Why the Duterte Government’s “Build, Build, Build” Signifies a Recipe for a Crisis

Last weekend, I wrote

The NEDA just did NOT get the memo. Like the war on drugs, political mega deals with the Chinese government will be beyond the scope of edicts, legislation and mandates—or even the constitution.

Confirmed!

From the Friday’s proposed massive infrastructure spending program (Inquirer November 4, 2016)

“Build, build, build” is the battlecry of the Duterte administration as it intends to ramp up infrastructure spending to the tune of P8 trillion in the next five years, according to Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade.

Cabinet members on Thursday called on Congress to grant President Duterte emergency powers on transportation projects as they presented the administration’s planned infrastructure program to spur development and ease traffic congestion in the country.

Without the emergency powers, the projects, which include new roads, bridges, railways, and the improvement of airports, will  be delayed, Tugade said.

Selective bidding

“Is the population willing to wait some more?” he said at a press briefing in Malacañang.

The emergency powers being sought for the President would allow him to conduct selective bidding, direct contracting, or negotiated procurement for materials or services for projects intended to deal with the transport problem.

The bill that would authorize these powers would also bar lower courts from issuing temporary restraining orders or injunctions against the projects. Only the Supreme Court would be given the authority to issue such an order.

First, emergency powers simply omit or bypass the check and balances provided by the extant institutional and legal framework. Through centralization, the executive imbues or absorbs MORE political control over the economy.

Short circuiting the defective check and balances would entail of even MORE abuses than less. Greater risks of abuses have been sidelined due to the populist embrace of the superhero syndrome. Or the public’s blind faith on the strong man government to deliver promises. Yet the public forgets that the leadership is NO god and is just a human being who is subject to mortal frailties.

Second, it is pretty much obvious that martial law would NOT be required at all for the current drift to an ochlocratic leftist dictatorship.

The executive only requires a stamp pad legislative branch and a supine supreme court to put in effect its pet projects.

By virtue of complete control over the other branches of government, the executive branch can unilaterally impose whatever it desires.

Third, transforming the consciousness of the society requires a strong command of language that gains popular acceptance.

And this has easily been attained by virtue of indoctrinating fallacies as reality.

Government infrastructure spending equals G-R-O-W-T-H has signified a shibboleth for the majority, including so-called experts.

Benefits are seen, but never the cost.

Mao’s China, USSR, Cuba and North Korea have all relied on government spending including infrastructure, but where are they now?

The Japanese government has embarked on a series of fiscal infrastructure stimulus since its bubble imploded in 1990s. Yet more than two decades after, the Japanese economy still wobbles from economic stagnation while the cost of such undertaking has catapulted its debt conditions to the largest in the world. It’s why Abenomics embarked on a grand NIRP experiment which also includes never ending infrastructure spending. So Abe-Kuroda’s grand experiment has now translated to greater risks of instability more than G-R-O-W-T-H. [I dealt with this in Philippine Peso Tumbles 1.4% the Largest Weekly Loss Since 2014; Why the Weak Peso Signifies a Long Term Trend September 18, 2016]

Modern day China or “Communism with Chinese characteristics” has been no different.

Even the Chinese government’s addiction to credit intended just to inflate GDP statistics has become so evident for the mainstream to ignore

From Bloomberg (November 2 2016; bold mine)

In the five fastest-growing provinces, total fixed-asset investment exceeded the sum of their gross domestic product in the first three quarters of this year, according to new data from 29 of 31 provincial governments. In Chongqing, Guizhou, Tianjin, Jiangxi and Anhui, combined total investment was 6.56 trillion yuan ($969 billion) versus their combined economic output of 6.37 trillion yuan, the data show.

Despite a transition toward services and consumer-led growth, investment by the government, developers, or companies is still the engine fueling the fastest expansion rates. While the economy looks resilient for now -- the latest evidence of strength coming Tuesday with data showing the official manufacturing gauge jumped to a two-year high -- the addiction to investment and rapid credit growth needed to fund it is a growing concern.

China’s government has vowed break its stimulus addiction by boosting services, which accounted for more than half of the overall economy’s output last year for the first time, and consumption, a major prop this year. But quitting the old build-it-and-they-will-come mentality is proving harder to do at the provincial level as it remains the quickest way to juice GDP.

