The Great Debate UK

“Always a borrower, never a lender be”

-Laurence Copeland is professor of finance at Cardiff University Business School. The opinions expressed are his own and do not constitute investment advice. -

The first chapter of the Eurozone crisis story has ended as expected, with the Germans (and Dutch and Austrians) left to foot the bill, repeating the pattern we have seen in the last couple of years, at the micro and macro level: savers bailing out borrowers, the solvent rescuing the insolvent, the responsible minority rescuing the feckless majority from the consequences of their irresponsibility. No wonder banks don’t want to lend and firms don’t want to invest.

Apart from the injustice, the really damaging aspect is the message it sends out loud and clear about the way modern Western democracies operate. The younger generation will be noting the lesson — even if David Willetts, the Minister for Universities, is not — that those who work and save must bear the burden of carrying those who do neither, because nowadays the welfare state operates at all levels: personal, national, global.

The choice is, as they say, a no-brainer.  Shakespeare’s Polonius needs updating: “Always a borrower, never a lender be”.

This state of affairs is not something sudden, but rather the culmination of at least half a century of evolution, as the dynamics of democracy led us from a society based on the principle that nobody should be disadvantaged by accident of birth or chance, which was agreed in all Western countries by the end of World War Two, to the current consensus that nobody should be disadvantaged by indolence or fecklessness.

With its corrosive and cumulative effect on the will to work and save, it is a philosophy which local governments could never have afforded to embrace –- so they had to be bankrolled by central government. Now that central governments in turn are going bankrupt under the burden, they are left to scour the world for a sugar-daddy willing to bail them out, like a struggling Premier League football club looking for a billionaire with money to burn.

from The Great Debate:

China can outgrow overcapacity, at least for now

-- Wei Gu is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are her own --

China watchers are worried that excessive lending leads to massive overcapacity. However, the risk of Beijing pressing too hard on the brake is even greater. At least for now, China should be able to growing its way out of its bad debt problems.

Banking regulator Liu Mingkang recently told a conference that China's banks should lend out 6-7 trillion yuan next year, equivalent to about one fifth of China's annual output. Some think that is too much. However, these fears are overdone. Indeed, if new lending falls below 10 trillion yuan, bad debts will soar, private investment will be crowded out and the economic recovery may be derailed.

Since the stock of loans has been enlarged by this year's explosive credit growth, the regulator's target represents  a 15 percent increase in China's loan base. This is in line with past trends, but marks a sharp slowdown from this year's 30 percent growth in total loans.

Just to keep funding current ongoing projects, the economy would need 8.3 trillion yuan in new loans in 2010, according to Nomura estimates. So the current goal implies that here would be no money left for new projects, and some current projects will not receive funding.

Setting the credit growth target too low will make it hard for new borrowers, because banks naturally want to keep funding current projects. That puts private sector borrowers, who are expected to invest more next year following strong government investment this year, at a disadvantage.

What's more, if the banks sense the government might tighten lending targets next year, they are likely to lend as much as possible at the start of the year. This will increase the volatility of credit.

from Ask...:

Money, money everywhere …except in your pocket?

There's lots of money sloshing around the financial system these days. The Federal Reserve has established a target range of 0-0.25 percent for its key rate, bringing it closer to unconventional action to lift the economy out of a year-long recession.

From Washington, the first package aimed at rescuing the credit crisis-hit banking sector amounted to $700 billion. Treasury can use only half of that amount and it has already pledged all but $15 billion of it. The Senate has refused to pass a $14 billion rescue package for Detroit's three major car companies last week, leaving it in the hands of the Bush administration to work out a deal.

So far, the names that are on the receiving end of all the cash -- AIG, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and if a deal can be made, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler -- are all very big companies.

The Fed's latest move could help funnel some cash to the ordinary folks at the helm of the economic ship. What do you think, will any of the money flooding the financial system reach smaller companies or other borrowers? If you're an individual looking for more cash, are you having trouble and do you think help is on the way?