#157. Trending down

THE ANATOMY OF DEGROWTH – A SEEDS ANALYSIS

Unless you’ve been stranded on a desert island, cut off from all sources of information, you’ll know that the global economy is deteriorating markedly, whilst risk continues to increase. Even the most perennially optimistic observers now concede that the ultra-loose policies which I call ‘monetary adventurism’, introduced in response to the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), haven’t worked. Popular unrest is increasing around the world, even in places hitherto generally regarded as stable, with worsening hardship a central cause.

As regular readers know, we’ve seen this coming, and have never been fobbed off by official numbers, or believed that financial gimmickry could ‘fix’ adverse fundamental trends in the economy. Ultimately, the economy isn’t, as the established interpretation would have us believe, a financial system at all. Rather, it’s an energy system, driven by the relationship between (a) the amount of energy to which we have access, and (b) the proportion of that energy, known here as ECoE (the Energy Cost of Energy), that is consumed in the access process.

Properly understood, money acts simply as a ‘claim’ on the output of the energy economy, and driving up the aggregate of monetary claims only increases the scope for their elimination in a process of value destruction.

We’ve been here before, most recently in 2008, and still haven’t learned the brutal consequences of creating financial claims far in excess of what a deteriorating economy can deliver.

The next wave of value destruction – likely to include collapses in the prices of stocks, bonds and property, and a cascade of defaults – cannot much longer be delayed.

What, though, is happening to the real, energy-driven economy? My energy-based economic model, the Surplus Energy Economics Data System (SEEDS), is showing a worsening deterioration, and now points to a huge and widening gap between where the economy really is and the narrative being told about it from the increasingly unreal perspective of conventional measurement.

The latest iteration, SEEDS 20, highlights the spread of falling prosperity, with the average person now getting poorer in 25 of the 30 countries covered by the system, and most of the others within a very few years of joining them..

To understand why this is happening, there are two fundamental points that need to be grasped.

First, the spending of borrowed money doesn’t boost underlying economic output, but simply massages reported GDP into apparent conformity with the narrative of “perpetual growth”.

Second, conventional economics ignores the all-important ECoE dimension of the energy dynamic that really drives the economy.

Overstated output – GDP and borrowing

Ireland is an interesting (if extreme) example of the way in which the spending of borrowed money, combined in this case with changes of methodology dubbed “leprechaun economics”, has driven recorded GDP to levels far above a realistic appraisal of economic output.

According to official statistics, the Irish economy has grown by an implausible 62% since 2008, adding €124bn to GDP, and, incidentally, giving the average Irish citizen a per capita GDP of €66,300, far higher than that of France (€36,360), Germany (€40,340) or the Netherlands (€45,050).

What these stats don’t tell you is that, over a period in which Irish GDP has increased by €124bn, debt has risen by €316bn. It’s an interesting reflection that, stated at constant 2018 values, Irish debt is 85% higher now (at €963bn) than it was on the eve of the GFC in 2007 (€521bn).

When confronted with this sort of mix of GDP and debt data, two questions need to be asked.

First, where would growth be if net increases in indebtedness were to cease?

Second, where would GDP have been now if the country hadn’t joined in the worldwide debt binge in the first place?

Where Ireland is concerned, the answers are that trend growth would fall to just 0.4%, and that underlying, ‘clean’ GDP (C-GDP) would be €212bn, far below the €324bn recorded last year.

In passing, it’s worth noting that this 53% overstatement of economic output has dramatic implications for risk, driving Ireland’s debt/GDP ratio up from 297% to 454%, and increasing an already-ludicrous ratio of financial assets to output up from 1900% to a mind-boggling 2890%.

These ratios are rendered even more dangerous by a sharp rise in ECoE, but we can conclude, for now, that the narrative of Irish economic rehabilitation from the traumas of 2008 is eyewash. Indeed, the risk module incorporated into SEEDS in the latest iteration rates the country as one of the riskiest on the planet.

Though few countries run Ireland close when it comes to the overstatement of economic output, China goes one further, with GDP (of RMB 88.4tn) overstating C-GDP (RMB 51.1tn) by a remarkable 73%. Comparing 2018 with 2008, Chinese growth (of RMB 47.2tn, or 115%) has happened on the back of a massive (RMB 170tn, or 290%) escalation in debt. SEEDS calculations put Chinese trend growth at 3.1% – and still falling – versus a recorded 6.6% last year, and put C-GDP at RMB 51tn, 42% below the official RMB 88.4tn. Essentially, 62% (RMB 29tn) of all Chinese “growth” (RMB 47tn) since 2008 has been the product of pouring huge sums of new liquidity into the system.

In each of the last ten years, remarkably, Chinese net borrowing has averaged almost 26% of GDP, a calculation which surely puts the country’s much-vaunted +6% rates of “growth” into a sobering context. After all, GDP can be pretty much whatever you want it to be, for as long as you can keep fuelling additional ‘activity’ with soaring credit. Even second-placed Ireland has added debt at an annual average rate of ‘only’ 13.5% of GDP over the same period, with Canada third on this risk measure at 11.5%, and just three other countries (France, Chile and South Korea) exceeding 9%. China and Ireland are the countries where cosmetic “growth” is at its most extreme.

Fig. 1 sets out a list of the ten countries in which GDP is most overstated in relation to underlying C-GDP. The table also lists, for reference, these countries’ annual average borrowing as percentages of GDP over the past decade, though it’s the relationship between this number and recorded growth which links to the cumulative disparity between GDP and C-GDP.

Fig. 1

Of course, C-GDP is a concept unknown to ‘conventional’ economics, to governments or to businesses, which is one reason why so much “shock” will doubtless be expressed when the tide of credit-created “growth” goes dramatically into reverse.

Those of us familiar with C-GDP are likely to be unimpressed when we hear about an “unexpected” deterioration in, and a potential reversal of, “growth” of which most was never really there in the first place.

The energy dimension – ECoE and prosperity

Whilst seeing through the use of credit to inflate apparent economic output is one part of understanding how economies really function, the other is a recognition of the role of ECoE. The Energy Cost of Energy acts as a levy on economic output, earmarking part of it for the sustenance of the supply of energy upon which all future economic activity depends.

As we have discussed elsewhere, depletion has taken over from geographic reach and  economies of scale as the main driver of the ECoEs of oil, gas and coal. Because fossil fuels continue to account for four-fifths of the total supply of energy to the economy, the relentless rise in their ECoEs dominates the overall balance of the energy equation.

Renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar power, are at an earlier, downwards point on the ECoE parabola, and their ECoEs are continuing to fall in response to the beneficial effects of reach and scale. The big difference between fossil fuels and renewables, though, is that the latter are most unlikely ever to attain ECoEs anywhere near those of fossil fuels in their prime.

Whereas the aggregated ECoEs of oil, gas and coal were less than 2% before the relentless effects of depletion kicked in, it’s most unlikely that the ECoEs of renewables can ever fall below 10%. One of the reasons for this is that constructing and managing renewables capacity continues to depend on inputs from fossil fuels. This makes renewable energy a derivative of energy sourced from oil, gas and coal. To believe otherwise is to place trust in technology to an extent which exceeds the physical capabilities of the resource envelope.

This, it must be stressed, is not intended to belittle the importance of renewables, which are our only prospect, not just of minimizing the economic impact of rising fossil fuel ECoEs, but of preventing catastrophic damage to the environment.

Rather, the error – often borne of sheer wishful thinking – lies in believing that renewables can ever be a like-for-like replacement for the economic value that has been provided by fossil fuels since we learned to harness them in the 1760s. The vast quantities of high-intensity energy contained in fossil formations gave us a one-off, albeit dramatic, economic impetus. As that impetus fades away, it would be foolhardy in the extreme to assume that the economy can, or even must, continue to behave as though that impetus can exist independently of its source.

