MacroScope is pleased to post the following from guest blogger James Carrick.  Carrick is economist at UK fund firm Legal & General Investment Management. He says here old patterns of lending are unlikely to return and that this means slow growth in developed countries.

“Despite £175 billion of quantitative easing, bank lending in the UK remains weak, threatening to restrain the economic recovery and equity market rally. 

Policy makers in the developed world have been working overtime to encourage banks to lend at the ‘normal’ levels experienced during the past decade. However, these “normal” levels are no longer realistic. The factors which contributed to the secular rise in debt over the past decade are now reversing. Populations are ageing, interest rates can’t go any lower and sub-prime lending is over.

As a result, higher levels of savings (where consumers pay down debt) and lower spending will weigh on the pace of the recovery.

This is not to predict a double-dip recession. Instead we are probably in store for a more subdued period of growth next year as households can no longer borrow money they don’t have, and unemployment remains high.

On the flip-side, while consumers in the developed world are still suffering a hangover from the credit-crunch, the debt party in many emerging economies is still in full swing.

This suggests that companies with exposure to the developing world will fare better.”

David Bowers, the one-time Merrill Lynch strategist who now co-drives consultancy Absolute Strategy Research, reckons policymakers and financial analysts have got it wrong about the credit crunch. It is not a consumer event, he says, it is a corporate one.

As evidence, Bowers’ ASR notes that of the roughly 4 percent decline in U.S. economic growth this year, around 85 percent can be attributed to a decline in the capex and inventory contribution. A similar picture can be found in the euro zone — where some  60 percent of a near 5 percent decline is from corporate. There is less of a case in Japan, but at roughly 40 percent of a more than 6 percent decline it is still a sizeabe chunk.

Bowers believes this huge decline is going to force companies to resume output because there will be shortages.  On the one hand, this will lead to improved corporate cash flows, narrrowing credit spreads. On the other a combination of inventory shortages, supply chain bottlenecks and base effects suggest to ASR that inflation is on the way.

 ”Get set for a ‘bear flattening’ in U.S. yield curve with two-year Treasuries most at risk,” ASR says.

Five things to think about this week:

CENTRAL BANKERS IN A HOLE
-- The global economy and financial system appear on the road to recovery but that is in large part due to unprecedented official stimulus that will have to be withdrawn at some point - the questions investors want answered are when, and how.  Central bankers no longer appear to be quite as shoulder to shoulder with one another on coordinated policy as they were last year in the aftermath of Lehman's collapse.
 

CHINA STOCK WATCHING
--  It is August, liquidity has dried up with the summer holiday season in full swing, and investors are palpably more cautious about the economic outlook now than they have been for months. It is against this backdrop that that the Chinese stock market is emerging as the focal point and driver of all other asset markets. The Shanghai Composite technically slipped into bear market territory earlier last week, shedding 20 percent in the two weeks from Aug. 4 to Aug. 19 on profit taking from the 90 percent surge this year. There is no major Chinese economic data scheduled for release this week, leaving thin markets at the whim of sentiment in what is a notoriously volatile stock market.
 

GROWTH FOUNDATIONS
-- The United States, Britain and Germany unveil revised estimates of Q2 economic growth. Revised GDP figures rarely garner much attention but with initial estimates from Germany, France and Japan earlier this month all showing that these countries exited recession in the last quarter, investors will be looking for further evidence the world economy has turned the corner. The hard data is stronger now than it has been for some time but is the global economy building a solid base for recovery, or is it more likely to buckle were authorities to begin withdrawing the massive fiscal and monetary stimulus?
 

ABNORMALLY NORMAL MONEY MARKETS
-- A veil of normality continues to cloak interbank money markets, with Libor at record lows and some closely-watched measures of money market health like Libor/OIS spreads and the TED spread almost back to levels seen before August, 2007. But that is only thanks to authorities' liquidity injections, guarantees and asset purchases worth trillions.  Banks have hoovered up this free or ultra-cheap money but still are not feeding it into the real economy, with lending to business and households still patchy at best. Euro zone M3 money supply figures for July are expected to show another slowdown in the rate of growth, to 3.3 percent on the year from 3.5 percent in June.
 
SAFE AS HOUSES?
-- Figures will show how the U.S. housing market, the epicentre of the global financial crisis, is faring four and a half years on from its peak. The Case/Shiller house price index is expected to show the annual pace of price declines slowed again in June, fuelling the belief that the market has bottomed.  But the number of foreclosures is high as the U.S. labour market remains weak, and the national housing market stock remains high by historical standards. Economists say there will be no sustainable recovery of the financial system and economy without a durable recovery in the US housing market.