The reason why the Chinese economy seems “buoyant” today has been due to the astounding skyrocketing of social financing costs to the tune of $2.6 trillion (Yardeni.com). Bank loans have shot to the moon with a stunning $1.9 trillion of credit growth in a YEAR! That’s T-R-I-L-L-I-O-Ns!

It’s a grand stimulus which has been DWARFED the 2008 (US $586 billion) scale. The IMF warned last August that China’s 254% debt to GDP is unsustainable and must "urgently address the problem." (CNN MoneyAugust 12)

Such massive infusion of credit has only stoked a runaway bubble in property that may spillover to stocks.

Yet the Chinese government cannot wean away from credit, because doing so would mean a collapse of the house of cards entirely DEPENDENT or built on credit expansion.

Government infrastructure spending does NOT represent the HOLY GRAIL.  

Since resources are scarce, government spending would entail resources taken away from the productive economy. The significance of the proposed “Build, build, build” project is the expansion of the government at the expense of the productive economy.

Another is that since the said infrastructure projects are political, then distribution of benefits would favor the politically well-connected parties from the private sector. Chinese and Japanese sponsors are likely to benefit from the administration’s doleouts.

Yet once China and or Japan will be engulfed by a crisis those deals with Philippine government can be expected to vaporize.

Third, with government growing faster than the private sector, this entails more debt, higher taxes and increased inflation which will all be manifested through a weaker peso. Yet more politicization would postulate to greater risks of instability and crisis.

Finally, all it takes to increase investments is to respect and uphold private property or property rights and its ramifications: promote voluntary exchanges and sanctity of contracts. The short of this is to implement Economic FREEDOM.

But since HUMAN LIFE is the ESSENCE of property rights, and since life has NOT been respected—having been subjected to political fetishes by playing the role of god—then NO amount of government spending will translate to an avalanche of investments.

That’s because investors would not only seek a Return on Investments (RoI), but more importantly, desire an assurance of the Return OF Investments as a fundamental feature of a commercial environment. If the latter can’t be secured, then there would hardly be any investments at all.

Philippine Peso Tumbles 1.4% the Largest Weekly Loss Since 2014; Why the Weak Peso Signifies a Long Term Trend

In this issue:

Philippine Peso Tumbles 1.4% the Largest Weekly Loss Since 2014; Why the Weak Peso Signifies a Long Term Trend

-Asset Bubbles Weakens the Currency

-Big Government Translates to Additional Pressure on the Peso

-Financing Burden on Infrastructure Spending Will Weigh on the Peso

It’s pretty much a fascination to see how the peso got clobbered again this week. The USD peso was drubbed by 1.4% to Php 47.82, the biggest weekly loss since August 2014!

 

Worst, the USD peso now trades nearly at January 2016 highs of Php 48 (Php 47.995 in specific January 26). Last January, the fumbling peso accompanied the culmination of the interim crash of the Phisix. Present conditions, as explained last week, have paradoxically departed from the recent past.

On a year to date basis, as of Friday, the USD php has yielded 1.6%

External factors surely contributed to the pesos’ infirmities, but local forces have magnified its losses. Last week, the USD firmed across Asian currencies with the exception of the yuan.

As a side note, re the yuan. While the yuan firmed last week, financial stresses in the form of skyrocketing HIBOR (Hong Kong Interbank Offered Rate) which soared to a 7 year high have emerged.  And such strains have likewise partly resonated on the mainland’s SHIBOR (Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate) overnight and 1 week rates. So if China’s policymakers have tried to “contain” offshore yuan (CNH) from a sustained fall relative to the USD by “burning yuan shorts”, as mainstream reports have suggested, symptoms of imbalances have sprouted through other channels particularly through Hong Kong and or Shanghai’s interbank rates.  Although China’s trading week was truncated by a 2 day holiday, strains on the HIBOR have surfaced even prior to last week. The PBOC even has injected “a net 385.1 billion yuan ($57.7 billion) this week, the biggest additions since April”, according to Bloomberg to alleviate mounting financial pressures. Such substantial injections have only reduced rates by some margin as rates remain at vastly elevated levels. Yet the alternative explanation may not be about the PBOC fighting off currency speculators, butabout resurgent signs of liquidity strains from “dollar shorts” in China’s banking system.

