RETIREMENT is sometimes defined as the point in life when we stop spending the majority of our time at work and begin living life.
Once our retirement celebration is over, most of us will spend more time staying at home. It will be natural for us to retire in a familiar area close to family, friends, church, neighbours, shopping and other amenities in the neighbourhood. Hence, our dwelling place becomes exceedingly important to us.
During the early stages of retirement, those who can afford to upkeep the house and even hire a maid to take care of it, may not be under financial pressure. But if your retirement savings are depleting year after year and you are not making enough money from investment portfolios, your house can become a financial burden.
Few of us can think objectively about retirement and old age. Any decision to move or to ‘stay-put’, even after a fall or a health problem would precipitate some trauma.
Having to leave a comfortable home and adjust to unfamiliar surroundings – especially when the choice is not ours is frightening. Uprooting would mean “taking away” our sense of belonging and an immediate isolation from family and friends.
There are initiatives overseas in providing appropriate housing for elderly people within community living – a form of ‘lifetime home’ without having it identified as “old-folks’ ghettoes”. In a survey amongst the “new elderly” in Denmark, high priority was given to good housing amenities and the ability to stay in one’s own home as long as possible.
As one poignant respondent commented in the survey: “It is important to move while you still can to a place you choose before other people move you to a place they choose.”
While we wait for such amenities to be available in Malaysia, it is important to be clear minded about our “age in-place” during the golden retirement years.
Choose our dwelling place with a conscious intention of simplifying our life, controlling maintenance costs to accommodate our ageing needs and minimising disruption to our living habits. Unless our adult children can take care of all these, it is safer for us to maintain them within our affordability.
It is wise for you to start thinking about it with the following considerations. Although they may not be comprehensive, they serve as a good guide:
a. Financial Considerations
·Housing loan obligation – housing loan period should not be stretched into your retirement. It can be financially stressful unless you have investment income to pay for it. Your retirement savings are best conserved for living expenses and not loan repayments.
·A loan-free house is a good idea if you plan to sell it in exchange for a cheaper retirement place. The extra cash from the sale will become useful for your ageing needs.
·Live in a house where cleaning and washing can to be kept at the minimum. You don’t want to be spending your retirement money, time and energy on upkeep instead of enjoying your retirement.
·Live in a house that requires low electricity consumption – energy saving lights and good air circulation can reduce lights and air conditioning. The extra money you save on electricity bills can be used to pay your groceries and important living expenses.
·Location of your house is important. One with affordable cost of living for groceries, shopping and eating out can help stretch your dollar. A place with public transport would provide the convenience, and savings on vehicle costs, petrol and parking fees. Remember that at some point in your retirement you might decide to stop driving.
b. Non-financial considerations like family and friends support, community living with leisure activities and availability of medical-assisted care. You wouldn’t want to be lonely and may prefer assisted-care at home or nearby places.
c. If you want to retire abroad, planning with lots of foresight, research and fact finding from people who have experienced retiring abroad is important. You won’t want to fall into the trap of not being able to afford it or find that you regret it because you miss your family and friends in your home country.
A comfortable house is a great source of happiness for your transition to “ageing in-place”.
If not planned properly, it could be an emotional and expensive affair for you and your family members. It is better to think through all possibilities now for a happy retirement dwelling place later!
BY Carol Yip who is a personal financial coach and also founder and CEO of Abacus for Money
COMMENTS:
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Saturday, 27 February 2010
What I Learned from My Dad
When his youngest son decided to become a musician, Buffett offered moral but not financial support
So—what to do with the money? I was a student at Stanford University; there were no strings attached. Fortunately, I'd had the advantage of seeing my older siblings burn through most of their cash; I didn't want to follow down that path. At the other extreme, I might have done absolutely nothing with that stock—just left it in an account and forgotten about it. If I'd picked that option, my shares would now be worth around $72 million. But I didn't make that choice, and I don't regret it for a second. People think I'm either lying or crazy when I say this, but it happens to be true, because I used my nest egg to buy something more valuable than money: I used it to buy time.
My inheritance came to me around the time I was finally committing to the pursuit of a career in music. As a pragmatic Midwesterner with a very limited nest egg, I knew that I would have to find a way to turn my creative impulses into a livelihood. But how did one do that? How would I find an audience, or clients, or a way to sell what I'd written and produced? I didn't have a clue, but it was becoming clear to me that I wasn't going to figure it out by staying in a university.
I decided to leave Stanford and use my inheritance to buy the time it would take to figure out if I could make a go of it in music.
With help from my father, I worked out a budget that would allow me to conserve my capital as long as possible. I moved to San Francisco, where I lived very frugally—small apartment, funky car. My sole extravagance was in expanding my recording equipment. I played the piano, wrote tunes, experimented with electronic sounds. Then I put a classified ad in the San Francisco Chronicle, offering to record all comers in my studio.
