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Chinese Meltdown, Latin America Next?

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The long anticipated meltdown in Chinese stocks has accelerated this week, although it took a break today. Whether or not it has implications for the broader economy in China and around the world is unclear, given how little China relies on its stock market for financing and growth.

It’s all about the “carry trade”, or ability to borrow money in a foreign currency (usually US Dollars) at low interest rates and invest it at home in the hope that the local currency (Renminbi, or “people’s currency”) will become more valuable relative to the foreign currency later. It’s a two-fer if you can invest it in something that appears to be gaining in value, such as local stocks, and Chinese investors went for it bigtime.

Yes, it was all another bubble waiting to pop, which it appears to be doing now. But can this hurt us? Speculation has centered on trade with Latin America, which has its own uneven growth and a growing reliance on China. But this is silly for a lot of reasons. It’s worth looking at Latin America as a unit and seeing what effects we can really expect.

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TPP: A Slow Death?

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Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. It sounds like a great idea on the surface of it – lower trade barriers and require trade partners to improve working conditions in developing nations. There’s only one problem with it – no one knows what it is. That’s partly due to it being negotiated in secret and partly due to the fact that the negotiations are not done.

But many are against it for a wide array of reasons that span left and right. On the right, there is a good chance the sovereignty of the US will be diminished based on treaty obligations that, based on discussion, reach very far. On the left there seems to be yet another assault on good US jobs. And that secrecy? There are rumors that it will remain secret long after the treaty is passed.

It’s time to take a step back and sort out what TPP is and what is actually true about it.

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The Amazing Dollar

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Even if most people don’t believe it, the economy is certainly improving for some people. The Federal deficit has declined to $415B, or 3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), from a high of over 10% as recently as 2009. This has been fueled by a large increase in tax revenues combined with a drop in spending on unemployment insurance, mortgage assistance, and so on. Our trade deficit with other nations is also dropping rapidly due to lower imports of fuel, and now stands at less than $400B.

That’s good news all around. The only problem is that the US economy is borrowing money or sending it overseas at anywhere near the rate that the world needs it as trade expands. That is putting upward pressure on the US Dollar, meaning that while imports are likely to become cheaper there is little hope that US manufacturing is going to get a break anytime soon – despite remaining one of the big casualties of the depression so far.

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Coffee & Tea

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Picture yourself in England at the start of Queen Victoria’s reign.  If you have some skills as a part of the growing middle class, things look better every day.  That life comes in part from unskilled workers driven into the growing (and filthy) cities who are more productive than ever before.  The great symbol of the improving standard of living greets you in the morning as a cup of this once luxury beverage, tea.  It comes from China, traded under the barrel of the guns of the Royal Navy through the new colony of Hong Kong.  The latest in technology, the Clipper Ship, brings it to you with great speed and makes it possible to run this enterprise at a distance.   The sun never sets on the British Empire, and tea is both its greatest commodity and emblem of success.

Today, in the waning daze of the American Empire that isn’t an empire, things could hardly be different even as they are the same.  Coffee is the beverage of choice for 54% in the US.   It has always been the workingman’s drink, but it is moving more yupscale – even though 35% of us still drink it black (as it is meant to be, damnit).  It is shipped from tropical, underdeveloped nations in unromantic cargo containers as the second most traded commodity in the world by value ($15B per year), behind only oil.  The nations that produce it are rapidly urbanizing into filthy cities.  The trade is managed over the internet by a cadre of traders and speculators.

History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes like a street poet hitting a beat.

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Cold Currency War

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In the Cold War, the foundation of diplomacy was mutual fear and hatred.  With that behind us, interdependence  has introduced a new system which includes much closer relationships – and something more like angst and loathing.  So has our relationship with China evolved.

As China has awakened, the GDP has grown by a factor of ten since 1990.   The population went from 22% urban to 52%.  All of this came at the expense, and mutual support, of hungry US consumers, corporations, and our nearly limitless need to finance our debt.  It was too much, too quickly, and wise investors saw that it was a bubble ready to pop – or at least relax the insane pace.

That day is coming very soon.

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