Category Archives: China

Euro-Area Inflation Accelerates to Fastest Since 2008

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Saudi crude oil price hikes are nudging up the various inflation indices some, but most core measures remain tame and the headline CPI increases will only be a one time event if/when crude prices stabilize, as aggregate demand remains relatively weak and inventories plentiful in general.

However, the anti inflation rhetoric from the CB’s, which still fail to recognize the currency is a (simple) public monopoly, will intensify as they all believe it’s inflation expectations that cause actual inflation, and so they are continuously in action to manage those pesky expectation things. Call it another example of ‘Aztec Economics’ (the Aztecs performed human sacrifices to make sure the sun came up every morning).

EU Headlines:
Euro-Area Inflation Accelerates to Fastest Since 2008

Europe Keeps Interest Rates Steady on Concern About Economic Growth

Trichet Puts Inflation Fighting Back on ECB Agenda

ECB’s Weber Says Inflation Risks ‘Could Well Move to Upside’

EU Bailout Rates May Need to Drop for Aid to Work: Euro Credit

Euro Will Be Even Stronger Currency, EU’s Almunia Tells Negocios

Euro-Area November Exports Increase 0.2%, Imports Rise 4.4%

Weber Says German Economic Growth Will Moderate Going Forward

German Inflation Expectations at Nine-Month High as CPI Surges

Spain Underlying Inflation Rate Rises to Highest Since Feb. 2009

Euro-Area Inflation Accelerates to Fastest Since 2008

By Simone Meier

January 14 (Bloomberg) — European inflation accelerated to the fastest pace in more than two years in December, led by surging energy costs, complicating the European Central Bank’s efforts to deal with the sovereign debt crisis.

Inflation quickened to 2.2 percent in December from 1.9 percent in the previous month, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. That’s the fastest since October 2008 and in line with a Jan. 4 estimate. European exports rose 0.2 percent in November from the previous month when adjusted for seasonal swings, a separate report showed.

Crude-oil prices have jumped 10 percent over the past three months, fueling inflation just as austerity measures threaten to hurt economic growth. ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said yesterday that inflation in the euro region may remain above the bank’s 2 percent ceiling over the coming months, signaling he is prepared to raise interest rates if needed.

“Overall, the latest from the ECB reveals some increase in concern about euro-zone inflation dynamics,” said Simon Barry, chief economist at Ulster Bank in Dublin. “It doesn’t appear that that trigger is going to get pulled in the next few months, but the chances of a hike by the end of this year have risen.”

The euro declined against the dollar after the data, trading at $1.3354 at 10:02 a.m. in London, down 0.1 percent on the day after being up as much as 0.7 percent earlier.

Energy Prices

The increase in energy prices leaves households with less money to spend just as governments from Spain to Ireland toughen budget cuts. The ECB last month forecast euro-area inflation to average around 1.8 percent this year and about 1.5 percent in 2012.

Trichet, whose central bank has been forced to provide banks with emergency liquidity and purchase governments bonds to fight the crisis, said yesterday that he sees signs of “upward pressure” on inflation over the coming months. Inflation is “likely to stay slightly above 2 percent, largely owing to commodity-price developments, before moderating again towards the end of” 2011, he said at the press conference in Frankfurt.

Euro-area core inflation, which excludes volatile costs such as energy prices, held at 1.1 percent in December, today’s report showed. Energy costs rose 11 percent from a year earlier after increasing 7.9 percent in November.

The euro’s depreciation has helped drive up import costs while also making goods more competitive abroad just as the global recovery gathered strength. In Germany, Europe’s largest economy, plant and machinery orders surged 43 percent in November from a year earlier and business confidence jumped to a record last month.

German ‘Engine’

Siemens AG, Europe’s largest engineering company, said on Jan. 11 that it’s confident of reaching its full-year targets. The Munich-based company is “off to a good start,” Chief Financial Officer Joe Kaeser said on the previous day.

Euro-area imports increased 4.4 percent in November from the previous month and the region had a trade deficit of 1.9 billion euros ($2.6 billion) after a surplus of 3.5 billion euros, today’s report showed.

