Control + 1 � Block Headings
Document Sample


Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
Spending DA Answers – Table of Contents
Glossary ................................................................................................................................................ 2
Uniqueness
Not Unique – Spending Now .............................................................................................................. 3-4
Not Unique – Economy Declining Now .............................................................................................. 5-6
Internal Link
No Internal Link – Deficit Spending Doesn’t Cause Economic Collapse ............................................... 7
Deficit Spending Benefits the Economy ................................................................................................ 8
Deficit Spending Benefits the Economy – Growth ................................................................................. 9
Deficit Spending Benefits the Economy – Unemployment .................................................................. 10
Deficit Spending Benefits the Economy – Private Sector .................................................................... 11
Answers to: Fiscal Discipline Key To Investor Confidence ............................................................ 12-13
Impact
No Impact – Economic Decline Doesn’t Cause War ...................................................................... 14-15
No Impact – US Not Key To Global Economy..................................................................................... 16
1
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
Glossary
Austerity – When the government significantly decreases the amount of money that it spends that is
called austerity
Budget – The money that a government has and their plan for spending it.
Debt Ceiling – The money the government is allowed to owe other nations.
Deficit – A deficit is when you have less money than you are spending. If the government is ‘deficit
spending,’ then they are spending more money than they are taking in. Some argue that deficit
spending also damages the economy.
Democrats – This is a political party. Democrats generally are politically liberal and favor a larger
government with more social programs. Democrats are often stereotyped as unwise with money.
Economy – This is a combination of the labor (workforce), the system of exchange of goods and
services, and the resources a country has at a given time. If the economy is ‘up,’ a country has a lot
of these things, if it is ‘down’, a country has very few.
Entitlements – Entitlements are government programs such as Social Security and Medicare that
people are legally entitle to receive money from.
Fiscal Discipline – Fiscal discipline refers to the ability of the government to spend money wisely.
Fiscal discipline is like making sure that you spend your allowance on the things you really need
instead of just things you want. If the government loses fiscal discipline, it is like spending your entire
allowance on things you don’t need and not having any left for important things. Lack of fiscal
discipline damages the economy because the government is spending more than it can afford.
Investor Confidence – This refers to whether or not people want to spend their money on things in
the U.S. economy.
Republicans – This is a political party. Republicans generally are more politically conservative and
favor a smaller government that collects fewer taxes. Republicans are often stereotyped as greedy
with government funds.
Resilient – If something is resilient, it will come back up even after it goes down. If the economy is
resilient, that means it will increase eventually even if it is decreasing now.
2
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
Not Unique – Spending Now
[____]
[____] Not Unique – We spend a significant amount of money on programs like Social Security
and health care
Forbes, 2012
(May 4, “The Time for Entitlement Reform is Now,”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougschoen/2012/05/04/the-time-for-entitlement-reform-is-now/)
Thus far, Democrats and Republicans are spending more time bickering with each other than
putting forward constructive ideas. In response to the news that Social Security and Medicare
would run out sooner than expected, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said that “rather
than work together to advance solutions, the president has opted to play politics with seniors’ care” by
distorting “efforts to save and strengthen Medicare.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi retorted
that “despite the repeated efforts of Republicans to privatize Social Security and end the Medicare
guarantee, these vital initiatives remain strong” and “Democrats will always ensure they are
strengthened, never weakened.” President Obama has largely avoided taking on entitlement
reform and the need to rein in spending and balance the budget. Obama declined to endorse
the Bowles-Simpson commission’s recommendations, which aimed to reduce the debt to 60% of
GDP and keep decreasing with time, and included serious attempts to restructure Social Security and
Medicare programs. He and other Democratic leaders have refused to look into significant cuts to
benefits unless Republicans become more willing to consider some of Obama’s taxes increases. In
the budget Obama put forward a few months ago, he again failed to address the nation’s
biggest budget challenges – the looming crises of the three big entitlement programs – and
was vague on how to address health care spending. Serious reform of entitlement programs is
critical to any fiscal plan that is to be successful. National health and retirement spending is
expected to grow significantly – from below 10% of the GDP today to 12% by 2021, 15% by 2035,
and 17% by 2050.
