Há sempre alternativa

A União Europeia confronta-se com uma crise de legitimidade que se tem acentuado com o avolumar de contradições que podem ser melhor compreendidas, por exemplo, no contexto do debate que opôs Karl Polanyi a Friedrich Hayek e que colocou a economia reconfigurada em função de uma ordem social democrática e igualitária contra um neoliberalismo onde as estruturas não mercantis são valorizadas apenas na medida em que forem instrumentais ao alargamento da esfera de ação dos mercados.

No discurso de Thorstein Veblen dir-se-ia que os valores do cerimonial económico do modelo de governação em crise de legitimidade são os de uma religião onde o mercado é central e ao qual todos os restantes factores da economia, incluindo o trabalho, se subordinam; os de um regime de globalização que permite às grandes empresas transnacionais interferir na capacidade democrática de organização colectiva; os de uma cultura de consumismo ostensivo associada a uma emulação pecuniária que impede a prossecução de objectivos racionais e equitativos de provisão geral; os de um sistema financeiro com lógica de casino; os de um sistema industrial marcado pelo desperdício e pela sabotagem.

Quando a partir do final de 2007, em sequência de um longo período de especulação financeira praticamente irrestrita, a mão invisível começou a faltar ao encontro com o equilíbrio prometido e os EUA, primeiro, e a Europa, logo a seguir, mergulharam numa crise que só encontra paralelo na Grande Depressão de 1929, os mercados desregulados não só não rejeitaram a intervenção do Estado como dela inteiramente dependeram, tendo o colapso certo sido (provisoriamente?) evitado com quantias absolutamente gigantescas de dinheiro público; longe de produzirem a prometida prosperidade universal, os cortes na despesa pública que se seguiram mais não fizeram que aprofundar a crise.

Na zona Euro, o endividamento público caiu de 72% para 67% entre 1999 e 2007 (início da crise financeira) enquanto o endividamento das instituições financeiras, no mesmo período, aumentou de menos de 200% para mais de 250% do PIB; ao contrário do que afirma a narrativa ainda dominante, a explosão na dívida pública que se verificou a partir de 2007 resultou da necessidade de socorrer o sector privado, e em particular o subsector financeiro, e não o contrário.

Na Europa e em Portugal, a crise resulta essencialmente da arquitectura disfuncional de uma moeda única que, desenhada na crença da tendência sistémica para o equilíbrio das economias onde o estado está ausente, pressupõe que o trabalho, assumido como variável única de ajustamento, é uma mercadoria como outras.

Ao contrário do que afirma a utopia neoliberal, o trabalho não é mercadoria e nenhum modelo de governação que o pressuponha pode subsistir; nas palavras de Karl Polanyi, “[t]rabalho é apenas outro nome para a atividade humana que é a vida em si mesmo” e “[p]ermitir que o mecanismo de mercado seja o único administrador da sorte dos seres humanos e do seu ambiente natural, ainda que apenas no que diz respeito à quantidade e uso de poder de compra, resultaria na demolição da sociedade”. 

A 15 de Setembro último, a sociedade defendeu-se do extremismo mercantil e uma massiva manifestação de descontentamento popular, exigindo alternativas, rompeu o fabricado consenso austeritário. Agendado para 5 de Outubro próximo, o Congresso Democrático das Alternativas propõe-se reunir ‘todos os que sentem a necessidade e têm a vontade de debater e construir em conjunto uma alternativa à política de desastre nacional consagrada no memorando da troika’. Lá estarei; peço-te que ponderes, também, a tua presença.

*Texto também publicado no sítio do Congresso Democrático das Alternativas.

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Austeridade e Balanços Financeiros Sectoriais

Desincrustada da sociedade, a tal economia de mercado, que tende para o equilíbrio desde que o Estado não estorve, criou na América do Norte e na Europa esta interessante circunstância: “(…) excess debt has created a situation in which everyone is trying to spend less than their income. Since this is collectively impossible — my spending is your income, and your spending is my income — the result is a persistently depressed economy (…)”.

E agora?

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Moment of truth for the eurozone

The biggest question in any debt crisis is whether a credible path back to solvency can be found. For Greece, this now seems very unlikely. The same is true, to a lesser extent, for Ireland and Portugal. This raises three further questions. First, how big is any required restructuring? Second, who should bear the cost? Finally, is restructuring enough? If the answer to the last question is No, then one has to ask whether the currency union will last in its current form.

