Latest / Trumponomics / How China and Evergrande Are Trying to Avoid Disaster
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the
- 0:08Speaker 1: global economy to you. My name is Tom Orlick. I'm
- 0:11Speaker 1: the chief economist for Bloomberg and this Halloween Week with
- 0:15Speaker 1: regular hosts Stephanie Flanders, busy putting the finishing touches to
- 0:19Speaker 1: her modern monetary theory costume, I'm stepping in as master
- 0:22Speaker 1: of Ceremonies. In keeping with the spirit of the season,
- 0:26Speaker 1: we have a Frankenstein's Monster of a show for you,
- 0:29Speaker 1: stitching together some of the scariest risks in the global economy.
- 0:33Speaker 1: In a bit, we'll hear from Logan Rights of Rhodium
- 0:36Speaker 1: Group and Bloomberg's own David Chu on why the ghost
- 0:39Speaker 1: time problem that has long haunted China's economy is coming
- 0:43Speaker 1: to a head. To start, though, Bloomberg's own Tom Hancock
- 0:47Speaker 1: has gone trick or treating at the Hong Kong headquarters
- 0:50Speaker 1: of ever Grandy, one of the developers that built all
- 0:53Speaker 1: that empty property. Let's see what candy he collected. Yeah,
- 1:08Speaker 1: I've come to the headquarters of China Evergrand Group in
- 1:11Speaker 1: Hong Kong, the epicenter of a burgeoning debt crisis that
- 1:15Speaker 1: the sharply slowed growth in the Chinese economy. The sides
- 1:19Speaker 1: of the twenty six story building are plastered with advertisements
- 1:23Speaker 1: for Evergrands luxury property developments, but it's the headquarters itself
- 1:28Speaker 1: which has been up for sale this year. Evergrand tried
- 1:31Speaker 1: to raise two billion dollars by selling it off to
- 1:34Speaker 1: pay debt, but the deal hasn't progressed. Evergrand staff who
- 1:39Speaker 1: walked the lobby's marble floor and take elevators to their
- 1:42Speaker 1: offices face an uncertain future. In a cafe next to
- 1:46Speaker 1: the building's lobby, Evergrand staff meet over covees or soft
- 1:50Speaker 1: piano music plays. More than a month after entering its
- 2:01Speaker 1: acute phase, the financial drama at the company that had
- 2:05Speaker 1: been China's largest property developer until recently is far from over.
- 2:10Speaker 1: After waiting about a month for an interest payment, some
- 2:13Speaker 1: of Evergrand's dollar bond holders received their money over the weekend,
- 2:17Speaker 1: allowing the company to avoid a default for now, but
- 2:21Speaker 1: investors have little insight into how long Evergrand can continue
- 2:25Speaker 1: to pay its bills. The bonds initially had a bit
- 2:29Speaker 1: of a pop and then sort of very quickly came
- 2:32Speaker 1: back down to almost unchanged. On the day. That's Monica
- 2:35Speaker 1: saw of Triatic Capital an asset manager UM. I think
- 2:40Speaker 1: that UM it made made sense for them to pay
- 2:44Speaker 1: this just pretty much about a day before the end
- 2:47Speaker 1: of the grace period in order to kick the can
- 2:49Speaker 1: down the road while they figure out a comprehensive resolution
- 2:53Speaker 1: to this. This whole Osaka, like many in the market south,
- 2:58Speaker 1: sees the hand of China's government behind the scenes. Evergrand
- 3:02Speaker 1: status as China's biggest dollar bond issue means whether it
- 3:06Speaker 1: pays its bills will help determine how easy it is
- 3:09Speaker 1: for other Chinese companies to access overseas lending in the future.