For context, SEEDS studies show that the highly complex economies of the West become incapable of further growth in prosperity once their ECoEs enter a range between 3.5% and 5.5%.

As fig. 2 shows, the first major Western economy to experience a reversal of prior growth in prosperity per capita was Japan, whose deterioration began in 1997. This was followed by downturns in France (from 2000), the United Kingdom (2003), the United States (2005) and, finally, Germany, with the deterioration in the latter deferred to 2018, largely reflecting the benefits that Germany has derived from her membership of the Euro Area.

Fig. 2

Less complex emerging economies have greater ECoE tolerance, and are able to continue to deliver growth, albeit at diminishing rates, until ECoEs are between 8% and 10%. These latter levels are now being reached, which is why prosperity deterioration now looms for these economies as well.

As fig. 3 illustrates, two major emerging economies, Mexico and Brazil, have already experienced downturns, commencing in 2008 and 2013 respectively. Growth in prosperity per person is projected to go into reverse in China from 2021, with South Korean citizens continuing to become more prosperous until 2029. The latter projected date, however, may move forward if the Korean economy is impacted by worldwide deterioration to a greater extent than is currently anticipated by SEEDS.

Fig. 3

Consequences – rocking and rolling

As we’ve seen, then – and for reasons simply not comprehended by ‘conventional’ interpretations of the economy – worldwide prosperity has turned down, a process that started with the more complex Western economies before spreading to more ECoE-tolerant emerging countries.

For reasons outlined above, no amount of financial tinkering can change this fundamental dynamic.

At least three major consequences can be expected to flow from this process. Though these lie outside the scope of this analysis, their broad outlines, at least, can be sketched here.

First, we should anticipate a major financial shock, far exceeding anything experienced in 2008 (or at any other time), as a direct result of the widening divergence between soaring financial ‘claims’ and the reality of an energy-driven economy tipping into decline. SEEDS 20 has a module which provides estimates of exposure to value destruction, though its indications cannot do more than suggest orders of magnitude. Current exposure is put at $320tn, far exceeding the figure of less than $70tn (at 2018 values) on the eve of the GFC at the end of 2007. This suggests that the values of equities, bonds and property are poised to fall very sharply indeed, something of a re-run of 2008, though with the critical caveat that, this time, no subsequent recovery is to be anticipated.

Second, we should anticipate a rolling process of contraction in the real economy of goods and services. This subject requires a dedicated analysis, but we are already witnessing two significant phenomena.

Demand for “stuff” – ranging across a gamut from cars and smartphones to chips and components – has started to fall, a trend likely to be followed by falling requirements for inputs.

Meanwhile, whole sectors of industry, including retailing and leisure, have experienced severe downturns in profitability. Utilization rates and interconnectedness are amongst the factors likely to drive a de-complexifying process that is a logical concomitant of deteriorating prosperity. This in turn suggests that a widening spectrum of sectors will be driven to and beyond the threshold of viability.

Finally, the political challenge of deteriorating prosperity is utterly different from anything of which we have prior experience, and it seems evident that this is already contributing to worsening unrest, and to a challenge to established leadership cadres. This process is likely to relegate non-economic agendas to the lower leagues of debate, and has particular implications for policy on redistribution, migration, taxation and the provision of public services.

My intention now is to use SEEDS to provide ongoing insights into some of the detail on issues discussed here. If we’re right about the economic direction of travel, what lies ahead lies quite outside the scope of past experience or current anticipation.   

 

#154. An autumn nexus

A CONVERGENCE OF STRESS-LINES

If you’ve been following our discussions here for any length of time, you’ll know that the main focus now is on the need for energy transition. This is a challenge made imperative, not just by environmental considerations but, just as compellingly, by the grim outlook for an economy which continues to rely on energy sources – oil, gas and coal – whose own economics are deteriorating rapidly.

These, of course, are long-term themes (though that’s no excuse for the gulf between official and corporate rhetoric and delivery). But the short term matters, too, and an increasing number of market participants and observers have started to notice that a series of significant stress-lines are converging on the months of September and October, much as railway lines converge on Charing Cross station.

The context, as it’s understood from an energy economics perspective, is that a fracture in the financial system is inevitable (though ‘inevitable’ isn’t the same thing as ‘imminent’). Properly understood, money has no intrinsic worth, but commands value only as a claim on the output of the ‘real’ economy of goods and services. Whilst the mountain of monetary claims keeps getting bigger, the real economy itself is being undermined by adverse energy economics.

Ultimately, financial crises happen as correctives, when the gap between the financial and the ‘real’ economies becomes excessive.

This is what happened with the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), which followed a lengthy period of what I call “credit adventurism”. A sequel to 2008, known here as “GFC II”, is the seemingly inevitable consequence of the “monetary adventurism” adopted during and after 2008. This, incidentally, is where the parallels end because, whilst credit adventurism put the banking system in the eye of the storm in 2008, the subsequent adoption of monetary recklessness implies that GFC II will be a currency event.   .

An understanding of the inevitability of GFC II doesn’t tell us when it’s likely to happen. All that I’ve ventured on this so far is that a ‘window of risk’ has been open since the third quarter of 2018. Whether that window has yet opened wide enough to admit GFC II is a moot point. But the converging stresses are certainly worthy of consideration.

Chinese burns

Three of the most important lines of stress originate in China.

As we’ve seen – and with the country’s Energy Cost of Energy (ECoE) now in the climacteric range at which prosperity growth goes into reverse – there’s no doubt at all that the Chinese economy is in trouble. After all (and expressed at constant 2018 values), China has added debt of RMB 170 trillion (+288%) over a period in which reported GDP has expanded by RMB 47 tn (+114%), and no such pattern can be sustained in perpetuity.

This is complicated by Sino-American trade tensions, and, given the huge divergence between Chinese and American priorities, there seems little prospect that these can be resolved in any meaningful way.

The third and newest component of the Chinese risk cocktail is unrest in Hong Kong. Few think it likely that Beijing would be reckless enough to make a forceful intervention there, but it’s a risk whose relatively low probability is offset by the extremity of consequences if it were to happen.

In this context, it’s interesting to note that markets initially responded euphorically to Mr Trump’s delaying of new sanctions, seemingly interpreting it as some kind of ‘wobble’ on his part. It looks a lot more like a Hong Kong-related cautionary signal, seasoned with a twist of gamesmanship and soupçon of characteristic showmanship.

Whilst I’m not one of Mr Trump’s critics, it does seem undeniable that he makes too much of the (actually very tenuous) relationship between economic performance and the level of the stock market. This adds his voice to the chorus of those advocating ever cheaper money.

When the next crash does, come, of course, this chorus will rise to a crescendo, but central bankers will in any case have started pouring ever larger amounts of liquidity into the system in an effort to prop up tumbling asset prices. This, in turn, is likely to lead to a flight to perceived safe havens, one of which is likely to be the dollar, whilst other currencies come under the cosh.

But this is to look too far ahead.

“Brexit” blues

The focus in Europe, of course, is on “Brexit”. I’m neither an admirer nor a critic of Boris Johnson, any more than I’m a supporter or an opponent of “Brexit” itself (a subject on which I’ve been, and remain, studiously neutral).

This said, Mr Johnson is surely right to assert that you’ll never get anything out of negotiations if you start off by committing yourself to accept whatever the other side deigns to offer. This does indeed look like brinkmanship on his part, but it’s remarkable how often negotiations, be they political or commercial, do go “right down to the wire”, being settled only when time presses hard enough on the parties involved.