And I waited until a very important bit of good luck tracked me down one day in 1981, as I stood at a San Francisco curbside washing my crummy old car. A neighbor with whom I'd had nothing more than a nodding acquaintance happened by and asked what I did for a living. When I told him I was a struggling composer, he suggested I get in touch with his son-in-law, an animator who was always in need of music. I followed up, and the son-in-law did have work for me. He'd been commissioned to create 10-second "intersticials"—quick ads meant to flash a logo and establish a brand ID for a newly conceived cable channel.
I took the work. And the cable channel more than launched; it rocketed to the moon. It was called MTV. Soon many TV outlets wanted to look and sound like MTV. I no longer had to take on unpaid work.
My inheritance was relatively modest, but it was more than most young people receive to get a start in life. Having that money was a privilege, a gift I had not earned. If I'd faced the necessity of making a living from day one, I would not have been able to follow the path I chose.
Would my father have helped me get started if I'd chosen a career on Wall Street? I'm sure he would have. Would he have given me a job at Berkshire Hathaway if I'd asked for one? I suppose so. But in either of those cases, the onus would have been on me to demonstrate that I felt a true vocation for those fields, rather than simply taking the course of least resistance. My father would not have served as an enabler of my taking the easy way out. That would not have been an exercise of privilege, but of diminishment.
Adapted from Life Is What You Make It by Peter Buffett, © 2010 Peter Buffett. Reprinted by permission of Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See more links on Worren Buffett:
1. When CEOs Have Warren Buffett in Their Boardroom
What's it like to have America's greatest investor as your shareholder? Buffett's biographer talks to CEOs who know
2. Buffett's winners and losers
3. Warren Buffett Is No Steve Jobs
4. A Lesson From Warren Buffett:5. Buffett: Bailouts not just for CEOs
How Safe Are Your Dollars?
CAMBRIDGE – Chinese officials and private investors around the world have been worrying aloud about whether their dollar investments are safe. Since the Chinese government holds a large part of its $2 trillion of foreign exchange in dollars, they have good reason to focus on the future value of the greenback. And investors with smaller dollar holdings, who can shift to other currencies much more easily than the Chinese, are right to ask themselves whether they should be diversifying into non-dollar assets – or even shunning the dollar completely.
The fear about the dollar’s future is driven by several different but related concerns. Will the value of the dollar continue its long-term downward trend relative to other currencies? Will the enormous rise of United States government debt that is projected for the coming decade and beyond lead to inflation or even to default? Will the explosive growth of commercial banks’ excess reserves cause rapid inflation as the economy recovers?
But, while there is much to worry about, the bottom line is that these fears are exaggerated. Let’s start with the most likely of the negative developments: a falling exchange rate relative to other currencies. Even after the dollar’s recent rally relative to the euro, the trade-weighted value of the dollar is now 15% lower against a broad basket of major currencies than it was a decade ago, and 30% lower than it was 25 years ago.
Although occasional bouts of nervousness in global financial markets cause the dollar to rise, I expect that the dollar will continue to fall relative to the euro, the Japanese yen, and even the Chinese yuan. That decline in the dollar exchange rate is necessary to shrink the very large trade deficit that the US has with the rest of the world.
Consider what a decline of the dollar relative to the yuan would mean for the Chinese. If the Chinese now hold $1 trillion in their official portfolios, a 10% rise in the yuan-dollar exchange rate would lower the yuan value of those holdings by 10%. That is a big accounting loss, but it doesn’t change the value of the American goods or property investments in the US that the Chinese could buy with their trillion dollars.
The Chinese (or Saudis or Indians or others outside the euro zone) should, of course, be concerned about the dollar’s decline relative to the euro. After all, when that decline resumes, their dollar holdings will buy less in European markets. While it is hard to say how much the decline might be, it would not be surprising to see a fall of 20% over the next several years from the current level of about 1.4 dollars per euro.
But the big risk to any investor is the possibility that inflation will virtually annihilate a currency’s value. That happened in a number of countries in the 1970’s and 1980’s. In Mexico, for example, it took 150 pesos in 1990 to buy what one peso could buy in 1980.
That is not going to happen in the US. Large budget deficits have led to high inflation in countries that are forced to create money to finance those deficits because they cannot sell longer-term government bonds. That is not a risk for the US. The rate of inflation actually fell in the US during the early 1980’s, when the US last experienced large fiscal deficits.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are determined to keep inflation low as the economy recovers. The Fed has explained that it will sell the large volume of mortgage securities that it now holds on its balance sheet, absorbing liquidity in the process. It will also use its new authority to pay interest on the reserves held by commercial banks at the Fed in order to prevent excessive lending. This is, of course, a formidable task that may have to be accomplished at a time when Congress opposes monetary tightening.
Looking forward, investors can protect themselves against inflation in the US by buying Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), which index interest and principal payments to offset the rise in the consumer price level. The current small difference between the real interest rate on such bonds (2.1% for 30-year bonds) and the nominal interest rate on conventional 30-year Treasury bonds (now 4.6%) implies that the market expects only about 2.5% inflation over the next three decades.
