Investing Curiouscatblog

Author: John Hunter

  • China and USA Exports and Imports Drop Sharply

    China and USA exports and imports have been dropping sharply. The USA has decreased the excess consumption over production by $20 billion a month (from $60B to $40B monthly deficit). China maintains a trade surplus and as imports drop faster than export this is actually increasing on a percentage basis.

    Can the improvement in the US trade balance continue?

    The US trade deficit — which is a good proxy for the current account balance (the income surplus offsets a transfers deficit) — is now around $40b a month. At its peak it was more like around $60b a month. That implies, if nothing changes, the 2009 current account deficit would be around $500b, down from a peak of $700b.
    …
    Deficits and surpluses are shrinking globally now that the price of oil is at levels that roughly cover the oil exporters imports.* Right now China’s (growing) surplus is clearly the main counterpart to the United States’ (shrinking) deficit.

    It is hard to put lipstick on a pig (or even an ox):

    The sharp fall in China’s exports (down 17.5% y/y) and imports (down 43% y/y) shouldn’t have been a complete surprise. Korean and Taiwanese exports are down far more than China’s exports, in large part because of sharp falls in their exports to China. And, given the intra-Asian supply chain, that has long augered bad news for China.

    Related: The Budget Deficit, the Current Account Deficit and the Saving Deficit – Top 12 Manufacturing Countries in 2007 – Personal Saving and Personal Debt in the USA – Charge It to My Kids

  • Sound Canadian Banking System

    Worthwhile Canadian Initiative by Fareed Zakaria

    Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it’s Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada’s banking system the healthiest in the world. America’s ranked 40th, Britain’s 44th.
    …
    Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1—compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1 and European banks at a frightening 61 to 1.
    …
    Canada has been remarkably responsible over the past decade or so. It has had 12 years of budget surpluses, and can now spend money to fuel a recovery from a strong position. The government has restructured the national pension system, placing it on a firm fiscal footing, unlike our own insolvent Social Security. Its health-care system is cheaper than America’s by far (accounting for 9.7 percent of GDP, versus 15.2 percent here), and yet does better on all major indexes. Life expectancy in Canada is 81 years, versus 78 in the United States; “healthy life expectancy” is 72 years, versus 69. American car companies have moved so many jobs to Canada to take advantage of lower health-care costs that since 2004, Ontario and not Michigan has been North America’s largest car-producing region.

    Related: Canadian Banks Avoid Failures Common Elsewhere – International Health Care System Performance – Greenspan Says He Was Wrong On Regulation

  • Money Hacks Carnival #50

    I am glad to be hosting the 50th edition of the Money Hacks Carnival. There really are a ton of great post on money hacks for your personal finances. I have highlighted some of my favorites from the last week. New visitors to the Curious Cat Economics and Investing Blog may be interested in some of past personal finance posts.

    I have included snippets from a some highlighted posts which illustrate the great number of thoughtful individuals writing blogs about how to manage your money more effectively and the economic conditions that impact each of our personal financial lives.

    Income

      Using money and budgeting

      (more…)

    • Housing Rents Falling in the USA

      Apartment Rents Fall, Vacancies at 4-Year High

      U.S. apartment rents fell in the fourth quarter from the third as the national vacancy rate climbed to a four-year high of 6.6 percent
      …
      Asking rents fell 0.1 percent from the previous quarter, to $1,052 on average, their first quarter-to-quarter decline in almost six years. They rose 2.4 percent from a year earlier. Effective rents, what tenants actually paid, fell to an average $996 last quarter, down 0.4 percent from the prior quarter and up 2.2 percent from a year earlier.

      U.S. rental market set to slow down amid housing glut

      “Unsold properties being turned into rental units are creating a shadow market that’s driving up the vacancy rate and slowing the growth of rents,” Chandan said. “Areas that saw the most speculative investing, particularly in condos, will see the biggest pressure on rents.”

      Anthony De Silva said he was not happy that he had become a landlord. He bought a two-bedroom condominium 18 months ago on the ocean in Hollywood, Florida, expecting to sell at a $100,000 profit. Instead, he is now looking for tenants at $1,700 a month.
      …
      “Increasing vacancies does not bode well for rental incomes,” said Nabil El-Hage, a professor at Harvard Business School. “We’ve seen a softening in apartment REITs as a result.”

      So for renters nationwide this is one possible silver lining to the current economic crisis. Granted not a large one but in these times any good news is worth appreciating. For real estate investors the news is not as good. The Washington DC market is forecast to go against the trend for reduced rents in 2009.

      According to Marus and Millichap, Metrowide vacancy is expected to rise 60 basis points this year to 6.5 percent. Asking rents are projected to advance 3.1 percent to $1,410 per month in 2009, while effective rents increase 2.8 percent to $1,351 per month. Rent growth will lag slightly in Suburban Maryland. Of the 43 rental market they track they project San Francisco to see the largest increases in rent in 2009, followed by San Diego and Washington DC.

