End of Hong Kong means 3 systems, not 2

In a 1992 speech in Fulton, Missouri, Mikhail Gorbachev stated ‘Humanity is at the major turning point. We live in a watershed era. One epoch has ended, and a second one is

commencing and no one yet knows how concrete it will be’. He was right then, and if the speech were given today, these words would also ring true.

The fall of communism was the key event in catalyzing globalization. It was the bookend that opened up new trends that saw the flow of people, money, commerce and importantly, of ideas and cultures. In particular, the fall of communism led to a sharp rise in the creation of new countries (some 34 have been created since 1990), and in the spread of democracy (between 1988 and 2005 the proportion of countries classified as Free rose from 36 to 46% globally according to Freedom House).

Since the fall of communism, the ripple of globalization through the world has lifted billions out of poverty and spawned new technologies. This great period in world history is now at an end, decisively crashed by the coronavirus crisis, having already atrophied in the face of rising indebtedness, trade wars and the vandalization of international institutions by populist leaders. Now, with deadly and decisive timing, the bookend that closes the period of globalization is the subsuming of Hong Kong.

The introduction of new, harsh security laws in contravention of the process of the Basic Law, will severely curb the identity and livelihood of one of the world’s unique cities. Hong Kong played a role in the first wave of globalization in the 19^th century and has been prominent in the recent one.

The import of the likely end of Hong Kong’s ‘two systems’ is that at a much greater level it marks the arrival of ‘three systems’, or what I call a multipolar world dominated by the US, China and Europe.

China has acted to hush Hong Kong because of the threat that protests pose to the Communist Party in China (and the position of Xi Jinping), and also because, with the West in disarray, China is in a relatively powerful position. The potential significance of China risking Hong Kong’s role as an international financial portal is that it has decided that the time is come for Shanghai, Shenzen and the Greater Bay Area to become China’s financial hub. This is bad news for those in Hong Kong who think that the economy will continue to thrive in the light of the new security laws.

As such this may mark a move away from an approach that seeks to integrate China with international financial markets, and toward one that deepens China’s markets in the Chinese ‘way’, so that they are overseen by Chinese rather than Western corporate governance rules. China has notably already made this transition in its treatment of the internet.

China’s effective ending of ‘two systems’ in Hong Kong also comes at a time when friction is rising in its interaction with democracies – especially India and Australia (both of whom are members of the QUAD defense grouping with the US and Japan).

Elsewhere China’s assertiveness means that the US and the EU will have to become more singular. Europe (EU) will in my view, soon force its member states to adhere more consistently to its values (Hungary and less so Poland here) and is beginning to make a move towards a greater fiscal role for Brussels.

It is also worth noting that the exit of Britain from the EU is consistent with the end of common law in Hong Kong in that both events underline the decline of Britain’s role in the world and the degeneration of political leadership in England.

That leaves the US. If Gorbachev saw the US today he would likely not be surprised that it has so far retained its military and financial dominance, but by the same token, not astounded that it has failed to harness the benefits of globalization for all Americans.

With the benefit of a few years in the Kremlin, Gorbachev might even remark that the coronavirus has hit the US in all of its weak points – the labour market, inequality and healthcare. To that end the American response to what is happening in Asia, and to the rise of the Chinese ‘Leviathan’ like model, must be to strengthen its own economy, society and institutions, and not to weaken them as President Trump is doing. Leaving the World Health Organization is a strange way for America to help the people of Hong Kong.

Have a great week ahead,

Mike

From Globalization to Gollum

If the coronavirus has, at a very broad level, set in train the post-globalization era, the search for a vaccine reveals the detail of what that world will look like.

A vaccine for a virus that is global should in many respects be a hopeful project, but this hope is also undercut by cynicism. Consider the events of the last week.

On Sunday night last, the Chair of the Federal Reserve declared that apart from the financial stimulus enacted by the authorities the best way out of the crisis was through the discovery of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Then, on Monday details emerged of a positive vaccine trial from biotech company Moderna based on a very small group of people. This news led to a more than 20% spike in the company’s share price. Once the market closed, Moderna surprised investors with a rights issue, and it was announced that the individual heading the US’s Warp Speed vaccine program, would sell his USD 12mn holding in the company (he was a non-executive director). Other executives then also sold shares.

While some doubts have been cast on the early Moderna trial, the company will now move to a much bigger vaccine testing group (1,000 plus people) in the summer, with first results due late summer. If all goes well, an approved vaccine could be ready by the start of next year, and this then has to be mass produced and distributed (vaccinating the world will take three years at least).

