El Futuro de la UE

Even as Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy talk, Europe's economy slides towards disaster

The EU leaders' rhetoric in Paris makes it clear that they are not facing up to the existential crisis.

Grim outlook: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy meeting at the Elysee Palace 

By Jeremy Warner

7:41PM BST 17 Aug 2011

467 Comments

Beneath the grandiose rhetoric of this week's mini-summit in Paris between Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, a rather more important story was breaking. This was the news that the German economic recovery has comprehensively stalled, causing growth across Europe as a whole to come to a virtual standstill. Amid the storm clouds of the single currency crisis, the apparent buoyancy of the German economy had been one of the few remaining rays of sunshine. Now that, too, has flickered out.

All the warning signs of another economic catastrophe have been there for a long time now, but with policy-makers fretting over how to save the euro, they have been ignored. Rather than attempting to stave off a double-dip recession by loosening monetary policy – and fiscal policy, too, among those member states that can still afford it – Europe has gone careening off in the opposite direction. Interest rates have been raised, and member states have been forced into self-defeating austerity programmes which, by destroying growth, have made underlying debt dynamics even worse. It is hard to imagine a more perversely inappropriate set of policies.

As the US economist Paul Krugman observed this week, American and European leaders sometimes seem to be engaged in a contest to see who can make the worst of a bad situation. The recent suggestion by Rick Perry, the Republican presidential hopeful, that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke should be roughed up and put on trial for treason, suggested that the US might still be in with a chance in this race to the bottom. Yet, despite the willingness of America's political class to put naked self-interest before national economic wellbeing, they will always struggle to match Europe in the bad policy stakes.

Every one of the eurozone's 17 states must bear some responsibility for this multiple pile-up – I'm not about to excuse the profligacies of the southern states – but it is clear that the main mischief is coming from that great engine room of the European economy, Germany. It is rigid German adherence to the principles of sound money that has both driven the European Central Bank's decision to raise interest rates and prevented the ECB from applying the "unconventional measures" used in Britain and the US to stimulate economic activity. The same thinking underlies the fiscal austerity measures that all eurozone states are being obliged to commit themselves to.

These principles are, in themselves, wholly admirable – would they had been more in evidence in the UK over the past 10 years! It is also obvious that in order to regain competitiveness, most European economies need root-and-branch reform. The opportunity to grasp the nettle when times were good was squandered; it seems reasonable that, in crisis, such reforms should now be imposed. But what is right for Germany is not necessarily right for others. And with the German economy now stagnating, too, it looks ever more questionable that the current policy mix is even appropriate there.

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This is not to denigrate Germans as bad Europeans, or accuse them – as some have, ridiculously – of attempting to recreate the Third Reich in modern form by pressing their own policies on others. A more reluctant nation of conquerors there has never been. Germany's unwillingness to accept joint responsibility for Europe's debts without corresponding fiscal harmonisation and common governance has nothing to do with wishing to subject the rest of Europe to servitude and mercantilist exploitation. Rather, it is about protecting its own taxpayers and sovereignty from southern profligacy.

The mistake that Berlin is making is to believe that, somehow or other, everyone else can be made as economically virtuous as itself: that Greeks can, via austerity, be transformed into Germans. Yet it doesn't take a degree in economics to figure out that if everyone is scrimping and saving, there won't be any demand in the economy. Not everyone can be a surplus nation, yet this logical impossibility is what German policy seems to be trying to create.

The natural remedy for the sort of trade and capital imbalances we have seen build up within Europe is currency adjustment. When a currency devalues, it both makes the goods and services of the deficit nation more competitive, and reduces the burden of external indebtedness.

But within a currency union, such adjustment becomes impossible. There is no mechanism for the sort of burden-sharing that must occur to put economic activity back on a sustainable footing. There are no market disciplines to ensure the corrective action that will improve competitiveness. All these things have to be centrally imposed, leading to erosion of fiscal and democratic sovereignty.

Most of these problems were foreseen when monetary union was established, but they were swept under the carpet. Everyone wanted to believe in Neverland. Throughout Europe, politicians were dishonest about what the union could and would deliver.

If Germany cannot be persuaded into bailing the other nations out, either by agreeing joint-liability "eurobonds" or through massive European Central Bank purchases of sovereign debt – quantitative easing – what options are left? We are way past the stage where expelling a few miscreants would cure the eurozone's crisis – so the obvious solution is for the single currency to reconstitute itself on an different basis. What's required is a wider separation of surplus and deficit nations, so that the natural corrective of currency adjustment can establish an appropriate carve-up of the debt overhang between creditors and debtors.

Almost any such solution is bound to be hugely disruptive. But, by common agreement, the approach most likely to produce an orderly rebalancing would be for Germany and its satellite economies to exit the single currency, leaving all the paraphernalia of the euro to the Mediterranean nations, newly liberated from the shackles of German discipline.

Unfortunately, the economically optimal tends to be politically unacceptable. For Germany to recreate the Deutsche mark and float against the euro would plunge the economy into recession overnight, as industry scrambled to cut costs to regain lost competitiveness. It would also require massive recapitalisation of the banking system, whose euro loans would be correspondingly impaired. This is, in a sense, what needs to happen, but don't expect Germany to accept it without a fight. A creditor will never lightly forgive his debtors.

Watching Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy at their press conference on Tuesday, it was clear that the two are still a million miles away from recognising the enormity of the choices their nations face – and that the crisis will need to escalate at least another couple of notches before they will even consider the solutions that are required. The idea that Europe might solve its problems simply by putting Herman Van Rompuy in charge of budgetary co-ordination and slapping a tax on financial transactions was little short of laughable.

The truth is that a project meant to tame Germany and integrate her into the heart of Europe has backfired spectacularly. Far from making economies converge, it has succeeded only in driving them ever further apart. From Britain's island haven, we can only look on in horror as Europe once again stares into the abyss. The combination of tight fiscal and loose monetary policy that our free-floating, sovereign currency has allowed means that, in relative terms at least, we ought to fare better than our neighbours. But when the storm breaks, it will be small consolation to have the sturdiest raft.

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El lunes EEUU llega a su techo de endeudamiento

Entrará EEUU en default o a última hora el Congreso aumentará el límite de endeudamiento. Si no sucede los bonos del tesoro de EEUU subirán su prima de riesgo y podría colapsar el sistema financiero como en el 2008. Puede que sea el preludio de la devaluación del dolar que corrija la situación del déficit pero habrá que pensar en el reemplazo del dolar en el comercio mundial. Pero la pregunta es: ¿son los bonos del tesoro de EEUU papeles libres de riesgo como se consideran actualmente?

Tea Party Brinkmanship

What If the U. S. Looks Like Defaulting?

By MIKE WHITNEY
On Monday, the US government hit the statutory limit on the amount of money it can borrow, ($14.29 trillion) the so-called "debt ceiling". That means that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has started to implement an emergency plan to keep the government running and pay bondholders while the White House and Congress hammer out the details on a final budget deal. But Geithner's accounting maneuvers will only work for a short time. If a budget compromise isn't reached by early August, then "the borrowing authority of the United States will be exhausted" and the US will default.
Some Republican congressmen believe that a default will be "no big deal", and that bondholders and Social Security recipients will just get their checks a little later than usual. But these people really don't understand the way the system works or what is at stake. As The Economist's Greg Ip says,  "Treasury debt underpins a vast and complex web of financial relationships around the world which would all be thrown out of whack by even a technical default."  The mere suggestion that the US might delay payments to bondholders would roil markets and cause irreversible damage to the Treasuries market. That, in turn, would put the dollar into a nosedive and, perhaps, end its role as the world's reserve currency. Here's an excerpt from a post by economist Menzie Chinn who sums it up perfectly:

"....what would be key to causing a crash in the dollar's value would be a failure to raise the debt ceiling in a timely fashion. In almost any model I can think of, that would either cause a flight from US government debt, or -- even if we only go to the brink -- elevating the risk premium, and hence total interest payments, on US Treasury debt indefinitely. Thus, it's the height of irresponsibility to make unrealistic demands for deficit reduction based solely on spending cuts, thereby risking a crisis. ("What Would Really Bring about a Dollar Dive?, Econbrowser)

Nearly every other economist says the same thing. Congress is playing with dynamite.
What's obvious in the budget negotiations, is that the Republicans haven't the foggiest idea of how the financial markets work.  Of course, the Dems aren't much better, but at least they (occasionally) consider the advice of the experts . Not the Republicans. They seem to take great pride in their boneheadedness.  They think that threatening to blow up the economy is a sound strategy for forcing cuts to entitlement spending. They don't realize that their little game of chicken could backfire and change the perception that the US is a safe place for investors to park their money. In fact, the thought never seems to enter their mind.
Here's an excerpt from a letter by Geithner (to Senator Michael Bennet) warning of "catastrophic economic consequences" if the debt limit is not raised soon:

"The unique role of Treasuries securities in the global financial system means that the consequences of default would be particularly severe. Treasuries securities are a key holding on the balance sheets of virtually every major insurance company, bank, money market fund, and pension fund in the world. They are also widely used as collateral by financial institutions to meet their day-to-day cash-flow needs in the short-term financing market."

Geithner is explaining how the "shadow banking system" works and how it relies on "risk free" Triple A collateral. If the world's premier asset class--US Treasuries--suffers a downgrade because of default or falling public confidence, that would lead to widespread haircuts that would trigger another financial crisis.
Geithner again:

"A default on Treasury debt could lead to concerns about the solvency of the investment funds and financial institutions that hold Treasury securities in their portfolios, which could cause a run on money market mutual funds and the broader financial system--similar to what occurred in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. As the recent financial crisis demonstrated, a sudden and severe blow to confidence in the financial markets can spark a panic that threatens the health of our entire global economy and the jobs of millions of Americans."

Geithner is not exaggerating. This WILL happen. Why?  Because this is what happened in 2008 and, unfortunately, nothing has changed. If the US defaults, then the risk premium on US Treasuries will rise and their price will fall. That means that the trillions of dollars that have been exchanged for UST's in the repo market --where financial institutions exchange cash deposits for high-grade collateral--will be revalued causing massive losses for the holders of UST's. Those losses will ripple through the money markets and commercial paper markets knocking down the same financial dominoes they did when Lehman Brothers failed.  Bottom line: None of the Dodd-Frank reforms have increased financial market stability at all. The system is as vulnerable to meltdown as it was in September 2008.
Geithner again: 

"Treasuries securities enjoy their unique role in the global financial system precisely because they are viewed as a risk-free asset....A default would call into question the status of Treasuries securities as a cornerstone of the financial system, potentially squandering this unique role and the economic benefits that come with it."

This such an important point, it might help to use an analogy.
Let's say I need some cash to finance some other business operations I have going. So, I go down to the local pawn shop with my custom-built Jaguar, my original Vermeer oil painting, and my collection of Renaissance gold coins. The pawnbroker takes one look at my trove and says he can lend me $25,000 for a week, but I'll have to pay him $26,000 to get my stuff back. I say, "Okay", and borrow the money. This allows me to keep my other business operations running. Then, a week later, I return to the pawn shop and repay the money I borrowed.
Okay, so far?
So, next week I go back to the pawn shop and try to get the same deal. Only this time, the dealer has done a little research and discovered that my custom Jaguar is actually a late-model Yugo with a flashy paint job; my original Vermeer is actually a paint-by-numbers fake I picked up at a flea market, and my collection of Renaissance gold coins, is actually a scattering of slot-machine slugs with a pyrite finish. So the dealer gets all huffy and says he'll only lend me half of what he had before, ($12,500) But that's a big problem for me, because now I don't have the money to fund my other operations or pay my employees. So I have to dig into savings (bank capital), which makes it harder for me to lend money to anyone else.  As time goes on, I am forced to sell more of my personal belongings (assets) just to stay afloat.
This is precisely what happened to the banks during the financial crisis.  Financial firms that had been providing full-value for securitized bonds (my Jaguar) got worried that those bonds might contain toxic subprime loans (my Yugo). So they reduced the amount of money they would lend on the bonds.  These so-called "haircuts" set-off a slow-motion panic that lasted for over a year, draining nearly $4 trillion from the shadow banking system. The problem was compounded by the fact that no one knew which bundles held the worst mortgages or which banks had the biggest pile of bonds. So, interbank lending began to freeze, LIBOR skyrocketed, and the credit markets ground to a standstill. When Lehman Brothers defaulted on September 15, 2008, the downward spiral accelerated and the entire financial system crashed.
If the US defaults on its debt, Treasuries will be repriced, the country's biggest banks will discover they've got less capital than they thought, and the financial system will suffer another meltdown. Only this time, it will be much worse, because Treasuries will no longer be regarded as the premier risk-free financial asset upon which all other financial assets are measured. That means the US will have to pay higher rates to meet its obligations which will make it harder to dig out of recession.
Wall Street and Big Business understand the gravity of the situation which is why they've tried to discourage GOP brinkmanship. But--to their credit--congressional members of the Tea Party have shrugged off the arm twisting and stubbornly stood their ground. The idea is that eventually, Obama will see that they have him over a barrel and he'll cave in. Isn't that the way that power works?
There's a lesson here for political activists. The Tea Party has stumbled upon a perfectly-legal "asymmetrical" strategy for effecting change, that is, locate the vulnerabilities in the system and exploit those weaknesses to shape policy. There's no reason leftists couldn't play the same sort of game, provided they were  willing to get their hands dirty.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com

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The Catalysts Start to Catalyze

by John Rubino on June 15, 2011

For a couple of years now it's been clear that the world was about to fall apart, with the only question being which local failure turns out to be the catalyst for a systemic breakdown. So many things were on the verge of blowing up…yet none of them did. The world's governments have engaged in a heroic period of "extend and pretend" that has kept the system together longer than seemed possible.