I’ve said before that the EU negotiators worry me more than their British counterparts in this process. The British side has, of course, mishandled the “Brexit” situation, but this can have come as no great surprise to anyone familiar with Britain’s idiosyncratic processes of government.

Unfortunately, British floundering has been compounded by remarkable intransigence on the EU side of the table. The attitude of the Brussels apparatchiks, all along, has been ‘take it or leave it’, and this seems to have been based on two false premises.

The first is that the British have to be ‘punished’ to deter other countries from following a similar road. This is a false position, because influencing how French, Spanish, Italian and other citizens cast their votes in domestic elections is wholly outside Brussels’ competence.

In any case, ‘punishment’ should not be part of the lexicon of any adult participant in statesmanship.

The second false premise is that Britain attends the negotiating table as a supplicant, because a chaotic “Brexit” will inflict far more economic harm on the United Kingdom than on the other EU member countries.

My model suggests that this is simply not true. The country at single greatest risk is Ireland, whose economy is far weaker than its “leprechaun economics” numbers suggest, and whose exposure, both to debt and to the financial system, is as worrying as it is extraordinary.

Ireland is followed, probably in this order, by France, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany. The French economy looks moribund, despite its relentlessly-increasing debt, and the prosperity of the average French person has been subjected to a gradual but prolonged deterioration, a process so aggravated by rising taxes that it has led to popular unrest.

Though its economy is stronger, the Netherlands is exposed, by the sheer scale of its financial sector, to anything which puts the global financial system at risk.

Germany, whose own economy is stuttering, must be wondering how quite much of the burden of cost in the wider Euro Area it might be asked to bear.

Moreover, the European Central Bank’s actions endorse the perception that the EA economy is performing poorly. The ECB has made it clear that there is no foreseeable prospect of the EA being weened off its diet of ultra-cheap liquidity.

This makes it all the more remarkable (in a macabre sort of way) that none of the governments of the most at-risk EA countries have sought to demand some pragmatism from Brussels. What we cannot know – though it remains a possibility – is whether the ever-nearer approach of ‘B-Day’ will energise at least, say, Dublin or Paris into action.

Madness, money and moods

Long before the markets took fright at the inversion of the US yield curve, the financial system (in its broadest sense) has looked bizarre.

In America, the corporate sector is engaged in the wholesale replacement of flexible equity with inflexible debt, whilst investors queue up to support “cash burners”, and buy into the IPOs of deeply loss-making debutants. The BoJ (the Japanese central bank) now owns more than half of all Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs) in issue, acquired with money newly created for the purpose.

Around the world, more than $15 trillion of bonds trade at negative yields, meaning that investors are paying borrowers for the privilege of lending them money. The only logic for holding instruments this over-priced is the “greater fool” theory. This states that you can profit from buying over-priced assets by selling them on to someone even more optimistic than yourself. There’s something deeply irrational about anything whose logic is founded in folly.

The same ultra-low interest rates that have prompted escalating borrowing have blown huge holes in pension provision – and have left us in a sort of Through the Looking Glass world in which we’re trying to operate a ‘capitalist’ system without returns on capital.

Until now, markets seem to have been insouciant about the bizarre characteristics of the system, for two main reasons.

First, they seem to assume that, whatever goes wrong, central banks will come to the rescue with a monetary lifeboat. To mix metaphors, this attitude portrays the system as some kind of kiddies-fiction casino, in which winners pocket their gains, but losers are reimbursed at the door.

If, as seems increasingly likely, we’ve started a ‘race to the bottom’ in currencies, this should act as a reminder that the value of any fiat currency depends, ultimately, entirely on confidence – and central bankers, at least, ought to understand that excessive issuance can be corrosive of trust.

The markets’ second mistake is a failure to recognize the concept of “credit exhaustion”. The assumption seems to be that, just so long as debt is cheap enough, people will load up on it ad infinitum. What’s likelier to happen – and may, indeed, have started happening now – is that borrowers become frightened about how much debt they already have, and refuse to take on any more, irrespective of how cheap it may have become.

A measured way of stating the case is that, as we look ahead to autumn, we can identify an undeniable convergence of stress-lines towards a period of greatly heightened risk.

This perception is compounded by a pervading mood of complacency founded on the excessive reliance placed on the seaworthiness of the monetary lifeboat.

I’m certainly not going to predict that a dramatic fracture is going to occur within the next two or three months at the nexus of these stress lines. We simply don’t know. But it does seem a good time for tempering optimism with caution.

 

#152: Stuffed

WHY THE MONETARY LIFEBOAT WON’T FLOAT

The global financial system has come to rest on a single complacent assumption, one which is seldom put explicitly into words, but is remarkably implicit in actions.

This assumption is that the authorities have, and are willing to deploy, a monetary ‘fix’ for all ills.

Accordingly, the system has come to be seen as a bizarre casino, in which winning punters keep their gains, but losers are sure that they’ll be reimbursed at the exit-door.

So ingrained has this assumption become that it’s almost heresy to denounce it for the falsity that it is.

The theme of this discussion is simply stated. It is that the complacent assumption of a monetary fix is misplaced. The authorities, faced with a crash, might very well try something along these lines, and might even adopt one or more of its most outlandish variants.

But it won’t work.

The reason why no monetary expedient can provide a “get out of gaol free” card is that the economy and the financial system are quite different things.

The complacent rush in  

You can see financial manifestations of mistaken complacency wherever you look.

It emboldens those who have lent most of the $2.9 trillion that, over the last five years, American companies have ploughed into the insane elimination of flexible equity in favour of inflexible debt.

It informs those who pile into the shares of cash-burners, or queue up to buy into overpriced IPOs.

It reassures those long of JPY, despite the monetization of more than half of all outstanding JGBs by the BoJ.

It tranquilizes those who, unable to see the contradiction between gigantic financial exposure and a stumbling economy, remain long of GBP.

It blinds those to whom the Chinese economic narrative remains a miracle, not a credit-fueled bubble.

The aim here is a simple one. It is to counter this complacency by explaining why economic problems cannot be solved with monetary tools, and to warn that efforts to do so risk, instead, the undermining of the credibility of currencies.

A casino which hands back losers’ money belongs in the realm of pure myth.

The secondary status of money

Money has no intrinsic worth. Someone adrift in a lifeboat in mid-Atlantic, or stranded in the Sahara, would benefit from an air-drop of food or water, but even a gigantic amount of money descending on a parachute would do nothing more than allowing him or her to die rich.

Conventionally, money has three roles, but only one of these is relevant. Fiat money has been an atrociously bad ‘store of value’, and money is a very flawed ‘unit of account’. Money’s only relevant role is as a ‘medium of exchange’.

For this to work, there has to be something for which money can be exchanged.

This means that money has no intrinsic worth, but commands value only as a claim on the products of the economy. If you build up a structure of claims that the economy cannot honour, then that structure must – eventually, and in one way or another – collapse.

Conceptually, it’s useful to think in terms of ‘two economies’. One of these is the ‘real’ economy of goods and services, its operation characterised by the use of labour and resources, but its performance ultimately driven by energy.

The other is the ‘financial’ economy of money and credit, a parallel or shadow of the ‘real’ economy, useful for managing the real economy, but wholly lacking in stand-alone substance.

To be sure, the early monetarists oversimplified things with the assertion that inflation could be explained in wholly quantitative monetary terms. The price interface between money and the real economy isn’t determined by the simple division of the quantity of economic goods into the quantity of money.

Rather, it’s the movement or use of money that matters. The quantitative recklessness of Weimar would not have triggered hyperinflation had the excess been locked up in a vault, or in some other way not put to use. It’s not hair-splitting, but an important distinction, that Weimar’s true downfall was not that excess money was created, but that it was created and spent.

