Retail inflation and wholesale inflation in the US were measured a few days ago at the highest level in the last several months, above the estimates of economists and stock analysts. A significant rise has also occurred in inflation measurements in Europe and other regions of the world. It doesn't take much to understand the cause of this rise.
The Middle East war is halfway through the third month and nothing shows that the return of the global fuel market to normality will happen quickly. When the Straits of Hormuz are fully opened and without any obstacle, the flow of crude oil, LNG and the various by-products will be very late to reach pre-war levels. The most likely thing is that this will take over a year, perhaps more, as damage to energy infrastructure is quite significant and even in installations that have simply ceased operation, their activation is a matter of several weeks.
Also, we must not forget the fact that all the cargo that had started from the Persian Gulf in the last days of February has already reached their destinations. And that the stocks that have been available for weeks to deal with the lack of several million barrels of crude oil, the cargoes of LNG from Qatar and the UAE, the large quantities of petrol, diesel, air fuel and many other products that remain trapped in the Persian Gulf will eventually be exhausted. Based on logic, this means that the prices of liquid fuels of all kinds, gas, petrochemicals, plastics, etc. will remain high for several more months.
For months to come, there will continue to be shortages and general disruptions in many supply chains and other products that play a crucial role in many industrial processes, such as the sun needed in the microprocessor industry and the sulphuric acid used in the copper industry, as analyzed yesterday by Mary Veneti (The copper rally, short-term risks and the dual agent of Hormuz | Liberal. gr). So the way things are going, for several months we will still have increased inflation when in many sectors of industry the supply chains are not working properly.
Increased growth will eventually also start to affect consumer demand, gradually reducing economic growth in most sectors of the economy. Without being able to be sure that things will turn out that way, we must point out that this combination strongly reminds the definition of stagnation.
There are other developments potentially threatening to the international economy. We are talking about large and increasing budget deficits in many states and the state of the international bond market. In the US public debt has exceeded 100% of GDP and it is predicted that by 2030 it will have reached 107%, surpassing the high that had occurred immediately after World War II.
In Japan, net public debt is at 200% with growth trends, while in Europe the situation in France and Italy is worrying, and German public debt has also begun to rise. In China subsidence in the real estate sector has raised the obligations of the central government and local governments vertically. The increase in defence spending around the world and the need to carry out major infrastructure projects with state support are only two factors that ensure the continued further increase of state funding needs over the coming years.
In the current circumstances, major fiscal deficits are a more serious threat to the economy than it was until now. For some years the reference rates and yields of government and corporate bonds have risen significantly, making the service of existing loans more expensive. As we saw about a week ago (Bonds: The new black swan in the markets | Liberal. gr), there are already serious concerns about the situation of the US sovereign bond market, as public debt is very large and constantly increasing and doubts arise over the possibility of the US public serving it easily in the coming years. These concerns grow every time American bond returns rise.
Last Wednesday, at the 30-year bond auction, the interest rate was set at 5.046%, in Bloomberg the highest since 2007. Something similar happened in the United Kingdom, where ten-year government bond yields were found Wednesday near the highest level since 2007, at about 5.10%. The situation in Japan is similar, where the performance of the 10-year bond is close to 2.63% which has been the highest level since 1997.
The rise in yields is, of course, also related to the rise in inflation which has caused investors to expect a rise in interest rates from many central banks in their efforts to harness it. Despite very intense activity in the corporate bond sector, it is evident that there are several concerns there too. In yesterday's Bloomberg article we saw that Alphabet, Google's parent company, has borrowed from international markets about $60 billion since the beginning of the year and plans to borrow more soon.
The interest here is not that these publications were easily covered, as the company's financial situation is excellent, but that most of them were made in currencies outside the US dollar. Reading the article we understand that the company has chosen to move outside the US and to address international investors to a large extent because it is afraid that if it tries to borrow only in U.S. dollar, the market will bend sometime as well as the other technological giants have similar huge bond issues programs.
Έτσι η Alphabet, η Amazon και οι υπόλοιπες εταιρείες του γκρουπ προσπαθούν να δανειστούν από όλο τον κόσμο προσπαθώντας να μην γονατίσουν την αμερικανική αγορά υπό το βάρος των πολλών εκατοντάδων δισεκατομμυρίων που πρόκειται να δανειστούν μόνο μέσα στο 2026. Αυτό όμως δημιουργεί τον κίνδυνο κορεσμού των υπόλοιπων διεθνών αγορών αν οι εκδόσεις συνεχιστούν για πολύ με την ίδια ένταση.
Επιστρέφοντας στην παγκόσμια οικονομία, οι κίνδυνοι είναι πολύ σαφείς. Η άνοδος του πληθωρισμού θα γίνει ακόμα πιο απειλητική όσο συνεχίζεται ο αποκλεισμός των Στενών του Ορμούζ μειώνοντας την καταναλωτική ζήτηση, πλήττοντας την κερδοφορία των επιχειρήσεων που βλέπουν το κόστος λειτουργίας τους να αυξάνεται και εν τέλει βάζοντας φρένο στην οικονομική ανάπτυξη.
Με την αγορά κρατικών ομολόγων να πιέζεται λόγω των υψηλών χρηματοδοτικών αναγκών του δημόσιου τομέα που είναι συνέπεια των υψηλών και ανερχόμενων ελλειμμάτων και την αγορά των εταιρικών να αρχίζει να ανησυχεί για τον μεγάλο όγκο των ομολόγων που εκδίδονται για την χρηματοδότηση των επενδύσεων στην Τεχνητή Νοημοσύνη, δεν είναι καθόλου δύσκολο να φανταστούμε μία ξαφνική άνοδο των αποδόσεών τους.
Αν συμβεί αυτό, οι συνέπειες θα είναι πολύ αρνητικές για την οικονομία, καθώς θα πληγούν ταυτόχρονα ο ιδιωτικός τομέας, σε ατομικό και εταιρικό επίπεδο, και ο δημόσιος. Θεωρητικά σε μία τέτοια περίπτωση απειλής για την οικονομική ανάπτυξη, οι κεντρικές τράπεζες θα μπορούσαν να παρέμβουν μειώνοντας τα επιτόκια αναφοράς για να τονώσουν την οικονομία.
Όμως με τον πληθωρισμό να βρίσκεται σε σαφή άνοδο, αυτό θα είναι σχεδόν αδύνατον και δεν αποκλείεται να συμβεί το ακριβώς αντίθετο. Με λίγα λόγια, δεν μπορούμε να αποκλείσουμε το ενδεχόμενο να φτάσουμε σε μία σχεδόν αδιέξοδη κατάσταση με τελικό θύμα την παγκόσμια οικονομία, τις επιχειρήσεις και τους πολίτες. Δεν ισχυριζόμαστε πως αυτό το είναι το πιθανότερο ενδεχόμενο, έχει όμως πραγματικές πιθανότητες πραγματοποίησης.