But now the game seems to be ending. It's still not clear which bomb will go off first, but a bunch of fuses have gotten very short indeed. Here's a survey of old crises that are finally coming to a head:

California and Illinois
These two U.S. states are bankrupt by any reasonable definition, but are somehow managing to pay most of their bills. Their political classes are dominated by public sector unions, so neither has tried the tough medicine of places like Wisconsin or New Jersey. Instead, they've used a combination of much higher taxes (Illinois) and accounting gimmicks as a means to much higher taxes (California) to delay the inevitable reckoning.
Both are reaping what they've sown. Illinois, after raising corporate and income taxes, now faces an exodus of businesses to more friendly climes like Indiana and Texas. The governor is doling out tax breaks to keep major employers, a practice that 1) sends those new taxes right back out the door and 2) leads every other company to demand the same treatment. Latest on the list is the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the state's biggest financial institution. No end in sight but bankruptcy.
California desperately wants to raise taxes but can't get an increase through the legislature. Thanks to a recently passed referendum, lawmakers don't get paid unless they produce a budget, so they'll do so pretty soon. But without more tax revenues it will fill the gaping deficit with gimmicks like delayed payments. No one will be fooled. The only question now is whether there's room in Texas for all the California companies that will soon be leaving. Again, no end in sight but bankruptcy. Short munis and pretty much anything dependent on consumer spending, since the resulting public sector layoffs will devastate demand for cars and other luxuries.
The Middle East
As country after country blows up, the U.S. finds itself sucked into increasing numbers of "humanitarian" military operations that are, of course, really about protecting the flow of oil. It won't work. An oil crisis of some sort is coming. Buy energy stocks, from oil to clean tech, short everything else.
The U.S. budget
With America borrowing, in effect, its entire military budget from China, unemployment headed back to double digits even by Washington's fraudulent accounting, and neither party willing to really address the military/entitlements complex, the debt will keep piling up until it can't. The rating agencies are now, belatedly, threatening the US AAA rating, the loss of which would either drive interest rates back to their historical average of 5%-6% (sending interest costs out of control) or force the Fed to start buying all the bonds issued by Treasury (sending the money supply out of control). Result: imminent currency crisis. Buy gold and silver, short Treasuries.
Housing
After seeming to stabilize for a few months, housing is tanking again. Sales and prices are down, underwater mortgages are surging, home builder confidence is at new lows, and poor innocent Bank of America is stuck with trillions of bad paper that it's not accounting for. As home prices accelerate to the downside, look for huge bank write-downs, massive stock volatility, and maybe another bailout. Short anything in the financial sector.
Europe
Ah, the euro. Greece is imploding…riots in the street, the government is falling, and the Bundesbank and ECB can't agree on how to handle the coming default. This one is coming to a head very soon, to be followed by the other PIIGS countries — assuming there's still a Eurozone to try to save. Short the European banks with the most Greek paper, load up on precious metals.
Does it matter which blows up first?
Not any more. They're all so close that just their prospect is enough to send capital running for cover. It's a nasty year no matter what. But then comes the next stimulus plan, which complicates the whole "short the world" thesis. The markets have been consistently fooled by this kind of thing, and there's no reason to believe that QE3 won't ignite another rally in risk assets. So monitor those shorts and be ready to close them out when CNBC starts hinting at a big pending announcement from Bernanke or Geithner. Shift the proceeds into precious metals, which will absolutely rocket when the next wave of fake liquidity hits the market.

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Prepararse para la implosión del mercado de los Bonos del tesoro estadounidense

Prepararse para la implosión del mercado de los Bonos del tesoro estadounidense

- Nota publica de GEAB N°53 (18 de marzo de 2011) -

Más allá de sus trágicas consecuencias humanas (1), la terrible catástrofe que acaba de afectar a Japón constituirá un golpe fatal para el tambaleante mercado de T-Bonds. En el GEAB N° 52, nuestro equipo explicó cómo la secuencia de las revoluciones árabes, la caída de la « pared de los petrodólares » (2), se traducirá durante el año 2011 en la interrupción de las grandes compras de T-Bonds de los países del Golfo. En este GEAB N° 53, anticipamos que el repentino golpe que sufre la economía japonesa va a provocar no sólo la interrupción de las compras de T-Bonds por Japón, sino que obligará a las autoridades de Tokio a vender persistentemente una parte importante de sus reservas en estos bonos con el fin de financiar el enorme coste de estabilización, reconstrucción y reactivación de la economía nipona (3).


Japón y los países del Golfo, ellos solos, representan el 25 % del total de 4.400 millardos de USD de la deuda federal estadounidense (diciembre de 2010), el LEAP/E2020 considera que esta nueva situación que se presenta durante este primer trimestre 2011, en un contexto de creciente renuencia de China (20 % del Bono del tesoro US) a continuar invirtiendo en los títulos federales de EEUU (4), es portador del germen de la implosión del mercado de los T-Bonds segundo semestre de 2011; un mercado que ahora tiene un sólo comprador: la Reserva Federal de Estados Unidos (5).


Ciertamente, el contexto de la crisis de los títulos de las administraciones locales estadounidense y las deudas públicas europeas (toda la periferia de la UE incluido el Reino Unido) que nuestro equipo anticipó para este período (ver a GEAB N° 50 ) sólo exacerbará el fenómeno. Por otra parte, es muy significativo que PIMCO, el más importante gestor privado de renta fija a nivel mundial haya decidido, a finales de febrero de 2011, desembarazarse de sus T-Bonds. I esto fue antes de la catástrofe en Japón (6)!

Principales poseedores de la deuda federal estadounidense (10/2010) - Fuentes: US Treasury / Dave's Manuel

Pero más allá de las conmociones japonesas y árabes (ver a GEAB N° 52 ), el proceso de implosión del mercado de la deuda federal estadounidense en el segundo semestre de 2011 se acelera bajo el efecto de otros cuatro fenómenos:

. La implementación de la austeridad presupuestaria en Estados Unidos (como lo anticipamos en el GEAB N° 47) que condena las administraciones locales de ese país a una importante crisis del mercado de su deuda (« Munis »)
. La imposibilidad para la FED de colocar un QE3
. La inevitable alza de las tasas de interés en un marco de inflación mundial
. El fin de la condición de refugio de la divisa estadounidense.

Desde luego el conjunto de estos fenómenos está vinculado, es la característica de una gran crisis y entramos en un período en el que los impactos se reforzarán mutuamente, produciendo el violento shock del segundo trimestre de 2011. Podríamos por otra parte añadir un quinto fenómeno: la completa parálisis decisoria del poder en Estados Unidos. El enfrentamiento diario, prácticamente en todos los campos, entre Republicanos (radicalizados por "Tea-Parties") y Demócratas (desmoralizados por la administración Obama que traicionó lo esencial de sus compromisos electorales (7)), tiende cada día un poco más a demostrar que Washington es ya una suerte de « La nave de los necios », sacudida por los acontecimientos, sin una estrategia, sin voluntad, sin capacidad de acción (8). En otras palabras, según el LEAP/E2020, cuando la implosión del mercado de los T-Bonds se inicie, no se espera nada diferente en Washington que una prodigiosa cacofonía que sólo agravará la crisis.

En este comunicado público del GEAB N° 53, escogimos presentar más detalladamente nuestra anticipación del efecto de la catástrofe japonesa a escala global particularmente en materia de inflación y geopolítica. Analizados en este GEAB otros fenómenos que conducen a la implosión del mercado T-Bonds en el segundo semestre de 2011, donde también formulamos recomendaciones para hacer frente a la evidente agravación del proceso de desarticulación geopolítica mundial.

La triple catástrofe que acaba de ocurrir en Japón (terremoto, tsunami y accidente nuclear) constituye un acontecimiento crucial que va a acelerar e intensificar la crisis sistémica global y en particular el proceso de desarticulación geopolítica mundial. La magnitud de las destrucciones, el impacto directo sobre las infraestructuras energéticas de la tercera o la cuarta economía del mundo (9), la gravedad de los accidentes en las centrales nucleares (10), constituye uno de esas importantes conmociones que el sistema internacional actual ya no es capaz de resistir como lo anticipáramos en el GEAB N° 51 (« 2011: El año despiadado »).

Japón, ya muy debilitado por una crisis económica crónica, desde hace veinte años y con una de las deudas públicas más importantes del mundo, se encuentra ahora frente a la doble necesidad de financiar una reconstrucción a gran escala y de asegurar la transición hacia un período indefinido, caracterizado por la limitación de la energía disponible y la ruptura de los canales de suministro comerciales. Japón es un componente fundamental del sistema de gobernanza mundial de estas últimas décadas. Tokio es una de las principales plazas financieras mundiales, uno de tres polos de gestión de los mercados de divisas (con Londres y Nueva York) y la economía japonesa abastece cantidad de componentes electrónicos vitales para la economía mundial. Finalmente, como lo analizáramos en GEABs anteriores, son con Reino los dos « flotadores » (11) que permite a Estados Unidos administrar los asuntos mundiales en materia económica, monetaria y financiera hace más de cincuenta años.

Este « flotador » está siendo atraído desde hace algunos años de manera creciente a la órbita china, al ritmo del aumento del poder de China y del debilitamiento de Estados Unidos. La crisis disparada por el terremoto, según el LEAP/E2020, acelerará fuertemente esta tendencia particularmente porque hoy, sólo China se halla en situación de aportar una gran ayuda financiera a Japón (12), simplemente ayudando a su economía abriendo todavía más a las empresas japonesas al inmenso mercado chino (13).

Parte declinante del USD en las transacciones internacionales (serie N°1) y en las reservas mundiales de cambio (serie N° 2) - Fuentes: BRI / FMI / Wall Street Journal, 03/2011

En cuanto a la inflación mundial, ya podemos identificar cinco canales por los cuales la crisis japonesa va a reforzar las presiones inflacionistas actuales:

1. El desbastante golpe al desarrollo de las políticas de equipamiento nuclear civil en todo el mundo (14) hará que aumente la presión sobre el precio del petróleo (15), del gas y del carbón

2. la escasez de numerosos componentes vitales electrónicos que va a generar una alza de los precios de los equipos electrónicos (ordenadores, pasando por televisores de pantalla plana (16)) a causa de los corte de energía que afectan las fábricas y la desorganización de los transportes (17)

3. mayor presión sobre los precios mundiales de los alimentos y la energía (18) debido a un aumento significativo de las importaciones alimentarias de Japón (particularmente arroz) ya que la región afectada es una de las principales regiones agrícolas del país (ver mapa más abajo)

4. un nuevo retroceso en la globalización económica a raíz de las consecuencias mundiales del cierre virtual de la economía japonesa, campeona a la vez de las exportaciones y del "justo a tiempo" (19), que va a limitar por ello el efecto "deflacionario" de los intercambios globalizados (20)

5. y finalmente, el doble fenómeno de la pérdida de valor del yen, debido a las inyecciones masivas de liquidez por el Banco de Japón y el encarecimiento directo del « alquiler » del dinero en el mundo (mayores tasas), debido a las enormes necesidades Japón para la reconstrucción.

Utilización de las tierras japonesas (rojo: doble cosecha - arroz y trigo / salmón: cosecha única - arroz / castaña: cosecha única - trigo / verde: bosque) - Utilización de las tierras japonesas (rojo: dobla cosecha - arroz y trigo / salmón: cosech

Estas anticipaciones evidentemente no incluye el escenario de una catástrofe extrema, que consistiría en una masiva contaminación radioactiva de la región de Tokio a raíz de una fusión explosiva de uno de los reactores de la central de Fukushima (21). Tal situación conduciría, similarmente a lo que ocurrió en Chernobil, a crear una zona de exclusión que afectaría a esta región en la que viven más de treinta millones de habitantes y se encuentra en el corazón de los corredores mundiales esenciales, lo cual provocaría una catástrofe humanitaria sin precedentes históricos y una discontinuidad inmediata de los mercados mundiales: económicos, financieros y monetarios. Simplemente no hay « plan B » para una « detención súbita » del nodo global que constituye Tokio y su región.

Deseando que esta situación extrema no ocurra, nuestro equipo considera que la conmoción, ya comprobada, conducirá a un agravamiento de la crisis sistémica mundial y que el mercado de T-Bonds será la primera gran víctima colateral desde el segundo semestre 2011 como lo analizamos detalladamente en este número del GEAB. Lo extremo afortunadamente no ha ocurrido, pero lo muy grave no deja lugar a dudas.

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Notas:

(1) En estas circunstancias trágicas, el equipo del LEAP/E2020 desea expresar su solidaridad con el pueblo japonés y en particular con nuestros numerosos abonados y los visitantes japoneses. También queremos subrayar que nuestro análisis muy « clínico » de las consecuencias de la catástrofe que acaba de sobrevenir en Japón no es una señal de indiferencia sino simplemente el respeto de nuestra metodología que pretende limitar estrictamente a lo mínimo posible los elementos subjetivos en nuestras anticipaciones.

(2) Hasta Telegraph del 24/02/2011 ahora interpreta las revoluciones populares árabes como la caída del imperio americano de Medio Oriente.

(3) Fuente: JapanToday, 14/03/2011

(4) Según el FT Deutschland, el banco central chino hasta habría recibido instrucciones de parar de comprarlos. Fuente: FT Deutschland, 10/03/2011

(5) Antes de la catástrofe japonesa, consideramos que la FED, de hecho ya el primer poseedor de T-Bonds, compraba ya más de 70 % de las nuevas emisiones. En las próximas semanas, esta proporción progresivamente va atender hacia el 90 % al 95 %. Porque a pesar de su docilidad frente a la presión estadounidense, el Reino Unido, se hunde cada día un poco más en la nueva fase de la crisis, la « double-dip-flation » como la denomina nuestro equipo, y carece de los medios para comprar los T-Bonds: está demasiado ocupado en rescatar los títulos de su propia deuda pública. Y, según Karen Ward, una de las principales economistas de HSBC, el gobierno británico hasta corre peligro de tener que enfrentar motines por hambre si los precios de los alimentos continúan subiendo como lo hacen desde hace varias semanas. Fuente: SkyNews, 09/03/2011

(6) A corto plazo, la huida de los valores bursátiles (japoneses y otros) puede beneficiar a los T-Bonds, pero es un fenómeno pasajero. Fuente: CNBC, 09/03/2011

(7) El último, cronológicamente, es la reapertura de los procesos de Guantánamo cuando había prometido el cierre de la prisión lo más tarde un año después de su elección, atrayéndose así millones de electores de la izquierda del partido demócrata.

(8) El otro gran país occidental donde las élites dirigentes están en la misma situación es Francia.

(9) Dependiendo que si se considera o no a la economía Eurolandia integralmente. Aunque la cumbre del último 11 de marzo al implementar todavía más profundamente la integración presupuestaria y financiera de los países de la Eurozona haga cada vez más aberrante la posición de querer continuar contabilizando separadamente los grandes agregados económicos de los países de la Eurozona. Así, con 8.400 mil millones dólares, el PBI de Eurolandia se sitúa en segunda posición detrás de Estados Unidos (10.428 mil millones dólares), a la cotización de 1€ a 1,4 dólares y muy ampliamente delante de China (4.100 mil millones dólares) y Japón (3.850 mil millones dólares). Fuentes: Wikipedia, Eurozona, Pone en una lista país por PNB: Wikipedia, Eurozone, Liste pays par PNB.

