The fall-out in Japan has already shattered the authority of premier Taro Aso. His approval rating has dropped to 21pc. The cabinet is in revolt. The world's second biggest economy no longer has a functioning government.
Credit Suisse warns that Japan could slide into deflation of minus 2pc by the autumn. Since interest rates are already near zero, which means that real rates will rise as the slump deepens – the surest path to a liquidity trap.
Kyohei Morita from Barclays Capital estimates that Japan's GDP shrank at an annual rate of 12.2pc in the fourth quarter. "It's shocking," he says. Singapore has already reported. Fourth-quarter GDP contracted at an 12.5pc annual rate.
Taiwan's exports fell 28pc in November. Shipments to China dropped 45pc. Korea's exports dropped 18pc in November and 17pc in December.
1 comment:
Sorry, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, But Quantitative Easing Won't Work.
In a Liquidity Trap although Saving (S) is abnormally high investment (I) is next to 0.
Hence, the Keynesian paradigm I = S is not verified.
The purpose of Quantitative Easing being to lower the yield on long-term savings and increase liquidity it doesn't create $1 of investment.
In a Liquidity Trap the last thing the Market needs is liquidity.
Quantitative Easing does diminish the yield on long-term US Treasury debt but lowers marginally, if at all, the asked yield on long-term savings.
Those purchases maintain the demand for long-term asset in an unstable equilibrium.
When this desequilibrium resolves the Market turns chaotic.
This and other issues are explored in my tract:
A Specific Application of Employment, Interest and Money
Plea for a New World Economic Order
Abstract:
This tract makes a critical analysis of credit based, free market economy, Capitalism, and proves that its dysfunctions are the result of the existence of credit.
It shows that income / wealth disparity, cause and consequence of credit and of the level of long-term interest-rates, is the first order hidden variable, possibly the only one, of economic development.
It solves most of the puzzles of macro economy: among which Unemployment, Business Cycles, Under Development, Trade Deficits, International Division of Labour, Stagflation, Greenspan Conundrum, Deflation and Keynes' Liquidity Trap...
It shows that no fiscal or monetary policy, including the barbaric Quantitative Easing will get us out of depression.
A Credit Free, Free Market Economy will correct all of those dysfunctions.
The alternative would be, on the long run, to wait for the physical destruction (through war or rust) of most of our productive assets. It will be at a cost none of us can afford to pay.
A Specific Application of Employment, Interest and Money
Press release of my open letter to Chairman Ben S. Bernanke:
Sorry, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, But Quantitative Easing Won't Work.
Yours Sincerely,
Shalom P. Hamou
Chief Economist & Master Conductor
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