The whole world is on Viagra

Last night I heard a story about a friend who looks after his 91 year old grandfather. My friend has a dilemma that even though his grandfather's health is failing because his advanced years, he continues to live the lifestyle of someone younger and more spry. In fact on more than one occasion he has found his dear old grandpa passed out in various areas of the house from overdoses of Viagra.

The global economy is experiencing a similar circumstance.

With US port traffic down...

Retail sales down...


imports and exports are down...


There is little sign of virility to the economic situation. Yet the global markets stay excited over the prospects of a turnaround in the face of this information. Why?

Artificial stimulation from bailouts and stimulus plans, of course.

Only $230B of the $787B US stimulus package has been spent to date. But US is far along ($700B) with the housing market stimulus executed with the 1.25T allocation to purchase agency debt. The US is also stimulating the housing market with $500B in purchases of securitized mortgage debt in the open market at exaggerated prices. Without this support, mortgage rates would rise and provide an additional disincentive for the anemic rate of home sales.

There are auto purchasing incentive programs in the US, South Korea, China, and Brazil. The U.S. , the last to adopt an auto purchase incentive program, "Cars for Clunkers" program has been expended from $1B to $3B in funding. The government rebate will be used in an estimated 500,000 car transactions this year in the US. It has been shown before that such stimulus only pulls forward future purchases. Maybe this time will be different...

In the U.K. the government continues to use quantitative easing to support the yield curve and keep mortgage rates down. The U.K. recently extended their quantitive easing program by authorizing another $50B in funds to attempt artificially depress interest rates.

China also is in the process of executing a $586B spending package to maintain economic growth. But this pales in comparison to the loose monetary policy underwritten by the Chinese government. In the first half of 2009, over a $1T in loans has been made, a 1000% increase over the previous year.

The overall stimulus in China has been massive. “They opted for a very quick fix,” said Stephen Roach, an economist and chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia. “Surging investment, fueled by the most rapid bank lending in history, accounted for nearly 90 percent of China’s G.D.P. growth in the first half of this year. And that is worrisome.”

Overall, with Japan, France, Germany, China and soon the US reporting Q3 growth and no top line growth across the whole bunch, it looks like ailing economy is dependent on special pills to stay in the game. Let's hope we don't over exert ourselves in the process.