Month: January 2016

Satyajit Das Tells Us What is Really Happening in China

satyajit das

 

Dear Reader

This is the third and the concluding part of the interview with economic commentator and globally bestselling author Satyajit Das.

Das is an internationally respected commentator on financial markets and economics He is credited with predicting the current financial crisis. He has also featured 2010 Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job.

In this interview I speak to Das around his new book The Age of Stagnation—Why Perpetual Growth is Unattainable and the Global Economy is in Peril. Like his earlier books, Traders, Guns and Money and Extreme Money, this book is also a terrific read and a must for anyone who seriously wants to understand how things haven’t really changed in the aftermath of the financial crisis, and why the future continues to remain bleak.

In the third and the final part of this interview, Das talks about China and tells us what is really happening in there. He also tells us that “No one wants to believe that stagnation or collapse are the only two likely options”.

Happy Reading!
Vivek Kaul

On page 65 of your new book The Age of Stagnation you write: “Half of the investment in China since 2009 has been ineffective”. What makes you say that?

China’s growth especially after 2008/2009 was driven by a massive debt fund investment boom. A good proportion of this investment can be classified as ‘mal investment’; that is, revenues projects where revenues will be insufficient to cover the borrowing or generate adequate financial returns.

The bulk of investment has been by SOEs[state-owned enterprises] in government-backed infrastructure projects – the tiegong­ji (meaning “iron rooster”), a homonym for the Chinese words for rail, roads and airports. The Ministry for railways is planning investments of around $300 billion, adding 20,000 kilometres (“Kms”) of rail track to the existing network of 80,000 Kms. China’s rail network will become the second-longest in the world behind the US, overtaking India.

China is also having a love affair with the superfast train. Undeterred by accidents and the high cost, further expansion of the high speed rail network is under way. A new service between the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen travels at 380 kilometres per hour (KPH) nearly halving the travel time to 35 minutes. CSR Corp, China’s biggest train maker, has plans for a super train capable of 500 KPH.

What else is it doing?

China is constructing around 12,000 Kms of new expressways at a cost of over $100 billion. China road network of over 60,000 Kms of high-speed roads is only slightly less than the 75,000 Kms in the US. China is planning to expand the high-speed road network to 180,000 Kms even though China has only around 40 million passenger vehicles compared to 230 million in the US.

There is a spate of new airports and expansions of capacity at existing facilities. Jiaxing in eastern Zhejiang province is converting a military landing strip into a commercial airport at a cost of around $50 million. The town is only one hour’s drive on brand new expressways from three of China’s busiest international airports in Shanghai and Hangzhou. There are also plans for a high-speed rail line connecting Shanghai and Hangzhou.

In Hunan, local authorities tore down portions of a modern flyway and used the stimulus funding to rebuild it. Stories of ghost cities, such as the empty newly-built city of Ordos, Zhengzhou New District, Dantu and the orange area to the north-east of the Xinyang, abound. There are ghost shopping malls in many cities.

Could you tell us more?

Based on estimates from electricity meter readings, there are more than 60 million empty apartments and houses in urban areas of China. Many of the properties were purchased by people speculating on rising property prices.

The projects have driven a sharp rise in demand for materials like steel and concrete. China now produces more steel than the next eight largest producers combined. China now produces more cement than the rest of the world. But this over-investment in non-productive, low return projects will ultimately reduce growth.

For the rest of the world, the investment boom fed demand for commodities and machinery in the short run. Ultimately, it will create problems in two ways: firstly, many companies globally have over-invested in capacity based on anticipated Chinese demand that may not eventuate; and second, dumping of Chinese overcapacity on global markets will feed disinflationary pressures.

In your chapter on Brics you write that it would take decades for China to absorb the excess capacity that it has created over the years. Can you elaborate a little on that?

Sino-philes attribute the excess capacity to the collapse of global demand. They assume that global demand will rebound strongly increasing the returns from these investments.

Sino-philes also argue that the investments in infrastructure will produce long term economic benefits and returns from increased productivity. They point to the fact that few investment programs of social infrastructure are profitable. They point to the mid-19th century boom in investment in railways in Western countries, which generated economic benefits, but few made an adequate financial return with many going bankrupt. They also argue that China lacks necessary infrastructure.

 So what is the real issue?

The real issue is whether the specific projects are appropriate. China has six of the world’s ten longest bridges and the world’s fastest train. But 40% of villages lack paved road providing access to the nearest market town. High-speed rail lines in China may increase social return, improving the quality of life for the average Chinese if they are wealthy enough to afford to use them. But the financial return on capital invested in these projects will be low.

While many of these large projects are appealing to politicians and demagogues proclaiming superiority of Chinese technical proficiency, investment in improving ordinary train lines, rural roads, safety and more flexible pricing structures may have yielded higher economic benefits.

There are several concerns now about this economic model.

And which are?

First, analysts, such as Pivot Capital Management, argue that the efficiency of Chinese investment has fallen. One measure is the incremental capital-output ratio (“ICOR”), calculated as annual investment divided by the annual increase in GDP. China’s ICOR has more than doubled since the 1980s and 1990s, reflecting the marginal nature of new investment. Harvard University’s Dwight Perkins of Harvard argues that China’s ICOR rose from 3.7 in the 1990s to 4.25 in the 2000s. Other researchers suggest that it now takes around $6-8 of debt to create $1 of Chinese GDP, up from around $1-2 around 20 years ago. In the US, it took $4-5 debt to create $1 of GDP just before the GFC. This is consistent with declining investment returns.

Second, increased level of debt and the often uneconomic projects financed has led to increasing concern as to whether the debt can be serviced.

How much is that an issue?

