From the Wall Street Journal:
Global oversupply extends beyond commodities, elevating deflation risk
The global economy is awash as never before in commodities like oil, cotton and iron ore, but also with capital and labor—a glut that presents several challenges as policy makers struggle to stoke demand.
“What we’re looking at is a low-growth, low-inflation, low-rate environment,” said Megan Greene, chief economist of John Hancock Asset Management, who added that the global economy could spend the next decade “working this off.”
The current state of plenty is confounding on many fronts. The surfeit of commodities depresses prices and stokes concerns of deflation. Global wealth—estimated by Credit Suisse at around $263 trillion, more than double the $117 trillion in 2000—represents a vast supply of savings and capital, helping to hold down interest rates, undermining the power of monetary policy. And the surplus of workers depresses wages.
Meanwhile, public indebtedness in the U.S., Japan and Europe limits governments’ capacity to fuel growth through public expenditure. That leaves central banks to supply economies with as much liquidity as possible, even though recent rounds of easing haven’t returned these economies anywhere close to their previous growth paths.
“The classic notion is that you cannot have a condition of oversupply,” said Daniel Alpert, an investment banker and author of a book, “The Age of Oversupply,” on what all this abundance means. “The science of economics is all based on shortages.”
The fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of China added over one billion workers to the world’s labor force, meaning workers everywhere face global competition for jobs and wages. Many newly emerging countries run budget surpluses, and their citizens save more than in developed countries—contributing to what Mr. Alpert sees as an excess of capital.
Examples of oversupply abound.
At Cushing, Okla., one of the biggest oil-storage hubs in the U.S., crude oil is filling tanks to the brim. Last week, crude-oil inventories in the U.S. rose to 489 million barrels, an all-time high in records going back to 1982.
Around the world, about 110 million bales of cotton are estimated to be sitting idle at textile mills or state warehouses at the end of this season, a record high since 1973 when the U.S. began to publish data on cotton stockpiles.
Huge surpluses are also seen in many finished-goods markets as the glut moves down the supply chain. In February, total inventories of manufactured durable goods in the U.S. rose to $413 billion, the highest level since 1992 when the Census Bureau began to publish the data. In China, car dealers are sitting on their highest inventories of unsold cars in almost 2½ years.
Central to the problem is a cooling Chinese economy combined with tepid demand among many developed countries. As China moves away from its reliance on commodity-intensive industries such as steelmaking and textiles, its demand for many materials has slowed down and, in some cases, even contracted.
“This fall in commodity demand is counterintuitive, and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg,” said Cynthia Lim, an economist at Wood Mackenzie....MUCH MORE*Rather a big deal. See also 2012's "The parable of water", the first post of the 24 part (to date) FT Alphaville series "Beyond Scarcity"
