capital accumulation the US economy grows rapidly, when there is a low rate of capital accumulation the US grows slowly – this basic theoretical analysis is fully confirmed by the data which follows.
Elsewhere, in ‘The Relation of Innovation and Fixed Investment in the US ICT Revolution’ [in Chinese] modern growth accounting methods were used to show factually that capital investment/accumulation is a decisive factor in US economic growth. For the most precise and accurate methods of analysing economic growth the data there can be consulted. However, the same fundamental result can easily be demonstrated using the simpler and familiar categories of US national accounts data so these are used in this analysis. In terms of economic statistics two measures could be taken as showing additions to capital in the US:
  • The first is US net savings – new capital added by the US itself,
  • The second is net investment – US savings plus investment in the US financed by saving from abroad.
Both will be analysed in turn. They show similar trends, as would be anticipated from the fact that the largest source of finance for US investment is US domestic savings, but they show some differences, due to US use of foreign savings for financing investment. It will be seen these differences have significant consequences for Trump’s foreign and economic policies.
Long term trends
A comprehensive study of the long-term development of the US economy was given in The Great Chess Game? [in Chinese] which should be consulted for further detail. A brief summary however clearly demonstrates the main underlying trends in the US economy.
Analysing first capital accumulation by the US itself, in terms of economic statistics net capital accumulation by the US is equal to US net savings. Figure 6 therefore shows the long-term trend in the US savings rate/capital accumulation rate since 1929. The curve of long term development of the US economy is clear:
  • During the crisis creating the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929-33 US capital accumulation was negative – that is the US economy was creating no capital. This necessarily produced a deep crisis of the US economy. After this the rate of US savings/capital creation rose, with a powerful acceleration during World War II, to reach a long-term peak as a percentage of the economy in 1965.
  • After 1965 US net savings/capital creation steadily fell as a percentage of Gross National Income until it once again became negative during the ‘Great Recession’ in 2008-2009. This declining trend of US capital creation explains the long-term growth slowdown shown in Figure 1.
Figure 6
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US use of foreign capital
Turning to net fixed investment in the US, that is fixed investment financed not only be US but by foreign capital/savings, this is shown in Figure 7. This shows the same fundamental curve as for net savings by the US itself – rising from a low point in 1929-33, reaching a post-World War II peak (in this case in 1966), before declining again towards the Great Recession.
However, there is one significant difference between net savings by the US, and US net fixed investment – the latter including fixed investment financed by use of foreign savings/capital. Net fixed investment in the US did not actually become negative during the Great Recession as the US was able to use savings from abroad to finance US net investment. This use of foreign savings to finance investment meant that US net fixed investment remained higher than US net savings.
In short, during the Great Recession, the US was able to use foreign savings/capital creation to cushion and lessen the negative effect of the fall of the US’s own savings. This use of foreign savings/foreign capital creation helps determine the foreign policy choices for Trump – as will be analysed.
Figure 7
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Shorter term trends on the US supply side
The above trends allow the basic economic constraints on Trump to be clearly analysed. The best fundamental approach to analysing the US economy, as with China’s, is via the structural features of its supply side – which brings out clearly the choices facing Trump and the interrelation of his economic policy with foreign and military strategy.
In the purely short term, as in all countries, numerous influences affect US economic growth– overall demand, trade, investment, consumption etc. This is clearly confirmed in Table 2 which shows the year by year correlation between US GDP real (i.e. inflation adjusted) growth and the size of components of the US economy measured as a percentage of GDP. This shows:
  • The only such component of US GDP for which there is a strong correlation with real GDP growth in a single year (0.60) is the build-up or run down of inventories – which is logical as inventories are highly sensitive to economic accelerations and declarations.
  • For other such components of US GDP there are correlations over a single year with real US GDP growth but none of these correlations are high – for example a positive correlation of the percentage of net fixed investment in GDP with GDP growth (0.25) and a negative correlation of the percentage of total consumption in GDP with GDP growth (-0.19).
Therefore, over the very short term, a single year, with the exception of inventory build-up/run down, there is no single major component of US GDP whose change of weight in the economy has a high correlation with US GDP growth.
