2 Ingelesez: “The Portuguese President dropped his so-called “bomba atómica” last week when he refused to endorse the coalition of parties that held the absolute majority of seats in the Assembly as a result of the recent national election. He indicated that he would not allow a government that would relax the fiscal austerity and consider exiting the Eurozone. His motivation was that financial markets had to remain appeased.”

3 Ingelesez: “… in Canada, the election of the Liberal Party is a rejection of the obsession with fiscal surpluses – at least for now.”

4 Ingelesez: “…But the headache … much larger than just reversing some of the nonsensical austerity. The Left Bloc and the Democratic Unity Coalition favour a return to currency sovereignty and the restoration of its own central banking system.”

5 Ingelesez: “On July 21, 2015, the leader of the Left Bloc (Catarina Martins) told a TVI24 interviewer that “Portugal had to be ready to leave the euro” because “If you have to choose between living in dignity or the euro … [then] …. then Portugal should choose dignity” (Source).”

6 Ingelesez: “Reflecting on the recent Greek tragedy, she was highly critical of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble saying that “Any government that does not want to obey Mr Schäuble has to be prepared for the ECB to close down its banks or for Mr. Schauble to kick it out of the euro.”

7 Ikus Críticas, dúvidas, subentendidos. 9 chaves para perceber o discurso do Presidente. Honelakoak aipatuz:

1. Portugal needs a governance solution that ensures political stability including honouring international obligations.

2. The left-wing parties programs are not compatible with the strategic objectives of Portugal.

3. The new government had to maintain the targets on public debt and the structural deficit and maintain a commitment to the euro.

4. Compliance with the commitments under the Euro Zone is decisive and absolutely crucial to the financing of the economy and, consequently, economic growth and job creation.

5. Exiting the Eurozone would be catastrophic.

6. The PS is proposing a coalition of extremists and in the 40 years of democracy, no government in Portugal has ever depended on the support of anti-European forces … or have parties that campaigned to abrogate the Lisbon Treaty, the Fiscal Compact, the Stability and Growth Pact, as well as the dismantling of the economic and monetary union and to advocate the exit of Portugal from the Eurozone and the dissolution of NATO of which Portugal is a founding member.

7. After having introduced a demanding financial assistance program, which involved heavy sacrifices for the Portuguese people, it is my duty, within my constitutional powers, to do everything to prevent wrong signals to be transmitted to financial institutions, investors and markets, which would undermine the confidence and credibility outside of the country.”

8 Ingelesez: “He described the adjustment programs imposed on Portugal by the Troika as absurd (…) because imposing austerity upon austerity would exacerbate the economic and social collapse, without solving the problem of funding.

He described the European Commission as Germany’s new foreman (…). The synopsis provided by the publisher places the modern calamity alongside Portugal’s 60 years of colonial repression under Phillip II of Spain:

In 1581 Portugal surrendered to Spain. In 1992 it laid itself at the feet of a European Commission increasingly answering to Germany’s tune. There was no referendum, the voters were never consulted. The Portuguese elites, who hoped to benefit richly from European Structural Funds, cavalierly handed over our currency – and with it our monetary sovereignty. The rest is history. From 2008 onwards, the European Commission broke with tradition and became an organ at the service of a new power. The Portuguese economy succumbed, choked by the new Mark. The tragedy was widely foretold in advance. In the 1990s several voices had alerted us to the dangers of joining the single currency (…).”

9 Ingelesez: “The peoples’ voice has spoken – just as it did in Portugal. The population wanted the harsh austerity that the Conservative Party had inflicted on the nation to end. It was pretty much as simple as that irrespective of all the controversies and scandals that had marked the last few years of Conservative rule.”

10 Ingelesez: “The Liberal Party is hardly a left-wing party though – it is described by political scientists as having a ‘centre-left’ leaning. You can access their electoral policy platform – HERE.”

11 Ingelesez: “The Liberal Party recognised that the cuts the Conservatives made to get the fiscal balance into surplus have exacerbated the declining external outlook and helped drive Canada into recession. They differentiated themselves from the NDP by not promising to balance the fiscal outcome any time soon and clearly understood in their campaign statements that government spending on infrastructure and other services was necesseary to restore growth. Their leader also seemed to understand that the fiscal outcome will take care of itself if growth is sustained.

(…)

The Liberal Party understood that and have been elected to implement a discretionary shift to higher fiscal deficits. It has chosen to take the sensible path and introduce new discretionary spending programs to allow a ‘good’ deficit to emerge where the public spending supports the moderation in private spending and unemployment does not rise.”

12 Eta gehiago ere, ingelesez; “The article notes that currency “traders soon got over it” – ‘it’ being the election of a political party determined to increase the fiscal deficit through increased government spending. The ‘knee-jerk response’ was to initially sell off the currency but that “only created a buying opportunity for anyone with a less jaundiced view of government’s role in the economy”.”

13 Mitchell-en hitzez: “I am not suggesting that the Canadian Liberal Party is imbued with a firm understanding of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Far from it. They are talking about borrowing for infrastructure spending and that it is the right time to borrow because interest rates are low.

The two obvious retorts:

1. They can spend without borrowing and should.

2. The decision and justification to run larger (though small in their case) fiscal deficits should not be driven by the level of interest rates (high or low) but by the need to fill the spending (output) gap left by the deficiency of non-government spending.”

14 Ingelesez: “The collapse of business investment spending and export revenue and the fact that Canadian households are holding unsustainably high levels of debt and won’t be increasing consumption spending any time soon is the reason the Canadian government has to increase its fiscal deficit now.”

15 Ingelesez: “It wouldn’t matter what the yields on governemnt debt were – the urgency is to maintain spending growth to keep employment growth moving along.”

16 Ingelesez: “… the election is being hailed as an anti-austerity outcome and that provides some room for further debate again.”