So the good news is that dollar investments are safe. But safe doesn’t mean the investment with the highest safe return. If the dollar is likely to fall against the euro over the next several years, investments in euro-denominated bonds issued by the German or French governments may provide higher safe returns. Even if the dollar is perfectly safe, investors are well advised to diversify their portfolios.
● By Martin Feldstein, a professor of economics at Harvard, was chairman of President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors and president of the National Bureau for Economic Research.
The fear about the dollar’s future is driven by several different but related concerns. Will the value of the dollar continue its long-term downward trend relative to other currencies? Will the enormous rise of United States government debt that is projected for the coming decade and beyond lead to inflation or even to default? Will the explosive growth of commercial banks’ excess reserves cause rapid inflation as the economy recovers?
But, while there is much to worry about, the bottom line is that these fears are exaggerated. Let’s start with the most likely of the negative developments: a falling exchange rate relative to other currencies. Even after the dollar’s recent rally relative to the euro, the trade-weighted value of the dollar is now 15% lower against a broad basket of major currencies than it was a decade ago, and 30% lower than it was 25 years ago.
Although occasional bouts of nervousness in global financial markets cause the dollar to rise, I expect that the dollar will continue to fall relative to the euro, the Japanese yen, and even the Chinese yuan. That decline in the dollar exchange rate is necessary to shrink the very large trade deficit that the US has with the rest of the world.
Consider what a decline of the dollar relative to the yuan would mean for the Chinese. If the Chinese now hold $1 trillion in their official portfolios, a 10% rise in the yuan-dollar exchange rate would lower the yuan value of those holdings by 10%. That is a big accounting loss, but it doesn’t change the value of the American goods or property investments in the US that the Chinese could buy with their trillion dollars.
The Chinese (or Saudis or Indians or others outside the euro zone) should, of course, be concerned about the dollar’s decline relative to the euro. After all, when that decline resumes, their dollar holdings will buy less in European markets. While it is hard to say how much the decline might be, it would not be surprising to see a fall of 20% over the next several years from the current level of about 1.4 dollars per euro.
But the big risk to any investor is the possibility that inflation will virtually annihilate a currency’s value. That happened in a number of countries in the 1970’s and 1980’s. In Mexico, for example, it took 150 pesos in 1990 to buy what one peso could buy in 1980.
That is not going to happen in the US. Large budget deficits have led to high inflation in countries that are forced to create money to finance those deficits because they cannot sell longer-term government bonds. That is not a risk for the US. The rate of inflation actually fell in the US during the early 1980’s, when the US last experienced large fiscal deficits.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are determined to keep inflation low as the economy recovers. The Fed has explained that it will sell the large volume of mortgage securities that it now holds on its balance sheet, absorbing liquidity in the process. It will also use its new authority to pay interest on the reserves held by commercial banks at the Fed in order to prevent excessive lending. This is, of course, a formidable task that may have to be accomplished at a time when Congress opposes monetary tightening.
Looking forward, investors can protect themselves against inflation in the US by buying Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), which index interest and principal payments to offset the rise in the consumer price level. The current small difference between the real interest rate on such bonds (2.1% for 30-year bonds) and the nominal interest rate on conventional 30-year Treasury bonds (now 4.6%) implies that the market expects only about 2.5% inflation over the next three decades.
So the good news is that dollar investments are safe. But safe doesn’t mean the investment with the highest safe return. If the dollar is likely to fall against the euro over the next several years, investments in euro-denominated bonds issued by the German or French governments may provide higher safe returns. Even if the dollar is perfectly safe, investors are well advised to diversify their portfolios.
● By Martin Feldstein, a professor of economics at Harvard, was chairman of President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors and president of the National Bureau for Economic Research.
The kiss of debt
Ballooning fiscal deficits and rising public debt are raising investor anxiety about sovereign risk in many advanced economies.
SO the world has managed to survive the deepest and longest recession since the Big One in the early 1930s. It did so with extraordinary public policy support – fiscal and financial – the price paid to stop the global economy from falling off the precipice.
Two years on, ballooning fiscal deficits and rising public debt are raising investor anxiety about sovereign risk in many advanced economies.
Ironically, the shoe is traditionally on the other foot coming out of deep recession. Sovereign risk concerns historically reflected profligacy in emerging market economies. In the past, Brazil, Mexico, Russia and Argentina were notable examples of public debt defaults. Many others (Pakistan, Ukraine, Iceland) were forced to restructure under threat of default.
To a large extent, many emerging economies have changed their ways – tightening their fiscal belt, exporting more (some from new commodity resources), lowering debt-to-GDP ratio. Basically, implementing early fiscal consolidation (often times forced on by promises of new credits). This time, severe recession and the recent financial crisis took a high toll on a good number of advanced economies in the eurozone – those with a history of fiscal problems, ignoring reforms in good times.
Today, “biggies” like the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan are made more vulnerable by weak economic (and jobless) recovery and an ageing population – both likely to add to their debt woes, made worse by the monetisation of fiscal deficits (printing money) and ready access to “costless” bank funds via quantitative easing (also printing money).
