FT idag - hur illa det skulle kunna gå...

Stephen Roach skrev denna artikel i FT idag (som ett tankeexperiment för 2013). Några utdrag:

...on January 20, 2013, Mitt Romney issued his first executive order, declaring China guilty of currency manipulation.

Washington slapped immediate tariffs of 20 per cent on all Chinese products entering the US.


China’s Ministry of Commerce then announced retaliatory tariffs of 20 per cent on all US exports to China.

China turned to its own version of the big bazooka. The biggest foreign buyer of US debt was nowhere to be seen at the Treasury’s August 2013 auction. Long-term interest rates spiked and within weeks yields on 10-year Treasuries hit 7 per cent. The dollar plunged and the US stock market went into free fall.
As the global economy slipped back into recession, the Great Crisis of 2008-09 suddenly looked like child’s play. Globalisation itself hung in the balance.History warns us never to say never. We need only look at the legacy of US Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis Hawley, who sponsored the infamous Tariff Act of 1930 – America’s worst economic policy blunder. Bad dreams can – and have – become reality.