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[after discussing japan's zombie companies and its high debt levels, and predicting another leg down for anglo-saxon economies in 2010, xie goes on to discuss china...]
China can learn a lot from Japan's experience as well. Its bubble formed when companies began focusing on financial investments rather than core business. In the 1980s, Japan's corporate sector tapped the corporate bond market and raised massive amounts of capital for asset purchases.
Recently, Chinese enterprises borrowed money and pumped it into asset markets. They essentially provided leverage for asset markets. When leverage was rising, asset inflation occurred, letting companies book profits that were many times greater than operating profits from core businesses. That gave them greater incentive to pursue asset appreciation rather than operating profitability. The corporate sector became a shadow banking system for financing asset speculation.
Thus, China's corporate sector is now behaving in a way similar to what was seen in Japan two decades ago. China's businesses increasingly focus on asset investment rather than core business. When an asset bubble boosts corporate profits, it seems benign at first. Nobody sees the harm. However, when businesses earn profits from the investments in each other rather than their corporate businesses, their operating profitability deteriorates because they don't invest in their core businesses anymore. Accounting profitability is just a bubble.
As I traveled across China recently, it was rare to hear about a business whose officials are enthusiastic about their core business. But everyone seems excited about financial activities. The lending boom in the first half of 2009 seems to have been channeled mostly into asset markets by the corporate sector.
In particular, property seems to have become a main profit source for most big businesses. China's corporate borrowing one way or another goes into the land market. And property development has become the most important source of profit for China's corporate sector. If a manufacturing business is buoyant, odds are it is profiting from property development. The banking sector reports high profitability due to direct or indirect loans for property development. Property development profit is actually from land appreciation. If property development profitability is measured according to land price at sale time, the development itself would not be profitable.
A bubble rises when there is excess money supply. Is the current, excessive monetary growth due to demand or supply? We can argue that point forever. When the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, said a central bank couldn't stop a bubble, he meant money demand would rise regardless of interest rates. I disagree. If a central bank targets monetary growth in line with nominal GDP growth, a big bubble can't happen. Aside from central bank failure, then, the most important microeconomic element in a bubble is the shadow banking system.
Regulators limit what banks can do by imposing capital requirements. The international standard is 8 percent of total assets, but banks can use accounting tricks to minimize their requirements. But a big accounting loophole can lead to disaster. For example, the loose restrictions on off-balance holdings were major factors in the global credit bubble. Most regulators are now tightening accounting rules for capital requirements.
Shadow banking is a less noticed but more important factor in creating bubbles. Most analysts compare it to the hedge fund industry, which provided leverage for financial speculators with little capital. The shadow banking system is much more because industrial firms engaging in financial activities are more important. Entities such as GE Capital and GMAC provided massive leverage to asset markets with little capital. A shadow banking system is essential to a big bubble.
China's corporate sector increasingly looks like a shadow banking system. It raises funds from banks, through commercial bills or the corporate bond market, and then channels the funds into the land market. The resulting land inflation underwrites corporate profitability and improves their creditworthiness in the short term.
The same thing happened in Japan.
To control China's expanding real estate bubble, the country's regulators must limit monetary growth to nominal GDP growth. Faster monetary growth accommodates and supports the bubble. To understand consequences of ignoring this reality, we need only look at Japan today.
http://english.caijing.com.cn/2009-09-16/110251471.html
China can learn a lot from Japan's experience as well. Its bubble formed when companies began focusing on financial investments rather than core business. In the 1980s, Japan's corporate sector tapped the corporate bond market and raised massive amounts of capital for asset purchases.
Recently, Chinese enterprises borrowed money and pumped it into asset markets. They essentially provided leverage for asset markets. When leverage was rising, asset inflation occurred, letting companies book profits that were many times greater than operating profits from core businesses. That gave them greater incentive to pursue asset appreciation rather than operating profitability. The corporate sector became a shadow banking system for financing asset speculation.
Thus, China's corporate sector is now behaving in a way similar to what was seen in Japan two decades ago. China's businesses increasingly focus on asset investment rather than core business. When an asset bubble boosts corporate profits, it seems benign at first. Nobody sees the harm. However, when businesses earn profits from the investments in each other rather than their corporate businesses, their operating profitability deteriorates because they don't invest in their core businesses anymore. Accounting profitability is just a bubble.
As I traveled across China recently, it was rare to hear about a business whose officials are enthusiastic about their core business. But everyone seems excited about financial activities. The lending boom in the first half of 2009 seems to have been channeled mostly into asset markets by the corporate sector.
In particular, property seems to have become a main profit source for most big businesses. China's corporate borrowing one way or another goes into the land market. And property development has become the most important source of profit for China's corporate sector. If a manufacturing business is buoyant, odds are it is profiting from property development. The banking sector reports high profitability due to direct or indirect loans for property development. Property development profit is actually from land appreciation. If property development profitability is measured according to land price at sale time, the development itself would not be profitable.
A bubble rises when there is excess money supply. Is the current, excessive monetary growth due to demand or supply? We can argue that point forever. When the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, said a central bank couldn't stop a bubble, he meant money demand would rise regardless of interest rates. I disagree. If a central bank targets monetary growth in line with nominal GDP growth, a big bubble can't happen. Aside from central bank failure, then, the most important microeconomic element in a bubble is the shadow banking system.
Regulators limit what banks can do by imposing capital requirements. The international standard is 8 percent of total assets, but banks can use accounting tricks to minimize their requirements. But a big accounting loophole can lead to disaster. For example, the loose restrictions on off-balance holdings were major factors in the global credit bubble. Most regulators are now tightening accounting rules for capital requirements.
Shadow banking is a less noticed but more important factor in creating bubbles. Most analysts compare it to the hedge fund industry, which provided leverage for financial speculators with little capital. The shadow banking system is much more because industrial firms engaging in financial activities are more important. Entities such as GE Capital and GMAC provided massive leverage to asset markets with little capital. A shadow banking system is essential to a big bubble.
China's corporate sector increasingly looks like a shadow banking system. It raises funds from banks, through commercial bills or the corporate bond market, and then channels the funds into the land market. The resulting land inflation underwrites corporate profitability and improves their creditworthiness in the short term.
The same thing happened in Japan.
To control China's expanding real estate bubble, the country's regulators must limit monetary growth to nominal GDP growth. Faster monetary growth accommodates and supports the bubble. To understand consequences of ignoring this reality, we need only look at Japan today.
http://english.caijing.com.cn/2009-09-16/110251471.html
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