The process of exchange, which really defines the role of money, makes the interface dynamic, and, as such, introduces behavioural considerations. The creation of very large amounts of new money needn’t destabilize the price equilibrium if people hoard it, but a lesser increment can be extremely destabilizing if is spent with exceptional rapidity. This is why the simple quantitative interpretation needs to be modified by the inclusion of velocity, making Q x V a much more useful monetary determinant.

Behaviourally, velocity falls when people turn cautious – they did this during and after the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), a tendency which reduced the inflationary risk of the loose money responses deployed at that time.

Even so, claims that the monetary adventurism unleashed at that time did not trigger inflation are simply untrue, unless you accept a narrow definition of inflation. To be sure, retail prices haven’t surged since 2008, but asset prices most certainly have, the truism being that the inflationary effects of the injection of money turn up at the point at which the money is injected.

Additionally, inflation is influenced by expectations – which have been low in an era of ’austerity’ – and by the performance of the economy. An economy which is performing weakly puts downwards pressure on inflation.

What it does not do, though, is to eliminate latent inflation. Any erosion of faith in the reliability of money would cause velocity to spike, as people rush out to spend it whilst it still has value.

Fiat fallacy

One of the analytically adverse side-effects of monetary manipulation is that it inflates apparent activity. Globally, and expressed in constant 2018 PPP dollars, the $34tn increase in recorded GDP since 2008 cannot be unrelated to the $110tn escalation in debt over the same period. According to SEEDS, most (67%) of the “growth” recorded over that period was nothing more than the simple effect of spending borrowed money.

This matters, first because a cessation in credit injection would undermine supposed rates of “growth” and, second, because a reversal would put much prior “growth” into reverse.

By falsifying GDP, this ‘credit effect’ also falsifies any relationships based on it – so the ‘comfortable’ 218% global ratio of debt-to-GDP masks a real ratio which is nearer to 340%, and higher by more than 100% than it was ten years ago (236%). It also distorts the measurement of financial exposure, so lulling us into misplaced insouciance about those countries (such as Ireland and Britain) whose financial assets stand at huge multiples to the real value of their economies.

Behind the mask of ‘the credit effect’, global economic performance is at best lacklustre, growing at about 0-9-1.3% annually whilst population numbers are growing by 1.0%.

Moreover, these numbers disguise regional disparities – whilst the average Chinese or Indian citizen continues to become more prosperous (for now, anyway), the average Westerner has been getting poorer for at least a decade.

Of course, there’s a countervailing ‘wealth effect’, giving false comfort to those whose assets have soared in price – and few, if any, of them appear to wonder what would happen if there was a rush to monetize inflated values.

But the drastic distortion in the relationship between asset values and incomes has real downsides exceeding its (illusory anyway) upside. Policymakers and their advisers may remain ignorant of the deterioration in Western prosperity, but to voters it is all too real, something which has been a major contributor to those changes in voter responses which have informed “Brexit”, Mr Trump’s ascent to the White House, and the rolling repudiation of established political parties across much of Europe.

The decline of “stuff”

The weakness of the underlying picture has now started showing up unmistakeably in weakening in demand for everything from cars, domestic appliances and smartphones to chips and drive-motors. Logically, deterioration in the economy of “stuff” will extend next into commodities because, if you’re making less “stuff”, you need less minerals, less plastics and, critically, less energy with which to make it.

Whilst all of this is going on in plain view, markets and policymakers alike are failing to recognize the risks implicit in the widening gap between a stumbling economy and escalating financial exposure. As well as borrowing an additional $110tn since 2008, we’ve blown a not-dissimilar-sized hole in pension provision, because the same low cost of capital which has incentivized borrowing has also crippled the rates of return on which pension accrual depends.

Additionally, of course, the prices of equities and property have reached heights from which any descent into rationality would have devastating direct and collateral consequences.

When the next crisis (GFC II) shows up, the complacent expectation is that everything can be ‘fixed’ with even looser monetary policy. Some of the more bizarre suggestions aired in 2008 – including ‘helicopter money’, and NIRP (negative interest rate policy, with its implicit need to outlaw cash) – will doubtless come to the fore again, accompanied by a whole crop of new ‘innovations’. The authorities are likely, in the stark despair which follows protracted denial, to act on at least some of these follies.

The trouble is that it won’t work.

You might as well try to rescue an ailing pot-plant with a spanner as try to revive an ailing economy with monetary innovation.

The form that failure takes need not necessarily involve massive inflation, though this is the only non-default route down from the debt mountain. Authorities capable of believing that EVs are “zero emissions”, or that we can overcome the environmental challenge with some form of “sustainable growth” (rather than degrowth), are perfectly capable of also believing that we can fix economic problems with monetary recklessness.

If inflation doesn’t spoil the party, two other factors might. One is credit exhaustion, in which massively indebted borrowers refuse to take on yet more debt, irrespective of how cheap the offer may be.

The other factor might well be a loss of faith in money, which might also be accompanied by a ‘flight to quality’, perhaps favouring the dollar (as ‘the prettiest horse in the knackers’ yard’), whilst hanging weaker currencies out to dry.

However it pans out, though, we know that an economy whose prosperity is faltering cannot indefinitely sustain an ever-growing burden of financial promises. By definition, whatever is unsustainable eventually fails, and this is as true of monetary systems as of anything else.

#147: Primed to detonate

THE “WHAT?” AND “WHERE?” OF GLOBAL RISK

After more than a decade of worsening economic and financial folly, it can come as no surprise that we’re living with extraordinarily elevated levels of risk.

But what form does that risk take, and where is it most acute?

According to SEEDS – the Surplus Energy Economics Data System – the riskiest countries on the planet are Ireland, France, the Netherlands, China, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The risks vary between economies. Some simply have debts which are excessive. Some have become dangerously addicted to continuing infusions of cheap credit. Some have financial systems vastly out of proportion to the host economy. Some have infuriated the general public to the point where a repetition of the 2008 “rescue” would inflame huge anger. Many have combinations of all four sorts of risk.

Here’s the “top six” from the SEEDS Risk Matrix. Of course, the global risk represented by each country depends on proportionate size, so China (ranked #4 in the Matrix) is far more of a threat to the world economy and financial system than Ireland, the riskiest individual economy. It’s noteworthy, though, that the three highest-risk countries are all members of the Euro Area. It’s also noteworthy that, amongst the emerging market (EM) economies, only China and South Korea (ranked #9) make the top ten.

Risk and irresponsibility

Before we get into methodologies and detailed numbers, it’s worth reflecting on why risk is quite so elevated. As regular readers will know, the narrative of recent years is that prosperity has been coming under increasing pressure ever since the late 1990s, mainly because trend ECoE (the energy cost of energy) has been rising, squeezing the surplus energy which is the source of all economic output and prosperity.

This is a trend which the authorities haven’t understood, recognizing only a vague “secular stagnation” whose actual root causes elude them.

Even “secular stagnation” has been unacceptable to economic and financial systems wholly predicated on “growth”. Simply put, there‘s been too much at stake for any form of stagnation, let alone deterioration, to be acceptable. The very idea that growth might be anything less than perpetual, despite the finite nature of the planet, has been treated as anathema.

If there isn’t any genuine growth to be enjoyed, the logic goes, then we’d better fake it. Essentially, nobody in authority has been willing to allow a little thing like reality to spoil the party, even if enjoyment of the party is now confined to quite a small minority.

Accordingly, increasingly futile (and dangerous) financial expedients, known here as adventurism, have been tried as “solutions” to the problem of low “growth”. In essence, these have had in common a characteristic of financial manipulation, most obvious in the fields of credit expansion and monetary dilution.

