Growing Yen for Truce in Currency Wars

I have been watching Japan's engagement in the global currency wars for some years but this is the first time that I have had a chance to comment on the radical monetary policy being followed since the election of Shinzo Abe as the Prime Minister of Japan at the end of December 2012. Like the country's people, this radical politician has grown tired of decades of capitalist stagnation but, rather than focusing on the transition to a stable and sustainable economic future, he has chosen to use dramatic monetary policy to try to restart the growth engine.

Back in April Haruhiko Kuroda, the newly appointed governer of Japan's central bank, announced a massive money creation policy: the Bank would issue ¥7tn yen (£46bn) of government bonds every month up to a total of $1.4tn (£923bn). Issuing public debt in this way equates to the creation of public money and will double the country's money supply. Although financial commentators greeted this announcement with shock, the quantity of money created is less than the $85bn a month being created by the US Federal Reserve.

Part of the point of the Japanese policy of creating money appears to be to encourage the famously cautious Japanese to hold more risky assets, so to invest in the stock of companies that might then use this money to invest in expansion, leading to economic growth. However, as with the FTSE and the NYSE, investors appear to prefer to speculate, with companies hoarding cash and purchasers of shares watching the value rise and then taking profits, as they did last week, causing a huge and sudden fall in the Japanese stock-market. Nothing, it seems, can persuade those with cash that capitalist enterprise is a safer bet than the speculative casino.

In the UK we have observed that shovelling money randomly into the economy, especially when using financial corporations as intermediaries, has little impact on the productive economy or the lives of citizens. It tends to boost the stock-market and increase the wealth of those who are already rich, while keeping money cheap and so reducing the incomes of those who live from savings. Internationally, however, increasing the volume of one's currency in circulation reduces its value making your exports more competitive, a process known as competitive devaluation. Hence it can be seen as an aggressive policy in trade terms.

Although the discussion of currency machinations happens only in the business section of the news and appears intolerably arcane it is crucial that we understand its import. Even mainstream commentators such as the BBC's Stephanie Flanders are now drawing the connection between the present confrontational deflations and the beggar-thy-neighbour policies of the 1930s that eventually led to war. The failure of world leaders to show leadership and to negotiate an agreed range of exchange rates between currencies to protect the world's economies and the world's people leaves us dangerously exposed.

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Currency Warts and All

As the struggle for dominance in the 21st century global marketplace intensifies the battle over which currency that economy will be denominated in is becoming more explicit. Can we see Osborne's appeals to China to use London as its banker to Europe and the world as the final betrayal of the dollar empire?

This blog has been following the currency wars and I have long been calling for a globally agreed trading currency. This is also the preference of the Chinese, who understand the risks that come with being the banker to the world and are apparently not seeking to take over from the US the role of global hegemon and global policeman that so often accompany the role of banker to the world.

More importantly, the renbinmi is not a convertible currency but is still controlled by the Chinese government. Although this value of external trade balances settled in the currency has increased rapidly in the past couple of years, this is a fraction of the global trade in dollars. Since the currency is tightly controlled it is also not held in reserves – the other key feature of any candidate for status of global currency.

China has long been calling on the IMF to extend the role of SDRs (special drawing rights) so that they can become a de facto global currency. In this context perhaps we should interpret today's intervention by Osborne as not only an attempt to tout for banking business but also an attempt to pressurise China to take on more of this role itself. Such a decision deeply affects the peace and stability of the world and should be taken, rather than via press release and bilateral discussions, in a full-scale global conference to remake the world economy and to focus on the need for stability, sustainability and equality.
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Financial Chincanery Threatens Our Future

While our policy-makers have been striding around their Cotswold estates burning off an excess of Christmas pudding, elsewhere in the world events are occurring that provide further signals that the economic game we have played so effectively for the past two centuries is being superseded.