- 3:13Speaker 1: So the payment of this coupon, I would assume does
- 3:18Speaker 1: involve the government, including the p POC, in order to
- 3:22Speaker 1: maintain stability of the whole financial system. I think that
- 3:26Speaker 1: much is sort of clear to the market. The heart
- 3:29Speaker 1: of evergrands troubles are its high debt burden. It counts
- 3:33Speaker 1: more than three hundred billion dollars in liabilities and a
- 3:37Speaker 1: slowdown in sales attributable to the Chinese state itself. According
- 3:43Speaker 1: to Juning, a former advisor to China's Central Bank, the
- 3:47Speaker 1: Chinese government is trying to reduce the economy's dependence on
- 3:51Speaker 1: real estate. He argues that a constant expectation of rising
- 3:55Speaker 1: prices among households has created a bubble that threatens financial stability.
- 4:00Speaker 1: Team but in the process of trying to deflate the
- 4:03Speaker 1: bubble by slowing housing sales, officials are undermining the finances
- 4:07Speaker 1: of huge companies like ever Ground, that in turn creates
- 4:11Speaker 1: a threat to financial stability. If you crack down the bubble,
- 4:15Speaker 1: you would create a financial brisks on its own. But
- 4:19Speaker 1: if you don't, you wouldn't be able to convince the
- 4:22Speaker 1: market that you really minute. I think that's the here
- 4:25Speaker 1: in challenge Chinese regulate or Chinese comment phase. Evergrund sales
- 4:30Speaker 1: fell by a whopping nine percent during China's October holidays,
- 4:35Speaker 1: usually a peak period for home buying, as the government
- 4:38Speaker 1: told banks to limit mortgage lending and buyers also worried
- 4:42Speaker 1: about ever grounds ability to complete its construction projects. Juning
- 4:48Speaker 1: believes that Beijing will continue to try to slow housing
- 4:51Speaker 1: sales until households lads their expectations that the government will
- 4:55Speaker 1: always step in to support house prices. I think the
- 4:59Speaker 1: end of it is to have the market, have the
- 5:02Speaker 1: household to have been fairly study explanation of the housing part,
- 5:08Speaker 1: but I don't think we're reaching that point yet, Evergrand
- 5:11Speaker 1: needs to focus more on selling off its considerable assets
- 5:15Speaker 1: to keep servicing its huge debt pile, since it has
- 5:18Speaker 1: less money coming in the door from home bias. The
- 5:21Speaker 1: trouble is it's having difficulties finding any bias for those
- 5:25Speaker 1: as well. Evergrand has also tried to sell its property
- 5:29Speaker 1: management arm, which charges homeowners fees for organizing services like
- 5:33Speaker 1: security and cleaning. It hoped that that would bring in
- 5:36Speaker 1: two point six billion dollars, but talks about that also
- 5:40Speaker 1: ended without a deal. Evergrand's founder and chairman, Wakayan, has
- 5:46Speaker 1: always been a risk taker. He was born into grinding
- 5:50Speaker 1: poverty in the central province of her Nan in the
- 5:52Speaker 1: nineties fifties and founded his property company just as China
- 5:56Speaker 1: began to create a commercial housing market in the late
- 5:59Speaker 1: night nineties. Two decades later, in seventeen, he was China's
- 6:04Speaker 1: second richest man. So far, Way has been low key
- 6:08Speaker 1: about the details of Everground's finances, avoiding media engagements. However,
- 6:14Speaker 1: local press accounts suggest he is sticking with the kind
- 6:17Speaker 1: of big, bold bets that have defined his career. The
- 6:21Speaker 1: Securities Times reported that Way plans to scale down real
- 6:24Speaker 1: estate operations and won't buy much land for another ten years.
- 6:29Speaker 1: The new focus designing and manufacturing electric vehicles. The company
- 6:34Speaker 1: got into the new energy vehicle's business a couple of
- 6:37Speaker 1: years ago, but as yet to manufacture a single car.
- 6:41Speaker 1: Everground faces more tests in the coming weeks as the
- 6:44Speaker 1: grace periods on more bonds expire. The fate of one
- 6:48Speaker 1: of the world's largest real estate firms and the world's
- 6:51Speaker 1: biggest real estate market still hangs in the balance. For
- 6:55Speaker 1: Bloomberg News, I'm Tom Hancock in Hong Kong. Scary stuff
- 7:09Speaker 1: forever grandy bond holders and with ever grandy emblematic broader
- 7:14Speaker 1: problems in an overbuilt, an over leverage property sector. Scary
- 7:18Speaker 1: stuff also for China's economy and financial system as a whole.
