Crise Econômica Mundial

[cabeça de martelo]

Alemanha: Excedentes acima das regras de Bruxelas podem originar investigação

A Alemanha está com um crescimento tão forte que se torna no principal adversário da retoma europeia. A Comissão Europeia está preocupada com os excedentes comerciais e as contas correntes dos alemães e ameaçar abrir uma investigação.

Se a Alemanha é o motor da Europa, o resto do veículo tem de ir para a oficina. A economia germânica está tão forte que ameaça rebentar com as restantes parceiras da União Europeia, sobretudo das que integram a união monetária. A Comissão Europeia (CE) considera que os excedentes comerciais da Alemanha estão a desequilibrar o mercado comunitário e ameaça abrir uma investigação.
Nas contas de Bruxelas, as contas correntes da Alemanha rondam os sete por cento do PIB, apesar das recomendações para não ultrapassar o teto máximo de seis por cento. Nos próximos dois anos, o indicador deverá situar-se nos 6,6 e nos 6,4 por cento. Um efeito semelhante ocorre na balança comercial, com as previsões para os três anos em causa (de 2013 a 2015) a nunca ficarem abaixo dos seis por cento.
Isto significa que a Alemanha está a crescer às custas das restantes economias do euro, em especial das mais vulneráveis e, sobretudo, das que foram obrigadas a pedir um resgate: se os alemães têm sido o país que mais empresta, também é o que mais tem recebido e vai continuar a receber em juros. A Alemanha é, assim, o principal obstáculo para a retoma europeia, considera a CE.
O limiar de seis por cento do PIB durante três anos seguidos foi definido por Bruxelas como um sinal da existência de desequilíbrio macroeconómico, o qual deve ser corrigido no imediato para que não desestabilize toda a zona euro. Nesse sentido, a CE ameaça avançar, já na próxima semana, com uma investigação sobre os excedentes comercias e as contas correntes da Alemanha.
Caso concretize a ameaça, Bruxelas terá de fazer uma recomendação formal ao Governo alemão para ‘esbanjar’ dinheiro. A economia alemã será ‘convidada’ a um aumento dos salários, que têm sido mantidos em baixo para assegurar a competitividade das exportações, o que tornará o país menos dependente dessa capacidade de exportação.
Sem confirmar a abertura da investigação, o comissário europeu dos Assuntos Económicos e Financeiros, Olli Rehn, instou o Governo germânico a corrigir “o que bloqueia o crescimento da procura interna”. “Se a Alemanha e a França aplicarem juntos as recomendações, prestarão um grande serviço ao resto da zona euro e ao crescimento e ao emprego”, complementou.
Na resposta, o Governo de Merkel insistiu que a Alemanhã não apresenta desequilíbrios que precisem de ser corrigidos, salientando os aumentos “robusto” dos salários, do consumo das famílias e do investimento.
Os benefícios serão sentidos de imediato por países como Portugal, Grécia e até Espanha e Itália: os alemães, com um aumento do rendimento, farão aumentar as importações, o que permitirá a transferência do dinheiro dos excedentes para as economias mais deficitárias, contribuindo para a retoma da zona euro como uma união.

http://www.ptjornal.com/2013110619113/g ... gacao.html

[Sterrius]

Duvido a alemanha mudar sua estrategia.

[cabeça de martelo]

Tu e eu.

[cabeça de martelo]

<strong>Vivemos num mundo de "falsas democracias"</strong>

A freira beneditina catalã Teresa Forcades defendeu que o mundo é hoje um conjunto de "falsas democracias" com o poder político subordinado à economia, apontando como "maior fonte de esperança no futuro"...

A religiosa catalã, que na sexta-feira visita pela primeira vez Portugal a convite da Associação de Teólogas Feministas para falar sobre "as falsas democracias", considera que não existe hoje nenhum país que possa ser considerado uma verdadeira democracia.

"Democracia indicaria um sistema de governo onde a vontade do povo, da maioria, determinaria as decisões políticas", mas isso não acontece, segundo Teresa Forcades i Villa.

Para a freira beneditina, que falou à agência Lusa, por telefone, a partir de Berlim, a Espanha e a Catalunha são exemplos claros do falhanço da democracia e uma realidade "generalizável" a vários outros países.

