Nouriel Roubini, the New York University professor who predicted the financial crisis, said the chance of a double-dip recession was increasing because of risks related to ending global monetary and fiscal stimulation.
The global economy will bottom out in the second half of this year, Roubini wrote in a Financial Times commentary yesterday. The recession in the US, the UK and some European countries will not be “formally over” before the end of the year, while the recovery has started in nations such as China, France, Germany, Australia and Japan, he said.
Governments around the world have pledged about US$2 trillion in stimulus measures amid the worst worldwide recession since the Great Depression. US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other global policymakers have cautioned that the recovery is likely to be muted, indicating they would not soon remove all the stimulus injected into the financial system.
“There are risks associated with exit strategies from the massive monetary and fiscal easing,” Roubini wrote. “Policymakers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.”
Government and central bank officials may undermine the recovery and tip their economies back into “stagdeflation” if they raise taxes, cut spending and mop up excess liquidity in their systems to reduce fiscal deficits, Roubini said. He defined “stagdeflation” as recession and deflation.
Those who maintain large budget deficits will be punished by bond market vigilantes, as inflationary expectations and yields on long-term government bonds rise and borrowing costs climb sharply, he wrote. That will in turn lead to stagflation, Roubini said.
European Central Bank (ECB) officials led by President Jean-Claude Trichet are suggesting they won’t rush to reverse their emergency stimulus amid mounting evidence of an economic recovery.
The ECB has cut its benchmark interest rate to a record 1 percent and is buying covered bonds and flooding banks with money.
“We see some signs confirming that the real economy is starting to get out of the period of freefall,” Trichet said at the Fed’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Aug. 22.
This “does not mean at all that we do not have a very bumpy road ahead of us,” he said.
When needed, the ECB will implement a “credible exit strategy” from its crisis policies, Trichet said.
Meanwhile, the US must address the massive amounts of “monetary medicine” that have been pumped into the financial system and now pose threats to the economy and the dollar, billionaire Warren Buffett said last week.
Roubini currently expects a U-shaped recovery, where growth will be “anemic and below trend for at least a couple of years,” he said.
A full global recovery from the current recession may take two years or more, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman said earlier this month.
Rising unemployment, a global financial system that is still “severely damaged” and weak corporate profitability are among reasons why any recovery won’t be V-shaped, Roubini said.
“Strains persist in many financial markets across the globe,” Bernanke said in an Aug. 21 speech in Jackson Hole. “The economic recovery is likely to be relatively slow at first, with unemployment declining only gradually from high levels.”
Energy and food prices are also rising faster than warranted by economic fundamentals, which may also increase the risk of a double-dip recession, Roubini wrote, adding that they could be driven by speculative trades.
“Last year, oil at US$145 a barrel was a tipping point for the global economy as it created negative terms of trade and a disposable income shock for oil-importing economies,” he said. “The global economy could not withstand another contractionary shock if similar speculation drives oil rapidly toward US$100 a barrel.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique