Defiziten afera gobernuak moneta jaulkitzaileak direnean

Bill Mitchell-en artikulua: Currency-issuing governments have unlimited financial resources to fight recession1

Hasteko, ikus Globalizazioa eta neoliberalismoa, Globalizazioa eta moneta antolamenduak eta Nazioarteko erakundeak eta gobernuaz jabetzea.

Davos-eko World Economic Forum da aztergai. Ikus Searching for the 21st century dream at Davos.

Hori dela eta, Mitchell-ek RBS txostena ekartzen du plazara2, zenbait puntu argitzeko eta kritikatzeko.

Devos-ekoan eta RBS txostenean ondoko puntuak aipatzen dira:

(a) Baloratze agentziak

Mitchell-en ustez, neoliberalen mitoak dira agentzia horiek3, esku hartze publikoa alboratzeko.

(b) Quantitative easing delakoa

Mitchell-ek dioenez, akatsik handiena merkataritza bankuek, erreserba gehiago eduki ezean, maileguak ematea ezin dutelako ustea (edo sinesmena edo fedea) da4.

(c) Politika fiskalaren alboratzea

Mitchell-ek, politika fiskal egokia erabili barik, hazkunderako, kanpo merkataritzari egiten zaion aipamen erabakitzailea kritikatzen du5.

(d) Zor pribatuaren afera

Hazkunde ekonomikoari eusteko, munduan zor pribatua handiegia da6.

(e) Britainia Handiaren eredua7

(f) Gobernuek badaukate zeregin garrantzitsua bat8

Zehaztuz: zer dela eta finantzako eta nominal aipuak aurreko oharrean?

(f-1) Baliabide errealen kontua9

(f-2) Inflazioaren kontua10

(f-3) Eskari nahikoa, langabezia11

Laburbilduz,

In other words, one could reasonably conclude there are no foreseeable constraints on fiscal policy in nations where the national governments issue their own currency.

Abba Lerner-en en ekarpena:

  1. Testuingurua12

  2. Zor publikoa eta etorkizuneko belaunaldiak13

  3. The Burden of the National Debt14

  4. Gobernuko eta ez-gobernuko sektoreak15

  5. Langabeziako eta enplegu osoko egoerak16

  1. Lerner gaurkotua17

  2. Bretton Woods-eko sistema18

  1. Bretton Woods eta geroko sistema19

  2. Gobernuen zeregina20

  3. Baliabideak eta teknologia21

  4. Gobernuaren erantzukizuna22

Ondorio garbia:

While it appears that the world economy is once again starting to gyrate, there is no reason to believe that the currency-issuing governments have lost their capacity to meet the challenge of a decline in non-government spending.


1 Ikus http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=32809.

2 Ikus “…the Royal Bank of Scotland issued a report The bears have killed Goldilocks

3 Ingelesez: “The continued claim that what the ratings agencies might think is important for determining the fiscal choices made by government is one of the worst of the myths that the neo-liberals have created to constrain public intervention into the economy that doesn’t directly benefit the elites.

Just ask Japan what it thinks of the rating agencies! Their sovereign debt has been downgraded several times over the last decades with zero impact on their capacity to issue debt in the private bond markets.

Just ask the United States Treasury what it thought the impact on its yields were following the downgrading recently of its sovereign debt rating. They will answer: no impact. Please read…– Who is in charge? – for more discussion on this point.”

4 Ingelesez: “… where the US central bank has chosen to direct its policy capacities is not where I would have engaged. By that I mean, the various episodes of quantitative easing, which were based on the flawed belief that the commercial banks would not lend unless they had more reserves.

Please read… – Quantitative easing 101 – for more discussion on this point.”

5 Ingelesez: “In addition to the conservative belief that only monetary policy should be used as a counter-stabilisation measure because fiscal policy has no ‘room to move’, the other myth is that the only sustainable growth engine is via trade.

In other words, if China slows down, world export markets also slow down, given the strong demand in recent years from China for primary commodity and other exports, which means that economic growth stalls.

Which means that external income (spending) will taper somewhat and economic growth will become more reliant on domestic demand. That means that household consumption, private capital formation (investment) and government spending will become more important.

In most nations, household consumption has revived somewhat after falling off during the GFC. The problem is that real wages growth has not returned to any reasonable levels and trails productivity growth by some percentage points, indicating an on-going redistribution of national income to capital (profits).

While the distributional equity issues are one thing, this trend might not be problematic from a macroeconomic spending perspective, if business firms were using that redistributed national income to boost productive infrastructure. That is, increasing investment spending, which not only stimulates current growth, but also boosts potential growth.

The reality is very clear – business investment remains weak in most countries.”