These low correlations merely express in statistical form that in the purely short-term US economic growth cannot be predicted from changes as a percentage of US GDP of any single variable (except inventories).
Table 2
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Long term determinants of US economic growth
However, while short-term correlations between the structure of the US economy, the size of components of US GDP, and US GDP growth are weak a number of the medium/long term correlations are extremely high. This is illustrated in Table 3, which shows moving averages of from 1-10 years for the percentages of components of US GDP which have a positive correlation with real GDP growth. This shows clearly:
  • There is essentially no correlation between the percentage of US government consumption in GDP and US GDP growth – the highest correlation is only 0.07. This data is important for reasons other than those forming the subject of this article, as it shows that for the US it is a myth that lowering government consumption as a percentage of US GDP leads to faster growth, and that raising government consumption as a percentage of GDP leads to slower economic growth – there is no evidence for this.
  • There is a positive correlation between US gross fixed investment (fixed investment without deducting capital depreciation) and GDP growth but it is not high – a maximum 0.36.
  • The very strong positive correlations with US GDP growth are with total gross savings (0.61), total net savings (0.62) and net fixed investment (0.72). For clarity, it should be noted total gross savings are not only household savings but also include company savings and government savings; net savings are total savings minus capital depreciation, and net fixed investment is gross fixed investment minus capital depreciation.
Such a difference between short and long term correlations regarding US economic growth is easily explained. It indicates that some structural components of US GDP are very powerful over the medium/long term but are simply overlaid in the short term by purely shorter term factors.
The decisive power of some of the key components of US GDP is therefore clear from both medium and long term trends. Already over a five-year period, which might be taken as the medium term, a correlation of the percentage of net saving and net fixed investment with US GDP growth is over 0.50. Over the longer term, the correlation of 0.72 over an eight-year period between US net fixed investment and US GDP growth is extremely high.
As the highest positive correlation is between net fixed investment, that is the annual net addition to the US capital stock and US GDP growth, it is this which will be analysed in detail.
Table 3
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The correlation of US net fixed investment and GDP growth
As is well known, correlation is not the same as causality. The high correlation between medium/long term movements in the percentage of net fixed investment in US GDP and US GDP growth does not by itself prove that a high percentage of net fixed investment in GDP causes higher GDP, that high GDP growth causes a high percentage of net fixed investment in GDP, or that some other factor(s) causes both. From the point of view of Marxist economic theory, as is used in China, it would be argued that the high percentage of net fixed investment in GDP causes higher economic growth, but for present purposes it is unnecessary to establish this. But this extremely high correlation (0.72) between US net fixed investment and GDP growth simply means that without achieving a higher level of net fixed investment Trump cannot achieve higher GDP growth. This extremely high correlation is shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8
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Determinants of US growth
These facts regarding the long-term determinants of US economic growth necessarily decisively affect Trump’s ability to raise the long-term US growth rate. They demonstrate it is a myth that this can be achieved merely by innovation, tax cuts etc. The very close correlation between US net fixed capital formation and US GDP growth dictates that Trump can only realistically succeed in substantially speeding up the US economy’s medium/long term growth if US net fixed investment is raised. Put in the simplest terms, Trump can only accelerate US medium/long growth if the level of US capital accumulation can be raised – as is entirely logical given the capitalist nature of the US economy.
However, fixed investment necessarily requires exactly equivalent savings to finance it. Therefore, the question of whether Trump can raise the US long term growth rate in turn depends upon whether his administration can find sources of finance (savings) to raise US net investment.
To finance such an increase in US net fixed investment two potential sources exist – US domestic savings and foreign savings/capital. To raise net fixed investment in the US Trump’s policies must therefore either or both:
  • Raise the US savings level,
  • Increase US use of foreign savings
These two policies necessarily have very different political effects both within the US and internationally. In particular, as will be seen, they determine the basic features of Trump’s foreign policy.
Possibilities to raise US savings
Analysing first the US domestic economy, as this is divided into only consumption and savings, raising the percentage of the US economy devoted to savings necessarily means reducing the percentage of consumption in US GDP. Considered abstractly there are certainly ways Trump could achieve this without squeezing the percentage of US working class consumption in GDP – i.e. without squeezing the proportion of the US economy going to those who elected him. For example:
  • Military expenditure from an economic viewpoint is consumption. Reducing military expenditure as a percentage of US GDP would therefore raise the US savings level without reducing the percentage of US GDP used for the living standards of the majority of the US population.
