Rebalancing

Michael Pettis has been the Doctor Doom of trade/currency imbalances for some time now.  He seems to be a little under exposed for someone I see quoted a lot in the financial blogging sphere.  He has had a blog for some time, and is one of the few people who can (almost) make the issues of trade imbalances comprehensible.

He has a new book out called the Great Rebalancing.

From the book blurb:
The Great Rebalancing: Trade, Conflict, and the Perilous Road Ahead For the World Economy
hat tip MR

China's economic growth is sputtering, the Euro is under threat, and the United States is combating serious trade disadvantages. Another Great Depression? Not quite. Noted economist and China expert Michael Pettis argues instead that we are undergoing a critical rebalancing of the world economies. Debunking popular misconceptions, Pettis shows that severe trade imbalances spurred on the recent financial crisis and were the result of unfortunate policies that distorted the savings and consumption patterns of certain nations. Pettis examines the reasons behind these destabilizing policies, and he predicts severe economic dislocations--a lost decade for China, the breaking of the Euro, and a receding of the U.S. dollar--that will have long-lasting effects.

His message: "The global crises is a function of the domestic trade and capital imbalances, it would be meaningless to proclaim the end of the crisis until the underlying imbalances have either been worked out or are rescued to sustainable levels".

 

Note, to my mind, what level it rebalanced at would be a factor of how strong the underlying economies actually are.  At the sustainable, balanced level, we don't seem particularly strong.