On the first of these questions, an analysis by Citigroup provides a negative answer. According to this analysis, by 2014 the ratio of gross debt to gross domestic product will have risen to 180 per cent in Greece, 145 per cent in Ireland and 135 per cent in Portugal. In none of these cases will the debt ratio start moving downwards over this horizon. Spain looks far better, with a debt ratio at about 90 per cent of GDP in 2014, though its path, too, will not have turned down. (See chart.)

The assumptions behind these forecasts are: a cumulative fiscal tightening between 2011 and 2014, inclusive, of 10.8 per cent of GDP in Greece, 8.3 per cent in Portugal, 7.3 per cent in Ireland and 5.7 per cent in Spain; interest cost of new funding rising from close to 5 per cent to 5.6 per cent in 2014 for Greece, Portugal and Ireland (determined by a weighted average of rates from the International Monetary Fund and the European Financial Stability Fund) and higher rates for Spain, since the latter will rely on the market; and, finally, privatisations and bail-outs. The analysis also assumes that a percentage point of fiscal tightening would lower growth by half as much.

Assume that these countries could borrow affordably in private markets at a gross debt ratio of 80 per cent of GDP. Assume, too, that European governments ensure that the IMF takes no losses. Then, the reduction in value of the rest of the debt would need to be as much as 65 per cent of GDP for Greece, 50 per cent for Ireland and 45 per cent for Portugal. The total “haircut” would be €423bn: €224bn for Greece, €107bn for Ireland and €92bn for Portugal.

One can quibble over the figures: these may be too pessimistic. But, without a big restructuring, these countries are now most unlikely to be able to finance themselves in the market on bearable terms. That is also what markets are saying: spreads on 10-year bonds over yields on German Bunds are 1,340 basis points, or 13.4 percentage points for Greece, 875 basis points for Ireland and 818 basis points for Portugal. This is why they are all now in official programmes. Worryingly, spreads for Spain are also now uncomfortably high, at 240 basis points, while those for Italy have reached 190 points. The eurozone, in short, is confronting a frightening sovereign debt challenge, aggravated by the dependence of its banks on support from its states and of its states on finance from its banks.

Now turn to the second question: who should bear the losses? If all the haircuts were to fall on private creditors, their losses in 2014 would be 97 per cent of their holdings of Greek debt, 63 per cent of their Irish debt and 60 per cent of their Portuguese debt. Official creditors would, by then, have to bear a substantial part of the total losses. Since governments would also need to bail out some of the holders of the restructured debt, particularly the banks, the eurozone would be revealed as a “transfer union”. Note, moreover, that this would occur despite a big fiscal effort in the affected countries. But even that would be insufficient to reverse the unfavourable debt dynamics in the medium term, partly because GDP growth is likely to remain so weak.

Against this background, proposals for rollovers by the banks, whether or not deemed technically a default, are neither here nor there. Much more to the point would be debt buy-backs at levels close to current market prices, as discussed in last week’s statement on Greece of the Institute for International Finance, which brings together the biggest international banks. That would crystallise losses. So be it. Let reality be recognised. As the Financial Times has also argued this week, the case for offering a menu of options with partial guarantees, similar to those under the 1989 Brady plan for Latin American debt, is powerful.

The question is whether such voluntary debt reductions would be enough, particularly for Greece. The answer is No. Governments would also have to play a part, by either accepting losses on the face value of their loans or ensuring lower interest rates, as proposed by Jeff Sachs of Columbia University. These are just two ways of achieving a lower net present value of debt service.

The dangers of debt relief are great. But the chances of success with denial are close to zero. True, it is possible for an ever greater share of the debt to be assumed by governments, so bailing out private creditors. Yet, ultimately, the cost of the debt owed to official sources will have to be cut by lowering interest rates or reducing sums outstanding.

It is not a question of whether such adjustments will have to be made, but of when. The history of such crises strongly suggests that it should be done sooner rather than later. Only after debt is on a sustainable path is confidence likely to return. Allowing foolish lenders, incompetent regulators and sloppy policymakers to hide past mistakes is a bad excuse for endless delays.