Unless properly handled, their anaemic economies could fall back into recession (double-dip) and even deflation, with often disastrous impact on their longer-term growth prospects.
PIIGS can’t fly
News over the Chinese New Year holidays was dominated largely by Greece, pressured by the market to bring on early fiscal reform. Together with the other eurozone PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) – these so-called Club Med members share common traits: weak fiscal and debt positions; weak exports; weak balance of payments; and weak productivity (too high wages) caught in a zone with a strong euro currency, which made them all the more uncompetitive.
What is often not appreciated is that the PIIGS have limited policy options as part of the European Union (EU). For them, their exchange rates are a given. By adopting the euro, they cannot depreciate since they have no currencies of their own. And the European Central Bank (ECB) is not about to weaken the euro for their sake.
They have only one way to go to restore competitiveness – fiscal retrenchment and structural reform. But the PIIGS don’t have a track record of fiscal discipline. Greece, for example, lacks the economic governance of the EU. Yet, it has to make the most of a weak hand at a three-way poker involving the EU, capital markets and potential social unrest at home. If PIIGs fall apart, the European Commission (EC) falls apart.
In my view, they can best do this under an International Moneraty Fund (IMF) programme and not in the shadow of the EC and the ECB without smelling like a bailout. The IMF gives them the best option to re-establish lost policy credibility. Moreover, the euro is not a debt union (Europe is only half-way through creating a viable monetary union); it has yet to have an emergency financial mechanism, if ever.
I must agree with Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman that the euro was adopted ahead of the readiness of all the constituent parts to effectively engage. Harvard’s Feldstein had cautioned early in 1999 that divergent economies can’t work under a single EU roof. Germany had demanded too much: (i) German aversion of debt, and (ii) an authoritarian central bank (ECB) whose excessively tight policies have since aggravated the plight of the PIIGS.
Of course, Germany benefited greatly from the euro. At the same time, Greece and the other PIIGS enjoyed a free lunch as German interest rates pulled down everyone else’s within the euro bloc. Now is payback time. Greece’s ratio of debt to GDP is nearly twice of Germany’s and is projected to hit 120% this year. Its moment of truth came for concealing a 13% budget deficit.
Overall, even the EU is not out of the woods. According to the EC, its public debt ratio could rise above 100% by 2014, i.e. costing an entire year’s output, unless firm action is taken to restore fiscal discipline. This ratio is expected at 84% this year (only 66% in 2007) and rise to 89% in 2011. Ironically, nations aspiring to be members must meet a maximum 60% target!
US and its Aaa rating
Very much like Europe, the United States is not out of the woods either. The deep recession and financial crisis have devastated the state of its public finances. Indeed, the question on most observers mind: Is the United States at (or approaching) a tipping point with global investors? It’s an issue that has become more burning with Obama’s 2010 federal budget envisaging a deficit of US$1.6 trillion, or 10.6% of GDP.
By the end of 2009, public debt had reached US$5.8 trillion or 53% of GDP. This ratio is projected to reach 72% in 2013, unprecedented in US history except when at war. Markets do have a cause to worry. So do we, especially China with very large US dollar reserves.
But for Krugman, the reality isn’t as bad as it sounds. First, the large deficit reflected counter-cyclical expansionary spending (not “runaway spending growth”) to offset the impact of the worst recession in 80 years. It’s already stimulating growth and supporting job creation.
Second, sure there is a longer-term fiscal problem. But once sustainable growth returns, the administration needs to tackle the difficult task of budget reform.
Third, there is no reason for panic. For him, what’s the big deal with projections of interest payments on debt of 3.5% of GDP? That’s what the United States paid under the elder Bush.
And fourth, the “scare tactics” are all politics.
To me, the real concern is whether the United States can stay the course and do what it takes to firmly establish a sustainable recovery, with priority centered on licking mass unemployment. This could even mean facing larger deficits now.
Nevertheless, there is no denying the United States has structural fiscal problems. Serious enough for Moody’s Investors Service to state following the Feb 1 budget release: “Unless further measures are taken to reduce the budget deficit further or the economy rebounds more vigorously than expected, the federal financial picture as presented…will at some point put pressure on the Aaa government bond rating.”
Quite obviously, this raises fresh concerns. To be fair, under the Democrats in 2007, the public debt ratio was 36% and rose to 40% within a year. It’s expected at 64% this year, 69% in 2011, and go above 70% later this decade.
Let’s not forget Moody’s ratings care more about balancing the budget. It seems to me that growth and job creation matter more, just as how nations do the balancing count. But, frankly, a rating downgrade would not be cataclysmic for the United States. In practice, borrowing costs will rise for all. This simply means more pressure on the deficit and debt.
Japan was marked down in 1998 when its debt ratio hit 115%. Stabilising debt requires some combination of faster growth, higher taxes and lower spending. The trouble is Americans want lower taxes, more lavish social safety net, and the world’s best-funded military machine – by simply piling-on debt.
