mmt analysis of euro crisis worth reading<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Dante-Gabryell Monson</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dante.monson@gmail.com">dante.monson@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 5:21 PM<br>Subject: Fwd: why the Euro is still strong despite 'on the brink' (supposedly)<br>To: <a href="mailto:econowmix@googlegroups.com">econowmix@googlegroups.com</a><br><br><br><div>
Article :</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/05/there-will-be-blood-2/" target="_blank">http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/05/there-will-be-blood-2/</a></div><div><br></div>excerpts ( article copied below ) :<div>
<br><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><i><b>"in this case the ECB support comes only with reduced spending via its imposition of fiscal austerity."</b></i></span><div>
<font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><i><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif">"</font><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">banks cannot lend out reserves, so increasing reserves in the banking system is NOT inflationary per se, as the Weimar hyperinflation hyperventilators continue to warn us."</span></i></div>
<div><i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></span></i></div><div><i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So the grand irony of the day remains this: while there is nothing the ECB can do to cause monetary inflation, even if it wanted to, the ECB, fearing inflation, holds back on the bond buying that would eliminate the national govt. solvency risk but not halt the deflationary monetary forces currently in place."</span></i></div>
<div><i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></span></i></div><div><div><b>//</b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div><b>Dante Personal Note :</b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div><b>I do not necessarily back what is said in this article.</b></div>
<div><b>( an article which puts pressure and�disapproves�of Germany's current approach, and raises fears of "Blood on the streets" )</b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div><b>While I may not necessarily agree with the author on the policies,</b></div>
<div><b>Nevertheless, it raises questions again.</b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div><b>What exactly do they want to create ? Deflation ?�</b></div><div><b>Why not let them ( banks and nations ) go into�bankruptcy ( and leave the Eurozone ) ?... ( as�happened�to in Iceland recently ? Or to Argentina a decade ago )</b></div>
<div><b><br></b></div><div><b>... Do they do all this merely to protect the assets of the "1%" ?</b></div><div><div><b>... and to strengthen�artificial scarcity ?</b></div><div><b>... through austerity ?</b></div>
<div><b><br></b></div><div><b>Sustain Shock Therapy to modify policies and sell off public assets ?</b></div><div><b>Who's interests do they ( the central bankers and heads of state ) defend ?</b></div></div><div><b><br>
</b></div><div><div><b>Or why not, as explaned below ( if as mentionned in the article, secondary markets are not inflationary ??? + reserves not lended out by banks ), enable the ECB to buy bonds directly ?</b></div><div>
<b>Why create even further government supported debt ? ( albeit european )</b></div></div><div><b>... to centralize power at a european level ? To enable plutocrats to grapple on national democratic sovereignty ?</b></div>
</div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Dirk B</b><br>Date: Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 10:12 AM<br>Subject: [gang8] why the Euro is still strong despite 'on the brink' (supposedly)<br>
To: <a href="mailto:gang8@yahoogroups.com" target="_blank">gang8@yahoogroups.com</a><br><br><br>
<u></u>
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
<span>�</span>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p>
Here is a good piece by Marshall Auerback on why the Euro is still
strong despite 'on the brink' (supposedly).<br>
<br>
It (again) puts the argument about QE that reserves are not money,
aparently also made in the BIS, and of course by Geoffrey and me<font>
in</font><br>
<br>
See<br>
<br>
<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1687750" target="_blank">http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1687750</a><br>
<br>
Dirk<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
December 05, 2011 <br>
3The Costs of the ECB�s Poker Game <br>
There Will Be Blood<br>
by MARSHALL AUERBACK<br>
Another week to go before the euro blows up, or so we�re told again
