Protectionists play with fire as the dollar wobbles
How China creates American jobs
Could the increasingly protectionist instincts of US politicians destabilise the dollar?
There are certainly some ugly pointers, starting with the United Arab Emirates' decision to switch 10 per cent of its reserves out of the dollar in response to the US rejection of Dubai Ports World as a potential owner of American ports. This is peanuts in the currency markets but, if others in the Middle East followed suit, it could look different. Then there is the question of what China might do in response to the Schumer/ Graham draft bill in the US senate to impose a 27.5 per cent tariff on Chinese imports. Coming from a country with a current account deficit running at more than $70bn (￡40bn) a month, this looks a lunatic shot in the foot.
Yet I find it hard to believe that we are about to see a dollar collapse and an over-abrupt adjustment of global imbalances. Oil producers have to find a home for their surpluses. They may like the idea of turning the euro into a petrocurrency but the euro and eurozone bond market cannot compete on liquidity with dollar markets.
Much the same point applies to the holders of Asian official reserves. Unless they are prepared to adopt a very different approach to economic management and exchange rate policy, they need the accommodation provided by the US deficit - accommodation that would not be afforded by the eurozone.
That is not the only sense in which the US is sitting pretty despite its huge external indebtedness. Looked at from a balance of payments capital account perspective, it is a cross between a commercial bank, a private equity investor and a hedge fund.
Back in the 1970s, during the petrodollar recycling episode, the US operated primarily as a bank lender, borrowing short in its own currency and lending long. In the 1980s, as it changed from being an international creditor to a debtor, it invested more heavily in higher return assets such as foreign direct investment, like a private equity house.
More recently US investors have invested heavily in foreign equities, including the emerging markets, along hedge fund lines.
The result is that, while the US leverages up with low-cost borrowing from liquidity and security-conscious Eurasian lenders, it invests growing amounts in higher yielding foreign assets. It also earns much more on its FDI than foreigners do on FDI in the US. So, despite being a net debtor, the US generates a big income surplus.
In a forthcoming paper for Lombard Street Research, Brian Reading argues that the US has not fallen into the widely predicted debt trap largely because its net income has been growing so much faster than net debt. Here is part of the explanation for the dollar's failure to collapse despite the burgeoning current account deficit.
Mr Reading also makes an important point about China's $800bn foreign exchange reserves. The US currently earns a 10.5 per cent return on its foreign direct investment and pays 3.5 per cent on government borrowing. It is thus making a 7 percentage point turn of more than $50bn, equivalent to half a per cent of US gross domestic product, on recycling Chinese reserves. In effect, it is running a surrogate offshore banking system for China, whose onshore banks are pretty primitive.
This has created a welter of financial services jobs in the US as manufacturing shrinks. Protectionists on Capitol Hill please note.
“敲打中国”──却敲响美元丧钟？
美国政客们日趋严重的保护主义本能，是否会破坏美元汇率的稳定？
在这方面肯定有一些不祥的迹象。首先：阿拉伯联合酋长国决定将10%的外汇储备换成其它货币，以此回应美国抵制迪拜港口世界公司(Dubai Ports World)成为美国港口的潜在所有者。这笔数目在外汇市场微不足道，但如果其它中东国家也开始效仿，情况可能就会有所不同。此外，美国参议员查尔斯?舒默(Charles Schumer)和林塞?格雷厄姆(Lindsey Graham)起草了一项法案，提议对中国进口商品征收27.5%的关税，中国对此会做何反应呢？对于美国这样每月经常账户赤字逾700亿美元的国家，这种做法就像是搬起石头砸自己的脚。
然而，我难以相信美元汇率将会暴跌，也难以相信全球失衡会出现过于突然的调整。产油国必须为自己的盈余寻找去处。它们也许喜欢把欧元变成一种“石油货币”(petrocurrency)的主意，但就流动性而言，欧元和欧元区债券市场都无法与美元市场相提并论。
同样道理也适用于亚洲各国的官方储备。除非它们准备采用一种大不相同的经济管理方式和汇率政策，否则就需要美国赤字提供的调节功能――这种调节是欧元区无力提供的。
这并非美国尽管面临巨额外债，却仍占尽风光的唯一原因。从国际收支平衡资本账户的角度来看，美国是商业银行、私人股本投资者和对冲基金的混合体。
追溯到20世纪70年代，在石油美元的循环时期，美国主要扮演银行贷方的角色，以本币借入短期借款，并发放长期贷款。20世纪80年代，随着美国从国际债权国变为债务国，它更偏重于投资那些回报率较高的资产，如外国直接投资(FDI)，好像一家私人股本公司。
近年来，美国投资者遵循对冲基金的思路，大举投资包括新兴市场在内的外国股市。
其结果是，美国一边从流动性和安全意识较强的欧、亚贷方低成本借入资金，一边加大在收益率较高的外国资产上的投资。同时，美国对外直接投资的所得，要远远高于其它国家在美直接投资的所得。因此，尽管是一个净债务国，美国仍能产生巨额收入盈余。
在即将发表于《朗伯德街研究》(Lombard Street Research)的一篇论文里，布赖恩?里丁(Brian Reading)主张，美国没有像许多人预料的那样落入债务陷阱之中，因为美国净收入增长速度一直远高于净债务增速。这在一定程度上也可以解释，在美国经常账户赤字迅速扩大的情况下，美元始终没有崩盘。
里丁还就中国的8000亿美元外汇储备提出了一个重要观点。美国目前在外国直接投资方面的回报率为10.5%，而在政府借贷上仅支付3.5%的成本。这样，通过再循环中国的外汇储备，美国就能获得7%的回报，总额超过500亿美元，相当于美国国内生产总值(GDP)的0.5%。从实际效应上说，美国在为中国运行一个代理离岸银行系统。中国的在岸银行体系还比较落后。
在美国制造业萎缩之际，上述状况在美国金融服务业创造了大量工作机会。对此，美国国会的贸易保护主义者应给予注意。