The doubt, in truth, is not over whether relief on the present value of the debt service is required. The real questions are elsewhere. One is over how to manage a co-operative debt restructuring. The other is over competitiveness and the return to growth. Some point to the success of Latvia in managing its so-called internal devaluation. But its GDP is 23 per cent below its pre-crisis peak. That is a depression. Moreover, the more successful a country turns out to be in cutting its costs, the worse the debt burden becomes. Thus, debt restructuring is merely a necessary condition for an exit. It is unlikely, in all cases, to be enough. Some economies may just wither away.

Alternatively, politicians may pull their countries out of the eurozone regardless of short-run costs. It is far too early to assume this will be the outcome, though some already do. But if there is to be any chance of avoiding this outcome, realism is required. At some point, the present value of the cost of debt must be drastically lowered. This does not have to happen today. But it has to happen soon enough to give people hope. In its absence, failure is not just likely. It is close to a certainty.

Moment of truth for the eurozone, Financial Times, By Martin Wolf.

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Europe’s wakeup call

The economic, and democratic, crisis in Europe raises questions. Why were policies that were bound to fail adopted and applied with exceptional ferocity in Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece? Are those responsible for pursuing these policies mad, doubling the dose every time their medicine predictably fails to work? How is it that in a democratic system, the people forced to accept cuts and austerity simply replace one failed government with another just as dedicated to the same shock treatment? Is there any alternative?

The answer to the first two questions is clear, once we forget the propaganda about the “public interest”, Europe’s “shared values” and being “all in this together”. The policies are rational and on the whole are achieving their objective. But that objective is not to end the economic and financial crisis but to reap its rich rewards. The crisis means that hundreds of thousands of civil service jobs can be cut (in Greece, nine out of ten civil servants will not be replaced on retirement), salaries and paid leave reduced, tranches of the economy sold off for the benefit of private interests, labour laws questioned, indirect taxes (the most regressive) increased, the cost of public services raised, reimbursement of health care charges reduced. The crisis is heaven-sent for neoliberals, who would have had to fight long and hard for any of these measures, and now get them all. Why should they want to see the end of a tunnel that is a fast track to paradise?

The Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC)’s directors went to Brussels on 15 June to ask the European Commission to pressure Dublin to dismantle some of Ireland’s labour legislation, fast. After the meeting, Brendan McGinty, IBEC director of Industrial Relations and Human Resources, warned: “Ireland needs to show the world it is serious about economic reform and getting labour costs back into line. Foreign observers clearly see that our wage rules are a barrier to job creation, growth and recovery. Major reform is a key part of the programme agreed with the EU and the IMF. Now is not the time for government to shirk from the hard decisions.”

The decisions will not be hard for everyone, following a course that is already familiar: “Pay rates for new workers in unregulated sectors have fallen by about 25% in recent years. This shows the labour market is responding to an economic and unemployment crisis” (1). The lever of sovereign debt enables the European Union and International Monetary Fund to impose the Irish employers’ dream order on Dublin.

The same view seems to apply elsewhere. On 11 June, an Economist editorial observed that “Reform-minded Greeks see the crisis as an opportunity to set their country right. They quietly praise foreigners for turning the screws on their politicians” (2). The same issue analysed the EU and IMF austerity plan for Portugal: “Business leaders are adamant that there should be no deviation from the IMF/EU plan. Pedro Ferraz da Costa, who heads a business think-tank, says no Portuguese party in the past 30 years would have put forward so radical a reform programme. He adds that Portugal cannot afford to miss this opportunity” (3). Long live the crisis.

Catering only to rentiers

Portuguese democracy is just 30 years old. Its young leaders were showered with carnations by crowds grateful for the end of a long dictatorship and colonial wars in Africa, the promise of agrarian reform, literacy programmes and power for factory workers. Now, with reductions in the minimum wage and unemployment benefit, neoliberal reforms in pensions, health and education, and privatisation, they have had a great leap backwards. The new prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, has promised to go even further than the EU and the IMF require. He wants to “surprise” investors.

