As the US moves towards passing an economic stimulus package and reshaping its banking bailout and assistance, there's bad news from Asia that should cause tremors here.
The US Senate will vote on the $US872 billion package, the US Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner is due to outline the bank package overnight Tuesday and now there's news that Russia is looking to reschedule debt.
That has already shaken currency markets in Asia and Europe after it was reported by the leading Japanese business paper, the Nikkei.
The move was then confirmed by this report on Bloomberg
Russian banks asked the government to moderate talks to restructure $US400 billion of loans to foreign banks falling due within four years, said the head of the Russian Association of Regional Banks.
It would be most effective if the debt were restructured so it s clear to everyone, creditors and borrowers, how the debt will be paid, Aksakov said. The government has the money. Some companies and banks have rather large hard currency liabilities on their balance sheets.
Speculation of European bank losses on Russian loans drove declines in the euro against the dollar and yen today. Russia has pledged more than $200 billion in emergency funding as plunging oil prices push the world s biggest energy supplier into its worst economic crisis since 1998 when it defaulted.
The euro fell sharply on the report, sliding against the US dollar and the yen. The Australian dollar also fell under 66 US cents, down nearly 2 cents in a day.
The newspaper quoted a Russian banking industry official as saying up to $US400 billion in debt was at stake.
Nikkei claimed that a proposal for postponing repayment had been submitted to the government and some foreign banks have already agreed to start negotiations.
The news overshadowed more worrying news from China, Taiwan and Japan.
Chinese inflation fell to its lowest pace in over two years at 1% in January and a senior researcher with the Bank of Japan, the country's central bank, has warned that the country's economy faces a severe contraction.
Chinese producer prices fell 3.3%, the lowest in around seven years as the slumping in oil and fuel prices, plus the slowing economy, continued to curtail price pressures seen for most of 2008.
The fall in price pressures came after exports fell in December and growth cooled to an average 6.8% in the 4th quarter (and in reality probably didn't move at all). That was the weakest growth for 7 years.
Figures mentioned in media reports for January's exports suggest a further fall after December's weakness. We should know today or tomorrow.
The 1% rise in consumer prices in January from January 2008, when prices started rising after higher oil prices and the impact of huge winter storms pushed up food and power costs, was after they rose by 1.2% in December.
China s economy grew 9% in 2008 after a 13% rise in 2007.
In Taiwan, a combination of the Chinese New Year and the global recession saw the country's exports slump by more than 40% in January, a terrible outcome.
Taiwan is Asia's sixth-largest economy and exports in January exports fell 44.1% from the same month of 2008, the biggest drop since government records began in 1972. It was also the fifth consecutive month that exports have fallen.
Japanese exports in December plunged 35%, South Korea's by 32%.
In Japan the Bank of Japan s top researcher warned on Monday of an unimaginable contraction in the Japanese economy in the current quarter after new figures revealed soaring bankruptcies and another fall in machinery orders.
The Financial Times said that the comments from Kazuo Momma, head of the central bank s research and statistics department, "underscore the gloom surrounding the world s second largest economy as export orders dry up, companies shut down production lines and consumers snap shut their wallets and purses".
From October to December the scale of negative growth (in GDP) may have been unimaginable and we have to consider the possibility that there could be even greater decline between January and March, Mr Momma warned in a speech yesterday.
It would be quite a while before inventories adjust.
Nissan this week revealed 20,000 job cuts and a loss of close to $US2.9 billion. Last Friday Toyota warned of its biggest ever loss in the year to March 31 of over $US4 billion.
On Friday, it cut its global production estimate for the year to March to 7.08 million, down 20%, as it put a third of its global assembly lines on a single shift.
"The sales environment has worsened dramatically in the past month and a half in the main markets of Japan, North America and Europe," Executive Vice President Mitsuo Kinoshita told a news conference.
For the year to the end of March, Toyota now expects an operating loss of ￥450 billion ($US4.95 billion), three times what it forecast in late December
Car sales in Japan fell the most in 35 years last month.
Before Toyota on Friday Mitsubishi and Mazda revealed big loss estimates. Panasonic, Hitachi, Toshiba and NEC, giants of Japanese and global business in their sectors, all warned of losses of a size not even contemplated by the most pessimistic of forecasters four weeks ago.
