Latest / Trumponomics / The Looming Debt Crisis About to Make Everything Worse
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What is my biggest worry With food prices, energy prices up,
- 0:05Speaker 1: with prospects for recovery much worse. Are we going to
- 0:10Speaker 1: see the phenomenon from people on the street unrest creating
- 0:16Speaker 1: more difficult environment for policymakers to do the right thing. Hello,
- 0:27Speaker 1: and welcome to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the global
- 0:30Speaker 1: economy to you. And there's not much going right in
- 0:32Speaker 1: that economy today, with Russia's war in Ukraine sending food
- 0:36Speaker 1: and energy prices through the roof, China facing yet another
- 0:40Speaker 1: round of disruptive COVID lockdowns, and many policymakers around the
- 0:44Speaker 1: world relearning a seventies term stagflation. But as the Managing
- 0:50Speaker 1: Director of the International Monetary Fund Krystellina Gorgeva warned us
- 0:54Speaker 1: just then in a debate at the recent spring meetings
- 0:57Speaker 1: of the World Bank and i AMF, things could definitely worse,
- 1:01Speaker 1: especially for vulnerable developing countries still dealing with the legacy
- 1:05Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen. So this week we take a long,
- 1:08Speaker 1: hard look at the crisis that might be coming down
- 1:11Speaker 1: the track for those economies with a report from our
- 1:14Speaker 1: Washington based US economy reporter Eric Martin and a conversation
- 1:18Speaker 1: with the head of the Institute of International Finance, Tim Adams.
- 1:22Speaker 1: We also have a dispatch from Paris asking what comes
- 1:25Speaker 1: next for President Emmanuel Macro. He's one re election, but
- 1:30Speaker 1: not maybe a positive mandate to get anything done. You
- 1:34Speaker 1: want to stick around to hear that piece for the
- 1:36Speaker 1: accent alone, but let's hear first about that storm brewing
- 1:41Speaker 1: in emerging markets. And we go out every day looking
- 1:53Speaker 1: for semmelina, flour, sugar oil. These are the essential things
- 1:58Speaker 1: we live on and they're not there. This is unbelievable.
- 2:01Speaker 1: Find us a solution, you, politicians, officials, head of state,
- 2:05Speaker 1: Find a solution because the day of starvation is coming.
- 2:09Speaker 1: Monthly salaries for citizens are weak. They raised the price
- 2:13Speaker 1: of fuel, raise the cost of transportation, and raise tax affairs.
- 2:16Speaker 1: How are we going to afford this? Find us a
- 2:18Speaker 1: solution because this isn't a reasonable situation. That was Hudal Chabbi,
- 2:25Speaker 1: a teacher and mother of two children in Tunis, where
- 2:28Speaker 1: a cash strapped government has boost to the fuel prices
- 2:31Speaker 1: at least four times in just over a year, and
- 2:34Speaker 1: where shortages are so rampant that market vendors say it's
- 2:37Speaker 1: easier to find marijuana than to buy flower. A slew
- 2:42Speaker 1: of financial dangers is pushing emerging markets like Tunisia ever
- 2:46Speaker 1: closer to defaulting on their debt. Such a crisis could
- 2:50Speaker 1: cause currencies to tumble an inflation to soar. In the
- 2:53Speaker 1: parts of the world least able to afford it. The
- 2:57Speaker 1: situation may be the most grim and Sri Lanka, where
- 3:01Speaker 1: the rupee has lost of its value this year and
- 3:04Speaker 1: protesters are calling for the president to resign, But the Ethiopia, Pakistan, Ghana,
- 3:11Speaker 1: and Al Salvador are also in debt distress themselves, as
- 3:14Speaker 1: soaring food and energy prices grip consumers. We can see
- 3:19Speaker 1: this train wreck coming towards us. John Lipsky, a former
- 3:23Speaker 1: top official at the i m F, one of many
- 3:25Speaker 1: global policymakers who have been sounding the alarm. It's certainly
- 3:29Speaker 1: with the latest financial market developments going to push a
- 3:34Speaker 1: large number of low income countries into the need for
- 3:38Speaker 1: debt restructure. Like so much else, the debt crisis and
- 3:42Speaker 1: emerging markets has its origins in the pandemic. Governments across
- 3:49Speaker 1: the developing world stepped up their borrowing to cushion the
- 3:52Speaker 1: impact from COVID nineteen. Now the costs of servicing those
- 3:57Speaker 1: debts are on a steep incline, according to the im
- 4:00Speaker 1: METH and the record amount of that debt is held
- 4:02Speaker 1: on the balance sheets of local banks in the emerging economies.