"Temos uma maioria social descontente com as atuais decisões políticas que não se traduz numa mudança de direção política. É isso que considero uma falsa democracia", sublinhou.

E, num contexto de "democracias sequestradas", Teresa Forcades encontra na forma de funcionamento do sistema de partidos o principal problema.

"É um modelo que não serve. É preciso que os partidos sintam necessidade de prestar contas à população e tenham programas eleitorais submetidos ao controlo popular", defendeu.

Controlo que, segundo a freira, não se consegue sequer através de eleições porque os partidos submetem a sufrágio programas eleitorais que alteram logo depois de chegar ao poder.

"Não há nenhum sistema que possa penalizar imediatamente os partidos", disse Teresa Forcades, denunciando o bloqueio a que são sujeitas as iniciativas legislativas populares.

Teresa Forcadas critica também a forma de financiamento dos partidos políticos e a natureza antidemocrática da disciplina partidária.

"Não podemos ter partidos dependentes de capital externo para o seu financiamento porque depois lhes vão ser pedidos favores", disse.

É à luz destas contradições e da "desconfiança num sistema que propõe um governo da vontade popular, mas tem uma aliança com o poder económico", que Teresa Forcades entende o afastamento das populações, especialmente dos mais jovens, da política.

De resto, a crítica principal de Teresa Forcades é precisamente à aliança que, na prática, segundo a religiosa, "é uma subordinação do poder político ao poder económico".

"Em 2006, publiquei os 'Crimes das grandes companhias farmacêuticas' e, nesse momento, tomei consciência até que ponto instituições que deveriam velar pelos interesses da comunidade tomam decisões políticas para proteger, impulsionar ou favorecer os interesses particulares de certas empresas", adiantou Teresa Forcades, que é também médica e especialista em saúde pública.

Teresa Forcades, que lidera com o professor Arcadi Oliveres o movimento nacionalista, independentista catalão Process Constituent, com vista às eleições de 2016, defende no contexto da atual crise a Espanha deve "livrar-se da dívida externa o quanto antes".

"Antes do resgate [aos bancos] 19 por cento era dívida pública e 81 por cento era dívida privada, mais de 90 por cento da qual de grande corporações, na maioria financeiras. O que aconteceu com o resgate é que a dívida privada passou a ser pública. Impuseram-me uma dívida de outros que têm mais meios que eu para pagar. Isso é intolerável", disse.

Teresa Forcades aponta por isso exemplos de países "com os quais se pode aprender muito" nesta matéria: a Islândia, onde o povo disse não às imposições dos credores internacionais, ou o Equador, que auditou a sua dívida para separar a dívida legítima da ilegitima e conseguiram livrar-se de parte dessa dívida.

"Estamos a aguentar coisas que não são aguentáveis e deveríamos reagir a nível social", disse, defendendo para a Europa e para o mundo "um movimento decididamente anticapitalista que aposte num processo pacífico e democrático".

"Esta é a fonte de maior esperança no mundo contemporâneo", garantiu.

Sabe que a revolução popular que preconiza não resolverá todos os problemas, mas não admite que lhe digam que não há alternativa.

"Não há uma alternativa, há várias e com qualquer uma que seguíssemos estaríamos melhor do que agora porque a situação é muito dura", disse, lembrando que em Espanha o desemprego atinge os 25 por cento (50 por cento entre os jovens) e a pobreza os 30 por cento da população.
Lusa
publicado a 2013-11-13 às 09:34

Para mais detalhes consulte:
http://www.dn.pt/inicio/globo/interior. ... cao=Europa

GRUPO CONTROLINVESTE
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[Sterrius]

Pq é um reflexo da crise vai aqui! A votação é na segunda feira que vem e está empatada nas pesquisas.

Even pro-business Swiss look at limiting CEO pay
Commentary: Referendum could cap executive pay at 12 times lowest worker’s

Limits on what senior executives can earn? A legally enforceable division of income? Laws that make company boards account for what they pay themselves? It might sound like the manifesto of one of the Occupy Wall Street groups. And yet very soon, it might well be a description of Switzerland. A country best known for its tax exiles, and its secretive private banks, could this weekend take the first concrete step toward reversing the explosion in executive pay witnessed over the last decade.

