Italia vs Germania

Sembrerebbe quasi uno scontro da Campionato del Mondo, ma in realtà rischia di essere una partita senza vincitori. Le regole imposte dalla Germania - all'Italia, a tutti i PIIGS - e gli elettori che non ci stanno. Dopo "solo" due anni di crisi, in Grecia hanno dovuto mettere insieme di tutto e di più (ladri, evasori, bancarottieri, falsari tutti i partiti compartecipi del disastro) per non far vincere l'anti-tedesco Syriza. Ed in Italia c'è ormai una solida maggioranza anti-euro, guidata da Grillo e Berlusconi. Per un paese che è sempre stato in prima fila tra gli europeisti, davvero un bel risultato. Prima che tutto imploda - molto presto, a questo ritmo - bisognerà chiedersi come mai? L'articolo di seguito, preso tradotto da Keynesblog, è di Wolfgang Munchau ed è apparso originalmente su Der Spiegel.

“La Merkel ha perso le elezioni italiane e la sinistra non ha capito nulla”   

di Wofgang Munchau

da Der Spiegel

I grandi sconfitti nelle elezioni italiane non sono Mario Monti né Pier Luigi Bersani, ma Angela Merkel: se la crisi Euro è ancora qui, la colpa è solo sua. La sua politica anticrisi ci sta portando verso il disastro.

Angela Merkel è la vera perdente nelle elezioni italiane. Quanto la sua Euro-politica sia sbagliata, nei giorni scorsi è diventato chiaro a tutti. Mi aspetto che questa strada ci porti al disastro.

La sua politica consisteva nel tentare di risolvere la crisi debitoria e di competitività nei paesi del sud Europa con un processo di aggiustamento unilaterale. Grecia, Portogallo, Spagna e Italia, attraverso una politica di austerità garantiscono il rimborso del debito, e spingono verso una politica di riduzione salariale nel settore pubblico che si propaga verso il resto dell’economia. In questo modo si pensava di prendere 2 piccioni con una fava. La speranza era che dopo uno schock breve e acuto, i debiti e i livelli salariali sarebbero tornati in equilibrio. Davvero intelligente, oppure no?

Nei sogni. Né l’economia, né la politica funzionano nel modo in cui ci si immagina in Germania. Economicamente è stata un’analisi molto superficiale, senza considerare le conseguenze devastanti sull’economia complessiva.

L’Italia si trova in una recessione che si autoalimenta: le banche non danno credito perché non vedono nessuna ripresa, e la ripresa non arriva perché le banche non danno credito. Le imprese nel frattempo pagano interessi del 10 %. Non c’è da meravigliarsi se non investono e se l’economia si contrae. Poiché il PIL è il denominatore nel livello di indebitamento, questo cresce automaticamente quando l’economia si contrae. Cio’ significa che il livello di indebitamento continua a salire, sebbene i debiti non crescano. E’ chiamata anche trappola del debito. Non se ne esce senza l’aiuto esterno. E piu’ ci si dimena, piu’ si scivola in profondità.

L’Italia interromperà la politica di austerità

Le conseguenze politiche le abbiamo vissute in diretta questa settimana. Beppe Grillo con il suo movimento anti-Euro oggi è il piu’ grande partito del paese. Insieme a Silvio Berlusconi ha condotto e vinto una campagna contro l’Euro e contro Merkel. Non importa quello che succederà politicamente, l’Italia arresterà la sua politica di austerità. Come potrebbe andare diversamente da un punto vista politico? In questo modo viene meno per l’Italia la possibilità di trovare protezione sotto il fondo di salvataggio. Perché l’ESM come condizione imporrebbe ulteriori risparmi. Se in quel momento si dovesse andare alle elezioni, il “Movimento 5 Stelle” di Grillo avrebbe allora la maggioranza assoluta.

Mario Monti è la figura piu’ tragica nel dopo elezioni. Il suo errore piu’ grande è stato l’accettazione in  maniera acritica delle politiche merkeliane. Avrebbe dovuto insistere su un fondo comune europeo per il rimborso del debito e su di una europeizzazione completa delle banche, compresi i debiti pregressi. E avrebbe dovuto minacciare: in caso diverso, l’Italia è pronta a lasciare l’Euro. Merkel tuttavia sapeva che l’ex commissario europeo, al contrario di Berlusconi, non sarebbe mai andato tanto lontano. E cosi’ è stata capace di imporsi tatticamente. Ma non è stata capace di risolvere il problema della crisi. Al contrario.

La rabbia della folla presto toccherà anche il Portogallo e la Spagna.