- 4:07Speaker 1: Those costs are going to keep going up as the
- 4:09Speaker 1: Federal Reserve now raises interest rates to combat inflation in
- 4:13Speaker 1: the United States, and central banks across the emerging world
- 4:17Speaker 1: are forced to do the same. So the fear is
- 4:21Speaker 1: that this all leads to a vicious spiral for vulnerable economies,
- 4:25Speaker 1: where banks are forced to pull back on lending as
- 4:27Speaker 1: economy is slow and the value of the government bonds
- 4:30Speaker 1: sitting on their balance sheets keeps going down. A long
- 4:35Speaker 1: line of countries is in rescue talks with the I
- 4:38Speaker 1: m F. The World Banks chief economist Carmen Reinhardt earlier
- 4:42Speaker 1: this month, disruptions from China's new lackdowns from the impacts
- 4:52Speaker 1: yet to be fully felt of the Russia Ukraine war
- 4:56Speaker 1: on on food prices, on global supplied chains, and if
- 5:02Speaker 1: you know, bad came to worse, could there be another
- 5:06Speaker 1: episode of financial contagion? All these are risks on the downside.
- 5:10Speaker 1: All told, the World Bank estimates sixty of low income
- 5:14Speaker 1: countries are in debt distress already or at high risk
- 5:17Speaker 1: of it. So far, the trouble is brewing in the
- 5:20Speaker 1: sort of off the radar screen places investors don't pay
- 5:24Speaker 1: much attention to. It was just such a debt crisis
- 5:27Speaker 1: in Russia that led to the near collapse of a
- 5:30Speaker 1: large hedge fund long term capital management. Given everyone is
- 5:38Speaker 1: suffering from the situation, whether they're rich or poor, we
- 5:41Speaker 1: don't buy all we need, including the basics. Every thirty
- 5:45Speaker 1: days we buy chicken, which means that we're reading meat
- 5:48Speaker 1: once a month. That was Kais al Yazdi, a truck
- 5:52Speaker 1: driver in Tunis. He says some commodities are so scarce
- 5:56Speaker 1: that neighborhood merchants have the upper hand, forcing consume us
- 6:00Speaker 1: to buy extra items to secure a kilogram of flour
- 6:03Speaker 1: or oil. To be sure, many developing nations sell more
- 6:09Speaker 1: commodities than they buy, and they're benefiting from rising prices.
- 6:14Speaker 1: Some countries in Latin America, for example, are seeing soaring exports.
- 6:18Speaker 1: Brazil's currency, the Real, is the world's best performing major
- 6:22Speaker 1: currency this year, and Chile's exports in March were up
- 6:25Speaker 1: more than from a year earlier. Still, even nations profiting
- 6:31Speaker 1: from the surgeon. Commodity prices are suffering from their own
- 6:34Speaker 1: internal inflation. At the beginning of the year, we started
- 6:39Speaker 1: to feel a huge jump in prices, vegetables going up
- 6:43Speaker 1: to six five four ice. That's a big jump. That
- 6:47Speaker 1: was Mikaio Edgeley, a vegetable seller and Reo vision Iro,
- 6:50Speaker 1: talking about his struggles to make ends meet amid soaring inflation.