- 7:23Speaker 1: To get into those broader issues, I'm joined now by
- 7:25Speaker 1: Lugan Right, a director at Radium Group and veteran analyst
- 7:29Speaker 1: of China's financial system, and Bloomberg's David Chew, both of
- 7:33Speaker 1: them dialing in from Hong Kong. Logan, let me start
- 7:36Speaker 1: with you. Why is a downturn in real estate potentially
- 7:39Speaker 1: such a big problem for China. I think it's a
- 7:43Speaker 1: it's a big problem largely because just of the size
- 7:47Speaker 1: of the property sector within China's economy, which most analysts
- 7:52Speaker 1: estimate between twenty of GDP. Overall property sales in China
- 7:58Speaker 1: in terms of just the pre construction sales are as
- 8:02Speaker 1: high as fifteen point seven trillion u N over the
- 8:06Speaker 1: last um year, of the last twelve months. And so
- 8:11Speaker 1: if you hypothetically look in the future and if property
- 8:15Speaker 1: sales decline by let's say over the next year and
- 8:19Speaker 1: prices are down by say ten percent um, that's a
- 8:23Speaker 1: huge gap that it's very difficult for developers to make up.
- 8:27Speaker 1: It's a gap as high as three point five percent
- 8:30Speaker 1: of g d P. It is not a an imbalance
- 8:33Speaker 1: that is easily remedied by policy. So this is one
- 8:36Speaker 1: reason that the you know, the potential costs of such
- 8:39Speaker 1: a property downturn that exemplified by ever grands difficulties are
- 8:45Speaker 1: so significant. And it's not just a growth risk we're
- 8:47Speaker 1: talking about here, is it a slump in the property
- 8:50Speaker 1: sector could mean defaults on loans and end up in
- 8:53Speaker 1: a financial crisis, a Lehman movement for China, if you
- 8:57Speaker 1: will lugan, how could that plan? The more likely scenario
- 9:02Speaker 1: that we would be concerned about in terms of financial
- 9:05Speaker 1: distress in China stems through local governments and the difficulties
- 9:10Speaker 1: of property developers continuing to um slow down their purchases
- 9:16Speaker 1: of land, which would add to financial stress among China's
- 9:20Speaker 1: local governments which depend heavily upon land sales for revenue
- 9:24Speaker 1: and repaying their own significant debt burdens. So what you
- 9:28Speaker 1: could see is if you have a continued slow down
- 9:30Speaker 1: in land purchases, you could have a rise in financial
- 9:34Speaker 1: distress at smaller banks that lend to these local government
- 9:38Speaker 1: financing vehicles, which have really lad the expansion in China's
- 9:43Speaker 1: debt over the past decade, which were also essential to
- 9:46Speaker 1: the funding um the investment that has taken place. David Chew,
- 9:52Speaker 1: You've worked inside the People's Bank of China, and not
- 9:55Speaker 1: just inside the People's Bank of China, but inside the
- 9:58Speaker 1: financial stability vision of China's Central Bank, the group which
- 10:02Speaker 1: cares most and focuses most on this kind of problems.
- 10:07Speaker 1: How do you think China's policymakers are thinking about what's
- 10:10Speaker 1: going on with ever Grandy and some of the broader
- 10:13Speaker 1: risks that Logan has described for China's financial sector. The
- 10:18Speaker 1: banking sector is the key, particularly the big banks are
- 10:22Speaker 1: the key. They are the natural firewall for the financial
- 10:27Speaker 1: crisis or financial risks because they have the guarantee from
- 10:32Speaker 1: the government. So for example, if you're deposit the money
- 10:36Speaker 1: into i CBC, that means you are you are depositing
- 10:40Speaker 1: it with with the with the government, so that is
- 10:43Speaker 1: the SEBC. Under the big banks, they are steign credit
- 10:47Speaker 1: so that this makes them a natural firewall during a
- 10:52Speaker 1: credit crisis or credit risk. Remember what happened thirty years
- 10:58Speaker 1: ago in ninety nineties, hialized banks used that to have
- 11:02Speaker 1: at pent on the Rachel but the banks was still surviving.