3
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
Not Unique – Spending Now
[____]
[____] Not Unique – Obama and the Democrats are spending now
Forbes, 2012
(May 4, “The Time for Entitlement Reform is Now,”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougschoen/2012/05/04/the-time-for-entitlement-reform-is-now/)
White House propaganda aside, Washington liberals are the real obstacle to progress in
restoring fiscal discipline. Mr. Obama’s budget was late this year, earning him an ignominious
place in history for breaking the budget-delivery-deadline law more times than any other president.
Once the White House proposal finally arrived, there was nothing for legislators to work with as his
plan increased the debt by at least $3.5 trillion over the next 10 years. The spending proposal was
so bloated that it didn’t even receive support from the president’s own party, going down in
flames in a 414-0 vote in the House last month.
4
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
Not Unique – Economy Declining Now
[____]
[____] US economy is bad and only going to get worse
Patrick Allen, CNBC EMEA Head of News, 2012
(US Economy Going from Bad to Worse: Roubini, 23 Jul, http://www.cnbc.com/id/48281577)
A robust and self-sustaining U.S. recovery is not on the cards, and we should now expect
below trend growth for many years to come, according to Nouriel Roubini, the economist famed
for his bearish views. Roubini, best-known for calling the 2008 economic crisis, outlined five reasons
the bulls have been wrong and argued that an American economic cold will lead the rest of the world
to catch pneumonia in a post on the Project Syndicate website. “Even this year, the consensus got it
wrong, expecting a recovery to annual GDP growth of better than 3 percent,” the founder of Roubini
Global Economics wrote. “And now, after getting the first half of 2012 wrong, many are repeating the
fairy tale that a combination of lower oil prices, rising auto sales, recovering house prices, and a
resurgence of U.S. manufacturing will boost growth in the second half of the year and fuel above-
potential growth by 2013.” Roubini believes the U.S. economy will slow further this year and next
as expectations of the “fiscal cliff” keep spending and growth lower — and uncertainty about the
outcome of the presidential election dogs markets. The fiscal cliff could knock 4.5 percent off 2013
growth if all tax cuts and transfer payments were allowed to expire and spending cuts where
triggered, according to Roubini. “Of course, the drag will be much smaller, as tax increases and
spending cuts will be much milder. But, even if the fiscal cliff turns out to be a mild growth bump — a
mere 0.5 percent of GDP — and annual growth at the end of the year is just 1.5 percent, as seems
likely, the fiscal drag will suffice to slow the economy to stall speed: a growth rate of barely 1
percent,” he wrote. The U.S. consumer, which drives plenty of the global economy as well as the
U.S., will not be able to keep spending when $1.4 billion worth of tax cuts and extended transfer
payments come to an end according to Roubini. “In 2013, as transfer payments are phased out,
however gradually, and as some tax cuts are allowed to expire, disposable income growth and
consumption growth will slow. The U.S. will then face not only the direct effects of a fiscal drag, but
also its indirect effect on private spending,” he wrote. The problems in the euro zone, a slowdown in
China and emerging markets, added to the chance that oil prices could be driven higher by
tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, will also add to America’s economic woes, Roubini
argued.
5
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
Not Unique – Economy Declining Now
[____]
[____] Multiple factors make economic decline inevitable
Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch, 2012
(U.S. economy moving sideways again, July 22, http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-07-
22/economy/32781597_1_gas-prices-slow-growth-fiscal-cliff)
All evidence points to another slowdown in the U.S. economy and the government is expected to
make it official on Friday. The key economic report of the week, gross domestic product, is likely to
show growth fizzled in the second quarter. The U.S. probably grew at a tepid 1.3%, down from
1.9% in the first quarter and 3.0% in the last three months of 2011, Economists surveyed by
MarketWatch estimate. That’s bad news for millions of Americans who still cannot find work
several years after the last recession officially ended. Such a slow growth rate reflects an economy
incapable of adding jobs fast enough to dramatically lower the nation’s 8.2% unemployment rate. Yet
with the second-quarter now in the rearview mirror, the more critical question is whether sluggish
growth will persist in the third quarter — July through September. The short answer: probably. The
headwinds from overseas are well known. Europe still has not resolved a financial crisis that
has sapped its economy. And growth in China, the world’s second largest economy, has also
slowed. The darker global picture has undercut American exports, a major source of growth over the
past year. Anxiety in the U.S. is also growing, for different reasons. Many businesses are increasingly
worried about a so-called fiscal cliff — large spending cuts and tax increases set to take effect Jan. 1
unless squabbling Democrats and Republicans in Washington agree to change current law. The
confluence of concerns at home and abroad have undermined the confidence of American
consumers and businesses. The result: Less confident consumers have cut back on spending
while businesses are delaying major investments. Retail spending, for example, has fallen three
straight months for the first time since the recession. That’s a recipe for very slow growth.