- 6:56Speaker 1: It could be because of Russia's war, because fertilizers come
- 6:59Speaker 1: from there. But the truth is, I don't know. That's
- 7:03Speaker 1: what people are saying. But also gasoline is really expensive
- 7:06Speaker 1: here eight he is a leader. It's absurd. In Brazil,
- 7:11Speaker 1: less than six months ahead of presidential elections, opinion polls
- 7:15Speaker 1: show that sevent of the public blames present Hire Bull
- 7:19Speaker 1: Snaro's government for a surgeon. Cost of living crisis in
- 7:23Speaker 1: Brazil are up eleven point three despite the Central Bank's
- 7:27Speaker 1: best efforts to combat it. The problem is that, as
- 7:30Speaker 1: in many parts of the world, prices feed off each other,
- 7:33Speaker 1: and higher fuel costs make food more expensive too. I
- 7:38Speaker 1: feel pressured, really pressured. All the prices are going up
- 7:42Speaker 1: and my salary goes down. It's hard to live this way,
- 7:45Speaker 1: you know. M So to talk about some of that
- 7:57Speaker 1: and actually just states of them economy. I'm delighted that
- 8:02Speaker 1: we have in London this week Tim Adams, chief executive
- 8:05Speaker 1: of the Institute for International Finance, which is the global
- 8:09Speaker 1: association for the financial industry. And we just heard Tim
- 8:14Speaker 1: about the challenges for developing countries. And I know that
- 8:17Speaker 1: you and I were both in Washington last week. There
- 8:19Speaker 1: was a lot of concern about the dangers coming down
- 8:21Speaker 1: the track for them. But I'm struck when I see
- 8:24Speaker 1: you doing your interviews today in in in London that
- 8:28Speaker 1: what many of the Bloomberg journalists are asking you about
- 8:30Speaker 1: is bumper bank results. When you see these positive results
- 8:35Speaker 1: for banks, but also some of the data we've had
- 8:37Speaker 1: showing quite a strong consumer. Do you think the risk
- 8:40Speaker 1: of a recession in the US is overdone? Look, I
- 8:44Speaker 1: think being able to pull off the kind of rising
- 8:47Speaker 1: rate environment that the Federal Reserve needs to put in
- 8:50Speaker 1: place to deal with the most prenacious inflationary pressures we've
- 8:54Speaker 1: seen in thirty years. To do that and and have
- 8:57Speaker 1: a soft landing is going to be very difficult. I
- 9:00Speaker 1: would put the probability so can the federalsor pull it off? Sure?
- 9:05Speaker 1: Will they? I don't know, I think the best thing
- 9:07Speaker 1: to do is prepare for a harder landing. And Larry
- 9:09Speaker 1: sums on the other day, and he definitely doesn't rate
- 9:12Speaker 1: their chances well and and and obviously Larry has been
- 9:15Speaker 1: ahead of the curb on inflation. He was calling for
- 9:17Speaker 1: it before anyone else. Turning now to to the rest
- 9:21Speaker 1: of the world, and we've heard in earlier in the
- 9:24Speaker 1: in the podcast about the impact on the ground of
- 9:28Speaker 1: soaring food and energy prices. We're also looking at supply
- 9:32Speaker 1: chains being crunched again. You know, we thought we were
- 9:35Speaker 1: kind of coming through the worst of the supply chain pressures,
- 9:38Speaker 1: but now with Ukraine and more lockdowns coming into China,
- 9:42Speaker 1: we're potentially having a report is called today I want
- 9:46Speaker 1: to punch for the global recovery. Is that have things
- 9:50Speaker 1: taken a worrying turn When you look at that global picture,
- 9:53Speaker 1: it certainly hasn't improved as quickly and as substantially as
- 9:57Speaker 1: we would have hoped. We would have thought by now
- 9:59Speaker 1: the supply chains righted, we would have hoped that China
- 10:01Speaker 1: would have normalized. But with the lockdowns and what appears
- 10:05Speaker 1: to be a continuation of the COVID crisis in China,
- 10:08Speaker 1: maybe more, even more complex and more difficult than than
- 10:11Speaker 1: the Chinese often led on. You have to question whether
- 10:15Speaker 1: that more optimistic scenario actually is going to come to fruition.
