The unbalanced global economy: American shopper

A GLOBAL economy running on a single engine is better than one that needs jump leads. The American economy is motoring again, to the relief of exporters from Hamburg to Hangzhou. Firms added more than 1m net new jobs in the past three months, the best showing since 1997 (see article). Buoyed up by cheap petrol, Americans are spending; in January consumer sentiment jumped to its highest in more than a decade. The IMF reckons that American growth will hit 3.6% in 2015, faster than the world economy as a whole. All this is good. But growing dependence on the American economy—and on consumers in particular—has unwelcome echoes.A decade ago American consumers borrowed heavily and recklessly. They filled their ever-larger houses with goods from China; they fuelled gas-guzzling cars with imported oil. Big exporters recycled their earnings back to America, pushing down interest rates which in turn helped to feed further borrowing. Europe was not that different. There, frugal Germans financed debt binges around...



from The Economist: Leaders http://ift.tt/16Y1Dpu