A 2012 Bank of International Settlements (“BIS”) research paper on national debt servicing ratios (“DSR”) found that a measure above 20-25% frequently indicated heightened risk of a financial crisis. Analysts estimate that China’s DSR may be around 30% of GDP (around 11% goes to interest payment and the rest to repaying principal), which is dangerously high.

The debt problems are compounded by other factors. A large portion of the debt is secured over land and property, whose values are dependent on the continued supply of credit and strong economic growth.

A high proportion of debt is short term, with around 50% of loans being for 1 year, requiring refinancing at the start of each year. As few Chinese borrowers have sufficient operating cash flow to repay loans, new borrowings are needed to service old ones.

Around one-third of new debt is used to repay or extend the maturity of existing debt. With a significant proportion of new debt needed to merely repay existing debt the amount of borrowing needs to constantly increase to maintain economic growth.

China observers now worry about whether the high absolute levels of debt, rapid increases in borrowing, increasing credit intensity, servicing problems and the quality or value of underlying collateral are likely to result in a financial and economic crisis – a Minsky Moment.

On slightly different note what do you see the impact of the depreciation of the Chinese yuan on global growth?

Most nations now have adopted a similar set of policies to deal with problems of low economic growth, unemployment and overhangs of high levels of government and consumer debt. In a shift to economic isolationism, all nations want to maximise their share of limited economic growth and shift the burden of financial adjustment onto others. Manipulation of currencies as well as overt and covert trade restrictions, procurement policies favouring national suppliers, preferential financing and industry assistance policies are part of this process.

A weaker currency boosts exports, driven by cheaper prices. Stronger export led growth and lower unemployment assists in reducing trade and budget deficits.

With Europe and Japan still actively trying to weaken their currencies and the US owing its recovery in part to this policy, China will be forced to join the global currency wars.

And what are the Chinese hoping here?

First, they will be hoping that it will provide a needed boost to slowing growth through exports.

Second, it will help with the policy of internal rebalancing away from investment to consumption by offsetting the loss of competitiveness through higher wage costs.

But there are risks. Retaliation in the form of competitive QE programs and intervention is possible. In addition, China risks triggering higher inflation and also uncontrolled capital flight which would expose its financial system vulnerabilities. The country’s foreign currency reserves (already down some US$700 billion to around US$3,300 billion) would fall sharply, reducing its financial flexibility.

You seem to remain unconvinced about the world having come out of the aftermath of the financial crisis and you write that a risk of a sudden collapse is ever-present. Why do you say that?

There are three possible scenarios.

In the first, the strategies in place lead to a strong recovery. The US leads the way. Europe improves as the required internal transfers and rebalancing takes place with Germany accepting debt mutualisation to preserve the Euro. Abe-nomics revives the Japanese economy. China makes a successful transition from debt financed investment to consumption. A financial crisis in China from the real-estate bubble, stock price falls and massive industrial overcapacity is avoided. Other emerging economies stabilise and recover as overdue structural reforms are made. Growth and rising inflation reduce the debt burden. Monetary policy is normalised gradually. Higher tax revenues improve government finances. There is even strong international policy co-ordination, avoiding destructive economic wars between nations.

Oh that is clearly a lot to expect…

Such an outcome is unlikely. The fact that current policies have not led to a recovery after 6 years suggests that they are ineffective.

The second scenario is a managed depression, a Japan like prolonged stagnation.

Economic growth remains weak and volatile. Inflation remains low. Debt levels continue to remain high or rise. The problems become chronic requiring constant intervention in the form of fiscal stimulus and accommodative monetary policy, low rates and periodic QE programs to avoid deterioration.

Financial repression becomes a constant with nations transferring wealth from savers to borrowers to manage the economy. Competition for growth and markets drives beggar-thy-neighbour policies, resulting in slowdowns in trade and capital movements.

Authorities may be able to use policy instruments to maintain an uneasy equilibrium for a period of time. But it will prove unsustainable in the long run. Ultimately, a major correction will become unavoidable, as confidence in policy makers ability to control the situation diminishes.

And what is the final scenario?

The final scenario is the mother of all crashes. Financial system failures occur as a significant number of sovereigns, corporate and households are unable to service their debt. Defaults trigger problems in the banking system which leads to a major liquidity contraction, which in turn feeds back into real economic activity. Falls in employment, consumption and investment drive a severe contraction. The problems are global with developed and emerging markets affected.

The downturn is exacerbated by the limited capacity of policy makers to respond. Weakened public finances and policy options (QE and low rates) exhausted in fighting the last crisis limit the ability of governments to respond to a new crisis. Emerging markets are now unlikely to be a source of demand due to their problems. Geo-political stresses are higher than in 2007/ 2008.

Unsurprisingly, no one wants to believe that the stagnation or collapse are the only two likely options. Hubris, as humorist PJ O’Rourke noted is one of the great renewable resources.

Concluded…

The column originally appeared on the Vivek Kaul Diary on January 29, 2016

Why Indian E-commerce Is A Ponzi Scheme

flipkartIt is that time of the year when the business media is publishing the financial results of Indian ecommerce companies for the financial year 2014-2015(i.e. the period between April 1, 2014 and March 31, 2015). The numbers are being taken from the filings that the ecommerce companies have made with the Registrar of Companies(RoC).

And the results make for a very interesting reading. As can be seen from the accompanying table compiled from various media reports, the losses of the major ecommerce companies have gone up multiple times during the course of the year.

It needs to be stated here upfront that it is difficult to estimate the exact numbers of the ecommerce companies given that they have complex holding structures as regulations in India currently do not allow foreign direct investment in online retail, but allow it in case of an online marketplace.

chart

The combined losses of the five companies in the table stood at Rs 5524 crore in 2014-2015. In 2013-2014, the losses had stood at Rs 1338.1 crore. This is a jump of a whopping 313%. How does their combined revenue number look? In this case a direct comparison cannot be made given that the revenue numbers of Snapdeal for 2014-2015 are not available.

