1) Azken albiste kezkagarriak
Is Greece Still A Country If Someone Else Owns Its Assets?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-23/greece-still-country-if-someone-else-owns-its-assets
Grexit “Disaster” Looms As Greek Hospitals Run Out Of Sheets, Painkillers
Greece Is On The Ragged Edge: Bloodied Idealogues Vs. Bloodthirsty Technocrats
Greece Was 20 Votes Away From Defaulting This Weekend
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-25/greece-was-20-votes-away-defaulting
2) M. Draghi, ekonomia neoklasikoa, Stathis Kouvelakis eta Syrizaren ‘konpromiso ohoragarria’
Bill Mitchell-en artikulua: Structural reform – code for smash the worker resistance1
EBZk izan duen bilera Portugalen. Draghi-ren hitzaldia bertan2, Europan egiturazko erreformak azeleratzeko, … even in a weak demand environment.”
Mitchell-en mezua: egiturazko desorekak azaltzen dira “… because of weak demand3.”
Testuingurua: korronte nagusiko ekonomialariek uste dute ekonomiaren eskaintza-aldea independentea dela eskari-aldetik4.
Mario Draghi-k gauza bertsua dio,
“Structural reforms are … policies that permanently and positively alter the supply-side of the economy … they lift the path of potential output, either by raising the inputs to production – the supply and quality of labour and the amount of capital per worker – or by ensuring that those inputs are used more efficiently …”
Mitchell-ek dioenez, Draghi-ren aipatua ekonomialari neoklasikoen liburu testuetan azaltzen den ametsa besterik ez da5.
Langabezia da afera. Lan-indarraren merkatuaren analisi neoklasiko estandarrak ez du bereizten lan-indarraren eta kapitalaren arteko trukeak, enpresek erabiltzen dituzten beste input produktiboen arteko trukeetatik.
Beste era batera esanda:
“… they explain mass unemployment by excessive real wages. If the workers are willing to accept lower money wage when their is a decline in total spending in the economy then according to this view, the real wage will fall and firms will not reduce employment.”
Ikuspuntu neoklasikoen aurkako eztabaida 1930eko hamarkadan eman zen Depresio Handia eta geroko denboran. Harritzekoa da nola ideia zahar hpoiek zutik diraute, nahiz eta erabat lurperatuak izan orain dela 80 urte.
Izan ere, John Maynard Keynes-en arabera, “… the real wage and total employment level were not determined in the labour market but by the level of effective demand, which we take to mean (loosely) total spending on goods and services.”
Beraz, Draghi-en ekonomia malguak ez du eurogunea salbatuko langabeziaren igoera masibotik. Europar Batasuneko langabezia maila handiaren arrazoia eskariaren huts egiteari dagokio (gogoratu Keynes!) eta berau areagotu du austeritate fiskalak.
Ez dago ondorio horretarik inongo ihesbiderik6.
Lan-indarraren eta produktuen merkatu-zurruntasuna dela eta, langabezia esplikatzeko Draghi-ren baieztapenaren7 aurka, Mitchell-ek argi dio esplikazio hori ez dela zuzena8.
Kasurako, Grezia orain lanpostu osoko egoeran egongo zatekeen baldin eta gobernuari ahalbideratu izan balio lan bermeko programa bat (Job Guarantee delako programa bat) finantzatzeko, defizit fiskalak handituz, eta EBZk defizit horiek finantzatuak izatea segurtatuko izan balu. Ez dago inongo dudarik horretaz.
Bestela esatea eta errua ‘zurruntasunetara’ (‘rigidities‘ delakora) desbideratzea politikaren huts egitearen parte izateari (hots, Draghi-ren beraren erantzukizunari) aurre egiteari ihes egitea da.
Draghi-ren hitzaldiaren segida are harrigarriagoa da9.
Modeloak eta aurreikuspenak direla eta, Mitchell-ek aldaketa politiko errealistak egiteko (defiziten handitzeekin eta lanpostu sortzeko programekin) prest dago (langabezia %5 baino gutxiagokoa lortzeko).
Bukatzeko, Greziaren egoera plazara berriz ekartzen du Mitchell-ek, Stathis Kouvelakis-en azken artikulua (maiatzak 22, 2015) aipatuz: The Impossible “Honorable Compromise”.
Kouvelakis-ek Syriza Troikarekiko ‘honorable compromise‘ delakoa komentatzen du.
“Needless to say that, on the part of Syriza, this discursive slippage amounts to an abandonment of the objective of the break with the memoranda and the troika rule on the basis of which it won the elections. “
Honezkero, hori bistakoa da.
Troikako konspiratzaileen eta Draghi-ren ohitura txarrak ulertzeko laguntzen du Kouvelakis-en artikuluak.
Egungo baldintzetan, konpromisoa praktikan ezinezkoa izanik, benetako afera iluntzen da, berori despolitizatuz eta aukera etikoak balira bezala aurkeztuz: “realists” vs. “hardliners,” “pragmatists” vs. “utopians,” eta abar.
Alta, oraingo diskurtso-borrokak islatzen du ‘honorable compromise‘ ezinezkoa dela, zeren ez baitira existitzen aurreko betekizunak. Alderik sendoena, Europako Batasuna, ez dago interesatuta konpromisoan, iraina kudeatzean baizik.
Zergatik hori?
Zeren enplegu osoko eran eta Bigarren Mundu Gerla eta gero, non klase konpromisoaren antzeko bat egon baitzen, alderdi sozialdemokratak gogor aritu zirelako gobernuaren rola klase-artekari gisa ezarriz, langileei nolabaiteko boterea emateko kapitalaren aurrean.
