Stiglitz: Germania fuori dall’euro o il continente sprofonda

La ristrutturazione dei bilanci continentali farà piombare l’Europa in una profonda recessione. La soluzione, secondo il premio Nobel per l’economia, è l’uscita della Germania da Eurolandia e la conseguente svalutazione della moneta unica

Costretta a fare i conti con una crisi sempre più conclamata, l’Unione europea si prepara alla messa a punto del più ambizioso piano di ristrutturazione debitoria di sempre. Dalle tragedie greche alle sommesse ballate irlandesi, passando per i noti guai iberici e i fardelli contabili italiani, i programmi “lacrime e sangue” cui tutti sembrano ormai rassegnati potrebbero non bastare. E il traguardo della definitiva ripresa potrebbe coincidere con l’affermazione di uno scenario a dir poco sconvolgente: la fine del sistema monetario europeo per come lo abbiamo conosciuto fino ad oggi.

A lanciare l’allarme è stato niente meno che Joseph Stiglitz, non esattamente un osservatore qualsiasi. Secondo il premio Nobel per l’Economia 2001, quello intrapreso dai governi europei rischia di essere un viaggio senza ritorno. Almeno per la moneta unica. La situazione è grave, anzi, gravissima e i piani di austerity contabile, per quanto necessari, potrebbero rivelarsi controproducenti scatenando una recessione destinata a dilagare nell’intero continente. Da qui la clamorosa soluzione: l’addio alla moneta unica da parte della Germania, principale economia di Eurolandia, e il salutare abbandono a una conseguente e provvidenziale svalutazione dell’euro per gli altri Paesi.

Le tesi di Stiglitz, inserite nella prefazione alla nuova edizione del suo ultimo libro Freefall e rivelate in esclusiva dal Sunday Telegraph, sono a dir poco dirompenti. In pratica si tratterebbe di chiudere i conti con il modello di moneta unica conosciuto fino ad oggi abbattendo una volta per tutte quella che per molti Paesi rappresenta un’incrollabile certezza: la necessità di una valuta forte. L’ipotesi sembra folle ma a conti fatti nemmeno troppo illogica. Dopo aver soccorso il suo sistema finanziario (sborsando all’incirca 4mila miliardi di euro), l’Unione non può più fare a meno di ristrutturare i suoi conti. Il piano, che prevede forti manovre correttive per le nazioni caratterizzate da un rapporto debito/Pil superiore al 60%, appare però destinato a rinviare la ripresa a data da destinarsi.

E’ la solita vecchia storia della coperta troppo corta. Si tira per un verso – taglio alla spesa e pressione fiscale – allo scopo di adeguare i conti ma, così facendo, si lascia scoperta l’economia reale abbattendo i consumi e favorendo la recessione. Per ovviare al problema, almeno in parte, si dovrebbero tagliare i tassi per svalutare così la moneta e sostenere le esportazioni ma nell’ambiente attuale, caratterizzato da un costo del denaro prossimo allo zero, i margini di manovra nell’area euro restano ridottissimi. Una realtà di cui è ben consapevole il Fondo Monetario Internazionale che, in un rapporto pubblicato in questi giorni, ha sottolineato come le politiche di austerity perseguite oggi da tutte le economie avanzate siano destinate a provocare effetti positivi nel lungo periodo ma anche più negativi del solito nel breve. Una profezia difficile da smentire.

La moneta unica, lascia intendere Stiglitz, non rappresenta più in modo coerente un’Europa sempre più eterogenea. Mentre la Germania si avvia chiudere l’anno con il tasso di crescita più elevato dai tempi della riunificazione (+3,3% secondo il Fmi), nazioni come Spagna e Irlanda tendono ormai apertamente al collasso. La Spagna in particolare, spiega il premio Nobel, «rischia di entrare in quella spirale perversa che aveva caratterizzato l’Argentina nel decennio passato» prima che quest’ultima decidesse di abbandonare l’aggancio con il dollaro per tornare successivamente a crescere. Un’esperienza replicabile da qusta parte dell’oceano solo con un euro debole. A meno che qualcuno non rispolveri prima dracme e pesetas…

L'articolo più lungo e completo del Daily Telegraph lo trovate qui

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/8041909/Joseph-Stiglitz-sees-bleak-future-for-euro-as-New-Malaise-takes-h...

io fore mi iscriverò ad economia, così capirò meglio queste cose

Estratti dall'articolo in inglese

In the eight months since the hardcover version of Freefall was published, events have (sadly) unfolded much as expected: growth has remained weak, sufficiently anaemic that unemployment has remained stubbornly high; mortgage foreclosures have continued apace and, while bank bonuses and profits have been restored, the supply of credit has not, even though the resumption of credit was supposedly the reason for the bank bail-out.

The real news of the last eight months has been the slow acceptance by government officials and economists alike of the dismal picture of the immediate future about which I had warned: a new "normal" with higher unemployment rates, lower growth and lower levels of public services in the advanced industrial countries.

Prosperity has been replaced by a Japanese-style malaise, with no end in sight. But at least in Japan's "lost decade," in spite of low growth, unemployment remained low and social cohesion remained high.

But there's the rub: with the global recovery faltering, any cutbacks in expenditures or increases in taxes will surely lead to even slower growth, perhaps pushing many economies into a double-dip recession.

With slower growth, tax revenues would decrease, social expenditures (such as on unemployment benefits) would increase and deficits would remain large. Fitch, one of the three leading rating agencies, downgraded Spain's debt, and interest rates that it had to pay continued to rise. Evidently, countries were damned if they cut back spending and damned if they didn't.

The hope that suffused those early months of the crisis is quickly fading. In its place is a new mood of despair: the road to recovery may be even slower than I suggested, and the social tensions may be even greater. Bank officials have walked home with seven-figure bonuses while ordinary citizens face not only protracted unemployment but an unemployment insurance safety net that is not up to the challenges of the Great Recession.

Critics claim that Keynesian economics only put off the day of reckoning. But I argue that, to the contrary, unless we go back to the basic principles of Keynesian economics, the world is doomed to a protracted downturn.

But there is one thing about which we can be relatively certain: if the advanced industrial countries continue along the path they seem to have embarked on today, the likelihood of a robust recovery any time soon is bleak; the relative economic and political positions of America and Europe will, as a result, be greatly diminished; and so will our ability to address the long-term issues on which our future wellbeing depends.

Today, the real problems remain unemployment and a lack of aggregate demand, precisely the problem John Maynard Keynes faced 75 years ago during the Great Depression. Monetary policy then and now had reached its limits: further declines in interest rates either are impossible or won't have much effect in stimulating the economy.

We must then rely on fiscal policy to help restore the economy to health. The evidence that it will work is overwhelming. China deployed one of the world's largest stimulus packages and had one of the strongest recoveries, in spite of facing signifi-cant shocks to its economy. In Europe and America, the stimulus packages were too small to offset fully the "shock" from the financial sector, but had it not been for these actions, unemployment rates would have been much higher.

The financial markets' attack against Greece shows that deficits cannot be ignored. Large deficits can lead to increases in interest rates, worsening a country's fiscal problems.

But the naive response - cut back spending and/or raise taxes - will make matters only worse, as the market response to Spain's retrenchment showed so dramatically.

Households that are living beyond their means - that is, their spending exceeds their income - and can't find a bank to finance their consumption spree have no choice but to cut back on their spending. A large enough cutback will bring the household accounts into order. But when governments cut spending, growth slows, unemployment increases, and income - and tax revenue - declines.

Worries about the size of the debt should lead to a shift in the pattern of government spending, toward spending that yields a high economic return.

So, too, the structure of taxes can change, leading to higher growth and lower defi-cits. Raising corporate income taxes for corporations that don't reinvest in their businesses, and lowering them for those that do (through, say, investment tax credits), is one example. The increased investment leads to higher growth, and the higher growth leads to more tax revenues. Raising taxes on high-income individuals and lowering them on lower-income individuals is another.

Government can do still more to help the private sector grow - if the old banks won't lend, create some new banks that will. For a fraction of what was spent on dealing with the bad loans of the old banks, the Government could have created a set of new financial institutions, unencumbered by past bad decisions.

To make up for the losses of these vital tools for adjustment, the eurozone should have created a fund to help those facing adverse problems. The US is a "single currency" area, but when California has a problem, and its unemployment rate goes up, a large part of the costs are borne by the federal government.

Europe has no way of helping countries facing severe problems.

But under the rules of the game, Spain must now cut its spending, which will almost surely increase its unemployment rate still further. As its economy slows, the improvement in its fiscal position may be minimal.

Europe created a solidarity fund to help new entrants into the European Union, most of whom were poorer than the others. But it failed to create a solidarity fund to help any part of the eurozone that was facing stress. Without some such fund, the future prospects of the euro are bleak.

The euro has been an interesting experiment but, like the almost forgotten ERM (Exchange Rate Mechanism) system that preceded it, and that fell apart when speculators attackedsterling in 1992, it lacks the institutional support required to make it work.

If Europe cannot find a way to make these institutional reforms, then it is perhaps better to admit failure and move on than to extract a high price in unemployment and human suffering, all in the name of flawed institutional arrangements that did not live up to the ideals of their creators.

Hugo?

Uno con quel cognome può dire tutto.