Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Nvidia Numero Uno in Count Down to President Donald Pump Election Victory - 5th Nov 24
Trump or Harris - Who Wins US Presidential Election 2024 Forecast Prediction - 5th Nov 24
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24
US House Prices Trend Forecast 2024 to 2026 - 11th Oct 24
US Housing Market Analysis - Immigration Drives House Prices Higher - 30th Sep 24
Stock Market October Correction - 30th Sep 24
The Folly of Tariffs and Trade Wars - 30th Sep 24
Gold: 5 principles to help you stay ahead of price turns - 30th Sep 24
The Everything Rally will Spark multi year Bull Market - 30th Sep 24
US FIXED MORTGAGES LIMITING SUPPLY - 23rd Sep 24
US Housing Market Free Equity - 23rd Sep 24
US Rate Cut FOMO In Stock Market Correction Window - 22nd Sep 24
US State Demographics - 22nd Sep 24
Gold and Silver Shine as the Fed Cuts Rates: What’s Next? - 22nd Sep 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks:Nothing Can Topple This Market - 22nd Sep 24
US Population Growth Rate - 17th Sep 24
Are Stocks Overheating? - 17th Sep 24
Sentiment Speaks: Silver Is At A Major Turning Point - 17th Sep 24
If The Stock Market Turn Quickly, How Bad Can Things Get? - 17th Sep 24
IMMIGRATION DRIVES HOUSE PRICES HIGHER - 12th Sep 24
Global Debt Bubble - 12th Sep 24
Gold’s Outlook CPI Data - 12th Sep 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

US stagflation overshadows China’s Economic recovery and global prospects 

Economics / Global Economy Feb 21, 2022 - 04:11 PM GMT

By: Dan_Steinbock

Economics Recently, the IMF downgraded global growth prospects, due to projected slowdowns in the US and China. Negative prospects could be overcome with right policies, such as trade cooperation.

Recently, the International Monetary Fund projected that global growth rate will slow to 4.4% in 2022. In the dire international landscape, global recovery has remained elusive dream since 2017, when US trade wars derailed the impending expansion. Today, unwarranted geopolitics escalate tensions.

Worse, the failure to roll out vaccines could knock another $1.5 trillion from incomes across the South, according to UNCTAD report last fall.    


420 million cases, 6 million deaths, new variants  

The WHO vaccination target is to achieve 70% coverage in all countries by the mid-2022. Thanks to vaccine hoarding by rich countries and inadequate international cooperation, only 59 countries, most of them rich economies and some upper-middle income countries such as China, have achieved that target – as opposed to only half of lower-middle income economies and only a tenth of the low-income nations.

When China contained its pandemic in February 2020, the number of total cases worldwide was still less than 90,000. Of these, 85,000 were in the insulated mainland. In other words, some 99.97% of present-day COVID-19 cases worldwide are the result of the West’s ineffective containment measures after February 2020.

While cases in China remain below 110,000, in the West the failure to contain the pandemic has already caused 420 million confirmed cases and nearly 6 million deaths, after four to five pandemic waves and multiple variants (Figure 1).

Figure 1       Human Losses: Covid-19 Daily New Cases

Daily New Cases (in millions)

Daily Deaths (in thousands)

Source: Worldometer, DifferenceGroup, Feb 17, 2022

Nonetheless, when the Biden administration arrived in the White House in January 2021, the expectation was that the U.S. economy would surge, the Chinese economy would slow down, and the rapidly-rising inflation was just “transitionary."

All assumptions were misguided.

United States: fast GDP growth, faster inflation    

In 2021, U.S. economy expanded faster than expected – real GDP grew 5.5%, fastest since 1984 - as the economy continued to recover from the adverse pandemic effects. Wages grew at fastest pace in decades, but since prices increased even more, the net effect was actually negative. 

Before the COVID-19, US economy was expected to exhibit some slowing. In 2021, most of the GDP expansion was accounted for by increased inventory investment and service spending. In the past two years the pandemic itself has lowered the economic output potential. During the ongoing year, GDP growth will slow because the level of fiscal support is smaller, the economy is closer to maximum employment, and the strong inventory and service gains are not likely to recur.