Kapitalistek enplegu osoko ideia gorrotatu zuten. Mozkinak lortu ziren, langileek enplegu seguruak eta alokairu irabazi errealak zituzten bitartean .
Mozkinek ez zuten bete kapitalaren gutizia.
Beraz, neoliberalen kontrairaultza hasi zen. Lehendabizi 1973an Txilen, non AEBk Salvador Allende-ren gobernu demokratikoa bota zuen, eta Chicagoko Unibertsitateko Milton Friedman zale ziren ekonomialariak promozionatu zituen, Draghi-ri gustatzen zaizkion ‘egiturazko erreformak’ inplementatzeko.
Kovelakis-ek hori guztia gogoratu digu.
Ondorioa ezaguna dugu:
“The balance of forces that had sustained the postwar class compromise was crushingly overturned to the advantage of capital … The shock therapy applied to Greece over the past five years is nothing more than a radical (by the standards of a Western European country) version of this same neoliberal counterrevolution. Those who embody it, inside and outside the country, are executors of an operation of plundering and naked subjection. They are at once violent and vulgar, the antithesis of the type that would seek compromise. In those conditions only the action of the oppressed can open up a perspective of political, social, and ethical regeneration.”
Hori dela eta, Draghi-k segitzen du ‘egiturazko erreforma’ren musika jotzen.
“It is just code for further entrenching the grip that capital has on economies and furthering the subjugation of the workers to the needs of the financial capital elites.”
Musika horrek ez dauka inongo zerikusirik populazioaren ongizatearekin.
Izan ere, oraingo ‘egiturazko erreforma’ zentzudun bat hauxe litzateke: inbertsio masibo bat heziketa eta osasungintza publikoan, eurogunean.
Ekonomiak oso ahulak kontuan egonda, aurreko neurriak defizit fiskaletan handitze sendoak eskatzen ditu.
Finantzatuko luke Draghi-k hori?
Nola justifikatzen du berak gazteriaren langabezia, Grezian %50 baino altuagoa dena?
Honela bukatzen du Mitchell-ek:
“I would also propose linking his [Draghi’s] salary and pension benefits to the unemployment rate in Greece. He would soon be advocating job creation and fiscal expansion in that nation.”
2 Ikus Introductory speech by Mario Draghi, President of the ECB, ECB Forum on Central Banking: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2015/html/sp150522.en.html.
3 Are gehiago: “… and the best time to assess structural policy is when you have first attained full employment by appropriate setting of fiscal deficits, not before. It is madness to deliberately constrain fiscal balances to levels that ensure high and entrenched unemployment and rising underemployment and then expect citizens to support microeconomic policies that further undermine their welfare and damage what job security they have. But that is the EU way and that is why the Eurozone is a massive basket-case failure.”
4 Ingeles errazean hauxe: “… the path the economy takes is ultimately dependent on the growth in capital stock (physical and human) and population and the spending side of the economy will typically adjust through price flexibility. In other words, it doesn’t really matter if spending falls below the level required to fully engage the productive capacity of the economy at some point in time.” Baieztapen horren kritika hemen ikus daiteke: Demand and supply interdependence – stimulus wins, austerity fails.
5 Honela segitzen du Mitchell-ek, ingelesez: “He thinks if an economy is rendered “resilient” it will react to a “negative demand shock … by immediately lowering prices” and avoid unemployment.”
6 Mitchell-ek dioenez, ingelesez: “They can skate around it for all they like while sipping the wine and expanding their waistlines at sumptuous talkfest gatherings but until aggregate spending across the monetary union increases, nothing will be gained by hacking into wage and employment conditions other than further worker impoverishment.”
7 Draghi-k ingelesez: “Labour and product market rigidities contributed to a more painful adjustment process in the stressed economies, which was initially driven more by compression of demand than by a reduction of costs relative to other economies, albeit with differences across countries based on their initial degree of flexibility … As a result, we now face a situation of significant divergence in unemployment across the euro area.”
8 Mitchell-ek: “No, the reason unemployment rose at differential rates across the Eurozone was because the spending collapse was not symmetric. The maintenance of the unemployment disparities is due to the uneven nature of the fiscal austerity that has been imposed on the nations.”
9 Hona hemen bi paragrafo liluragarri (urdinez, Mitchell-en hitzak):
“According to Draghi, even if the economy is depressed, investors will jump to build new factories and buy productive equipment if policy makers signal they will make labour markets more flexible (increase the proportion of non-standard work, make it easier to sack workers, undermine income support systems to make workers more desperate etc).
And pigs might fly! Firms will not invest unless they have a firm expectation that the extra output that would be produced from the extra capacity they build will sell. Undermining the ability of consumers to spend more freely will not engender positive expectations.”
“Draghi also thinks that by raising the minimum retirement age, workers will respond by spending more because they no longer have to save as much as they are working longer.
This is as fanciful as saying that workers will reduce saving if fiscal deficits are lower because their fear of higher future taxes will be alleviated. If there is a recessed economy and unemployment is rising and firms are rationing hours of work and creating underemployment, a further deterioration in working conditions for those who retain incomes will not help them save. The structural changes that have been encouraged by the likes of Draghi over the last few decades have been disastrous for economic growth.” Ikus The rise of non-standard work undermines growth and increases inequality.
joseba says:
Greece Could Trigger a $9 Trillion Chain Reaction
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-26/greece-could-trigger-9-trillion-chain-reaction
joseba says:
How Austerity Broke European Stability
http://www.socialeurope.eu/2013/07/how-austerity-broke-european-stability/