By Michael Every of Rabobank
Pressing the point
We just sat through a set of Chinese press conferences from the PBOC, the Ministry of Finance (on a Saturday, mind you!), then other departments, each of which had been sold in as ‘The Big One’ that would unleash the fiscal bazooka on markets so stocks and commodities –and global supply-side inflation– soar. Well, four stops into this sequence what we are being shown is still more peashooter. Today, it was again about trading in old appliances for new. Over the weekend, it was about offering new ways to mop up around 0.2% of the supply of unwanted and unfinished homes, and perhaps 1% of the underlying capital issues at Chinese banks. (This is all very back of an envelope: but then again, so are the press conferences, it seems.
Markets are still clinging to the belief that, in the end, China *has* to go large on fiscal stimulus for consumers -which the weak inflation data out over the weekend will have encouraged them in doing- despite Beijing’s clear ideological aversion to the idea of welfarism or consumerism. Indeed, the same people aren’t reading the recent headlines about China taking away passports from schoolteachers and other civil servants (“Bullish! More money to spend at home!”) and cracking down on anyone reading books with the wrong ideology or ideas. (“Just like being at a Western university.”)
Markets might also notice that today China launched Operation Joint Sword B around the air and waters of Taiwan. Joint Sword A had declared: “The drills focus on joint sea-air combat-readiness patrol, joint seizure of comprehensive battlefield control.” Joint Sword B says it is for “joint sea-air combat readiness patrol, the blockade and control of key ports and areas, and strikes on sea and land targets.”
Meanwhile, the market is sighing that the end of Yom Kippur didn’t see the immediate launch of an Israeli counterstrike against Iran. Yet war rumbles on between Israel and Hamas; and Hezbollah, who just landed a suicide drone on an Israeli army base, a threat Ukraine had previously offered help with yet were snubbed due to fears this might anger President Putin – I doubt that taboo now holds; and the Houthis; and Iran-backed militias in Iraq; and with the US dispatching a THAAD missile defense system to Israel to supplement its defence systems, the odds are it’s when, not if, Israel hits Iran hard. What happens next is anyone’s guess.
The key point is not necessarily the direct risk of Israel hitting Iranian oil in a way that pushes prices up globally: i) it can blow up their refineries to force them to import oil, smashing their economy instead; and (ii) there are still Chinese and US petroleum reserves for these kinds of occasions. No, the key is rather to note that Iran has made it clear via various proxies that anyone helping Israel in any way (i.e., via their airspace) risks their oil being attacked by it. As I already pointed out, not only is this the fattest of tail risks for everyone globally, but it makes an absolute mockery of the BRICS+ ‘friendship’ between Iran and Saudi/the UAE that the usual crowd who don’t know the region have been salivating over for months.
Elsewhere, North Korea is doing provocative things near the border with South Korea, but will have to try much, much harder to get anyone’s attention. Perhaps by sending troops to fight for Russia, as some are alleging as well? Quick, let’s sanction North Korea! Oh…
Russia raised its wheat export tax; and Jayati Ghosh of the University of Massachusetts released a G-20 paper on ‘Possible Strategies for Enhancing Food Security’ which backs having the food equivalent of strategic petroleum reserves -which China already does- and reducing capital market speculation in agri commodities – which China already does. This is big picture stuff but suffice to say it’s about as neoliberal as me, which is appropriate given recent years have shown, as was always the case historically, that food can be weaponised geopolitically. (and so can almost everything: paging those who still don’t see this!)
Meanwhile, Poland is fighting… Brussels, which wants to fine it for having an excessively large fiscal deficit driven by spending 5% of GDP on defence, when most of the EU thinks 0.5% is a realistic figure for the realistic part of the army (rather than the share spent on uniforms, pencils, pensions, and off-sites.) It’s good to see the EU has its target priorities right in these mad times. I love the smell the strategic autonomy in the morning: smells like victory – for someone anyway. I mean, where would we be if France was running a vast fiscal deficit without any Poland-style extra military spending?
In the US, the market is starting to wake up to what those parsing the data were seeing for some time: that, just perhaps, not only is Trump on the path to winning, but he may take the House and Senate too. Of course, anything can change between now and 5 November. But that certainly includes markets who thought reading 528.com or quoting Nate Silver tweets counted as doing a deep dive into a subject of staggering importance to all asset classes.
On which note, Trump is still offering out tax breaks like Oprah: no tax on tips; or social security; or overtime; and auto loans would also be tax deductible. Moreover, he’s just spoken of tariffs of up to 1,000% -clearly rhetoric, not real policy- and his desire to keep the US dollar as the global reserve currency, and big and strong, which runs the other way from high tariffs unless Trump is going full mercantilist – which would shatter the global system as constituted.
We also had Elon Musk perform marvels with SpaceX rockets and launch the version of household robots which Hollywood -and Karol Čapek- envisioned: how does he find the time with all those tweets? What could that all mean for markets? What does it mean for wars? What does it mean for mankind?! But, hey, why focus on things like that when we are living in such peaceful, uneventful times: isn’t there a rate cut somewhere we can focus on instead?!
And the answer is, yes, there will be another 25bps cut from the ECB this week. China, Iran, Russia, North Korea, and the US are sweating at the geopolitical implications of it.