As a recent news-report in the Mint newspaper points out: “Snapdeal reported a loss of Rs.1,328.01 crore for the same year, compared with Rs.264.6 crore in the previous year, RoC documents show. It didn’t disclose revenue numbers.”

Hence, we will have to adjust for Snapdeal numbers before we compare revenue earned by the companies with their accumulated losses. The revenue for 2014-2015 for four companies other than Snapdeal stood at Rs 11,827 crore. The revenue for 2013-2014 for these four companies had stood at Rs 3,445.8 crore. This is a jump of 243% over the course of one year.

In the normal scheme of things a jump of 243% in revenue in one year would have been deemed to be fantastic, but the losses of these companies have gone up at a much faster rate. In 2013-2014, the losses of the four companies other than Snapdeal stood at Rs 1073.5 crore. In 2014-2015, the losses had jumped by a whopping 291% to Rs 4,196 crore.

Hence, a 243% jump in revenues has been accompanied by a 291% jump in losses. This analysis is skewed to some extent given the huge size of Flipkart in the sample. If we had known Snapdeal revenue numbers for 2014-2015, the results would have been more robust.

Nevertheless, even the small companies in the sample, show the same trend as the broad trend is. Take the case of Paytm. In 2013-2014, the company made a profit of Rs 5 crore on a revenue of Rs 210 crore. In 2014-2015, the revenue jumped to Rs 336 crore and the losses jumped to Rs 372 crore. Shopclues also showed a similar trend. The revenue of the company went up by 155% between 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, whereas the losses went up by 163%.

What sort of a business model is this—where the losses of a company go up at a faster rate than its revenue? The answer lies in the fact that the Indian ecommerce companies have adopted a discount model in order to lure customers. This means selling products at a loss in order to build a customer base.

This strategy of acquiring customers has been directly copy-pasted from what many American ecommerce companies did during the dotcom boom towards the turn of the century.  As Gary Smith writes in Standard Deviations—Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data and Other Ways to Lie With Statistics: “A dotcom company proved it was a player not by making money, but by spending money, preferably other people’s money…One rationale was to be the first-mover by getting big fast…The idea was that once people believe that your web site is the place to go to buy something, sell something, or learn something, you have a monopoly that can crush competition and reap profits.”

The major Indian ecommerce companies seem to be following a similar strategy of trying to build a monopoly by offering products on substantial discounts. The trouble with this strategy is that it needs a lot of money. Up until now, the Indian ecommerce companies have managed to survive because international hedge funds and private equity investors have made a beeline for investing in them.

With returns from financial securities all over the world drying up over the last few years, Indian ecommerce companies have offered an iota of hope. The trouble is that every reasonably big Indian ecommerce company with access to funding seems to be following the same strategy of offering discounts and wanting to build a monopoly. And once they are there, they hope to cash in.

Having said that, the current structure of the Indian ecommerce companies is akin to a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is essentially a financial fraud in which investment is solicited by offering very high returns. The investment of the first lot of investors is redeemed by using the money brought in by the second lot.

The investment of the second lot of investors is redeemed by using the money brought in by the third lot and so on.

The scheme continues up until the money being brought in by the new investors is greater than the money being redeemed to the old investors. The moment the money that needs to be redeemed becomes greater than the fresh money coming in, the scheme collapses.

How does this apply in case of Indian ecommerce companies? Up until now the companies have managed to survive because of investors bringing in fresh money into the scheme at regular intervals. It is worth mentioning here that every time investors bring in more money, they bring it in at a higher valuation.

This essentially means that the price at which shares of the company are sold to the investors are higher than they were the last time around. This increases the market capitalization of the company.

This increase in market capitalization comes about because the company has managed to increase its revenue. But as we have seen earlier in this column, this increase in revenue typically comes at the losses increasing at a much faster rate. I wonder why all these fancy investors do not take something as basic as this into account?

Having said that, as long as this money keeps coming in and is greater than the losses being accumulated by the ecommerce firms, these firms will keep running.

The moment this changes, the firms will start to shut-down. The structure of the Indian ecommerce companies is that of a classic Ponzi scheme. In fact, a news-report in The Economic Times suggests that FabFurnish, a furniture retailer, is likely to shutdown given that its German investor does not want to burn any more money to finance its losses.

The trouble is that everyone wants to be build a monopoly. But everyone cannot be a monopoly. As Smith writes in the context of the American dotcom bubble: “The problem is that, even if it is possible to monopolize something, there were thousands of dotcom companies and there isn’t room for thousands of monopolies. Of the thousands of companies trying to get big fast, very few can ever be monopolies.” While the word thousands does not really apply in the Indian case, the overall logic still remains the same i.e. everyone cannot be a monopoly.

This means that many of today’s fledging ecommerce companies will shutdown in the years to come as investors pull the plug. In fact, the companies with the deepest pockets are likely to survive. Meanwhile, dear reader, enjoy the discounts until they last.

(Vivek Kaul is the author of the Easy Money trilogy. He can be reached at [email protected])

The column originally appeared on SwarajyaMag on January 28, 2016

“The toxic effects of policies have now created conditions for a new financial crisis”

satyajit dasDear Reader

This is the second part of the interview with economic commentator and globally best-selling author Satyajit Das.

Das is an internationally respected commentator on financial markets and economics He is credited with predicting the current financial crisis. He has also featured 2010 Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job.

I would like to state here that I actually understood how financial derivatives caused a major part of the current financial crisis only after reading Extreme Money authored by Das. Until then my understand was shaky.