These process are the causes of the risk that we are measuring here, but risk comes in more than one guise. Accordingly, each of the four components of the SEEDS Risk Matrix addresses a different type of exposure.

These categories are:

– Debt risk

– Credit dependency risk

– Systemic financial risk

– Acquiescence risk

One final point – before we get into the detail – is that no attempt is made here to measure political risk in its broader sense. Through acquiescence risk, we can work out which populations have most to complain about in terms of worsening prosperity. But no purely economic calculation can determine exactly when and why a population decides to eject the governing incumbency, or when governments might be tempted into the time-dishonoured diversionary tactic of overseas belligerence. We can but hope that international affairs remain orderly, and that democracy is the preferred form of regime-change.

Debt risk

This is the easiest of the four to describe, and comes closest to the flawed, false-comfort measures used in ‘conventional’ appraisal. The SEEDS measure, though, compares debt, not with GDP but with prosperity, a very different concept.

Ireland, markedly the riskiest economy on this criterion, can be used to illustrate the process. At the end of 2018, aggregate private and public debt in Ireland is estimated at €963bn, a ratio of 312% to GDP (of €309 bn). Expressed at constant 2018 values, the equivalent numbers for 2007 (on the eve of the 2008 global financial crisis, which hit Ireland particularly badly) were debt of €493bn, GDP of €198bn and a debt/GDP ratio of 249%.

In essence, then, debt may be almost twice as big (+95%) now as it was in 2007, but the debt ratio has increased by ‘only’ 25% (to 312%, from 249%), because reported GDP has expanded by 56%.

Unfortunately, this type of calculation treats GDP and debt as discrete items, with the former unaffected by changes in the latter. The reality, though, is very different. Whilst GDP has increased by €111bn since 2007, debt has expanded by €470bn. Critically, much of this newly-borrowed money has flowed into expenditures, which serves to drive up the activity measured as GDP.

According to SEEDS, growth without this simple spending of borrowed money would have been only €13bn, not €111bn. Put another way, 89% of all “growth” reported in Ireland since 2007 has been nothing more substantial than the effect of pouring cheap credit into the system, helped, too, by the “leprechaun economics” recalibration of GDP which took place in 2015.

Of course, the practice of spending borrowed money and calling the result “growth” didn’t begin after the 2008 crash. Back in 2007, adjusted (“clean”) GDP in Ireland (of €172bn) was already markedly (13%) lower than headline GDP (€198bn), and the gap is even wider today, with “clean” GDP (of €184bn) now 40% lower than the reported number.

Even “clean” GDP isn’t a complete measure of prosperity, though, because it excludes ECoE – that proportion of output that isn’t available for other purposes, because it’s required to fund the supply of energy itself.

Where ECoE is concerned, Ireland is a disadvantaged economy whose circumstances have worsened steadily in recent years. Back in 2007, Ireland’s ECoE (of 6.7%) was already markedly worse than the global average (5.4%). By 2018, the gap had widened from 1.3% to 3.2%, with Ireland’s ECoE now 11.2% (and the world average 8.0%). An ECoE this high necessarily kills growth, which is why aggregate prosperity in Ireland now is only fractionally (2%) higher than it was in 2007, even though population numbers have grown by 10%.

The results of this process, where Ireland is concerned, have been that personal prosperity has declined by 7% since 2007, whilst debt per person has risen by 78%. The conclusion for Ireland is that debt now equates to 589% of prosperity (compared with 308% in 2007), and it’s hard to see what the country can do about it. If – or rather, when – the GFC II sequel to 2008 turns up, Ireland is going to be in very, very big trouble.

These are, of course, compelling reasons for the Irish authorities to bend every effort to ensure that Britain’s “Brexit” departure from the European Union happens as smoothly as possible. If the Irish government really understood the issues at stake, ministers would be exerting every possible pressure on Brussels to step back from its macho posturing and give Mrs May something that she can sell to Parliament and the voters.

There’s a grim precedent for Dublin not understanding this, though – in the heady “Celtic tiger” years before 2008, nobody seems to have batted an eyelid at the increasingly reckless expansion of the Irish banking system.

Credit dependency

As we’ve seen, adding €111bn to Irish GDP since 2007 has required adding €470bn to debt. This means that each €1 of “growth” came at a cost of €4.24 in net new borrowing. It also means that annual net borrowing averaged 14% of GDP during that period. This represents very severe credit dependency risk – in short, the Irish economy would suffer very serious damage in the event even of a reduction, let alone a cessation, in the supply of new credit to the economy.

Remarkably, though, there is one country whose credit dependency problem is far worse than that of Ireland – and that country is China.

The Chinese economy famously delivers growth of at least 6.5% each year, and reported GDP has more than doubled since 2008, increasing by RMB 51 trillion, from RMB37.7tn to an estimated RMB89tn last year.

Less noticed by China’s army of admirers has been a quadrupling of debt over the same period, from RMB53tn (at 2018 values) in 2008 to RMB219tn now. There also seem to be plausible grounds for thinking that China’s debts might be even bigger than indicated by published numbers.

This means that, over the last ten years, annual borrowing has averaged an astonishing 23% of GDP. No other economy comes even close to this, with Ireland (14.1%) placed second, followed by Canada (9.5%) in third, and South Korea (8.6%) a distant fourth. To put this in context, the ratios for France (8.1%) and Australia (7.5%) are quite bad enough – the Chinese ratio is as frightening as it is astonishing.

The inference to be drawn from this is that China is a ‘ponzi economy’ like no other. The country’s credit dependency ratio represents, not just extreme exposure to credit tightening or interruption, but an outright warning of impending implosion.

There are signs that the implosion may now be nearing. As well as slumping sales of everything from cars to smartphones, there are disturbing signs that industrial purchases, of components ranging from chips to electric motors, are turning downwards. Worryingly, companies have started defaulting on debts supposedly covered very substantially by cash holdings, the inference being that this “cash” was imaginary. Worse still, the long-standing assumption that the country could and would stand behind the debts of all state-owned entities (SOEs) is proving not to be the case. In disturbing echoes of the American experience in 2008, there are reasons to question why domestic agencies accord investment grade ratings to such a large proportion of Chinese corporate bonds.

How has this happened? The answer seems to be that the Chinese authorities have placed single-minded concentration on maintaining and growing levels of employment, prioritizing this (and its associated emphasis on volume) far above profitability. Put another way, China seems quite prepared to sell products at a loss, so long as volumes and employment are maintained. This has resulted in returns on invested capital falling below the cost of servicing debt capital – and an attempt to convert corporate bonds into equity was a spectacular failure, coming close to crashing the Chinese equity market.

Systemic exposure

Debt exposure and credit dependency are relatively narrow measures, in that both concentrate on indebtedness. Critical though these are, there is a broader category of exposure termed here systemic risk, and this is particularly important in terms of the danger of contagion between economies.

The countries most at risk here are Ireland (again), the Netherlands and Britain. All three have financial sectors which are bloated even when compared with GDP. But the true lethality of systemic risk exposure only becomes fully apparent when prosperity is used as the benchmark.

At the most recent published date (2016), Dutch financial assets were stated at $10.96tn (€10.4tn), or 1470% of GDP. The SEEDS model assumes that the ratio to GDP now is somewhat lower (1360%), which implies financial assets unchanged at €10.4tn.

As we’ve seen with Ireland, measurement based on GDP produces false comfort, because GDP is inflated by the spending of borrowed money, and ignores ECoE. In the Netherlands, growth in GDP of €82bn (12%) between 2007 and 2018 needs to be seen in the context of a €600bn (32%) escalation in debt over the same period. This means that each €1 of reported “growth” has required net new borrowing of €7.40. Without this effect, SEEDS calculates that organic growth would have been just €8bn (not €82bn), and that ‘clean’ GDP in 2018 was €619bn, not €767bn.