(10) Sin referirnos hasta a este momento al riesgo de una neutralización parcial o total de la región de Tokio, una de las metrópolis clave del mundo de estas últimas décadas, como medida ante una contaminación nuclear.

(11) A semejanza de un trimarán.

(12) Hay tener en cuenta que Pekín intenta, por todos los medios, desembarazarse rápidamente, pero de manera rentable, de su montaña de T-Bonds y otra de USD. El cataclismo que experimenta Japón ofrecerá a los dirigentes chinos una ocasión única de acercar estratégicamente Tokio a Pekín.

(13) A la inversa, la muy controvertida presencia de las tropas estadounidenses en Japón volverá a ser tema de la opinión nipona, tanto más por lo anacrónico e inútil frente a la catástrofe actual. Es otro ejemplo, como se pudo comprobar en el caso de las revoluciones árabes, de la inutilidad creciente del inmenso aparato militar estadounidense: crisis tras crisis, se vuelve evidente que prácticamente no tiene ninguna utilidad para permitirle al gobierno de Estados Unidos influir en los acontecimientos.

(14) Ciertamente, será muy difícil recuperarse de la frenada resultante del golpe que acaba de recibir la energía nuclear civil, particularmente porque esta catástrofe recae, de ahora en más, en el conflicto entre élites y opiniones públicas que la crisis sistémica global exacerba cada día un poco más. Entre los países que sufrirán frontalmente esta « revolución » nuclear, ya podemos citar a Francia que hizo desde hace cerca de cincuenta años de la energía nuclear civil una de las joyas de su tecnología y de sus exportaciones. Fuente: Spiegel, 14/03/2011

(15) Un factor que reforzará la tendencia inexorable de la región del Golfo hacia una situación de caos, incluso de conflicto directo entre Shiítas y Sunnitas, entre los pueblos de la región y sus dirigentes, entre Irán y Arabia Saudita. El envío de tropas saudíes a Bahrein es un indicio de la escalada de los riesgos en la región así como la participación financiera de los Emiratos Árabes Unidos que intentan mitigar con urgencia cuarenta años de desinterés hacia sectores enteros de sus poblaciones. Fuentes: AlJazeera, 15/03/2011; New York Times, 10/03/2011; AlJazeera, 10/03/2011

(16) Uno de los raros factores « bajistas » que permitía esconder el alza de los precios de los alimentos o de la energía en numerosos índices de precios. Así mismo en China y en todo el Sudeste asiático, el impacto de la escasez de componentes japoneses ya se hace sentir con suba inmediata de precios, ya que la industria electrónica japonesa masivamente deslocalizó partes enteras de su producción a través de toda el Asia pero mantuvo las fabricaciones estratégicas en Japón. Fuente: China Daily, 15/03/2011

(17) En todo el mundo vamos a experimentar la escasez de automóviles japoneses y de piezas de recambio para estos vehículos. Dado la importancia mundial de la industria automotriz japonesa no habrá una solución fácil de implementar. Hasta en la India, aunque depende poco de marcas japonesas, el impacto ya se hace sentir directamente al haber anulado los grandes grupos japoneses la venta y promoción de los nuevos modelos. Fuente: Times of India, 15/03/2011

(18) Varias refinerías japonesas se destruyeron. Esto implica un aumento en importaciones de productos refinados lo que podría generan alzas de los precios de la gasolina en Estados Unidos. Fuente: USAToday, 14/03/2011

(19) Las economías exportadoras chinas y alemanas (así como Corea del Sur, Taiwán) también van a sufrir las consecuencias negativas de esta evolución.

(20) Es importante tener en cuenta que el retroceso de la globalización de los intercambios a favor de un enfoque regional sobre zonas económicas dotadas de una moneda única o dominante (UE, Asia, América latina) provoca una disminución simultánea de las necesidades de USD para financiar los intercambios internacionales. Ver diferentes a GEAB precedentes.

(21) Lo que también induciría consecuencias internacionales en materia de lluvia radioactiva.

Vendredi 18 Mars 2011

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Macroperu El Paraíso Perdido: ¿Qué Viene después del Neoliberalismo?

Paradise Lost: Why Fallen Markets Will Never Be the Same

02 Sep 2010

Ian Bremmer & Nouriel Roubini

Noted political and economic scientists Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini assert that the financial crisis has discredited free-market capitalism and given its state-driven counterpart a boost.

Crises breed denial. Whether a crisis concerns an individual's health, career or marriage, a company's reputation or market share, or a nation's place in the global pecking order, powerful incentives exist within the stricken entity to aspire to a return to normalcy — and to proceed as if that result represents the only option. However, as we all know from human experience, some setbacks are irreversible. We believe the recent meltdown suffered by the U.S. and its partners on the liberal side of the global economy is one of them.

Still, many policymakers and economic thinkers in the U.S., Europe and Japan remain shrouded in denial. They assume that after a period of healing, high growth will return and the rules of global capitalism will restore the preeminence of the U.S. economy and the appeal of a chastened (yet only slightly less freewheeling) laissez-faire Anglo-Saxon model.

Such thinking is either dangerously naive or the result of epistemological blindness. A scenario can be charted in which the U.S. and its liberal market adherents not only return to precrisis "potential growth" but even exceed it. But the political, economic, financial and psychological hurdles standing in the way of this scenario suggest it would require divine intervention to make it so. An extended period of anemic, subpar growth is the much more likely scenario as there is a painful deleveraging by households, financial sectors and governments. One cannot even rule out the risk of a double-dip recession in the U.S. and other advanced economies.

Clearer-minded souls understand that the world of the bubbles is gone and that hard work looms ahead if the advanced economies are to emerge from this period with any hope of keeping pace with the developing world. The policymakers of the market liberal bloc — and yes, in this grave new world, that's how we should think of the old Group of Seven — would need to be willing to take bold action (see "Seven Ways to Save the World").

Even if there is growth after the current anemic period, the ancien régime (that is, the G-7) is on a trajectory to be overtaken by the rising powers of the emerging world as the century unfolds. Because of this, the U.S. and the rest of the free-market economies must use the political leverage they have today to lock in rational safeguards and agreements that will govern the global economy of tomorrow.

After a few more years of lackluster growth — unavoidable due to the deleveraging needs of households and the business sector — financial institutions and governments will seek a return to growth and even demand that national governments move, or move out of the way, to increase it. This will be a dangerous moment — one that war correspondents refer to as "survivor's euphoria." The illusion, of course, is of invulnerability, and too often lessons learned in previous brushes with mortality are cast aside.

One thing the U.S. could do for itself, and for the world, is forgo the seemingly inevitable hand-wringing and political posturing that are already ramping up over the question of the country's declining influence. It has become increasingly clear to all but the most ideological of analysts over the past several years that U.S. strength is on the wane. Conventional wisdom has it that a U.S.-dominated unipolar global system is giving way to a multipolar order, one in which various emerging powers advance competing ideas for how the world should be run and act to further their agendas. Conventional wisdom has it wrong. The financial crisis and global market meltdown have created conditions for a "nonpolar" order — one in which America's chief competitors remain much too busy with problems at home and along their borders to bear heavy international burdens.