6
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
No Internal Link – Deficit Spending Doesn’t Cause Economic Collapse
[____]
[____] No impact to excessive spending – the US is far stronger than all its economic rivals
Hockett et al., Cornell law professor, 2012
(Robert, “Public Infrastructure Investment, Renewed Economic Growth, and the U.S. Fiscal Position”,
1-18,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1987656&http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf
m?abstract_id=1987656, DOA: 4-8-12)
Another critical variable that seems to be missing from much of the current discussion of
today’s U.S. debt position lies on the supply side of credit transactions of the sort that public
borrowing entails: It is the unique comparative advantage enjoyed by U.S. Treasury securities
relative to other prospective investments – particularly other nations’ debt instruments, but also
issuing firms’ instruments when consumer demand for those firms’ products and services awaits
stimulus – during uncertain times in the global financial markets. This of course bears upon the rate at
which the U.S. federal government can borrow, hence upon the margin of prospective benefits over
costs of prospective U.S. public investment projects, discussed just above in the previous Subsection.
In times past it has been suggested that the Japanese yen, then the euro, might come to rival the
dollar one day as global reserve currencies. Speculations concerning the future attractiveness of
Japanese, then European, sovereign debt have of course gone hand-in-hand with such
suggestions. None of these prophesies, however, have ever panned out. Japan’s still only anemic
recovery from the slowdown that followed its real estate crash of two decades ago (an experience
that the U.S. presumably hopes to avoid replicating), coupled with ineffective taxation regimes in
many sectors of the Eurozone, thus far have prevented the yen and the euro from seriously rivaling
the dollar just as they have prevented Japanese and European debt from rivaling U.S. Treasury debt.
And there is no evident reason at present to expect either the yen’s or the euro’s prospects to change
in the foreseeable future. Indeed if anything, those prospects – especially those of the euro – have
only worsened in recent months. The dollar’s only plausible rival apart from the yen and the
euro – the Chinese renminbi – likewise fails to present any serious challenge. It will, moreover,
remain out of serious competition for a long while looking forward as China continues to impose
currency and capital controls. And China is of course virtually certain to continue these polices
well into the future, for much the same reasons that it is likely to continue play a role in
financing American debt: Both policies are critical to China’s project of ongoing export-led growth,
while any signal of lost confidence in U.S. Treasuries for its part would seriously threaten the value of
its own massive holdings of those instruments. It is true that China is now at least beginning,
tentatively, to move toward taking measures meant to pave the way to the renminbi’s
becoming a global currency, hence Chinese government debt’s becoming a global asset.