On Sunday, Switzerland will hold a referendum that if passed, would force companies to limit the highest salary they pay to 12 times the lowest. According to the polls, the vote is on a knife-edge and could easily go either way. Business groups are issuing the predictable dire warnings about an exodus of managerial talent if the law gets passed , with dire consequences for the giants of Swiss industry.


Bloomberg Enlarge Image
Novartis CEO Joe' Jimenez made 15 .7 million Swiss francs last year, 266 times the pay of the lowest employee at the company. The Swiss are voting on a referendum that would limit CEO pay to 12 times the lowest salary.
But, in fact, the Swiss might be doing a world a favor. The gap between what the people running companies and the people working for them earn has exploded. And yet there is very little evidence that companies are better run, or more productive, or make more money for their shareholders, as a result. If the Swiss call time on what looks increasingly like a racket, they may well set a useful example for the rest of the world.

Switzerland is no one’s idea of a radical nation. A more sober, right-wing, low-tax and small-government country it would be hard to imagine.

It has always been pro-business, which may well be one reason why it is one of the richest countries in the world. But even the Swiss are starting to ask some tough questions about how much senior executives get paid. Earlier this year, the country voted in favor of one referendum that forced company boards to get explicit approval from shareholders for the amount they get paid, as well as imposing strict limits on signing-on bonuses and payoffs.

The vote on Sunday, however, would go a lot further, forcing companies to pay their highest-earning person no more than 12 times the salary of the lowest-paid worker.

Plenty of the Swiss seem to like that idea. A couple of weeks ago, the polls were running at 44% in favor and 44% against, with the rest undecided. A survey last week showed the No camp edging in front. But it could still go either way. As radical as the proposal might sound, it could certainly become law.

It is not hard to understand why. The gap between the highest and middle-earners at blue-chip companies listed on the benchmark Swiss Market Index CH:SMI -0.23% grew from 13-to-1 in 1998 to 43-to-1 in 2011, according to figures from the Swiss Trades Union Association. The gap between the highest-paid and the lowest-paid is even wider — a jaw-dropping 93-1. At the drugs giant Novartis CH:NOVN +0.70% , the lowest-paid person would have to work for 266 years to earn the 15.7 million Swiss francs that CEO Joe Jimenez makes in twelve months.

Switzerland is hardly unique in that. For example, the ratio of earnings between CEOs and typical workers at the 350 largest U.S. corporations is now 273-1, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Everywhere you look, company bosses have been getting richer and richer. It is a global trend — and there is very little sign of it ending. If anything, the extremes keep getting worse.

The interesting question is whether that is just the free market doing its work, as the defenders of high CEO pay would argue. Or whether it is, instead, a form of market failure?

Click to Play
CEO Council: Are Central Banks Doing Too Much?
"Without the Fed, we would have had a much deeper recession," according to Stanley Fischer, former Israeli Central Bank President. While Glenn Hubbard, Columbia Business School Dean, says "the problem is not the Fed." They spoke at WSJ's CEO Council.

There is very little evidence that the owners of companies — the shareholders — have been doing better.

Take the U.K., for example — a country that has witnessed the same kind of explosion of executive pay as Switzerland and the U.S.. Taking the whole decade 2000-2010, a report by the consultants IDS found that the pay of the chief executives of the 350 largest quoted companies went up by 108%. Over the same period the value of those companies went up by just 8%.

Pay went up even faster for the largest 100 companies. The UK’s FTSE UK:UKX -0.25% is still no higher than it was all the way back in 2000, and yet the pay of the people running the companies that make up the index has gone up four or five times – and another 14% this year alone, according to a report this week.

Of the three groups of people that make up a company — the workers, the managers, and the owners — it seems odd that one has seen such a huge increase in its rewards while the other two have seen so little. Are companies five times better run than they were a decade ago? Or five times more complex? It seems unlikely. In some cases, they are actually worse run — some of the biggest salaries in Switzerland are paid by its banks, which had to be bailed out by the taxpayer.

In Switzerland, the predictable arguments are being wheeled out against the referendum. The business groups are arguing that it will undermine the competitiveness of Swiss industry, as executives quit for countries where they can earn more. There are suggestions that many low-paying jobs will be outsourced, so that the 12-times multiple will be of a white-collar rather than a blue-collar pay packet.