  • Not all consumption is by the average population. Reducing consumption on luxury items would cut the consumption of the rich but would raise the US savings level without reducing the percentage of the US economy devoted to the consumption of the great majority of the US population.
But such economic methods go against Trump’s political priorities. Trump has stated his intention to increase military expenditure while a tax cut primarily for the rich is his key budget priority. Increased military expenditure, tax cuts on high incomes, and a possible government infrastructure spending programme will increase the US budget deficit – cutting government saving and, other things remaining equal, therefore reducing the US savings level. Given such commitments by Trump the only practical way he could achieve an increase in the US savings level would be to lower the proportion of the US economy allocated to consumption by the mass of the population. That is, given his other policies, the only way Trump could raise the US savings level would be to lower the proportion of the US economy used for the consumption of those who elected him – the consequences of which would be extremely unpopular.
As Trump only became President due to the non-democratic character of the US electoral system, with Clinton defeating him by almost three million in the popular vote, a significant part of the US political establishment is against him, and as his opinion poll satisfaction ratings have fallen faster than any previous US president, launching a strong economic attack on his own electoral base would be a risky policy for Trump.
Therefore, once Trump’s political goals are taken into consideration, it is highly improbable that the US savings level will rise – on the contrary it is likely to fall. This is certainly the market judgement regarding increased government borrowing – the yield on US 10 Year Treasury bonds rose from 1.83% on the day before Trump’s election to 2.35% on 9 February.
Use of foreign savings
If the level of savings by the US itself is not raised this only leaves the option of the US financing investment from foreign savings. Indeed, such a shift to greater reliance on borrowing foreign capital was a great historical change in the international position of the US inaugurated by Reagan. This relates to the difference of policies between Trump on the one hand and Clinton/Obama on the other. Clinton/Obama considered that it was necessary to make concessions to allies in order to form a broad ‘anti-China alliance’ – for example in the TPP and in Obama’s close political friendship with Merkel. Trump, as will be seen, in contrast considers that other countries must more directly subordinate their economic interests to the US, so that the US can strengthen itself for confrontation with China. US reliance on foreign borrowing for financing its investment, however, necessarily means that US economic policy becomes more tightly connected its foreign policy.
Analysing these trends historically prior to 1980, as Figure 9 shows, the US was normally a net lender of capital abroad – i.e. a net supplier of capital to other countries. This meant the US stabilised the international economy – both generally and more specifically in that the US could loan/grant capital to other countries if required to alleviate their economic/political situation. This was a key element of US foreign policy during the 1950-70s. US foreign policy in that period was able to use the powerful combination of not only the ‘stick’ of military threats but also the ‘carrot’ of large scale economic aid.
But after 1980, as Figure 9 shows, the US became a net international borrower of capital – using other countries capital to finance its own investment. Such borrowing reached a peak of almost 6% of US GDP in 2006 on the eve of the international financial crisis. This meant that the US itself was using other countries capital instead of them using it for their own development. In foreign policy terms, the US overall no longer had the ‘carrot’ of large scale aid to the rest of the world but only the ‘stick’ of military force. US economic policy became a net destabilising factor internationally – this overall position naturally not excluding US support to certain privileged states (e.g. Israel, Egypt, Ukraine).
Reagan, who launched this turn to financing US investment by foreign capital, did not stop the slowing of the US economy – as was clear from Figure 1. But Reagan was effective in ensuring other countries financed US. In particular Japan provided the main international source of funds for the US throughout the Reagan period – as analysed below. The consequences of this huge extraction of funds from Japan by the US was one of the chief reasons for the two-decade long economic stagnation of Japan after the 1980s.