If the case of Moderna demonstrates the uneasy intersection of science, ethics and money, the broader vaccine race will become even more complex.

Ideally, given the death toll, huge economic damage and societal disruption the coronavirus has caused, one could imagine a unified, global approach to constructing a pipeline (from research, testing, approval to manufacture and distribution) that would produce a ‘world’ vaccine. Previous pandemics such as Ebola, and HIV, demonstrate how collaboration can work and there are already provisions in the WTO framework that allow differentiated drug pricing between richer and poorer countries.

Instead, the quest for a vaccine has more resembled the Lord of the Rings, with the potential vaccine or ‘ring’ being guarded jealously. In a world that seems intent on replacing globalization with Gollum, the scramble for a vaccine (there are over 70 such ‘quests’ with Oxford University seemingly in the lead) will tell us much about how countries and companies organize themselves in the new world order.

The first is that, even in grave circumstances, collaboration between powerful countries and regions is limited. The US has alleged that China has tried to hack American vaccine researchers, and for China’s leader the prospect of a Chinese made, globally distributed vaccine has obvious geopolitical capital. The fissures undercutting this lack of collaboration are also undercutting two of the institutions of the 20^th century, the World Health Organisation and the World Trade Organisation, both of which have been poorly led.

The second trend is that the relationship between innovation and finance will need to be rethought and will in many countries incorporate the state as a player. The capture of technological innovation by a handful of large tech and private equity and venture capital firms in both the US and China is producing inequitable outcomes, such as the absurd coincidence of near twenty percent unemployment in the US and a near record high level in the Nasdaq stock index. Corporate tax rises and regulatory pruning back of mega companies may be a trend of the future.

Relatedly, with globalization given way to a more geopolitically nervous multipolar world, governments will increasingly insert themselves into the innovation process. France was once derided for its ‘strategic yogurt policy’ but governments like it will increasingly regard cyber security, artificial intelligence, genetic editing and so on, as strategic industries where they need to be involved as core players.

In cases where the state has a competence, such as defense, infrastructure or aerospace related innovation, its involvement can be effective, and obviously much less so where it has little expertise to offer. Clumsy redirection of supply chains and orchestration of drug production are generally not in the competencies of states and they should resist the urge to over control here.

In a world where economists debate whether we will see more deflation or higher inflation in the future, the effect of the two above trends will be to make economies potentially more fractioned and less effective.

To this end, the danger is that states that are over eager to control the innovation process, combined with an intense concentration in the ownership of the benefits of innovation (big tech, venture capital) creates a world where the benefits of innovation are lost to the broader economy and society. Both parties, like Gollum in Lord of the Rings regard innovation as too ‘precious’.

In that regard, the next phase in this debate should focus on finance and corporate governance – tax systems and ownership structures that encourage and spread the benefits of innovation.

Have a great week ahead,

Mike

Shemozzle

Mike Tyson is apparently coming out of retirement. America may need him. Last week on the Sino-Indian border Line of Agreed Control (North Sikkim to be precise) there was a mass brawl between Indian and Chinese troops. Helicopters (China) and fighter jets (India) were scrambled to add heft to the situation, which left several injured. The incident recalled the word ‘Shemozzle’ a Yiddish word that denotes chaos, uproar and confusion. In Ireland, sports commentators have used it to describe fights between opposing hurling or Gaelic football teams.

I fear that ‘Shemozzle’ now enters the lexicon of geopolitics, not least because tensions between nations are rising. One relationship to watch is that between China and Australia, where trade, political and diplomatic relations are worsening. I advise my Chinese friends to be wary – every time Australia play Ireland in ‘Compromise Rules’ football, there is a large scale ‘Shemozzle’.

The notion of a ‘Shemozzle’ is not a bad one to describe the world – tensions are rising as governments try to advance beyond lockdowns, and scarce resources such as vaccines will be fought over. In addition, the tension between markets and the reality of the economic damage from the coronavirus is growing.

In my April 4^th note (https://thelevelling.blog/2020/03/28/why-did-nobody-notice-it/) I laid out three broad scenarios – an optimistic one called ‘Easter’ which outlined how much of the crisis could be over by the end of April, a more sober one called ‘Summer’ which flagged late summer as the point at which we should have largely mastered the effects of the virus, and then a tail, very nasty scenario called ‘Winter’ where the effects of the virus drag on and the economic damage is severe.

As it stands, it seems that equity markets have priced in the optimistic ‘Easter’ scenario while it looks more likely that economies and societies will get ‘Summer’. The tension between high equity markets and the real world betrays a range of factors – the oversized role of the Federal Reserve and wealth inequality for instance.