Well, if the law gets passed we’ll see. Perhaps the likes of Nestle CH:NESN -0.52% and Novartis will be brought to the brink of collapse. Then again, maybe they will find that they get along just fine — a few senior executives will get jobs elsewhere, but they won’t be much missed. One corporate suit can very often be replaced with another without it making a great deal of difference.

There isn’t necessarily anything anti-business about the proposal. No one should object to entrepreneurs earning a lot of money. They take risks, and they create lots of jobs and wealth. They deserve the money. But the law only applies to salaries, and entrepreneurs make their money through owning the business, not by paying themselves big salaries.

In fact, corporate pay appears to have become a kind of racket.

Executives sit on each others’ boards, and routinely vote themselves huge pay rises. Workers don’t benefit from that, and neither do shareholders. A ratio of 12-1 seems a bit extreme — but then so does 93-1. At the very least, it would be useful if one country experimented with limits on what executives get paid — and then the rest of the world could take a look and decide whether to follow suit.

We might well discover that corporate managers didn’t need to earn so much — and staff and shareholders could earn a bit more.

Matthew Lynn is a financial journalist based in London. He is the author of "Bust: Greece, the Euro and the Sovereign Debt Crisis," and he writes adventure thrillers under the name Matt Lynn.

[Túlio]

Tu e eu.

Notar que as exportações de armas da Alemanha estão em queda livre. Se não fosse a Arábia Saudita...

[Bourne]

NOV 20, 2013
Four Fallacies of the Second Great Depression

LONDON – The period since 2008 has produced a plentiful crop of recycled economic fallacies, mostly falling from the lips of political leaders. Here are my four favorites.

The Swabian Housewife. “One should simply have asked the Swabian housewife,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. “She would have told us that you cannot live beyond your means.”

This sensible-sounding logic currently underpins austerity. The problem is that it ignores the effect of the housewife’s thrift on total demand. If all households curbed their expenditures, total consumption would fall, and so, too, would demand for labor. If the housewife’s husband loses his job, the household will be worse off than before.

The general case of this fallacy is the “fallacy of composition”: what makes sense for each household or company individually does not necessarily add up to the good of the whole. The particular case that John Maynard Keynes identified was the “paradox of thrift”: if everyone tries to save more in bad times, aggregate demand will fall, lowering total savings, because of the decrease in consumption and economic growth.

If the government tries to cut its deficit, households and firms will have to tighten their purse strings, resulting in less total spending. As a result, however much the government cuts its spending, its deficit will barely shrink. And if all countries pursue austerity simultaneously, lower demand for each country’s goods will lead to lower domestic and foreign consumption, leaving all worse off.

The government cannot spend money it does not have. This fallacy – often repeated by British Prime Minister David Cameron – treats governments as if they faced the same budget constraints as households or companies. But governments are not like households or companies. They can always get the money they need by issuing bonds.

But won’t an increasingly indebted government have to pay ever-higher interest rates, so that debt-service costs eventually consume its entire revenue? The answer is no: the central bank can print enough extra money to hold down the cost of government debt. This is what so-called quantitative easing does. With near-zero interest rates, most Western governments cannot afford not to borrow.

This argument does not hold for a government without its own central bank, in which case it faces exactly the same budget constraint as the oft-cited Swabian housewife. That is why some eurozone member states got into so much trouble until the European Central Bank rescued them.

The national debt is deferred taxation. According to this oft-repeated fallacy, governments can raise money by issuing bonds, but, because bonds are loans, they will eventually have to be repaid, which can be done only by raising taxes. And, because taxpayers expect this, they will save now to pay their future tax bills. The more the government borrows to pay for its spending today, the more the public saves to pay future taxes, canceling out any stimulatory effect of the extra borrowing.

The problem with this argument is that governments are rarely faced with having to “pay off” their debts. They might choose to do so, but mostly they just roll them over by issuing new bonds. The longer the bonds’ maturities, the less frequently governments have to come to the market for new loans.

More important, when there are idle resources (for example, when unemployment is much higher than normal), the spending that results from the government’s borrowing brings these resources into use. The increased government revenue that this generates (plus the decreased spending on the unemployed) pays for the extra borrowing without having to raise taxes.