Till debt do us part
Within the G-7, there is a tacit understanding to resolving the dilemma of high employment and worsening public debt: To persevere in support of growth and job creation now (even at the expense of higher deficits); and then get the budget deficit down real hard as recovery gets firmly established.
As I see it, the growth now economists point to the growing weight of evidence for first priority on the restoration of robust growth. This makes sense given the current high unemployment, debt not being out of control, and more private savings mobilised to finance the deficit (as in Japan). Moreover, an immediate accelerated fiscal cutback now would not produce offsetting private demand to “make a sustainable recovery more likely.”
Indeed, any sharp “reversal” shock can prove damaging to early firm recovery. For them, history is “littered with examples of premature withdrawal of government stimulus” gone wrong (the United States in 1937 and Japan in 1997).
No such dilemma in Asia
With the exception of Japan, most Asian economies (from India to China to South Korea) approach the piling-up of public debt with less hubris.
Even China, with one of the world’s largest stimulus programmes (up to 12% of GDP in 2009), recorded a fiscal deficit of less than 5% of GDP in 2009; its debt ratio was less than 20%. Similarly, India’s ratios were 6% and 22% respectively. Malaysia’s record is quite exemplary, with a fiscal deficit of 4.8% in 2008 and 7.4% in 2009 (expected to fall to 5.6% in 2010) in the face of substantial prime-pumping (up to 8% of GNP); its public debt ratio was 52% (foreign debt of 2%) in 2009.
Japan’s case is rather curious. In 2009, its budget deficit was 10.5% of GDP; its public debt, 200% – twice the size of the economy. This huge debt reflected years of slow growth, numerous stimulus plans, an ageing society and the impact of the global recession. Experts expect it to rise to 300% by 2020. Yet, it manages rather well. Japanese investors, including households, absorb 95% of this debt. Its long-bonds yield was 7.1% in 1990; it’s now 1.4%. The trick, I think, is high private savings in Japan.
Unlike Japan, a significant part of the US debt is financed by foreign savings from China, Japan, Europe and most of Asia. The inconvenient truth is this: the United States can easily and readily borrow as much as it wants until confidence evaporates – not unlike the US dollar.
Much of Asia’s confidence lies in its high rate of domestic savings. Malaysians’ savings are about one-third of the national income. Private savings in United States until the crisis in 2007 was zero; it now saves 6%–7%. Based on this confidence, Malaysia for example can rely on a sustainable stream of non-inflationary finance. So long as development strategies for growth are creditably conceived and designed, the domestic savings will be there to fund such public programmes to build capacity and generate sustainable growth.
Indeed, it is legitimate to ask: Why are excess Malaysian savings used (through investment in US Treasuries) to fund US spending? More so when rates are so miserably low today.
Surely, we do have worthwhile much higher return investments that warrant the use of these excess savings domestically (beyond what’s prudently needed to be set aside for the rainy day) to promote the public good. The efficient allocation of scarce financial resources must form an integral part of the New Economic Model.
● By Former banker Dr Lin is a Harvard educated economist and a British Chartered Scientist who now spends time promoting the public interest. Feedback is most welcome; email:
starbizweek@thestar.com.my.
SO the world has managed to survive the deepest and longest recession since the Big One in the early 1930s. It did so with extraordinary public policy support – fiscal and financial – the price paid to stop the global economy from falling off the precipice.
Two years on, ballooning fiscal deficits and rising public debt are raising investor anxiety about sovereign risk in many advanced economies.
Ironically, the shoe is traditionally on the other foot coming out of deep recession. Sovereign risk concerns historically reflected profligacy in emerging market economies. In the past, Brazil, Mexico, Russia and Argentina were notable examples of public debt defaults. Many others (Pakistan, Ukraine, Iceland) were forced to restructure under threat of default.
To a large extent, many emerging economies have changed their ways – tightening their fiscal belt, exporting more (some from new commodity resources), lowering debt-to-GDP ratio. Basically, implementing early fiscal consolidation (often times forced on by promises of new credits). This time, severe recession and the recent financial crisis took a high toll on a good number of advanced economies in the eurozone – those with a history of fiscal problems, ignoring reforms in good times.
Today, “biggies” like the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan are made more vulnerable by weak economic (and jobless) recovery and an ageing population – both likely to add to their debt woes, made worse by the monetisation of fiscal deficits (printing money) and ready access to “costless” bank funds via quantitative easing (also printing money).
Unless properly handled, their anaemic economies could fall back into recession (double-dip) and even deflation, with often disastrous impact on their longer-term growth prospects.
PIIGS can’t fly
News over the Chinese New Year holidays was dominated largely by Greece, pressured by the market to bring on early fiscal reform. Together with the other eurozone PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) – these so-called Club Med members share common traits: weak fiscal and debt positions; weak exports; weak balance of payments; and weak productivity (too high wages) caught in a zone with a strong euro currency, which made them all the more uncompetitive.