      Related: Home Values and Rental Rates – Rent Controls are Unwise – posts on housing – How Walkable is Your Prospective Neighborhood

    • GDP Down 3.8%, Worst Since 1982

      GDP slides 3.8%, worst since 1982

      That was the steepest drop since a 6.4% decline in 1982, easily surpassing the downturns seen during the 1990-91 and 2001 recessions. It also provided the second consecutive drop in GDP, after the 0.5% drop in the third quarter of 2008.
      …
      “All of this points towards real GDP declining faster in the first quarter than the fourth quarter,” Levy said. Another bad portent was a sharp decline in exports. U.S. sales to other countries had been strong in recent years, boosted by high demand overseas and the relatively low value of the dollar. But that situation reversed sharply in the last three months of 2008, with exports plummeting 19.7%.

      According to the International Monetary Fund, the decline in the U.S. is matched by other leading economies, which contracted about 5.5% in the fourth quarter of 2008.

      The decline was a bit less than anticipated but obviously shows an economy in serious trouble. U.S. GDP Falls At 3.8 Percent Pace In 4th Quarter

      The figure showed how rapidly the economy was contracting. In the previous quarter, the economy slipped 0.5 percent. For all of 2008, GDP rose 1.3 percent, the slowest growth since 2001, when the economy expanded 0.8 percent. In 2007, the GDP increased by 2 percent.

      The Commerce report showed consumer spending – which accounts for a whopping two-thirds of U.S. economic activity – fell another 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter after declining 3.8 percent in the third quarter. Spending on durable goods such as cars and furniture plunged 22.4 percent, the steepest decline since the first quarter of 1987.

      As I have been saying for awhile the economy is in trouble and 2009 looks to be difficult. We should be happy if a recovery is underway in the 4th quarter of 2009 and we have not too drastically increased the burden on the future to pay for current spending.

      Related: Financial Market Meltdown (Oct 2008) – Cracks in US Economy? (Dec 2006) – Fed Continues Wall Street Welfare – Forecasting Oil Prices – Crisis May Push USA Federal Deficit to Above $1 Trillion for 2009

    • Great Time for a Vacation

      Times are tough. Economic news is grim. But if you are looking to relax somewhere warm, you are in luck. Deals in Paradise

      In the Caribbean, travelers seeking bargains this winter are finding big ones: beachfront rooms in famous resorts for less than $100 a night; cheap inter-island cruises; all-inclusive stays (including breakfast, dinner and water sports) for less than the normal room rate; and island-wide promotions. On St. Kitts, for example, the Feel the Warmth promotion offers free room nights; food and beverage credits of $75; and even 10 percent off airfares.

      The bargains in Las Vegas are so gigantic that I couldn’t figure them out myself. I called Howard Lefkowitz, the chief executive of Vegas.com, for a little help. After a little patter promising that “everything is 25 to 30 percent” less than last year, Lefkowitz agreed to a real-time test.

      “What would a room at the Bellagio cost me tonight?” I asked. After a few keystrokes — I heard his keyboard clacking over his website — he found a $129 rate for a standard room at the five-star property. “That probably would have cost $225 last year,” he said. “What would $129 have gotten me last year?” I wondered. Lefkowitz didn’t hesitate: “A night at Paris, a nice four-star resort.” What was Paris charging tonight?” I asked. A few more keystrokes and Lefkowitz had an answer: $90.
      …
      “Call me,” the general manager at a new hotel in Miami advised. “I’ll offer you a price you won’t find on the Web.”

      Related: Medieval Peasants had More Vacation Time – Dream More, Work Less – 9 Days in Egypt – Costa Rica Photo Essay – South Carolina Photos

    • Our Capacity Remains Undiminished

      President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address

      We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week, or last month, or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

      That sounds nice I believe however, it is fairly irrelevant. Economic demand is what is down, not production capacity. We are “no less productive than when this crisis began.” Ok, that is probably true. So what. That implies that the crisis has something to do with productivity. If we say the color of our eyes is the same as when the crisis began it is obvious that is a non-sequitur. Well so is the quote by the new President, though that is less obvious.

      Our demand was definitely over stimulated using massive federal government budget deficits, massive trade deficits, massive amounts of consumer debt, massive amounts of unjustified mortgage debt and massive amounts of leverage. None of those things has anything to do with capacity in the implied sense – capacity to produce. They have to do with the capacity to consume. And while our capacity to consume has not declined. The funding that allows that consumption (foreign lending, high leverage, junk mortgages…) has decreased.
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    • Employees Face Soaring Health Insurance Costs

      The costs to employees for health insurance keep increasing, even as employers pay more also. A Premium Sucker Punch:

      Her employer picks up 50 percent of the coverage for her family, up from 33 percent a few years ago. But because insurance costs have soared, she says she’s actually paying $200 a month more in premiums. Her co-pays also have risen to $30 from $20.
      …
      The Corporate Executive Board found in its survey that a quarter of officials from 350 large corporations said they had increased deductibles an average of 9 percent in 2008. But 30 percent of the employers said they expected to raise deductibles an average of 14 percent in 2009. Mercer, a global benefits consulting firm, surveyed nearly 2,000 large corporations in a representative poll and found that 44 percent planned to increase employee-paid portion of premiums in 2009, compared with 40 percent in 2008.