I am focused on the performance of small cap indices and bank stocks (as opposed to tech stocks) as the lead indicator of where the economy and markets will go, given the risk of a credit crunch. In general, the performance of banks has been very weak, with some like Wells Fargo in the US hitting March lows and others in Europe (e.g. Société Générale) hitting their lowest levels since 1991.

At the other end of the market the outperformance of technology stocks also reflects a lack of forward thinking that in the US as in other countries, corporate taxes will have to rise in order to offset the generous stimulus programs put in place by the government. The five large tech companies (FAANG’s) who make up 22% of the market capitalization of the S&P 500 index are vulnerable here, given their earnings. This is perhaps the so-called ‘black swan’ that investors have not priced in.

To stick with the idea of ‘black swans’, a phrase that is now in the popular lexicon as meaning a high impact event as opposed to a highly improbable one a la Karl Popper’s conception of the term, the two recurring ‘swan’ questions I keep hearing are ‘will Europe breakup?’ and ‘will the US and China go to war’. That people continue to think about these questions shows that in effect they are not focusing on events (black swans) but processes.

In particular, the evolution and deterioration of the relationship between the US and China is a process that bears watching. In a week where the Economist front cover declared ‘Goodbye Globalization’ an opinion poll from the Pew Research Centre showed that close to 65% of Americans have a negative view of China. This compares with only 30% some ten years ago and the darkening in Americans’ views of China tightly tracks the demise of globalization.

With rhetoric picking up, and supply chain restrictions on Huawei now more severe, there are three elements of this relationship to watch in the short run. One is the friction between China and American allies in Asia (Australia) amidst talk in China that it needs to prepare itself for military conflict. Another is the shift in supply chains, the most interesting development here is Taiwan Semiconductors’ decision to invest USD 12 bn building a plant in the USA. Also, China may respond in kind to the Huawei announcement on Monday.

Then finally, is the politics – lambasting China, however illogically (the President has stated that cutting ties with China would save USD 550 bn) creates political capital for Donald Trump, and as such we should expect no let up in anti-China rhetoric until November. The question is what damage this does to trade and diplomacy, and whether it leads to a real ‘Shemozzle’.

Have a great week ahead,

Mike

America is the new Europe?

When I try to defend the eurozone financial system to Eurosceptics, or even Europhiles, I remind them that the early years of the dollar were just as difficult as the eurozone crises of recent years. For example, the Whiskey rebellion of 1791 led to a contest between Alexander Hamilton’s Treasury and individual states, and his ultimately successful resolution of the crisis paved the foundation of the American financial system.

Amidst the global economic carnage caused by the coronavirus crisis, many (mostly in London and New York) expect the euro system to face another existential crisis. Though European politicians have generally failed to learn the lessons of past euro crises in that many reforms have not been executed, the euro and EU are more robust than many think.

While the euro is not yet as credible as the dollar, the surprise in coming months may be that America begins to look more like Europe.

Think of it this way. Governors of individual states have never enjoyed such prominence, with for example the governor of California referring to it as a ‘nation-state’. A recent FT survey showed that individual governors are more trusted than the President. In this respect the state governors are like the prime ministers of European countries.

In addition, American states are grouping together to form pacts to coordinate the ending of the lockdown (in Europe it is similar). Unlike Europe though, the political leaning of states is also a determining factor in the speed with which they are reopening, as is the President’s political and fiscal treatment of them (e.g. abandoning Obamacare). In time, this will make states more distinct economically and politically, and less united.

The decisive factor may be the impending credit crunch. We are now moving past both the initial financial shock of the coronavirus crisis, and the comfort of the financial morphine as provided by the Fed and Congress is wearing off. Yet, there is now much less that both the Federal Reserve and Treasury can do to forestall the closure of hundreds of thousands of businesses across America.

Against this backdrop investors are pointing to a growing widening of bond spreads for municipal bonds, and the rhetoric surrounding New Jersey and Illinois echoes with the way Italy and Greece are spoken of. Oil sensitive states may soon also come under pressure.

As the finances of individual states deteriorate, so too will be the expectation of support (bond buying by the Fed), and then, the moral hazard arguments that many in Europe deploy to sanction ECB buying of periphery debt, will resonate in the US.

It is also worth noting that like Japan and Europe in recent years, financial markets have just started to price in negative interest rates in the US (for next January), something that could rattle consumers and its banking sector.

