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>Eg Australia and Israel barely noticed the Great Recession. Do you know why? AFAIK India too did not get very affected by it, maybe because it has a large int

by vram22 9y ago

>Eg Australia and Israel barely noticed the Great Recession. Do you know why? AFAIK India too did not get very affected by it, maybe because it has a large internal market with both domestic suppliers and consumers. Or I may be thinking of the Asian crisis in 1997-1999 or so - not sure. Had been to S.E. Asia at that time and they were just recovering from it, IIRC.

nopassrecover 9y ago
Our (Australian) government at the time provided significant consumer stimulus (most taxpayers got up to $950 to spend, people on welfare and/or with children got even more) and it also invested heavily in infrastructure and construction projects (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/02/04/1233423265116.html http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/02/04/1233423265116.html). Like other countries, our central bank also dropped interest rates. As a consequence we now, apparently, lay claim to the longest period of uninterrupted growth in modern history. However, we've had uncharacteristicaly flat growth since, narrowly avoided recession a couple of times, and are battling low wage growth which, in combination with rising energy and property costs, is beginning to undermine consumer demand. This has been unhelped by the end of a mining boom, related decrease in Chinese growth and demand for commodities, structural taxation challenges (income taxes were reduced during the boom, and we struggle to tax multinational companies), and a huge speculative property bubble (fuelled by lower interest rates, favourable taxation schemes, currency flight from foreign investors, and ultimately the self-reinforcing returns). I'm sure demographics are playing a role too. Considering most of our pension schemes ("superannuation") are invested in either property, mining, or banking (itself dependent on property), there's huge uncertainty ahead.
- warrenm 9y ago
  Almost sounds like all that happened was pushing off the bust of the boom-bust cycle, instead of actually avoiding it
- vram22 9y ago
  What do you mean by "the self-reinforcing returns"?
  - Nacraile 9y ago
    Presumably, the classic mechanism underlying speculative bubbles: investors buying because they expect to be able to sell to other investors at a higher price, later.
warrenm 9y ago
India's also a developing country vs a developed one A rapidly developing country, no doubt - but not developed yet The vast majority of Indians aren't involved in either the "real" economy enough (ie, the one governments measure), or are too poor for it to matter Yes, India has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go - economically speaking
- vram22 9y ago
  >The vast majority of Indians aren't involved in either the "real" economy enough (ie, the one governments measure), or are too poor for it to matter Not too sure about that. Also will depend on what exactly you mean by it. If income tax payers, maybe yes. But if just people who earn money, there are other means than income tax to include them in calculations. Anyway, it's a very complex issue. >Yes, India has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go - economically speaking True. And not just economically - in other ways too.
eru 9y ago
For Israel and Australia it's too do with competent central banks. See https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/11/19/the-export-price-norm-saved-australia-from-the-great-recession/ https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/11/19/the-export-price-nor... and https://marketmonetarist.com/2014/04/24/how-stan-fischer-predicted-the-crisis-and-saved-israel-from-it/ https://marketmonetarist.com/2014/04/24/how-stan-fischer-pre... And compare https://marketmonetarist.com/2015/07/14/the-euro-a-monetary-strangulation-mechanism/ https://marketmonetarist.com/2015/07/14/the-euro-a-monetary-... I don't know about India. They probably just printed enough money to avoid the Great Recession. (But had some other problems independent of the Great Recession.) Some Googling on the same blog revealed https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/07/17/too-easy-and-too-tight-the-rbis-counterproductive-stop-go-policies/ https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/07/17/too-easy-and-too-tig...
- vram22 9y ago
  >I don't know about India. They probably just printed enough money to avoid the Great Recession. I doubt they did only that, or even that. The RBI (Reserve Bank of India) and the Indian finance ministry have some well-educated and experienced economists (some even with Harvard / Oxford type backgrounds, or at least were earlier) (though I'm not saying they are perfect, no one is). Even without being a finance professional or economist myself (though I did take a year of Economics in 11/12th grade), I can tell that (mainly gut feel or educated guess, of course). A sort of caveat or counter to what I said above, though (and what you said as well) is that (IMO) no economist fully knows what they are doing, partly because the field is so complex (dealing with economies of nations or the world, after all), and partly because economics is not a science like the physical sciences are (and hence not perfectly predictable, even if you have a supercomputer), not matter how hard proponents of that try to claim so. It's not called The Dismal Science for nothing ...
  - eru 9y ago
    I should perhaps have expressed myself more academically: The banking crisis might have caused a recession, but what turned that recession into The Great Recession in Europe and the US was too tight money: nominal GDP just fell off a cliff. India was further away from the dreaded 'zero bound' on interest rates, and never had any problem generating enough nominal GDP. (India's problems are with the real part of the economy. So they are producing too much inflation.) The Fed and ECB also have clever people. They still made mistakes--especially when evaluated with the benefit of hindsight.

