Having recently explained (in great detail) why QE4 (and 5, 6 & 7) were inevitable (despite the protestations of all central planners, except for perhaps Kocharlakota - who never met an economy he didn't want to throw free money at), we found it fascinating that no lessor purveyor of the status quo's view of the world - Citigroup's chief economist Willem Buiter - that a global recession is imminent and nothing but a major blast of fiscal spending financed by outright "helicopter" money from the central banks will avert the deepening crisis. Faced with China's 'Quantitative Tightening', the economist who proclaimed "gold is a 6000-year old bubble" and cash should be banned, concludes ominously, "everybody will be adversely affected." China has bungled its attempt to slow the economy gently and is sliding into “imminent recession”, threatening to take the world with it over coming months, Citigroup has warned. As The Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports, Willem Buiter, the bank’s chief economist, said the country needs a major blast of fiscal spending financed by outright "helicopter" money from the bank to avert a deepening crisis.
Speaking on a panel at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, Mr Buiter said the dollar will “go through the roof” if the US Federal Reserve lifts interest rates this year, compounding the crisis for emerging markets.
"So why it matters is that the competence of the Chinese authorities as managers of the macro economy is really in question - the messing around with monetary policy, the hinting on doing things on the fiscal side through the policy banks. But I think the only thing that is likely to stop China from going into, I think, recession - which is, you know, 4 percent growth on the official data, the mendacious official data, for a year or so - is a large consumption-oriented fiscal stimulus, funded through the central government and preferably monetized by the People’s Bank of China.
Well, they’re not ready for that yet. Despite, I think, the economy crying out for it, the Chinese leadership is not ready for this.
So I think they will respond, but they will respond too late to avoid a recession, and which is likely to drag the global economy with it down to a global growth rate below 2 percent, which is my definition of a global recession. Not every country needs go into recession. The U.S. might well avoid it. But everybody will be adversely affected."
Or translated from 'economist' to English - a massive helicopter drop of cash (well 1s and 0s) into the inflating hands of Chinese soon-to-be-consumers is all that can the world from another recession... and The Chinese leadership may need to stare into the abyss before they actually pull the trigger. Just think of the pork prices?