The post holiday sessions will be very interesting.

Meanwhile for this week, the South Korean won was the region’s largest loser, USD krw zoomed by 2.14%, the Malaysian ringgit came second, as the USD myr soared by 1.43% and the USD peso ranked third.

In short, perhaps part of the recent strength of the USD vis-à-vis Asia may be indicative of the reappearance of a risk OFF environment.

Asset Bubbles Weakens the Currency

But then again while external forces have influenced the peso’s weakness, local developments (past and present) have been the principal source of its underlying conditions.

 

The peso’s dilemma has hardly been a short term dynamic. To the contrary, the peso has been in a cascade since 2013!

The top window shows of USD peso’s 3 year uptrend dynamic. Such has essentially reversed the previous 4 year strong peso cycle from 2009-2012.

Actions have consequences, both in the immediate and in the longer horizon. Since exchange rates are about demand and supply, cycles are underpinned by political economic structural factors

Yet all those years of bubble blowing have repercussions. This means that the pesos’ present travails have accounted for a legacy of many years of the Philippine political economy’s reliance on credit inflation (through the BSP’s adaption of easy money policies in 2009) mainly through banking system to boost its statistical GDP. And such asset bubble blowing activities financed through credit inflation has been expressed through a massive money supply build up.

Juxtaposed with the surge of the money supply growth has been the watershed reversal of the strong peso. Remember the 10 month 30+++% M3 growth in 2H 2013 to 1H 2014? That era represented the inflection point of the strong peso. Or that year marked the first phase of the resumption of the USD peso bullmarket.

When the 30+++% M3 growth crashed in 2014 through 3Q 2015, the USD peso largely traded sideways. 

Though the USD peso began to rally in 3Q 2015, it picked up momentum concomitant with the BSP’s silent stimulus in 4Q 2015.

This tells us that sustained massive money supply growth (through bank credit inflation) will only serve to reinforce that the USD peso bullmarket.

In short, expect the peso to fall further because of the persistent malinvestments. A sharper fall by the peso is likely to occur during the unwinding stage of such malinvestments  

Big Government Translates to Additional Pressure on the Peso

And another major force would galvanize or aggravate on the weak peso trend.

Stumbling growth rates of government revenues, which surfaced in 2013, has coincided with the frail peso or strong dollar. Though fiscal deficits have hardly been a critical factor then, it will be now.

Those huge surges in M3 in 2013 and 2014 have affected both top and bottom line of many key industries. As predicted, eps conditions by listed firms at the PSE were significantly affected by these in 2015

Hence, the faltering peso has reflected on the strains on the economy brought about by bubble blowing policies, which had been vented or manifested through the decline government revenues. So falling trend in government revenues and the feeble peso has not just been a coincidence, but one of the many interdependent complex causal based relationships.

Yet the advent of the left leaning “war on everything” administration translates to the enlargement of the government. Or growth of the government will come at the expense of the private economy.

Prior to the national elections in early May, I predicted that a shift to the political left means that the government’s balance sheets will likely go wild, or will run off course:

Given that government will assume a bigger role, then this means that the rate of growth of government spending should rise faster than the economy. Therefore, fiscal deficits will only balloon

And multiple signs have been swiftly converging for these to happen soon.

Not only has the current administration been serenading the police and military forces for their support on the government’s pet “war on drugs” project, by dangling the doubling of their salaries, generally the bureaucracy will see further increases in pay and benefits. This postulates to a massive expansion in the government’s bureaucracy in terms of personnel recruitment, wages and benefits, logistics and other related expenditures etc. (therefore crowding out the private sector). Add to this would be political spending promises made by the leadership during his first SONA.

All these would accrue to a substantial ballooning of fiscal deficits via booming public expenditures.

And as baptism of fire, the first month (July) of the administration saw a material drop in government collections and a swelling fiscal deficit.

And to compound on the situation, a foreign policy anchored on rancor and antagonism enshrouds the business climate by amplifying uncertainty.