Figure 9
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Financing of US investment from abroad
Turning to a more detailed examination of this US turn to financing its investment by foreign capital this is shown in Figure 10, which gives – data for the financing of US net capital creation, i.e. US investment not financed by US depreciation allowances on existing capital. This shows that from Reagan onwards the US became increasingly dependent on the use of foreign capital/savings for financing net investment. Indeed from 2002 to 2012, astonishingly, more US net capital formation was financed from abroad than was financed by the US own savings! After 2012 US net savings regained a positive level but:
  • The level of net US savings by 2015, the latest available full year data, remained low by historical standards – 3.3% of Gross National Income. The data for the first three quarters of 2016, the most recently available, shows this declining to an average of 2.8%.
  • A significant part of the improvement of US net saving was due to the reduction of military expenditure under Obama – US military expenditure fell from 4.7% of GDP in 2007 to 3.9% of GDP in 2016.
In summary, US net saving remains low while simultaneously Trump’s proposed economic policies are likely to reduce US savings. Given Trump’s policies, therefore, there is little scope to raise US net savings levels. Therefore, any moves by Trump to accelerate US GDP growth, which depends on raising fixed investment, require greater use of foreign savings. This in turn underlies Trump’s foreign policy choices.
Figure 10
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Which countries can finance US investment
The real situation of the US economy therefore immediately poses the question of which countries could potentially finance Trump’s projected accelerated US growth? The number of countries able to do this is extremely small given the huge size of US foreign borrowing.
The IMF estimates, in October 2016’s World Economic Outlook, that the US balance of payments deficit in 2016 would be $469 billion – the current account balance of payments of any country is statistically equal to the foreign inflow of capital with the sign reversed. To show which countries could potentially finance such a scale of borrowing as by the US Figure 11 therefore shows the US balance of payment deficit together with the five countries/regions with the largest dollar balance of payments surpluses – these are, in descending order, Germany, China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan Province of China. The combined Middle East oil exporters are also shown as in the past these played a major role in financing the US.
Due to the size of the US foreign borrowing other countries have surpluses which are too small to play a decisive role in financing this and therefore analysis will concentrate on these major surplus countries. Once these are analysed the internal logic of Trump’s foreign policy positions falls clearly into place.
Figure 11
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The international economic situation facing Trump
In carrying out a policy dependent on foreign borrowing Trump faces a situation much more complex than US presidents from Reagan to Obama due to the cumulative changes in the international economy brought about by the 2008 international financial crisis.
First, to demonstrate the simple situation for foreign borrowing faced by US presidents from Reagan to George W Bush, Figure 12 and Table 4 show the surpluses available from countries for financing of the US balance of payments deficit – and therefore for US foreign borrowing. For each country/region its cumulative balance of payments surplus/deficit during a presidency is shown in absolute terms in Table 4 and as percentage of the US balance of payments deficit in Table 4 and Figure 12. Thus, for example, during Reagan’s presidency the total US balance of payments deficit with all countries was $681 billion while Japan’s balance of payments with all countries was $366 billion – under Reagan Japan’s balance of payment surplus was equivalent to 54% of the US balance of payments deficit.
This data shows clearly that from Reagan to Clinton Japan was the decisive country for financing US international borrowing. Japan’s balance of payment’s surplus was equivalent to 54% of the US balance of payments deficit under Reagan, 127% under George H.W. Bush, and 60% under Clinton. Prior to George W Bush, therefore, Japan could be the essential international source of US finance – provided Japan followed economic policies satisfactory to the US merely adding resources from a few smaller other countries to Japan’s finance could satisfy US borrowing needs.
Figure 12
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Table 4
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Weakening of Japan’s economy
But while this situation of financing the US deficit from Reagan to Clinton was satisfactory for the US it was disastrous for Japan. In particular, after the 1987 Wall Street stock market crash the US demanded Japan follow ultra-low interest policies to allow finance to flow out of Japan into the US, thereby allowing the US to avoid the negative consequences of the stock market crash. The result within Japan of such ultra-low interest rates was the late 1980s Japan ‘bubble economy’ and the ensuing disastrous Japan financial crash beginning in 1990s. Japan’s economy has still not recovered over a quarter of a century later from this financial catastrophe, passing into more than two decades of near economic stagnation.
The huge transfer of resources from Japan to the US under Reagan/George Bush/Clinton therefore financed the US economy but devastated Japan’s. However, as Japan is a semi-colony of the US, Japan was simply forced to follow policies which damaged its own economy but aided the US.