- 11:07Speaker 1: And that tells us how confident that people are to
- 11:10Speaker 1: the banking sector. So the principle for us is even
- 11:14Speaker 1: the banking sector remains good and this do have the
- 11:17Speaker 1: credibility things will be good. So data is the the
- 11:21Speaker 1: most ultimate backdop or backstorm for for the all the argument, logan,
- 11:36Speaker 1: help me out with one crucial question before we get
- 11:39Speaker 1: back to the substance of this ever grand or ever grandy.
- 11:46Speaker 1: I've heard both the translations I've been What I hear
- 11:49Speaker 1: most often is ever grant, But you know, technically it's
- 11:52Speaker 1: a you know, it's und do so it's a question
- 11:55Speaker 1: of whatever English and translation prefer, the Chinese will still
- 11:58Speaker 1: operate historic. I went with ever Grand, but ever Grandy
- 12:02Speaker 1: seems to have much more of a dramatic flourish to it,
- 12:05Speaker 1: So I think I'm going to put the accent on
- 12:07Speaker 1: the going forwards fair fair enough, So so Logan and
- 12:11Speaker 1: David makes an important point, doesn't he There is a
- 12:14Speaker 1: powerful firewall in the financial system in China, which is
- 12:19Speaker 1: the credibility of the big banks. And as long as
- 12:22Speaker 1: the I C, B c s and the China construction
- 12:25Speaker 1: banks of the world a solid it's difficult to imagine
- 12:30Speaker 1: a systemic crisis in China. Do you agree with that point?
- 12:34Speaker 1: And what could happen in your view to start eroding
- 12:38Speaker 1: confidence not just in a property developer or a local bank,
- 12:43Speaker 1: but in the giant state banks which dominate the system.
- 12:48Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's very improbable that giant state
- 12:51Speaker 1: banks would suddenly lose confidence among the local population. But
- 12:56Speaker 1: the concern I would have is in state guarantees being
- 13:00Speaker 1: eroded over time. The issue in China's financial system has
- 13:05Speaker 1: been that the system expanded when there was a high
- 13:09Speaker 1: degree of moral hazard um that was pervasive throughout a
- 13:13Speaker 1: number of different asset markets. So the idea was that
- 13:17Speaker 1: even when there was financial stress that occurred, investors didn't
- 13:21Speaker 1: need to protect themselves because they could always count on
- 13:25Speaker 1: Beijing to step in in the case of any financial stress.
- 13:29Speaker 1: We saw this during even the stock market meltdown in
- 13:33Speaker 1: we saw this during the inner bank market turmoil. And
- 13:38Speaker 1: so that assumption, that track record of interventions over time
- 13:43Speaker 1: created the impression that there would always be um some
- 13:47Speaker 1: sort of government support. But that is changing and it
- 13:50Speaker 1: had to change. In fact, it was natural that that
- 13:54Speaker 1: guarantee would change because Beijing really had no interest in
- 13:58Speaker 1: defending these very risky and peri ferral parts of the
- 14:01Speaker 1: financial system when the shadow banking system, when peer to
- 14:04Speaker 1: peer lending network started expanding, and as those guarantees have
- 14:09Speaker 1: been eroded, it causes investors to start questioning where those
- 14:14Speaker 1: Beijing's guarantees will truly extend, where they will stop looking
- 14:18Speaker 1: longer term logan, China has to transition away from property
- 14:23Speaker 1: as a driver of growth. You mentioned that contribution of
- 14:28Speaker 1: property to GDP that has to come down. That's going
- 14:32Speaker 1: to be a painful process, isn't it. I would think.
- 14:35Speaker 1: So the issue is just that when an industry is
- 14:38Speaker 1: that large, there's no obvious replacement. When something that goes
- 14:42Speaker 1: from powering the economy becomes a meaningful drag on the economy.