This trend is most clearly visible in the transition of the past two years, hastened by political and economic upheaval, from a G-7 to a Group of 20 model of international decision making that provides the governments of increasingly influential and deep-pocketed developing countries like Brazil, China, India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with seats at today's most important international bargaining table. Without these countries, multilateral efforts to solve pressing transnational problems wouldn't have much credibility. But getting this varied group to agree on anything beyond declarations of vaguely worded principle will be profoundly difficult. And countries like China continue to seek a free ride, not realizing that sitting at the table of global economic and financial governance implies both rights and duties. As the artificial unity imposed in 2008–'09 by a shared sense of crisis continues to erode, this problem will grow.

How could it be otherwise? When the number of negotiators in the room expands from seven to 20, it's much harder to reach consensus on much of anything. More worrisome still, the G-20 includes countries with sharply diverging views on democracy, the proper role of government in an economy, investment rules, the importance (and meaning) of transparency, and the best way to ensure that institutions like the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank reflect today's true balance of power. The G-20 could never have forged a "Bretton Woods II," an absurdly ambitious 21st-century attempt to update the multilateral agreements of 1944 that established the rules and institutions that have governed the international monetary system ever since. In fact, the G-20 will become not so much a second Bretton Woods as a supersized U.N. Security Council: a dysfunctional institution often undermined by irreconcilable differences among veto-wielding members. The recent Toronto G-20 communiqué — which is several times longer than any G-7 declaration and fudges the disagreements over growth and austerity now — is an example of this kind of impasse.

An organization that includes members with such fundamental philosophical differences can produce results only when everyone is afraid of the same thing at the same time, such as during the global economic and financial meltdown of 2008–'09. Given the obvious differences in the ways that American, Brazilian, Chinese, German, Indian, Japanese, Russian and South African officials calculate their interests, solutions to pressing transnational problems like global trade imbalances, nuclear nonproliferation and climate change are unlikely to come in coordinated fashion. Policymakers in different countries will try to tackle these problems on their own or will choose to ignore them. This lack of coordination will exacerbate global economic and financial asymmetries. Reducing global current-account imbalances that were one of the causes of the financial crisis requires overspending countries — the U.S. and other Anglo-Saxon nations, as well as the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) — to spend less in the private and public sectors, and oversaving countries like China, Germany and Japan to save less, consume more and let their currencies appreciate.

Governments design stimulus plans to satisfy political and economic demands at home, not to revitalize the global economy. In response to the slowdown among China's largest trading partners — the European Union, U.S. and Japan, respectively — Chinese officials implemented a program to boost state spending on roads, bridges, ports and energy infrastructure. The main intent was to create jobs that would keep Chinese workers productive and off the streets, reducing the risk of civil unrest and large-scale domestic challenges to the Communist Party's right to rule. The leaders of developed countries have acted in much the same way. Washington bailed out U.S. automakers to keep thousands of U.S. workers from losing their jobs, and promises made during G-20 meetings to avoid actions that would shield domestic companies from foreign competition weren't going to stop it.

G-20 heads of state will gather in Seoul in November, and there will be plenty more such summits in years to come. Yet policy responses to transnational problems will continue to be improvised and incomplete. U.S. negotiators will resist any institutional framework that allows foreign leaders to impose binding rules on Washington. China will stoke growth to create new jobs, managing development to try to prevent crises that could provoke the kind of social unrest the state can't contain. Russian leaders will continue to try to attract foreign investment while extending state control across strategic sectors of the domestic economy and using the country's energy resources as geopolitical leverage. India will pursue trade liberalization at its own pace. Brazil will try to use its newly discovered offshore oil to enable state-run oil company Petróleo Brasileiro to become an ever-more useful tool of economic policy. Saudi Arabia will use its still-considerable reserves to help manage oil prices and will act as producer and lender of last resort when it finds good value for its money. Efforts to move these governments toward harmonious and effective policy responses to problems that extend beyond the financial crisis — collective security, counterterrorism, climate change and global public health emergencies — will fall short.

Individual governments or coalitions of governments will not have much success in addressing these problems on their own. In the U.S. the Obama administration will have to focus on finding creative ways to spur domestic economic growth and to create jobs in a political environment in which Republicans will demonize continued government spending and resist needed tax increases, with the risk of an eventual fiscal wreck. The U.K. will downsize its foreign policy ambitions as its coalition government works to put the country's fiscal house in order. Fears for the future of the euro zone will dominate discussion in Brussels. Recent legislative elections hint at more upheaval to come in Japan's politics.

Nor is there competition among the world's leading emerging states to fill the vacuum in global leadership. The governments of China, Russia and Saudi Arabia are far too preoccupied with domestic challenges to accept the risks and sacrifices that come with playing a truly major role. Brazil and Turkey have worked to lift their international profiles — by proposing a compromise solution in the fight over Iran's nuclear program, for example — but neither nation has the means to extend its clout much beyond the diplomatic arena.

In other words, at the risk of repeating ourselves, the U.S.-led unipolar order, Western political and economic dominance, and consensus among the world's power players in favor of free-market democracy are all gone. And they're not coming back.


Another major reason that international poli-tics won't return to a pre–financial crisis status quo is the rise of state capitalism. A generation ago, as command economies imploded in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, faith that governments could mandate lasting prosperity seemed dead. Western power — fueled by private wealth, private investment and private enterprise — seemed to have established the final victory of liberal free-market economics. Over the past decade, however, public wealth, public investment and public enterprise have made a stunning comeback. An era of state-driven capitalism has dawned, one in which governments inject political calculation into the performance of markets.

Authoritarian governments including China and Russia, not content with simply regulating markets, are moving to dominate them. Political leaders in these countries know that only capitalism can generate the long-term growth that can sustain their political survival, but they want to ensure that the state controls as much as possible of the wealth that markets generate. They need that wealth to spur growth, create jobs and protect banks when times are tough — and to minimize the risk that profits will empower potential rivals for political power.

The rise of state capitalism is most obvious in the energy sector. National oil companies have been with us for decades, but they now control more than 75 percent of the world's crude oil reserves. Beyond petroleum, the Chinese and Russian governments control state-owned enterprises in aviation, defense, mining, power generation, telecommunications and many other sectors, and other governments have begun to follow their lead. These governments also use politically loyal, privately owned "national champions" to advance state interests. And they have created a new class of sovereign wealth funds to maximize the state's return on investment, finance its dominance of domestic economies and extend its geopolitical influence. In a free-market system, markets exist to serve those who participate in them. In a state capitalist system, governments dominate markets to maximize the political power of the state and its leadership's chances of survival.

The growing power of state capitalism will have important implications for the politics of globalization — the processes by which ideas, information, people, money, goods and services cross international borders at unprecedented speed. For years many developing countries have welcomed Western companies and investment, in part to build their domestic economies by exposing local businesses to the advanced technology, managerial expertise and marketing techniques that only foreigners could provide. But as local companies mature, state capitalist governments will begin to more openly promote and protect them at the expense of outsiders. As local businesses begin to compete more effectively, some will begin to see foreign partners as commercial rivals — and will begin to use their growing clout with state and local bureaucracies to rig the game in their favor.

