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Brad Setser looks at the role of the savings glut. I think this topic has been beaten up unfairly:

In a global economy, a rise in savings relative to investment in one part of the world necessarily implies a fall in savings relative to investment in the rest of the world; sorting out why key macroeconomic variables change is always difficult.

Maybe this equilibrium was a function of excessive demand stimulus by the advanced economies in the aftermath of the last recession – and lax financial regulation that allowed households to over-borrow. High US and European demand allowed the emerging world to save more. Maybe it was a function of policies in the emerging economies, policies sometimes put in place to support undervalued exchange rates. That would explain why the growing US savings deficit didn’t put upward pressure on global interest rates and why the rise in the US external deficit didn’t lead to a rise in US real interest rates — something would have short-circuited the housing boom. Probably it was a mix of both. Emerging market savers (really their governments, as private savers weren’t exactly seeking out depreciating dollars) helped to provide Wall Street and the City the rope they (almost) used to hang themselves.

If you ever want to punish another country, don't send in tanks -- just lend them too much money.

Posted by edelfenbein at July 2, 2009 1:27 PM