Da un punto di vista economico il problema italiano puo’ essere compreso attraverso un confronto con il Gold standard durante la grande depressione. L’Euro oggi ha il ruolo che allora aveva l’oro, quello di un tasso di cambio fisso. Anche allora gli economisti conservatori sostenevano che i paesi nel gold standard si sarebbero riallineati attraverso aggiustamenti nell’economia reale – al posto dei tassi di cambio, sostituiti da un aggancio permanente all’oro. L’unica via di uscita dalla grande depressione fu l’abbandono del sistema basato sull’oro. In America avvenne nel 1933, in Francia rimase fino al 1936 – con conseguenze economiche disastrose.

Io credo che in Europa avremo un percorso simile. Per mantenere l’Euro sono necessari trasferimenti e aggiustamenti su entrambi i lati, per i quali sia nel sud che nel nord Europa non c’è la maggioranza necessaria. Le politiche di austerità costituivano l’ultima possibilità in questo senso. La rabbia del popolo ha raggiunto l’Italia, e presto o tardi toccherà anche la Spagna e il Portogallo. Anche in Francia ci sono segnali in questa direzione. I greci in questo momento sono un po’ storditi, ma anche li’ la strategia dell’aggiustamento non sta funzionando politicamente – nemmeno dopo sei anni di recessione.

Quello che Merkel probabilmente riuscirà a salvare politicamente in Germania, è l’incapacità dei suoi avversari politici di smascherare questa strategia. Del resto sono molto impegnati a sprecare il loro capitale politico nella relativamente poco importante questione degli aiuti finanziari a Cipro.

La dichiarazione poco diplomatica di Peer Steinbrück sui due clown italiani distrae dal fatto che il vero problema non sono Grillo e Berlusconi, piuttosto la sua avversaria politica. Steinbrück aveva la possibilità di attaccarla politicamente e invece fa un altro passo falso che lo allontana dalla questione centrale. La sola consolazione è che Merkel dovrà farsi carico delle conseguenze di una crisi che lei stessa ha creato. La combinazione delle sue politiche e del risultato elettorale italiano hanno drasticamente aumentato le possibilità di un crollo dell’Euro.


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Krugman e il disastro di Monti

Forse, invece di suicidarsi sostenendo Monti e il disastroso programma di austerity, bastava leggere Krugman che qualcosa di economia e di crisi finanziarie ne capisce. Peccato che ci si sia fatti incastrare in una situazione assurda che ha portato alla sconfitta politica della sinistra, alla rinascita di Berlusconi, alla vittoria di Grillo. Impareremo, impareranno mai?

Austerity, Italian-style

di Paul Krugman
da New York Times

Two months ago, when Mario Monti stepped down as Italy's prime minister, The Economist opined that "The coming election campaign will be, above all, a test of the maturity and realism of Italian voters." The mature, realistic action, presumably, would have been to return Monti -- who was essentially imposed on Italy by its creditors -- to office, this time with an actual democratic mandate.
Well, it's not looking good. Monti's party appears likely to come in fourth; not only is he running well behind the essentially comical Silvio Berlusconi, he's running behind an actual comedian, Beppe Grillo, whose lack of a coherent platform hasn't stopped him from becoming a powerful political force.
It's an extraordinary prospect, and one that has sparked much commentary about Italian political culture. But without trying to defend the politics of bunga bunga, let me ask the obvious question: What good, exactly, has what currently passes for mature realism done in Italy or for that matter Europe as a whole?
For Monti was, in effect, the proconsul installed by Germany to enforce fiscal austerity on an already ailing economy; willingness to pursue austerity without limit is what defines respectability in European policy circles. This would be fine if austerity policies actually worked -- but they don't. And far from seeming either mature or realistic, the advocates of austerity are sounding increasingly petulant and delusional.
Consider how things were supposed to be working at this point. When Europe began its infatuation with austerity, top officials dismissed concerns that slashing spending and raising taxes in depressed economies might deepen their depressions. On the contrary, they insisted, such policies would actually boost economies by inspiring confidence.
But the confidence fairy was a no-show. Nations imposing harsh austerity suffered deep economic downturns; the harsher the austerity, the deeper the downturn. Indeed, this relationship has been so strong that the International Monetary Fund, in a striking mea culpa, admitted that it had underestimated the damage austerity would inflict.
Meanwhile, austerity hasn't even achieved the minimal goal of reducing debt burdens. Instead, countries pursuing harsh austerity have seen the ratio of debt to GDP rise, because the shrinkage in their economies has outpaced any reduction in the rate of borrowing. And because austerity policies haven't been offset by expansionary policies elsewhere, the European economy as a whole -- which never had much of a recovery from the slump of 2008-09 -- is back in recession, with unemployment marching ever higher.
The one piece of good news is that bond markets have calmed down, largely thanks to the stated willingness of the European Central Bank to step in and buy government debt when necessary. As a result, a financial meltdown that could have destroyed the euro has been avoided. But that's cold comfort to the millions of Europeans who have lost their jobs and see little prospect of ever getting them back.
Given all of this, one might have expected some reconsideration and soul-searching on the part of European officials, some hints of flexibility. Instead, however, top officials have become even more insistent that austerity is the one true path.
Thus in January 2011 Olli Rehn, a vice president of the European Commission, praised the austerity programs of Greece, Spain, and Portugal and predicted that the Greek program in particular would yield "lasting returns." Since then unemployment has soared in all three countries -- but sure enough, in December 2012, Rehn published an op-ed article with the headline "Europe must stay the austerity course."
Oh, and Rehn's response to studies showing that the adverse effects of austerity are much bigger than expected was to send a letter to finance minsters and the IMF declaring that such studies were harmful, because they were threatening to erode confidence.
Which brings me back to Italy, a nation that for all its dysfunction has in fact dutifully imposed substantial austerity -- and seen its economy shrink rapidly as a result.
Outside observers are terrified about Italy's election, and rightly so: Even if the nightmare of a Berlusconi return to power fails to materialize, a strong showing by Berlusconi, Grillo or both would destabilize not just Italy but Europe as a whole. But remember, Italy isn't unique: disreputable politicians are on the rise all across Southern Europe. And the reason this is happening is that respectable Europeans won't admit that the policies they have imposed on debtors are a disastrous failure. If that doesn't change, the Italian election will be just a foretaste of the dangerous radicalization to come.