What is often not appreciated is that the PIIGS have limited policy options as part of the European Union (EU). For them, their exchange rates are a given. By adopting the euro, they cannot depreciate since they have no currencies of their own. And the European Central Bank (ECB) is not about to weaken the euro for their sake.
They have only one way to go to restore competitiveness – fiscal retrenchment and structural reform. But the PIIGS don’t have a track record of fiscal discipline. Greece, for example, lacks the economic governance of the EU. Yet, it has to make the most of a weak hand at a three-way poker involving the EU, capital markets and potential social unrest at home. If PIIGs fall apart, the European Commission (EC) falls apart.
In my view, they can best do this under an International Moneraty Fund (IMF) programme and not in the shadow of the EC and the ECB without smelling like a bailout. The IMF gives them the best option to re-establish lost policy credibility. Moreover, the euro is not a debt union (Europe is only half-way through creating a viable monetary union); it has yet to have an emergency financial mechanism, if ever.
I must agree with Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman that the euro was adopted ahead of the readiness of all the constituent parts to effectively engage. Harvard’s Feldstein had cautioned early in 1999 that divergent economies can’t work under a single EU roof. Germany had demanded too much: (i) German aversion of debt, and (ii) an authoritarian central bank (ECB) whose excessively tight policies have since aggravated the plight of the PIIGS.
Of course, Germany benefited greatly from the euro. At the same time, Greece and the other PIIGS enjoyed a free lunch as German interest rates pulled down everyone else’s within the euro bloc. Now is payback time. Greece’s ratio of debt to GDP is nearly twice of Germany’s and is projected to hit 120% this year. Its moment of truth came for concealing a 13% budget deficit.
Overall, even the EU is not out of the woods. According to the EC, its public debt ratio could rise above 100% by 2014, i.e. costing an entire year’s output, unless firm action is taken to restore fiscal discipline. This ratio is expected at 84% this year (only 66% in 2007) and rise to 89% in 2011. Ironically, nations aspiring to be members must meet a maximum 60% target!
US and its Aaa rating
Very much like Europe, the United States is not out of the woods either. The deep recession and financial crisis have devastated the state of its public finances. Indeed, the question on most observers mind: Is the United States at (or approaching) a tipping point with global investors? It’s an issue that has become more burning with Obama’s 2010 federal budget envisaging a deficit of US$1.6 trillion, or 10.6% of GDP.
By the end of 2009, public debt had reached US$5.8 trillion or 53% of GDP. This ratio is projected to reach 72% in 2013, unprecedented in US history except when at war. Markets do have a cause to worry. So do we, especially China with very large US dollar reserves.
But for Krugman, the reality isn’t as bad as it sounds. First, the large deficit reflected counter-cyclical expansionary spending (not “runaway spending growth”) to offset the impact of the worst recession in 80 years. It’s already stimulating growth and supporting job creation.
Second, sure there is a longer-term fiscal problem. But once sustainable growth returns, the administration needs to tackle the difficult task of budget reform.
Third, there is no reason for panic. For him, what’s the big deal with projections of interest payments on debt of 3.5% of GDP? That’s what the United States paid under the elder Bush.
And fourth, the “scare tactics” are all politics.
To me, the real concern is whether the United States can stay the course and do what it takes to firmly establish a sustainable recovery, with priority centered on licking mass unemployment. This could even mean facing larger deficits now.
Nevertheless, there is no denying the United States has structural fiscal problems. Serious enough for Moody’s Investors Service to state following the Feb 1 budget release: “Unless further measures are taken to reduce the budget deficit further or the economy rebounds more vigorously than expected, the federal financial picture as presented…will at some point put pressure on the Aaa government bond rating.”
Quite obviously, this raises fresh concerns. To be fair, under the Democrats in 2007, the public debt ratio was 36% and rose to 40% within a year. It’s expected at 64% this year, 69% in 2011, and go above 70% later this decade.
Let’s not forget Moody’s ratings care more about balancing the budget. It seems to me that growth and job creation matter more, just as how nations do the balancing count. But, frankly, a rating downgrade would not be cataclysmic for the United States. In practice, borrowing costs will rise for all. This simply means more pressure on the deficit and debt.
Japan was marked down in 1998 when its debt ratio hit 115%. Stabilising debt requires some combination of faster growth, higher taxes and lower spending. The trouble is Americans want lower taxes, more lavish social safety net, and the world’s best-funded military machine – by simply piling-on debt.
Till debt do us part
Within the G-7, there is a tacit understanding to resolving the dilemma of high employment and worsening public debt: To persevere in support of growth and job creation now (even at the expense of higher deficits); and then get the budget deficit down real hard as recovery gets firmly established.
As I see it, the growth now economists point to the growing weight of evidence for first priority on the restoration of robust growth. This makes sense given the current high unemployment, debt not being out of control, and more private savings mobilised to finance the deficit (as in Japan). Moreover, an immediate accelerated fiscal cutback now would not produce offsetting private demand to “make a sustainable recovery more likely.”
Indeed, any sharp “reversal” shock can prove damaging to early firm recovery. For them, history is “littered with examples of premature withdrawal of government stimulus” gone wrong (the United States in 1937 and Japan in 1997).