- 10:18Speaker 1: And throw on top of that the war in Ukraine.
- 10:20Speaker 1: What that means for food supplies, grains especially, but also
- 10:24Speaker 1: fertilizer and for a liveser's key for farmers in the
- 10:26Speaker 1: price for lives or is substantially higher than it was
- 10:28Speaker 1: a year ago. And one of the very useful things
- 10:31Speaker 1: that the Institute for International Finance does is map where
- 10:34Speaker 1: capital flows are going in and out of countries, often
- 10:38Speaker 1: as a result of things that your member banks are doing,
- 10:42Speaker 1: and also look at at how the different movements of debt,
- 10:46Speaker 1: whether countries are looking vulnerable because of how much debt
- 10:49Speaker 1: they have or how much they're having to pay for it.
- 10:52Speaker 1: People like John Nipsky, who we heard in that piece,
- 10:54Speaker 1: the former I MF official, He talks about a train
- 10:57Speaker 1: wreck coming towards us when he looks at the high
- 11:01Speaker 1: levels of debt and some of these quite vulnerable economies,
- 11:04Speaker 1: um the fact that the cost of that debt is
- 11:06Speaker 1: going up and inflation is going up, squeezing economic growth.
- 11:12Speaker 1: Do you see a train wreck coming well, I certainly
- 11:15Speaker 1: think there may be a number of small train wrecks.
- 11:18Speaker 1: Obviously the commodity producers are doing for the people who
- 11:21Speaker 1: are on the other end of the train. But if
- 11:23Speaker 1: you're in the commodity producing an exporting business, is a
- 11:26Speaker 1: pretty good time for you. You're earning lots of export revenue.
- 11:29Speaker 1: But we have seen a record level of emerging market
- 11:31Speaker 1: debt is including especially China, but not just China, and
- 11:34Speaker 1: the question is how can they service that debt now?
- 11:36Speaker 1: The on the good side, a lot of that is
- 11:38Speaker 1: long duration and its local currency. The downside is that
- 11:43Speaker 1: it's variable rate. So as rates go up and they
- 11:45Speaker 1: have to roll that debt even if it's at local currency, Uh,
- 11:49Speaker 1: then the cost of service that that's going to go up.
- 11:51Speaker 1: The stock of debt is at all time high. We
- 11:53Speaker 1: have thirty countries now with debt to GDP ratios of above.
- 11:57Speaker 1: So you know it's the It's the old adage from
- 11:59Speaker 1: the Hemming Way novel is how did you go bankrupt?
- 12:03Speaker 1: Slowly then suddenly? And so we do have to watch
- 12:05Speaker 1: a Commodity producers are in better shape than commodity importers,
- 12:08Speaker 1: but that could change substantially. Our economists have sort of
- 12:11Speaker 1: looked at which countries are most vulnerable to what's happening,
- 12:14Speaker 1: and obviously that we've actually particularly highlighted Turkey in Egypt
- 12:18Speaker 1: because they're big food importers, so they're paying a lot
- 12:20Speaker 1: more for their food and they used to trade a
- 12:22Speaker 1: lot with Russia and that trade has been hit. I
- 12:24Speaker 1: think Poland also figures on that list. But you have
- 12:27Speaker 1: a lot of what you think of as being rather successful,
- 12:30Speaker 1: buoyant economies in Asia who are very dependent on those
- 12:33Speaker 1: now very expensive food imports. Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines. Are there
- 12:37Speaker 1: particular countries that you're worried about, Well, you mentioned Turkey.
- 12:39Speaker 1: I was just an instant ball a few weeks ago,
- 12:41Speaker 1: and obviously great concerned because you're an energy and food
- 12:43Speaker 1: importer uh in. Sunflower oil for example, is a huge
- 12:46Speaker 1: staple of the Turkish economy and Ukraine is the principal producer.