US economist Paul Krugman explains: “Consciously or not, policy makers are catering almost exclusively to the interests of rentiers – those who derive lots of income from assets, who lent large sums of money in the past, often unwisely, but are now being protected from loss at everyone else’s expense.” Krugman says creditor interests naturally prevail because “this is the class that makes big campaign contributions, it’s the class that has personal access to policy makers, many of whom go to work for these people when they exit government through the revolving door” (4). During the EU discussion on funding Greek recovery, Austrian finance minister Maria Fekter initially suggested: “You can’t leave the profits with the banks and make the taxpayers shoulder the losses” (5). This was short-lived. Europe hesitated for 48 hours, then the interests of rentiers prevailed, as usual.

To understand the “complex” mechanisms underlying the sovereign debt crisis, you need to know about constant innovations in financial engineering: futures, CDs (credit default swaps) etc. This level of sophistication reserves analysis for select experts who generally profit from their knowledge. They pocket the proceeds while the economically illiterate pay, as a tribute they owe to fate, or to an aspect of the modern world that is beyond them.

Let’s try the simple political explanation instead. Long ago, European kings borrowed from the Doge of Venice or Florentine merchants or Genoese bankers. They were under no obligation to repay these loans and sometimes neglected to do so, a neat way of settling public debt. Many years later, the young Soviet regime announced that it would not be held accountable for money the tsars had borrowed and squandered, so generations of French savers suddenly found they had worthless Russian loans in their attics.

But there were more subtle ways of getting out of debt. In the UK, debt declined from 216% of gross domestic product in 1945 to 138% in 1955, and in the US it fell from 116% of GDP to 66%. Without any austerity plan. Of course, the surge in post-war economic development automatically reduced the proportion of debt in national wealth. But that was not all. States repaid a nominal sum at the time, reduced each year by the level of inflation. If a loan subscribed at 5% annual interest is repaid in currency that is depreciating at the rate of 10% a year, the real interest rate becomes negative to the benefit of the debtor. Between 1945 and 1980, the real interest rate in most western countries was negative almost every year. As a result, as The Economist remarked: “Savers deposited money in banks, which lent to governments at interest rates below the level of inflation” (6). Debt was cut without much trouble. In the US, negative real interest rates were worth the equivalent of 6.3% of GDP per year to the Treasury, from 1945 to 1955 (7).

Why did savers allow themselves to be cheated? They had no choice. Capital controls and the nationalisation of the banks meant that they had to lend to the state, and that is how it got its funds. Wealthy individuals did not have the option to invest on spec in Brazilian stock index-linked to changes in the price of soybeans over the next three years. There was a flight of capital, suitcases of gold ingots leaving France for Switzerland the day before devaluation or an election in which the left might win. However, this was illegal.

Up to the 1980s, index-linked wage rises (sliding scales) protected most workers against the consequences of inflation, and controls on free movement of capital had forced investors to put up with negative real interest rates. After the Reagan/Thatcher years, the opposite applied.

The system has no pity

Sliding wage scales disappeared almost everywhere: in France, the economist Alain Cotta called this major decision, in 1982, “[Jacques] Delors’ gift [to employers]” (8). Between 1981 and 2007, inflation was destroyed and real interest rates were almost always positive. Profiting from the liberalisation of capital movements, “savers” (this does not mean old age pensioners with a post office account in Lisbon or carpenters in Salonika) make states compete for funds and, as François Mitterrand said, “make money in their sleep”. Moving from sliding wage scales and negative real interest rates to a reduction in the purchasing power of labour and a meteoric increase in returns on capital completely upsets the social balance.

Apparently this is not enough. The troika (European Commission, ECB and IMF) has decided to improve the mechanisms designed to favour capital at the expense of labour, by adding coercion, blackmail and ultimatum. States bled by their over-generous efforts to rescue the banks, and begging for loans to balance their monthly accounts, are told to choose between a market-led clean-up and bankruptcy. A swathe of Europe, where the dictatorships of António de Oliveira Salazar, Francisco Franco and the Greek colonels ended, has been reduced to the rank of a protectorate run by Brussels, Frankfurt and Washington, the main aim being to defend the financial sector.