No such dilemma in Asia
With the exception of Japan, most Asian economies (from India to China to South Korea) approach the piling-up of public debt with less hubris.
Even China, with one of the world’s largest stimulus programmes (up to 12% of GDP in 2009), recorded a fiscal deficit of less than 5% of GDP in 2009; its debt ratio was less than 20%. Similarly, India’s ratios were 6% and 22% respectively. Malaysia’s record is quite exemplary, with a fiscal deficit of 4.8% in 2008 and 7.4% in 2009 (expected to fall to 5.6% in 2010) in the face of substantial prime-pumping (up to 8% of GNP); its public debt ratio was 52% (foreign debt of 2%) in 2009.
Japan’s case is rather curious. In 2009, its budget deficit was 10.5% of GDP; its public debt, 200% – twice the size of the economy. This huge debt reflected years of slow growth, numerous stimulus plans, an ageing society and the impact of the global recession. Experts expect it to rise to 300% by 2020. Yet, it manages rather well. Japanese investors, including households, absorb 95% of this debt. Its long-bonds yield was 7.1% in 1990; it’s now 1.4%. The trick, I think, is high private savings in Japan.
Unlike Japan, a significant part of the US debt is financed by foreign savings from China, Japan, Europe and most of Asia. The inconvenient truth is this: the United States can easily and readily borrow as much as it wants until confidence evaporates – not unlike the US dollar.
Much of Asia’s confidence lies in its high rate of domestic savings. Malaysians’ savings are about one-third of the national income. Private savings in United States until the crisis in 2007 was zero; it now saves 6%–7%. Based on this confidence, Malaysia for example can rely on a sustainable stream of non-inflationary finance. So long as development strategies for growth are creditably conceived and designed, the domestic savings will be there to fund such public programmes to build capacity and generate sustainable growth.
Indeed, it is legitimate to ask: Why are excess Malaysian savings used (through investment in US Treasuries) to fund US spending? More so when rates are so miserably low today.
Surely, we do have worthwhile much higher return investments that warrant the use of these excess savings domestically (beyond what’s prudently needed to be set aside for the rainy day) to promote the public good. The efficient allocation of scarce financial resources must form an integral part of the New Economic Model.
● By Former banker Dr Lin is a Harvard educated economist and a British Chartered Scientist who now spends time promoting the public interest. Feedback is most welcome; email:
starbizweek@thestar.com.my.
Expert answers to the global meltdown
Freefall: America, free markets and the sinking of the world economy
Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz
Publisher: Allen Lane
WHAT would the late Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged, have said about the recent financial crisis and the US government’s massive bailouts of banks and financial institutions?
Rand, a strong advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, believed that the government’s role in an economy was to protect individual rights without intervening in the conduct of free market.
To the dismay of Rand and her cult believers, the US government, in its efforts to subdue the crisis, has done everything that violates her definition of capitalism.
The government has done little to protect individual homeowners from foreclosures but has done a lot for banks. It has sustained them by giving them massive amounts of taxpayers’ money, despite reckless wrong doings.
Worse yet, some of these crooks and undeserving bankers have shamelessly paid themselves fat bonuses with the handouts and continue to serve as executives.
While Rand is no longer present to condemn the mess, Joseph Stiglitz is. In his new book, Freefall: America, free markets and the sinking of the world economy, Stiglitz outlines the crisis, identifies the causes, delineates the impact, fires salvos at bankers, criticises regulators and policy makers, and puts forth solutions for a better future.
Most importantly, he debunks economic theories and provides a historic background of the financial market.
This gives the reader a thorough understanding of the crisis and the economic forces at play.
Stiglitz’s account brings us back to the 1980s when deregulation and privatisation were Ronald Reagan’s top priority. This period also saw the replacement of Paul Volcker by Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
The formation of this duo, along with Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, set the stage for rapid deregulation and low interest rates, encouraging banks to engage in risky activities and allowing consumers to spend beyond their means. Hence, the recent crisis did not just happen as bankers claim. “It was created,” says Stiglitz.
Much has been said about the crisis. Written in different formats, from diverse angles, by many people and for different objectives, the crisis has been put under a magnifying glass, analysed and, hopefully, its lessons learned.
But nobody does a more comprehensive job than Stiglitz. Although the material is difficult at times, Stiglitz manages to put things into perspective in a succinct and intuitive manner.
For instance, credit default swap, a type of credit derivative that can put banks and financial institutions in trouble, is cleverly defined in AIG’s context, as the “insurance” that AIG and investment bankers sell to insure investors against the collapse of banks.
But Stiglitz’s full ammunition is aimed mostly at bankers, calling their wheeling and dealings the greatest scam of the century.
Encouraged by lax regulation and tempted by the kind of quick profits that investment banks were making, commercial banks abandoned the conventional role of lending.
They began to make extremely risky loans and engage in securitisation, a process wherein subprime mortgages are bundled up, repackaged and converted into securities to be sold to investors.