- 12:51Speaker 1: So in terms of just importing the basics, Turkeys in
- 12:54Speaker 1: a bad situation and they're running inflation rates of close
- 12:57Speaker 1: to and your rate with a monetary in phiscal policy
- 13:01Speaker 1: which is only exacerbating that. So you have unorthodox policies
- 13:05Speaker 1: making things worse. UH The Egyptians. I saw them last
- 13:09Speaker 1: week during the Spring meetings. They're worried about food imports,
- 13:11Speaker 1: although they indicated that they had other opportunities and could
- 13:15Speaker 1: wrap up domestic production. But that's just not true of
- 13:17Speaker 1: so many places around the world. We've mentioned. We're both
- 13:20Speaker 1: in Washington. There was a kind of mixture virtual real
- 13:23Speaker 1: meeting of those central bank governors and treasured and finance officials,
- 13:27Speaker 1: and I know you would have talked to two lots
- 13:29Speaker 1: of them. The scale of this for some of the
- 13:32Speaker 1: countries looking at the inflation that we just haven't seen
- 13:35Speaker 1: for a long time, as you mentioned, as well as
- 13:37Speaker 1: the debt, as well as the fact that FED is
- 13:39Speaker 1: raising interest rates and the uncertainties around supply chains that
- 13:42Speaker 1: we're seeing. I mean, the sort of institutions that we
- 13:46Speaker 1: normally look to the World Bank and the IMF, I mean,
- 13:48Speaker 1: they're not a match for any of that, surely. I
- 13:52Speaker 1: think they're challenged. I think they're challenged by Ukraine, both
- 13:55Speaker 1: directly and indirectly because the spillover effects. I think they're
- 13:58Speaker 1: challenged because inflationary ushers suddenly those institutions but walk around
- 14:02Speaker 1: the trading floors of any of the major financial institutions.
- 14:06Speaker 1: Most of the people on the trading floors weren't born
- 14:09Speaker 1: during the previous inflationary episode, and so it's very new
- 14:12Speaker 1: for some people. And I think officials really thought that
- 14:14Speaker 1: this would be transitory, and it is not. It may
- 14:17Speaker 1: not be for a long time, and so it's very
- 14:19Speaker 1: different than what was expected twenty four months ago. Tim Adams,
- 14:24Speaker 1: thank you very much. Thank you, Stephan. Investors, commentators, policymakers,
- 14:37Speaker 1: pretty much everyone was relieved when Emmanuel Macron won the
- 14:40Speaker 1: second round of the French presidential election and his far
- 14:43Speaker 1: right nationalist opponent Marine le Pen did not. But that
- 14:48Speaker 1: victory came not from any burst of enthusiasm for Monsieur
- 14:51Speaker 1: kraw but around eight million French men and women voting
- 14:55Speaker 1: while holding their nos. It's not a great start to
- 14:59Speaker 1: Mr mcrawls second five years in office, and as a
- 15:02Speaker 1: risk that his political stock will fall further in June
- 15:06Speaker 1: if his party loses its electoral majority. So as Macron
- 15:10Speaker 1: won the election but lost his powers. Bloomberg's Caroline Gone
- 15:15Speaker 1: in Paris One Mo One More Time by Deaf Punk,
- 15:27Speaker 1: the soundtrack of Emmanuel mccoron's victory. On Sunday, the twenty
- 15:31Speaker 1: four April, he won a second chance to show the
- 15:35Speaker 1: friends he can reform their country and repair the deep
- 15:38Speaker 1: fractures in society. Maccon beats the far right leader Marine
- 15:43Speaker 1: Lepan with more than fifty eight percent of the votes
- 15:46Speaker 1: in the runoff, becoming the first incumbent to be re
- 15:50Speaker 1: elected in France since Jack Chirac twenty years ago. Simanuel
- 15:59Speaker 1: la Semeniel received relief or not. Mc and his allies
- 16:05Speaker 1: will scarcely have time to celebrate. His nationalist, anti European
- 16:10Speaker 1: opponent won twelve million votes, the most that the National
- 16:15Speaker 1: Rally has ever achieved in a French national election, and
- 16:20Speaker 1: as Emmanuel mccon admitted in his acceptance speech, nearly half
- 16:25Speaker 1: of the seventeen million who voted for him were simply
- 16:30Speaker 1: voting to keep Loupen out opposed to consider it. We
- 16:35Speaker 1: have to consider all the difficulties of everyday lives and
- 16:38Speaker 1: respond effectively to the anger that has been expressed. Critics
- 16:42Speaker 1: across France have attacked him for overlooking the working class.