These states still have their own governments, but only to ensure that orders are carried out and to endure abuse from the people who know the system will never take pity on them, however poor they are. According to Le Figaro, “Most Greeks see the international supervision of the budget as a new form of dictatorship, like the old days when the colonels were in charge, between 1967 and 1974” (9). The European ideal will not gain from being associated with a bailiff who seizes islands, beaches, national companies and public services and sells them to private investors. Since 1919 and the Treaty of Versailles, everyone knows that such public humiliation can unleash destructive nationalism – and all the more so as provocations increase. The next ECB governor, Mario Draghi, who – like his predecessor – will issue strict orders in Athens, was vice chairman and managing director of Goldman Sachs when the bank was helping the conservative government in Greece to cook the books (10). The IMF, which also takes a view on the French constitution, has asked Paris to insert a “rule to balance public finances”; Nicolas Sarkozy is already working on it.

France has let it be known that it would like the Greek political parties to follow the example of their Portuguese counterparts, “join forces, and form an alliance”; and the prime minister, François Fillon, and European Commission president, José Barroso, have tried to persuade the Greek conservative leader, Antonis Samaras, to take this course. ECB head Jean-Claude Trichet considers that “the European authorities could have the right to veto some national economic policy decisions” (11).

Honduras has established an enterprise zone, in which national sovereignty does not apply. Europe is currently establishing a debate zone for all the economic and social issues no longer discussed by the political parties because these areas have gone beyond their control. Inter-party competition now concentrates on social matters: the burqa, the legalisation of cannabis, radar on motorways, the angry gestures or foul language of a reckless politician or intoxicated artist. This confirms a trend already noticeable 20 years ago: real political power is shifting to areas where democracy carries no weight, until the day when indignation finally boils over. Which is where we are.

But indignation is powerless without some understanding of the mechanisms that caused it. We know the alternatives – reject the monetarist, deflationist policies that deepen the crisis, cancel part of the debt if not all of it, take over the banks, get finance under control, reverse globalisation and recover the hundreds of billions of euros the state has lost by tax cuts that favour the wealthy (?70bn in France in the past ten years, more than $1 trillion in the US, especially for the top 1% of income earners). And knowledge of these alternatives has been shared by people who know at least as much about economics as Trichet, but do not serve the same interests.

This is not a technical and financial debate but a political and social battle. Of course, the economic liberals will claim that what progressives demand is impossible. But what have they achieved, apart from creating a situation that is unbearable? Perhaps it is time to remember how Jean-Paul Sartre summed up Paul Nizan’s advice to people who bottle up their aggression: “Do not be ashamed to ask for the moon: we need it” (12).

Europe’s wakeup call, Le Monde Diplomatique, by Serge Halimi

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A verdade sobre a economia | Robert Reich | legendas em português

 

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Perplexidades de um neo-liberal não austeritário.

Sofrimento sem sentido

J. Bradford DeLong*

Por três vezes na minha vida, concluí que o meu entendimento do mundo estava substancialmente errado.

A primeira vez foi em 1994, na sequência da assinatura do Acordo de Comércio Livre da América do Norte (NAFTA), quando os fluxos financeiros para o México com vista à construção de fábricas que exportassem para o maior mercado consumidor do mundo se revelaram claramente inferiores aos fluxos de capitais com destino aos Estados Unidos da América em busca de um clima de investimento mais favorável. O resultado foi a crise do peso mexicano (que eu, enquanto Secretário Adjunto do Tesouro norte-americano, tive que ajudar a conter).

A segunda epifania surgiu no Outono/Inverno de 2008, quando se tornou claro que os grandes bancos não tinham controlo nem sobre a sua alavancagem nem sobre as suas carteiras de derivados, e que os bancos centrais de todo o mundo não tinham nem capacidade nem vontade de sustentar a procura agregada em face de uma crise financeira de grandes proporções.

O terceiro momento é agora. Enfrentamos actualmente uma contracção nominal da procura de 8% relativamente à tendência pré-recessão, não existem quaisquer sinais de pressões inflacionárias e as taxas de desemprego na região do Atlântico Norte excedem em pelo menos três pontos percentuais todas as estimativas credíveis do que possa ser uma taxa de desemprego sustentável. Ainda assim, e apesar da falta de atenção ao crescimento económico e ao desemprego implicarem normalmente derrotas nas eleições seguintes, os líderes políticos da Europa e dos Estados Unidos clamam pela adopção de políticas que reduzem, no curto prazo, os níveis de actividade económica e de emprego.