Both constitute as a lethal mix to the government’s balance sheet: Regime uncertainty—reduced confidence due to doubts on property rights—will likely upset the topline as business may have second thoughts on investing. Meanwhile, the rapid expansion in public expenditures will unduly expand on the costs or liabilities of the government which eventually would spillover to the private economy and also add to regime uncertainty. Both would account for a feedback mechanism.

Financing Burden on Infrastructure Spending Will Weigh on the Peso

Part of the promises made by the leadership at his SONA on infrastructure spending has been announced.

From the Nikkei Asian Review: (September 16): Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has approved for auction nine infrastructure projects worth 171.14 billion pesos ($3.58 billion), including improvements at a congested airport in the capital here…Duterte is the first Philippine president from Mindanao in the south, and has promised more provincial economic development and inclusivity. He plans to ramp up infrastructure spending to 4.4% of gross domestic product next year, in line with a target to reach a 5.8% infrastructure-to-GDP ratio by 2018. Duterte's predecessor, President Benigno Aquino,awarded 12 public-private partnership infrastructure projects totaling 223 billion pesos during his six-year term, but encountered delays with both approvals and implementation. (bold added)

So in less than a quarter since the assumption of office, the incumbent will aggressively embark on infrastructure projects equivalent to 75% of previous administration’s accomplishments in the latter’s 6 years term.

You see, spending other people’s money is the easiest thing to do, especially for left leaning politicians

Of course, the public has been programmed to believe that infrastructure projects equal G-R-O-W-T-H. As I have pointed out here and elsewhere, infrastructure projects are NO free lunch elixirs. 

 

G-R-O-W-T-H will ensue, not to the general economy, but to the pockets of politicians, bureaucrats and special interest groups

Japan’s political economy is a splendid example. Japan’s politicians are frequent patrons of direct spending stimulus mostly on infrastructure. This includes the announced August 2016 stimulus by the Abe administration, which comes at the tune of ¥7.5 trillion ($73 billion) in new spending, but has a total value of ¥28 trillion over several years, according to the Wall Street Journal (see left). The new stimulus project includes “upgrading ports to accommodate foreign cruise ships and building food-processing facilities to increase exports of farm products”  

Japan has used stimulus as far back as in the 1990s when her asset bubble imploded (see right).

From then through today, the Japanese economy has been embroiled in more than two “lost decades” and wears the tiara of being the most indebted nation in the world. Yet Japan’s economy continues to wallow in stagnation. Hence the government has embarked not only on “try and try again” fiscal (mostly infrastructure) stimulus, but has experimented with the most insane monetary policy in the world—negative policy rates!

As a side note, speaking of demented policies, incidentally the BOJ will hold a meeting next week (September 20-21. The US Fed will meet too on the same days). This will be critical. Given growing doubts of the sustainability of BOJ’s large scale asset purchases (LSAP) as liquidity has virtually been vacuumed out of the marketplace, it’s been publicly floated that interest rates, instead of QE, will become key mechanism for the coming policies. Liquidity has essentially vanished in the JGB market because the BOJ has bought close to 40% of JGBs!  The equity markets have likewise been massively distorted, that’s because the BOJ has been buying equity ETFs, where it now accounts for the number one shareholder (ETF whale) in a number (55) of Nikkei 225 firms! The supposed new policy will be channeled through pushing interest rates further down negative. However, LSAPs or QEs may be reduced. This has been labeled as the BOJ’s “QE exhaustion”, the reverse “twist” or the “steepening of the curve”. 

Question is with reduced BOJ backstop on JGBs, will JGBs encounter selloffs similar to the previous week? And if does, will this spread to other negative yielding bond markets such as in Europe, where the ECB shares the same predicament in terms of diminishing inventory or “scarcity for eligible bonds” available to the ECB for LSAP? Even more, what has been relationship between the selloffs in global bonds (JGBs, EU bonds, USTs) with the spikes in HIBOR and partly in SHIBOR? What has been the connection between these and soaring US LIBOR (1 and 3 months) rates and the TED spread???  Have the latter been only from proposed rule changes as mostly attributed by media? Or have they been signaling intensifying cracks in the global liquidity spectrum on the account of realizable limits to central bank policies?

Unfolding events have truly signified as historical turning points whether in the Philippines or abroad.

