Wednesday, September 25, 2019

As Germany Sinks, Draghi Promotes MMT

Germany's Homegrown Problems. IHS Markit has released its flash estimates for September’s Purchasing Managers’ Indexes (PMIs) in the Eurozone along with those for France and Germany. The German data were downright ugly. There’s no oomph or oompah in Germany. Instead, manufacturing has fallen into a recession and is dragging down the rest of the economy. Real GDP edged down 0.3% (saar) during Q2 and is up just 0.4% y/y (Fig. 1). Another q/q decline is likely during Q3.

In the Eurozone, Markit estimates that the Composite PMI (C-PMI) fell from 51.9 during August to 50.4 this month (Fig. 2). The drop was led by the Manufacturing PMI (M-PMI), which is down from a recent peak of 60.6 during December 2017 to 45.6 this month. However, the Nonmanufacturing (NM-PMI) also contributed to the month’s decline, falling from 53.5 to 52.0. Germany stands out with an M-PMI that is now down to 41.4 compared to 50.3 in France (Fig. 3). Also weakening in Germany is the NM-PMI, which is down from this year’s high of 55.8 during June to 52.5 in September (Fig. 4).

I’ve previously observed that there is something wrong with Germany’s economy. Trump’s trade wars may be part of the problem, but Germany—along with most of the rest of the world—has a serious homegrown problem: not enough babies and too many seniors. Babies tend to stimulate consumption as they grow older, while old people don’t stimulate much of anything. It’s hard to stimulate people who are already old to do much of anything.

That may explain the weakness in global auto sales in recent years (Fig. 5). Germany’s manufacturing economy is particularly dependent on the auto industry. Let’s have a closer look at Germany’s economy:

(1) Tougher emission standards. In the Eurozone, regulators made things worse for the industry with new emission standards imposed a year ago. The new EU-wide test procedure was the authorities’ reaction to VW’s 2015 admission to widescale cheating on diesel vehicles, with suspicions since spreading to other manufacturers.

(2) Losing cache. Germany’s high-performance and high-priced Bimmers and Benzes may not be as popular with Millennials around the world as they were with the Baby Boomers. Millennials tend to be minimalists. They are more concerned about fuel economy and are likely to favor electric vehicles once EVs become cheaper and have more range.

(3) Competing with Chinese EVs. A 9/20 Bloomberg article titled “China Is Winning the Race to Dominate Electric Cars” hits on several of the issues plaguing Germany’s automakers. For starters: “The global auto market is not only not growing, but it is also shrinking. Sales peaked in 2017 at nearly 86 million on a trailing-12-months basis; right now in 2019, sales are closer to 76 million.”

The future for the auto industry is EVs, which are mostly made in China: “There is only one company in the top 10 by percent of electric passenger vehicle revenue that isn’t Chinese: Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. Two Chinese automakers get more than 40% of revenue from electric vehicle sales; a third gets nearly a quarter of its revenue from EVs.”

(4) Fiscal stimulus coming? In August, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she sees no need for a stimulus package “so far” but added that “we will react according to the situation.” She pointed to plans to remove the so-called solidarity tax, an added income tax aimed at covering costs associated with rebuilding the former East Germany, for most taxpayers.

(5) Green new deal. The problem is that the government plans to spend $60 billion through 2030 on green new deals, which are more likely to weigh on the economy than to stimulate it. According to the 9/20 WSJ article on this subject:

“The measures, including subsidies for green power generation, will be financed by revenues from higher taxes on polluting activities, such as air travel and car fuel, as well as a new carbon emission certificate trading scheme to be launched in 2021. The package won’t affect Germany’s balanced budget. Despite international pressure on Berlin to loosen the purse strings and revive a slowing economy, the country’s budget surplus is projected to stand at over €40 billion in 2019.”

The government will help to finance more than a million charging stations for EVs by 2030. Owners and buyers of EV cars will get government subsidies, which might further depress gasoline-powered auto sales.

Draghi Saying Give MMT a Chance. Outgoing ECB President Mario Draghi told European lawmakers that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) should be considered to stimulate the slowing economy of the Eurozone. “It’s a government decision, not [that of] the central bank,” he said. During his tenure, Draghi’s monetary policy commitment to “do whatever it takes” to save the Eurozone economy hasn’t been enough, so I am not surprised that before his 10/31 departure he is calling on fiscal policy to save the day.

The basic tenet of MMT is that a government may borrow and spend to infinity and beyond because it controls the creation of money. Under MMT, governments can never run out of money to pay their debts, say MMT advocates. They would only cease MMT if inflation heated up.

On his way out the door, Draghi set the stage for MMT in the Eurozone by lowering the ECB's official deposit rate from -0.40% to -0.50% and restarting the asset-purchase program. The ECB is set to buy €20 billion per month in Eurozone securities, including government bonds.

It is unlikely that German leaders will readily take the advice of the ECB, let alone its outgoing president, to consider an idea like MMT. Officials of the EU’s largest economy deeply value fiscal discipline. They undoubtedly will protest that MMT violates the principles of the Maastricht Treaty, the official treaty on the European Union signed in 1992, which emphasizes sound fiscal policies and limits on debt.

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