by vram22 9y ago

nopassrecover 9y ago

Our (Australian) government at the time provided significant consumer stimulus (most taxpayers got up to $950 to spend, people on welfare and/or with children got even more) and it also invested heavily in infrastructure and construction projects (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/02/04/1233423265116.html http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/02/04/1233423265116.html). Like other countries, our central bank also dropped interest rates. As a consequence we now, apparently, lay claim to the longest period of uninterrupted growth in modern history. However, we've had uncharacteristicaly flat growth since, narrowly avoided recession a couple of times, and are battling low wage growth which, in combination with rising energy and property costs, is beginning to undermine consumer demand. This has been unhelped by the end of a mining boom, related decrease in Chinese growth and demand for commodities, structural taxation challenges (income taxes were reduced during the boom, and we struggle to tax multinational companies), and a huge speculative property bubble (fuelled by lower interest rates, favourable taxation schemes, currency flight from foreign investors, and ultimately the self-reinforcing returns). I'm sure demographics are playing a role too. Considering most of our pension schemes ("superannuation") are invested in either property, mining, or banking (itself dependent on property), there's huge uncertainty ahead.

warrenm 9y ago
Almost sounds like all that happened was pushing off the bust of the boom-bust cycle, instead of actually avoiding it
vram22 9y ago
What do you mean by "the self-reinforcing returns"?
- Nacraile 9y ago
  Presumably, the classic mechanism underlying speculative bubbles: investors buying because they expect to be able to sell to other investors at a higher price, later.

warrenm 9y ago

India's also a developing country vs a developed one A rapidly developing country, no doubt - but not developed yet The vast majority of Indians aren't involved in either the "real" economy enough (ie, the one governments measure), or are too poor for it to matter Yes, India has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go - economically speaking

vram22 9y ago
>The vast majority of Indians aren't involved in either the "real" economy enough (ie, the one governments measure), or are too poor for it to matter Not too sure about that. Also will depend on what exactly you mean by it. If income tax payers, maybe yes. But if just people who earn money, there are other means than income tax to include them in calculations. Anyway, it's a very complex issue. >Yes, India has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go - economically speaking True. And not just economically - in other ways too.

eru 9y ago

For Israel and Australia it's too do with competent central banks. See https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/11/19/the-export-price-norm-saved-australia-from-the-great-recession/ https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/11/19/the-export-price-nor... and https://marketmonetarist.com/2014/04/24/how-stan-fischer-predicted-the-crisis-and-saved-israel-from-it/ https://marketmonetarist.com/2014/04/24/how-stan-fischer-pre... And compare https://marketmonetarist.com/2015/07/14/the-euro-a-monetary-strangulation-mechanism/ https://marketmonetarist.com/2015/07/14/the-euro-a-monetary-... I don't know about India. They probably just printed enough money to avoid the Great Recession. (But had some other problems independent of the Great Recession.) Some Googling on the same blog revealed https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/07/17/too-easy-and-too-tight-the-rbis-counterproductive-stop-go-policies/ https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/07/17/too-easy-and-too-tig...

vram22 9y ago
>I don't know about India. They probably just printed enough money to avoid the Great Recession. I doubt they did only that, or even that. The RBI (Reserve Bank of India) and the Indian finance ministry have some well-educated and experienced economists (some even with Harvard / Oxford type backgrounds, or at least were earlier) (though I'm not saying they are perfect, no one is). Even without being a finance professional or economist myself (though I did take a year of Economics in 11/12th grade), I can tell that (mainly gut feel or educated guess, of course). A sort of caveat or counter to what I said above, though (and what you said as well) is that (IMO) no economist fully knows what they are doing, partly because the field is so complex (dealing with economies of nations or the world, after all), and partly because economics is not a science like the physical sciences are (and hence not perfectly predictable, even if you have a supercomputer), not matter how hard proponents of that try to claim so. It's not called The Dismal Science for nothing ...
- eru 9y ago
  I should perhaps have expressed myself more academically: The banking crisis might have caused a recession, but what turned that recession into The Great Recession in Europe and the US was too tight money: nominal GDP just fell off a cliff. India was further away from the dreaded 'zero bound' on interest rates, and never had any problem generating enough nominal GDP. (India's problems are with the real part of the economy. So they are producing too much inflation.) The Fed and ECB also have clever people. They still made mistakes--especially when evaluated with the benefit of hindsight.