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from Edward Hadas:

For growth, focus first on jobs

In the labour market, there is a fine line between inefficiency and wastefulness. “This place is so inefficient,” it is said, often with justification, especially in rich economies. “We could do everything we’re supposed to with a third fewer people.” Factories can be streamlined, high quality new equipment can save on labour, and offices are prone to the incubation of worthless bureaucracy.

It also said, sometimes by the same people, that “The unemployment situation is terrible. My young friends can’t get jobs and lots of not-so-old people I know are retiring early.” Such statements are also accurate. In many countries, the Lesser Depression has sharply worsened a longstanding problem of inadequate job creation. Spain’s official unemployment rate is 24 percent. Almost half of the young adults in Greece are jobless. And the employed portion of the working age population in the United States has fallen by three percentage points over the last four years.

Politicians and other leaders have watched the job destruction with something like horror. They shouldn’t have been surprised. The unending fight against inefficiency leads to a natural employment asymmetry. As technology advances, businesses and governments usually find it easier to cut than to add jobs. Some businesses can progressively expand headcount, but in tough times there are more employers looking for ways to use less labour.

Most politicians and economists believe that GDP growth is the cure. It is considered not only the highest economic good but also the best way to create jobs. In search of higher output, governments run huge deficits, while central banks pass out money for free. The policymakers often invoke the name of John Maynard Keynes. But they twist the great economist’s ideas. As Pavlina Tcherneva points out in a recent article in the Review of Social Economy, Keynes thought “the real problem” governments should address during the Great Depression was “to provide employment for everyone”. In Keynes’s view, output follows jobs, not the other way around.

Keynes’s own preferred solution was for governments to organise projects with a high “elasticity of employment”. “There are things to be done; there are men to do them,” he said. “Why not put the two together? Why not put the men to work?” The best way for governments to create jobs quickly is still to hire people directly. A look at the dilapidated infrastructure of the United States suggests that Keynes’ prescription is still relevant.

Enthusiasts for small government might want to privatise such programmes, but they should still agree with the true Keynesian principle: it is better to pay people to work than to pay them not to. Programmes which protect the unemployed and disabled serve a valuable social purpose and payments for early retirement may be defensible, but programmes which create jobs are far preferable to either.

This Keynesian message has largely been lost in the current official policy mix, which aims at growth and hopes for jobs. Policies which support the financial system, put money in consumers’ hands and cut bloated government bureaucracies may eventually encourage job creation. Four years into the Lesser Depression, however, these highly indirect methods are at best working slowly.

from Global Investing:

Three snapshots for Tuesday

The euro zone just avoided recession in the first quarter of 2012 but the region's debt crisis sapped the life out of the French and Italian economies and widened a split with paymaster Germany.

Click here for an interactive map showing which European Union countries are in recession.

The technology sector has been leading the way in the S&P 500 in performance terms so far this year with energy stocks at the bottom of the list. Since the start of this quarter financials have seen the largest reverse in performance.

from Global Investing:

Trading the new normal in India

After a ghastly 2011, Indian stock markets have't done too badly this year despite the almost constant stream of bad news from India. They are up 12 percent, slightly outperforming other emerging markets, thanks to  fairly cheap valuations (by India's normally expensive standards)  and hopes the central bank might cut rates. But foreign  inflows, running at $3 billion a month in the first quarter, have tapered off and the underlying mood is pessimistic. Above all, the worry is how much will India's once turbo-charged economy slow? With the government seemingly in policy stupor, growth is likely to fall under 7 percent this year. News today added to the gloom -- exports fell in March for the first time since the 2009 global crisis.

So how are fund managers to play India now? According to David Cornell, who runs an India portfolio at specialist investor Ocean Dial, they must simply get used to the "new normal" -- subpar growth and high cost of capital. In this shift, Cornell points out, return on assets in India has fallen from a peak of almost 14 percent in 2007 to less than 10 percent now. While that is still higher than the broader emerging asset class, the advantage has dwindled to less than 1 percent as companies suffer from margin compression and falling turnover. Check out these two graphs from Ocean Dial:

Cornell is playing the new normal by focusing on three sectors -- consumer goods, banks and pharmaceuticals. These companies, he says, have pricing power and structural barriers to entry (banks); provide access to still-buoyant demand for services such as mobile phones (consumer goods) and are well-run and profitable (pharmaceuticals). And the export-oriented pharma sector is also an effective hedge against the weakening rupee.