However, the cumulative effect of the huge economic blows dealt to Japan was that by the beginning of the 21st century Japan alone became too weak to finance a large part of the US deficit. During George W Bush’s presidency, 2001-2008, the percentage of the US balance of payments deficit that could be financed by Japan’s surplus fell to only 24% – too little to finance US needs. However fortunately for the US, prior to the international financial crisis, weakening of Japan’s ability to meet US financing needs did not lead to severe problems for the US as George W Bush found two additional international sources of finance. These were:
  • Middle East oil exporters, whose balance of payment surplus was equivalent to 27% of the US balance of payments deficit due to the high oil price,
  • China – whose balance of payment surplus was equivalent to 24% of the US balance of payments deficit.
The ability of the US to tap these two new sources of finance, however, necessarily entailed foreign policy choices. The easy one of these for the US was with the Middle Eastern oil exporters. Many of these (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE etc) are essentially in the same position as Japan in being entirely subservient to the US and can therefore, if necessary, be instructed/pressured to finance US deficits.
China, however, is not in that situation – it is not a semi-colony of the US or subservient to it. But George W Bush, throughout most of his presidency, maintained reasonable foreign policy relations with China – not seeking to create great tensions. This created a mutually beneficial situation in which China was content to de facto aid financing the US balance of payment deficit in return for no major trade or political tensions existing with the US.
George W Bush’s presidency, by balancing three major sources of foreign financing for the US – Japan, the Middle East oil exporters, and China – therefore did not prior face great problems in meeting US foreign borrowing needs prior to the international financial crisis.
Trends after the international financial crisis
The consequences of the 2008 international financial crisis, however, cumulatively radically changed the previous relatively easy situation regarding potential sources of US international borrowing. This is shown in Figure 13 – in this figure the percentages at the end of the graph lines are for the country/region’s balance of payments surplus/deficit as a percentage of the US’s 2016 balance of payments deficit. The data is calculated from the IMF’s October 2016 World Economic Outlook.
Figure 13
17 02 10 Figure 13
As may be seen, Japan’s balance of payments surplus remains too small to play the same decisive role in financing US deficits as under Reagan/George Bush/Clinton – Japan’s surplus is only 38% of the US deficit. But the crucial new factor confronting Trump is the collapse in the surplus of the Middle East oil exporters due to the fall in the oil price.
As recently as 2013 the Middle East oil exporters balance of payments surplus was equivalent to 94% of the US balance of payments deficit. Therefore, Middle East Oil exporters by themselves could virtually finance US foreign borrowing needs. Two sources of finance wholly subordinate to the US, Japan and the Middle East, could potentially meet all US foreign borrowing needs.
But the oil price fall, produced by the cumulative slowdown in the global economy after the international financial crisis, devastated the international position of Middle East oil exporters. By 2016 the Middle East Oil exporters had moved from surplus into a large collective balance of payment deficit of $142 billion. Only a major increase in the oil price, due either to a strong upturn of the world economy or increased fossil fuel use, could restore the Middle East oil exporters balance of payments surpluses and therefore their ability to finance the US. Certainly, an increase in the oil price would aid the US fracking industry, and it is a deliberate policy of Trump to seek to increase the use of fossil fuels whatever the consequences for global climate change, but no such large increase in the oil price has yet occurred. Therefore, Middle East oil exporters are currently in no position to finance the US balance of payment deficit.
Germany and China
The result of all these international changes is that only two countries, Germany and China, now have very large balance of payments surpluses. On the latest IMF data in 2016:
  • Germany had a balance of payments surplus of $301 billion, equivalent to 64% of the US $469 billion deficit.
  • China had a balance of payments surplus of $271bn, equivalent to 58% of the US deficit
But neither China nor Germany is anything like as easy for the US to force to finance its requirements as are Japan or the Middle East oil exporters.
  • Germany is military dependent on the US, and seeks good relations with it, as vividly shown in close Obama-Merkel ties. But Germany is the centre of the EU whose total economy is larger than the US. Germany, therefore, has considerably greater leverage for negotiation with the US than does Japan or Middle East oil exporters.