“Germany will remain the region’s growth engine,” said Andreas Scheuerle, an economist at Dekabank in Frankfurt. “Companies in countries with buoyant demand will find it easier to pass on higher costs while some nations remain very weak.”

Euro-area exports to the U.S. rose 18 percent in the 10 months through October from a year earlier, while shipments to the U.K., the euro area’s largest market, increased 11 percent. Exports to China surged 38 percent. Detailed data are published with a one-month lag.

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China to Let Companies Invest Overseas Using Yuan, and Geithner gets it all backwards?

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China Headlines:
China GDP to Grow 8.7% in 2011, Down From 10%, World Bank Says

That’s a material drop that could take away some of the bid for commodities.

PBOC’s Yi Says China Will Remain Long-Term Investor in Europe

Yes, along with Japan now

And an obvious Trojan horse, as they are doing this to support their export industries

Geithner Says China Must Boost ‘Undervalued’ Yuan

The yuan has climbed about 3 percent against the dollar since officials
in June scrapped a peg which had been in place since the global
financial crisis.

“This is a pace of about 6 percent a year in nominal
terms, but significantly faster in real terms because inflation
in China is much higher than in the United States,” Geithner
said. Taking inflation into account, the yuan is rising at a
rate of about 10 percent a year, “so if that appreciation was
sustained over time, it would make a very substantial
difference,” he said in response to a question after the
speech.

Reads to me like he has that backwards?
Doesn’t higher inflation bring the currency ‘in line’ without nominal revaluation?

China Says Stronger Yuan Won’t Solve U.S. Trade Gap
China to Let Companies Invest Overseas Using Yuan

Interesting!

China’s companies now need to sell yuan to the Bank of China to get fx to invest over seas.
This depletes China’s fx reserves which may or may not be an issue for them.

If instead China lets its companies spend yuan overseas directly that will put downward pressure on the yuan via the rest of world satisfying its yuan ‘saving desires’ directly.

Currently, the rest of world satisfies its yuan ‘saving desires’ by selling dollars, euro, etc. to the Bank of China via the Bank of China’s currency intervention operations that keep the yuan weaker than otherwise.

So this could be a back door way for China to keep the yuan weaker than otherwise without as much currency intervention?

And note that they again use ‘Fed money printing’ as cover.

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Italian deficit narrows in third quarter

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Now that Japan has an open door to buy euro to ‘help out’ the region’s finances, and the ECB’s funding terms and conditions forcing deflationary austerity measures that continue to bring euro zone deficits down, I’m itching to buy the euro vs the yen.

At some point, however, and maybe as soon as q3 this year, or even sometime in q2, the austerity in the euro zone will fail to reduce deficits and instead the tightening measures will cause growth to go into reverse and deficits to increase, causing fundamental euro weakness.

But until then, the euro remains fundamentally strong, with technicals/one time portfolio shifts causing the sell offs.

Headlines:
Portugal Finance Minister says no need for bailout
Euro May Decline to 2010 Low Against Yen: Technical Analysis
ECB intervenes as debt crisis deepens
Portugal faces growing tensions
Tensions Rise Before Portugal Auction
Germany May Soften Objections to Euro Fund Increase
German 2011 Construction Sales May Drop, HDB Building Lobby Says
German Trade With China Rose to a Record in 2010
French Business Confidence Rose in December for Fourth Month
Italian deficit narrows in third quarter

Italian deficit narrows in third quarter

(FT) Italy’s public budget deficit narrowed in the third quarter of last year, putting the economy on track to hit government austerity targets of about 5 per cent of gross domestic product in 2010. As a result of austerity measures passed in December, Italy is targeting a public budget deficit of 3.9 per cent in 2011 and 2.7 per cent in 2012. Debt is expected to peak at about 120 per cent of gross domestic product this year, giving the economy ministry little room to manoeuvre. In the third quarter, the public deficit narrowed to 3.2 per cent of GDP compared with 3.9 per cent in the period a year earlier, according to data from the national statistics office. It narrowed to 5.1 per cent of GDP in the first nine months, down from 5.5 per cent a year earlier.