If cost of capital is high, you want to avoid leverage, you want to be in banks which have pricing power. In pharmaceuticals you have 20 percent earnings growth and transparent accounting. In an uncertain environment these sectors should perform well. (Cornell says)

from Breakingviews:

The rupee looks vulnerable

By Jeff Glekin The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. India’s ballooning trade deficit means it has to run just to stand still. Without steady capital inflows, the currency will collapse. But without a steady currency, it is hard to attract foreign capital. The rupee’s 19 percent fall against the dollar over the past year is worrying.

During most of the last decade, the current account deficit has been funded without great difficulty. Foreign direct investment, portfolio investments and about $60 billion a year of remittances have usually exceeded the shortfall in trade. India has accumulated around $300 billion of foreign currency reserves, equivalent to 17 percent of GDP.

But the annual trade gap has widened from $104 billion to $185 billion. At 3.7 percent of GDP, the current account deficit is the highest since 1980, when the International Monetary Fund starting collecting data. High energy prices are the main culprit for the recent deterioration - oil accounts for two-thirds of the country’s import bill. Of course, the blow would have been less painful if India had a stronger export sector.

The support of foreign investors is more necessary than ever, but New Delhi’s mismanagement has discouraged them. Foreigners bought an average of $3 billion dollars a month of Indian debt and equities in the first three months of 2012, according to the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s website. So far in April, they have been net sellers of $403 million.

The currency’s fall threatens to create a negative spiral. More expensive imports are inflationary and put pressure on corporate profits. Government subsidies of domestic fuel prices become more costly, adding to the fiscal deficit, which swelled to 5.9 percent of GDP in the fiscal year that ended in March. Furthermore, the rupee’s slide creates financial stress for Indian companies that have borrowed in dollars.

India’s currency reserves provide a buffer. But if capital flows turn sharply negative the reserves could melt away quickly. And if investors start to believe that the rupee is a one-way downwards bet, they will race for the exit. Predictions of a declining currency - UBS suggested a further 6 percent fall last week - could prove self-fulfilling.

from MacroScope:

Blame small government for U.S. GDP downer

Weak U.S. economic growth in the first quarter was driven in part by a pullback in business investment -- but a sharp decline in government spending also played a role. Gross domestic product grew 2.2 percent, well short of the Reuters consensus forecast of 2.5 percent. Business spending fell 2.1 percent while government expenditures saw a 3 percent drop linked to lower defense spending. Consumer spending proved a bright spot in the report, climbing 2.9 percent. Still, there is concern that this too could fade because an unusually warm winter may have brought some spending forward.

Jay Feldman at Credit Suisse breaks down the numbers:

The big downside surprise from our vantage point was in federal government spending, which contracted 5.6% in the quarter (we expected an increase given the firmer readings in monthly Treasury data). Most of the shortfall was concentrated in defense (-8.1%). Combined with the ongoing contraction in state and local government output (-1.2%), the government sector overall shaved 0.6 percentage point from top line GDP.

Yet this pales in comparison to what might happen if Congress fails to break a budget logjam by the end of this year. If left unaddressed, the resulting spending cuts and expiring tax breaks -- the dreaded fiscal cliff -- could easily tip the world’s largest economy back into recession.

from Global Investing:

Three snapshots for Friday

The U.S. economy expanded at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the first quarter, slightly weaker than expected.  Consumer spending which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, increased at a 2.9 percent rate - contributing two percentage points to the overall growth rate.

Sell in May and go away? Here are the average numbers for the MSCI world equity index:

More awful economic numbers from the euro zone, Spanish unemployment hit 24.4% in Q1 2012 with youth unemployment rising to 52%.

from MacroScope:

UK recession in charts

Britain's economy slid into its second recession since the financial crisis after official data unexpectedly showed a fall in output in the first three months of 2012:

Starting real GDP at 100 in 2003 for the UK, U.S. and euro zone shows UK GDP flat since mid-2010 and well below the 2007 peak.

Survey data had been suggesting a stronger GDP number and perhaps points to upwards revisions to come.

As this chart shows past revisions have been substantial.

from MacroScope:

Never mind the pain, feel the austerity

Austerity in the euro zone seems to be working -- at least as far as the headline,  dry, soulless numbers of  budget balancing are concerned. Bailed out  Greece and Ireland have reported substantial improvements in last year's profligacy performance.  Spain, while going in the wrong direction, at least has the satisfaction of being told it is not telling fibs.

We will get to the smoke and mirrors in a bit.