Do not let your festive white-out blind you from the important decision taken a historic decision to avoid the dollar in their trade relationship. As reported on this blog, for some time China has been arguing for a change in the global terms of trade, a system that has hugely benefited the USA since it was negotiated at Bretton Woods in 1945. The US has refused to negotiate and so China is now taking bilateral action, and Japan appears to be following a similar strategy.

Japan and China have agreed to make direct currency exchanges to settle their external trade balances, rather than negotiate via the dollar. In addition, Japan will buy Chinese government bonds. This shifts the Chinese renminbi towards the status of a reserve currency that China's economic power suggests, although the currency is still controlled entirely by the government, rather than being available for free exchange as the other reserve currencies have been until recently.

The extraordinary fact that the dollar is still the global medium-of-exchange, giving the US completely undeserved and misused global economic advantages, is omitted from discussion of our economic woes. And yet the way that the City operates as the 52nd state leaves us increasingly vulnerable in a world where the powerful economies are those who produce and gain access to resources, rather than those who control currencies.

Another sign of the UK's vulnerability emerges from a report showing that we have been overtaken by Brazil in terms of the global economy league table. As the UK economy shrinks and those of the resource-rich and industrious economies outside the West expand, this is more a shock than a surprise. These economies face another significant advantage over those of Europe: they are able to create their infrastructures in a way not dependent on fossil fuels and hence face significant advantages in terms of a green economic future.
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Why is the Euro so Strong?

With chaos in the negotiations with Greece, rumours of potential bankruptcy in Italy, and real concerns about the economies of Portugal and Spain, you would expect the currency that binds all these countries together to be falling through the floor. The graphic indicates that, over the past calamitous year, the range of movement has been between 1.48 and 1.28, and that at the value of the euro is hardly any lower than it was a year ago.

I was stung by a comment on one of my blogs from last week, complaining that I was being incomprehensible and jargonistic, so here I am going to explain simply why I think this is the case. This comes down to a discussion about what I have been calling for several years the 'currency wars'. When faced with hard times countries seek to return to growth and one means of doing this is to increase the volume of exports. Having a weaker currency makes your exports cheaper to the countries who buy them. So countries have been deliberately reducing the value of their currencies.

There are various ways of doing this. Some commentators claim that the US policy of quantitative easing is deliberately designed to achieve this end. Certainly, putting a lot of extra currency into circulation should reduce the inherent value of that currency. A more obvious way is just to lower your interest rates: since interest rates are effectively the price of money, this is an automatic means of making your money cheaper and causing its value relative to other currencies to fall.

To keep some sort of idea of the relative value of different currencies we need a standard, sometimes called the numeraire. In the 19th century gold was used as this standard, but this had all sorts of distorting effects on economic activity - primarily the fact that you couldn't increase economic activity unless bare-chested chaps deep in the bowels of the earth were digging up enough of a golden metal, which was frankly completely irrational, although emotionally appealing.

At Bretton Woods, the conference where the victors in the Second World War negotiated the shape of the world economy in the decades to follow, it was agreed, reluctanctly, to allow the dollar to take this role and to become the world's reserve currency. The consequences were hugely beneficial to the US in terms of imports, but ultimately destroyed its productive economy.

As the power of the dollar wanes, the other currencies that traders consider strong enough to take the role of a global reserve currency - the Japanese Yen, the Swiss Franc, the euro, and even sterling itself - have all become more attractive. This explains why we are not facing the speculative attacks that Greece is, not the performance of George Osborne at international conferences. As each currency becomes attractive to traders seeking a safe haven, the authorities that control its value seek to undermine it, since they do not want to suffer the export problems that result from having a highly valued currency.