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Japan buying euro bonds

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JAPAN FINMIN NODA: JAPAN WILL BUY EURO BONDS TO HELP BOOST TRUST IN EFSF SCHEME

EURO RISES AFTER JAPAN FINMIN NODA SAYS JAPAN TO BUY EURO BONDS

JAPAN NODA: TO BUY ABOUT 20 PCT OF BONDS PLANNED TO BE ISSUED JOINTLY BY EURO ZONE LATER THIS MONTH

Japan Joins China in Assisting Debt-Crisis-Hit Europe

By Toru Fujioka

January 11 (Bloomberg) — Japan plans to buy euro-zone
sovereign bonds, its finance minister said, joining China in
assisting a region hit by a fund-raising crisis.

Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda told a news conference in
Tokyo today that Japan will use its foreign-exchange reserves to
buy more than 20 percent of bonds to be issued under a special
assistance program to help Ireland.

“It’s appropriate for Japan to make a contribution as a
leading nation to increase trust in the deal,” he said.

China has also expressed support for the euro zone, with
Vice Premier Li Keqiang last week expressing confidence in
Spain’s financial markets and pledging more purchases of that
nation’s debt. Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan said on Dec. 21
his nation has taken “concrete action” to help the European
Union address its debt crisis.

The euro climbed immediately after Noda’s comments, rising
as high as $1.2991, before trading at $1.2952 at 11:50 a.m. in
Tokyo.

>   
>   This is being done in an effort to weaken ¥ vs €.
>   

Yes, with the cover of helping the euro zone, just like China, who announced the same a short while ago to lead the way for Japan.

Japan has been actively seeking ways of weakening the yen to support their exporters.

They publicly bought some $ last year, and their US Tsy holdings have been falling, indicating something unannounced has been going on as well.

And their budget was somewhat expansionary.

Weakening the yen like this is one of the things somewhat subtly working to limit US aggregate demand growth, which should be a good thing for us (we can have lower taxes for a give size govt) but unfortunately our leadership simply lets aggregate demand languish.

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Debt ceiling dynamics

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My best guess is there will be little or no fight over the debt ceiling extension.

I think the President will agree to pretty much whatever the Republicans want, and get more than enough Democrats to join him.

Best I can tell, the entire Congress agrees the deficit is a long term problem that absolutely must be addressed. The only arguments against ‘fiscal consolidation’ that I’ve see are the ‘bleeding heart’ arguments which don’t cut it when they all believe Greek type insolvency looms.

Also, the ball is in the Republican’s court, as they can’t just be against raising the debt ceiling.

So it will be up to them to take the lead and offer terms and conditions for their votes, after which enough Democrats will pretty much agree to it all, including cuts in Social Security and Medicare expenses, of one type or another, current and future.

All of which dooms the US economy to suffer from a severe lack of aggregate demand for the foreseeable future.

The one very faint glimmers hope are the Senators from CT- Joe Lieberman and Richard Blumenthal, only because they alone know better.

Both have read my book, the 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy, and have engaged me in thorough discussion, and both know as a fact of monetary operations that:

1. The federal govt can’t run out of money.

2. Paying off China is nothing more than debiting their Fed securities account and crediting their Fed reserve account, with no grand children writing any checks.

3. The Social Security issue, therefore, can’t be about solvency, only potential inflation.

4. For a given size of the federal govt there is always a level of taxation that corresponds to full employment

5. The trade deficit is an enormous benefit, and we can set taxes at a level where we have enough spending power to support both domestic full employment and the purchase of anything the rest of the world wants to sell us.

However, it is highly unlikely they will even attempt to be heard, because, based on their history, they don’t act with specific regard to public purpose. They are more micro oriented, acting solely for political gain from their immediate constituents. So on this issue they will likely play along with what think is their voter’s understanding of these issues, and make no effort to educate them for the public good.