for the thousandth time. More likely is that the ECB does barely
enough to keep the show on the road, fiscal austerity continues and
riots intensify on the streets of Madrid, Athens, Rome and Paris.�
Like the film, �there will be blood� before there is any likely
change toward a sensible growth-oriented policy in the euro zone.<br>
<br>
Given the travails of the euro zone, why has the euro remained
relatively robust?� Surely, a currency that is supposedly within
weeks of vanishing should be trading closer to parity with the
dollar?� Yet one continues to be struck by the divergence of opinion
and actual market action.� For all the talk about the euro possibly
vaporizing by Christmas, it is striking that it remains stubbornly
stable at around $1.34 to the dollar, substantially above the low of
$1.20, which was reached in May 2010 (when predictions of parity
with the dollar were rampant).<br>
<br>
By the same token, we have a paradox on the other side as well:�
every time it appears as if a solution to the problems posed by the
euro look to be close to resolution, the euro strengthens. Perhaps
this isn�t so odd, except that the solution that virtually everybody
agrees will work � namely, a sustained bond-buying operation taken
up by the European Central Bank (ECB) � is said to represent a form
of �quantitative easing� and aren�t we always told that �QE�
represents �printing money�, which should cause a currency to go
down?� Isn�t that what all of the opponents of the Fed�s program
last year were asserting?<br>
<br>
Of course, in the case of the European Monetary Union, ECB President
Mario Draghi insists that such bond buying will not take place in
the absence of proper �sequencing�, by which he means agreed fiscal
austerity first, bond buying afterward.� The effect of the former
will negate any potential impact of the latter, since the �inflation
channel� (to the extent that inflation occurs at all) can only come
through fiscal policy.� And certainly, in the teeth of a severe
recession, such cuts as those proposed by the client state
governments of Italy and Greece (along with a renewed assault by
President Sarkozy on the French welfare state) will almost certainly
exacerbate the profoundly deflationary pressures now operating in
the eurozone.� Ultimately, this will surely have the result of
creating substantially more social instability and bloodshed, but it
might have little impact on the euro itself.<br>
<br>
So what is actually happening to the euro? Let�s take a step back
from the panic talk. The most recent data from the COMEX suggests
that speculators are heavily short on the euro and yet the currency
has fallen less than 10 per cent from its recent highs.�� The
question one might legitimately pose is:� at what point does the
current fiscal austerity produce higher deficits, which in theory
should produce a weaker euro (as the euros become �easier to get�)?<br>
<br>
I have been wrestling with this issue, and keep getting back to a
strong currency, even with increased fiscal deficits. Why?<br>
<br>
For one, the ECB�s bond purchases in the secondary market are
operationally sustainable and non-inflationary.� When the ECB
undertakes its bond buying operation, the ECB debt purchases merely
shift net financial assets held by the �economy� from national
government liabilities to ECB liabilities in the form of clearing
balances at the ECB.� At the same time, so-called PIIGS government
liabilities shift from �the economy� to the ECB.� Note: this process
does not alter any �flows� or �net stocks of euros in the real
economy.<br>
<br>
As long as the ECB imposes austerity terms and conditions, the bond
buying will not be inflationary. Inflation from this channel comes
from spending.� However, in this case the ECB support comes only
with reduced spending via its imposition of fiscal austerity.��
Draghi has now made this explicit and it is almost certainly the
German quid pro quo for tacitly supporting a proposed expansion of
the Secondary Market Program (SMP).� And reduced spending means
reduced aggregate demand, which therefore means reduced inflation
and a stronger currency.�� We also know from an authority no less
than the Bank of International Settlements (ironically, the same
initials as �blood in streets�) that banks cannot lend out reserves,
so increasing reserves in the banking system is NOT inflationary per
se, as the Weimar hyperinflation hyperventilators continue to warn
us.<br>
<br>
Now consider the trade channel: despite today�s rapidly weakening
economy (Europe is almost certainly in recession today),� we are not
seeing much deterioration in the euro zone�s current account
deficit. The Eurozone, in fact, seems to be a pretty self-contained,