Perhaps the worst thing this virus can do to America, beyond the human tragedy, is to increase the disparity of economic circumstances across states. In a country with extreme wealth inequality and an incomprehensible gap between sharply rising unemployment and a loft stock market, ‘intra-state inequality’ may grow. Migration between states and the current system of federal transfers will not be sufficient to balance this out.

Here, Europe is worth a look. One of the great achievements of the European Union has been the way it has funded infrastructure investment in relatively poorer countries. Americans visiting Ireland will be familiar with the ‘funded by the EU signposts’.

The lesson for America is that at a time when transport, telecoms and educational infrastructure needs to be badly upgraded, this should be done in a way that helps to equalize rather than exacerbate the differences between states. It is a task for the next president, whomever that is. However, the notion that ‘America’ needs to be put back together again needs to be debated now.

Have a great week ahead, Mike

The Decameron

Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron was one of the first literary masterpieces of the Renaissance. It is set in a villa outside Florence, at the height of the Bubonic Plague. Seven women and three men flee the Plague, ensconce themselves in a villa and spend ten days flirting, philosophising and debating. I have no doubt that Netflix or other entertainment channel will copy the idea and send an ensemble of Hugh Grant, Gwyneth Paltrow, George Clooney, Mara Rooney and friends off to the Hamptons to repeat the experience.

If the Decameron were to be repeated, the guests in the villa might even ponder how the world has been changed by the coronavirus. The Black Death itself radically changed Europe, largely through the demographic effect that a 30% reduction in population had – in England nearly 40% of land changed hands, a shortage of labourers meant a rise in wages and innovation of farming methods and produce.

Rising wages for those who survived the Black Death altered the social mix (Walter Scheidel’s The Great Leveler is very good here) to the extent that the wealthy begun to dress more extravagantly in order to distinguish their social standing and in this were helped by regulation (i.e. England’s Sumptuory Laws 1363).

The Black Death altered the geopolitical map of Europe (similar, much earlier plagues like the Athens Plague and Antonine Plague had profound geopolitical effects), led to trade and banking revolutions and spurred the rise of cities like Madrid and Genoa, and the demise of others like Winchester.

Back to the villa, where if our guests were discussing the post coronavirus world they might fall upon the following points. First, the coronavirus crisis has simply exacerbated the faultlines in a fracturing world – indebtedness is growing rapidly, the China-US diplomatic relationship deteriorates, and globalization is crashed.

Second, more optimistically and in the spirit of the Renaissance, the crisis will I hope bring a number of positive changes. One is the realisation of the correlation between climate damage and economic activity. Another is the sense that our cities are places to be lived in – there will be significant changes to the way cities use space, transport and commercial real estate.

A more profound change will be a trend towards improving human development – in developed and developing countries. The components of human development – from life expectancy, to education and healthcare, to economic development – have come to the fore during the coronavirus crisis in the sense that countries with high levels of human development (Germany, New Zealand, Norway) have appeared to deal relatively better with the crisis than others, and the value of good, accessible healthcare systems has become abundantly clear. I might even stretch the point to say that well educated leaders, who take science seriously, have also done reasonably well.

The concept of human development however does not lend itself to political soundbites and as such is hard for politicians to communicate as a policy goal. Neither do initiatives that promote human development pay off in the short term – so politicians need to be around to gain credit for them (Russia is an interesting example where the HDI (Human Development Indicator produced by the World Bank) has been rising steadily). Hopefully, the coronavirus will change this and permit broader discussions on the need to focus government scorecards on human development centric scorecards. If this happens, we may see public goods like accessible education and healthcare become more valued in countries like the US and UK. In this light, there is an opportunity for politicians and those involved in the policy process to craft the idea of human development in a way that people understand and value, and to put it at the centre of political manifestos.

As a final point, when I think of our ten guests in the villa in the Hamptons, Agatha Christie’s book ‘And then there were none’ passes through my head. The idea of wealthy people secluding themselves in a villa to avoid a highly contagious disease is as unpopular today as it was in the 14^th century. Again, as Walter Scheidel has pointed out, the Bubonic Plague was a leveller of inequality in the 14^th century though amidst plenty of periods of unrest (La Jacquerie in France in 1358 and the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381 in England).

So far, the policy response to the economic fallout from the crisis has arguably boosted wealth inequality (notably in the USA). In the coming weeks the generous provision of liquidity by the Federal Reserve will give way to rising solvency/credits risk, and with it more redundancies unfortunately. As I’ve mentioned before in these pages, market volatility will give way to social and political volatility.

Have a great week ahead,

Mike