It is now clear to me that policy makers in the West are determined to apply every available resource to underpinning failure, misallocation and executive excess. As this discourages the honest saver from parting with cash, policy makers are ensuring that deflation will wreak its havoc on the financial and real economies of the world. Only when that deflation has played out and rational policies that reward market-based management and returns are restored will it be worthwhile to invest again.
The Fed permitting dividend hikes at bailed out banks only deepens my cynicism about the poor quality of regulation and the inadequacy of management controls.
Obviously, I was premature about deflation as events in 2009 and 2010 proved, but I am not convinced I was wrong in the longer term. Events this week in Japan, and political upheavals this year elsewhere, have me thinking that we are at a turning point in many ways. When the numbness that follows such a mammoth series of tragedies wears off, the public in Japan is going to be very angry. They have suffered three great catastrophes in one week: the 8.9 earthquake, the tsunami that swiftly followed, and the failure of safety controls at six nuclear reactors. We still don't know the scale of the final disaster, or what it will mean for the country or the world.
The Japanese state is to be congratulated that strict building codes preserved much of the physical infrastructure from the earthquake, and regular tsunami drills doubtless saved tens of thousands of lives during the tsunami. The most serious failure was in management, risk assessment and regulation of the nuclear industry. The anger will be that an industry critical to the economy, with powerful lobbyists close to government, was able to capture its regulators and erode safety standards until a crisis revealed the tragic short-termism. The anger will increase when the Japanese come to appreciate that the serial depredations of the banking industry have left them over-exposed with few fiscal policy options to meet the financial challenge of rebuilding and resettlement of refugees.
If the government and institutions of Japan are forced to liquidate and repatriate foreign assets, then fears of rising Yen and destabilisation of G7 economies are well founded. I believe it was the collective self-interest in preserving stability that motivated today's central bank interventions. The Yen appreciated 20 percent in the three months following the Kobi earthquake, and the scale of the current disaster - particularly with the risk of nuclear contamination of some part of the country - is likely to dwarf the Kobi effect.
As radiation reaches California from Fukushima today, we might all consider that regulatory capture places us all at some degree of risk. The crisis in California sub-prime real estate was borne by the currents of international finance to the pension funds of Norway and the savings banks of Germany. Both the nuclear energy industry and the banking industry had parallel patterns of political influence leading to regulatory capture and debasement of best practice, and ultimately ruination for a suffering public. It will be interesting to see how much accountability is demanded of management and regulators in the nuclear industry in Japan, and compare this with the lack of accountabiity for serial financial failures and bailouts.
Japan has 20 years more experience of financial sector accounting abuse and bailouts than the rest of us. And the result has been almost continuous deflation - even in the face of mounting deficits, ZIRP and quantitative easing.
Another factor that leads me to fear deflation over inflation is the risk of popping of the great China bubble. My view is that the Chinese economy slowed markedly in Q4 2010 as monetary tightening and administrative regulation of bank lending began to bite, and that the slowing has accelerated in 2011. This view has been confirmed by Gavyn Davies on his FT blog. With another rate rise today by the PBOC, and the supply chain shock of Japan's industrial disruption and power shortages, we could be in for a sharp, deflationary global contraction in the next few months.
UPDATE 20/03/11: Days before quake, plant operator admitted oversight
Days before Japan plunged into an atomic crisis after a giant earthquake and tsunami knocked out power at the ageing Fukushima nuclear plant, its operator had admitted faking repair records.
The revelation raises fresh questions about both Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO)'s scandal-tainted past and the government's perceived soft regulation of a key industry.
The operator of the Fukushima No. 1 plant submitted a report to the country's nuclear watchdog ten days before the quake hit on March 11, admitting it had failed to inspect 33 pieces of equipment in its six reactors there.
A power board distributing electricity to a reactor's temperature control valves was not examined for 11 years, and inspectors faked records, pretending to make thorough inspections when in fact they were only cursory, TEPCO said.
It also said that inspections, which are voluntary, did not cover other devices related to cooling systems including water pump motors and diesel generators.
The report was submitted after the regulator ordered operators to examine whether inspections were suitably thorough.
1 comment:
Thank you for your opinion, your's is always appreciated and weighted heavily.
J
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