7
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
Deficit Spending Benefits the Economy
[____]
[____] Spending is key to the economy – benefits of cutbacks empirically do not materialize
Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize in economics, 2010
(“Comment: To choose austerity is to bet it all on the confidence fairy: The mystical belief is that a
smaller deficit will lead to an investment boom. What Britain really needs now is another stimulus,”
The Guardian (London) - Final Edition, lexis)
There is a shortage of aggregate demand - the demand for goods and services that generates
jobs. Cutbacks in government spending will mean lower output and higher unemployment,
unless something else fills the gap. Monetary policy won't. Short-term interest rates can't go
any lower, and quantitative easing is not likely to substantially reduce the long-term interest rates
government pays - and is even less likely to lead to substantial increases either in consumption or
investment. If only one country does it, it might hope to gain an advantage through the weakening
of its currency; but if anything the US is more likely to succeed in weakening its currency against
sterling through its aggressive quantitative easing, worsening Britain's trade position. Of course if
Britain succeeds in getting the world to believe that its economic policies are among the worst -
an admittedly fierce contest at the moment - its currency may decline, but this is hardly the road
to a recovery. Besides, in the malaise into which the global economy is sinking, the challenge will
be to maintain exports; they can't be relied on as a substitute for domestic demand. The few
instances where small countries managed to grow in the face of austerity were those where their
trading partners were experiencing a boom. Lower aggregate demand will mean lower tax
revenues. But cutbacks in investments in education, technology and infrastructure will be even
more costly in future. For they will spell lower growth - and lower revenues. Indeed, higher
unemployment itself, especially if it is persistent, will result in a deterioration of skills, in effect the
destruction of human capital. Lower tax revenues now and in the future combined with lower
growth imply a higher national debt, and an even higher debt-to-GDP ratio. Matters may be even
worse if consumers and investors realise this. Advocates of austerity believe that mystically, as
the deficits come down, confidence in the economy will be restored and investment will boom. For
75 years there has been a contest between this theory and Keynesian theory, which argued that
spending more now, especially on public investments (or tax cuts designed to encourage private
investment) was more likely to restore growth, even though it increased the deficit. The two
prescriptions could not have been more different. Thanks to the IMF, multiple experiments have
been conducted - for instance, in east Asia in 1997-98 and a little later in Argentina - and almost
all come to the same conclusion: the Keynesian prescription works. Austerity converts
downturns into recessions, recessions into depressions. The confidence fairy that the
austerity advocates claim will appear never does, partly perhaps because the downturns
mean that the deficit reductions are always smaller than was hoped.
8
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
Deficit Spending Benefits the Economy – Growth
[____]
[____] Cutting back government spending would eliminate economic growth – independent
estimate proves
Howard Gleckman, Resident Fellow at the Urban Institute, 2011
(“The Do-Nothing Fiscal Fix: Recipe for Recession,” http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/2011/09/01/the-
do-nothing-fiscal-fix-recipe-for-recession)
The second–more immediate—problem is that slamming on the fiscal breaks would likely
wreck what may be a still-weak economy. Compared to this year, spending in 2013 would
effectively be frozen, while taxes are increased by $750 billion. CBO projects such a sharp
dose of austerity would slash economic growth by between 1.5 and 3.5 percentage points in
2013. With most economists projecting a 2013 expansion of about 3.5, this could cut growth by
between one-third and, well, 100 percent. Keep in mind that with interest rates at close to
zero, the Federal Reserve couldn’t do much to help. And, btw, while CBO doesn’t try to
estimate what a new recession would mean for the deficit, it wouldn’t be pretty.
[____] Failure to spend money makes economic problems worse
Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize in economics, 2011
(9/7/11, “How to put America back to work,” Politico,
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/62847.html#ixzz1XMX2T4eV)
First, we must dispose two myths. One is that reducing the deficit will restore the economy. You
don’t create jobs and growth by firing workers and cutting spending. The reason that firms
with access to capital are not investing and hiring is that there is insufficient demand for
their products. Weakening demand — what austerity means — only discourages investment
and hiring. As Paul Krugman emphasizes, there is no “confidence fairy” that magically
inspires investors once they see the deficit go down. We’ve tried that experiment — over and
over. Using the austerity formula, then-President Herbert Hoover converted the stock market
crash into the Great Depression. I saw firsthand how the International Monetary Fund’s
imposed austerity on East Asian countries converted downturns into recessions and
recessions into depressions.
9
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
Deficit Spending Benefits the Economy – Unemployment
[____]
[____] Cutting back on government spending hurts the economy and causes unemployment
Virginia Tax Review, 2011
(June 22, Good deficits: protecting the public interest from deficit hysteria)
The short-term costs of deficit reduction can thus be severe, especially because they are
concentrated on a small group of people rather than spread throughout the economy. The harms
imposed on a small, vulnerable group can also have long-lasting effects, because the people
thus affected can suffer losses from extended bouts of unemployment that are difficult to
reverse if they can be reversed at all. These consequences of unemployment include suicides
and other acts of violence; (93) but they also include the loss of skills and health that accompany
being laid off from one's job.