The further deduction of ECoE (in 2018, 10.5%) reduces prosperity to €554bn. This is lower than the equivalent number for 2007 (€574bn), and further indicates that the prosperity of the average Dutch person declined by 8% over that period.

Though aggregate prosperity is slightly (3.5%) lower now than it was in 2007, financial assets have expanded by almost 40%, to €10.4tn now from €7.47tn (at 2018 values) back in 2007. This means that financial assets have grown from 1303% of prosperity on the eve of GFC I to 1881% today.

As the next table shows, this puts Holland second on this risk metric, below Ireland (3026%) but above the United Kingdom (1591%). Japan (924%) and China (884%) are third and fourth on this list.

Needless to say, the Irish number looks lethal but, since Ireland is a small economy, equates to financial assets (of €4.9tn) that are a lot smaller than those of the Netherlands (€10.4tn). Likewise, British financial assets are put at £23.3tn, a truly disturbing number when compared with GDP of £2tn, let alone prosperity of £1.47tn.

The conclusion on this category of risk has to be that Ireland, Holland and Britain look like accidents waiting to happen. Something not dissimilar might be said, too, of Japan and China. Japan’s gung-ho use of QE has resulted in half of all JGBs (government bonds) being owned by the BoJ (the central bank), whilst huge financial assets (estimated at RMB417tn) underscore the risk perception already identified by China’s dependency on extraordinary rates of credit creation.

Acquiescence risk

The fourth category of risk measured by SEEDS concentrates on public attitudes rather than macroeconomic exposure. Simply put, we can assume that, when the GFC II sequel to the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC I) hits, governments are likely to try to repeat the “rescue” strategies which bought time (albeit at huge expense) last time around. But will the public accept these policies? Or will there be a huge popular backlash, something which could prevent such policies from being implemented?

It’s not difficult to envisage how this happens. If we can picture some politicians announcing, say, a rescue of the banks, we can equally picture some of their opponents pledging to scrap the rescue at the earliest opportunity, and take the banks into public ownership, pointing out that stockholder compensation will not be necessary because, in the absence of  a taxpayer bail-out, the worst-affected banks have zero equity value anyway. Simply put, this time around there could be more votes in the infliction of austerity on “the wealthy” than there will be in bailing them out. It’s equally easy to picture, at the very least, public demonstrations opposing such a rescue.

Even at the time, and more so as time has gone on, the general public has nurtured suspicions, later hardening into something much nearer to certainties, that the authorities played the 2008 crisis with loaded dice. One obvious source of grievance has been the management of the banking crash. The public may understand why banks were rescued, but cannot understand why the rescue included the bankers as well, whose prior irresponsibility is assumed by many to have been the cause of the crisis – especially given the unwillingness of governments to rescue those in other occupations, such as manufacturing, retail and hospitality.

The 2008 crisis was followed by a fashion for “austerity”, in which the public was expected to accept lean times as part of a rehabilitation of national finances after debts and deficits had soared during GFC I. Unfortunately, the imposition of “austerity” has looked extremely one-sided. Whilst public services budgets have been cut, the authorities have operated policies which have induced extraordinary inflation in asset prices. These benefits, for the most part enjoyed by a small minority, haven’t even been accompanied by fiscal changes designed to capture at least some of the gains for the taxpayer.

The word ‘hypocrisy’ has been woven like a thread into the tapestry of post-2008 trends, which are widely perceived as having inflicted austerity on the many as the price of rescuing the few. It hardly helps when advocates of “austerity” seem not to practice it themselves. Policies since 2008 have been extraordinarily divisive, not just between “the rich” and the majority, but also between the old (who tend to own assets) and the young (who don’t).

In short, the events of 2008 have created huge mistrust between governing and governed. This might not have mattered quite so much had the prosperity of the average person continued to grow, but, in almost all Western countries, this has not been the case. Whatever might be claimed about GDP, individuals sense – rightly – that they’re getting poorer. We’ve already seen the results of this estrangement, in the election of Donald Trump, the “Brexit” vote in Britain and the rise of insurgent (aka “populist”) parties in many European countries. Latterly, France has witnessed the eruption of popular anger in the gilets jaunes movement, something which might well be replicated in other countries.

For reasons which vary between countries – but which have in common a complete failure to understand deteriorating prosperity – established policymakers have seemed blinded to political reality by “the juggernaut effect”.

Where, though, is acquiescence risk most acute? The answer to this seems to lie less in the absolute deterioration in average prosperity than in the relentless squeeze in discretionary (“left in your pocket”) prosperity – simply put, how much money does a person have left at the end of the week or month, after taxes have been paid, and essential expenses have been met?

This discretionary effect helps to explain why the popular backlash has been so acute in France. At the overall level, the decline in French prosperity per person since 2007 has been a fairly modest 6.3%, less severe than the experiences of a number of other countries such as Italy (-11.6%), Britain (-10.3%), Norway (-8.4%) and Greece (-8..0%). Canadians (-8.1%) and Australians (-9.0%), too, have fared worse than the French.

Take taxation into account, though, and France comes top of the league. Back in 2007, prosperity per person in France was €28,950, which after tax (of €17,350) left the average person with €11,600 in his or her pocket. Since then, however, whilst prosperity has declined by €1,840 per person, tax has increased (by €1,970), leaving the individual with only €7,790, a 33% fall since 2007.

In no other country has this rapidity of deterioration been matched, though discretionary prosperity has fallen by 28% in the Netherlands, by 24% in Britain, by 23% in Australia and by 18% in Italy. If this interpretation makes sense of the popularity of the gilets jaunes (and makes absolutely no sense of the French authorities’ responses), it also suggests that the Hague, London and perhaps Canberra ought to be preparing themselves for the appearance of yellow waistcoats on their streets.

#144: “Brexit” and the wait for Godot

WHY EU NATIONAL LEADERS SHOULD INTERVENE

It is perhaps appropriate that Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot was written in French, and premiered in Paris in January 1953, not appearing in English until its London debut in 1955.

As you’ll know, Godot himself never appears, which some might say is the real point of the narrative. Certainly, his non-arrival has no serious consequences.

This is where drama and reality part company. Like Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett’s play, both sides of the “Brexit” impasse have been waiting for more than two years now, and are waiting still, for the political equivalent of Godot to turn up. This time, it’s going to be very serious indeed if the major character (or characters) fail to put in an appearance.

If you’re a regular visitor to this site, you’ll know that I steer well clear of taking sides over the outcome of the “Brexit” referendum. This said, those of us who understand the surplus energy basis of the economy had solid reasons for expecting the vote to turn out as it did.

Though GDP per person was slightly (4%) higher in 2016 than it had been in 2006, personal prosperity in Britain deteriorated by almost 9% over that decade. When the public went to the polls, the average person was £2,150 worse off than he or she had been ten years previously, and was, moreover, significantly deeper in debt.

These are not conditions in which the governing can expect the enthusiastic backing of the governed. There were other factors in play, of course – including widening inequality, and the lack of a national debate over immigration – but the “leave” vote was founded on popular dissatisfaction with an “establishment” seemingly unconcerned about deteriorating prosperity.

The authorities’ fundamental inability to understand the prosperity issue was by no means unique to the United Kingdom, and neither were its consequences confined to the 2016 referendum. Had the deterioration in prosperity been understood in the corridors of power, it’s highly unlikely, for instance, that premier Theresa May would have called the 2017 general election which robbed her of her Parliamentary majority.