As these banks became bigger and bigger, they became confident that the government would rescue them because they were simply to big to fail. And they were right.
Not only did the regulators not pop the asset bubble, they grew it. Alan Greenspan had fuelled the heat of risky trading by continuing to lower interest rates, Ben Bernanke allowed the issuance of subprime mortgages, and Henry Paulson, as a CEO before becoming the Treasury Secretary, led Goldman Sachs to new heights of leverage.
Stiglitz describes them as schizophrenic for refusing to acknowledge the danger looming ahead, let alone taking action to prevent it.
A Nobel laureate professor with stellar practical experience serving the World Bank and former US President Bill Clinton, Stiglitz’s passion in global economics and his decade-long warning on an impending crisis have made him the person the United Nations turned to as chairman of a panel of experts on the global meltdown’s causes.
The answers are in this book; all except Stiglitz’s confidence in President Barack Obama. Stigllitz is evidently doubtful of Obama’s ability to overcome the challenge as he has not taken firm action to restructure the banking behemoth as promised.
Moving forward, Stiglitz thinks economies need a balance between the role of markets and governments. Though that may seem very true in the wake of what we have just experienced, Stiglitz alone will not be able to convince the formidable-looking Rand, I reckon.
Note: Readers interested in Ayn Rand’s view on capitalism can check out her book titled Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz
Publisher: Allen Lane
WHAT would the late Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged, have said about the recent financial crisis and the US government’s massive bailouts of banks and financial institutions?
To the dismay of Rand and her cult believers, the US government, in its efforts to subdue the crisis, has done everything that violates her definition of capitalism.
The government has done little to protect individual homeowners from foreclosures but has done a lot for banks. It has sustained them by giving them massive amounts of taxpayers’ money, despite reckless wrong doings.
Worse yet, some of these crooks and undeserving bankers have shamelessly paid themselves fat bonuses with the handouts and continue to serve as executives.
While Rand is no longer present to condemn the mess, Joseph Stiglitz is. In his new book, Freefall: America, free markets and the sinking of the world economy, Stiglitz outlines the crisis, identifies the causes, delineates the impact, fires salvos at bankers, criticises regulators and policy makers, and puts forth solutions for a better future.
Most importantly, he debunks economic theories and provides a historic background of the financial market.
This gives the reader a thorough understanding of the crisis and the economic forces at play.
Stiglitz’s account brings us back to the 1980s when deregulation and privatisation were Ronald Reagan’s top priority. This period also saw the replacement of Paul Volcker by Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
The formation of this duo, along with Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, set the stage for rapid deregulation and low interest rates, encouraging banks to engage in risky activities and allowing consumers to spend beyond their means. Hence, the recent crisis did not just happen as bankers claim. “It was created,” says Stiglitz.
Much has been said about the crisis. Written in different formats, from diverse angles, by many people and for different objectives, the crisis has been put under a magnifying glass, analysed and, hopefully, its lessons learned.
But nobody does a more comprehensive job than Stiglitz. Although the material is difficult at times, Stiglitz manages to put things into perspective in a succinct and intuitive manner.
For instance, credit default swap, a type of credit derivative that can put banks and financial institutions in trouble, is cleverly defined in AIG’s context, as the “insurance” that AIG and investment bankers sell to insure investors against the collapse of banks.
But Stiglitz’s full ammunition is aimed mostly at bankers, calling their wheeling and dealings the greatest scam of the century.
Encouraged by lax regulation and tempted by the kind of quick profits that investment banks were making, commercial banks abandoned the conventional role of lending.
They began to make extremely risky loans and engage in securitisation, a process wherein subprime mortgages are bundled up, repackaged and converted into securities to be sold to investors.
As these banks became bigger and bigger, they became confident that the government would rescue them because they were simply to big to fail. And they were right.
Not only did the regulators not pop the asset bubble, they grew it. Alan Greenspan had fuelled the heat of risky trading by continuing to lower interest rates, Ben Bernanke allowed the issuance of subprime mortgages, and Henry Paulson, as a CEO before becoming the Treasury Secretary, led Goldman Sachs to new heights of leverage.
Stiglitz describes them as schizophrenic for refusing to acknowledge the danger looming ahead, let alone taking action to prevent it.
A Nobel laureate professor with stellar practical experience serving the World Bank and former US President Bill Clinton, Stiglitz’s passion in global economics and his decade-long warning on an impending crisis have made him the person the United Nations turned to as chairman of a panel of experts on the global meltdown’s causes.
The answers are in this book; all except Stiglitz’s confidence in President Barack Obama. Stigllitz is evidently doubtful of Obama’s ability to overcome the challenge as he has not taken firm action to restructure the banking behemoth as promised.
Moving forward, Stiglitz thinks economies need a balance between the role of markets and governments. Though that may seem very true in the wake of what we have just experienced, Stiglitz alone will not be able to convince the formidable-looking Rand, I reckon.
Note: Readers interested in Ayn Rand’s view on capitalism can check out her book titled Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
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