Last week, I looked at the BRICs from the Macro level (see
Brazil,
Russia,
India and
China). Today, I want to look at them from a comparison perspective to illustrate what the problem with these counties is.
Let's start with inflation:
All of these countries experienced high inflation over the last two
years: Brazil's approached 7.5%, Russia's approached 10%, India's
hovered around 9% and China's rose to above 6%. All of these countries are far more sensitive in commodity inflation: China is a major importer of all commodities, Brazil and Russia are major oil exporters and India is sensitive to agricultural price moves). As a result:
All of these countries either kept their interest rates high (Russia) or they increased their rates (Brazil, India and Russia). As a result:
We're seeing decreased growth in all of these countries (Russia has yet to return to their pre-recession levels of growth).
The good news in the above information is all of these economies are slowing because of higher interest rates. This means their respective slowdown will probably be shallow and short. However, it does mean there will be a slowdown. Expect some of that to bleed over into the US' expansion.