In this form of reserve currency, the euro is still an attractive option and its interest rate of 1.5% now seems high by comparison with just 0.5% in the UK and 0.25% in the US. In addition, its competitors in terms of being the currency of last resort would resist its value falling too far, since that would require them to take more of the strain. This has led to the currency wars, which are a form of trade war in disguise. Because such wars cause international tensions, a solution that involves the creation of a neutralreserve currency, run for the benefit of the world's people and not an individual state, has long been my preferred option.
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Currency War Lurches Towards Trade War

The growing power of China over the US resulting from its ownership of US treasuries, not to mention its superior productive capacity, is the driver of the currency wars that have been the subject of a series of posts of this blog. Earlier this week this power struggle took a dangerous new turn, with a bill that was accepted onto the floor of the US Senate by a big majority.

According to the Guardian website, 'The Senate bill, which does not specifically mention China, sets in motion a process for imposing punitive tariffs against a country with misaligned currencies. The bill also makes it easier for specific industries to seek higher tariffs on foreign competitors when undervalued currencies become a means to subsidize exports.'

The US it attempting to fight back against China's decision to keep control of its currency. This is of course a root cause of the under-valuation of the Yuan, but what would be the appropriate value. In a global trading system dominated by the US, its allies and the international organisations such as the WTO that they control, why would China feel any inclination to fight fair?

This is a high-risk strategy. Given that China is the US's largest creditor by far, it is only its decision to continue to hold and buy US government debt that keeps the country afloat. In a fair market the US looks almost as unsaleable as Greece, given its vast national debt and low levels of productivity.

The only safe way out of this situation is via international negotiations in which countries and their interests are fairly represented. The removal of the dollar as the global trading and reserve currency would be a necessary first step if China is going to accept an invitation to such a negotiation.
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Two Bald Men Fighting Over a Comb

As we blunder towards another credit crisis, with banks losing confidence in each other and increasingly refusing to accept each other's debt, the inability of politicians to act is extraordinary. This morning's headlines might have read: 'Lagarde says nothing, recommends doing something, not clear what'; 'Osborne demands strongly that something is done'. Tomorrow's headline should read 'Geithner insists on urgent (unspecified) action'.

Everybody is demanding action from everybody else, but all those who apparently have power have given it away and forgotten how to use what they have left. My Ten Point Stabilisation Plan is still available, free of charge, to any who would wish to use it. But while our politicians find themselves incapable of thinking their way around free markets we can expect more blundering and empty performances in the days to come.

While Tim Geithner appears to have no thoughtful content to contribute, the intervention by the US Treasury Secretary adds interest and takes hypocrisy to new heights. Geithner's advice will presumably be to cut public spending harder and faster, this coming from a country whose own debt is so out of control that it threatens to incapacitate the political system entirely.

Thinking back a while we can recall why the Euro was invented in the first place: because the Europeans were tired of the trade advantage the US enjoyed by controlling the world's trading currency. The Euro was intended to compete with this supremacy and become an alternative reserve and trading currency. The US's intervention is thus more evidence of its presumption in favour of its own interest, no matter what the consequences.

But it was no only the Europeans who had grown tired of producing goods for the US and receiving only arrogant pronouncements in return. The Chinese worked their way into such a massive external trade balance that they could buy up the US and have change. Hence their continuing and repeated calls for a neutral trading currency to replace the dollar and the euro. Meanwhile, the growing economies of Latin America and south-east Asia found ways to facilitate mutual trade without using the dollar. The US no longer has anything to support its assumption of a right to tell the rest of the world how to behave.

If this really is a situation of two bald men fighting over a comb it's fairly clear that the comb, like everything else these days, has been made in China, and the Chinese are holding on tight.
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Neutral Switzerland Joins Currency Wars

There has been discussion in earlier posts on this blog about the role of reserve currencies and of the developing conflict over the value of different national currencies. Switzerland's currency, the Swiss Franc, plays a unique role in the global economy. It is the store-of-value currency of choice, rather than the medium-of-exchange currency of choice, which until very recently has been the dollar.