The national debt is a burden on future generations. This fallacy is repeated so often that it has entered the collective unconscious. The argument is that if the current generation spends more than it earns, the next generation will be forced to earn more than it spends to pay for it.

But this ignores the fact that holders of the very same debt will be among the supposedly burdened future generations. Suppose my children have to pay off the debt to you that I incurred. They will be worse off. But you will be better off. This may be bad for the distribution of wealth and income, because it will enrich the creditor at the expense of the debtor, but there will be no net burden on future generations.

The principle is exactly the same when the holders of the national debt are foreigners (as with Greece), though the political opposition to repayment will be much greater.

Economics is luxuriant with fallacies, because it is not a natural science like physics or chemistry. Propositions in economics are rarely absolutely true or false. What is true in some circumstances may be false in others. Above all, the truth of many propositions depends on people’s expectations.

Consider the belief that the more the government borrows, the higher the future tax burden will be. If people act on this belief by saving every extra pound, dollar, or euro that the government puts in their pockets, the extra government spending will have no effect on economic activity, regardless of how many resources are idle. The government must then raise taxes – and the fallacy becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So how are we to distinguish between true and false propositions in economics? Perhaps the dividing line should be drawn between propositions that hold only if people expect them to be true and those that are true irrespective of beliefs. The statement, “If we all saved more in a slump, we would all be better off,” is absolutely false. We would all be worse off. But the statement, “The more the government borrows, the more it has to pay for its borrowing,” is sometimes true and sometimes false.

Or perhaps the dividing line should be between propositions that depend on reasonable behavioral assumptions and those that depend on ludicrous ones. If people saved every extra penny of borrowed money that the government spent, the spending would have no stimulating effect. True. But such people exist only in economists’ models.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commen ... d-the-mark


Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commen ... skrXOjM.99

[cabeça de martelo]

Grecia: Incendia su casa y arroja el coche por un acantilado para no dárselos al banco

Un griego de 50 años de la localidad de Naupacto, prefectura de Etolia-Acarnania, cuyos bienes estaban a punto de ser embargados, prefirió destruirlos a dárselos al banco.

Diversas personas han afirmado que el hombre atravesaba una mala situación económica y tenía deudas con los bancos tras el fracaso de la tienda que tenía en la planta baja de su vivienda, de madera y de dos pisos.

Cuando llegaron los bomberos, lo encontraron sentado y observando las llamas con un cigarrillo en la boca. Algunos testigos afirman que el hombre, que ha sido entregado a la justicia, les dijo a los bomberos: "Esos hijos de perra no se van a llevar nada mío".

La política de austeridad del actual Gobierno heleno, emprendida para recibir ayudas de la Troika, provoca rechazo en una gran parte de la población y ha generado una ola de protestas y huelgas en el país. Algunos encuentran la solución a su difícil situación en medidas drásticas como suicidio.

Texto completo en: http://actualidad.rt.com/sociedad/view/ ... e-embargar

[P44]

Islândia corta até 24.000 euros nas hipotecas de cada família com empréstimos à habitação

O Governo islandês anunciou sábado ir cortar até 24.000 euros na hipoteca de cada família com empréstimos à habitação, uma promessa da campanha eleitoral apesar das advertências internacionais contra o plano.

O custo da medida está estimado em cerca de 900 milhões de euros e será financiado com impostos sobre os bancos e fundos de gestão de ativos dos bancos que faliram durante a crise financeira de 2008, salientou o Governo.

O Partido Progressista, do primeiro-ministro Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, vencedor das eleições de abril, tinha prometido aliviar a dívida das famílias, o que ajudou à conquista de votos na campanha.


http://noticias.sapo.pt/internacional/a ... 96657.html

[irlan]

Isso é bom?, é tipo o Minha casa,minha vida aqui do Brasil?

[Bourne]

Para o P44 ficar um pouco menos infeliz.

Na prática, não tem nada demais as medidas. Todo mundo dentro e fora da europa sabe o que tem que fazer. O problema é que os países do norte não deixam ou tem interesse em por em curso esse tipo de reestruturação.

