Behind the Curve Again

Whether you are talking about the housing bust (and boom), the relationship between the financial economy and the real economy, the broader significance of events like the meltdown in the subprime mortgage sector, the unintended consequences of securitization and other wonders of new age finance, etc., the Wall Street establishment has been behind the curve in terms of figuring out what is going on and what could happen next. In my view, the following report from Bloomberg,  "'Decoupling' Debunked as U.S. Collapse Infects World," represents a case in point.

It turns out the U.S. economy matters after all.

The credit collapse and dollar decline that followed a surge in U.S. home foreclosures jeopardize expansions in the U.K., Canada and Germany, economists said. They also debunk "decoupling," an argument advanced by analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley that the world wouldn't suffer as it did during U.S. slowdowns in previous decades.

The Bank of England and Bank of Canada this week followed the Federal Reserve in cutting interest rates, and the European Central Bank lowered its growth forecast for next year. British policy makers reduced their benchmark rate yesterday, even after Governor Mervyn King expressed concern about inflation just two weeks earlier.

"Two thousand and eight will be the year of 'recoupling'," said Peter Berezin, an economist at Goldman in New York, explaining his firm's about-face. "What began as a U.S.-specific shock is morphing into a global shock."

Of the 38 countries they monitor, Goldman economists expect growth to slacken in 26 and strengthen in a dozen. That will cause global growth to slow to 4 percent next year from 4.7 percent this year, with Europe and Japan fading faster than the U.S., they say.

Market lending rates have risen worldwide in the last three weeks as $70 billion of writedowns linked to defaults on U.S. subprime mortgages fanned international concern about the strength of financial institutions.

Roach Skeptical

Decoupling is "a good story, but it's not going to work going forward," Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley in Asia, said in an interview in New Delhi on Dec. 2. His colleague, Stephen Jen, said in a report the previous week that because the possibility of a U.S. recession has increased, so has the chance that the rest of the world will falter.

Higher market rates pushed up the cost of lending everywhere, making it costlier for companies and consumers to fund new spending or investment. The cost of borrowing euros for three months, for example, this week rose to a seven-year high.

"Initially the impact of the subprime crisis was on the U.S. directly, but what we're seeing now is a more insidious paralysis of credit conditions moving across different markets and economies," said Brian Hilliard, director of economic research at Societe Generale SA in London.

Threat to Airbus

The dollar's decline in sympathy with its economy is also exacting a price overseas. Airbus SAS may cut its 2 billion-euro ($3 billion) research budget to trim costs as the dollar's dive becomes "life threatening" for the world's largest planemaker, Chief Executive Officer Tom Enders said Nov. 23.

At the same time, U.S. consumers are starting to retrench in the face of declining home values and rising energy bills as oil prices near $100 a barrel. The Conference Board's index of consumer confidence decreased last month to the lowest since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Wolseley Plc of the U.K., the world's biggest distributor of plumbing and heating equipment, said Nov. 28 that first-quarter pretax profit through October fell almost 15 percent after U.S. revenue declined 10 percent.

"The American consumer is the big gorilla on the demand side of the global economy," Roach said. "As the slowdown goes from housing to consumption, we'll find the world is not as decoupled as it thinks."

U.K. monetary policy makers yesterday cut their key rate for the first time in two years to 5.5 percent, pointing to deteriorating financial markets. In August, King said he was optimistic the turmoil wouldn't hobble his economy.

'Global Difficulties'

The Bank of Canada identified "global financial market difficulties" as it lowered its main rate by a quarter point to 4.25 percent on Dec. 5.

While the European Central Bank is signaling no intention of cutting interest rates soon, Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer said Dec. 4 that there is now a "question mark" over his view of September that Europe would remain unscathed from the market rout.

Tai Hui, head of Southeast Asian economic research at Standard Chartered Bank Plc in Singapore, also doubts Asian's economies can weather a collapse in U.S. consumer demand, with Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore at particular risk from reduced exports.

'Need to See'

Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui said this week that "we need to see how the U.S. consumer is affected" as he holds his key rate at 0.5 percent, the lowest among industrialized nations. Waning U.S. demand meant the Japanese economy grew an annualized 1.5 percent in the third quarter, almost half the preliminary estimate, the Cabinet Office said in Tokyo today.

On the other hand, Alex Patelis, head of international economics at Merrill Lynch & Co., is confident "the time has not yet come to call the end of this global upturn," citing demand in emerging markets such as China and Russia.

Patelis predicts the world economy will grow 4.7 percent next year and 5.6 percent if the U.S. is excluded.

John Llewellyn, a senior economic policy adviser at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in London, is unconvinced, arguing that if U.S. consumers buckle, so will growth elsewhere.

"Decoupling is a lovely idea, but I'll only believe it when I see it," he said.