      The economic slowdown, according to analysts, is making it more difficult for many employers to subsidize health care costs at previous levels. On average, experts say, benefit packages contain the biggest increases for workers since the recession of 2001. Workers’ health costs are rising much faster than wages.
      …
      Premiums for employer-sponsored plans over a decade on average have risen to $12,680 a year from $5,791, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The median deductible for the plans was $1,000 in 2008, compared with $500 from 2001 to 2007, according to a survey of 2,900 employers conducted by Mercer.

      The broken health care system in the USA has been a huge drain on the economy and people’s standard of living for decades. The longer we allow the system to decline (increasing costs, declining results) the more damage the economy suffers and the larger the costs to implementing fixes become.

      Related: Personal Finance Basics: Long-term Care Insurance – Medical Debt Increases as Economy Declines – International Health Care System Performance – Many Experts Say Health-Care System Inefficient, Wasteful – posts on improving the health care system

    • Myths About Adam Smith Ideas v. His Ideas

      Gavin Kennedy is a professor and director of contracts at Edinburgh Business School. He authors the Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy blog discussing the mis-attributions to Adam Smith, which are all too common now. A good example is, Perpetrators of Myths Mislead Generations of Students, Some of Whom Grow Up to (mis)Advise Legislators:

      The notion that Smith had a ‘theory’ of ‘an invisible hand’ leading all players in markets to act in pursuit of their self-interests and raise annual output and annual employment is a myth, invented (‘made up’ would not be too strong a charge) by advocates of pro-corporate capitalism, then becoming rampant in the USA in the 1950s.
      …
      Smith’s intellectual arguments, and personal warmth for the growth of commercial society, were driven by the conviction that growth across agriculture, industry and specific, targeted public expenditure, such as defence, justice, and public works and public institutions, would assist the spread of opulence, especially to the labouring poor and their families, albeit slowly and gradually, but steadily too, if legislators and those who influenced them were careful not to approve monopoly schemes to narrow markets and restrict competition, not to indulge in spasms of ‘jealousy of trade’, protectionism, forming loss-making colonies and conducting wars for trivial ends (i.e., not for defensive purposes only).

      Introducing, a mystical or miraculous force at work in markets detracts from the real and detailed policy measures that may required from time to time to ensure steady growth, competition, and liberty for all, and not just for the amoral ends of privileged monopolists and their cronies.

      Related: Not Understanding Capitalism – Ignorance of Capitalism – Monopolies and Oligopolies do not a Free Market Make – Estate Tax Repeal, Bad Policy

    • Too Much Leverage Killed Mervyns

      I do not like the actions of many in “private equity.” I am a big fan of capitalism. I also object to those that unjustly take from the other stakeholders involved in an enterprise. It is not the specific facts of this case, that I see as important, but the thinking behind these types of actions. Which specific actions are to blame for this bankruptcy is not my point. I detest that financial gimmicks by “private capital” that ruin companies.

      Those gimmicks that leave stakeholders that built such companies in ruin should be criticized. It is a core principle that I share with Dr. Deming, Toyota… that companies exist not to be plundered by those in positions of power but to benefit all the stakeholders (employees, owners, customers, suppliers, communities…). I don’t believe you can practice real lean manufacturing and subscribe to this take out cash and leave a venerable company behind kind of thinking.

      How Private Equity Strangled Mervyns

      Much of the blame for its demise lies with three private equity titans: Cerberus Capital Management, Sun Capital Partners, and Lubert-Adler.

      When those firms bought Mervyns from Target for $1.2 billion in 2004, they promised to revive the limping West Coast retailer. Then they stripped it of real estate assets, nearly doubled its rent, and saddled it with $800 million in debt while sucking out more than $400 million in cash for themselves, according to the company. The moves left Mervyns so weak it couldn’t survive.

      Mervyns’ collapse reveals dangerous flaws in the private equity playbook. It shows how investors with risky business plans, unrealistic financial assumptions, and competing agendas can deliver a death blow to companies that otherwise could have survived. And it offers a glimpse into the human suffering wrought by owners looking to turn a quick profit above all else.

      Too much debt is not just a personal finance problem it is a problem for companies too. Continue reading on my original post on the Curious Cat Management Blog.

      Related: Leverage, Complex Deals and Mania – Failed Executives Used Too Much Leverage – posts on debt