- 16:46Speaker 1: More than two thirds of home voted for the Pen.
- 16:50Speaker 1: Speaking at mccon's victory rally, Environment Minister Barbara Pompeley said
- 16:56Speaker 1: it's time to think about how to unite the French
- 16:59Speaker 1: population sation it don't. We must rebuild with everyone, without
- 17:05Speaker 1: living anyone on the sidelines. To build a society what
- 17:08Speaker 1: people live better, breath better. Still, we'll have a strong
- 17:11Speaker 1: far right and higher abstention. We need to take it
- 17:14Speaker 1: into account for international partners. Mcmon's re election will sound reassuring.
- 17:22Speaker 1: Two months after the start of the war in Ukraine,
- 17:26Speaker 1: while Lupin wanted to leave the military command of NATO
- 17:30Speaker 1: and we established ties with Russia's Vladimir put In, mc
- 17:34Speaker 1: complans to continue to be a reliable partner for both
- 17:38Speaker 1: NATO and Europe, and France still presides over the EU
- 17:42Speaker 1: until the end of June. But the lack of enthusiasm
- 17:47Speaker 1: from mccon despite his victory, could come back to haunt
- 17:51Speaker 1: him in the June parliamentary elections. If his party La
- 17:56Speaker 1: Republic Commage loses its majority, it will need to go
- 18:00Speaker 1: into coalition with other parties to stay in power or
- 18:04Speaker 1: be forced to leave with a hostile government, which might
- 18:08Speaker 1: paralyze his second term in office. He has publicist chairman
- 18:13Speaker 1: Maurice Levy. We have avoided the worst and now we
- 18:17Speaker 1: have to work for the best. The best to happen.
- 18:20Speaker 1: We need to give Macon a large majority at the Assembly.
- 18:26Speaker 1: Nationality at the lower middle classes feeling frustrated, believe that
- 18:32Speaker 1: they are not taking care of that they have, they
- 18:35Speaker 1: are left behind, and that the major issues are not addressed.
- 18:42Speaker 1: On the night of her defeat, my independ was also
- 18:45Speaker 1: sending our sights on the June vote. In defeat, I
- 18:49Speaker 1: cannot help but feel a kind of hope for our
- 18:52Speaker 1: French and European leaders. This result is evidence that cannot
- 18:56Speaker 1: be ignored of how the French people greatly distrust them
- 19:00Speaker 1: and a broad aspiration for change. France has rebounded faster
- 19:04Speaker 1: than other European economy is after the pandemic, but the
- 19:08Speaker 1: Boncard France estimates the growth potential is lower now than
- 19:13Speaker 1: under mccron's predecessor France Land. Emaniel mccorn has one another
- 19:18Speaker 1: chance to make it right, but he'll be held accountable
- 19:22Speaker 1: if an unti establishment candidate gets to power next time around.
- 19:27Speaker 1: In seven that's it for this episode of Stephonomics. We'll
- 19:52Speaker 1: be back next week, but in the meantime, do please
- 19:55Speaker 1: rate the show if you like it, and check out
- 19:57Speaker 1: the Bloomberg News website for more economic news. US and
- 20:00Speaker 1: views on the global economy also follow at economics on Twitter.
- 20:05Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Magnus Hendrickson with support from
- 20:09Speaker 1: Summer Saddi. Special thanks to Tim Adams and Caroline Cornell,
- 20:13Speaker 1: Eric Martin, Gihen Murray in Tunis, and Andrew Rossatti in Rio.
- 20:19Speaker 1: Mike Sasso is executive producer of Stephonomics and the head
- 20:22Speaker 1: of Bloomberg podcast is Francesca Levi.