Il commento sulla crisi cipriota di Tony Barber sul Financial Times di oggi sottolinea la gravità delle implicazioni per l'Europa intera di una pessima miope gestione della situazione: ecco come conclude
But the latest crisis draws in Britain, Greece, Israel, the US and Turkey, not to mention Germany as the eurozone’s indispensable decision maker. Nearby a civil war rages in Syria and political turbulence disturbs Egypt and Iraq. Cyprus is not even immune to international tensions over Iran. The island’s economic emergency intensified in July 2011 when a cache of Iranian weapons, seized by the US navy and stored at a Cypriot base, exploded and knocked out half the island’s electricity supply. Incoming hours and days, much more will beat stake than the solvency of Cyprus’s banks or its eurozone membership. For example, any financial rescue tied to future revenues from Cyprus’s newly discovered gas reserves, tentatively valued at up to $80bn, will give rise to hotly contested claims tot he assets. Among the claimants would be the Turkish Cypriots, backed byTurkey, whose military presence in northern Cyprus serves as a permanent reminder of thei island’s political fragility. Such a dispute would suck in Greece, traditional patron of the Greek Cypriots, and Israel, their partner in energy development. The US, whose Sixth Fleet makes it the pre-eminent Mediterranean naval power,would be drawn in, and so would Britain with its two sovereign military bases in Cyprus. Preventing these entanglements from getting out of control will require supreme statesmanship from everyone involved. Perhaps the thought that next year marks the 100th anniversary of the shooting of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand will concentrate minds.
Mi auguro che abbia ragione...per parte mia sono scettico...non mi pare che ci sia in giro molta "supreme statesmanship"...
Acamel, it is said, is a horse designed by a committee. This is unfair to camels, which are well-adapted to their harsh environment. The same, alas, cannot be said of eurozone rescue programmes. The proposed Cyprus intervention, rejected on Tuesday by the Nicosia parliament, will not help the eurozone make a smooth exit from its wave of crises. Indeed, the imbroglio should serve as a lesson in how not to deal with financial and sovereign debt problems. (...)
The case of Cyprus is an extreme example: beyond a small amount of equity stood only some €2.7bn in unsecured bonds (€2.5bn junior and €200m senior) protecting €68bn in deposits. Rightly or not, the other, including interbank loans were deemed untouchable. (See chart.) This structure gives the authorities not just in Cyprus, but virtually everywhere, a terrible dilemma: either rescue all institutions, thereby validating the riskiest business models and, at worst, putting the solvency of governments in danger; or refuse to rescue them and so risk causing a depression at home and panic abroad, particularly within the tightly integrated eurozone.
The eurozone must either make the industry far more robust, by hugely increasing equity capital, or consolidate fiscal capacity and tighten regulation, to ensure adequate eurozone-wide oversight and fiscal support. What is frightening is not that tiny Cyprus got into trouble, but that it is a source of wider danger. Banking is dangerous everywhere. But it still threatens the eurozone’s survival. This has to change – and very soon.
Wolfgang Munchau sul Financial Times di questa mattina conclude così (profeticamente) il suo articolo dedicato alle politiche (sbagliate) di austerità attuate in Europa
I am not surprised that European electorates are rejecting these policies, and the politicians who delivered them. Tonight we will know how Italy has voted. My hunch is that it is not going to be a good evening for the “Austerians”.
Beh è andata proprio così, e non era poi difficile da prevedere. L'articolo di Munchau è davvero da leggere, ad esempio sottolinea il danno procurato dalla disoccupazione prolungata proprio sui giovani
...austerity – higher
taxes and cuts in public sector
investments – weaken the economy’s
capacity in the short run, and
possibly also in the long run. If you
have youth unemployment of more
than 50 per cent for a sustained
period, as is now the case in Greece,
Italy and Spain, many of those
people will never find good jobs in
their lives. Economists speak of a socalled
“hysteresis” effect –
permanent economic damage that
will not be repaired even if there is a
full recovery. Austerity could well
leave an economic and social scar
across the eurozone.
Italy and Spain would have been a
lot better off to come up with a list
of front-loaded targeted structural
reforms and backloaded fiscal
consolidation. When you do it the
other way round, cutting investment
and raising taxes in a recession, you
never get out of the hole, and you
waste your political capital on
austerity, leaving none for reforms.
Con i risultati delle elezioni in Italia che si annunciavano molto diversi da quanto anticipato dagli exit polls alla chiusura dei seggi i mercati hanno tutti innescato la marcia indietro: oltre ai movimenti dei mercati azionari è da sottolineare il crollo dell'euro, che in mattinata e nel primo pomeriggio era risalito fino a 1,33 ma che rapidamente dopo le prime proiezioni è sceso fino a 1,305, un movimento del 2% in poche ore. Per chi pensava che la crisi dell'eurozona fosse ormai dietro le spalle si è trattato di un brusco risveglio. Dall'altra parte dell'oceano in molti se lo aspettavano, basta dare un'occhiata alla prima pagina del Wall Street Journal Europe di oggi.
Due opinioni opposte sul futuro del Giappone da due commentatori autorevoli e molto seguiti: ieri sul New York Times Paul Krugman inneggiava alla nuova politica espansiva del premier Abe, oggi John Mauldin prevede disastri all'orizzonte.
Secondo Krugman l'Europa e soprattutto gli USA si preoccupano troppo della sostenibilità del debito e non abbastanza dell'occupazione e della crescita, che devo essere adeguatamente stimolata anche attraverso l'intervento diretto dello Stato:
While getting out of a prolonged slump turns out to be very difficult, that’s mainly because it’s hard getting policy makers to accept the need for bold action. That is, the problem is mainly political and intellectual, rather than strictly economic. For the risks of action are much smaller than the Very Serious People want you to believe.
Consider, in particular, the alleged dangers of debt and deficits. Here in America, we are constantly warned that we must slash spending now now now or we’ll turn into Greece, Greece I tell you. But Greece, a country without a currency, doesn’t look much like the United States; surely Japan offers a more relevant model. And while doomsayers keep predicting a fiscal crisis in Japan, hyping each uptick in interest rates as a sign of the imminent apocalypse, it keeps not happening: Japan’s government can still borrow long term at a rate of less than 1 percent.
Enter Mr. Abe, who has been pressuring the Bank of Japan into seeking higher inflation — in effect, helping to inflate away part of the government’s debt — and has also just announced a large new program of fiscal stimulus. How have the market gods responded?
The answer is, it’s all good. Market measures of expected inflation, which were negative not long ago — the market was expecting deflation to continue — have now moved well into positive territory. But government borrowing costs have hardly changed at all; given the prospect of moderate inflation, this means that Japan’s fiscal outlook has actually improved sharply. True, the foreign-exchange value of the yen has fallen considerably — but that’s actually very good news, and Japanese exporters are cheering.
In short, Mr. Abe has thumbed his nose at orthodoxy, with excellent results.
Now, people who know something about Japanese politics warn me not to think of Mr. Abe as a good guy. His foreign policy, they tell me, is very bad, and his support for stimulus may have more to do with old-fashioned pork-barrel (tofu barrel?) politics than with a sophisticated rejection of conventional wisdom.
But none of that may matter. Whatever his motives, Mr. Abe is breaking with a bad orthodoxy. And if he succeeds, something remarkable may be about to happen: Japan, which pioneered the economics of stagnation, may also end up showing the rest of us the way out.
Di parere completamente opposto è John Mauldin che da anni sostiene che Japan Is a Bug in Search of a Windshield (cioè...il Giappone è un moscerino in cerca di un parabrezza....). Secondo Mauldin i fondamentali economici del Giappone, primo tra tutti il debito pubblico, uniti alle pessime prospettive demografiche e alla progressiva perdita di capacità di risparmio delle famiglie possono solo condurre a una conclusione disastrosa.