Panasonic will lose around $US4 billion and is sacking thousands of workers, as is NEC and the other companies.
It's no wonder the country is heading for its worst postwar recession as factory output slumped an unprecedented 9.6% in December (8.5% in November) and unemployment surged.
Japan announces fourth quarter gross domestic product data next week. Tokyo-based economists say GDP will have fallen more than 3% compared with the previous quarter an annualised decline of well over 10%.
Many companies have suffered the effect of the domestic slowdown and the collapse of export markets in the US, Asia and Europe: cars and consumer electronics being prime examples.
The effect on corporate capital spending has been marked, with core private-sector machinery orders plunging 17% quarter-on-quarter in the three months to December, their fastest fall on record.
.......
The US has unveiled a three-part program to stabilise the financial system, a move that failed to meet the credibility test at first glance.
US sharemarkets fell sharply, down more than 4% as analysts and investors digested the details of the plan announced by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Oil prices plunged to well under $US38 a barrel.
It was the biggest fall of the year so far on Wall Street. Our market will open weaker today.
What analysts saw they didn't much like, from initial comments. The general tone of the comments was 'too little' and not tough enough on so-called 'zombie banks' which are institutions still alive but not doing much business.
But there's also an element of being reminded of the reality of the US financial system and economy: that it is essentially broke, along with most of the big names in banking (and perhaps insurance) .
An unrealistic bullishness had been around last week ahead of this plan being announced. Some reality has hopefully been restored, but the plan itself could have been more realistic as well.
The main components of the Treasury s package are a joint public- and private-sector fund to buy as much as $US1 trillion of illiquid assets and a $US1 trillion program to supply new credit to consumers and businesses.
The plan also calls for additional taxpayer to be injected funds into banks, while imposing tighter restrictions that will include limits on dividend payments, acquisitions and executive pay.
An initial fund of $US500 billion to absorb toxic assets will be established and $US50 billion will be committed to prevent home mortgage foreclosures, which is still the driving force of the current instability.
Mr Geithner said in his speech revealing the plan's outline, that the plan would "bring the full force of the US government to bear to strengthen our financial system so that we get the economy back on track".
However, he did not put a price tag on the new plan, which is expected to exceed the remaining half of the original $700 billion TARP. The US Treasury will not ask Congress for more money right now.
The Treasury will also "stress test" the big banks to see how well they are placed to handle a further slowing of the economy, and provide additional funds as needed. Banks receiving money will have to provide details about their intended uses for the money.
A key element will be the public-private investment fund started with $US500 billion "with the potential to expand up to $US1 trillion" to help cleanse the banking system of toxic real-estate assets.
This will serve the role of an aggregator bank, or "bad bank" to help financial institutions value their mortgage securities and clean up their balance sheets.
A second element will include additional capital injections into banks.
"While banks will be encouraged to access private markets to raise any additional capital needed to establish this buffer, a financial institution that has undergone a comprehensive 'stress test' will have access to a Treasury-provided 'capital buffer' to help absorb losses and serve as a bridge to receiving increased private capital," the Treasury said.
Thirdly, the Treasury and Federal Reserve will expand the existing program to boost lending for mortgages and other consumer and business loans to up to $US1 trillion.>
The Fed would lift the amount to $US1 trillion from the previously announced $US800 billion for its Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, which would accept mortgage-backed securities and securities backed by car loans, credit card loans, student loans, and some small business loans.
The expansion "would be supported by the provision by the Treasury of additional funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program", the Fed said. The Treasury has already 'seeded' this fund with $US20 billion.
Meanwhile the US Senate has passed its version of the Administration's fiscal stimulus bill by 61 votes to 27 on Tuesday, clearing the way for Congress to thrash out final legislation for President Barack Obama to sign into law, hopefully by the end of this week.
Democrats forced through the bill with support from only three moderate Republicans, hurting Mr Obama s hope of bipartisan backing for the plan
The Senate bill now has to be reconciled with the House of Representatives version passed last month before sending final legislation to the White House.
The House version contains about $US 100 billion more spending than the Senate bill, which includes more tax cuts.
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