and somewhat mercantilist economy, which displays far less
proclivity to import when the economy slides. So even though imports
go down, so too do trade deficits, due to falling demand. Exports
don�t fall and may in fact go up in this kind of environment.<br>
<br>
So that�s euro friendly.<br>
<br>
As far as what happens if the ECB were to expand significantly its
bond buying program in the secondary market, the notion that the
euro would fall is akin to the reasoning that the dollar would
collapse if it engaged in QE2. And if what is called quantitative
easing was inflationary, Japan would be hyperinflating by now, with
the US not far behind.<br>
<br>
There is NO sign that the ECB�s buying of euro denominated
government bonds has resulted in any kind of monetary inflation, as
nothing but deflationary pressures continue to mount in that ongoing
debt implosion. The reason there is no inflation from the ECB bond
buying is because all it does is shift investor holdings from
national govt. debt to ECB balances, which changes nothing in the
real economy.<br>
<br>
But the question which persistently arises when one advocates a
larger institutional role for the ECB is� whether the ECB�s balance
sheet would be impaired, and the MMT contention has long been NO,
because if the ECB bought the bonds then, by definition, the
�profligates� do not default. In fact, as the monopoly provider of
the euro, the ECB could easily set the rate at which it buys the
bonds (say, 4% for Italy) and eventually it would replenish its
capital via the profits it would receive from buying the distressed
debt (not that the ECB requires capital in an operational sense; as
usual with the euro zone, this is a political issue). At some point,
Professor Paul de Grauwe is right :� convinced that the ECB was
serious about resolving the solvency issue, the markets would begin
to buy the bonds again and effectively do the ECB�s heavy lifting
for them. The bonds would not be trading at these distressed levels
if not for the solvency issue, which the ECB can easily address if
it chooses to do so.� But this is a question of political will, not
operational �sustainability�.<br>
<br>
So the grand irony of the day remains this: while there is nothing
the ECB can do to cause monetary inflation, even if it wanted to,
the ECB, fearing inflation, holds back on the bond buying that would
eliminate the national govt. solvency risk but not halt the
deflationary monetary forces currently in place.<br>
<br>
Okay, so who takes the losses?� Well, presuming the bonds don�t
mature at par, no question that a private bank which sells a bond at
today�s distressed levels might well take a loss and if the losses
are big enough, then banks in this position might well need a
recapitalization program.. And in this scenario Germany too could
take a hit, as does every other national government as they use
national fiscal resources to recapitalize. And the hit will get
bigger the longer the Germans continue to push this crisis to the
brink.<br>
<br>
But that is a separate issue from the question of whether the bond
buying program per se will pose a threat to the ECB�s balance sheet.
It will not:� a big income transfer from the private bond holders
who sell to the ECB, which can build up its capital base via the
profits it makes on purchasing these distressed bonds.� So again,
the notion of an ECB being capital constrained is insane.<br>
<br>
By contrast, the status quo is a loser for everybody, including
Germany.� A broader ECB role as lender of last resort of the kind
the Germans are still publicly resisting, along with their unhelpful
talk of haircuts and greater private sector losses, actually do MUCH
MORE to wreck Germany�s credit position than the policy measures
which virtually everybody else in Europe is recommending.� Why would
any private bondholder with a modicum of fiduciary responsibility
buy a European bond, knowing that the rules of the game have changed
and that the private buyer could find himself/herself with losses
being unilaterally imposed?� The good news is that there finally
appears to be some recognition of the dangers of this approach.� Per
the Wall Street Journal �<br>
<br>
�Ms. Merkel signalled on Friday that she is having second thoughts
about the wisdom of emphasizing bondholder losses: �We have a draft
for the ESM, which must be changed in the light of developments� in
financial markets since the Greek-restructuring decision in July,
she said after meeting Austria�s chancellor in Berlin.<br>
<br>
Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter, speaking at a conference in
Hamburg on Friday, was more direct. �Trust in government treasuries
