By Ron Robins. First published September 23, 2010, in his weekly economics and finance column at alrroya.com
There is one prayer of governments and businesses around the world: that Americans forgo higher savings, banish their job and retirement income worries, and go on a spending spree. However, this is not to be. Were the prayer to be fulfilled the global trade and other economic imbalances of the past and present would be unresolved, even magnified. But fortunately, the early stages of their resolution are at hand.
To help resolve these global imbalances, US savings rates must go up while its consumption of goods and services relative to GDP goes down. And this will be a generational game-changer for the US and for the world, causing economic difficulties everywhere for the years ahead.
Depending on how fast its savings rates rise, the US economy will be mired in recessionary or depressionary conditions for some years. But America has faced many daunting economic challenges before and each time it rebirths to greater prosperity. This is likely to be true again.
America once had high savings rates with much lower levels of personal consumption than now. Between, 1950 and 1975, its savings rates were generally in the 8 to12 per cent range of disposable income, and personal consumption relative to GDP averaged around 64 per cent. In the years between 1975 to 2000 savings rates declined significantly to under 5 per cent and then to 1 per cent by 2005 when personal consumption rose to a high of about 72 per cent of GDP.
Since 2006, America’s savings rates have been moving up—and most especially after the 2008 financial crisis. Today, they average about 6 per cent.
Furthermore, it is probable that US savings rates will move even higher to the 10 to 15 per cent range in the next few years as Americans worry about job security, home values, and retirement income. As this happens, US consumption rates will fall back to the 60 per cent region. This will have initially deleterious effects for the global economy and countries reliant on exports for income and jobs. Thus this is another game-changing situation.
No country or countries can presently replace the American consumer. For instance, the combined annual personal consumption of China and India is about $2 trillion, compared to America’s nearly $9 tln.
The big Asian exporters, as well as Germany, will have to find other markets for their products—or stimulate internal consumption to grow. Intra-regional Asian trade is growing rapidly but “is still mainly driven by supply-chain links involving intermediate goods rather than newly surging end-market demand in Asia,” says Stephen Roach, non-executive chairman for Asia at Morgan Stanley, in a Financial Times report.
So where will increased US savings go? As of now they are going mostly into bonds, especially US government bonds. Annual funding needs for the US government over the next few years will probably be close to $2 tln if economic growth stalls or declines. That sum is equal to about 13 per cent of US GDP. It will be increasingly financed from within the US by savers, banks and especially the Federal Reserve (the Fed).
The Fed will create new money to purchase US Treasury debt and probably other assets. This ‘money-printing’ will generate huge amounts of ‘excess’ dollars. The consequences of this action will produce a litany of global economic difficulties. These will include a slumping dollar, domestic inflation—and even possibly hyperinflation.
Upset at the dollar’s fall, other countries and regions from China to Japan to Europe, will attempt to devalue their currencies, leading to probable currency and trade wars. (I have written more on these subjects in previous columns.)
Of course a lower dollar and likely new US import restrictions will mean higher US import prices, or even unavailability of some products. This will give some American manufacturers the opportunity to recoup previously lost domestic markets and the servicing of new ones as well. US industrial production could be re-ignited and even induce foreign companies and manufacturers to buy or invest in US domestic manufacturers as well.
With US imports from oil and computers to foodstuffs, as well as domestically manufactured goods costing more, Americans will find their standard of living declining.
“The need to overcome the effects of reduced [American] individual buying power will lead to the invention of a new class of product which will be a major trend of 2010 and into the future: Technology for The Poor…,” says Gerald Celente, the renowned American trends forecaster and president of the Trends Institute. Continuing, he says that, “growing with the same speed as the Internet Revolution, the trend will be recognised, explored and exploited by legions of skilled but jobless geeks, innovators and inventors who will design and launch a new class of products and services affordable by millions of newly downscaled Western consumers… ”
Mr Celente further forecasts, “a ‘not made in China’ consumer crusade that will spread among developed nations, leading to trade wars and protectionism.”
Americans have little choice but to increase personal savings rates. The Fed will ‘hyperventilate’ to derail prolonged economic malaise and promulgate vast quantities of new dollars, causing the dollar to fall—or crash! A dollar fall will produce inflation; a crash could ignite hyperinflation in the US and elsewhere. Also unleashed could be ‘buy America’ strategies and policies within the US thus further inciting the risk of global currency and trade wars.
This sounds like dire news. However, a new, free America could be born as it rids itself of the shackles of debt. Americans, renowned for their outstanding drive, creativity and innovation, may create a new generation of ingenious products and services geared to the new economic reality. ‘Made in America’ products could again fill retail shelves. And Asia’s export-reliant countries will finally focus on enhancing domestic consumer demand to purchase their wares, thereby bringing much improved living standards to their populations.
Higher US savings will be an economic game-changer for the US and the world.
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