His first general book Traders, Guns and Money is a master class on derivatives, given that Das’s technical tomes on financial derivatives running into thousands of pages, remain a standard reference on Wall Street.

In this interview I speak to Das around his new book The Age of Stagnation—Why Perpetual Growth is Unattainable and the Global Economy is in Peril. Like his earlier books this book is also a terrific read and a must for anyone who seriously wants to understand how things haven’t really changed in the aftermath of the financial crisis, and why the future continues to remain bleak.

This is the second part of a three-part interview. The concluding part will appear tomorrow.

Happy Reading!
Vivek Kaul

 

Do you see all the debt that has been accumulated by governments over the years, ever being repaid? How do you see this playing out?

Interestingly, total public and private debt in major economies increased not decreased since 2008. The Table below sets out the changes in debt levels in the global economy:

Global Stock of Debt Outstanding

(US$ Trillion, Constant 2013 Exchange Rates)

 200020072014Compound Annual

Growth Rate (%)

Type of Debt   2000–20072007-2014
Household1933408.5%2.8%
Corporate2638565.7%5.9%
Government2233585.8%9.3%
Financial2037459.4%2.9%
Total Debt871421997.3%5.3%
Total Debt (as % of GDP)246%269%286%  

Source: Richard Dobbs, Susan Lund, Jonathan Woetzel and Mina Mutafchieva (2015) Debt and (not much) deleveraging, McKinsey Global Institute: 2

Total debt has continued to grow at a slower rate than before the GFC but remains well above the corresponding rate of economic growth. Higher public borrowing has largely offset debt reductions by businesses and households.

Could you tell us a little more about that?

Between 2007 and 2014, the ratio of public sector debt to GDP in advanced economies increased by 35 percent of GDP, compared to an increase of 3 percent between 2000 and 2007. The increase in government debt reflected the effects of the GFC. It was designed to support the financial system. Government spending sought to boost demand and growth. The increase in debt predictably was highest in the worst affected countries, such as the UK, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.

Given slow growth, low inflation rates and the balance between tax revenues and expenditure and inflation rates, government debt to GDP ratios are forecast to rise for the foreseeable future in the US, Japan and many European countries. In many countries, government debt has reached levels which are unsustainable. It is unclear how these highly indebted economies will reduce the level of government debt.

Why do you say that?

Debt can only be reduced through strong economic growth. Many economies in the world today have debt-to-GDP ratios of 300 percent. If the average interest rate is 3 percent, then to meet interest payments the economy would need to grow at 9 percent (300 percent [debt] times 3 percent [interest rate]), an unlikely nominal rate of expansion.

The alternative is debt forgiveness, defaults or inflation. But all these steps, other than growth are not without consequences. Savings designed to finance future needs, such as retirement, are lost. This in turn results in additional claims on the state to cover the shortfall or reduce future expenditure which crimps economic activity. Significant write-downs on sovereign debt would trigger major crises for banks and pension funds. The resulting losses to savers would trigger a sharp contraction of economic activity. National governments would need to step in to inject capital into banks to maintain the payment and financial system’s integrity.

In One Lesson: The Shortest & Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics, Henry Hazlitt summarised the problem: “Everything we get, outside of the free gifts of nature, must in some way be paid for. The world is full of so-called economists who in turn are full of schemes for getting something for nothing. They tell us that the government can spend and spend without taxing at all; that it can continue to pile up debt without ever paying it off, because ‘we owe it to ourselves’.” It is useful to remember that.

One of the things you write is that the stock markets have decoupled from the real economy. Why do you say that?

Equity prices now do not correlate to fundamental economic factors, such as nominal gross domestic product or economic growth, or, sometimes, earnings.

Writing in the Financial Times, James W. Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management, advised Investors not to be too concerned about slower earnings growth. Mr. Paulsen forecast a 2,600 target for the S&P 500, or an annualised five-year return in excess of 10 per cent, including dividends. He warned investors about “becoming too myopically focused on these mainstream issues lest [they] miss what could be the second confidence-driven bull market of the post-war era”. Given that shares represent claims on the earnings derived from the real economy, this is puzzling.

It indeed is…

Veteran Legg Mason fund manager Bill Miller once observed that: “The common view [is] that the weak stock market reflects a weakening economy. But we think the converse is more likely: the weak stock market is causing the economy to weaken”.  Equity analyst Laszlo Birinyi supported this view of causality: “The relationship between the stock market and the economy is tangential, not causal”. It is not clear why the equity market should drive the real economy, rather than the other way around.

There may be some possible explanations for the divergence between the real economy and equity prices. First, share values are increasingly affected by opaque accounting and what one observer termed the ‘expectations machine’; that is, manipulating and beating expectations rather than absolute performance criteria. Then there are higher levels of corporate activity such as share repurchases and mergers and acquisitions which affect values.

Second, equity markets have become instruments of economic policy, as policy makers try to increase asset values to generate higher consumption driven by the ‘wealth effect’. Monetary measures, such as zero interest rate policy and quantitative easing, distort equity prices. Dividend yields that are higher than bond interest rates now drive valuations. Future corporate earnings are discounted at artificially low rates.

Any other reasons?

Third, the increased role of high frequency trading (“HFT”) has changed equity markets. HFT constitutes up to 70% of trading volume in some markets. The average holding period of HFT trading is around 10 seconds. The investment horizon of portfolio investors has also shortened. In 1940, the average investment period was 7 years. In the 1960s, it was 5 years. In the 1980s, it fell to 2 years. Today, it is around 7 months. The shift from investing for the long run has fundamentally changed the nature of equities, with momentum trading a larger factor.

Fourth, the increasing effect of HFT has increased volatility and the risk of large short term price changes, such as that caused by the ‘flash crash’, discouraging some investors.