  • China is not at all dependent on the US in the same way as Japan/Middle Eastern oil exporters. China certainly prefers friendly/stable relations with the US, and would be prepared to make sensible economic compromises in that framework. But China is not in any sense a US semi-colony. China can be negotiated with, but China cannot be ordered around, and has clear red lines on issues such as territorial integrity, the South China Sea etc.
In summary, both countries with very large scale balance of payments surpluses, Germany and China, to different degrees, are much harder for the US to extract resources from than Japan or the Middle Eastern oil exporters.
Outside of these, two areas exist where modest US gains for international financing can be made. South Korea and Taiwan Province of China are both now accumulating medium sized balance of payments surpluses – in 2016 South Korea’s was $102 billion and Taiwan Province of China’s was $78 billion. Neither South Korea nor the leadership of Taiwan Province can afford to disobey pressure from the US and therefore they can be forced to pay more to the US. Indeed, Trump’s rhetoric during his election campaign, denouncing US ‘allies’ for failing to pay sufficient for US military protection, was clearly aimed at extracting larger resources from Japan, South Korea and the leadership of Taiwan Province of China.
But useful as extra resources from South Korea and Taiwan Province would be for the US, even added to the resources from Japan these are insufficient for US financing requirements, The only countries with really big financial resources are Germany and China, and it is therefore relations with Germany and China which forms the economic core of the foreign policy choices facing Trump.
Germany
Analysing first Germany, Germany’s extremely large balance of payment surplus arise from its historically powerful economy, which continued during the post-World War II period, but this was reinforced after 1990 by two extremely powerful interrelated factors:
  • In 1990 Germany reunified, significantly increasing the size of its economy,
  • In 1992, largely in response to Germany reunification, the Treaty of Maastricht established the Euro.
In turn, the Euro produced two powerful competitive advantages for Germany:
  • The Euro prevented countries within the Eurozone (France, Italy, Spain etc) from carrying out competitive devaluations against Germany.
  • As other Eurozone countries were less internationally competitive than Germany, the Euro’s exchange rate was lower than would have been the old German Deutsche Mark – thereby aiding Germany’s competitiveness outside the Eurozone.
The result was that while German reunification created certain short term economic difficulties overall it greatly strengthened Germany’s economic position including in comparison to the US. This is demonstrated clearly in Figure 14 which shows Germany’s balance of payments surplus as a percentage of the US balance of payments deficit. As already noted by 2016 Germany’s balance of payments surplus reached $301 billion, or equivalent to 64% of the US deficit.
Figure 14
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This relation with Germany is therefore the first key international economic/foreign policy issue for Trump. To serve the interests of Trump’s economic policies Germany must either, or both:
  • be persuaded voluntarily to pursue an economic policy which more aids the US, or,
  • be weakened so as to allow the US to become stronger relative to Germany so that the US can extract greater resources from Germany or other countries in the EU.
Most effective for the US in pursuing such a course would undoubtedly be a ‘carrot and stick’ approach to try to get Germany to change economic course is a way more favourable to the US. But, as already analysed, the US now has such large needs for financing from abroad that it has few significant economic carrots to offer Germany. Therefore, only the ‘stick’ is available – to attempt to intimidate Germany to change economic course and adopt policies which would make it weaker and the US stronger. This stick is precisely the threat to weaken Germany by encouraging other countries to leave the EU and/or Eurozone. This is why Trump has reversed the US’s historic policy of support for the EU and instead is attempt to weaken or disintegrate it. This explains the strong public attacks made on Germany by Trump and leading members of his administration.
A few other US allies fall in the same category as Germany, i.e. countries for which carrots are not available so the stick must be used. Australia, for example, does not have remotely the same financial resources as Germany but even a few billions squeezed out of it over a period of time could be useful for the US – therefore the Australian prime minister is insulted to make sure that he understands his subordinate place and he must be prepared to give greater resources to the US. Trump’s telephone rants against the Australian prime minister were not ‘irrational’ or ‘bizarre’ – they were part of a policy of attempting to intimidate ‘allies’ to transfer greater resources to the US.
However, among US allies it is above all Germany which has large economic resources but which is not fully under US economic control, unlike Japan or the Middle Eastern states. Therefore, Trump must seek to intimidate Germany. Equally for Germany maintenance of the Eurozone & EU against Trump’s attacks has become a decisive foreign policy and economic issue.