Going back to the Philippines. I know the Philippines is no Japan, but they somewhat share the same sins—both have not been afflicted by household bubble but by corporate and government bubbles.

Because PPP infrastructure projects will compete with non PPP private sector for resources, where the construction industry has currently been experiencing a credit finance boom, then this entails even higher prices for infrastructure-construction related materials as well as increased wages for manpower for the industry. The government’s PSA reported steady upswing in construction material retail prices (1.5%) andwholesale prices (1.7%) for July. Thereby this postulates to the augmentation of inflationary pressures on the economy at the expense of general consumers.

PPP benefits only a small group of people in terms of employment. Based on PSA estimates as of July 2016, the construction sector employs about 8.6% of the labor force.  (The construction sector accounted for 48.1% of the industrial sector where the latter represents 17.8% of the total work force). As reminder, I bear huge reservations on the accuracy of survey based statistics. Yet not even all of the sector benefits from infrastructure projects as windfalls will fall only on the laps of the participants and their adjuncts. Despite doubts on the numbers, the point is to show of the concentration of economic bonanza to select groups

And since PPPs are the first recipient of public funds (bankrolled by credit most likely through banks or bonds), then PPPs will spend credit money at lower prices ahead of the general public (Cantillon Effect). This translates to the redistribution of benefits in favor of PPP participants, at the expense of all non borrowers and non direct PPP currency holders. Yes, that’s you and me.

Yet the supposed benefits of infrastructure output have almost always been local (where the infrastructure is physically located). And neither all local people benefit from them nor are the fruits shared equally. Said differently, some benefit more than the others. And many, if not most, people don’t.

And because such account for as a political undertaking, everyone else is hooked by the risk of failures from such undertaking. Yes everyone pays for government spending: Directly by the taxpayers; Indirectly through VAT and the INFLATION TAX.

Because these are political projects, market prices are unavailable to measure its viability. Prices are instead set by political ukase and not by demand and supply. Hence, deficits or shortcomings from such projects will be subsidized by the government—mostly through debt—or eventual reduction in subsidies to the public.

Second, infrastructure projects are not permanent. They depend on access to resources, usually provided for by easy money conditions. Once access to money becomes limited or when government balance sheets become strained, such projects would be either shelved or placed at the backburner.

If fiscal deficits blow out of proportions, which should imply of surges in interest rates, many of these feel good symbolical political projects will be either be suspended or reduced.

Consequently think of what happens to all manpower and equipment invested on for such purpose.

Japan’s try and try again fiscal stimulus depends on zero bound rates. Hence, the BoJ’s nutcase policies of pursuing negative rates.

Third, PPPs need to be financed. Question is how will all these be financed? Given the financial conditions of the list of proposed players (firms of the elites), where they have largely been cash flow deficient, then this means that such projects will be funded by credit (bank or bonds). And because these are political projects, will the government guarantee (implicit or explicit) the loans acquired by its private sector contractors? If so, then will taxpayers will be on the hook.

Lastly, since infrastructure projects are also time consuming process, impact will be diverse and dispersed across time.

The initial “benefits” will all be statistical, viz spending from PPP outlays by recipients and those attached to them, rather than real (general welfare).  The real world benefits arrive when the projects have been completed.

But the financing required to mobilize and to undertake these projects will likely mean mounting debts or increased gearing of balance sheets of PPPs firms and of the government at the onset of the projects. This shows of the intertemporal nature of effects from political infrastructure projects.

As with Japan, such showcases the massive leveraging of balance sheets or increased assimilation of risks envisaged by unclear economic bounty.

Former University of Chicago finance professor, and presently, senior fellow at the Hoover Institute John Cochrane has a very relevant insight (based on his interpretation of economist/former Harvard University chief Larry Summer’s article on infrastructure):

“Public-Private partnerships" usually mean public protection, private profits, and a piñata for politicians.”

For the Philippines, it means privatize profits, socialized losses and an even weaker peso.

A favorite mantra from fans of the administration has been that “change is coming”.

They are right, change is indeed coming. The peso will bear the yoke of C-H-A-N-G-E!

As Ellen Glasgow Pulitzer Prize winning American novelist rightly noted:

All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward