Dov'è la crescita? La disoccupazione dilagante, Hayek vs. Keyens e il bell'esempio dell'Irlanda che aggiunge un buco alla cintura dopo un altro. Nella sfera di cristallo cosa si vede? La recessione del 2011.

Leggendo un articolo sul Wall Street Journal che illustra le conclusioni del G-20 ho trovato questa figura abbastanza significativa:

che ne pensate? In che mercati vi viene in mente di investire?

Una piccola osservazione: forse vi sarete accorti che non sono un fanatico sostenitore della stampa italiana e che tendo a segurila molto distrattamente. Nonostante ciò mi fanno arrabbiare gli sproloqui da qualunque parte vengano, e al riguardo di quanto fruttuoso sia stato l'ultimo G-20 potete per esempio leggere l'opinione molto negativa di Forbes .

Dal New York Times un accorato appello perchè il presidente si dia da fare per combattere la disoccupazione:

Mr. Obama had campaigned on the mantra of change, and that would have been the kind of change that working people could have gotten behind. But it never happened. Job creation was the trump card in the hand held by Mr. Obama and the Democrats, but they never played it. And now we’re paying a fearful price.
Fifteen million Americans are unemployed, according to the official count, which wildly understates the reality. Assuming no future economic setbacks and job creation at a rate of 200,000 or so a month, it would take more than a decade to get us back to where we were when the Great Recession began in December 2007. But we’re nowhere near that kind of sustained job growth. Last month, a measly 41,000 private-sector jobs were created.
We are in deep, deep gumbo.(...) 
It’s not too late for the president to turn things around, but there is no indication that he has any plan or strategy for doing it. And the political environment right now, with confidence in the administration waning and budgetary fears unnecessarily heightened by the deficit hawks, is not good.
It would take an extraordinary exercise in leadership to rally the country behind a full-bore jobs-creation campaign — nothing short of large-scale nation-building on the home front. Maybe that’s impossible in the current environment. But that’s what the country needs.


Di tutt'altro tono il commento di un paio di giorni sull Wall Street Journal che invece sostiene che le politiche neo-Keynesiane di sostegno all'economia sono state un clamoroso fallimento:

The larger lesson here is about policy. The original sin—and it was nearly global—was to revive the Keynesian economic model that had last cracked up in the 1970s, while forgetting the lessons of the long prosperity from 1982 through 2007. The Reagan and Clinton-Gingrich booms were fostered by a policy environment for most of that era of lower taxes, spending restraint and sound money. The spending restraint began to end in the late 1990s, sound money vanished earlier this decade, and now Democrats are promising a series of enormous tax increases.
Notice that we aren't saying that spending restraint alone is a miracle economic cure. The spending cuts now in fashion in Europe are essential, but cuts by themselves won't balance annual deficits reaching 10% of GDP. That requires new revenues from faster growth, and there's a danger that the tax increases now sweeping Europe will dampen growth further.
President Obama's tragic mistake was to blow out the U.S. federal balance sheet on spending that has produced little bang for the buck. The fantastical Keynesian notion (the "multiplier") that $1 of spending produces $1.50 in growth was long ago demolished by Harvard's Robert Barro, among others. That $1 in spending has to come from somewhere, which means in taxes or borrowing from productive parts of the private economy. Given that so much of the U.S. stimulus went for transfer payments such as Medicaid and unemployment insurance, the "multiplier" has almost certainly been negative. 

Posso solo immaginare la rabbia di Krugman e De Long nel leggere quanto sopra. Ma non è finita qui:
What the world has now reached instead is a Keynesian dead end. We are told to let Congress continue to spend and borrow until the precise moment when Mr. Summers and Mark Zandi and the other architects of our current policy say it is time to raise taxes to reduce the huge deficits and debt that their spending has produced. Meanwhile, individuals and businesses are supposed to be unaffected by the prospect of future tax increases, higher interest rates, and more government control over nearly every area of the economy. Even the CEOs of the Business Roundtable now see the damage this is doing. A better economic policy will have to await a new Congress, which we hope at a minimum can prevent punishing tax increases. But for now the good news is that voters and markets are telling politicians to stop doing what hasn't worked.

Sempre il Wall Street Journal, dopo aver seppellito Keynes, dedica un articolo al ritorno in voga di Friedrich Hayek.
Leggetelo e distraetevi con Fear the Boom and Bust, il video rap che mette i due maestri a confronto:



Ancora sul NYTimes potete informarvi sulle delizie che forse ci aspettano guardando a quanto è successo in Irlanda...sicuramente basterà l'incipit dell'articolo per solleticare i vostri sogni: As Europe’s major economies focus on belt-tightening, they are following the path of Ireland. But the once thriving nation is struggling, with no sign of a rapid turnaround in sight. 
E' probabile che l'Irlanda ripagherà i suoi debiti ma nel frattempo...

Rather than being rewarded for its actions, though, Ireland is being penalized. Its downturn has certainly been sharper than if the government had spent more to keep people working. Lacking stimulus money, the Irish economy shrank 7.1 percent last year and remains in recession.
Joblessness in this country of 4.5 million is above 13 percent, and the ranks of the long-term unemployed — those out of work for a year or more — have more than doubled, to 5.3 percent.
Now, the Irish are being warned of more pain to come.
“The facts are that there is no easy way to cut deficits,” Prime Minister Brian Cowen said in an interview. “Those who claim there’s an easier way or a soft option — that’s not the real world.”
Despite its strenuous efforts, Ireland has been thrust into the same ignominious category as Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. It now pays a hefty three percentage points more than Germany on its benchmark bonds, in part because investors fear that the austerity program, by retarding growth and so far failing to reduce borrowing, will make it harder for Dublin to pay its bills rather than easier.
Other European nations, including Britain and Germany, are following Ireland’s lead, arguing that the only way to restore growth is to convince investors and their own people that government borrowing will shrink.
The Group of 20 leaders set that in writing this weekend, vowing to make deficit reduction the top priority despite warnings from President Obama that too much austerity could choke a global recovery and warnings from a few economists about the possibility of a much sharper 1930s style downturn. 

In ogni caso non abbondano solo le voci a favore del rigore fiscale. Da Basilea giungono anche appelli perchè le banche centrali alzino i tassi di interesse! Secondo il Wall Stret Journal 
The Bank for International Settlements delivered a stern message to central banks and governments that keeping interest rates low for too long, or failing to act quickly to cut budget deficits, could sow the seeds for the next crisis.
"The time has come to ask when and how these powerful measures can be phased out," the BIS said in its annual report, referring to large fiscal and monetary stimulus measures initiated to lift economies out of recession.
The warning amounts to a direct challenge to the European Central Bank and U.S. Federal Reserve, the world's dominant central banks, both of which have held their main lending rates at record lows for more that a year. Neither central bank is expected to begin raising rates until well into 2011 due to continued pressures in the financial system.
The BIS applauded central banks for cutting rates in response to the financial crisis, but cautioned that waiting too long to return to normal monetary policy could impose further damage on the global economy.
"Keeping interest rates very low comes at a cost—a cost that is growing with time," the BIS said. "Experience teaches us that prolonged periods of unusually low rates cloud assessments of financial risks, induce a search for yield and delay balance-sheet adjustments." BIS said.
Central banks aren't bound by the recommendations of the BIS. Yet the Basel-based organization's stature as the "central bank for central banks"—a reference to the role it plays handling transactions for central banks—gives it an important voice on matters related to monetary policy. 

Ottimo. Allora c'è da stupirsi se anche Hussman si aggiunge all'elenco dei profeti della recessione prossima ventura?