The political danger for the US in this clash is that opposition to Trump among Europe’s population will sharply increase – as well as in smaller countries such as Australia. Indeed, such a process is clearly already occurring.
China
In policy to China, Trump bringing into the core of his administration some of the hardest line anti-China US forces, symbolised by National Trade Council director Peter Navarro, author of Death by China, leaves no doubt as to the Trump administration’s hostility to China. This also easily explains such actions as the phone call with Tsai, the rapid commitment to deployment of THAAD, Trump’s initial post-election threats to overturn the One China policy etc.
But Trump simultaneously faces a dilemma. Australia’s prime minister can be insulted, South Korea can be ordered around militarily, Japan is a semi-colony of the US etc. But Germany and China are two of the world’s strongest economies. While Germany relies on the US militarily, giving Trump leverage, Germany’s position within the very large EU/Eurozone area means Germany cannot be seriously economically intimidated by the US while China cannot be ordered around by the US.
It would, therefore, be a considerable risk for the US to launch simultaneously an economic/political struggle against both Germany and China – two of the world’s most powerful countries. As Trump regards China as a more powerful rival to the US than Germany, a less risky strategy would be to delay a full-scale confrontation with China until after (hopefully) Germany had been forced into line with US demands. Such a success by Trump would certainly mean an economic weakening of Germany, and would therefore be expected to meet resistance in that country, but in the 1990s Japan literally wrecked its own economy to meet US demands. Perhaps Germany can also therefore be intimidated into carrying out policies which are against its own interests but in the interests of the US?
Therefore, whether Trump should proceed immediately to confront China, or whether his administration should adopt a more delaying tactic to China until it has (hopefully) intimidated Germany into submission is therefore a key tactical issue for Trump and undoubtedly explains some of the contradictory signals coming from his administration. The decision to finally declare support for the One China policy in Trump’s phone call with Xi Jinping, therefore, certainly reflects China’s own strength, and its refusal to compromise on this issue, but also involves calculations by the Trump administration that a simultaneous confrontation with Germany and China may be too risky.
This international situation therefore undoubtedly has consequences for China. China has strong ties with South East Asia. China has built very good relations with Africa. China is strengthening relations with Latin America. The One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative can further strengthen China’s relations with Central Asia, Russia, and countries such as Iran. But Trump’s new attack on Germany means that Europe, particularly Germany, has now become a key area of direct concern for China.
Germany will attempt to defend its own economic interests for its own sake not China’s, but nevertheless Germany’s defence of its own interests, and of the EU/Eurozone against Trump’s attacks, is directly in China’s interests.
Conclusion
To summarise, this article shows that actions by Trump, both those directly related to China and those which are sometimes portrayed as ‘bizarre’, such as offensive behaviour to US allies, are connected once the real economic choices confronting Trump are understood. The chief parameters are:
  • It is a myth that the US economy is undergoing rapid innovation driven growth. The US economy has been slowing for over half a century and in 2016 its economic growth was even lower than other major economic centres. While US growth in 2016 was so slow it is likely that in 2017 there will be some acceleration purely for statistical reasons, this by itself is purely short term and would not represent any long term strengthening of US growth. Indeed, the reality is it was popular discontent created by slow US growth which explains why Trump was elected.
  • While various measures could be taken which would increase US growth in purely the short term (increase in overall demand, increase in consumption etc) to accelerate US growth over the medium/long term Trump would have to increase the level of US net investment. Without such an increase in the level of capital accumulation claims by Trump he will accelerate the US rate of growth are merely ‘hot air’.
  • Trump’s policies, such as increased military expenditure, tax cuts for the rich, combined with the political risks to his support that would be involved if he attempted to cut the share of working class consumption in US GDP, means that it is unlikely the US savings rate will rise. Therefore, an increase in the investment level in the US could not be financed from US resources and would have to be financed from abroad.