Estará a escapar-me aqui alguma coisa?

Julgava eu que as questões fundamentais da macroeconomia se encontravam resolvidas por volta de 1829. Por essa altura, já nem o próprio Jean-Baptiste Say acreditava na Lei de Say dos Ciclos Económicos. Say sabia muito bem que as situações de pânico financeiro e de excesso de procura por activos financeiros poderiam dar origem, no sector real da economia, a uma procura insuficiente para manter os níveis de produção e de emprego; e que embora a não aplicabilidade da Lei de Say no curto prazo pudesse ser temporária, isso teria, ainda assim, consequências altamente destrutivas.

Fazendo uso deste conhecimento, as perturbações do ciclo económico deverão ser corrigidas através de uma, ou mais, das três formas seguintes:

1. Primeiro que tudo, não deixar acontecer. Evitar o que quer que seja que possa dar origem a uma situação de escassez de activos financeiros ou de excesso de procura por esses mesmos activos – quer se trate do esvair de fluxos financeiros para o exterior no contexto do padrão-ouro; de um colapso da riqueza de longo prazo, tal como sucedeu aquando do rebentamento da bolha das empresas tecnológicas; ou de uma movimentação em massa em direcção a activos financeiros mais seguros, como em 2007/2008.

2. Se não for possível evitar o problema, então o governo deverá intervir e aumentar os níveis de consumo público de bens e serviços, de modo a manter o emprego nos seus níveis normais e a compensar a contracção da despesa privada.

3. Se não for possível evitar o problema, então o governo deverá criar e disponibilizar os activos financeiros que o sector privado quer deter, por forma a relançar a procura privada pelos bens e serviços produzidos em consequência da capacidade instalada.

Há um sem-número de subtilezas relativamente à adopção de cada uma destas opções políticas por parte dos governos. A tentativa de implementação de uma delas pode comprometer, ou interferir, com as tentativas de prossecução das restantes. Para além disso, no caso dos agentes económicos incorporarem a expectativa de tendências inflaccionárias nos seus cálculos e acções, pode suceder que nenhuma destas três curas se mostre eficaz. Porém, não é essa a situação em que nos encontramos.

Da mesma forma, se o grau de confiança na capacidade de um governo fazer face aos seus compromissos financeiros sofrer um abalo, a intervenção de um financiador externo de último recurso pode ser essencial para assegurar a eficácia tanto da primeira quanto da segunda cura. No entanto, actualmente também não é esse o caso entre as principais economias do Atlântico Norte.

E no entanto, de alguma forma, todas estas três curas deixaram de estar em cima da mesa. Não se vislumbra como provável a implementação de reformas em Wall Street e Canary Wharf que visem reduzir a probabilidade e gravidade de um qualquer pânico financeiro futuro, tal como não são prováveis quaisquer intervenções governamentais com vista a regular os fluxos de activos financeiros de elevado risco no interior do sistema bancário. Também não existe qualquer pressão política no sentido de alargar, ou mesmo prolongar, as anémicas medidas de estímulo que foram adoptadas.

Entretanto, o Banco Central Europeu está activamente à procura de formas de reduzir a sua oferta de activos financeiros ao sector privado e a Reserva Federal dos Estados Unidos encontra-se sob pressão para fazer exactamente o mesmo. Em ambos os casos, o argumento é que a adopção de políticas expansionistas adicionais poderá despoletar processos inflaccionistas.

Contudo, quando observamos a evolução dos índices de preços ou a forma como os mercados financeiros têm estado a reagir às estimativas e previsões anunciadas, não é possível observar quaisquer sinais de inflação. Por outro lado, se atentarmos na evolução das taxas de juro praticadas nos mercados de dívida pública das principais economias desta região, também não encontramos quaisquer indícios de risco de emergência de uma crise da dívida soberana entre estas economias.

Ainda assim, quando escutamos os discursos dos decisores políticos de ambos os lados do Atlântico, aquilo que se ouve é Presidentes e Primeiros-Ministros a dizer coisas como: “Assim como as famílias e as empresas tiveram que ser cautelosas a gastar, também o Governo tem agora que apertar o cinto”.