Worse, inflation has proved stickier than initially anticipated. In effect, since the early days of the pandemic, the Federal Reserve has made two mistakes. First, it began to cut rates belatedly only in March 2020 ignoring the WHO's early warnings. The Trump administration amplified the mistake by seeking to protect US equity market at the expense of American people.

The second mistake ensued after mid-year 2021, when inflation began to climb rapidly and the Fed characterized rising prices as transitionary. Despite accelerating inflation, the ultra-low rates were left intact (Figure 2).

Figure 2       US Inflation and Fed Funds Rate, 2012-22    

Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics; Difference Group, Feb 17, 2022

The galloping inflation worsened in December when it rose 7% from a year ago; the fastest since June 1982. Like then, America is not coping with ordinary inflation, but stagflation: the combination of low interest rates and high inflation.

US stagflation as a global risk           

Worse, in addition to rate hikes, the Fed also opted for quantitative tightening (shrinking its balance sheet), as opposed to the past years of quantitative easing (expansion of its balance sheet). The double-whammy caught the market by surprise and will have challenging consequences.

  • Since the Fed awoke belatedly, it may have to hike rates faster and tighten monetary conditions more than it did after the 2008 crisis. That could penalize the nascent recovery in America.
  • A sustained rejuvenation of global economic prospects is predicated on growth, trade and investment. The Fed’s disruptive measures will weaken growth prospects, while the misguided US trade wars will add to uncertainty, which will further undermine investment prospects.
  • Rate hikes and protectionism will contribute to global uncertainty, which will penalize foreign investment, while boosting “hot money”; speculative capital flows that caused havoc in the developing world in the early 2010s.
  • The combined effect could foster the return of the Republicans in the 2022 mid-term election and Trump’s comeback in 2024. Neither is good news in view of the hoped-for global recovery.

China: secular performance on track 

Despite gloomy expectations in the West over China's 4th quarter data, China topped its 2021 growth (8.1% over the target of “above 6%”), despite expected deceleration in the 4th quarter.  Exports and imports exceeded $6 trillion for the first time. The economy continued its recovery, despite slowing export growth on the back of a stronger yuan. China’s trade surplus with the US was $397 billion; 25% higher than in 2020.

Actualized foreign investment into China reached a new record in 2021 (20.2% year-on-year in US dollar terms). Countries and regions along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) booked a 29.4% rise in their investment in China, while investment flows from Southeast Asia soared 29%. The performance was reinforced by the opening of capital markets. By December 2021, overseas investors had raised their holdings of mainland stocks and bonds by over 11% since year-end of 2020.

Nonetheless, the 2021 Economic Work Conference in December zoomed on stabilization. Power shortage is now in control. Regulatory drive has been softened. Credit tightness will be alleviated by fiscal and monetary easing. While real estate continues to worry investors, major developers should be able to cope with liquidity pressures in the short term.

As export momentum is expected to soften, revitalizing domestic demand is now an economic priority, as evidenced by Spring Festival consumption, boosted by targeted support by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), ice and snow tourism and the Winter Olympics.

Opposing grand strategies       

Since the global financial crisis, a whopping $25 trillion has been pumped into advanced economies. Additionally, the rich economies’ central banks will seek to maintain ultra-low rates, even after rounds of quantitative easing (QE). To sustain their unsustainable living standards, rich economies are taking massive volumes of debt that could set the stage for the next global depression.

After the pandemic depression, U.S. sovereign debt is 131% of its GDP. The Biden administration calculated that debt-taking is fine since rates will remain low and interest payments manageable. Now the White House must take still more debt and pay higher than anticipated interest.

As rising inflation and lingering pandemic spikes continue to subdue growth prospects, China's immediate goal is to stimulate household expenditure and boost consumer spending while extending tax cuts for small business to stabilize the labor market.

In the near-term, Washington has exhausted its post-pandemic economic capital and is engaged in diversionary foreign policy. It is relying on geopolitics to divert public attention away from domestic economy, which faces huge secular pressures, and domestic politics, which is extremely polarized.

In the short-term, China has engaged in tough regulatory measures and significant social transfers, while keeping focus on economic development, which will support its secular objectives.

Two major economies, two opposite grand strategies.

Dr. Dan Steinbock is the founder of Difference Group and has served at the India, China and America Institute (US), Shanghai Institute for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see http://www.differencegroup.net/  

© 2022 Copyright Dan Steinbock - All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

Dan Steinbock Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in