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Le riforme, l'austerity e le elezioni italiane

Wolfgang Munchau  è da tempo uno strenuo oppositore dell'austerity. In questo articolo spiega cosa siano e non siano le riforme di cui tanto si parla - controriforme, come si capisce bene dall'incipit - e cosa sia l'austerity - un programma economico di tagli e tasse che colpisce sempre i più poveri. Da qui la facile previsione - fatta qualche giorno prima delle elezioni - di una sonora batosta per i partiti pro-austerity. Ed infatti.....

Austerity obstructs real economic reform

di Wolfgang Munchau

da Financial Times

In Europe, the word “reform” is as misleading as it is ubiquitous. You heard it during the Italian election campaign, when politicians – such as Mario Monti, the country’s outgoing prime minister – were classified as pro-reform. Others, the rest of Italy’s political class, have been deemed anti-reform. It is as though reform has become an issue of religious dogma. You are either in or you are out.
In or out of exactly what, one may ask? What, exactly, is reform? Growing up in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s, I recall Willy Brandt, West Germany’s chancellor during some of those years, talking endlessly about reforms. For him, the word meant more workers’ rights and an increase in welfare payments. This has always been the meaning I first think of when I hear it.
A decade later, in the UK under Margaret (now Lady) Thatcher, reform became synonymous with privatisation and deregulation, and a reduction in the rights of trade unions. This is closer to the meaning that it holds for most people today.
There is certainly a clear, positive – though often overstated – case for structural changes such as the liberalisation of services, changes to labour markets to help younger workers and pension reforms to ensure long-term fiscal solvency. These reforms would probably increase the gross domestic product of several countries by a non-trivial but unknown amount.
A former editor of The Economist used to advise young reporters to “simplify, then exaggerate”. This is exactly what happened to the debate on reform in Europe. You might want to add “distort” as a third element. The simplification consisted of the notion that there is a link between some vague idea of reform and economic success, as measured in GDP per capita. No such link exists.
The richest countries in the world include those with both liberal and regulated labour markets. Per capita GDP in the highly regulated French economy has been higher than in the deregulated UK. The relatively solid performance of a largely unreformed France does not obviate the need for reforms. But it shows that the relationship is much more subtle than the dogmatists acknowledge.
The exaggeration consists of overstating the actual impact of reforms when they take place. Has financial liberalisation really increased long-run economic growth, or may it merely have given us a housing bubble? Has German labour market reform really increased long-term productivity or were other factors at work?
This distortion has become even worse recently, as reform has been conflated with austerity. Whenever you hear a European official applauding Mr Monti’s “reforms”, what they are really praising is his fiscal consolidation. In other words, they applaud the many of his policies that reduced economic growth, and not the few that might have a chance to increase it one day.
Austerity and reform are the opposite of each other. If you are serious about structural reform, it will cost you upfront money. If you want to open your labour market to a hire-and-fire rule, you will need policies to deal with those who are laid off. These costs may outweigh the financial benefits of reforms in the short term but the reforms may still pay off in the long run. Structural reforms, properly done, are not suited to the task of delivering austerity.
By contrast, 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 so-called “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.
By putting fiscal consolidation first, the political establishment also took a big gamble against what we know from history. A senior Italian official told me a while back that they had the situation under control. There would be a slight bump but the economy would take off afterwards. He was wrong. As last week’s European Commission forecasts confirm, the southern European economies are behaving as was predicted by those who thought austerity would sap growth and using monetary policy to offset it would be ineffective.
I am not surprised that European electorates are rejecting these policies, and the politicians who delivered them. On Monday we will know how Italy has voted. My hunch is that it is not going to be a good evening for the “Austerians”.