Japan now has a breathtaking 230% ratio of government debt to GDP (the last estimate I have seen), and it is growing at 10%-plus a year. The government will borrow almost 45% of its budget this year. Has there ever been a more clear disaster in the making? Yet shorting the Japanese bond has been called “the widow-maker.” I think it was Soros who once quipped that you can’t call yourself a global macro trader until you have lost money shorting JGBs (Japanese government bonds).
La politica del premier Abe condurrà necessariamente a una massiccia svalutazione dello yen, accompagnata da un innalzamento dei tassi di interesse, a livelli che Mauldin non giudica sostenibili:
The new Japanese government, led by Prime Minister Abe and former Prime Minister and now Minister of Finance Aso, have very explicitly demanded that the Bank of Japan target 2% inflation. They have made clear their intention to replace the governors of the current BoJ board with members who agree with this policy. They have the political clout to do so. Whether at the upcoming meeting or after April, when a new head of the BoJ is appointed, that is going to happen. These moves mean there will be a massive printing of yen. In response, the yen has already weakened by over 10%.
You can control the quantity of money or the price of money but not both. (Yes, I know that one influences the other, but I am referring here to large-scale printing of money.) One has to assume that the law of gravity will not be repealed and that investors will want something more than 2% on the ten-year bond if inflation is at 2%. If the ten-year bond were to rise by 2%, Japan would soon be spending over 50% of its tax revenues on the interest carry alone. I submit that this is not a workable business model.
Tra l'altro l'indebolimento dello yen renderà i vicini - la Corea e la Cina in primis - molto nervosi, in un momento in cui le tensioni nazionaliste sono già molto forti (come le dispute per le isole Senkaku...)
Understand, inflation targeting is also currency-valuation targeting. They clearly want the yen to devalue. I have been writing for years that the yen would eventually be 125, then 150, then 200 to the dollar. It has been 300 in my lifetime, and unless the Japanese change direction, there is no reason it can’t get there again. This means that Mrs. Watanabe will see her energy bills double. This will call into question the Japanese decision to close their nuclear energy plants – something that Abe is already reconsidering.
Think the Koreans will be happy when you can buy a Lexus cheaper than you can buy a Kia? (Disclosure: I love my Japanese Infiniti, the first “foreign” car I have bought, except for a two-month dalliance with a disaster of a Volkswagen 30 years ago.) Think Samsung and LG will be happy when Panasonic and Sony can eat their lunch pricewise? Welcome to the era of real currency wars.
Indiscutibilmente Mauldin ha un dono per la scrittura, così vi lascio con la scelta tra i due disastri che il nostro analista prevede per il paese del sole levante
Japan is now committed to either Disaster A or Disaster B. Remember those really bad Japanese “horror” movies of the ’50s and ’60s? Godzilla first released in 1954, and there were dozens of remakes and follow-on movies. It seemed endless. And while the current government policy will not trash downtown Tokyo, it will seriously damage the savings and buying power of two generations. Disaster A is monetization, which is clearly not good when the Japanese want to buy anything not made in Japan (like energy, steel, commodities, a lot of food, etc.) Disaster B is the deflationary depression that budget balancing will yield. Which leads us to the next factor:
3. Once the government is committed to the new strategy, any retreat will cause a market upheaval. This is not a short-term commitment. It seems to me that the Japanese truly believe that their lack of economic growth can be solved through inflation. Their politicians seem to be channeling their inner Paul Krugman, or at the least taking Bernanke’s advice from 2000, when he published a paper called “Japan’s Slump: A Case of Self-Induced Paralysis?”
When your debt and deficit are as massive as Japan’s, the only way to resolve the issue is to inflate away the debt or willingly enter into a depression. They obviously think they can control both the debt and inflation.
This means you should NOT run out and short Japanese government bonds. Repeat, NOT. The only way for the Japanese to make their plan work without having to battle the Godzilla of a destitute bond market is for the BoJ to move out the yield curve and monetize the debt. They will eventually hit all bids on JGBs. For all intents and purposes, the BoJ will become the yen bond market. You will get all the yen they promised when you bought those bonds … but the contract never stipulates what those yen will actually buy.
The plan is evidently that, with a little inflation, they will jump-start the economy; and with growth they can eventually balance the budget and return to a normal bond market. Rots of ruck, guys.
Just a couple years ago this letter seemed as if it was All Greece, All the Time. Since Japan is, say, about 100 times more important than Greece, we will be revisiting it at length in the coming months.
Yale University economist Robert Shiller has a message for German Chancellor Angela Merkel: You are telling the wrong story. To Mr. Shiller, whose influential book "Animal Spirits" explored the "stories" that individual investors tell themselves, says Ms. Merkel's constant refrain on the need for austerity to resolve the euro-zone debt crisis, a position she reiterated Wednesday in a speech to the World Economic Forum here, will kill investors' willingness to take on risk. "Our confidence, our willingness to be entrepreneurial, to spend, depends on the kinds of stories that we are telling. And right now the stories are not so inspirational," Mr. Shiller said in an interview. "We are talking about a possible breakup of the euro, [a currency project] which has been held up as a great inspiration for the future. And the story of a government bailout is also really a story of failure. So I think of these things as weighing on us for years to come, these stories." By this logic, the challenge for policy makers is to change the story.
Secondo gli analisti di Nomura i mercati si avviano alla fine dell'anno con un sentimento generale depresso (un po' meno nelle ultime 5 sedute): ai prezzi attuali i mercati scontano previsioni di crescita al ribasso ma non disastrose, come quelle che si realizzerebbero in caso di una crisi confrontabile a quella dell'autunno del 2008.
Se l'economia mondiale non sarà colpita una seconda volta da un fulmine (non proprio a ciel sereno ma pur sempre un fulmine) come il fallimento di Lehman Brothers nel 2008 i mercati azionari potrebbero persino prendersi una rivincita, soprattutto nei paesi emergenti, in Asia e in Europa.
Qui sotto potete leggere il report, grazie a scribd.com
Un articolo sul New York Times analizza il bailout di Dexia, nei limiti che la pochissima trasparenza di questo tipo di operazioni rende possibile. Le sue conclusioni ricordano come la crisi del 2008 sia stata ahinoi inutile e sprecata almeno per quanto riguarda il problema del moral hazard e del bisogno urgente di riportare il sistema finanziario in condizioni che consentano nuovamente di dire: "chi rompe paga (e i cocci sono suoi)"
Economists and financial players are closely watching how European officials handle Dexia’s financial contracts, which span the globe, to see what that might mean for other European banks that might need government support. As trading partners demand more cash, those demands could consume more of the money put up by the Belgian, French and Luxembourg governments.
“We know what the guarantees are that the government put down, but you don’t know how much the taxpayer will end up paying,” said Paul De Grauwe, a professor of economics at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. “I’m pretty sure there are other banks in Europe that have done similar things and may be caught in the crisis that is now brewing. I don’t think this is an isolated incident.”
It may be difficult for European governments to avoid making bank trading partners whole, especially American institutions, since the United States government paid full value to foreign banks that dealt with A.I.G. and also opened Federal Reserve programs to troubled foreign banks. Dexia, for example, leaned heavily on emergency lending programs created by the Fed during the depths of the financial crisis. At its peak borrowing near the end of 2008, Dexia received $58.5 billion from the Fed.
Some financial players may also argue that since France and Belgium took equity stakes in Dexia in 2008 — as part of the government bailout then — there was an implicit guarantee of the company’s obligations, similar to that of the housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the United States.
Walker F. Todd, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and a former official at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said governments were setting a troubling precedent when they bailed out a company and paid its trading partners in full, as occurred with A.I.G. and as might occur with Dexia.
“In the short run, it would help if the authorities would say they refuse to provide publicly funded money for the payoffs of derivatives,” he said. “This is like using public funds to support your local casino. It is difficult to see how this is good for society in the long run.”
Per un'analisi di come le istituzioni europee stiano finanziando con denaro pubblico le banche, e così danneggiando i bilanci nazionali e alimentando il rischio sistemico (cosa che si tende a dimenticare: la socializzazione delle perdite porta inevitabilmente ad una razionale e naturale disinvoltura nelle scommesse finanziarie, alimentando l'instabilità), vi raccomando la lettura dell'articolo di Adriana Cerretelli sul Sole 24 Ore di un paio di giorni fa. Scrive la Cerretelli:
In ciascuno di questi negoziati, uno degli argomenti forti che i tedeschi hanno messo sul tavolo per mettere in riga il terzetto dei reprobi è stato il seguente: come si può chiedere ai contribuenti dei Paesi virtuosi di pagare per quelli che non fanno il loro dovere e violano le regole europee?
Evidentemente l'argomento è buono per i greci, ma non per le banche tedesche, visto che apparentemente non importa se, anche nel loro caso, sono stati spesso comportamenti incauti e dissennati, la calamita di allettanti tassi di interesse nel Sud Europa all'origine delle difficoltà in cui si dibattono. E che si intrecciano proprio con quelle di Grecia & C. In una sorta di nemesi storica, che investe tutta l'eurozona.(...) la sensibilità schizoide con cui si sta giocando la partita della duplice crisi europea suscita molte perplessità e altrettanti punti interrogativi.
Sono sempre i numeri a parlare. L'economia della Grecia rappresenta il 2% dell'eurozona e il suo debito il 3%. Fosse stato ben gestito in famiglia, un problema quasi irrilevante.
Tra il settembre 2008 e il dicembre 2010, invece, nel tentativo di stabilizzare un settore investito dalla bufera finanziaria, i 27 dell'Unione hanno mobilitato ben 4.285 miliardi di euro a sostegno degli istituti di credito, cioè il 36% del Pil dell'Unione europea e il 10% del totale degli attivi bancari. Con Germania e Gran Bretagna con una quota ciascuno superiore ai 500 miliardi.
Nell'articolo trovate snocciolate le cifre degli aiuti erogati (1240 miliardi, oltre il 10% del PIL dell'Unione Europea) in forma di garanzie (757 miliardi), ricapitalizzazioni (303), gestione di titoli spazzatura (104) e linee di credito (77), con le banche inglesi, tedesche e francesi tra le maggiori beneficiarie. Il punto comunque non è solo economico ma anche e soprattutto politico investendo direttamente il processo di unione dell'Europa
In effetti si parla tanto della "pessima" Grecia, non si esita a criminalizzarne le malefatte (innegabili) invocando e decidendo punizioni esemplari e dissuasive. Molto meno degli effetti e delle conseguenze che il salvataggio degli istituti di credito sta avendo sulla costruzione europea. Sulla sua stessa cultura.Una volta non solo gli aiuti di Stato, ma anche le garanzie erano vietate per le banche nel mercato unico. Si promuovevano mercato e privatizzazioni insieme al ritiro dello Stato dall'economia oltre a bilanci pubblici sani. In nome dell'emergenza questa logica è stata di fatto completamente capovolta. «La verità è che ormai siamo dominati dal pensiero economico e finanziario, abbiamo completamente dimenticato quello industriale», denuncia un alto funzionario. La verità però è anche un'altra. Questa Eurozona sempre più spregiudicata e intergovernativa sembra dimenticare che moneta e mercato unico devono procedere di conserva: se cominciano a traballare insieme, perché si capovolgono le regole che ne garantiscono la salvaguardia, prima o poi sarà anche l'Europa intera a saltare. Ma non sarà la Grecia a deciderne le sorti.
...è quanto prevede Nouriel Roubini: più informazioni nel video qui sotto, da BloombergTV
Roubini è piuttosto esplicito: secondo lui occorre un programma di lavori pubblici negli USA (investimenti nelle infrastrutture) da mille miliardi di dollari spalmati su cinque anni. Obama lo proporrà, i Repubblicani metteranno il veto (animati anche dalla logica del tanto peggio tanto meglio...) e l'economia tornerà in recessione. E se non si fanno gli eurobond, o si triplica il fondo di dotazione dell'EFSF,
oltre a dover ristrutturare il debito della Grecia occorrerà ristrutturare quello del Portogallo e dell'Irlanda, ma poi ... anche quello di Spagna e Italia.
Come se non bastasse, dal Wall Street Journal di oggi: per rimettere in piedi le banche europee occorrono iniezioni di capitali pari a mille miliardi di dollari.
A top Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategist has provided the firm's hedge-fund clients with a particularly gloomy economic outlook and suggestions for how these traders can take advantage of the financial crisis in Europe.
In a 54-page report sent to hundreds of Goldman's institutional clients dated Aug. 16, Alan Brazil—a Goldman strategist who sits on the firm's trading desk—argued that as much as $1 trillion in capital may be needed to shore up European banks; that small businesses in the U.S., a past driver of job production, are still languishing; and that China's growth may not be sustainable.
Il rapporto di Goldman Sachs è commentato nel video del WSJ che potete vedere qui sotto:
The recent surge in long-term Treasury yields has led many to say that the Fed's second round of quantitative easing is a failure. The critics predict that QE2 may end up hurting rather than helping the economic recovery, as higher rates nip in the bud any rebound in the housing market and dampen capital spending. But the rise in long-term Treasury rates does not signal that the Fed's policy has backfired. It is a sign that the Fed's policy is succeeding. Long-term Treasury rates are influenced positively by economic growth—which encourages consumers to borrow in anticipation of higher incomes and causes firms to seek funds to expand capacity—and by inflationary expectations. Long-term Treasury rates are affected negatively by risk aversion: Seeking a safe haven, investors pile into Treasury bonds, running up their prices and lowering their yields. The Fed's QE2 program has raised expectations of growth and inflation, sending long-term Treasury rates up. It has also lowered risk aversion, which implies rising long-term rates. The evidence for a decline in risk aversion among investors is the shrinkage in the spreads between Treasury and other fixed-income securities, the strong performance of the stock market, and the decline in VIX, the indicator of future stock-market volatility. This means that expectations of accelerating economic growth—and a reduction in the fear of a double-dip recession—are the driving forces behind the rise in rates.
Siegel fa appello alle lezioni di Friedman per dare ancora maggiore autorità alla sua tesi e riprende i commenti del grande economista di Chicago sulla politica monetaria durante la Grande Depressione e sulla crisi inflazionistica degli anni Settanta:
I remember him stressing that the extremely low interest rates of the early 1930s were not indicative of an easy monetary policy. They were instead the result of the Fed's drastically tight policy, which did not provide enough reserves to failing banks and drove the economy into the Great Depression. Similarly, the double-digit interest rates that we witnessed in the 1970s were not indicative of the Fed's brave stance against inflation but of a far-too-easy policy that inflated the money supply and heightened inflationary expectations.
Il punto fondamentale di Siegel è che occorre tenere conto anche dei dati relativi alla crescita economica nel giudicare l'andamento dei tassi di interesse e l'efficacia della politica della Fed:
But monetary tightening will only begin if the pace of the economic recovery accelerates significantly next year, which I believe is increasingly likely. We should not look only at interest rates to judge whether monetary policy is working. Indeed, in the present situation, if long-term rates were not rising, it would be a sign that the economy is in serious trouble—a sign that investors are worried about deflation and a decline in economic activity.
Nello stesso giorno in cui il WSJ dà spazio alla difesa di Siegel, il New York Times dedica invece un articolo a Thomas Hoenig, presidente della Federal Reserve Bank di Kansas City prossimo alla pensione e da sempre l'oppositore numero uno all'interno del FOMC di Bernanke e della sua politica espansiva. La tesi di Hoenig è semplice:
If it were up to him, he would keep interest rates very low, but would not promise to keep them at essentially zero for “an extended period,” as the Fed has announced. He says he thinks that trying to lower long-term rates, as the Fed is doing by buying bonds, is a mistake. The recovery, however slow and painful, he says, cannot be hurried. As the longest-serving regional Fed president, his views are shaped by the uncontrolled inflation of the 1970s, the spike in land prices that followed and the ensuing banking and thrift crises. To him, Mr. Bernanke’s plan is “a dangerous gamble” and “a bargain with the devil,” strong words that have rankled some officials of the Fed, where dissent is tolerated but not celebrated.
Intanto proprio ieri sera la Fed ha deciso di mantenere i tassi invariati e proseguire l'acquisto di obbligazioni del Tesoro U.S.A. (il QE2): qui potete leggere il comunicato ufficiale nel quale si legge
To promote a stronger pace of economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate, the Committee decided today to continue expanding its holdings of securities as announced in November. The Committee will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings. In addition, the Committee intends to purchase $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011, a pace of about $75 billion per month. (...) The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period. The Committee will continue to monitor the economic outlook and financial developments and will employ its policy tools as necessary to support the economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate.
La decisione è stata unanime, beh...quasi unanime, con un solo voto contrario...sapete già di chi.
Per concludere vi segnalo inoltre l'articolo di Mario Platero su Plus24 di sabato scorso (L'Europa non gioca d'anticipo, a pag. 12 del supplemento): arrabbiato con il no della Merkel sia alla proposta degli E-Bond di Tremonti e Juncker sia a quella di Strauss Kahn e Trichet per l'ampliamento del meccanismo di salvataggio europeo, giustamente Platero osserva come la "divergenza transatlantica" raggiunge un punto di svolta: l'America si muove, l'Europa sta ferma. Secondo Platero la differenza principale è nel tentativo della politica U.S.A. di anticipare e governare il ciclo economico. Platero vede un legame tra la decisione di fine agosto della Fed di lanciare una seconda fase di Quantitative Easing e l'accordo bipartisan di qualche giorno fa per prolungare i tagli di Bush. Conclude infatti in questo modo il suo articolo: C'è una raffinatezza nella combinazione dell'operazione di stimolo americana: i 600 miliardi di dollari che la Fed utilizzerà per interventi sui mercati obbligazionari servivano a tenere i tassi bassi a medio termine. Il QE2 (...) annunciato sei o sette settimane da e preannunciato molto prima sembrava ridondante: i tassi erano comunque bassi, li si voleva abbassare di più? No, era chiaro che con i nuovi 900 miliardi di dollari di riduzioni fiscali accordate il 6 dicembre, ci sarebbero state pressioni al rialzo sui tassi a dieci anni. E dunque la Fed ha giocato d'anticipo. Perchè in Europa non lo facciamo mai?
Questa notte è atteso l'arrivo del freddo su tutta la Toscana: alcuni fortunati potranno starsene al calduccio e magari avranno voglia di leggere...ecco alcune letture consigliate:
Yahoo passa in rassegna le 50 carriere più promettenti per il 2011: insieme ad alcune ovvie e abbastanza prevedibili (pilota civile, veterinario, ingegnere civile, ecc.) ce ne sono alcune che ho trovato sorprendenti (ma non bisogna dimenticare che è una classifica americana, sicuramente per le professioni l'Europa è un po' diversa). Sempre su Yahoo potete divertirvi a leggere un elenco di lavori retribuiti almeno 100$ all'ora: anche in questo caso ci sono mestieri sorprendenti....se avete delle belle mani potete cercare di qualificarvi come hand model...
Tornando a temi più familiari per i lettori di Alfa o Beta? vi segnalo come secondo l'economista di Chicago John Cochrane la paura di contagio nel debito sovrano della zona euro sia una sciocchezza! Peccato che i mercati si ostinino a vedere le cose diversamente, basta guardare un grafico che confronti gli interessi sulle obbligazioni governative dei PIIGS negli ultimi 12-24 mesi. Lo stesso vale per i CDS come vedete qui accanto (le figure sono tratte da questo post su SeekingAlpha) Boh...
Un punto di vista molto diverso da quello di Cochrane sulla situazione europea è quello espresso da Alistair Darling in questo op-ed sul New York Times. Secondo Darling la situazione è preoccupante e sono numerose le analogie con i primi mesi del 2008, nei quali si perse tempo prezioso per evitare il (quasi)-collasso del sistema finanziario mondiale (la sottolineatura è mia): WHEN I look at events in Europe today, with Ireland getting bailed out and talk of crises brewing elsewhere on the continent, I am reminded of the weeks leading up to the banking crisis in 2008. As the credit crunch began and banks found it increasingly difficult to get access to funding, policy makers faced a choice: deal with the problem in a piecemeal way, or address the root causes immediately. For too long many policy makers opted to fudge their approach; they dealt with the problem bank by bank and refused to recognize the system’s fundamental flaws. As a result, we saw Lehman Brothers go bankrupt, Bear Stearns bought up in a fire sale and a major British bank come within hours of collapse. During that summer I realized that unless we put a firewall in place to prevent the crisis from spreading, we would face a catastrophe in the banking sector and the wider economy. That’s why I took the controversial step of injecting billions of pounds into the banking system to stabilize it. By tackling the fundamental problem, the lack of capital in banks, we stopped a meltdown. It was drastic action, but I have no doubt that it worked. The same approach is now urgently needed for European economies. It is not enough for the euro zone nations to bail out each economy as it falls into a crisis — they must address the root causes of the continent’s problems. This hasn’t been the approach so far. In May, Europe eventually faced up to the fact that it had to help Greece, which was finding it increasingly difficult to borrow to cover its debts. But the rescue was far too long in coming, and the United States Treasury deserves a great deal of credit for forcing the issue to a head.
What we need now is another Jonathan Swift. Most people know Swift as the author of “Gulliver’s Travels.” But recent events have me thinking of his 1729 essay “A Modest Proposal,” in which he observed the dire poverty of the Irish, and offered a solution: sell the children as food. “I grant this food will be somewhat dear,” he admitted, but this would make it “very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.”
Nel leggerlo mi sono ricordato di una scena tratta dal "Senso della vita" dei Monty Phyton...Il padre di una numerosissima famiglia cattolica viene licenziato e annuncia alla famiglia di essere stato costretto a vendere i (63!) figli come cavie umane per esperimenti scientifici...
Krugman ricorda poi la battuta che circolava all'inizio del 2009 nel mondo degli hedge funds (La differenza tra Islanda e Irlanda? Una consonante e sei mesi di tempo!) e che non sta mancando di avverarsi con solo qualche mese di ritardo. Tranne però che i poveri irlandesi non hanno la fortuna di poter svalutare per attenuare l'entità della crisi: le 10 sterline irlandesi che ritraggono proprio Jonathan Swift e che vedete riprodotte qui sotto se reintrodotte renderebbero più sopportabile la recessione. Scrive Krugman:
But at this point Iceland seems, if anything, to be doing better than its near-namesake. Its economic slump was no deeper than Ireland’s, its job losses were less severe and it seems better positioned for recovery. In fact, investors now appear to consider Iceland’s debt safer than Ireland’s. How is that possible? Part of the answer is that Iceland let foreign lenders to its runaway banks pay the price of their poor judgment, rather than putting its own taxpayers on the line to guarantee bad private debts. As the International Monetary Fund notes — approvingly! — “private sector bankruptcies have led to a marked decline in external debt.” Meanwhile, Iceland helped avoid a financial panic in part by imposing temporary capital controls — that is, by limiting the ability of residents to pull funds out of the country. And Iceland has also benefited from the fact that, unlike Ireland, it still has its own currency; devaluation of the krona, which has made Iceland’s exports more competitive, has been an important factor in limiting the depth of Iceland’s slump. None of these heterodox options are available to Ireland, say the wise heads. Ireland, they say, must continue to inflict pain on its citizens — because to do anything else would fatally undermine confidence. But Ireland is now in its third year of austerity, and confidence just keeps draining away. And you have to wonder what it will take for serious people to realize that punishing the populace for the bankers’ sins is worse than a crime; it’s a mistake.
Contagion has swept through the geographic edge of the euro zone—and it may not stop there. The cost of insuring $10 million of Belgian sovereign debt through credit default swaps leapt Friday to a new record of $163,000 a year. While this is far below the $605,000 charged to insure Irish debt, the cost has been steadily rising since late summer. Yields on 10-year Belgian bond have risen to 3.68%, more than a full percentage point over Bunds. This is worrying. Belgium isn't normally considered among the vulnerable euro-zone countries. Any sustained pressure on Belgian bonds or CDS would be a sign that the market is starting to bet on a break-up of the euro.
Le debolezze del Belgio (oltre al debito le tensioni politiche legate alla divisione tra fiamminghi e valloni) non sembrano tali però da giustificare questo aumento di attenzione, specialmente visto che dal 1993 al 2007 il Belgio aveva ridotto il debito pubblico dal 134% del GDP all'84% e che attualmente la crescita economica sembra essere robusta, accompagnata da un avanzo del conto delle partite correnti. Osserva giustamente Barley:
But precisely because Belgium has good fundamental strengths on its side, its stature in the market bears close monitoring. If euro-zone leaders were in any doubt they risk losing control of the situation, Belgian bonds and CDS should remind them.
Sul debito del Belgio e sulla sua sostenibilità potete leggere anche questa analisi pubblicata sul Wall Street Journal di oggi.
Nel frattempo, per allentare la tensione, pur restando tutto sommato in tema, vi consiglio l'eccezionale incontro di calcio Germania-Grecia ancora una volta cortesia dei Monty Phyton...Vi faccio notare che l'arbitro è il Sig. Confucius...A buon intenditore...
L'Economist appena uscito dedica uno degli articoli di apertura all'euro, ai suoi guai e alle sue prospettive future. L'ho trovato davvero ben fatto e vi raccomando di leggerlo. Tra le proposte dell'articolo c'è l'emissione di una serie di obbligazioni con la garanzia esplicita di tutti i paesi dell'eurozona, un'idea forse incoraggiata dalla buona accoglienza da parte delle agenzie di rating dell'European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), l'organismo creato in primavera con una dotazione di quasi 700 miliardi di euro (di cui 250 promessi dal Fondo Monetario Internazionale) e incaricato di aiutare i paesi dell'eurozona nei guai con i mercati obbligazionari. Lunedì scorso le tre principali agenzie di rating (S&P, Moody's e Fitch) hanno dato il rating più alto (AAA) all'EFSF.
Ecco il passaggio dell'articolo dell'Economist nel quale si propongono gli eurobond (blu) in contrasto con le obbligazioni (rosse) con la garanzia dei singoli paesi:
Euro-zone countries could try to build their own version of the Treasury market through a common bond issue. Analysts at Bruegel have proposed such a scheme, which might also be used to impose fiscal discipline. Countries would be allowed to issue jointly guaranteed (“blue”) bonds but only up to a limit of 60% of their GDP. Additional “red” bonds would be backed only by the standing of the sovereign issuer. Blue bonds would be senior to red ones, which would be subject to an “orderly” restructuring in default. Such a scheme would be tricky to implement swiftly. Most euro-zone countries’ debts are way above the 60% limit and rising each year (see chart 3). So withdrawing the implicit guarantee on the rest of their bonds would be likely to cause tremors in financial markets. In its favour, the Bruegel idea may be a way to set long-term limits on each country’s debt levels. The requirement to meet the terms of a blue bond issue is likely to be a more powerful disciplinary device than penalties from Brussels for missing a fiscal target.
Uno dei problemi principali di molti paesi dell'eurozona è una perdita di competitività che rende la politica di risanamento dei bilanci un'impresa quasi disperata. Secondo l'Economist:
Broadly, there are three ways for a country to restore competitiveness: devaluation (which reduces wages relative to those in other exporting countries), wage cuts or higher productivity. In the euro area, the first option is out. The other two rely on easing job-market rules so that pay matches workers’ efficiency more closely, and workers can move freely from dying industries and firms to growing ones. Governments also have to tackle the lack of competition in markets for goods and services, notably in non-tradables (eg, utilities), whose prices affect the costs of other firms, including exporters. A bigger push from Brussels to open services to greater cross-border competition might do far more good than more prescriptions about debts and deficits. Adjustment by cutting wages is quite brutal, especially without the support of an expansionary fiscal policy. An alternative would be for competitive, trade-surplus countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, to spend more: the combined deficits of the euro zone’s “periphery” are more or less offset by surpluses at the zone’s “core” (see chart 4). John Maynard Keynes believed that in a fixed exchange-rate system, the burden of adjustment to trade imbalances should fall equally on deficit and surplus countries. So he proposed that excess trade surpluses should be taxed (see article). A scheme such as this would not be easy to implement: it would be hard to gauge the point at which the saving surpluses of an ageing country like Germany become harmful. But such a proposal would at least put “creditor adjustment” on the agenda.
Nell'ultima newsletter settimanale John Mauldin insiste sulla conseguenze dell'identità contabile alla quale si perviene dividendo l'economia di una nazione in tre parti: il settore privato, il settore pubblico e le esportazioni:
Domestic Private Sector Financial Balance + Governmental Fiscal Balance - the Current
Account Balance (or Trade Deficit/Surplus) = 0
Scrive Mauldin:
By Domestic Private Sector Financial Balance we mean the net balance of businesses and consumers. Are they borrowing money or paying down debt? Government Fiscal Balance is the same: is the government borrowing or paying down debt? And the Current Account Balance is the trade deficit or surplus.
The implications are simple. The three items have to add up to zero. That means you cannot have surpluses in both the private and government sectors and run a trade deficit. You have to have a trade surplus. (...) Bottom line: you can run a trade deficit, reduce government debt, and reduce
private debt, but not all three at the same time. Choose two. Choose carefully.
Il punto fondamentale che solleva Mauldin è l'impossibilità di una riduzione del debito (leverage) simultanea nel settore pubblico e in quello privato in mancanza di un surplus della bilancia commerciale. E se si passa dall'analisi di una singola nazione all'analisi dell'economia globale allora le bilancie commerciali dei singoli paesi devono necessariamente sommarsi a zero e si ottiene l'impossibilità a livello globale di una simultanea riduzione del debito sia pubblico che privato.
Le conseguenze non sono troppo negative per i paesi che possono controllare la politica monetaria, come ad esempio l'Inghiliterra, per la quale è ragionevole attendersi che Because they have control of their currency and their debt, which is mostly in their own currency, they can devalue their way to a solution.
(Mauldin si spinge a prevedere un cambio dollaro/sterlina alla pari!)
I guai invece sono pressochè insormontabili per paesi come la Grecia, che non posso utilizzare la svalutazione della moneta per guadagnare in competitività e riequilibrare la bilancia commerciale:
We all know that Greek government deficits are somewhere around 14%. But their trade deficit is running north of 10%. (By comparison, the US trade deficit is now about 4%.)
Going back to the equation, if Greece wants to reduce its fiscal deficit by 11% over the next three years, then either private debt must increase or the trade deficit must drop sharply. That's the accounting rules.
But here's the problem. Greece cannot devalue its currency. It is (for now) stuck
with the euro. So, how can they make their products more competitive? How do they grow their way out of their problems? How do they become more productive relative to the rest of Europe and the world? Barring some new productivity boost in olive oil and other agricultural produce,
there is no easy way. Since the creation of the euro in1999, Germany has become some 30% more productive than Greece. Very roughly, that means it costs 30% more in Greece to produce the same amount of goods. That is why Greece imports $64 billion and exports $21 billion.
What needs to happen for Greece to become more competitive? Labor costs must
fall by a lot. And not by just 10 or 15%. But if labor costs drop (deflation) then that means that taxes also drop. The government takes in less and GDP drops. The perverse situation is that the debt-to-GDP ratio gets worse, even as they enact their austerity measures.
In short, Greek lifestyles are on the line. They are going to fall. They have no
choice. They are going to have to willingly put themselves into a severe recession or, more realistically, a depression. (...)
What are their choices? They can simply default on the debt. Stop making any
payments. That means they cannot borrow any more money for a minimum of a few years (Argentina seemed to be able to come back fairly quickly after default), but it would go a long way toward balancing the government budget. Government employees would need to take large pay cuts, and there would be other large cuts in services. It would be a depression, but you work your way out of it. You are still in the euro and need to figure out how to become more competitive.
Qui mi pare che il ragionamento di Mauldin mostri i suoi limiti, visto che mi sembra poco probabile che una nazione che fa default sia ancora accettabile all'interno dell'area euro. Ma l'opzione dell'abbandono dell'euro benche' possa sembrare piu' verosimile conduce a uno scenario poco incoraggiante, visto che il debito estero rimarrebbe denominato in euro. In un editoriale il Wall Street Journal qualche tempo fa giungeva a conclusioni meno tetre per il futuro di questo paese.
La logica di Mauldin e' a mio avviso ineccepibile quando dall'analisi della Grecia passa a quella della Germania:
Germany is basically saying, you should be like us. And everyone wants to be. But not everyone can.
Every country cannot run a trade surplus. Someone has to buy. But the
prescription that politicians want is for fiscal austerity and trade surpluses, at least for
European countries. That is the import of Martin Wolfe’s editorial we mentioned above.
He is as wired in as you get in Britain. And in a few short sentences he has laid out the formula Britain will pursue. Devalue and put your goods and services on sale. Figure out how to get to that surplus.
Germany has been thriving because much of Europe has been buying its goods. If
they are forced by circumstances to buy less, that will not be good for Germany. It’s all connected.
Yet politicians want to believe that somehow we can all run surpluses – at least in
their own countries. We can balance the budgets. We can reduce our private debts. We all want to believe in that mythical Lake Woebegone, where all the kids are above average.
Sadly, it just isn't possible for everyone to have a happy ending.
Quando dall'analisi dei guai dell'Europa passa a quella dei guai degli U.S.A. Mauldin si lancia in proposte provocatorie, che mi piacciono molto:
If the US is going to really attempt to balance the budget over time, reduce our
personal leverage, and save more, then we have to address the glaring fact that we import $300 billion in oil (give or take, depending on the price of oil).
This can only partially be done by offshore drilling. The real key is to reduce the
need for oil. Nuclear power, renewables, and a shift to electric cars will be most helpful.
Let us suggest something a little more radical. When the price of oil approached $4 a few years ago, Americans changed their driving and car-buying habits. Perhaps we need to see the price of oil rise. What if we increased the price of oil
with an increase in gas taxes by 2 cents a gallon each and every month until the demand for oil dropped to the point where we did not need foreign oil? If we had European gasmileage standards, that would be the case now.
And take that 2 cents a month and dedicate it to fixing our infrastructure, which is badly in need of repair.
Vi raccomando di dare un'occhiata all'eccellente visualizzazione grafica dei dati delle economie europee sul sito dell'Economist che potete trovare qui. Alcuni dati sorprendenti:
Solo due paesi dell'Unione Europea hanno il deficit inferiore al tetto del 3%: Estonia e Lussemburgo
Tre paesi hanno un debito pubblico inferiore al 20% del prodotto interno lordo: Bulgaria, Estonia e Lussemburgo
L'unico paese dell'Unione nel quale il prodotto interno lordo è cresciuto nel 2009 è la Polonia. I paesi baltici (Estonia, Lituania e Lettonia) hanno visto l'economia contrarsi di oltre il 10%. La previsione è di un'ulteriore contrazione dell'economia nel 2010 per Lettonia (-3.5%) e Lituania (-0.8%). Anche Grecia, Irlanda, Cipro e Spagna dovrebbero avere un calo del GDP nel 2010. In Lussemburgo la crescita dovrebbe assestarsi intorno al 2%, in Polonia e Slovacchia quasi al 3%.
Il Lussemburgo ha il prodotto interno lordo pro-capite più alto: 76500 euro. Fanalino di coda la Bulgaria (circa 5000 euro). Il più basso PIL pro-capite nell'area euro è in Slovacchia, circa 12000 euro.
In Austria e Olanda la disoccupazione è inferiore al 5%, in Lussemburgo appena superiore. In Spagna sfiora il 20% e nei paesi baltici si attesta tra il 17 e il 20%.
Vi segnalo tre approfondimenti interessanti sull'Economist appena uscito: il primo sul dollaro e le sue prospettive di medio termine. Il secondo è dedicato all'economia mondiale e ai rischi di una ricaduta in recessione. Secondo l'Economist Concern about America’s stumbling recovery has been rising, just as anxieties about the euro area’s economy have faded. The dollar is the weakling among rich-world currencies (see article). But Americans should take a little heart: it is too soon to despair about their economy. And Europeans should show a little caution: it is too soon to be sure that theirs is firmly back on its feet. (...)both Europe and America seem to be suffering from delusions—of strength and weakness respectively. In Europe it is far too early to celebrate recovery on at least two counts. First, Germany apart, the euro area remains weak. Spain, whose economy is barely growing and where the jobless rate is 20%, would love to have America’s problems. Second, Germany relies on exports, not spending at home: the home market is one of the few places where sales of Mercedes cars have fallen this year. So its economic fortunes remain closely tied to the rest of the world—including one of its biggest markets, America. How real are the risks of a double dip in the United States? The recovery has lost momentum in part because shops and warehouses are fuller, so that the initial boost to demand from restocking is fading. The housing bust still casts a shadow. Households must save to work off excess debts. Firms fearful of weak consumer spending are cautious about investing. Bank credit is scarce. All this stands in the way of a full-blooded recovery. But a slide into a second recession would require firms to cut back again on stocks, capital spending and jobs. The cash buffer corporate America has built up in case of harder times makes a fresh shock of that kind unlikely.(...) Anxiety about deflation remains justified: any sign of it would require much bolder measures from the central bank. However, for the moment the Fed has sent the right signal: concern but not panic. Apart from anything else, it is not clear that yet more monetary stimulus would have created many new jobs. The relatively high level of job vacancies in America seems consistent with far lower unemployment. Some firms have complained that the available workers do not have the skills that they want. Unemployment, sadly, may thus have deep roots, with more people this time remaining out of work for longer. It will be a hard slog. But on the current evidence don’t expect America’s recovery to grind to a halt. Se volete approfondire l'analisi delle prospettive di medio-lungo termine dell'economia tedesca e più in generale delle economie del nord Europa vi raccomando la lettura di questo articolo di GaveKal dal quale ho tratto il grafico che ho riprodotto qui accanto e che vi consiglio di leggere. Le conclusioni sono un po' diverse da quelle su cui si basa l'editorialista dell'Economst nelle sue considerazioni.
Infine vi segnalo questo articolo dedicato al trading ad alta frequenza, nel quale si scopre che il tempo di esecuzione di un ordine al Nasdaq (177 microsecondi!) è 100 volte più breve di quello necessario a Singapore e 20 volte più breve di quello necessario a Londra. Mentre sul mercato U.S.A. crescono le perplessità sull'opportunità di questa incredibile accelerazione dei mercati high-speed traders are getting a warm welcome in emerging markets. When BM&FBovespa, Brazil’s main exchange, offered firms “co-location” slots to place their trading machines in the exchange’s data centre in February (giving them an additional edge on speed), they quickly sold out. The exchange plans to double the number of slots to meet demand. On Singapore’s exchange, the share of derivatives trades accounted for by HFT has risen from 10% to 30% in two years. (...) For the traders themselves, expansion abroad makes sense. HFT uses automated strategies to capitalise on inefficient pricing of financial instruments at blinding speed. As markets in America and Europe have become more competitive—HFT now makes up over 60% of equity trades in America and nearly 50% of British transactions—bid-ask spreads have narrowed and arbitrage opportunities exist for ever-briefer periods. In newer markets traders can use simpler algorithms for higher yields.
Il trading ad alta frequenza è uno dei principali imputati del flash crash del 6 maggio scorso, un argomento che abbiamo affrontato più volte in questo blog. Nel video che vi propongo qui sotto il Chief Investment Officer di Vanguard, Gus Sauter, illustra alcune contromisure che potrebbero essere adottate per rafforzare i market circuit breakers e prevenire il ripetersi di un crash. Uno degli argomenti affrontati è proprio la rischiosità dei market orders (gli ordini al meglio), le considerazioni di Sauter mi sembrano largamente condivisibili: I think a lot of investors don't really realize the risks of market orders. You think that a stock is selling at a certain price level, so you'll say, "Well, I am happy with that. I'll go ahead and sell it at the market or buy it at the market," and then it turns out that the liquidity really isn't there and by the time you end up buying it with your market order you've pushed the stock dramatically or the floor gets pulled out from under you and on May 6th the limit orders just weren't there. You enter a market ordering, you end up selling it to $0.01 a share. I don't think many investors realize that that risk was really there. For that reason I do like the concept of requiring everything to be a limit order. Now we would point out that you can in effect place an order that would function like a market order even by using a limit order. If you really, really want to buy a stock, let's say, you could offer to buy it or bid for it at $1,000. Well, you're going to buy it at whatever it's being offered at and which would be a reasonable price, but you're really assuring that you'll be able to buy it. So, the advantage of requiring all orders to be limit as opposed to market is that investors can still place the market order or something that functions like a market order, but they are also placing an intentional limit as opposed to one by default that could be $1,000 without realizing that it's a $1,000 on the buy side.
Oggi a Siena c'è il Palio: oltre a essere una bellissima festa può anche essere l'occasione per riflettere sulla razionalità dell'uomo e delle sue scelte.
I cavalli impiegano poco meno di trenta secondi per percorrere un giro di Piazza del Campo. In una Carriera (la corsa del Palio) di giri se ne fanno tre e il Palio più veloce della storia fu corso nel 1991 in 1 minuto e 13 secondi.
Tornando a come si arrangiano i mercati, sfortunatamente privi di un Palio e di una tradizione confrontabile: oggi hanno fatto una bella corsa - quasi da record - pure lunga 1 minuto in coincidenza con la pubblicazione alle 14.30 ora italiana dei dati della disoccupazione negli U.S.A. Qui trovate un articolo del New York Times di oggi che descrive quelle che erano le aspettative dei mercati mentre qui trovate il comunicato stampa ripreso da Yahoo Finance con i dati di oggi: il numero di posti di lavoro creati (al netto dei 225000 posti persi per la fine del censimento) è pari a 83000 contro un'attesa di circa 110000 posti di lavoro creati (ma con una estrema variabilità delle stime, oscillanti tra 20000 e 200000). La disoccupazione è calata....perchè molti lavoratori cessano di cercare un impiego che tanto non troverebbero...Ho un'idea: il passo successivo della crisi potrebbe consistere nell'incentivare il suicidio dei neo-pensionati...così potremmo ridurre efficacemente i deficit!
E i mercati? In sessanta secondi l'indice DAX ha avuto una variazione di quasi un punto percentuale (il doppio in termini assoluti aprendo a 5895 raggiungendo in pochi secondi 5941 e chiudendo a 5891). La stesso "sospiro" si è osservato sul FTSE100, sul CAC40, sugli indici Eurostoxx ecc. Un sospiro che vale dunque circa 40 miliardi di euro...
Ecco qui sotto il grafico del DAX tratto da Yahoo Finance
(...) is there a way to ensure ants and grasshoppers coexist harmoniously?
A part of the answer must be to reduce the instability of financial markets.
This is the focus of the debate on regulation – a topic I have discussed previously.
I would add two points here: first, seek to reduce the extremes of the property cycle by taxing the
rental value of land; second, remove incentives for leverage from the tax code.
Yet the biggest single problem of the global system, in my view, is the attempt by ants to provide
so much “vendor finance” to grasshoppers. In the end, both ants and grasshoppers have ended up disappointed.
A more productive use of the surplus savings and productive capacity of ageing ant nests
would be to lend to younger ones. So finance should flow to emerging countries, in general, and
fixed investment in emerging countries, in particular. It is in the latter that the best opportunities
for new investment should exist. It is the latter that are also most likely to generate the ability to
service and repay the loans they have received.
This seemingly sensible proposition runs up against two huge difficulties:
the first is that almost every attempt to generate large net flows of capital to emerging countries
over the past three decades has ended up in a crisis; the second is that, as a result, the emerging
world has decided to run current account surpluses and recycle those surpluses into ever larger
foreign exchange reserves: in 2010, for example, according to the International Monetary Fund,
the current account surplus of emerging countries will be $420bn, with an accumulation of reserves of $630bn.
Thus, in aggregate, emerging countries are recycling current account surpluses,
plus the net private capital inflow, into reserves. Nearly all of these surpluses are generated
by emerging Asia, in general, and China, in particular, though these countries have the best
investment opportunities.
So long as this remains true, the grasshopper colonies of the developed world are likely to remain net
recipients of capital, which they will surely continue to waste. Yet, under the pressure of the crisis
itself, many erstwhile grasshopper colonies are being forced to become more “ant-like”. If today’s rich
ant nests do not change their behaviour, potential surpluses will be huge. Either the emerging world as
a whole starts to absorb these surpluses into potentially productive younger nests,
or the world will be stuck in a demand trap, with everybody seeking export surpluses.
Flows of finance from export-driven ant nests to advanced grasshopper colonies end in tears.
Flows of finance from old ant nests to young ones have not worked out either.
If a way is not found to fix these failures, the open global economy itself may disappear.
Fino al due giugno potete partecipare al sondaggio/dibattito sul futuro dell'euro promosso dall'Economist: la tesi del settimanale inglese è che alcuni paesi lasceranno l'euro entro 10 anni. Naturalmente gran parte della discussione si concentra sulla possibilità o meno che la Grecia superi la crisi in cui si trova senza abbandonare la moneta unica. L'abbandono dell'euro potrebbe permetterle una svalutazione competitiva, ma i sostenitori della permanenza dell'euro osservano che il debito si rivaluterebbe (essendo stato emesso in euro) tranne nel caso di un default che sarebbe meglio gestibile restando all'interno della moneta unica. Il merito del dibattito è di rendere assolutamente trasparente come la scelta sia "tra la padella e la brace". Voi cosa ne pensate?
Se volete un assaggio di come viene vista la crisi della zona euro dagli investitori americani potete leggere la lettera di John Mauldin di questa settimana. Ecco come si pronuncia sulla crisi greca e sulle ripercussioni nella zona euro e per le banche europee:
We all know that Greek government deficits are somewhere around 14%. But their trade deficit is running north of 10%. (By comparison, the US trade deficit is now about 4%.)
Going back to the equation, if Greece wants to reduce its fiscal deficit by 11% over the next three years, then either private debt must increase or the trade deficit must drop sharply. That's the accounting rules.
But here's the problem. Greece cannot devalue its currency. It is (for now) stuck with the euro. So, how can they make their products more competitive? How do they grow their way out of their problems? How do they become more productive relative to the rest of Europe and the world?
Barring some new productivity boost in olive oil and produce production, there is no easy way. Since the beginning of the euro, Germany has become some 30% more productive than Greece. Very roughly, that means it cost 30% more to produce the same amount of goods. That is why Greece imports $64 billion and exports $21 billion.
What needs to happen for Greece to become more competitive? Labor costs must fall by a lot. And not by just 10 or 15%. But if labor costs drop (deflation) then that means that taxes also drop. The government takes in less and GDP drops. The perverse situation is that the debt to GDP ratio gets worse even as they enact their austerity measures.
In short, Greek life styles are on the line. They are going to fall. They have no choice. They are going to willingly have to put themselves into a severe recession or more realistically a depression.
Just as British incomes relative to their competitors will fall, Greek labor costs must fall as well. But the problem for Greeks is that the costs they bear are still in euros.
It becomes a most vicious spiral. The more cuts they make, the less income there is to tax, which means less government revenue which means more cuts which mean, etc.
And the solution is to borrow more money they cannot at the end of the day hope to pay. All that is happening is that the day of reckoning is delayed in the hope for some miracle.
What are their choices? They can simply default on the debt. Stop making any payments. That means they cannot borrow any money, but it would go along way toward balancing the government budget. Government employees would need to take large pay cuts and there would be other large cuts in services. It would be a depression, but you work your way out of it. You are still in the euro and need to figure out how to become more competitive.
Or, you could take the austerity, downsize your labor costs and borrow more money which means even larger debt service in a few years. Private citizens can go into more debt. (Remember, we have to have our balance!) This is also a depression.
Finally, you could leave the euro and devalue like Britain is going to do. Very ugly scenario, as contracts are in euros. The legal bills would go forever.
There are no good choices for the Greeks. No easy way. And then you wonder why people worry about contagion to Portugal and Spain?
I see that hand asking a question. Since the euro is falling won't that make Greece more competitive? The answer is yes and no. Yes, relative to the dollar and a lot of emerging market currencies. No to the rest of Europe, which are their main trade partners. A falling euro just makes economic export power Germany and the other northern countries even more competitive.
Europe as a whole has a small trade surplus. But the bulk of it comes from a few countries. For Greece to reduce their trade deficit is a very large life style change.
Germany is basically saying you should be like us. And everyone wants to be. Just not everyone can.
Every country cannot run a trade surplus. Someone has to buy. But the prescription that politicians want is for fiscal austerity and trade surpluses, at least for European countries. But if the PIIGS reduce their trade deficits, that will not be good for Germany.
Yet politicians want to believe that somehow we all can run surpluses, at least in their country. We can balance the budgets. We can reduce our debts. We all want to believe in that mythical Lake Woebegone, where all the kids are above average. Sadly, it just isn't possible for everyone to have a happy ending.
And this brings us to a last quick point, which some day will be its own letter. Every country wants it currency to be valued "fairly" which means lower than its competitors. With both Europe and Britain on their way to parity with the US dollar, what will be the reaction of Asia and especially China?
As Ollie said to Stan (Laurel and Hardy), "Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" A nice mess indeed.
Should the US Bail Out European Banks?
The obvious answer to the above question, at least on this side of the Atlantic, is no. But that is the plan being foisted on US tax-payers by the International Monetary Fund. The IMF wants to create a $250 billion dollar bailout fund for Greece, Portugal, et al that the US will contribute roughly 20% to. This fund will loan money and that IMG debt will be subordinate (junior!) to regular Greek debt, so when Greece does default, and they will, the IMF is the last in line to get paid.
Where will the money go? It will buy mostly Greek rollover debt from European banks getting out of their Greek debt. It is a back door bailout for German and French banks. The US Senate voted 94-0 that the US should not fund any such debt if the Treasury cannot certify the probability of getting repayment. If the Obama administration allows this funding to go through, the hue and cry will be large. It is bad enough that we have to pay for Freddie and Fannie (already $400 billion and counting!). Not meaning to be churlish, but the French and Germans can bail out their own banks.
Se pensate che siano solo gli americani a essere pessimisti potete leggere l'ultimo editoriale di Martin Wolf: dopo la cicala e la formica di un paio di giorni fa è il momento di Father and son:
What triggered this aftershock was the revelation that Greece had lied about its fiscal position, followed by the inability of the eurozone to respond: Germans were outraged at the idea that they should rescue irresponsible profligates; others thought the Germans inflexible bullies. So the Europeans made the same mistake as the Americans had made when responding to financial worries: they let the crisis get ahead of them.”
“But they bailed out Greece,” said the boy. “So why all the turbulence?”
“The big point is that investors are not altogether stupid: they know these are temporary patches; they know Greek indebtedness is going to worsen; they know that other countries in peripheral Europe will find it hard to grow out of their plight; they know that solidarity among eurozone member countries is fraying; they knowGermans are very angry; and they know that inadequately capitalised banks are vulnerable to sovereign risks. All this makes the euro seem a worse bet. So it has fallen in value.”
“I understand that,” replied Bobby. “But won’t that help the eurozone?”
“Yes,” agreed his father. “But it will worsen prospects elsewhere – in the UK and US, for example. And then there’s the worry that these countries have huge fiscal difficulties, too. The markets don’t seem to mind now. But they might change their view. Worse, they don’t know what to fear: will it end up in deflation, default, inflation, financial shocks, or all of these? Markets are unpredictable, like children.”
Bobby decided not to respond to this teasing. “So,” he asked thoughtfully, “what’s going to happen next?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be a mere economic journalist,” his father said.
Bobby smiled: a familiar remark.
His father did not notice. “Maybe, the momentum gained by the US and the big emerging markets, especially China, will let the world ride through the shocks. The OECD calls the outlook ‘moderately encouraging’.
“Alternatively, you could argue that the massive fiscal deficits are unsustainable and that attempts to rein them in, in the eurozone and UK, are going to cause renewed recession and political strife. We have also barely begun reducing private debts, which will take years. The banks are far too big and have too many doubtful assets on their books. Meanwhile, emerging countries are too small and weak to be locomotives for the world. Some people worry that China is overheating or suffering from huge asset price bubbles, too, though I disagree. And then there is geopolitical uncertainty over North Korea and Iran. In short, markets are volatile because of all the uncertainty out there.”
Bobby was beginning to find this familiar: his father tended to see the gloomy side. But he could be wrong, as his mother enjoyed pointing out.
“Anyway,” concluded his father, “these aftershocks are likely to go on for years, with fiscal worries undermining confidence in the financial sector and back again. It will affect you, too: western governments are going to be short of money for decades. It’s going to be miserable. But you can learn Chinese and go east.”
Bobby groaned. It sounded like hard work. But he went off quietly to bed. What nightmares disturbed him?
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