Calling an early election – intended to “guarantee security for the years ahead” – was just one of many mistakes made by the British authorities before, during and after the referendum on withdrawal from the European Union. The vote itself  seems to have been called in the confident assumption that the “remain” side would win comfortably. The governing Conservatives then elected as their leader an opponent of the “Brexit” process. Perhaps worst of all, the British side negotiated as supplicants, accepting, seemingly without question, Brussels’ highly dubious assertion that the EU held all the high cards.

But it would be wrong to pin all (or even most) of the blame for the “Brexit” negotiations fiasco on the British side. Whatever mistakes Mrs May and her colleagues might have made, they at least have a democratic mandate for what they have been trying to do. Beset on one side by hard-line “Brexiteers”, and on the other by those opposed to carrying out what the public actually voted for, Mrs May had problems enough, even before her Brussels counterparts set out to play politics with the process.

Under these conditions, it’s hardly surprising that the British parliament seems to have reached an impasse, where the main alternatives to a flawed deal appear to involve either (a) leaving the EU without any agreement at all, or (b) disregarding the wishes of the voters, and perhaps inviting those voters to have another go, presumably in the hope that the electorate will ‘get it right this time’.

Needed – Godot

In considering what ought to happen next, we need to be absolutely clear that the stance adopted by the bureaucrats in Brussels has all along made it impossible for Mrs May to secure an agreement acceptable either to parliament or the voters.

Put bluntly, the point has long since been reached where the adults – meaning the elected governments of EU member nations, led by France and Ireland – should step in, forcing Brussels to offer terms which are both (a) mutually advantageous, and (b) acceptable to the United Kingdom. This really means that Paris and Dublin need to mount an eleventh-hour rescue, not just (or even mainly) of the British economy, but of the EU economy as well.

From the outset, Brussels has made three dangerously false assumptions.

The first is that, in terms of economics, a mishandled “Brexit” will hurt Britain far more than it would hurt other EU member states.

The second, flowing from this but extending well beyond economics, was that the EU side holds all the high cards – essentially, that Mrs May should expect nothing more than scraps from a bounteous continental table.

Third, Brussels assumed the role of punishing British voters in order to deter Italians (and others) from following a similar path out of the EU.

This third point is the easiest to counter. The role of Brussels, which in many other areas is carried out commendably, is to better the circumstances of EU citizens.

It is not to influence how those citizens cast their votes.

The economic point, though critical, is a bit more complicated, but needs to be outlined to explain why Ireland and France, in particular, ought now to be intervening to break the impasse.

Where Ireland is concerned, the assumption in Brussels that a mishandled “Brexit” would more dangerous for the British than for anyone else is gravely mistaken. Although Britain is a major trading partner for Ireland, the main problem for the Republic is a broader one. Essentially, Ireland is in no condition to withstand any major shock to the system – and a bungled “Brexit” would certainly be exactly that.

We’ve examined the Irish predicament before, so a brief summary should suffice here. Following statistical changes (dubbed “leprechaun economics”) introduced in 2015, reported GDP has become an even less meaningful measure of economic conditions. GDP grew by 49% between 2007 and 2017 (including a one-off 25% hike in 2015), adding €97bn (at constant 2018 values) to recorded output – but this occurred courtesy of a near-doubling in debt, such that each €1 of “growth” was bought with €4.85 of net new borrowing. Meanwhile, the all-important energy cost of energy (ECoE) now exceeds 11% in Ireland, at level at which growth is almost bound to go into reverse.

Fundamentally, reported GDP (of an estimated €309bn last year) grossly overstates real activity (adjusted for borrowed spending, €184bn), let alone prosperity (€164bn, or €33,550 per person).

Critically, over-stated GDP gives dangerously false comfort about financial exposure. Aggregate debt, for instance, might be “only” about 320% of GDP, but equates to well over 600% of prosperity.

Worse still, Ireland’s financial sector is grossly over-large in relation even to GDP, let alone prosperity. The most recent available numbers (for the end of 2016) put financial assets at 1750% of GDP, but this equates now to a frightening 3200% or so of prosperity.

Far from deleveraging after the disaster of 2007-08, both debt and financial assets are a lot bigger now than they were on the eve of the global financial crisis (GFC I) – in inflation-adjusted terms, debt has virtually doubled (+95%) since 2007, and financial assets have expanded by about 60%.

Moreover, the markets might know about the “leprechaun” factor in Irish GDP, but seem not – yet – to have applied the logic of that knowledge to the critical measures of national financial risk. On the assumption that the authorities in Dublin do know quite how dangerous Irish financial exposure really is, they have every incentive to strive for a form of “Brexit” which minimises economic and financial damage.

France has different, but equally compelling, reasons for intervening, and would have a lot more negotiating clout to bring to the table. As we’ve seen, there has been widespread unrest in France, unrest whose causes can be traced to deteriorating prosperity. Though personal prosperity as a whole is only about €1,650 (5.8%) lower now than it was ten years ago, the slump in discretionary (‘left-in-your-pocket’) prosperity has been leveraged to 32% by a near-€2,000 increase in the burden of taxation per person.

This has put Mr Macron’s government in an unenviable position. Neither the fiscal carrots offered by the president, nor the law enforcement sticks planned by his government, can address the fundamental issue, which is that a substantial majority of the population supports the grievances (if not necessarily the methods) of the ‘gilets jaunes’.

This seems to mean that Mr Macron can forget about his cherished labour market “reforms”, and further suggests that, unless something pretty dramatic happens, he can probably forget about re-election as well. The last thing his government needs right now is the economic harm likely to be inflicted on France by a bungled “Brexit”. It would be far, far better for the president to act in a conspicuously statesmanlike way to break the impasse.

In this situation, it’s unrealistic to expect Britain to resolve this issue unaided by Europe. If, as most observers believe, Mrs May’s deal is going to be shot down by parliament, neither of the remaining options looks palatable. Both those who support a “no deal” exit, and those who’d like to ignore (or re-run) the “Brexit” vote, are playing with fire. But neither can we expect the Brussels side of the talks to have a last minute conversion either to humility or to pragmatism.

In short, there are compelling reasons for European governments – led by France and Ireland – to enforce a rationality seemingly absent, on this issue, in Brussels.

#134: An extremity of risk

A SEEDS VIEW OF THE IRISH ECONOMY

Last year, GDP per capita in the Republic of Ireland was €62,560, far higher than in Germany (€39,450) or the Netherlands (€42,820), let alone France (€35,310).

If you find this rather hard to take seriously, you’re right. And, whilst you’re in disbelief mode, you should forget any idea that Ireland has made a spectacular recovery since the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC I), or that the country is less at risk now than it was back then. Likewise, you might note that Ireland is at even greater risk from a mishandled “Brexit” than is Britain herself (though you’d never guess this from watching the course of the negotiations).

Let’s clear the decks by getting the official numbers out of the way first. In 2017, Ireland reported GDP of €296 billion, up 50% since 2007 (€197bn at 2017 values). The per capita equivalent for last year was €62,560, a real-terms improvement of 41% over a decade.

At the end of last year, debt totalled €938bn (or a hefty 317% of GDP) – lower than in 2016 (€1,021bn) but still €449bn (92%) higher than it was in 2007, on the eve of the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC I). Financial assets (a key measure of the size of a country’s banking system) totalled 1751% of GDP at the end of 2016, but might be down to about 1500% – or €4.4tn – now. The latter compares with €3.44tn in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available.

Even on a reported basis, there are some negatives here. Quantitatively, both debt and financial assets are a lot bigger now than they were when GFC I struck. Neither a debt ratio of 317% of GDP, nor banking exposure anywhere near 1500%, is remotely comfortable. The saving grace, of course, is GDP, and the robust pace at which it seems to be growing.

