The Wal-Mart Effect: Wal-Mart Stores and Economic Growth

An article from Foreign Policy suggests of a strong correlation between the existence and growth of Wal-Mart Stores and national economic growth.

This from Foreign Policy (all bold highlights mine)

``When India's first Wal-Mart opened this summer in Amritsar, the response was mixed, with detractors fearing that big-box stores would eventually crowd out India's fabled "wallah" culture. What no one remarked on, however, was that Wal-Mart's debut in a country is a bellwether for future growth. Indeed, Wal-Mart has started operations in 15 countries since 1991, and 13 of them have had boom economies, with an average of 4.4 percent annual growth since Wal-Mart arrived. Over the last five years, the economies of Wal-Mart countries outside the United States have grown 40 percent faster than the world average.

``So what's going on? Does the ability to buy giant bags of Froot Loops at cut-rate prices inspire economic growth? More likely, Wal-Mart is simply a smart, cautious investor. "Wal-Mart chooses to go places with a sizable middle class," says Nelson Lichtenstein, a historian who just published a book on Wal-Mart's rise. And Wal-Mart's attention to middle-class growth could pay off for the company in the future.

``The portion of the global middle class that lives in the developing world should rise from 56 percent in 2000 to 93 percent in 2030, according to the World Bank. Next up for the Wal-Mart effect, Lichtenstein says: Russia and Eastern Europe. Picture the new global bourgeoisie outfitted with cheap hibachi grills, extra-durable puppy toys, and energy-efficient minifridges, and you've got a glimpse of the coming Wal-Mart revolution."

Additional comments:

The article focuses mostly on the demand side perspective: global middle class growth.

Here is our complimentary view from the supply side:

Since Wal-mart offers international products at the most affordable prices, this indicates that consumers have more options to choose from, and is likewise backed by greater purchasing power from competitive pricing, i.e. more products that can be bought.

Since Wal-mart offers its consumers access to the world products, this also implies that global competition enhances pricing, product quality and the pool of products available for sale.

This also means an expanded internationalization of trade.

In short, the Wal-mart effect can be construed as representative of the globalization dynamics. (Hat tip: Mark Perry)

Wal-Mart: The Only Crisis Proof Stock During The 2008 Crash

Interesting observation from Bloomberg's Chart of the Day

Bloomberg notes that discount retail behemoth Wal-mart had been the only stock to remain in positive grounds among the the S & P 500 index constituents throughout the recession period.


From Bloomberg, ``Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the only Standard & Poor’s 500 Index company that has rallied during the entire 22-month recession.

``The CHART OF THE DAY shows that shares of Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, were up at the end of each week while the S&P 500 posted losses throughout most of the worst contraction since the 1930s. Walmart closed at $45.72 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on Jan. 4, 2008, and has finished above that level every week since.

``Walmart is a great example of a recession-proof company,” said MarK Bronzo, a money manager at Security Global Investors, which oversees $21 billion in Irvington, New York. “People believe that when you go there you’re getting consumer staples or necessities, like food, at the best price available. So, in an environment where people were very conscious of what they were spending, Walmart was able to deliver.”

``Walmart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, peaked at $62.41 on Sept. 12, 2008, three days before Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for the world’s largest bankruptcy and triggered the worst stock market rout since the Great Depression."

I'd say that this is an exceptional feat, considering that 499 issues from the S & P 500 suffered losses during the crisis/recession.

Walmart's lone outperformance appear to also validate the Edwin Lefevre (Jesse Livermore) aphorism ``In a bear market all stocks go down and in a bull market they go up..I speak in a general sense. But the average man doesn't wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell."

Selling the Bailout: The Fear Factor

``For historians each event is unique. Economics, however, maintains that forces in society and nature behave in repetitive ways. History is particular; economics is general." Charles Kindleberger, Manias, Panics and Crashes A History of Financial Crises (New York: Basic Books, 1989), p. 16.

Proponents of the bailout package have focused on two major concerns to advance their cause: fear and the allure of profits.

In marketing, sales pitches generally have to connect with emotions to create the necessary interests or conditions required to generate the desired outcome: sales. And what emotion could be easily trigger quick response or reaction than fear! According to marketing savant Seth Godin, ``Marketing with fear is a powerful tool. Fear is a universal emotion, it's viral and people will go to great lengths to make it go away.”

So when officials go to the extent of contriving Armageddon scenarios in order to secure the political capital required to pass their sponsored legislation as this…

From Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke (quoted by New York Times) ``If we don’t do this…we may not have an economy on Monday.”

…we understand this as nothing but a hard sell meant to ram into throats of the Americans the notion that Wall Street and Main Street needs a “savior” by constant government intervention of the marketplace.