Fifth, alternative sources of risk capital, the high cost of a stock market listing, particularly increasing compliance costs, increased public disclosure and scrutiny of activities including management remuneration as well as a shift to different forms of business ownership, such as private equity, have changed the nature of equity market. New capital raisings are increasingly viewed with scepticism as private investors or insiders seek to realise accreted gains, subtly changing the function of the market.

Sixth, financialisation may facilitate market manipulation, whereby the corrosive impact of insider trading and market abuse erodes investor confidence.

Financial instruments, such as shares and their derivatives, are intended as claims on real businesses. Over time, trading in the claims themselves have become more rewarding, leading to a disproportionate increase in the level of financial rather than business activity.

You write: “politicians and central bankers gambled that growth and increased inflation would over time correct the problems”. But things did not turn out as they expected. What went wrong there?

Policy makers assumed that the Great Recession of 2007/8 was a cyclical downturn not a structural change. George Soros got it absolutely right: “[It] resembles other crises that have occurred since the end of the Second World War at intervals ranging from four to 10 years…there is a profound difference: the current crisis marks the end of an era of credit expansion based on the dollar as the international reserve currency. The periodic crises were part of a larger boom-bust process. The current crisis is the culmination of a super-boom that has lasted for more than 60 years.”

And what happened because of the mis-diagnosis?

Given the mis-diagnosis, policy maker reacted with their usual responses: fiscal stimulus and looser monetary policy (low rate and then QE). This was never going to work as the debt overhang meant private economic activity did not recover to pre-crisis levels. Low rates did not actually encourage borrowing and spending.

The GFC left a legacy of large debts, forcing households to reduce spending so as to repay borrowings, with low-income households reducing spending by twice as much as richer households. The debt overhang and caution about borrowing has reduced the impact of low interest rates. Households are unwilling or unable to increase debt. The fall in house prices in some countries, and the resulting decline in household wealth, has made borrowing difficult; lending against home equity has decreased. Banks have also tightened lending standards, in response to loan losses. These factors mean that a consumption-based economic recovery is unlikely without income redistribution to households with a higher propensity to spend, or finding a new source of demand. The lack of demand has resulted in weak investment, also slowing growth.

As result, the global economy is locked into a path of low growth and low inflation tending to disinflation or deflation. That would be fine if it were not for the high levels of debt which will spiral out of control in such conditions.

So what was really needed?

What was needed were major structural changes: dealing with the excessive debt, dealing with global imbalances, addressing the unfunded entitlements which affect public finances and rebalancing between the real and financial economy. Then, there were other issues like demographics, slowing productivity and innovation as well as the problems of inequality, environment and scarce resources. But no government has had the political courage to tackle these issues to the degree necessary.

So what they did was make a bad situation worse by increasing debt. The toxic effects of the policies have now created the conditions for a new financial crisis.

In essence, they tried to do the wrong things better rather than do the right things badly.

To be continued…

Disclosure: Satyajit Das wrote the foreword to my book Easy Money: Evolution of Money from Robinson Crusoe to the First World War

The interview originally appeared in the Vivek Kaul Diary on January 28, 2016

“The build-up of debt over last 25 years has been excessive, beyond repayment capacity.”

satyajit das
Dear Reader,

This is a special edition of the Vivek Kaul Diary. This is the first time I am interviewing someone for the Diary. In this interview I speak to Satyajit Das, an internationally respected commentator on financial markets, credited with predicting the current financial crisis. He has also featured 2010 Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job.

I would like to say here that personally I have learnt a lot from reading what Das has written over the years. His two books Traders, Guns and Money and Extreme Money have been a master class on derivatives as well as how they caused the financial crisis.

Honestly, if you were to read only one book on the financial crisis, it has to be Extreme Money.

In this interview I speak to Das around his new book The Age of Stagnation—Why Perpetual Growth is Unattainable and the Global Economy is in Peril. Like his earlier books this book is also a terrific read and a must for anyone who seriously wants to understand how things haven’t really changed in the aftermath of the financial crisis, and why the future continues to remain bleak.

This is the first part of a three-part interview. The other two parts will appear over the next two days.

Happy Reading!
Vivek Kaul

I would like to start with a clichéd question. Why did very few economists and experts see the economic crisis coming?

I think Richard Breeden, a former chairman of the SEC, probably identified the reason best: “It’s probably a better question for a psychologist. There’s a group dynamic…nobody likes to be the person who sends everybody home from the party when they’re having a good time.”

People rarely see what is front of them because of a mixture of ideology, biases and incentive structures. Proponents of markets are never going to concede that the mechanisms had failed or were even capable of failure.

Most economists and experts are guilty of ‘groupthink’. People with similar backgrounds and largely insulated from outside opinions tend to make decisions without critically testing, analysing and evaluating ideas or evidence. They collective rationalise, convinced about the inherent morality of their views, their unanimity and invulnerability. They also hold stereotyped views of outsiders and do not tolerate dissent. People work in neat silos and don’t look outside their narrow specialisation.

People employed by financial organisations are deeply compromised, forced to propagate the party line. Upton Sinclair was correct in noting that “it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it”.

What made you feel that a crisis was on the way?

My only advantage is that I am not beholden to anybody or any organisation. I don’t have strong ideologies. My interest is in facts and trying to understand them. I am extremely pragmatic, adhering to what works or doesn’t. It is a luxury.

But you also need to be lucky, especially on timing of events.

One of the first things you write in your book is “future generations may have lower living standards than their parents”. This I would guess is one of the key points of the book as well. Why do you say this?

Future economic historians may come to regard the last two centuries and especially the post WW2 period, as an exception in terms of large improvements in livings standards.

Ultimately, prosperity depends on economic growth. If growth is slower and more volatile in the future then future generations will have lower living standards. The reasons are fairly simple.

First, much of the recent prosperity was built on debt funded growth which is not repeatable. An unknown portion of this debt will have to written off either explicitly (default/ restructuring) or implicitly (through reduction in purchasing power through inflation or financial repression). A large amount of wealth will be wiped out.

Second, environmental damage will restrict future growth. This will be through acceptance of lower levels of economic activity as the world restricts the use of fossil fuels which is unlikely. The alternative will be lower growth as a result of the catastrophic costs of climate change, in terms of damage, dislocation or shortages of essential goods and services.

Can you give us an example?

For example, India will have to accept the problems of water shortages and lower food production as well as having to deal with the forced displacement of a large part of the population of Bangladesh. There are also ancillary costs like health costs from air, water and soil pollution.

Third, resources like water, food and energy will get scarcer and therefore more expensive.

Fourth, our model for dealing with these issues is simply to extend and pretend and kick the problem further down the road. In effect, past and present generations will have enjoyed the benefit but the costs will be borne by future generation, reducing their living standards.

The problem will manifest itself at an individual level in three ways. A large part of future generations will find employment, particularly secure and well-paid jobs, more difficult to obtain. A commentator in Greece argued, with black humour, that the government could save money on education because it was unnecessary to prepare people for jobs that did not exist.

Purchasing houses and large capital goods may become harder. Also, the idea of a finite working life followed by retirement will become a luxury for most. People will have to work till they die or are unable to work.

We see all these trends already in many societies.

Much of the world’s population (probably 5-6 billion of the 7 billion on earth) are already in the position that I have described. It is the other 1-2 billion who aspired to a better life for themselves and their children who will have to adjust their expectations, which have been set too high.

You write that “we may never know the real cost of the financial crisis”. Why do you say that?

Costs of crisis are always complex. There are measureable losses in the value of financial assets like equities, property and loan write-offs. There are structural effects which economist refers to as hysteresis; that is a single disturbance which affects the course of the economy. An example is the delayed effects of unemployment. As unemployment increases, more people adjust to a lower standard of living. There is reduction of potential output. There are complex questions about what period we measure losses over.

The 2007/2008 financial crisis illustrates this point. Large financial institutions throughout the world collapsed or suffered near fatal losses. Values of houses and financial assets, like shares, fell sharply. In the real economy, there was a sharp downturn in economic activity, unemployment often for prolonged periods, housing foreclosures and evictions and failures of businesses.

What is the biggest number you have come across with regard to the cost of the financial crisis?

In 2009, the IMF estimated the cost to that stage at around US$12 trillion, equivalent to around 20 percent of the entire globe’s annual economic output. In 2013, Tyler Atkinson, David Luttrell and Harvey Rosenblum, three economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, tentatively quantified the loss to the US economy as between US$6 and US$14 trillion, around US$19,000 to US$45,000 per person. Under certain assumptions, they found that the loss could be higher – US$25 trillion or over 150% of GDP, almost US$80,000 per American. No one may ever know the full cost.

There are huge indirect costs like lost human potential and suffering, which we do not measure. A diary entry at the time of the Great Depression in Siri Hustvedt novel Sorrows of An American reads: “A depression entails more than economic hardship, more than making do with less. That may be the least of it. People with pride find themselves beset by misfortunes they did not create; yet because of this pride, they still feel a pervasive sense of failure… People become powerless.” We don’t measure that.

On page 34 you write: “everybody, it seemed, agreed with Oscar Wilde that living within one’s income merely showed a lack of imagination”. Why do you say that? Isn’t it a very fierce indictment of the Western World?

Developed economies are now 60-70% consumption.

If we look at the post war period then you see a persistent pattern of promoting consumption. Initially, it was about meeting unsatisfied needs. Over time, it shifted to manufacturing demand though a variety of strategies ranging from advertising to planned obsolescence.

Consumption driven economies require you to keep consuming to drive economic activity to provide employment to give you income to buy more things you don’t really need. There is a piece of graffiti art by Bansky which I have always liked. It reads: “join a hilarious adventure of a lifestyle – work, buy, consume, die”.

In Das Kapital, Karl Marx identified this inherent tendency of capitalism towards overproduction. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr saw society as enslaved to its productive process, reversing the normal process of producing to satisfy consumption needs. Economists dismiss overproduction, arguing that supply creates its own demand (known as Say’s Law). They view consumer needs as essentially unlimited, with people wanting more and better goods.

It may be an indictment of Western economic system.  My objective was not judgemental. It was to describe what was happening. In essence, economic growth and prosperity were by-products of consumption, unsustainable resource exploitation and serious environmental damage. It would be fair to say in recent decades nobody was took the advice of 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill “[seeking] happiness by limiting … desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them”.

There is a great belief among economists that borrowing leads to economic growth. How true is that? Has the impact of debt on growth come down over the years?

There is nothing inherently good or bad about debt. It can be used to drive economic growth, allowing immediate consumption or investment against the promise of paying back the borrowing in the future. Spending that would have taken place normally over a period of years is accelerated because of the availability of debt.

The use of debt can be beneficial, where the economic activity generated is sufficient to repay the borrowing with interest. This requires borrowing to finance assets or investments which generate income or value to repay principal and interest. A significant proportion of current debt does not meet this test.

Only (around) 15-20% of total financial flows went into investment projects with the remaining 80-85% being used to finance existing corporate assets, real estate or unsecured personal finance to facilitate consumption. Borrowings were frequently used to finance pre-existing assets where anticipated price rises were to be the source of repayment.