The words that come to mind when that happens are ‘intellectually dishonest.’

But I do hope I’m wrong and that at least one of them comes through for all of us.

There are also others outside of Congress who could come through and save the day. Current and senior Fed officials in the Department of Monetary Affairs are more than well versed in monetary operations, and know for a fact that operationally, federal spending is in no case revenue dependent. And much of the CBO, including former heads, know as a fact of accounting federal deficit spending equals and is in fact the only source of net savings of financial assets for the rest of us. But it’s highly doubtful any of them will come forth to save the day.

Bottom line- believing we could be the next Greece continues to keep us on the path of becoming the next Japan.

(Feel free to republish and otherwise distribute)

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China’s Central Bank Says Inflation a Priority, Gold Output May Be More Than 340 Tons

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China Headlines:
China’s Central Bank Says Inflation a Priority

Never yet seen anyone ‘cure’ inflation without increasing their output gap (recession)

China 2010 Gold Output May Be More Than 340 Tons

And at current prices, I’d guess it isn’t safe to walk the streets with gold in your teeth.

The way markets work is that price increases continuously adjust the market cap (total available gold x the price) to indifference levels.

If we’ve reached those indifference levels and the higher prices are brining out new supply (with a lag) the result is a downward adjustment.

And at least part of that demand came from misguided notions of qe2 which are gradually reversing.

China Expanded About 10% in 2010, Vice Premier Says

A deceleration that hasn’t yet cured their (political) inflation problem.

China’s Money Rate Poised for Biggest Weekly Drop Since 2007
China to Crack Down on ‘Hot Money’ Inflows, SAFE Says

And they remain torn between the desire of their exporters for a weaker and low domestic wages, and the political necessity for lower ‘inflation’ which they think might come from a stronger currency.

In any case the domestic inflation works to weaken the currency longer term, so it may prove moot.

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China Raises Holdings of Euro Debt, Including Spain

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Yes, to support exports the region by supporting the value of the euro vs the yuan.

China Raises Holdings of Euro Debt, Including Spain
Published: Thursday, 6 Jan 2011 | 4:38 AM ET
By: Reuters
 

China has increased its holdings of euro debt, including Spanish debt, and has confidence in the European financial markets, according to the Chinese Commerce Ministry.
 

China’s Vice Premier Li Keqiang has said his country is willing to buy about 6 billion euros of Spanish public debt, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported earlier on Thursday, citing government sources.
 

The sources told El Pais Li had said at a meeting that China is willing to buy as much Spanish public debt as Greek and Portuguese debt combined.
 

They said that added up to about 6 billion euros in Spanish government bonds.
 

Li leaves Madrid today, where he has been on a three-day visit, before visiting the United Kingdom and Germany.
 

The report echo remarks by Li earlier this week, although the report is the first to give a figure.
 

“China is a responsible, long-term investor in the European financial market and particularly in Spain, and we have confidence in the Spanish financial market, which has meant the acquisition of its public debt, something which we will continue to do in the future,” Li wrote in an editorial in El Pais on Monday.
 

Spain has come under increasing pressure from international debt markets on concerns it may be forced to follow Greece and Ireland and seek an EU or International Monetary Fund bailout, but while bond yields have risen, demand for Spanish debt remains solid.

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Karim on Jobless Claims Data and Year End Comments

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Agreed with Karim, the relatively modest recovery remains on track.

Left alone, I see GDP in the 3.5%-5.5% range for next year, and possibly more.

Though they didn’t add much, the latest tax adjustments did take away the down side risk of taxes going up at year end.

I do, however, see several negatives with maybe up to 25% possibilities each, meaning collectively the odds of any one of them happening are a lot higher than that.

The new Congress is serious about deficit reduction. The risk is they will be successful, and it seems they even have the votes to get a balanced budget amendment passed.

China could get it wrong in their fight against inflation and cause a pretty severe slump. In fact, I can’t recall any nation that didn’t cause a widening of their output gap in their various fights against inflation.

