MacroScope

Michael Pettis, a professor and China expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has put together a thorough and informative look at all things U.S.-China trade. It’s well worth reading and watching the entire thing, but here’s a few highlights that jump out:

* We’re likely to see a significant increase in global trade tensions

* China will probably allow the renminbi currency to rise, but not by a lot

* There is a way to resolve those huge global imbalances but it will be painful and the chances of mustering the political will — in China, the United States and Europe — look slim.

A bit more on that last point: Pettis thinks that those three players need to “come to some kind of grand agreement.”

“China needs to recognize that the trade surpluses it needs to absorb its excess capacity are politically unacceptable in countries suffering from high unemployment.

“Europe and the United States need to understand that China simply can’t adjust quickly enough. In an ideal world, the leadership of the three economies would get together and work out a plan—six years, eight years, however long it took—in which China committed to taking the necessary steps. 

So how was it for you?

Chancellor Alistair Darling threw the dice in his pre-budget report in an attempt to bolster Labour's chances of winning the general election in 2010.

From hitting bankers with a one-off bonus tax to lowering bingo duty, Darling played to the Labour heartlands, while hoping to win back voters who have been telling pollsters that they are done with Gordon Brown.

Other measures included the return of full value added tax in January, a 2.5 percent rise in the basic state pension, a 1.5 percent increase in child benefit, as well as help for small businesses and various initiatives to boost the government’s green credentials.

It may not get as much attention as the monthly employment report or GDP figures, but the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s gauge of the national economy has a good track record of distinguishing economic expansions from recessions. And it’s suggesting that the U.S. recovery may be wobbling.

Over at the econbrowser blog, economist James Hamilton points us to a recent research paper that examines how accurate the various economic indicators are at telling us when the economy is growing or contracting. The Chicago Fed’s national index was one of the best. And Monday’s report shows it faded in October.

Not only that, but its three-month moving average fell to -0.91 in October from -0.67 in September, declining for the first time in 2009. That drop was especially significant because the Chicago Fed says a move below -0.70 in the three-month moving average following a period of economic expansion indicates an increasing likelihood that a recession has begun.

BELLA VISTA, Arkansas – For a man who has had his salary cut 10 percent and now has to work hard to make it to his next paycheck, Denny Robertson is in a philosophical frame of mind.

“I have had to learn to live with less. But I have shelter and I have food, so I have everything I need," he said. "It’s uncomfortable to run out of money before the next paycheck, but we’ll get by.

Robertson, 34, is a product engineer at tool maker Kennametal Inc. at a facility in nearby Rogers. Facing the longest and deepest recession since the 1930s, earlier this year the company laid off some staff locally and – in a bid to preserve jobs – gave others one week of furlough, or unpaid leave, every month.

Talk about a disconnect.

Experts say U.S. economic growth has returned, signaling the end of the longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression.

But the good news for Wall Street -- where shares have been running up -- is showing no signs of trickling down to Main Street, where unemployment is flirting with 10 percent, foreclosures continue to rise and record numbers of families now depend on government-issued food stamps to make ends meet.

"For every person out of work, for every family facing foreclosure, for every small business facing a credit crunch, the recession remains alive and acute," U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in testimony to a congressional committee.

The latest Blue Chip survey of economists is out this morning, and there’s general agreement on one point: the longest recession since the Great Depression is about to end, if it hasn’t already. Some 87 percent of the economists surveyed thought the National Bureau of Economic Research will eventually declare the recession ended prior to the end of September.

What happens next is up for debate. The survey found that about 16 percent expect a strong V-shaped recovery. An equal percentage expects a W-shaped double-dip recession. Most economists — about 65 percent — were lumped in the middle, looking for a long, slow U-shaped recovery.

They also seem to think that last Friday’s jobs report, which showed the jobless rate dipped for the first time in 15 months, was just a head-fake. The consensus view is that unemployment peaks at 10.2 percent, compared with the current level of 9.4 percent, and nearly half thought that level would be reached in the first quarter of 2010.

If the Hollands Wood campsite in the New Forest, near England’s south coast is anything to go by, the recession really is altering the holidaymaking habits of the British public.

On the often rain-sodden site three Porches, a couple of Jaguars and numerous BMWs and Mercedes were spotted among the more typical, Skodas and Ford Mondeos usually associated with roughing it under canvas.

Unlike for the same period last year, the campsite was solidly booked out, despite no sign of the barbecue summer the weathermen promised.

Fears of the swine flu are rising and some doomsayers compare the pandemic with the Spanish flu outbreak in 1918, which infected a quarter or even half of the world’s population and claimed more than 40 million lives– or 2 percent of the then 2 billion global population.

However, French bank BNP Paribas says comparisons with the Spanish flu seem excessively pessimistic and the damage to annual global GDP growth this time would be around 1-2 percentage points.

It does warn however that a severe pandemic could cause a second year of global recession in 2010.

MacroScope is pleased to post the following from guest blogger Julian Chillingworth. Chillingworth is chief investment officer of UK investor Rathbones. He questions here whether Britain will face a second downturn shortly after struggling out of recession.

Are we likely to witness a two-tier recession in the UK?  Perhaps not a recession but certainly a secondary downturn. A vast number of people have enjoyed lower mortgage payments and a level of job security, but will this last?

The UK is in somewhat of a unique position in so far as it faces a regime change, with some obvious ramifications for policy.  However, whoever takes the seat (most likely the Tories) must still cut back public expenditure and raise taxation, both within the context of high unemployment.

May’s U.S. trade figures have economists feeling quite a bit better about second-quarter GDP. The surprising strength in exports should provide a big lift.

JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli thinks trade may contribute almost 2 percentage points to second-quarter growth, and he adjusted his Q2 GDP forecast to a  much-less-dire decline at a 0.5 percent annual rate from his earlier view of -2.0 percent. Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius is also looking at a less-ugly Q2.

“Absent significant downside surprises in either retail sales or business inventory data next week, this report suggests that our standing estimate for real GDP in Q2 — down 3 percent at an annual rate — is too negative,” he wrote in a note to clients.