fonte: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/888950de-7c54-11e2-99f0-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2M95IhJkS


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Il disastroso bilancio dell'Austerity

Ormai il Financial Times è diventato il bastione del socialismo. O solo della ragionevolezza. Sia Wolf che Munchau, i due maggiori opinionisti economici, sono estremamente scettici sull'austerità, sulla UE, sul ruolo della Germania. Semplicemente hanno guardato ai risultati ottenuti, hanno fatto due conti e spiegato perché le cose non funzionano.

The sad record of fiscal austerity

di Martin Wolf
da Financial Times


At the Toronto summit of the Group of 20 leading economies in June 2010, high-income countries turned to fiscal austerity. The emerging sovereign debt crises in Greece, Ireland and Portugal were one of the reasons for this. Policy makers were terrified by the risk that their countries would turn into Greece. The G20 communiqué was specific: “Advanced economies have committed to fiscal plans that will at least halve deficits by 2013 and stabilise or reduce government debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016.” Was this both necessary and wise? No.
The eurozone was at the centre of the sovereign debt crisis frightening the world. Rapid fiscal tightening was judged essential for troubled governments. That view, in turn, persuaded those not yet subject to market pressure to tighten pre-emptively. That was very much the position of the UK’s coalition government. The idea that being Greece was around the corner gained traction in the US, too, notably among Republicans. Today’s battle over sequestration is partly a product of that concern.

A leading and, in my view, persuasive proponent of a contrary view is the Belgian economist, Paul de Grauwe, now at the LSE. He has argued that eurozone countries’ debt crises resulted from European Central Bank policy failures. Because of its refusal to act as lender of last resort to governments, they suffered liquidity risk – borrowing costs rose because buyers of bonds lacked confidence they would be able to resell easily at all times. That, not insolvency, was the immediate peril.
Today, argues Professor de Grauwe in a co-authored paper, the decision in principle of the ECB to buy up the debt of governments in trouble, through the so-called “outright monetary transactions” (OMT), allows one to test his hypothesis. He notes that the chief determinant of the reduction in spreads over German Bunds since the second quarter of 2012, when OMT was announced, was the initial spread (see charts). In brief, “the decline in the spreads was strongest in the countries where the fear factor had been the strongest”.
What role did the fundamentals play? After all, nobody doubts that some countries, notably Greece, had and have a dreadful fiscal position. One such fundamental is the change in the ratio of debt to gross domestic product. The paper makes three important observations. First, the ratio of debt to GDP increased in all countries even after the ECB announcement. Second, the change in this ratio turned out to be a poor predictor of declines in spreads. Finally, the spreads determined the austerity borne by countries. Paul Krugman of The New York Times adds an extra point: austerity was costly for the afflicted economies: the greater the tightening between 2009 and 2012, according to the International Monetary Fund, the bigger the fall in output (see charts).
By adopting OMT earlier, the ECB could have prevented the panic that drove the spreads that justified the austerity. It did not do so. Tens of millions of people are suffering unnecessary hardship. It is tragic.
Nevertheless, I can see two arguments for the ECB’s behaviour. The first is that help could only follow a demonstrated willingness to embrace austerity. Second, as the latest European Economic Advisory Group report rightly notes, the real problems have been destabilising capital flows, external imbalances and worsening competitiveness, not fiscal deficits. But one can justify fiscal austerity, brutal though it is, as the only way to force adjustments of relative costs and the needed labour market reforms. My colleague, Wolfgang Münchau, argues that the opposite is true. But I wonder whether the eurozone will survive its cure. Countries in the core would be better off themselves if they gave the weaker more time to adjust.
Countries outside the eurozone have been in a very different position. They had no need to fear the rising spreads of eurozone members because they did not face similar liquidity problems. To a first approximation, the yield on UK or US sovereign bonds should reflect expected future short-term rates of interest, with a small risk premium, since outright default is inconceivable. The widely held view that yields could soar is a bet on a surge in inflation. While inflation has been stickier than many expected, such a surge seems unlikely. Monetarists can note that the growth of broad measures of the money supply is low. Keynesians can note the excess savings of the private sector. Neither points to rising inflationary pressure.
Thus the panic that justified the UK coalition government’s turn to a long-term programme of austerity was a mistake. Had its members never heard of the paradox of thrift? If the domestic private and external sectors are retrenching, the public sector cannot expect to succeed in doing so, however hard it tries, unless it is willing to drive the economy into a far bigger slump. While short-term factors have played a real part, it is not surprising that the UK’s recovery has stalled and the deficit is so persistent. It is consequently also not surprising that downgrades are on the way, not that these tell one anything very useful in the case of an issuer with access to its own money-printing machine.
As Oxford university’s Simon Wren Lewis notes, “after the panic of 2010 was over, when it became clear that the debt crisis was really a eurozone crisis and UK long-term interest rates declined with the fortunes of the economy, we should have had a major change of policy”.
What would that change of policy consist of? The answer is simple. First, serious attention needs to be paid to why the UK non-financial corporate sector is running what seem to be structural financial surpluses, as Andrew Smithers of London-based economic advisers Smithers & Co points out. Second, the austerity on current spending needs to be made explicitly contingent on the economy: more when the economy grows faster and less when the economy grows more slowly. Third, every effort must be made to accelerate any structural reforms that might encourage higher investment by the private sector. Fourth, the banking sector must come clean on losses and accept needed recapitalisation so that it starts lending again. Finally, the government must recognise that current rates of interest provide a once in a lifetime opportunity for higher public investment.
In the long run, the fiscal deficit must close. In the short run, the UK has the chance to push growth. It should take it. So should the US.

