World Business Academy by the Economic Forecast Committee Of
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World Business Academy Rekindling the Human Spirit in Business By the Economic Forecast Committee of the World Business Academy EconForecast is a publication for subscribers, Members, and Fellows of the World Business Academy. It presents a 12-month rolling economic forecast and a macro- economic analysis of social and political conditions throughout the world. The Economic Forecast Committee of the World Business Academy includes econ- omists, business executives, academics, and others who collaborate to create this report by consensus. This issue was derived from a meeting that took place De- cember 1, 2009. World Business Academy OVERVIEW For more than a year, the Academy has correctly predicted that the global re- cession would end in the third quarter of 2009. It ended due to the cumulative economic activity of China, Southeast Asia, Brazil, the United States, Europe, and Australia. We still do not see a double dip recession, but rather a gradual L-shaped recovery based on solid fundamentals. In hindsight, this economic crisis was more severe than the Great Depression, which was largely confined to the Western industrialized countries. The De- pression collapsed the real economy but not the financial system. Now that the world has a truly global economic system, the crisis reached around the world. Policymakers had to revive the real economy and the financial system in tandem, a much more difficult challenge. The pervasive nature of the crisis created its own self-fulfilling fear as people worried that if it could not be fixed everywhere, it could not be fixed anywhere. The upside of post-crisis events is that after the fall of Lehman Brothers, govern- ments responded to frozen credit markets in a timely fashion with enormous stimulus packages and liquidity injections that created enough of a floor under economic activity to avoid an economic Armageddon. The key banking sector regulators (the Fed, Bank of England, and the European Central Bank), as well as China’s state-directed banks, flooded the system with liquidity as they had to, so they could restart the financial circulatory system while they were stimulating the real economy. A strong cautionary note: as sanguine as we are about the L-shaped recovery, we believe that the United States and its allies must enact fundamental, coordinated financial reforms during the next 12 months so that the financial system does not remain susceptible to a second collapse. • Climate change Before the December Copenhagen meeting, investors and businesses with com- bined assets over $13 trillion called for a strong deal on carbon that would unlock billions in investment, the same way the introduction of electricity and railroads did. They didn’t get the deal. What they did get in Copenhagen was significant—the world’s two biggest superpowers and two biggest polluters at the table, try- ing to protect their sovereignty, but by the very act of showing up, sitting down, and agreeing to set goals, demonstrating that they know there is a crisis and some cooperation is in order. Their par- ticipation sheds a more positive light on the Copenhagen agree- ment among major emitters (however sketchy and unenforceable) to share a bit of financing, technology, and unverifiable information about national progress on cutting emissions. 2 World Business Academy Not all countries signed on, and those that did couldn’t agree on a timeline for a binding deal or even global targets for cutting emissions. Canada was a notable spoiler. But key developing countries like China, India, Brazil, and South Africa came in the tent, even as rich and poor nations continued to argue about equity, money, and technology. Developed nations’ modest monetary pledges of aid for climate change technology and adaptation underscored the extent to which they were focused on balancing international and domestic political expedien- cies (and endemic corruption in the developing world) more than on confronting climate change realities. The agreement will spread awareness of the need to significantly limit average global temperature increases, although the Copenhagen goal of limiting increas- es to 2 degrees Celsius is unlikely to be achieved. It is inadequate in any event because of the negative environmental feedback loop that has already begun. Much of the real work ahead will occur outside the chaotic UN Climate Conven- tion framework, within the much smaller group of about 30 nations who account for 90% of global emissions. We believe that Copenhagen will go down as the first step in a long, multi-step process to fight climate change, and ultimately reduce greenhouse gas emissions using the young science of geoengineering. In the meantime, private investment in green sector technology has grown by over $1.2 trillion since 2007, according to the Climate Prosperity Alliance. Over the next 12 months, investment in clean energy, efficiency, and information technol- ogy will accelerate and drive