Think of it this way, it has been MORE than a year where the Bernanke-Paulson tandem have peddled this mirage in myriad ways to no avail: the $163 billion fiscal stimulus at the start of the year, various assorted alphabet soup of bridge financing facility some of which had been enabled by the rarely used legal authority under Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act (Wall Street Journal), overseas swap lines, 325 basis points Federal interest rate cut, the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and AIG, the forced marriage of JP Morgan and Bear Stearns with the backstop from the Federal Reserve, tapping the $50-billion Exchange Stabilization Fund to offer insurance to money-market fund investors to stop a run on the funds (WSJ) and others…

Yet at the end of the week, global world financial markets remain under severe duress, see figure 1.

Figure 1: Danske Bank: Credit Stress and Liquidity Crunch

So even as the Bernanke-Paulson team (B&P) managed to secure the much needed mandate via Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (originally the Troubled Asset Relief Program-TARF) for the use of $700 billion at their discretion to support domestic markets (including foreign banks with domestic exposure), US equity markets fell sharply over the week: Dow Jones Industrials tumbled 7.34% (year to date down) 22.16%, S&P cratered 9.4% (down 25.14% y-t-d) and Nasdaq crashed 10.18% (down 26.58% year-to-date).

As a side comment, US markets appear to be fast catching up on the loss statistics of the Philippine equity benchmark the Phisix, whose decline has interestingly been mild (relatively speaking amidst this turmoil) and could have signified sympathy selling (down 1.19% this week and down 29.14% year-to-date) than a traditional rout.

The credit crisis seem to worsen with the apparent collapse in the US commercial paper market- (investopedia.com) “An unsecured, short-term debt instrument issued by a corporation, typically for the financing of accounts receivable, inventories and meeting short-term liabilities. Maturities on commercial paper rarely range any longer than 270 days” or market facilities which enables corporations to gain access or utilize short term financing (see right pane courtesy of Danske Bank). Aside the skyrocketing cost of funding seems to reinforce the indications of the ongoing stress on interbank lending or as some analysts insinuate a “silent bank run” (right pane).

According to Steen Bocian of Danske Bank, ``First, perceived counterparty risk went up as fears of other bankruptcies swept through the system. Banks therefore became even more reluctant to lend money to other banks. Second, the collapse of Lehman Brothers led to big losses for the oldest US money market fund, Reserve Primary MMF, which “broke the buck”. This means that investors experienced real losses on funds invested in the Reserve Primary MMF, as net asset value went below USD1. This was the first time since 1994 that a money market fund had broken the buck. The incident led to a flight of money out of money market funds in the US.” (underscore mine)

This is the critical link between Wall Street and Main Street. When the cost of funds shoot skyward, many ongoing or expansion projects are likely to grind to a halt and companies or institutions surviving on the margins end up filing for bankruptcy. Even states like California have quietly sought funding ($7billion) from the US Treasury.

Interventionism Doesn’t Seem To Work

So in spite of the so-called interventionist nostrums you have the markets generally rioting or becoming more dysfunctional.

This could mean one of three things:

one- measures have not been enough ($700 billion is not enough) or

two-measures don’t address the root problem but instead deal with the symptoms or

three-market could be reacting to the law of unintended consequences.

Economist and author of More Sex is Safer Sex Steven Landsburg in the Atlantic.com wrote a very eloquent poignant piece about the current banking crisis (emphasize mine),

``So what's special about banks? According to what I keep reading, it's that without banks, nobody can borrow, and the economy grinds to a halt.

``Well, let's think about that. Banks don't lend their own money; they lend other people's (their depositors' and their stockholders'). Just because the banks disappear doesn't mean the lenders will. Borrowers will still want to borrow and lenders will still want to lend. The only question is whether they'll be able to find each other.

``That's one reason I feel squeamish about the official pronouncements we've been getting. They tell us bank failures will make it hard to borrow but never that bank failures will make it hard to lend. But every borrower is paired with a lender, so it's odd to state the problem so asymmetrically. This makes me suspect that the official pronouncers have not entirely thought this thing through.

``In the 1930s, a wave of bank failures did make it hard for borrowers and lenders to find each other, and the consequences were drastic. But times have changed in at least two relevant ways. First, the disaster of the 1930s was caused not just by bank failures, but by a 30% contraction of the money supply, which is something today's Fed can easily prevent. Second, as any user of match.com can tell you, the technology for finding partners has improved since then. When a firm wants to raise capital, why can't it just sell bonds over the web? Or issue new stock? Or approach one of the hedge funds that seem to be swimming in cash? Or borrow abroad?

``I know, I know, the rest of the world is in crisis too. But surely in the vast global economy, it should be possible to find someone capable of introducing a lender to a borrower. (Note that I'm not talking about going to foreign lenders, though that's another option. I'm just talking about the same American borrower and American lender who would have found each other through Bear Stearns finding each other through Barclays instead.)

``In other words, I'm not sure these big Wall Street banks are really necessary, and I'm not sure we'd miss them much if they were gone. Maybe there's something I'm missing, but if so, I think it should be incumbent on Messrs. Bernanke, Paulson and above all Bush to explain what it is.”