DEC 4, 2013
An Agenda to Save the Euro

NEW YORK – It has been three years since the outbreak of the euro crisis, and only an inveterate optimist would say that the worst is definitely over. Some, noting that the eurozone’s double-dip recession has ended, conclude that the austerity medicine has worked. But try telling that to those in countries that are still in depression, with per capita GDP still below pre-2008 levels, unemployment rates above 20%, and youth unemployment at more than 50%. At the current pace of “recovery,” no return to normality can be expected until well into the next decade.

A recent study by Federal Reserve economists concluded that America’s protracted high unemployment will have serious adverse effects on GDP growth for years to come. If that is true in the United States, where unemployment is 40% lower than in Europe, the prospects for European growth appear bleak indeed.

What is needed, above all, is fundamental reform in the structure of the eurozone. By now, there is a fairly clear understanding of what is required:

· A real banking union, with common supervision, common deposit insurance, and common resolution; without this, money will continue to flow from the weakest countries to the strongest;

· Some form of debt mutualization, such as Eurobonds: with Europe’s debt/GDP ratio lower than that of the US, the eurozone could borrow at negative real interest rates, as the US does. The lower interest rates would free money to stimulate the economy, breaking the crisis-hit countries’ vicious circle whereby austerity increases the debt burden, making debt less sustainable, by shrinking GDP;

· Industrial policies to enable the laggard countries to catch up; this implies revising current strictures, which bar such policies as unacceptable interventions in free markets;

· A central bank that focuses not only on inflation, but also on growth, employment, and financial stability;

· Replacing anti-growth austerity policies with pro-growth policies focusing on investments in people, technology, and infrastructure.

Much of the euro’s design reflects the neoliberal economic doctrines that prevailed when the single currency was conceived. It was thought that keeping inflation low was necessary and almost sufficient for growth and stability; that making central banks independent was the only way to ensure confidence in the monetary system; that low debt and deficits would ensure economic convergence among member countries; and that a single market, with money and people flowing freely, would ensure efficiency and stability.

Each of these doctrines has proved to be wrong. The independent US and European central banks performed much more poorly in the run-up to the crisis than less independent banks in some leading emerging markets, because their focus on inflation distracted attention from the far more important problem of financial fragility.

Likewise, Spain and Ireland had fiscal surpluses and low debt/GDP ratios before the crisis. The crisis caused the deficits and high debt, not the other way around, and the fiscal constraints that Europe has agreed will neither facilitate rapid recovery from this crisis nor prevent the next one.

Finally, the free flow of people, like the free flow of money, seemed to make sense; factors of production would go to where their returns were highest. But migration from crisis-hit countries, partly to avoid repaying legacy debts (some of which were forced on these countries by the European Central Bank, which insisted that private losses be socialized), has been hollowing out the weaker economies. It can also result in a misallocation of labor.

Internal devaluation – lowering domestic wages and prices – is no substitute for exchange-rate flexibility. Indeed, there is increasing worry about deflation, which increases leverage and the burden of debt levels that are already too high. If internal devaluation were a good substitute, the gold standard would not have been a problem in the Great Depression, and Argentina could have managed to keep the peso’s peg to the dollar when its debt crisis erupted a decade ago.

No country has ever restored prosperity through austerity. Historically, a few small countries were lucky to have exports fill the gap in aggregate demand as public expenditure contracted, enabling them to avoid austerity’s depressing effects. But European exports have barely increased since 2008 (despite the decline in wages in some countries, most notably Greece and Italy). With global growth so tepid, exports will not restore Europe and America to prosperity any time soon.

Germany and some of the other northern European countries, demonstrating an unseemly lack of European solidarity, have declared that they should not be asked to pick up the bill for their profligate southern neighbors. This is wrong on several counts. For starters, lower interest rates that follow from Eurobonds or some similar mechanism would make the debt burden manageable. The US, it should be recalled, emerged from World War II with a very high debt burden, but the ensuing years marked the country’s most rapid growth ever.

If the eurozone adopts the program outlined above, there should be no need for Germany to pick up any tab. But under the perverse policies that Europe has adopted, one debt restructuring has been followed by another. If Germany and the other northern European countries continue to insist on pursuing current policies, they, together with their southern neighbors, will wind up paying a high price.

The euro was supposed to bring growth, prosperity, and a sense of unity to Europe. Instead, it has brought stagnation, instability, and divisiveness.