- 14:46Speaker 1: You can talk about transitioning growth models, but that becomes
- 14:49Speaker 1: a longer term process, and it requires the costs of
- 14:53Speaker 1: the previous investment to be to be paid and new
- 14:56Speaker 1: investment decisions to be made, which which take time to
- 14:59Speaker 1: be productive. So it does mean that, you know, whatever
- 15:03Speaker 1: you're thinking about China's long term growth trajectory becoming um
- 15:07Speaker 1: it probably involves that being a couple of percentage points
- 15:10Speaker 1: lower in the immediate future. David, the last word to you,
- 15:16Speaker 1: We've already seen China's economy really screeched to a halt
- 15:20Speaker 1: in the third quarter. If you look at the quarter
- 15:22Speaker 1: on court at growth rate just no point two, way
- 15:27Speaker 1: down from numbers we used to see in the pre
- 15:29Speaker 1: COVID era. Do you share Logan's view that working through
- 15:35Speaker 1: these deep problems is going to require a period of
- 15:38Speaker 1: lower growth. Before answering this question, we should think of
- 15:42Speaker 1: one thing. It is why the authorities are so tough.
- 15:46Speaker 1: Could real actate a sector for the past of a
- 15:50Speaker 1: couple of years. So I think we can we need
- 15:54Speaker 1: to think of it in the bigger picture, and in
- 15:58Speaker 1: my mind, I think that the UH, the top leaders,
- 16:02Speaker 1: they realized that China needs the transition and they are
- 16:06Speaker 1: willing to UH to endure a period of slower growth
- 16:12Speaker 1: UH in the next couple of years. That is the
- 16:14Speaker 1: price for transition. I think that is what in their minds.
- 16:18Speaker 1: So this can explain what happened in the past several
- 16:21Speaker 1: quarters after China recovered from the COVID nineteen that they
- 16:25Speaker 1: accelerated the reform and the transition and many of the
- 16:29Speaker 1: Titan issue Titan policies issued. I think the view it
- 16:34Speaker 1: a time window for the transition and they are willing
- 16:38Speaker 1: to pay some price for that. But on the other hand,
- 16:41Speaker 1: I think they won't allow the growth to to to
- 16:46Speaker 1: break the bottom line. I think one of the bottom
- 16:49Speaker 1: line is the employment. So if we see the rise
- 16:53Speaker 1: of the unemployment, we will see some policies to be
- 16:58Speaker 1: made to relate to the the economy. Well, if we
- 17:03Speaker 1: have to sum up such a complex discussion, I guess
- 17:06Speaker 1: we can say that, Ever, Grandy is probably not going
- 17:08Speaker 1: to be China's Lehman moment. A financial crisis is not
- 17:12Speaker 1: an immediate prospect, but a period of lower growth as
- 17:15Speaker 1: the economy works through the problems of overbuilding and over
- 17:18Speaker 1: capacity is a very real prospect. David, you logan, right,
- 17:23Speaker 1: thanks very much, thank you. Well, It's Halloween this Sunday,
- 17:44Speaker 1: and so in the spirit of the season, we've invited
- 17:47Speaker 1: Bloomberg Economics best vampire hunters and monster slayers to tell
- 17:52Speaker 1: us about the biggest risks, the scariest risks facing the
- 17:56Speaker 1: global economy and markets. Very pleased to be joy by
- 18:01Speaker 1: chief US economist and a Wall dialing in from Washington,
- 18:04Speaker 1: d C. Senior UK economist Dan Hansen joining us from London,
- 18:08Speaker 1: and Chief Emerging Markets economist z Dowd dialing in from Dubai. Zad.
- 18:15Speaker 1: Let's start with you tell us about the beastly problem
- 18:18Speaker 1: facing the emerging markets. So we know do things from history.
- 18:22Speaker 1: We know the first thing is that rising US rates
- 18:25Speaker 1: have a negative spill over to emerging markets, and the
- 18:29Speaker 1: second thing is that weaker economies in the developing world
- 18:32Speaker 1: gets hit harder. We saw that repeatedly in recent years,
- 18:36Speaker 1: including the two thousand and thirteen Taper tantrum. We saw
- 18:39Speaker 1: it also in the twenty eighteen emergent market crisis. Now
- 18:43Speaker 1: US rates are rising, and some emerging markets are vulnerable
- 18:46Speaker 1: this time around. So who is the most exposed was
- 18:50Speaker 1: the group of countries that we group under the acronym BEAST.