Or a similar thought from Bill King (hat tip Barry Ritholtz), ``The cause of our current financial morass is Big Government + Big Business = Crony Capitalism + Funny Money = concentration of wealth and risk + declining US living standards.”

``The solution is decentralization of the financial system, like the tech industry, which will lower systemic risk, foster competition and yield better ideas, services and companies.”

Like us, Mr. Landsburg and Bill King acknowledges that the banking system is no less than one huge cartel organized and operated by a network of central banks led by the US Federal Reserve living off under the platform of US dollar standard fractional reserve banking system whose basic premise is one of institutionalized leverage (legally required to keep only a fraction of deposits relative to lending). And whose boom bust policies foster banking oligopolies and crony capitalism.

The Opportunity Cost of A Wal-Mart Bank

Proof? In 1999 Wal-Mart’s attempt to buy a savings bank in Oklahoma was foiled by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. In 2002 Wal-Mart was again interdicted from acquiring the California ILC by the California legislature. In 2005, community and regional banks closed ranks to defeat Wal-Mart’s application banking license on fears that it might grab away their businesses (sfgate.com).

The point is not to defend Wal-Mart attempted entry in the banking industry, but to accentuate the example of the use of laws to prevent entry of new competition.

And this has been the essence of the Wall Street bailout: to sustain the clique on the premise of the sustenance of systemic concentration-“too big or too interconnected to fail” whose functionality has been “too embedded in the economy” which requires today the poor and mid class Americans to pay for the sins of a flawed currency system based on the rule of elite.

A financial and economic model where the poor subsidizes the rich, very much in resemblance to today’s global current account imbalances paradigm (poor emerging countries with current account surpluses subsidizing rich current account deficit countries). Free market failure anyone?

Conditions That Pave Way For Greed

The fact that the essence of today’s bust is one which stemmed from excessive leverage has been principally reflected on the operating principles of fractional reserve banking system. Where one can get away with piling on more leverage to gain additional profits why then stop? “As long as the music keeps playing we keep dancing”.

Is it all about greed? Think of it, when borrowing rates offered you is at ZERO rates or money for “free” what would you do? Take up the money and speculate. You chase for yields. You lever up. You lengthen your time preference based on false signals that the credit offered have been backed by real savings. And since everybody seemed to doing the same, why not seek the “comfort of the crowds”? You chase momentum on assets that have been popularly boosted by inflation or speculation. You flip stocks or houses. That’s exactly what the public did upon the implicit prodding from government policies.

US Banks which has signified as the main pillar of the fractional reserve bank system, has essentially transmitted the same principles to the society by: overextended gearing, overspeculation, adopted computerized quant risk models, went around regulatory loop holes as the net capital rule (New York Times), morphed into a new business model of “originate and distribute” which passed the credit and repayment risks to end-users freeing up more capital to lever, utilized innovative “hedge” instruments (structured finance and derivatives) to accrue incremental gains, relaxed lending standards to produce economies of scale, and moved out of the regulated sphere to establish the Shadow Banking System.

As for government policies, responsible for twisting incentives that led to these boom: Fed policies (aside from monetary policy, remember Greenspan’s advanced the idea of Americans moving to ARMs?), the implicit guarantee of the Government Sponsored Enterprises, Mark to Market Accounting Rules and the Community Reinvestment Act (which forced lending to less qualified candidates based on the concept of expanding homeownership or protecting the American dream).

Moreover, regulatory oversight became lax when the boom flourished! This very insightful quote from Robert Arvanitis Risk Finance Advisers, Institutional Risks Analystics, Seeking Beta: Interview with Robert Arvanitis (highlight mine)``Being mortal, the bureaucrats desire to avoid pain is as dear to them as the desire by their counterparts in private industry to seek gain. And it is far more profitable to game the rules, for example, than to enforce them. And any system can be gamed.” Yes indeed why get blamed for stopping the music while everybody is dancing? (hat tip: Craig McCarty)

In other words, Wall Street under the backstop of US Federal Reserve inflated the system until it became evidently unsustainable and thus collapsed.

So what is the basic problem? Inflation, overspeculation, overvaluation, oversupply and excess leverage or having taken on too much debt more than one can afford to pay. Essentially the ongoing bust represents market forces unraveling the massive distortions imposed on it or the reassertion of the universality of economic laws.

And $700 billion would seem like a spare change relative to the degree of market distortions that need to be cleansed from the system or the current high level of debt needs to be reduced to the level where the US economy can afford to pay them.

Markets have simply been telling Wall Street and the US, particularly Bernanke and Paulson and the US leadership, that it won’t be cowered by threats, and that market forces have been revealing the truth and realities about the untenableness of the imbalances within the system.

Perhaps it is about time to reconsider accepting the non-traditional non-cartelized sources of financing.