It’s starting to look like the Summer of Love. Two reasons: The recovery is taking on a L-U-V shape globally, and it’s going to require huge amounts of love and nurturing to keep growth alive.

• L stands for Europe, where slowness to confront deep damage and write down the remaining $500 billion odd in bad bank debt, mean rebuilding will be protracted and painful.
• The United States sports a U, bouncing along bottom right. But its financial giants swallowed harsh medicine early and the U.S. has the flexibility to stage an impressive rebound, if not undone by a fast-rising jobless rate at 9.5 percent and heavily indebted consumers.
• V stands for Asia (ex Japan), the surprise region showing resiliency, thanks to its rapid Q4/Q1 inventory workdown and huge infrastructure spend by China.

Like the Summer of Love 41 years ago, it is a drug-fueled affair. G20 governments are peddling $820 billion in stimulus this year, equivalent to 2 percent of GDP. Central bankers are spending even more. The Fed has doubled its balance sheet to $2.04 trillion the past 12 months.

These actions might have cushioned a severe cyclical downturn but the structural adjustment to a world of costlier credit is only just beginning.

Will politicians and central bankers have the wisdom or the stomach to keep the drug supply going long enough to prevent L-U-V from turning into an ugly W?

Nouriel Roubini is a bearish guy at the best of times, but he is currently worried that signs of those “green shoots” of economic recovery are covering up something altogether more stubborn in the garden.

Recent data suggest that the rate of contraction in the world economy may be slowing. But hopes that “green shoots” of recovery may be springing up have been dashed by plenty of yellow weeds.

His point, in a new post on his much-followed blog, is that the consensus view that the global economy has or will soon bottom out has already been proven too optimistic.

Employment, retail sales, industrial production, and housing in the United States remain very weak; Europe’s first quarter GDP growth data is dismal; Japan’s economy is still comatose; and even China – which is recovering – has very weak exports.

Like most economic prognostications at the moment, it will take some time to see if the Stern School of Business economist is right. In the meantime, the shoots and weeds are prevalent.

Today, we had a smallerFrench trade deficit, two indexes of Japanese indicators rising , an improved Australian business mood and slowing UK house price falls.

But there was also a resumed slide in German exports, a bleak forecast for Swiss growth, and slowing UK shop spending.

As the nursery rhyme goes: Mary, Mary, how does your garden grow?

Five things to think about this week:

EYE ON CENTRAL BANKS
-  Investors will be on the lookout for any further signals on quantitative easing when the European Central Bank and the Bank of England announce their decisions on Thursday. Analysts see the ECB leaving rates on hold but pushing ahead with and possibly extending a plan to buy up to 60 billion euros in covered bonds. The focus will also be on growth forecasts for the next year and the message they send about the pace of any recovery.

COMMODITIES SUPERCYCLE, CYCLICAL SURGE
- Oil prices are nearly double their four-year low set in December and the Baltic Dry Index, which tracks rates to ship dry commodities, has risen more than 300 percent since the start of the year. Coupled with a weakening dollar, investors might be bracing for the return of the supercycle in commodities. The resultant inflationary pressures could push investors away from government bonds and into the arms of equities.

EMERGING DISCONNECT
- High-yielding emerging market currencies remain weak, weighed down by poor domestic growth prospects even as emerging equities rise along with their developed market peers, buoyed by hopes of a global economic recovery. The disconnect is likely to persist with governments, particularly in emerging Europe, looking likely to lower interest rates further.

IN SEARCH OF MORE POSITIVE DATA
- Green shoots have been popping up at an encouraging rate, with consumer confidence and home sales data in the United States, and improved Euro zone economic sentiment being the latest signs that a downturn may not be as steep as many originally feared. The week provides more key tests for this hypothesis: U.S. non-farm payrolls, core personal consumption expenditure, factory orders and ISM data.

TREASURY YIELDS
- A sharp rise in Treasury yields driven by worries over a record U.S. budget deficit has pushed the yield curve to its steepest on record, and Treasuries yielded more than euro zone government bonds for the first time in seven months. While surging yields could threaten the equities rally as businesses and consumers fret about increased borrowing costs, auctions attracted strong buying from foreign central banks, putting a floor under the dollar.

(Reuters photo: Laszlo Balogh)

It's official: Japan's economy shrivelled at a record pace in the first quarter.

Needless to say the 4.0 percent contraction in GDP (an annual rate of 15.2 percent, if you speak American) from January to March was not pretty -- especially when you see that the pain has spread from Japan's big autos and tech factories to the broader economy.

Much has been written about Japan's heavy dependence on exports from its powerful manufacturers and how the slide in orders from the United States and Europe has forced factories to curb output, lay off staff and slash capital investment.

But that GDP figure is looking backwards to a time we know was bleak for the economy.