was so thoroughly destroyed by involving private sector investors in
the debt relief that you have to wonder why anyone still buys
government bonds at all,� Ms. Fekter said.�<br>
<br>
There are other issues which are making Germany�s position
increasingly untenable, notably on the political front, in
particular the mounting strains between France and Germany.� Wolf
Richter notes that virtually every leading candidate in the French
Presidential campaign envisages a much more aggressive role for the
ECB going forward.� If Chancellor Merkel thinks she�s going to have
a tough time now, wait until she is potentially dealing with
Francois Hollande, the French Socialist Presidential candidate, who
is now ahead in all of the polls, and who advocates with a
five-point plan which is anathema to Germany�s governing coalition:<br>
<br>
Expand to the greatest extent possible the European bailout fund
(EFSF)<br>
Issue Eurobonds and spread national liabilities across all Eurozone
countries<br>
Get the ECB to play an �active role,� i.e. buy Eurozone sovereign
debt.<br>
Institute a financial transaction tax<br>
Launch growth initiatives instead of austerity measures.<br>
As Richter notes, issues 1, 2, 3, and 5 are all non-starters amongst
Berlin�s policy making elites.� Even more extreme are the views of
Socialist candidate, Arnaud Montebourg, who has openly spoken of
�the annexation of the French right by the Prussian right.�<br>
<br>
On the right, things are not much better.� French President Nicolas
Sarkozy risks being outflanked by National Front leader, Marine Le
Pen, (her father is Jean Marie Le Pen) who is adopting an explicitly
anti-euro candidacy , which is gaining traction as France�s new
austerity measures continue to bite into economic growth.�� In his
futile attempts to maintain France�s AAA credit rating via increased
fiscal austerity, Sarko risks being hoist by his own petard, as the
likely impact of such measures will be to take French unemployment
back into double digits.� Paying obeisance to the shrine of Moody�s,
Fitch and S&P via fiscal austerity is the economic equivalent of
seeking to negotiate a peace treaty with Al Qaeda.<br>
<br>
True, Germany might well decide that enough is enough, that the
ECB�s actions represent �printing money� and may therefore initiate
a process of leaving the euro zone.� But let us be clear about the
consequences:� Were it to adopt this approach, Germany would likely
suffer from a huge trade shock, particularly as its aversion to
�fiscal profligacy� would doom it to much higher levels of
unemployment (unless the government all of a sudden experienced a
Damascene conversion to Keynesianism � about as likely as a Klansman
attending a Presidential rally for Barack Obama) or reverting to its
former policy of dollar buying. It might also affect the living
standards of the average German as well because Germany�s large
manufacturers originally bought into the currency union because they
felt it would prevent the likes of chronic currency devaluers, such
as the Italians, to use this expedient to achieve a higher share of
world trade at Germany�s expense. Were they confronted with the loss
of market share, German multinationals might simply move
manufacturing facilities to the new, low cost regions of Europe to
preserve market share and cost advantage or, at the very least, use
the threat of moving to extort cuts in wages and benefits to German
workers as a quid pro quo for remaining at home.� Perhaps there
would be blood in the streets of Berlin at that point as well.<br>
<br>
In fact, it is doubly ironic that Germany chastises its neighbors
for their �profligacy� but relies on their �living beyond their
means� to produce a trade surplus that allows its government to run
smaller budget deficits. Germany is, in fact, structurally reliant
on dis-saving abroad to grow at all. Current account deficits in
other parts of the euro zone are required for German growth. It is
the height of hypocrisy for Germans to berate the southern states
for over-spending when that spending is the only thing that has
allowed Germany�s economy to grow. It is also mindless for Germans
to be advocating harsh austerity for the south states and hacking
into their spending potential and not to think that it won�t
reverberate back onto Germany.<br>
<br>
Now, of course, German Chancellor Angela Merkel may not consciously
know all of these things.� In fact, she termed accusations of
Germany seeking to dominate Europe �bizarre�.� But it is clear to
any objective observer that the political quid pro quo for greater
ECB involvement in dealing with Europe�s national solvency crisis is