First Greece, the euro zone's poster child for budget ill-discipline. The 2011 budget deficit to GDP ratio  -- basically the annual overspend -- came in at 9.1 percent. This may seem like a lot given the EU target is 3 percent, but it was down from 10.3 percent  a year earlier and from 15.6 percent the year before that. Furthermore, if you take out all the debt repayments costs that Athens has to make , you end up with only 2.4 percent (although in truth that is like pretending you don't have a mortgage).

In Ireland, the craic was all about trouncing expectations. The deficit to GDP ratio for 2011 came in at 9.4 percent, which compared with an original 10.6 percent target and even a revised target just last December of 10.  1 percent. Everything is on track, Dublin reckons, to meet this year's 8.6 percent.

Now, those not wanting their party pooped, please look away.

The official figures suggest that Greece's improvement is almost entirely down to increased revenues. Government spending as a percentage of GDP last year was 50.1 percent, barely changed from a year early and only a tad down from 2008. And this comes after a number of years of painful austerity that has helped keep Greece in recession for more than four years -- it is into its fifth now, staring at a 4.8 percent 2012 contraction -- and that has pushed more than a fifth of the country out of work. Greece's debt (ie accumulated deficits)  as a proportion of GDP last year was 42.3 percentage points higher than in 2008.

Ireland, in the meantime, was enjoying its deficit improvement (still the worst in the euro zone) by finessing away one-off capitalisations into its banks that were worth some 3.7 percent of GDP.  Including those and some others, the deficit last year was  13.1 percent. This comes after Ireland has made budgetary adjustments totalling 25.4 billion euros since 2008 -- the  equivalent to 16 percent of it 2011 GDP -- and has had to hike taxes and cut spending by 8.6 billion euros between 2013 and 2015, i.e. another 5 percent of GDP. It is back in recession and seeing its exports hit by the troubles is main trading partners in the European Union are having.

from Edward Hadas:

Why “suzhi” should go global

What’s the goal of development? A standard answer is higher gross domestic product. A few specialists prefer to talk about building capabilities. I have another idea: development should be about suzhi, a Chinese word usually translated as quality.

China has been worrying about development for a long time. Reformers in the 19th century wrestled with how to overcome the people’s backwardness without losing what was truly great and distinctive about the Middle Kingdom. They saw that development, as it’s now called, involved a major reworking of culture and society. It encompassed the economy, education, law, politics, the military, the arts and medicine.

Today’s international community has adopted a much narrower understanding. Leaders of poor countries and experts in the field pay often think of development as being centred on economic growth. Social and cultural changes are treated as little more than tools to help increase GDP.

A more sophisticated alternative is the “capabilities approach”. Amartya Sen, a philosophically minded economist, argues that the poor countries should develop whatever capabilities are needed for their residents to be free. His idea of freedom is multifaceted: it includes freedom from starvation, premature mortality, illiteracy, political disenfranchisement and censorship.

But the capabilities approach has some flaws. First, it assumes that the final goal of development is an individualistic, secular and democratic welfare state, as found in Europe and the United States.

That’s presumptuous; there could be other ways to be civilised in the modern world. Second, the emphasis on freedom misses the fact that it often takes a bit of coercion to overcome ignorance, superstition and squalor. Finally, it leaves no place to go once all of those capabilities have been reached.

That’s where Suzhi comes in, a word made up from characters meaning ’essential’ and ’nature’. Encompassing wealth, health, education, sophistication and nobility of character, it has become a key concept in Chinese discussions about society.

from MacroScope:

Biggest indicator of the week: China GDP

It wasn’t very long ago that economic numbers out of Asia would barely register a blip on Wall Street’s radar screen. That’s not the case anymore. Commerzbank touts Chinese gross domestic product figures due out on Friday as the most important gauge of global economic health following last week’s disappointing U.S. employment report.

Writes economist Jörg Krämer in a research note:

China’s economy has continued to slow into 2012 largely on the back of deliberate policy measures. We expect growth of 8% year-on-year in Q1, down from 8.9% in the final quarter of 2011 (consensus 8.3%), which is consistent with our call for full-year growth of 7.5% in 2012.

Fixed investment in particular has slowed recently, to its weakest year-on-year rate since 2002 and will be the primary driver of the slowdown in GDP growth. Net exports also deteriorated in the quarter, with China recording a very large trade deficit of US$31bn in February.

A report on Tuesday offered some reason for optimism. China returned to an export-led trade surplus of $5.35 billion in March, suggesting a rebound in the global economy may be lifting overseas orders just in time to compensate for a slowdown in domestic demand.