global economic growth despite the fact that our present accounting models do not adequately capture the intangible value of such technology. • International trade and finance Reform of the global financial system is proceeding at a snail’s pace despite ear- nest conversations in G-20 meetings and elsewhere. We cannot achieve a lasting economic recovery without enacting regulatory reforms to end the casino-like nature of the financial system. The financial sector’s appetite for highly leveraged, risky activ- ity and novel financial products is as strong as ever. If anything, the structural problems have become worse as a result of gov- ernment bailouts of the Too Big To Fail crowd and the post-crisis consolidation of the U.S. financial industry. There are a number of key destabilizing factors in the global economy but two in particular cross all borders. • The $600 trillion pool of unregulated derivatives. As we have said, derivatives are in essence securities and should be subject to the registration requirements of the 1933 Act and the disclosure requirements of the 1934 Act. Proposed reforms to require derivatives to be traded through clearinghouses are not enough, even if the requirement extended to both 3 World Business Academy standardized and customized derivatives. Derivatives should be traded on regulated exchanges, especially in light of the fact that in the third quarter, commercial banks’ holdings of derivatives rose to $204.3 trillion, up by $804 billion from the second quarter. The derivatives pool is not any safer than the day derivatives unraveled for Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, and others. This shocking and highly volatile situation must be addressed. Whether the global community or individual political entities have the political will to enact this reform is doubtful. • Governments’ lack of progress in creating a level playing field in international financial regulation and taxation. London, New York, and other competing financial centers resist national reforms, such as regulating derivatives and taxing financial transactions, with bogus and self-serving arguments that they will be disadvantaged if other jurisdictions do not follow suit. Financial institutions’ success in holding reforms at bay is testament to their enormous lobbying power and the disproportionately large size of the financial sector in relation to the rest of the economy. The euro now accounts for 35% of global reserves, earning it the status of a global reserve currency. It will remain strong, buoyed by purchases from Eastern Europe. The stronger euro has hurt some European exporters who have been moving blue-collar jobs overseas. China continues to diversify its dollar holdings. All around the world, it is buying commodities, companies, and other assets, but most fundamentally, it is buying opportunities—especially the transfer of technology and access to new markets. UNITED STATES The U.S. recession ended in the 3rd quarter of 2009, validating our earlier predic- tion that it would end in the 3rd or 4th quarter of this year. The index of leading in- dicators increased in November for the 8th consecutive month, capping the longest series of gains since 2003-04. Americans owe less We still predict that the U.S. recovery will be slow but solid— assuming we achieve meaningful reforms of the healthcare and Outstanding credit card bills in Oc- tober were down 8.5% from a year financial systems. earlier, reflecting both consumer pay- ments and bank write-offs. At the end Consumers are deleveraging, but consumer confidence is slowly of September, unused equity home improving and will continue to lift consumer spending, the tra- lines of credits were down 25% from ditional engine of the U.S. economy, despite tight credit, wage their peak at the end of 2007. losses, and reduced housing wealth. Preliminary figures show 4 World Business Academy that consumer confidence rose to 73.4 in December—up from 67.4 in November, and from an average of 65 for the first nine months of the year. Nevertheless, consumer spending will not and should not return to its overheated pre-crisis levels of 76% of GDP. • A sustainable real economy • Healthcare The United States cannot achieve a sustained economic recovery without healthcare reform. Rising Medicare and Medicaid costs are the biggest driver of the federal deficit. The current Senate bill falls far short of real reform. Real reform will require injecting competition into the oligopolistic insurance industry, and eroding its practice of diverting premium payments away from quality healthcare and into insurance executives’ multimillion-dollar salaries and their mega-million-dollar perks and fleets of corporate jets. Any healthcare bill will be reform in name only unless it reduces the pool of the uninsured; provides a choice of affordable plans; imposes cost-controls on Medicare; provides new incentives for cost-effective care; and protects con- sumers from discrimination based on pre-existing conditions and from annual or lifetime caps on their reimbursable costs.