10
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
Deficit Spending Benefits the Economy – Private Sector
[____]
[____] The government spending helps, not hurts, the private sector
Virginia Tax Review, 2011
(June 22, Good deficits: protecting the public interest from deficit hysteria)
As described earlier in this article, the most important and plausible harm from running deficits
is "crowding out," which is the process by which the government's deficit claims resources
that might have been used by private businesses to expand their productive capacity.(102) If the
economy is operating below capacity, however, there is a temporary free lunch, in that the
government can hire workers and machines that would otherwise remain idle.
Because of this, the private sector is not disadvantaged by the government's additional
involvement in the economy, and indeed the new government workers are enabled to buy
items from private companies that they otherwise would not have been able to afford. This can
encourage private firms to increase spending on productive plant and equipment, creating a
virtuous cycle that can help to end the downturn. The process by which government spending
can increase private investment is known as "Crowding In." Since there is no tradeoff between
government and private spending during a downturn, therefore, crowding out is only a relevant
concern during periods of prosperity.
11
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
Answers to: Fiscal Discipline Key To Investor Confidence
[____]
[____] Low spending empirically won’t raise confidence or growth
Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, 2011
(10/25/10, “Britain's fashion victims,” The Canberra Times, lexis)
And it's a fad that has been fading lately, as evidence has accumulated that the lessons of the
past remain relevant, that trying to balance budgets in the face of high unemployment and falling
inflation is still a really bad idea. Most notably, the confidence fairy has been exposed as a
myth. There have been widespread claims that deficit- cutting actually reduces unemployment
because it reassures consumers and businesses; but multiple studies of historical record,
including one by the International Monetary Fund, have shown that this claim has no basis in
reality. No widespread fad ever passes, however, without leaving some fashion victims in its
wake. In this case, the victims are the British people, who have the misfortune to be ruled by a
government that took office at the height of the austerity fad and won't admit it was wrong.
Britain, like the United States, is suffering from the aftermath of a housing and debt bubble. Its
problems are compounded by London's role as a global financial center: Britain came to rely too
much on profits from wheeling and dealing to drive its economy and on financial-industry tax
payments to pay for government programs. Over- reliance on the financial industry largely
explains why Britain, which came into the crisis with relatively low public debt, has seen its budget
deficit soar to 11per cent of gross domestic product, slightly worse than the US deficit. And
there's no question that Britain will eventually need to balance its books with spending cuts and
tax increases. The operative word here should, however, be "eventually". Fiscal austerity will
depress the economy further unless it can be offset by a fall in interest rates. Right now,
rates in Britain, as in America, are already very low, with little room to fall further. The
sensible thing, then, is to devise a plan for putting the nation's fiscal house in order, while waiting
until a solid economic recovery is under way before wielding the axe.
12
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
Answers to: Fiscal Discipline Key To Investor Confidence
[____]
[____] Empirically austerity doesn’t restore confidence
Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, 2011
(9/18/11, http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/stimulus-austerity-and-double-standards/)
Meanwhile, the pain caucus keeps telling us that austerity is the way to restore confidence;
and confidence keeps not being restored. Ireland, for example, has imposed savage
austerity, yet the interest rate on its 10-year bonds is still 6.7 percentage points higher than
Germany’s, down from recent peaks but still far above its level when the austerity program
began. Yet somehow nobody in the pain caucus says hey, this was supposed to work but it
didn’t, so our theory is all wrong. Instead, they just insist that we double down, continuing the
beatings until morale improves.
[____] Lack of confidence isn’t the problem
Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, 2011
(7/7/11, “What Obama Wants,”, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/opinion/08krugman-
.html?_r=1&scp=7&sq=%22confidence%20fairy%22&st=cse)
That’s three of the right’s favorite economic fallacies in just two sentences. No, the government
shouldn’t budget the way families do; on the contrary, trying to balance the budget in times of
economic distress is a recipe for deepening the slump. Spending cuts right now wouldn’t “put the
economy on sounder footing.” They would reduce growth and raise unemployment. And last but
not least, businesses aren’t holding back because they lack confidence in government
policies; they’re holding back because they don’t have enough customers — a problem that
would be made worse, not better, by short-term spending cuts.