fonte: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/73219452-7f49-11e2-89ed-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2M95IhJkS

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Percepire la crisi a Torino di Adriana Re

Torino è sempre stata più una cittadina di provincia che una vera Metropoli; le Olimpiadi invernali le avevano dato un po’ di lustro e a noi pareva che fosse la strada giusta per dare nuovi input alla città  dopo la chiusura di molte fabbriche, del Lingotto e del suo indotto. Così non è stato. La crisi mondiale, la recessione, le scelte scellerate dei nostri governi hanno penalizzato una città già in sofferenza. I segnali si erano già visti in autunno quando la gente passeggiava per le strade del centro, ma i negozi  erano vuoti. Negli anni precedenti era naturale prima di Natale fare la coda per acquistare un qualsiasi oggetto, sgomitare e litigare per farsi servire dalle commesse. Quest’anno ovunque si andasse la stessa desolazione! Alla vigilia di Natale negozi con pochissimi acquirenti o addirittura vuoti, a nulla servivano le luci e gli addobbi colorati. I commercianti confidarono allora nei saldi pensando, come negli anni passati, di smaltire le giacenze e rientrare dalle spese. Pia illusione! Ancora in questi giorni, ormai di marzo, dopo due mesi di saldi, se giri per il centro città vedi vetrine con grossi cartelli proponenti sconti megagalattici,ma ugualmente  piene di merci invendute. Fa freddo è vero, ma la gente non si ferma nemmeno a guardare le invitanti promozioni. C’è aria di desolazione, di sfiducia. È un gatto che si morde la coda. In periferia molti negozi hanno già chiuso, ma anche negozi storici del cento città hanno chiuso o stanno per farlo. Ormai non si acquista più il superfluo ma nemmeno il necessario. Non si segue più la moda, pochi sono i capi firmati, si cerca di mantenere un minimo di decoro con minima spesa. Come in Grecia vedi  vetrine coperte dalla carta e con il cartello “affittasi” perché anche gli immobili ormai non li compera più nessuno. La grande distribuzione non va meglio! Non ci sono più grandi code alle casse, i carrelli sono semivuoti, hanno pochi prodotti e spesso solo quelli in offerta. I discount acquisiscono sempre nuovi clienti che a poco a poco hanno  modificato le loro abitudini e consumi. Qualcuno tempo fa disse che i ristoranti erano stracolmi e l’economia girava alla grande... Sicuramente vivendo a palazzo come il Re Sole, si fidava di quanto gli confidavano i suoi servitori. Ma ormai ..”il Re è Nudo “ e tutti ne siamo amaramente consapevoli!  

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