Shareswatch Australia

World attention focuses on the problems of the Greek economy — no doubt with a large helping of schadenfreude added: There, but for the grace of God, go the rest of us is the thought.

We are almost through a third of 2011 and the mood across global markets appears to be decidedly downbeat.  The bullish voices of late 2010 have now faded and even the Reserve Bank of Australia and Federal Treasurer are sounding cautious. But don’t be fooled by the talk that recent events have caused the global economy to face headwinds because the reality is that 2011 was always going to be a tough year.

With the Standard and Poor’s downgrading of Japan’s long-term credit rating from AA to AA minus, the focus even more is on how the economy can get out of its current deflationary quagmire.

In the 1960’s the Japanese rightwing had a problem. The leftwing was arguing strongly that Japan’s postwar economy badly needed access to the markets and raw materials of China, North Korea and the Soviet Union if it was to survive (in prewar years it had depended heavily on China and the Korean peninsula for both).

Well the Dow Jones closed this morning below 10,000 and for those financial writers who focus more on grabbing reader’s attention rather than on facts, that can only mean one thing: the U.S economy is heading for a double dip recession! Of course the fact that the U.S economy is actually expanding, as are other major economies like China, Japan and Germany, appears irrelevant to many market commentators who seem intent on making investors fear that another economic crisis is at hand.

Toyota’s current recall woes have generated a range of articles about the Japanese economy as journalists rush to get some Japan flavoured content served up to their masters. But often these articles simply rehash the same tired cliches about Japan and it’s economy and don’t provide people outside Japan with a balanced view of what is really happening.

The Japanese have a saying sandome no shojiki. Roughly translated it means that ‘after getting it wrong twice you finally get it right the third time.’ Two previous Japanese administrations – Hashimoto (1996-98) and Koizumi (2001-6) – have set out to revive the economy through promises to cut government borrowing and spending.

It has been hard to write much about the Japanese economy of late simply because the economic data appeared to change every day. But over the last few weeks things do seem to have stabilised and both the government and the private sector in Japan generally agree that the economy probably hit the bottom earlier this year.

Now that the world seems to have avoided falling into an economic heap, various pundits have switched their attention to life after the global financial crisis. Of course if you spend most of your life saying the world economy is doomed then there has to be a crisis after this current crisis and one scenario being talked about is where many developed nations will enter a period of deflation.

The debate about where Australian home prices are heading appears to be getting more intense these days. Commentators who have been predicting home prices will crash have seized on falls seen so far as proof they are right, whereas those who believe prices will not crash pounce on the same data and says it supports their view. Confusing isn’t it?

Depending on your point of view the world’s stock markets are either having a temporary rally before they continue their downward slide or we are witnessing the start of a slow global economic recovery. But rather than make any assumptions or speculate on the future let’s look at what the news from markets around the world might be telling us.

Well it seems the inflation genie is back in the bottle and that the bottle is back in the cupboard. Therefore our wise leaders in Canberra have in less than 12 months gone from fighting inflation, to trying to stimulate growth and save the Australian economy from recession. Of course none of the economic problems Australia faces today have anything to do with government blunders, it is all China’s fault.

As readers of this blog will know, I am not a great fan of the actions of the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) or the current government when it comes to dealing with the events of this year. First of all we had the RBA raise rates too far (as I mentioned earlier this year) and then we had Rudd and Swan talking down the economy, then talking it up and now they are talking it down sort of, while about to pump money into it to stop growth from slowing.