So what does it mean that Swiss francs will now be sold at a price determined by the Swiss central bank? It means that for the first time in around 30 years one of the world's leading reserve currencies is not finding its price according to market forces. Those market forces were driving up the value of Switzerland's national currency to such a degree that it was find it impossible to be competitive. It's central bank is now maintaining a lower level.

Two points are of interest to observers of the global economy. First, this is a historic moment. Those of us who have been ridiculed for suggesting that a system of freely floating exchange rates removes democratic control over national economies, encourages conflict between nations, and facilitates harmful speculation have been vindicated. In currency terms, one of the most powerful players in the global economy now agrees with us.

But more important is the clear need to separate the role a national currency plays in facilitating economic transactions within a nation-state from that of enabling trade between nations. The hegemony of the dollar since 1945 as the global medium of exchange has enabled the obscene consumption of that country's citizens and facilitated its acquisition of military firepower that has allowed it to reign supreme. It has also destroyed that country's domestic productive economy. Switzerland fears similar consequences. It has benefited hugely from being the safe-haven currency, but in this era of instability is paying the price.

The logical answer is clear, and has been a key demand of posts on this blog since its inception. What we need is a global trading currency that is not linked to any national economy. Without this, the currency wars can only grow more intense, and, as we saw in the 1930s, currency wars can lead to wars that are even more destructive.
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Great Transformation: Phase II

I have finally overcome my inherent thrift and bought Karl Polanyi's Great Transformation, allowing me the leisure time to consider his arguments at length during train journeys, rather than in haste before his book had to be returned to the British Library stacks in Wetherby. What I found surprised and impressed me immensely.

At the level of chat, Polanyi is discussed, dismissed even, as an 'economic historian'. This is a familiar glitch in discussion of economics, where considering long-term trends is thought to undermine the quality of your contribution. After all, it might risk allowing in the possibility that there have been alternatives to the market, even that these have dominated human history and achieved high levels of well-being.

The popular view of Polanyi is of a social historian who offered an understanding of non-market provisioning systems. The motivation for his book, however, is clearly that of political economy. He begins with two chapters on the gold standard and its role in maintaining peace in Europe in the 19th century. Far from peasant economies and mutual aid, this is a story of political intrigue and the power of global finance.

Polanyi describes four institutions that held 19th-century Europe together: the balance-of-power system, the gold standard, the self-regulating market and the liberal state. He is in no doubt about which mattered most: 'Of these institutions the gold standard proved crucial; its fall as the proximate cause of the catastrophe. By the time it failed, most of the other institutions had been sacrificed in a vain effort to save it.'

While history never repeats itself, this quotation made me ask myself which of the institutions and values we hold most dear we are willing to sacrifice to support the existing reserve currency system, and particularly the power of the dollar and the euro. The political pressure required to service the needs of finance today are ripping apart the social fabric, leading to the rise of nationalism and racism, the destruction of social services, and the waste of our skilled young people to unemployment.

Perhaps even more familiar is Polanyi's judgement on the impact on equality of the currency wars of the 1930s: 'Internally and externally alike, dwindling currenices spelled disruption. Nations found themselves separated from their neighbours, as by a chasm, while ta the same time the various strata of the population were affected in entirely different and often opposite ways. The intellectual middle class was literally pauperized; financial sharks heaped up revolting fortunes. A factor of incalculable integrating and disintegrating force had entered the scene.'

It is said that Karl Polanyi is an influence on Maurice Glasman, theorist of the self-parodying ideas of Blue Labour. In such quarters Polanyi's book appears to be used unopened, as an iconic support for mutual aid and communitarianism. But if Glasman and ilk have the influence they claim on Ed Miliband, Polanyi may soon be a name worth dropping.
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Japan's Accidental Intervention in the Currency Wars?

The Japanese situation makes clear the need to restore democracy to the world's economy. We need to take power back from the capital markets and the speculators and return it to politicians who are responsive to their people. At a time of such dire national crisis, how can it be right that Japan's politicians have to be distracted by the need to appease those whose only interest is to extract value from the country?