Under these conditions, a slowdown in the ability to borrow ever increasing amounts can lead to a sharp fall in asset prices to levels below the outstanding debt creating repayment difficulties. This is precisely what happened in 2007/2008 and is likely to happen again, sooner than people think.

The build-up of debt over the last quarter of a century has been excessive, beyond repayment capacity.

Could you elaborate on that?

In the lead up to 2007/2008, there was a rapid build-up in debt in developed economies. Between 2000 and 2009 total global credit grew from US$57 trillion to US$109 trillion, equating to a growth of 7.5% per annum, around double the growth in economic activity. In many countries, debt reached three to four times Gross Domestic Product (“GDP”), levels not normally reached other than in wartime (i.e. 1914-1918 and 1939-1945) when the result was losses for creditors of the losing states.

The other problem is that you need to borrow ever increasing amounts to both repay existing borrowing but also to maintain economic growth. By 2007/2008, the US needed $4-$5 of debt to create $1 of economic growth, compared to an additional $1-$2 of debt per additional $1 of GDP in the 1950s.

To be continued…

Disclosure: Satyajit Das wrote the foreword to my book Easy Money: Evolution of Money from Robinson Crusoe to the First World War

 

“When you expand your brand, you weaken your brand”

laura visual hammer

Laura Ries is a leading marketing strategist, bestselling author and television personality. In 1994, Laura founded Ries & Ries, a consulting firm with her father and partner Al Ries, the legendary Positioning-pioneer. Together they consult with companies around the world on brand strategy. With Al, Laura is the co-author of five books on branding that have been worldwide bestsellers. Her first solo book was Visual Hammer. Her latest book Battlecry was published in September 2015. In this interview she speaks to Vivek Kaul.


In the foreword to your new book Battlecry, Al Ries writes that “over time, companies drift sideways. They get into many different businesses and lose their focus.” Can you give us a few examples.

There are so many, but here are a few. Yahoo was the leading search engine, at one time worth $120 billion on the stock market. Then Yahoo turned itself into a “portal” by adding a host of new services. Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Games, Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Pager, etc.
Those additions allowed Google to move in and dominate the search market. Today, Yahoo is worth only $29 billion on the stock market and most of that value is due to its investment in Alibaba stock. (Google is worth $428 billion on the stock market.)

Any other examples?

Dell was once the largest maker of personal computers with 17 percent of the global market. Today, Dell has fallen to third place with 13 percent. Dell stock once sold for $60 a share. Two years ago, was Dell bought out by a private-equity firm for $13.75 a share.

What caused Dell to collapse?

Expansion. Dell once sold computer direct to businesses. That was it. Then Dell started selling to the consumer market, including such products as television sets, digital audio players, computer printers and smartphones. The company also made many acquisitions in such areas as storage, services, data centers, security, virtualization, networking and software. In the three years from 2009 to 2012, Dell spent $12.7 billion on 18 acquisitions.

IBM, General Electric and a host of other companies have tried to expand their businesses by introducing many new products and services. Today, these and other companies have gotten smaller, not larger.

Why does this happen?

Because when you expand your brand, you weaken your brand.      

How do you correct this mistake at the branding level?

First of all, a company should narrow its focus so it stands for something. Dell once stood for “Personal computers sold direct to business.” What does Dell stand for today? Nothing. As a result, Dell has to sell its products and services based on low prices.

Years ago, Dell had a powerful slogan. “Direct from Dell,” a slogan that implied that companies could save money by buying their PCs from Dell’s website. Furthermore, the slogan was memorable because it used “alliteration,” one of the five techniques mentioned in my Battlecry book that can increase memorability.

What is Dell’s slogan today?

“Better technology is better business.” That’s a generic slogan that could apply to any company.

Why is a narrow product line better than a broad product line? Because a narrow product line is needed to build a powerful brand.

Can you give us an example?

Take Subaru, a Japanese automobile brand. In the American market in the year 1993, Subaru sold 104,179 vehicles, but the company lost $250 million on sales of $1.5 billion. So a new president was hired. The new president found that 48 percent of Subaru’s sales were four-wheel-drive vehicles and 52 percent were two-wheel-drive vehicles.

So what did he do? He decided to focus on four-wheel-drive vehicles only. Sales declined the first two years, but then they took off. From 104,179 vehicles in 1993 to 515,693 vehicles in 2014, an increase of 393 percent. (The total automobile market in those 21 years increased only 19 percent.) In 1993, Subaru was the ninth-largest Japanese vehicle brand in the American market. Today, Subaru is the fourth largest, trailing only the big three: Toyota, Honda and Nissan.

So what is the moral of the story here?

It’s hard to find cases like Subaru because most brands are taken in the opposite direction. Companies expand their brands; they don’t contract them. That’s logical, but that’s not good marketing strategy.

Why do companies like formal words in their marketing campaigns? You recommend colloquial expressions. Why? A few examples would be great.

Formal words like “motion picture” sound important. But consumers invariably use shorter words like “movies.” Or “TV” instead of “television.” Or “SUV” instead of “sport-utility vehicle.”

One of the most-famous charities in America, organized by the United States Marine Corps, collects toys for children at Christmas time. Instead of calling the charity “Toys for Children,” they called the charity “Toys for Tots,” a colloquial expression that is also alliterative.

You also talk a lot about abstract words. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how they hurt a marketing campaign?

You have two brains. A left brain which handles words and a right brain which handles visuals. The right brain is also the site of your emotions. There are also two kinds of words, abstract words and specific words. “George Clooney” are specific words. “World-famous movie star” are abstract words.

So?