E é aqui que atingimos o limite dos meus horizontes mentais enquanto neoliberal, tecnocrata e economista mainstream e neoclássico. Neste momento, a economia global encontra-se no meio de uma convulsão de grandes proporções caracterizada pela insuficiência da procura e pelo elevado desemprego. Nós conhecemos as curas – e, contudo, parecemos determinados a infligir mais sofrimento ao paciente.

*Artigo de J. Bradford DeLong, ex-Secretário Adjunto do Tesouro norte-americano, é Professor de Economia em Berkeley na Universidade da Califórnia e Investigador Associado no National Bureau for Economic Research (EUA), publicado por http://www.bepress.com/ev/ em Março de 2011. Original aqui.

**Tradução de Sandra Paiva, Paulo Coimbra e Alexandre Abreu.

***Também publicado em Portugal Uncut.

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Comprometer o essencial em troca de desemprego e obediência

O recente agravamento da componente pública da dívida externa é em larga medida resultado do abrandamento da actividade económica, da consequente significativa diminuição da receita com impostos, do aumento da despesa com protecção social, de juros que se tornaram imorais e da socialização dos prejuízos no BPN. Em Portugal, o Estado pode e deve gastar melhor, mas não é a razão do impasse económico a que chegámos. A componente privada da dívida externa, recebendo muito menos interesse dos mesmos eternos comentadores que o sistema lhe oferece for free, é consideravelmente maior que a pública.

Como muitos previram, as medidas pró-cíclicas de austeridade afundaram a economia e aprofundaram a divergência europeia entre o centro e periferia. Mas o quadro, de qualquer modo, estava há muito criado. Moeda única concebida à imagem e segundo os interesses da economia mais forte num espaço económico altamente heterógeneo. Credo liberal segundo o qual uma moeda comum pode existir sem orçamento comum. Tudo isto com o aprofundamento da desregulação e privatização que hoje permite aos tais ‘mercados’ condicionar profundamente as decisões dos governos que elegemos.

Trichet e FMI dizem-nos que a solução é mais do mesmo.

Hoje soubemos que 47 personalidades, entre elas, três presidentes da República e vários distintos intelectuais, se colocaram no mesmo barco.

A pressão é enorme. Mas, como se sabe, nas coisas humanas, excepto para o fim da vida, há sempre alternativa.

Stiglitz opõem-se a este tipo de solução para a Irlanda.

Krugman diz que é má ideia para Portugal.

Munchau afirma que a Europa deve recusar globalmente esta solução: “(…) a presente negociação gira à volta de 4 pilares: gestão da crise actual; o Mecanismo de Estabilidade Europeu; um novo pacto de estabilidade que inclua supervisão orçamental; e coordenação de políticas económicas e sociais. As negociações acerca dos financiamento do Mecanismo de Estabilidade Europeu têm avançado bem, assim como as discussões acerca do pacto de estabilidade. O menos robusto dos quatro pilares é a coordenção política. A Chanceler Angela Merkel insiste num pacto de competitividade como troca pela prontidão Alemã para disponibilizar garantias de crédito. Mas como devem responder os outros países? A minha resposta é: rejeitem. Eu recomendaria aos estados membros da zona Euro que vetassem o pacto de competitividade ainda que isso coloque em causa o pacote global. Se a Alemanha não pode garantir o seu lado nesta troca, não é claro para mim por que é que alguém aceitaria uma perda de soberania – que é o que efectivamente implicaria a coordenação de políticas (…)”.

Em Portugal mais razões há para dizer não; a remuneração do trabalho não tem cessado de minguar (parcela de retribuição do trabalho em percentagem do rendimento nacional diminuiu 10% entre 1975 e 2009) e a desigualdade de rendimentos é inaceitável.

Ao contrário de anuir com a imposição de injustas medidas austeritárias, precisamos de reclamar liberdade. É necessário defender o acesso universal ao serviço nacional de saúde, o subsídio de desemprego, as pensões de reforma e demais direitos do trabalho, para poder dizer não à coerção de senhores e patrões. Caso contrário, prepara-te, isso de tu não teres classe social é engano; um lugar de caixa, trabalho à noite e fins de semana e 400 eurinhos por mês estão à tua espera. Se te portares bem.