  • Unlike US Presidents from Reagan to Obama, who could fundamentally finance the needs of US investment from countries entirely subservient to the US (Japan, Middle East oil exporters) Trump can only extract moderate resources from countries similarly subservient to the US (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan Province of China) while the Middle East oil exporters are no long able to provide major resources to fund the US. Smaller US allies, such as Australia, can be intimidated to provide extra resources for the US but their economies are too small to supply resources to the US on the scale it requires. The only two economies with sufficiently large resources to meet US international financing needs are Germany and China.
  • As the US has no economic ‘carrots’ to offer Germany therefore the US must use ‘sticks’ in order to attempt to intimidate Germany to pursue policies more favourable to the US even at the expense of Germany weakening its own economy. This ‘stick’ is the attempt to break up the Eurozone/EU.
  • The presence of hardened anti-China forces in the core of the Trump administration makes clear its anti-China orientation. However, it would be a risky policy for Trump to attempt simultaneously to have a severe confrontation with both Germany and China. Therefore, the Trump administration has to balance those who favour an immediate confrontation with China with those who believe the US must first to force Germany into line before confronting China. The result is some hesitations and confusions in Trump policy. But for the present the latter group appears dominant – as signalled in Trump’s announcement of support for One China. However, this does not mean that the anti-China wishes of the Trump administration have been ended, merely that it believes it must first secure other goals before moving to full scale confrontation with China – notably Germany must be forced into giving greater support to the US even if this weakens Germany’s own economic position.
  • This international situation means for China that in addition to its existing good relations with South East Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Russia and Central Asia and the Middle East in OBOR, China’s relations with Europe, in particular Germany, will acquire a greater significance. While Germany will undertake defence of its economy, and therefore of the EU/Eurozone, for its own interests nevertheless these interests objectively coincide with those of China.
As always therefore policy must be based on reality not misunderstandings. Trump is not ‘bizarre’ or ‘irrational’ – no one who is would achieve such a powerful position as US President. His actions only appear ‘irrational’ if the real economic situation facing the US, and the way this determines US foreign policy, is not understood. Once the real situation of the US is analysed the integration of Trump’s foreign policy with his economic goals is entirely clear.
It follows that an accurate understanding of Trump, and the policy to take to him, must break with myths regarding the US and instead ‘seek truth from facts.’
* * *
This article was originally published in Chinese on 22 February 2017 at Guancha.cn.

Fall in wages has much further to run

.181ZFall in wages has much further to run By Tom O’Leary

The latest consumer price inflation (CPI) data showed a sharp acceleration in prices increases. This will have a negative effect on real wages and real incomes, once inflation is taken into account. Most workers are facing flat wages and the poor, who rely on social welfare and are seeing freezes or cuts, will all be poorer as a result. Even worse, economic trends suggest that this problem will deepen.

Chart 1 below shows the medium-term trend in real wages. It uses single month data rather than the more customary rolling 3-month average data highlighted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to smooth out monthly fluctuations. However, the single month data can be superior in identifying key turning-points. As the chart shows, it seems likely we have entered a key turning-point, with a sharp downturn.

Chart 1. Real Average Weekly Earnings, January 2008 to January 2017

This is even more apparent in a ‘close-up’ of the same data focusing in the more recent period since the beginning of 2016 in Chart 2. This shows that real average weekly earnings fell by 0.2% in January compared to a year ago.

Chart 2. Real Average Weekly Earnings, January 2016 to January 2017

In the immediate period ahead the fall in real average weekly earnings is set to become more pronounced. In February, the acceleration in inflation saw the CPI jump from 1.8% from a year ago to 2.3%. There was zero inflation as recently as 18 months ago. It is extremely unlikely that wages will have kept pace with the recent jump in prices. So real wages are set to fall more sharply in the next few months.

Over the medium-term, these negative trends are likely to worsen. The complacency about inflation following the slump in the exchange rate value of the pound is misplaced. Devaluation effects take their time to work their way through the economy.

The pound slumped by 31% in the period from end 2008 to early 2009. But CPI inflation only peaked at 5.2% around 2½ years later in later 2011. This time around the devaluation is a little more than half the previous fall, which should limit the scope of price rises. But there is no reason to believe the period of rising prices will not be similarly prolonged.

This means that the fall in real incomes will also be similarly prolonged. The real wage slump will be deep and long.

Wages are falling

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