The ECB’s imposed austerity in return for funding at some point reverses the current modest growth of that region. Not to mention the small but real risk the ECB decides to not buy any more member nation debt in the secondary markets.

While a less important economy for the world, the UK austerity looks ill timed as well.

The Saudis could continue to hike their posted prices which could reduce US demand for domestic output. The spike to the 150 level in 08 was a significant contributor to the severity of the financial collapse that followed.

There are also several lesser factors I’ve been listing the last few weeks that could cause aggregate demand to disappoint.

On the positive side is always the possibility of a private sector credit expansion taking hold.

Traditionally that would be borrowing to spend on housing and cars.

Federal deficit spending has done its job of restoring incomes and monetary savings, and will continue to do so.

Financial burdens ratios are down, car sales are showing some modest growth, and housing looks to have at least bottomed. And both are at low enough levels where there could be a lot of growth and they’d still be very low, especially housing.

I don’t see inflation as a risk (unless crude spikes a lot higher), nor deflation (unless one of the above shocks kicks in).

And I do see the ‘because we think we could be the next Greece we’re turning ourselves into the next Japan’ theme continuing, as it seems highly unlikely to me we will get back to, say, the 4% unemployment level for a very long time, if ever, until there’s a paradigm change regarding fiscal policy.

The full employment budget deficit might be up to 4% of GDP or higher, and our current tax structure probably still delivers a cycle ending surplus at full employment.

In other words, with our current tax structure and size of govt, full employment remains unsustainable.

Lastly, my feel is that there’s about a better than even chance of an equity and commodity sell off. Stocks as well as commodities look like they are pretty much pricing in all the good economic news, some of which is bogus, like QE being inflationary, as previously discussed. There could also be dollar strength which would contribute to equity and commodity weakness. And the stock and commodity weakness would also work to bring the term structure of rates lower as well, particularly as rates seem to have gone higher recently more due to supply factors during a holiday week and maybe year end selling than anything else. The forwards ED forwards don’t look to me to be at all low with respect to mainstream expectations of future fed rate settings. And it also looks like the annual portfolio rebalancing will be that of selling stocks which went up last year and buying bonds which went down, to get all the portfolio ratios back in line with marching orders from higher ups.

HNY!!!

Karim Basta wrote:
· Another major milestone in the recovery story.
· Initial claims fall below 400k for the first time since summer 2008;dropping 34k for the week to 388k.
· Labor department states ‘no special factors’ in the data.
 

I recall a senior Fed official once telling me if he were stranded on a desert island and could only receive 1 data point to keep up with the direction of the U.S. economy that it would be initial claims. So forecasts likely being revised higher as I write this.

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Beijing City to Raise Minimum Wage 21%

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It’s a game of political survival.

The people want no inflation and they also want more income to keep up with rising prices.

Not totally impossible to achieve both, but requires a lot more than the traditional macro tools taught in the western universities.

Beijing city to raise minimum wage 21%
By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing and Rahul Jacob in Hong Kong
Published: December 28 2010 12:47 | Last updated: December 28 2010 12:47
 

Every province and municipality in China has announced a rise in its minimum wage this year, with increases ranging from 12 per cent to Beijing’s rise.
 

The official measure of annual consumer price inflation in China hit 5.1 per cent in November, up from 4.4 per cent in October, with food prices rising 11.7 per cent in November from a year earlier.
 

Beijing city is to raise its minimum wage 21 per cent next year, the second such rise in barely six months, amid rising inflationary pressure and growing concern over China’s widening wealth gap.
 

The increase, which will come into effect on New Year’s day, raises the statutory minimum monthly wage in the Chinese capital to Rmb1,160 ($175) and the hourly rate to Rmb6.7. It follows a 20 per cent rise in June.
 

Every province and municipality in China has announced a rise in its minimum wage this year, with increases ranging from 12 per cent to Beijing’s rise.
 

The official measure of annual consumer price inflation in China hit 5.1 per cent in November, up from 4.4 per cent in October, with food prices rising 11.7 per cent in November from a year earlier.
 