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Germany’s rebound is no cause for cheer

One of the weirder experiences for anyone who lives in the eurozone is a visit to a German supermarket. I had the pleasure the other day, and found the general price level there to be a little over half of what it is in Belgium, Italy or Spain. This, of course, is just an unscientific guess. I also found price differences of some 30 per cent when comparing certain categories of goods on various Ebay sites in the eurozone.These differences go some way to explaining the eurozone’s divergent economic performance, and give a pointer as to what to expect in the future. The really intriguing aspect of the divergences is not how they happened, but why they are not correcting themselves. We know how they happened: Germany entered the eurozone at an uncompetitive exchange rate and embarked on a long period of wage moderation. Macroeconomists would say Germany benefited from a real devaluation against other members. But while real exchange rates tend to move around, one would not normally expect extreme misalignments to be persistent. In this case, one would expect Spanish and Italian consumers to abandon their expensive retail stores and swamp German internet sites with mail order purchases, especially for durable goods. Eventually there would be some price realignment.

It is not happening.

You would also expect some pressure for realignment from the labour market. As the German export sector returns to full capacity, one would expect wage costs to rise by more than the eurozone average.

This is not happening either.

The reason for the lack of demand-side adjustment is that Europe’s internal market is not fully functioning, certainly not at the consumer level. I spoke to an executive of one of Germany’s mail order companies and asked him why people in Belgium, where I live, cannot buy his extremely cheap products. He told me that national tastes were so different as to preclude a European-wide mail order service. My response was that the Belgians, and the Italians, probably share the Germans’ taste for low prices, and would probably shop if only given an opportunity. Despite some recent improvements it remains surprisingly hard to shop cross-border.

While adjustment of the product side is prevented by an imperfect single market, adjustment on the labour market side is prevented by a complete absence of market integration. You would expect German workers to seek higher wages outside the country. But this is not happening, as the European labour market remains almost perfectly fragmented. That means German wage moderation can persist uncorrected for a long time. Nominal wages are effectively frozen, and are set to rise by only small percentages in the next few years.

Taken together, this means the intra-eurozone imbalances will not only persist, but probably increase. This will make the economic adjustment for Spain, Portugal or Greece even more difficult than it already is. Those persistent imbalances, much more than the build-up of debt, are my deep cause of concern about the long-term health of the eurozone.

But from a German perspective, this strategy boosts growth in the short term. It is, of course, a beggar-thy-neighbour strategy. The improvement in Germany’s economic growth is driven not by productivity gains but by real devaluation.

So while I expect the German economy to perform better than the eurozone average, it is important to keep some perspective and not draw false inferences from the 9 per cent annualised growth rate during the second quarter. If you look at the period since the beginning of the financial crisis, Germany’s economic performance has been dismal. If you compare levels of gross domestic product between Germany and the US since the crisis, you find the US significantly outperformed Germany during that period. That situation may still be reversed if the US were to go into a double-dip recession. But the best judgment we can make now is that of Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, in her recent interview in the Financial Times: Germany is recovering faster this year because it contracted faster last year, when GDP fell by 5 per cent. So far, this looks like classic dead-cat bounce.

Given its export-dependence, the performance of the German economy will ultimately depend on the global economy. As the US is heading for another downturn, it is hard to see how Germany can maintain its recent rates of growth. To do so would require a sudden increase in domestic demand. But I cannot see where that would come from.

The bottom line is that Germany’s economic performance will almost certainly improve relative to the eurozone average in the years ahead, but also that the current wave of enthusiasm is much exaggerated.

The real danger – to the eurozone, but ultimately to Germany itself – is the strains stemming from the policy of a real devaluation. I cannot see how southern Europe can ever fully reverse the misalignments in the real exchange rate. Nor are there any signs that the reforms in the EU’s product and labour markets will be sufficient to ensure that economic adjustment mechanisms can kick in. In other words, Germany’s economic strength is likely to be persistent, toxic and quite possibly self-defeating in the long-run.

munchau@eurointelligence.com

via FT.com / Columnists / Wolfgang Münchau – Germany’s rebound is no cause for cheer.

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RSA Animate – First as Tragedy, Then as Farce

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In this short RSA Animate, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek investigates the surprising ethical implications of charitable giving.

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Crises of Capitalism

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See also BBC HARDtalk interview

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