It does not have to be this way. The euro can be saved, but it will take more than fine speeches asserting a commitment to Europe. If Germany and others are not willing to do what it takes – if there is not enough solidarity to make the politics work – then the euro may have to be abandoned for the sake of salvaging the European project.

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at Columbia University, was Chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers and served as Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. His most recent book is The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers our Future.

Fonte: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commen ... hZABAVh.99

[Bourne]

Ainda sobre a europa e as "políticas loucas"

Sunday, 1 December 2013

Fonte: http://mainlymacro.blogspot.com.br/2013 ... again.html

Here we go again
1) Government embarks on austerity, to try and maintain the confidence of the bond markets. We must preserve the AAA rating for our government’s debt, says the finance minister.

2) Austerity reduces demand, helping create flat or negative growth.

3) As a result, deficit targets keep being missed. Additional austerity is imposed, and growth declines again.

3) Country loses its AAA rating, and the credit rating agency gives concerns about poor growth as an important factor for the downgrade.

4) This confirms our fears, says the finance minister. We must redouble our efforts to reduce our debt.

This will sound familiar to UK ears, but it is also what has just happened in the Netherlands.

I do not like using decisions by the credit rating agencies as an excuse to write posts, because when it comes to the major economies they have no particular expertise. (Typically markets show no reaction to the ‘news’ that a country like the Netherlands has been downgraded.) This useful post by Bas Jacobs (HT MT) argues that the S&P analysis for the Netherlands does not deserve any serious attention. On credit rating agencies generally, see Jonathan Portes. The media report what these agencies say because downgrades are convenient hooks to hang existing stories on, and it is a shame and a continuing source of puzzlement that officials and politicians bother with them.

So why am I writing this post? Because it seems important to record the progress of another country beside my own that is going down a depressingly predictable path. When I last wrote about the Netherlands, some positive growth was expected for 2014, but the OECD’s latest forecast shows GDP flat next year. These forecasts also have consumer price inflation below 2% in 2014 and below 1% in 2015. The output gap is currently over (negative) 4%, and is expected to reach -5.5% in 2015. Unemployment, which was only 4.3% in 2011, is expected to rise to 8.1% in 2015.

Like the UK, the Netherlands is a country with no problem selling its debt. It has no macroeconomic need to achieve an expected (by the OECD) underlying general government surplus by 2015. As Jacob’s notes, there is no question of an unsustainable long run fiscal position. The only major lever the government has to do something about lack of growth and rising unemployment is fiscal policy, yet it is using this lever in completely the wrong (pro-cyclical) direction, making everything worse.

A crazy policy. Yet it is followed by both centre-left and centre-right parties, even though this means these parties are haemorrhaging support to those further left and right. It is a policy supported by the central bank, which was one of those voting against the recent cut in ECB interest rates. The CPB, the country’s fiscal council that used to be a voice of sanity on fiscal matters, appears silent on the issue. Everyone can blame the Eurozone’s Fiscal Compact of course, but among the political centre they do not.

Coen Teulings, the former head of the CPB, speculated about why politicians seem so attached to austerity, when it is so clearly doing their popularity such harm. They seem to be stuck in an equilibrium (the ‘austerity trap’) where they fear that if any of them broke free, by declaring austerity harmful, they would lose out because other parties in the centre would declare them irresponsible, or ‘not serious’ to use Paul Krugman’s language. Yet they would all be better off, in terms of not losing support to the further left or right, if they could simultaneously break free of the austerity trap. Within any single Eurozone country the ‘irresponsibility’ charge is reinforced by the Eurozone’s Fiscal Compact, which in turn keeps the Eurozone as a whole in the austerity trap.

[Bourne]

Stiglitz & Greenwald: Alan Greenspan Was No Genius, He Was Irrelevant

Fonte: http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecch ... rrelevant/

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 15: Former Federal Res...

Il Maestro was one of the main targets on Wednesday - Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife

In a panel on debt and financial instability, Nobel laureate Joseph Stigitz and co-author Bruce Greenwald blasted monetary policy, considering it inefficient in the face of the current balance sheet recession. Talking along with the Bank of International Settlements’ Claudio Borio, both Columbia University economists also spend some time bashing former Fed chief Alan Greenspan, calling him “irrelevant.”


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There is no denying that the global economy hasn’t recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. Europe is in recession, and struggling to remain united, while the U.S. is experiencing a very fragile recovery. Over in South East Asia and Latin America, fast-growing economies are beginning to slow down.

In a very prescient discussion, held in New York in the context of the Levy Institute’s Minsky Conference, a group of top-notch panelists broke into an intense debate over the nature of the crisis and the recovery. With Stiglitz-Greenwald representing one side of the argument, and the BIS’ deputy head Claudio Borio on the other, the panelists agreed overleveraged balance sheets were to blame for the crisis, but weren’t on the same side when it came to solutions.

Stiglitz and Greenwald went further, claiming monetary policy can do nothing to solve the problem. “In the current context, monetary policy will be inefficient,” said Stiglitz. Balance sheets, he argued, were still weak, based on what he calls “mark-to-hope” accounting, highlighting the weakness of arbitrarily priced assets held on banks’ books (such as toxic assets derived from mortgage loans).

Borio, who took on the American duo, explained that when it comes to crisis resolution, balance sheet repair requires financial institutions to recognize losses and take massive write downs. Stiglitz and Greenwald made the case that this hasn’t fully happened yet.

Indeed, major U.S. financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi, and Wells Fargo still hold billions in foreclosed properties on their books. Fraudulent foreclosure practices like robo-signing forced them to slow down that offloading, but they still haven’t truly been forced to price those assets to market.

Thus, bank capitalization (only after loss recognition) is the only way out, Stiglitz and Greenwald argue. Illustrating the ineffectiveness of monetary policy, Greenwald took a very direct stab at Il Maestro:

Alan Greenspan is not a hero or a villain, he’s irrelevant. When he got in the driver’s seat of the car that had been repeatedly driven off the road, the steering wheel had been disconnected. When the car stayed on the road, he believed he was a genius.

Borio, who also suffered the onslaught of the Stiglitz-Greenwald duo, who were aided by the FT’s Martin Wolf from the crowd during Q&A, criticized excessive and protracted easing, noting it “delays balance sheet adjustment.” The BIS economist made the case for balance sheet repair, which should lead to a self-sustaining recovery; Borio referenced the Nordic response to recession in the ‘90s, which saw rapid growth after enforcing loss recognition, direct capitalization of banks, dealing with bad assets, and reducing excess capacity in the financial sector. “A degree of public control is inevitable,” he noted.

But, in what could be seen as a criticism of the Bernanke Fed’s extended policies of quantitative easing and ultra-loose monetary policy, Borio noted “the amount of credit [in the economy] isn’t what’s important, it’s the quality.” Too much easing buys time, but masks weakness, numbs risk-taking, undermines earnings capacity, and has a limited effect on final output, he explained.

At the end of the day, both groups of economists made a similar point. Healthy balance sheets are important. Borio appears more optimistic, expecting healthy balance sheets to lead to growth, while the American duo thinks that’s not enough. Fiscal policy, and direct capitalization, is what’s needed, they said.

[Bourne]

Interessante

Fonte: http://eleuterioprado.files.wordpress.c ... lismo2.pdf

[Francisco Carlos Dutzig]

Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrein e Arábia Saudita estão lançando sua moeda comum, no final de Dezembro. Note-se, além disso, que cinco países africanos (Quênia, Uganda, Tanzânia, Ruanda e Burundi) também chegaram a acordo sobre uma moeda comum. Embora muitos achem alarmismo e um tanto apocalíptico dizer da bancarrota dos EUA e da UE que nada mais é que uma ancora a moeda dos Eua, excetuando-se a Alemanha que é bom lembrar repatriou a pouco tempo todo seu ouro depositado no fort knox dos Eua. Podemos notar uma forte modificação no poder politico mundial mas uma nova formatação do poder financeiro mundial, estas acomodações normalmente vem acompanhadas de fortes solavancos e guerras pontuais, alguns analistas e economistas não alinhados aos tradicionais detentores da grande mídia afirmam que 2014 será um ano de profundas modificações no cenário mundial inclusive com algumas bancarrotas que são atualmente encobertas pelo interesse financeiro e politico ocidental, bem esperemos sentados se de fato isto ocorrerá, mas uma coisa é certa estas modificações sem muito alarde e noticias no mundo afora nos faz pensar.