- 18:53Speaker 1: These are Brazil, Egypt, Argentina, South Africa and Turkey. These
- 18:59Speaker 1: economies have law foreign exchange reserves, have high external debt
- 19:03Speaker 1: and sizeable current account deficits, and the particularly exposed if
- 19:07Speaker 1: you get any surprises in terms of interest rates in
- 19:11Speaker 1: the US now, fans of the horror genre will know
- 19:15Speaker 1: that often the sequel is gorrier than the original. In
- 19:18Speaker 1: the UK, we had strikes, shortages, garbage, even corpses piling
- 19:26Speaker 1: up in the street. The crisis was so bad it
- 19:29Speaker 1: became known as the Winter of Discontent, Dan Hansen, does
- 19:32Speaker 1: the UK now face winter of discontent? The return? We've
- 19:36Speaker 1: had a year of two halves in the UK. We've
- 19:39Speaker 1: had a blistering recovery following the end of the lockdown
- 19:41Speaker 1: earlier in the year, but since then the economy has
- 19:44Speaker 1: slowed and much of that has been due to, as
- 19:47Speaker 1: you mentioned, supply constraints both global and domestic as well,
- 19:52Speaker 1: and they've really hindered the ability of the economy to
- 19:54Speaker 1: make meaningful further progress. And we've had a look at
- 19:58Speaker 1: what recent supply disruptions might cost the economy, and we
- 20:01Speaker 1: think it could knock as much as one point three
- 20:03Speaker 1: percent off the level of g d P by the
- 20:05Speaker 1: end of the year, and it could add as much
- 20:07Speaker 1: as point four percentage point to headline inflation, which as
- 20:10Speaker 1: we know, is already pretty high in the UK. It's
- 20:12Speaker 1: running at about three point one percent at the moment,
- 20:15Speaker 1: and I think if we look ahead, it's important to
- 20:18Speaker 1: recognize that that loss of growth momentum has occurred at
- 20:20Speaker 1: a time when more headwinds are appearing on the horizon.
- 20:24Speaker 1: Inflation is likely to go higher still on energy prices
- 20:27Speaker 1: this winter, moving above four percent, more than doubling the
- 20:30Speaker 1: Bank of England's target, and that will crimp real income growth.
- 20:35Speaker 1: And meanwhile you've got fiscal support being tapered, and there's
- 20:39Speaker 1: also a risk of a rising unemployment following the end
- 20:41Speaker 1: of the furlough scheme, which the government's wage support scheme.
- 20:45Speaker 1: So if we bring all of that together, it's it's
- 20:48Speaker 1: not hard to see why references to stagflation are on
- 20:50Speaker 1: the rise um, though we don't think we're quite there yet.
- 20:54Speaker 1: Our baseline view is that the economy will continue to grow,
- 20:58Speaker 1: albeit at a significantly lower pace than in earlier in
- 21:01Speaker 1: the year, And our baseline also sees GDP passing its
- 21:05Speaker 1: pre virus peak in the first quarter of next year,
- 21:07Speaker 1: which is a little bit later than we previously envisaged.
- 21:15Speaker 1: Sometimes in horror films, the problem gets so bad that
- 21:19Speaker 1: the heroes have to adopt a scorched Earth policy to
- 21:23Speaker 1: wiping out the villains. Remember Ripley in Aliens promising to
- 21:28Speaker 1: take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's
- 21:31Speaker 1: the only way to be sure, Anna Wong, was inflation
- 21:35Speaker 1: in the United States reached that proportion, should we be
- 21:38Speaker 1: worried that the Federal Reserve will have to lift off
- 21:41Speaker 1: and nuke the economy from orbit to bring price pressure
- 21:44Speaker 1: under control. So dud, everybody is worried about inflation here,
- 21:50Speaker 1: even my my, my nanny is worried about inflation. And
- 21:54Speaker 1: the risks of inflation moving higher than the FED prediction
- 21:59Speaker 1: right now seems higher than a couple of weeks ago, indeed.