Just as the West is looking for signs of "green shoots" of new growth to see if the worst is over, so Japan is looking to see if its economy is now starting to sprout cherry blossoms -- the traditional sign of spring in this part of the world.

The good news is that companies are starting to see a tentative pick-up in sales.

A senior executive of Konica Minolta, which makes key parts for LCD TVs as well as its brand name photocopiers, says his firm hit bottom in January and has seen some recovery since then. But he adds it is not really clear yet whether this is sustainable.

The recovery seen in recent months, Shoei Yamana says, is due to companies replenishing their stocks after running them down in a hurry when business turned south late last year.

The real recovery will only come when final-buyer demand for Japan's cars, TVs and other machinery returns.

"We have not really seen any strength in end-user demand for large-screen TVs in Europe and the United States. If panel makers turn bullish and start flooding the market again, the industry might have to go right back to the inventory adjustment phase," Shoei Yamana told the Reuters Global Technology Summit in Tokyo.

How well government stimulus efforts in China, Europe, the United States and so on succeed in getting consumers to shop will play a key role here in the short term.

Longer term, Japan's ageing consumers are unlikely to ramp up spending unless unemployment falls and wages start rising again.

That suggests the fate of Japan, the world's No.2 economy, will remain in the hands of Toyota, Panasonic and other big exporters for quite a bit longer to come.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Toru Hanai; Graphic credit: REUTERS/Catherine Trevethan

In much the same way that analysts have been debating whether equities are in a bear market rally or a new bull market, economists now have to deal with the question of whether the global economy is just bottoming out or is now actually recovering. The two things are obviously linked as BlackRock equities chief Bob Doll indicated when he said this week that equity markets will require the economic backdrop to actually improve rather than simply grow less bad if rises are to be sustained.

The less-dreadful-than-feared syndrome has been around for some time. U.S. markets, for example, found themselves cheering the loss of  539,000 jobs in April simply because its was the smallest since October and looked to be an improvement.

But talk of green shoots, a somewhat overused euphemism for the start of economic revival, has also been on the increase: European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet spoke on Monday about the pick-up in GDP evident in certain areas; China said its efforts to boost growth were working; and a lot of institutional investors are acting as if the worst is over.

So, bottoming out or on the way up?  Comments below please.

(Reuters photo: Danish Ishmail)

Some more bits and bobs to capture the current mood among investors:

-- Some stock indexes have started to fall below their 2008 lows, meaning the turn-of-the-year rally has petered out. Dead cat bounce?

-- Analysts are becoming increasingly downbeat about corporate earnings. Seven of the 10 sectors in the S&P 500 are looking at a year-on-year decline in earnings, according to Thomson Reuters proprietary research. That's the highest number of sectors in negative territory since Q4 2001.

-- UBS economists have sharply revised down estimates for 2009 growth in Japan, China, much of the rest of Asia, and the euro zone. They now expect world GDP to grow a paltry 0.4 percent this year.

-- Politicians are getting more irate about bankers. Franz Muentefering, head of Germany's Social Democrats, says: "Most (of them) are hard working and responsible. But there are also louts, pyromaniacs and gangsters."

America caught a cold and now China has one too. 

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Monday that the Fund could cut its forecast for China's economic growth in 2009 to around  5 percent. To think that only last year China was galloping at a double-digit clip. It's staggering, and it's worrying.

Worrying, for one thing, because  - as the Heritage Foundation's Derek Scissors puts it - "the American economic slump is running into the Chinese economic slump, creating the conditions for a face-off between Beijing and the U.S. Congress, possibly leading to destabilization of the world's most important bilateral economic relationship". 

He argues that the new U.S. administration, confronted with a record-breaking bilateral deficit and soaring unemployment, could impose prohibitive tariffs or erect other barriers to Chinese goods. The EU, Japan and others would then be permitted by WTO rules to raise barriers against a diversion of Chinese goods to protect their markets, and "some form of Chinese retaliation is certain".

"If intemperate, such retaliation will prompt further action by the U.S. and perhaps other countries, threatening the global nature of the trading system," Scissors concludes.

Michael Pettis, a professor of finance at Peking University, blogged on the same theme last month, warning that Smoot Hawley, the notorious U.S. tariff act that contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s, could return in a different guise.

Pettis says that while everyone is watching to see if Washington re-enacts new versions of Smoot-Hawley, the real threat may come from current-account-surplus countries which seek to support their export sectors.  There are indeed signs that China is looking to export its way back to vigorous growth through subsidies, raising import tariffs and perhaps currency depreciation (see the grumbling from France's Anne-Marie Idrac only yesterday on the yuan). 

The bitter lesson from the 1930s is that not all countries can export their way back to economic health at the same time. And if they try, there will be a fight.