Anatole Kaletsky

This is a critical week for the world economy and financial markets, especially in the United States. Friday’s U.S. employment report will signal either a renewal of the economic recovery or, much more likely, will confirm that the economy is sinking into another seasonal “soft patch” for the fourth time in four years. Despite this risk, stock prices on Wall Street are at record highs, suggesting that equity investors see this slowdown as nothing more than a temporary obstruction on the way to a sustained recovery, just as in the summers of 2010, 2011 and 2012. So should we prepare for more anxiety about a double-dip recession, or can we feel confident that this summer will be followed by an autumn of strong recovery, as in the past four years?

I had an excellent vantage point this week from which to assess this question: the global conference of the Milken Institute in California, which brings together 1,000 business executives, politicians and financiers in a U.S. equivalent of the Davos economic forum, transplanted to the warmer and even plusher surroundings of Beverly Hills. Clearly, there was anxiety about the flagging recovery and the self-inflected damage caused by January’s payroll tax hike and the unplanned cuts to public spending caused by the sequestration process. But there was also a palpable resurgence of optimism about America’s long term prospects: the opportunities created by 3 billion new global consumers; the U.S. track record of innovation and enterprise; the magnetism of U.S. universities for global talent; the promise of energy independence; the transformational opportunities from “big data” and robotics; the prospect of liberalized immigration policies; and, encompassing many of these issues, a sense that the hyperpartisan warfare in Washington over healthcare, taxes and public spending had reached a point of exhaustion. Both sides, it seems, might be ready for a ceasefire, if not yet a lasting peace.

A surprising highlight of the conference was an amiable hour-long discussion between two of the most partisan antagonists in Washington’s political dramas ‑ Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Eric Cantor of Virginia, the ultra-conservative leader of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. This ended with both politicians agreeing that there might be scope for a deal on the U.S. budget and thanking the Milken Institute for bringing them to California so they could talk to each other constructively in a way that simply isn’t possible in Washington. Similar sentiments came from leaders of both parties, ranging from Tennessee Republican Senator Bob Corker’s appreciation that “President Obama has put himself to the right of the House Republicans on entitlement reform” to Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, saying that “so many people have become intolerant of hyperpartisanship – this is an even bigger issue for voters now than unemployment.”

If U.S. politics is edging away from internecine warfare, this has big implications for the world economy ‑ not all of them positive. The good news is policy predictability and stability. Even the staunchest conservatives, such as Cantor, have accepted that Obama’s main legislative achievements will not be reversed. They are learning to live with healthcare reform (now generally by its official name, the Affordable Care Act, instead of the contemptuous “Obamacare,” even by Cantor). They are embracing immigration reform, and some are even calling for greater government activism in areas such as education and healthcare research.

At the same time, Democrats have sobered up after their electoral celebrations and are realizing they may have to accept some long-term reductions in health and pension entitlements if they want to defend the discretionary spending priorities they hold dear: welfare, education, infrastructure investment and so on. As Peter Orszag, President Obama’s former budget director, noted, “I tell my friends on the left [of the Democratic Party] that there is a concern in the country about deficit reduction that they can’t ignore – it’s like an itch and it is going to get scratched. So if you don’t do entitlement reform in the long term, you will do too much on discretionary spending in 2013 and that is the most dangerous kind of deficit reduction.”

The U.S. fiscal cliff was dodged in pretty much the way that seemed most likely after November’s election: a bipartisan deal in which pragmatic Republicans, no longer focused on ending the presidency of Barack Obama, joined moderate Democrats to prevent economic sabotage by extremists from both ends of the political spectrum. On Wall Street, the immediate reaction was euphoria. But among mainstream economists and political commentators in Washington, it was cynicism.

While stock markets around the world approached their highest levels since the 2008 financial crisis, media headlines emphasized grim forebodings: Fresh stand-off looms after US cliff deal (Financial Times); Budget deal passes, debt ceiling looms (Wall Street Journal); Deal done but threats remain (Washington Post); Bigger showdowns loom after fiscal cliff deal (Reuters); House backs tax deal as next fight looms (Bloomberg).

Investors’ initial reactions are often misguided, especially to complex political events, but this time the markets will probably be proved right, and the pundits wrong. This week’s deal marked a genuine, and most likely sustainable, breakthrough for reasons of both politics and economics.

Who’s afraid of the fiscal cliff? Even as protests in Spain and Greece revive jitters in the euro zone, global businesses and investors have discovered a new political horror, this time in the U.S. The fear now in world markets is not so much about November’s election, but about the automatic tax hikes and public spending cuts that Ben Bernanke has dubbed the “fiscal cliff.” These fiscal changes, which come into force on Dec. 31 unless Congress passes new legislation, will tighten fiscal policy by some 4 percent of GDP, comparable to the austerity programs in Spain, Italy and Britain.

Given what fiscal austerity has done to Europe, the worries are understandable, but everyone should calm down. A drastic fiscal tightening is almost inconceivable after the election, because politics, economics and markets interact in Europe and America in opposite ways.

Let’s start with economic policy. The warnings from the Federal Reserve to U.S. politicians as the fiscal deadline approaches are all against allowing the legislated tax increases and spending cuts to take effect. Thus the Fed is giving politicians advice that is opposite that of the European Central Bank and the Bank of England.