Jan 17th Dr Richebacher

BEST OF KURT RICHEBACHER
January 17, 2005

APOCALYPSE LATER

Despite all the worried talk about the sliding dollar, both the financial markets and economic forecasters are taking it in stride. Conspicuously, nobody speaks of a dollar crisis at present or in the future. High-riding expectations of a strong year-end rally in the stock markets have been somewhat disappointed. Yet there have been two pleasant major surprises. One is the sharp fall of oil prices, and the other is the resilience of the U.S. bond market, defying not only the dollar’s weakness, but also the four rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
It appears to be a common view that economic growth in the eurozone and Japan is badly faltering again, with both countries flirting with new recessions. In contrast, the forecasts for the U.S. economy remain rather upbeat, hailing the plunges in oil prices and the dollar.
We stick to our diametrically opposite view that the U.S. economy is prone to sharply slower growth. It is the profligate consumer who has kept the economy afloat since 2000. What kept the consumer afloat is also no secret. It was mainly two events: first, inordinate tax cuts; and second, exploding ultra-cheap borrowing facilities, made available through the Fed’s creative bubble strategy and implemented by ultra-low short-term interest rates.
Together, the two have unquestionably contained the fallout from the bursting stock market bubble. They also had respectable effects in terms of U.S. real GDP growth during the second half of 2003 and the first half of 2004. Yet the most important aim of all the monetary and fiscal stimulus — to set in motion a self-sustaining economic recovery — has been flatly missed.
A "self-sustaining" U.S. economic recovery urgently needs accelerating employment and income growth. Just the opposite is happening. During the six months up to last November, real disposable personal income grew just 1%, or 2% annualized. This is down from 3% in the first half of 2004 and 4.8% in the second half of 2003. Taxes and higher inflation rates are taking their toll. Debt-financed spending went to new records. During the third quarter, private households increased their spending by $139.4 billion, while their earnings increased only $81.6 billion.
Employment and income growth are the key fundamentals of household finance. According to the reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), they have significantly improved in 2004. But no less than two-thirds of these gains owe their creation to the ominous "net birth/death" computer model of the BLS, designed to estimate employment
growth by new business formations.
All that is needed to activate this job creation is a unilateral decision by the BLS that the U.S. economy is in a recovery. Implicitly, the Bureau of Economic Analysis translates these computer-generated additions to employment into corresponding additions to wages and salaries. Considering the persistent, unusual weakness in employment, as documented by the actual surveys, it requires a lot of heroism to assume an employment boom from new business formations.
For November, the BLS reported 112,000 new jobs, as against an expected 200,000. As bad as the report appeared, the reality was even worse. No less than 54,000 of the new jobs had come from the net birth/death computer model, compared to 30,000 jobs in November last year.
In the third quarter of 2004, consumer spending accounted for 89.2% of real GDP. It is the familiar ruinous growth pattern. A viable economic recovery would require a strong contribution through sharply higher business investment and hiring. Both remain missing, although the recovery is entering its fourth year.
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