13
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
No Impact – Economic Decline Doesn’t Cause War
[____]
[____] No causal relationship between economic decline and war
Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at Harvard University, 2006
(Foreign Affairs, Sept/Oct, “The Next War of the World”)
Nor can economic crises explain the bloodshed. What may be the most familiar causal chain in
modern historiography links the Great Depression to the rise of fascism and the outbreak of World
War II. But that simple story leaves too much out. Nazi Germany started the war in Europe only
after its economy had recovered. Not all the countries affected by the Great Depression were taken
over by fascist regimes, nor did all such regimes start wars of aggression. In fact, no general
relationship between economics and conflict is discernible for the century as a whole. Some
wars came after periods of growth, others were the causes rather than the consequences of
economic catastrophe, and some severe economic crises were not followed by wars.
14
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
No Impact – Economic Decline Doesn’t Cause War
[____]
[____] Economic decline doesn’t cause war
Robert Jervis, Professor of International Politics in the Department of Political Science at Columbia
University, 2011
(Force in Our Times Saltzman Working Paper No. 15 July 2011
http://www.siwps.com/news.attachment/saltzmanworkingpaper15-
842/SaltzmanWorkingPaper15.PDF)
Even if war is still seen as evil, the security community could be dissolved if severe conflicts of
interest were to arise. Could the more peaceful world generate new interests that would bring the
members of the community into sharp disputes? 45 A zero-sum sense of status would be one
example, perhaps linked to a steep rise in nationalism. More likely would be a worsening of the
current economic difficulties, which could itself produce greater nationalism, undermine
democracy, and bring back old-fashioned beggar-thy-neighbor economic policies. While these
dangers are real, it is hard to believe that the conflicts could be great enough to lead the
members of the community to contemplate fighting each other. It is not so much that
economic interdependence has proceeded to the point where it could not be reversed – states
that were more internally interdependent than anything seen internationally have fought bloody
civil wars. Rather it is that even if the more extreme versions of free trade and economic
liberalism become discredited, it is hard to see how without building on a pre-existing
high level of political conflict leaders and mass opinion would come to believe that their
countries could prosper by impoverishing or even attacking others. Is it possible that
problems will not only become severe, but that people will entertain the thought that they have to
be solved by war? While a pessimist could note that this argument does not appear as
outlandish as it did before the financial crisis, an optimist could reply (correctly, in my view) that
the very fact that we have seen such a sharp economic down-turn without anyone
suggesting that force of arms is the solution shows that even if bad times bring about
greater economic conflict, it will not make war thinkable.
15
Spending DA Answers RIUDL
Compliments of BDL
No Impact – US Not Key To Global Economy
[____]
[____] U.S. not key to the global economy
Christian Caryl, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 2010
(Crisis? What Crisis? APRIL 5, 2010,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/05/crisis_what_crisis?page=full)
Many emerging economies entered the 2008-2009 crisis with healthy balance sheets. In most cases
governments reacted quickly and flexibly, rolling out stimulus programs or even expanding poverty-
reduction programs. Increasingly, the same countries that have embraced globalization and
markets are starting to build social safety nets. And there's another factor: Trade is becoming
more evenly distributed throughout the world. China is now a bigger market for Asian exporters
than the United States. Some economists are talking about "emerging market decoupling."
Jonathan Anderson, an emerging-markets economist at the Swiss bank UBS, showed in one recent
report how car sales in emerging markets have actually been rising during this latest bout of turmoil --
powerful evidence that emerging economies no longer have to sneeze when America catches a
cold. Aphitchaya Nguanbanchong, a consultant for the British-based aid organization Oxfam, has
studied the crisis's effects on Southeast Asian economies. "The research so far shows that the result
of the crisis isn't as bad as we were expecting," she says. Indonesia is a case in point: "People in this
region and at the policy level learned a lot from the past crisis." Healthy domestic demand cushioned
the shock when the crisis hit export-oriented industries; the government weighed in immediately with
hefty stimulus measures. Nguanbanchong says that she has been surprised by the extent to which
families throughout the region have kept spending money on education even as incomes have
declined for some. And that, she says, reinforces a major lesson that emerging-market governments
can take away from the crisis: "Governments should focus more on social policy, on health,
education, and services. They shouldn't be intervening so much directly in the economy itself."
16
Get documents about "