Both abstract and specific words are processed in the left brain. But specific words like George Clooney also conjure up images in your right brain, the emotional half of your brain. Emotion is the biggest, single, memory stimulant. What events do you remember the most? The day you graduated from college. The day you got married. The day you had your automobile accident. These “emotional” events are also visual. You can never forget them. That’s why slogans using specific words are much more memorable than slogans using abstract words.

Can you give us an example?

“The ultimate driving machine” made BMW the world’s largest luxury-vehicle brand. BMW could have said “The ultimate performance machine,” a broader and more inclusive slogan.

But “driving” is a word that can be visualized. (Two hands behind the wheel.) But “performance” cannot.               

What is the difference between slogans that consumers remember and the ones that they don’t? How is related to the concept of Battlecry?

Two things make a slogan memorable: Money and memory-enhancing techniques. If you have enough money (and enough time), you can make any slogan memorable. “Just do it,” the Nike slogan, is memorable because Nike has spent billions of dollars to promote it over the past 27 years.

But most companies don’t have the resources of Nike. Nor do they have the time. What can they do?

They need to consider one of these five memory-enhancing techniques.

(1) Rhyme. Folgers became the No.1 coffee brand in America by focusing on breakfast with the slogan: “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”

(2) Alliteration. M&Ms became a leading candy brand by focusing on a feature of the brand with the slogan: “Melts in your mouth. Not in your hands.”

(3) Repetition. Federal Express, an air-cargo carrier, entered the American market to compete with the market leader, Emery Air Freight. FedEx (the current name of the company) decided to focus on overnight delivery. They could have said, “The overnight carrier.”

Instead, they used repetition to create memorability. “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” Within a few years, FedEx became the leader in the category.

(4) Reversal. Secret became the leading antiperspirant/deodorant for women with a simple reversal slogan: “Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.”

(5) Double-entendre. This is perhaps the best way to create a memorable slogan. The two meanings contained in a single slogan oscillate back and forth in your mind, thereby creating memorability.

Can you give us an example?

“A diamond is forever” is a typical example. A diamond (the hardest substance known to man) can presumably last forever. A love symbolized by a diamond can also last forever, too.

You write: “Apple is an enormously successful company…But it wasn’t because of abstractions like “Designed in California”.” What is it that you are trying to say here?

Even successful companies can fall into the trap of using grandiose, abstract words instead of down-to-earth specific words. Apple’s “Designed in California” campaign had exceptionally-low viewer ratings and was discontinued within a year.

Three successful brands made Apple the world’s most-valuable company. And they all used specific words or concepts in their introductions.

The iPod: “A thousand songs in your pocket.”

The iPhone: “The first touchscreen smartphone.”

The iPad: “The first tablet computer.”

Yet when Apple introduced the Apple watch, the company did not try to position the brand with specific words on concepts. Many people, including me, think the Apple watch will not turn out to be nearly as successful as the three brands that came before it.  A sign of trouble ahead: Apple regularly provides data on iPhone sales, but refuses to disclose Apple watch sales.

Why are companies in love with the word “innovation”?

“Business has only two functions,” wrote Peter Drucker, “Marketing and innovation.”

Innovation, like many other abstract words, is both important and useless. Important in business and useless in marketing.

Inside a company, management should focus on innovation. Long-term, a company cannot be successful unless it is innovative. When it communicates to prospects on the outside, however, it should forget about innovation. That’s inside-out thinking. Instead, companies should practice “outside-in thinking.” Start with the mind of the consumer and try to fill an open hole in the mind. “Innovation” is a typical abstract word that has no real meaning for consumers. Instead, a company should look at its innovative product and try to express that innovation in specific words like “The first touchscreen smartphone.”

But that doesn’t seem to be happening…

Many, many companies, however, continue to try to pre-empt “innovation” in their marketing slogans. Some recent examples:
ASUS: Inspiring innovation. Persistent perfection.

Bosch: We bring innovation.

Firestone: A tradition of innovation.

Ford: Driving American innovation.

NEC: Empowered by innovation.

Nissan: Innovation that excites.

Siemens: Global network of innovation.

Toshiba: Leading innovation.
It’s highly unlikely that consumers will associate the word “innovation” with any of these companies. They will, however, associate “innovation” with Apple because Apple had launched innovative products with specific slogans.

How can a slogan provide protection from future competition?

A slogan can build a brand. And a strong brand is the best protection a company can have from future competition.

How do you build a brand that will last a lifetime?

There are four critical steps.

Step one: Be first in a new category. Coca-Cola, introduced in 1886, was the first cola. It’s still the leading cola today, 129 years later.

Step two: (Which isn’t a step at all, but it’s the most important thing you can do.) Don’t line-extend the brand. Keep the brand focused on its category. If you want to introduce another product or service, use a different brand name.

Step three: Create a slogan that communicates your leadership. Coca-Cola is widely known as “The real thing.” That’s the slogan the brand should be using because it communicates the fact that Coca-Cola is the original, the authentic cola.

Step four: Hammer the slogan with visual hammer. In Coca-Cola’s case, it’s the contour bottle which the brand has been using extensively.

You just talked about a visual hammer. Can you explain that in a little more detail?

The objective of a marketing campaign is to “own a word in the mind.” But the best way to own a word is to find a visual that can hammer that word in the mind. Marlboro was the first cigarette targeted to men only. But to drive that idea in the mind, Marlboro used a cowboy. The cowboy is the visual hammer that made Marlboro the world’s best-selling cigarette.

Corona beer is the only Mexican brand that has made Interbrand’s annual list of the 100 most-valuable brands in the world. How did Corona achieve this? With a lime. When Corona was introduced in the American market, the importers insisted that the beer be served with a lime on top of the bottle. (America is a lemon country. Mexico is a lime country.) The lime communicated the fact that Corona was the authentic Mexican beer.

The interview originally appeared in the Forbes India magazine