State-owned companies will have even greater advantages. In authoritarian state capitalist countries, laws are written and enforced to help the state maintain order and manage economic development, not to safeguard the rights of individuals and companies. Western companies facing this problem will have little choice but to turn to their governments for help, exacerbating tensions between developed and developing states. Eventually, state capitalism may hamper long-run global economic growth, as businesses trying to maximize political goals cannot be sources of innovation and productivity growth. But though state capitalist companies may thrive in the short run, there is a risk of a race to the bottom, with greater interference in markets even in market capitalist economies.

More broadly, state capitalism will produce a reversal in the trade and capital account liberalization of the past several years as protectionism breeds more protectionism. Authoritarian state capitalists clearly have no monopoly on unfair trade practices, but they have a much easier time imposing them. In Washington trade restrictions are debated in public, interest groups sound off on cable television, proposals under discussion are available to the general public, and individuals and companies can expect a fair hearing in court. State capitalist governments exert enough control over courts, journalists and interest groups to ensure that their plans move forward.

Given the tough economic climate facing U.S., European and Japanese companies and consumers — and the unpopularity of most of their incumbent political leaders — the risk will only increase the likelihood that the developed world will meet financial protectionism with more protectionism. That risk is especially high for the U.S. and China. Friction between the world's largest economy and its fastest-rising competitor will lower the longer-term trajectory of the global economy, creating more uncertainty in international politics.

As many of the world's emerging markets, many of them democracies, look for a safe way forward out of economic crisis into sustainable growth, in whose image will they seek to mold themselves? Will they turn to the champions of free-market capitalism?

In the U.S., President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are preparing themselves for a likely beating from opposition Republicans in November's midterm elections — not because the GOP is offering bold new ideas, but mainly because the economy and jobs aren't getting better quickly enough. British voters swept the Labour Party from power, but didn't have enough confidence in Conservatives or Liberal Democrats to give either a working majority. French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement and German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats both suffered ringing defeats in recent local elections. The Democratic Party of Japan won a historic election victory in September 2009 and promptly lost its majority in Japan's upper house of Parliament earlier this year. With internal party elections coming in September, the DPJ may soon be looking for its third prime minister in the past year. For leaders of developing states looking for models of political stability, the world's largest free-market democracies have little at the moment to recommend them. Worse, in many of these economies, policymakers, driven by short-term electoral concerns, are kicking the can down the road, postponing necessary fiscal austerity and structural reforms.

Many developing powers will look to China. It's impossible to know how well China's leadership would poll with its people — as if any poll could provide an accurate portrait of public opinion in a country without an organized political opposition or a free press. But it's safe to say that three decades of double-digit growth can buy a government a certain amount of popular goodwill, particularly when that government appears to have emerged first and strongest from the global economic meltdown.

More to the point, China's performance looks appealing to outsiders who are searching for a political and economic system that appears capable of producing both rapid growth and political stability. But past performance is no guarantee of future success, and there are vitally important questions hovering around China and its growth model. Can export-dependent China continue to power the global economy given slow growth among its three largest trading partners? Can it reduce its savings rate and move toward a consumer society fast enough? Is the country's political system flexible enough to adapt successfully to the profound changes China will face over the next generation? Can it create a formal social safety net big enough to accommodate the largest emerging middle class in the history of the planet? Can it maintain public confidence as profound environmental damage takes an ever-increasing toll on the quality of life across the country? As China relies more on technical innovation for future growth and each additional unit of GDP creates fewer jobs, can the Chinese economy continue to provide work for so many people?

There are good reasons to believe that the answers to some of these questions are no. That reality ensures that the global economy is moving into truly unknown territory. And yet that reality may not be enough to discourage many developing economies from adopting increasingly statist economic practices. In that regard, perhaps the most important headway the "Chinese model" has made is in Russia, where a very Eurasian variant of state-controlled capitalism supplanted the liberal market shoots that failed to blossom in the first years of this century. The lessons of Russia's early post-Soviet experiments with market economics, and particularly the default and ruble collapse of 1998 (and the role international "speculators" had in forcing it), severely tainted the euphoric talk of the benefits of shock therapy to formerly closed economies.

Of course, it would be overly simplistic to see the world as moving toward a new bipolar moment, with the U.S. leading a free-market, democratic faction and China a state-dominated, authoritarian camp. Large countries of great significance — Brazil, South Africa and Turkey — appear highly unlikely to forsake the market entirely or to turn back from democracy. India's uniquely bureaucratic system has allowed pockets of market liberalism, and its future course remains uncertain. So too in Indonesia, Mexico and other rising economies.

Again, the emergence, virtually overnight, of the formerly obscure G-20 as the world's preeminent economic policymaking body provides a glimpse into a more chaotic future. It also suggests that the old levers of hegemonic stability and influence exercised so expertly by the British in the first golden age of globalization (roughly 1880 to 1914) and by the U.S. in the second (1989 to 2008) will have far less purchase in the new, postcrisis age. What, after all, has the G-20 accomplished? Since the initial consensus on the need to implement global stimulus reached during the 2008 G-20 summit in Washington, serious policy initiatives have largely failed. Disagreements — over regulatory issues and fiscal policy, for instance — often pit the heirs of post–World War II "Western" order against those now rising to challenge it.
The Toronto G-20 meeting in June featured shadowboxing between the U.S. and China over the undervalued renminbi, as well as more public prodding by the American delegation for China to take steps to lower its savings rate and increase domestic consumption. The inevitable Chinese answer to this lecture from its spendthrift debtor: We will, when you get your fiscal house in order. The inability of either side to make significant moves to address global imbalances does not portend well for future such meetings. A simmering dispute between the U.S. and Europe over stimulus versus austerity has further eroded chances for consensus.

The frictions between advanced and emerging economies have bedeviled other international organizations for some time. Recent flare-ups include the failure of the Copenhagen climate conference last December, complaints from emerging-markets countries over the role of the dollar as the world's primary reserve currency, the still-G-7-heavy makeup of decision-making bodies at the IMF and the World Bank, and the increasing discord over the role or even the legitimacy of Cold War entities like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. From the viewpoint of many outside the U.S., the resistance of the former hegemon explains this dysfunction. Yet the U.S. and many of its allies counter that even relatively small institutions — the U.N. Security Council, for instance — are paralyzed by rules requiring consensual or even unanimous agreement. Writ large, this fact suggests that the G-20 may already contain the seeds of its own demise, or at least the G-20's neutering as an effective policymaking body.

Indeed, it is harrowing to project the current dysfunction of the G-20 onto some future "expanded and reformed" Security Council, which seems inevitably on course to add as permanent members at some point Brazil, India, Japan and perhaps any mixture of middleweight players (Egypt, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, South Africa). Already-difficult decisions on international security matters like Iran's nuclear program might become hopeless.

In the real world, of course, the weightiest decisions — monetary policy, currency devaluations, war and peace — will still be made at the national level. As the hangover of the financial crisis lingers in the advanced world, the toolbox available to policymakers on both the economic and political sides will get smaller. The Greek crisis and political pressures have taken stimulus off the table in Europe, and the corruption-fueled comeuppance of Japan's new government within a year of taking office has led it to scale back its own spending plans. In the U.S. deficit hawks bearing down on Obama ahead of the midterm elections have done much the same. In all of these places, economic growth will have to find organic fuel, and recent releases from the G-7 suggest that those sages who saw green shoots last spring may actually have been smoking them, as anemic growth is still with us.

