A funny thing happened on the way to the decline of the United States and the rise of China, Brazil and other emerging markets: Many prominent analysts began wondering if the pessimistic predictions about America were wrong — and whether it was the emerging markets that were heading for trouble.
These international economic fads are always suspect, up or down. They seem to follow what I was (facetiously) told years ago was the guiding rule for columnists: Simplify, then exaggerate. So beware this latest revisionism, just like any other variety.
But some startling new assessments of global economic trends stand the “declinist” wisdom of recent years on its head. The revisionists argue that U.S. economic fundamentals are now stronger than they seemed, and that those of the BRICs — the emerging giants Brazil, Russia, India and China — are weaker.
Certainly, the financial markets are registering this new view. The Morgan Stanley Emerging Markets Index fell 5 percent last year, compared to a nearly 30 percent gain for the U.S. benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted Tuesday that economic growth will rise this year and next in the United States and decline both years in China.
One influential revisionist has been Antoine van Agtmael, the economist who coined the hopeful term “emerging markets” in 1981. Van Agtmael has written several blistering assessments recently about the former rising superstars.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-an-emerging-market-problem/2014/01/22/173a984c-82f3-11e3-bbe5-6a2a3141e3a9_story.html?tid=hpModule_ea22e378-b26e-11e2-bbf2-a6f9e9d79e19&hpid=z9
No comments:
Post a Comment