The government is worried about the disproportionate burden of rising food costs on low-income households, which spend a larger share of their income on basic necessities. It also fears that persistent price rises could stoke social unrest, as they often have in the past.
 

“While China’s living standards have dramatically risen over the past 30 years, the gap between rich and poor has sharply widened,” Yu Yongding, an influential former adviser to China’s central bank, wrote in a newspaper article last week. “With the contrast between the opulent lifestyles of the rich and the slow improvement of basic living conditions for the poor fomenting social tension, a serious backlash is brewing.”
 

Nationwide increases in minimum wages are part of the government’s plan to reduce income disparity and the Chinese economy’s heavy reliance on investment and promote greater consumption by middle- and low-income households.
 

But with many businesses already being squeezed by rising input costs, wage increases come at a difficult time and are likely to lead to higher overall inflation.
 

“In just the last three months we’ve already had to raise entry-level starting wages 60 per cent just to get people to come to a job interview,” said Jade Gray, chief executive of Gung Ho Pizza, a Beijing-based gourmet pizza delivery service. “With rising rents, the much higher cost of ingredients and now wage inflation, many businesses in the services industries are going to find it impossible not to pass on much higher costs to consumers.”
 

With its latest wage increase Beijing now has the highest minimum wage in the country, ahead of Shanghai on Rmb1,120 per month but other cities and provinces, including the manufacturing hub of Guangdong, are already eyeing further increases early in the new year.
 

The government estimates that Beijing’s minimum wage rise will benefit nearly 3m people.
 

In the separately-ruled Chinese territory of Hong Kong, legislators in November set the city’s first-ever minimum wage at HK$28 an hour. The new wage, which takes effect in May 2011, followed months of public consultation and debate amid growing concern in the city about widening income disparities.

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Pre Christmas update

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The good news is the US budget deficit still looks to be plenty large to support modest top line growth.

And as the deficit continuously adds to incomes and savings, the financial burdens ratios continue to fall, and the stage is set for a ‘borrow to spend’, ‘get a job buy a car’, ‘it’s cheaper to own than to rent’ good old fashioned credit expansion.

But most all of that good news may already be discounted by the higher term structure of interest rates and the latest stock market rally.

And there are troubling near term and medium term risks out there that don’t seem at all priced in.

The rise in crude prices is particularly troubling.

Net demand isn’t up, and Saudi production remains relatively low.

So the Saudis are supporting higher prices for another reason. Maybe it’s the wiki leaks, or maybe they just had a bad night in London.

No way to tell, but they are hiking prices, and there’s no way to tell when they will stop.

Crude prices are already up enough to be a substantial tax on US consumers that has probably more than offset whatever aggregate demand might have been added by the latest tax package.

Might explain the weaker than expected holiday retail sales?

Congress will soon have a deficit terrorist majority, with many pledged to a balanced budget amendment.

And the world seems to be leaning towards fiscal tightening pretty much everywhere.

The unemployment benefits program has been extended but benefits still expire after 99 weeks, and less in many states.

Net state spending continues to decline as state and local govs continue to reduce their deficits and capital expenditures.

Catchup in the funding of unfunded pension liabilities will continue to be a drag on demand.

A federal pay freeze has been proposed.

The Fed’s 0 rate policy and qe continue to reduce net interest income earned by the economy.

Bank regulators continue to impose policies that work against small bank lending.

Seems some income has likely been accelerated into this quarter from next year over prior concerns of taxes rising, distorting q4 earnings to the upside and maybe lowering q1 earnings a bit?

Euro zone muddles through with very weak domestic demand, and curves perhaps flattening as markets start to believe the ECB will fund it all indefinitely?

China slows as a result of fighting inflation?

Same with Brazil?

Maybe India as well?

Commodity price slump with demand flattening?

Fed low forever?

Stocks in a long term trading range like Japan?

US term structure of interest rates gradually flattens to Japan like levels?

Relatively weak demand gradually brings on alternatives to over priced crude?

Merry Christmas!!!

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