Put simply, we can be moderately relaxed about Ireland if – but only if – we accept recorded GDP as an accurate reflection of economic output and prosperity, which are the criteria which really determine the ability of an economy to carry any given level of debt or banking exposure.

Exposing the reality

Unfortunately, official GDP isn’t a meaningful reflection of either. According to SEEDS, GDP (of €296bn) seriously overstates real economic output (€193bn), and is dramatically higher than prosperity (just €173bn).

Obviously, such a drastic overstatement of output means that reported rates of growth are correspondingly meaningless. More seriously, it disguises exposure ratios that are drastically worse than official numbers which, even in themselves, are risky enough. For instance, debt may be ‘only’ 317% of GDP, but equates to about 544% of prosperity. More seriously still, financial assets rise from an estimated 1493% of GDP to 2560% of prosperity, a number which, as well as being truly scary – and unmatched by any other significant economy – means that Ireland has bloated banking exposure from which seemingly there can be no escape.

Put bluntly, Ireland is one setback away from disaster – just as both Britain and her European partners are in the process of crystallising “Brexit” risk……

Seeing through the numbers

How, then, can GDP so drastically misrepresent Ireland’s economic output, her prosperity and her resilience in the event of a shock?

There are three main explanations for the divergence between Irish GDP and the country’s prosperity, as the latter is calculated by SEEDS.

First, the basis on which Ireland calculates GDP was changed in 2015, creating single-year growth of more than 25%, and helping to push reported GDP per capita to levels which are, frankly, ludicrous.

Second, and in keeping with the widespread practice of “credit adventurism”, Ireland has pushed huge amounts of debt into the system, boosting recorded activity in ways which are wholly a function of an unsustainable expansion in credit.

Third – and particularly seriously where Ireland is concerned – reported GDP takes no account of the trend energy cost of energy (ECoE), a trend whose exponential rate of increase has already put Western prosperity growth into reverse.

Leprechauns and lenders

Back in 2015, Ireland adopted a new method for incorporating into GDP the activities of the multinational corporations which form such a big component of the Irish economy. Reflecting this, real GDP (expressed at 2017 values) increased by 25.5%, or €53bn, in a single year, from €208bn in 2014 to €261bn in 2015.

Dubbed “leprechaun economics” by Paul Krugman, this methodological change remains controversial. It is seldom noted that, reflecting this change, the €53bn increase in GDP was accompanied by a much bigger (€204bn) rise in debt, with PNFC (private non-financial corporate) indebtedness actually increasing by €242bn in a year in which both government and households were deleveraging.

A side-effect of “leprechaun economics” was a small decrease in the ratio of debt-to-GDP, which happened because reported GDP grew by slightly more (25.4%) than the increase in debt (24.2%). When debt expands by this much – and when almost €4 of debt is added for each €1 of claimed “growth” – it is clear, beyond a doubt, that any apparent fall in this widely-watched ratio has to amount to a mathematical quirk.

“Leprechaun economics” aside, the reported increase of 50% in GDP between 2007 and 2017 equated to incremental activity of €99bn, a number dwarfed by the €449bn (92%) escalation in debt over the same period.

Borrowing just over €4.50 for each €1 of “growth” is not a particularly outlandish number by the standards of Western economies (though it remains a lot higher than a global average of 3.3:1). Even so, it is clear that, in addition to helpful statistical restatement, Ireland has boosted GDP through a process of spending very large amounts of borrowed money.

This process of credit-created “growth” did not start in 2007, of course. In the seven years preceding GFC I, growth (at 2017 values) of €62bn (46%) in Irish GDP was accompanied by an expansion in debt of €267bn (120%), meaning that Ireland was already habituated to borrowing well over €4 for each incremental euro of “growth”.

According to SEEDS, GDP in 2007 (of €197bn) already materially overstated ‘clean’ (credit-adjusted) output of €181bn. By 2017, the gap had widened to the point where reported GDP (of €296bn) overstated clean output (€193bn) by more than 50%.

And this is even before we take the all-important matter of energy trends into account.

The energy dimension

As regular readers will know, the central working premise of surplus energy economics is that, ultimately, the economy is an energy system, not a financial one – money and credit are simply claims on the output of the energy-driven economy.

Rather than the absolute quantity of energy available, the really critical issue is how much of any energy accessed is consumed in the access process. Put simply, the higher this cost is, the less energy that remains for all purposes other than the supply of energy itself.

Globally, ECoE – the energy cost of energy – is on an exponentially rising trend, having climbed from 4% in 2000 to 5.4% in 2007 (just before GFC I) and 7.7% last year. Across developed economies as a group, ECoE has already risen to levels high enough to put previous growth in prosperity into reverse.

This, ultimately, is why these economies have adopted credit and monetary adventurism in an ultimately futile attempt to maintain a semblance of ‘growth as usual’.

Ireland is more affected than most by the relentless escalation in ECoEs, mainly because of the paucity of indigenous energy resources. Last year, consumption of energy totalled 16.8 million tonnes of oil equivalent, but production was just 3.6 mmtoe, forcing Ireland to rely on imports for almost 80% of her primary energy needs. All of Ireland’s petroleum and gas requirements are imported, making the country particularly exposed both to rising world ECoEs and to energy supply risk.

According to SEEDS, Ireland’s ECoE as long ago as 2000 (4.8%) was already higher than the global average (4.0%). By 2007, this differential had widened, to 6.7% versus a global 5.4%. Today, Ireland’s trend ECoE is put at 11.2%, far higher than a world average of 8.0%.

In other words, the gap keeps getting worse.

Levels of ECoE above 10% make growth in prosperity almost impossible, and Ireland’s high ECoEs are already having a swingeing impact on prosperity. Deducting 2017 ECoE (of 10.7%) from clean GDP of €193bn leaves aggregate prosperity at just €173bn. This number is barely (2%) higher than it was in 2007, but population numbers increased by 6.4% between those years.

This means that prosperity per person last year was €36,510, nowhere remotely near reported GDP per capita of €62,560. Irish prosperity actually peaked in 2005, at €38,780, and it is a sobering thought that debt per capita is 134% (€114,000) higher now (at €198,440 per person) than it was back then (€84,830).

The extremity of risk

What we have seen is that the Irish economy is an extreme, amplified version of adverse trends observable across most of the developed economies. For over a decade, high and rising energy costs have been driving prosperity downwards – indeed, Ireland is fortunate that the post-peak fall in prosperity has been just 5.9%, rather than the 10.8% decline experienced by Britain, or the 12.3% fall suffered by Italy. At the same time, debt has soared.

Quite aside from the “leprechaun” recalibration of GDP, this relentless weakening in prosperity has been masked from reported numbers by the infusion of huge amounts of credit-funded activity into the Irish economy. Since prosperity hit its peak in 2005, aggregate debt has expanded from €356bn to €938bn, and only in the last two years has there been evidence of meaningful efforts at deleveraging. How far these efforts can continue – with prosperity deteriorating at rates of between 0.6% and 0.8% annually – has to be conjectural.

It is only when prosperity (rather than increasingly meaningless GDP) is used as the denominator that the full magnitude of Ireland’s financial risk becomes apparent. Debt of €938bn might be ‘only’ 317% of GDP, but it is 544% of prosperity. More disturbingly still, banking exposure, as measured by financial assets, now stands at an estimated (and truly frightening) 2560% of prosperity.

With a per-capita share of debt of more than €198,000 – and with prosperity continuing to erode – the very last thing that Irish citizens need now is a “Brexit” process mishandled by British vacillation and European posturing.