Under such conditions, central bankers (at least in the U.S. and Europe) once again represent the last bastion against a double-dip recession. While not our main scenario, the risks of a double dip have been rising for months. The inflation- and deficit-focused European Central Bank may well be dooming the euro zone to a second round of economic decline by maintaining a too-tight monetary policy and backing German calls for fiscal austerity at all costs — again, a political reflex, born of German voters' anger at having to bail out their imprudent Mediterranean cousins. In the U.S. the Federal Reserve Board, having (barely) survived postcrisis efforts to bring monetary policymaking under legislative purview, has started talking again about reentering the market for either mortgage securities or U.S. government bonds. With interest rates near zero, this new round of quantitative easing would signal a desperate moment — a groping of the bottom of the tool kit, with all the peril that public disclosure of such a decision would bring with it.

The reopening of the fire hoses of credit and capital that occurred during the bubble years will happen again and intensify the boom-and-bust cycles. Driven by ever-more- desperate policymakers in the U.S., Europe and Japan, these cycles will both shorten and magnify. Political, policy and regulatory uncertainty will increase, and as a result, financial crises will become more frequent and costly, while risk aversion, volatility and uncertainty will rise. The illusions of the Great Moderation — a phrase coined by Harvard University economist James Stock to describe the two-decade period that started in the late '80s, with its quasireligious embrace of market efficiency and infinite American power — will have created the era of the Great Financial Instability. And nothing could hasten the decline of American influence more than another self-inflicted catastrophe of global market capitalism.

Ian Bremmer is the president of political risk research and consulting firm Eurasia Group and the author of The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations? Nouriel Roubini is a professor of economics at New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business, chairman of Roubini Global Economics and co-author of Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance.

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The Geography of the Recession

http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

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tarp: hasta octubre, geithner

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126037744806683801.html

AMERICA LATINA: POLITICA FISCAL POSTCRISIS

Por Matthew Cowley

Los países fuertes de Latinoamérica, que se espera repunten más rápidamente tras la desaceleración mundial, deben estar preparados para moderar el gasto gubernamental si sus monedas amenazan con apreciarse con demasiada celeridad, señaló el domingo el director del departamento del hemisferio occidental del Fondo Monetario Internacional.

"Si uno no quiere enfrentar una apreciación excesiva de su moneda, es el momento de pensar en ser un poco menos proactivo con la política fiscal", sostuvo Nicolás Eyzaguirre.

"Eso es lo que los países tienen que hacer normalmente si se enfrentan a este dilema de tener demasiados flujos de capital y no quieren que la moneda se aprecie", dijo Eyzaguirre.

El funcionario del FMI hizo estos comentarios en una conferencia de prensa en Turquía durante la reunión anual del FMI, la que fue transmitida por Internet.

"Lamentablemente" las monedas pueden comenzar a apreciarse demasiado rápido "cuando uno es considerado por el resto del mundo como una economía sólida", sostuvo Eyzaguirre.

El funcionario del FMI estaba respondiendo a una pregunta específica sobre Uruguay, pero sostuvo que eso se aplica a algunos otros países de la región que están en buena forma.

Eyzaguirre destacó que es demasiado pronto para confirmar una recuperación económica, basada en la reposición de inventarios agotados y el gasto gubernamental, y "que aún no estamos fuera de peligro".

No obstante, sostuvo que si la recuperación "comienza a estar más asentada en la demanda privada", países como Uruguay "podrían estar en lo correcto si comienzan a evaluar [sus] posturas fiscales".

Sobre las próximas elecciones presidenciales de Uruguay, el funcionario señaló que las condiciones financieras y de los mercados "se han mantenido muy calmadas últimamente".

"El mercado está diciendo que no está particularmente preocupado por el resultado de las próximas elecciones presidenciales", dijo Eyzaguirre.

g20: nueva instancia del poder economico global

"Economías emergentes asumen nuevo rol" :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/economia/2009/09/090925_0551_g20_medidas_rb.shtml?s

usa:deficit fiscal 12% mas

Mille milliards de déficit :
le budget américain explose

Arnaud Rodier
13/07/2009 | Mise à jour : 21:53 | Commentaires 94 | Ajouter à ma sélection

En tournée en Europe et au Moyen-Orient, le secrétaire d'État au Trésor, Tim Geithner, doit rassurer les investisseurs sur la valeur de leurs actifs en dollars.

Plus de 1 000 milliards de dollars de «trou» depuis le début de l'exercice budgétaire, en octobre : dévoilé officiellement lundi soir par le Trésor, le chiffre du déficit public américain donne le vertige. Pour le seul mois de juin, la différence entre les dépenses et les recettes fédérales dépasse 94 milliards. Soit, en neuf mois, un déficit cumulé de 1 086 milliards exactement.

Sur la même période, un an plus tôt, le déficit n'était encore « que » de 286 milliards. Mais, depuis, selon les calculs du Congrès, les recettes ont plongé de 18 %. Les dépenses se sont, elles, envolées de 21 %, à cause des mesures de sauvetage des banques et du plan de relance de l'économie (787 milliards). À ce rythme, le déficit fédéral dépassera 12 % du PIB sur l'ensemble de l'année budgétaire, estiment les économistes interrogés par l'agence Bloomberg !

Or le plan de relance américain est censé sauver ou créer 3,5 millions d'emplois. Mais, en quatre mois et demi, l'Amérique en a supprimé 2 millions. Du coup, certains pensent qu'une rallonge sera nécessaire, plombant encore plus dramatiquement le déficit budgétaire, et pesant sur le cours du dollar. Washington dément jusqu'ici cette idée de nouveau plan.

La suprématie du dollar remise en question

Il n'empêche, le secrétaire au Trésor, Timothy Geithner, qui arrive mardi matin à Djeddah en Arabie saoudite après un bref passage à Londres, et qui sera mercredi à Abu Dhabi avant une escale à Paris jeudi, va avoir le plus grand mal à convaincre les pays du Moyen-Orient que leurs investissements aux États-Unis ne sont pas menacés. Les pays du Golfe sont d'autant plus sensibles aux attaques contre le billet vert qu'ils sont tous de gros détenteurs de bons du Trésor américain, qu'ils ont massivement recyclé leurs pétrodollars aux États-Unis et qu'ils imaginent aussi créer un jour une monnaie commune.

En outre, devant les incertitudes qui planent sur les États-Unis, plusieurs autres pays, dont la Chine, la Russie et, depuis la semaine dernière, la France, remettent en question la suprématie du dollar et son statut de monnaie de réserve.

Timothy Geithner ne peut donc pas se contenter de promettre que le déficit américain sera ramené à des niveaux raisonnables dès que la crise sera passée. Il doit également montrer que l'Amérique reste ouverte aux investissements étrangers et que la crise ne la pousse pas à avoir des réflexes protectionnistes. Il lui faut aussi peser de tout son poids afin que l'Opep accepte un prix « raisonnable » du baril de pétrole, pour éviter de reporter la reprise américaine aux calendes grecques. Son étape en Arabie saoudite n'en est que plus cruciale.

Quelques heures avant son départ, il s'est voulu rassurant. «Alors que les gens sont très inquiets des risques, ils veulent investir dans le marché le plus liquide et le plus sûr du monde, qui est encore le marché de nos bons du Trésor» , a-t-il déclaré sur CNN. Et d'ajouter : «Un dollar fort est dans l'intérêt des États-Unis.»