- 22:03Speaker 1: But to me, the scarier scenario is not so much
- 22:07Speaker 1: inflation running away to the level we have seen in
- 22:11Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, because for that to happen, the FED has
- 22:14Speaker 1: to make policy errors for many, many years, and I
- 22:18Speaker 1: just don't think that's likely. The Fed will move, will
- 22:20Speaker 1: raise rates next year if inflation runs hotter than much
- 22:24Speaker 1: hotter than they expected. But the real scary thing is
- 22:29Speaker 1: what happens to the economy when the Fed does move
- 22:32Speaker 1: under the new policy framework. The FET is only going
- 22:35Speaker 1: to move until the labor market is really hot, right,
- 22:39Speaker 1: So when they do finally start to move, they have
- 22:41Speaker 1: to move faster and quicker, and the path of FED
- 22:45Speaker 1: rates will be steeper. And we have had two years
- 22:48Speaker 1: of very easy conditions monetary conditions. We have many bubbles now,
- 22:53Speaker 1: we have asset record highs in many asset markets. So
- 22:57Speaker 1: when the FED brings this party to a halt, it
- 23:01Speaker 1: will be very hard. And historically the FED does not
- 23:04Speaker 1: have a very good track or record in engineering soft lending. Okay,
- 23:09Speaker 1: let's round this section out by talking about perhaps the
- 23:13Speaker 1: biggest fear out there for some investors, the fear that
- 23:17Speaker 1: record highs for the stock market are the sign of
- 23:20Speaker 1: a bubble and that that bubble could burst Z. How
- 23:23Speaker 1: should we think about that risk? Right? So, the main
- 23:26Speaker 1: question is whether the stock market is in a bubble
- 23:30Speaker 1: or not right now, with the SMP hitting record highs.
- 23:34Speaker 1: So to answer this question, we use an econometric model
- 23:38Speaker 1: that estimates the large notable bubble based on the speed
- 23:41Speaker 1: of decoupling of equity prices from their fundamentals, in this
- 23:45Speaker 1: case is dividends. The method finds that we are on
- 23:49Speaker 1: the cusp of a bubble. We're not in a bubble
- 23:51Speaker 1: territory yet, but we are very close now. Economically speaking,
- 23:55Speaker 1: the direct effect of a sharp correction in the stock
- 23:58Speaker 1: market on the US economy my not be very large,
- 24:01Speaker 1: but at a time where we have other risks such
- 24:03Speaker 1: as the spreading of the coronavirus variant, the rise of
- 24:07Speaker 1: global interest rates, the slow down the Chinese economy, and
- 24:11Speaker 1: the disruption and the supply chains. Adding a another risk
- 24:16Speaker 1: in the form of an assetprise bubble would compand these
- 24:19Speaker 1: risks and add an additional layer of uncertainty to the
- 24:23Speaker 1: global economy. Well, Anna, Dan and Zad didn't enter into
- 24:27Speaker 1: the Halloween spirit quite as fully as I did, But
- 24:30Speaker 1: then I guess on a show like this, it's really
- 24:32Speaker 1: economic expertise that counts, and that's about all we have
- 24:48Speaker 1: time for on this week's Stephonomics. So it's the door
- 24:50Speaker 1: of the crypt Creaks closed, it only remains for me
- 24:54Speaker 1: to thank our contributors, Tom Warlock, Logan White and Demon
- 24:58Speaker 1: Chew as Yeah Dead, The Ghost of Anime, Wong and
- 25:02Speaker 1: Dan Hank, Song producer Magnus the Thing Henrickson, and executive
- 25:07Speaker 1: producer Mike the Exorcist Sasso join us next week, when
- 25:12Speaker 1: regular host Stephanie Flanders will be back, The guest host
- 25:15Speaker 1: Nightmare will be over, and normal standards of economic analysis
- 25:19Speaker 1: and editorial judgment will be restored