German control over the overall fiscal conduct of countries like
Greece, Italy, etc. Mario Draghi is Italian, but the ECB head is
playing a German game of chicken: he is embracing exactly the
strategy that Angela Merkel�s political director, Klaus Schuler,
laid out several weeks ago: holding out for fiscal union commitments
from the weaker �Club Med� countries, in return for turning the ECB
into a lender of last resort.� So whilst many Germans might think
they want a smaller, more cohesive euro zone without the troublesome
profligates, the policy elites in fact recognize that a �United
States of Germany� under the guise of a United States of Europe,
actually suits their aspirations to dominate Europe politically and
economically.� Which is why the outlines of a deal along the lines
of increased ECB involved as a quid pro quo for greater German
control of fiscal policy across the euro zone, is emerging.�� It�s
the equivalent of the golden rule:� �He who has the gold, rules.�<br>
<br>
It is high stakes poker, and one which will ultimately lead to far
more bloodshed.� The reality is that there is no plan B.� Just keep
raising taxes and cutting spending even as those actions work to
cause deficits to go higher rather than lower. So while the solvency
and funding issue is likely to be resolved, the relief rally in the
markets won�t last long as the funding will continue to be
conditional to ongoing austerity and negative growth. And the
austerity looks likely to not only continue but also to intensify,
even as the euro zone has already slipped into recession. So there
appears to be no chance that the ECB would fund and at the same time
mandate the higher deficits needed for a recovery, In which case the
only thing that will end the austerity is blood on the streets in
sufficient quantity to trigger chaos and a change in governance.<br>
<br>
And by the way, the notion suggested by some that this horrible
dynamic could be arrested by the Fed acting as a kind of global
central banker of last resort is asinine.�� As Bill Mitchell noted
recently:<br>
<br>
As of today, the 1 Euro = 1.3294 U.S. dollars. So just purchasing
the PIIGS debt to fund their 2010 deficits would have required the
US Federal Reserve sell around 347,024 million USD which is about
5.8 per cent of the US GDP over the last four quarters. That is a
huge injection of US dollars into the world foreign exchange
markets.<br>
<br>
The volume of spending that would be required are even larger than
the estimates provided here. That is, because to really solve the
Euro crisis the deficits in (probably) all the EMU nations have to
rise substantially.<br>
<br>
What do you think would happen to the US dollar currency value? The
answer is that it would drop very significantly. The word collapse
might be more appropriate than drop�At this point in the crisis,
there is nothing to be gained by a massive US dollar depreciation
and the inflationary impulses such a large depreciation would
probably impart.<br>
<br>
Blaming the Fed for a failure to backstop the eurozone�s bonds is
akin to blaming a bystander for not standing in front of a bullet
when he witnesses somebody taking out a gun, and shooting another
person.� The triggerman bears ultimate responsibility.� By the same
token, the euro crisis is a crisis which has its roots in the
eurozone�s flawed financial architecture (no less an authority than
Jacques Delors has recently admitted this)� and can only be solved
by the Europeans, specifically, the ECB, which is the only
institution in the EMU that can spend without recourse to prior
funding, due to the flawed design of the monetary system that was
forced upon the member states at the inception of the union.� But
Mario Draghi accepts the German political quid pro quo: in order to
act, he will insist on greater fiscal austerity as a necessary
condition, which will perversely have impact of deflating these
economies into the ground further and engender HIGHER public
deficits.� Obviously this is one reason the Germans felt so
comfortable in naming an Italian to the ECB. Trojan horses
apparently don�t just come in Greek forms these days. A Europe,
where countries such as Italy and Greece become client states of
Germany provides a much more effective outcome for Germany than,
say, trying to do the same thing via another destructive World War.<br>
<br>
MARSHALL AUERBACK� is a portfolio strategist with Madison Street
Partners, LLC, a Denver based investment management group, and a
Fellow with the Economists for Peace and Security. He can be reached
at <a href="mailto:MAuer1959@aol.com" target="_blank">MAuer1959@aol.com</a><br>
<br>
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