The unexpected response by the foreign exchange traders to the greatest natural disaster in Japanese history was to force up the value of the Yen. As usual in economics, the raised value of the Yen cuts both way for the Japanese. In the short term it will make it cheaper for them to import the goods and resources they need to rebuild. In theory, in the longer term it will make their exports more expensive and so will impeded recovery. In fact, given the failure of electricity supplies and the consequent decline in production, this is likely to be less of a concern to the people of Japan.

It is, however, of concern to Japan's competitors. Hence the decision by the G7 countries to intervene in the foreign exchange markets by selling their stocks of Yen in order to reduce its price. The figure shows the immediate success of this market intervention yesterday, both proving the self-interest of G7 governments and giving the lie to their repeated statements that the markets rule supreme.

But why the rapid rise in the Yen (illustrated in the second graphic) in the first place, when the performance of the economy from which it arises will clearly be severely impacted by the destruction of infrastructure and power shortages? The answer appears to be that Japanese institutions and the government are expected to repatriate Japanese savings held overseas. The resulting firesale of US bonds and stocks could be the event that pulls the plug on the USA's 40-year beano at the expense of the rest of the world.

In spite of the very low returns, the Japanese and Chinese have continued to hold US debt, allowing US citizens to consume way beyond the level their productive effort merits. The power of the dollar as the global reserve currency permits this, but that power has been challenged during the recent 'currency wars'. If the Japanese crisis forces that US to the negotiating table to agree a fairer system of international exchange, it might prove to be a dark cloud with a silver lining for us all.
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How Much Money Has the Fed Printed?

As we suffer under the cosh of the Tories' austerity, many are casting envious eyes across the Atlantic and asking whether our government could, like the US government, create money to help our economy out of the many and mutually reinforcing problems we are now facing. The answer seems to be 'no' and 'yes'.

The scale of US government money creation is staggering: according to an article published in the Post-Autistic Economics Review it amounted to $2 trillion dollars in 2009-10, with another £1 trillion coming this year. This represents approximately twice the economic value of the total annual activity in the UK over those three years. This money is being given to US financial institutions in the hope that they will lend it and thus stimulate economic activity. But as in the UK, the bankers are keeping that money to themselves, holding it as capital or paying it out in bonuses. The public is seeing no benefit from this massive money creation.

Meanwhile, internationally, the creation of dollars on such a vast scale is destabilising the whole financial system, leading to the understandable raising of currency barriers by the BRIC economies, particularly China, and the creation of a new grouping that is rejecting the continued role of the dollar as the major trading and exchange currency. China has now negotiated currency-swap agreements with Russia, India, Turkey and Nigeria. As Hudson explains:

'These problems are topped by the international repercussions that Mr. Dudley [Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve] referred to as the “limits to balance-of-payments expansion.” Cheap electronic U.S. “keyboard credit” is going abroad as banks try to earn their way out of debt by financing arbitrage gambles, glutting currency markets while depreciating the U.S. dollar. So the upshot of the Fed trying save the banks from negative equity is to flood the global economy with a glut of U.S. dollar credit, destabilizing the global financial system.'

So, to answer my initial question: could the UK follow a similar policy of quantitative easing? On the scale of the US money binge, the answer must be no, since the pound does not have the same international credibility. In addition, the policy is diplomatically unacceptable, since it is clearly unilateralist and destabilising. However, the actions of the US government do prove two things: austerity is a choice not an inevitable; and governments can and do produce money and spend it dirctly into the economy.

A policy of creating money targeting at specific sectors to stimulate the creation of jobs in pro-green areas of the economy could be exactly what we need in the UK just now. Such a programme was detailed in the Green Quantitative Easing report from Richard Murphy and Colin Hines. This would smooth our path to a lower-carbon, lower-growth future and is a strategic and forward-sighted policy to contrast with the ideological short-termism of the coalition.
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