6 Ingelesez, honela dio Mitchell-ek: “… I agree with the RBS report that the world – at least, the non-government sector component of it – “has too much debt”.

I have commented before about how the advanced world seems to be relying again on a massive buildup in private debt to maintain economic growth, just as it did in the period prior to the GFC.

The credit-binge not only maintained growth as real wages were being suppressed by labour market deregulation and national income was being redistributed towards profits, but it also, set in place the conditions for financial market collapse, which manifested openly in 2008.”

7 Ingelesez: “In Britain, for example, the national government is relying on a repeat of the credit-binge. I noted … that the fiscal austerity would only work – in the short-term – if the household sector was willing to take on more debt after consolidating its balance sheet somewhat in the post-GFC crash.

Please read…– British fiscal statement – continues the lie about austerity – for more discussion on this point.”

8 Ingelesez: “… The claim that governments have exhausted their room to move is patently false.

As the RBS report noted “the Fed has limitless ammunition”.

I would generalise this observation to say that the consolidated government sector, which includes the central bank and the Treasury, have limitless financial ammunition to stimulate nominal domestic demand.

9 Ingelesez: “First, while the government has unlimited financial resources as long as it issues its own currency, it can only use those resources if there are real resources available for sale in that currency.”

10 Ingelesez: “Second, if the government tries to push nominal spending (that is, the monetary value of spending) ahead of the capacity of the productive sector to respond in real terms, producing real goods and services, then inflation will result.

11 Ingelesez: Third, a reasonable assessment is that in most countries there are substantial pools of idle real resources available to be brought back into productive use should there be sufficient demand for them. There are millions of unemployed after all.

12 Ingelesez: “There was a huge debate in the 1950s which continued into the next decade as to the capacity of currency-issuing governments to take on public debt.”

13 Ingelesez: “The specific issue in this particular debate was whether growing public debt imposed a burden on future generations a positive answer to that question is now accepted as a key part of the neo-liberal mythology and a reason for denying that elephant is hovering around Davos.”

14 Ingelesez: “In 1948, Abba Lerner wrote “The Burden of the National Debt”, which demonstrated that public debt did not impose such a burden because the only burden that was relevant were the real resources that were used in the government spending program associated with the debt issuance.

Lerner wrote (p.256):

Very few economists need to be reminded that if our children or grandchildren repay some of the national debt these payments will be made to our children or grandchildren and to nobody else. Taking them altogether they will no more be impoverished by making the repayments than they will be enriched by receiving them.

In other words, there are distributional consequences within generations but not between them.

In this regard, Lerner noted that (p.261):

The growth of national debt may not only make some people richer and some people poorer, but may increase the inequality of distribution. This is because richer people can buy more government bonds and so get more of the interest payments without incurring a proportionately heavier burden of the taxes. Most people would agree that this is bad. But it is no necessary effect of an increasing national debt. If the additional taxes are more progressive — more concentrated on the rich — than the additional holdings of government bonds, the effect will be to diminish the inequality of income and wealth.”

Reference: Lerner, A. (1948) ‘The Burden of the National Debt’, in Metzler, L.A. (ed.) Income, Employment, and Public Policy: Essays in Honor of Alvin H. Hansen, New York, W.W. Norton, 255-275.

15 Ingelesez: “The point Lerner was making was that if an economy is currently at full employment and the government chooses to deploy real resources in some project (for example, to build a new public transport facility), then it has to deprive the non-government sector of those resources.”

16 Ingelesez: “In a situation of under-full employment, the same project would mean that the government is using idle resources that the private sector could use should it choose.

But at each point in time, it is this real resource usage that constitutes the so-called ‘burden’. Which means, in a temporal sense, that the ‘burden’ exhausts at the time of resource usage and is unable to be transferred to future generations.”

17 Ingelesez: “Remember that Lerner was writing in the late 1940s. A more contemporary understanding of intergenerational burden shifting would acknowledge that resource usage in the current period, which undermines environmental sustainability, does disadvantage future generations.

But this contemporary view, in no way, provides support for the neo-liberal view that public debt undermines future prosperity.

Further, it was argued in the 1950s, that servicing the public debt (that is, paying interest payments) could be construed as a ‘burden’ on future generations if governments raised taxes in order to pay the interest.

18 Ingelesez: Remember that under the Bretton Woods system, governments were financially constrained, and so the increased taxes to meet future spending commitments was not a far-fetched concern.

Lerner argued, in this context, that those interest payments constituted income for the future generation who might be holding the debt. Once again, he identified distribution issues (transfers from those who might be paying the taxes to those who were receiving the interest payments), but considered these confined to each generation.”

19 Ingelesez: “as a result of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, currency-issuing governments are now free of any financial constraints (unless they voluntary cede their currency sovereignty as in the Eurozone) so any of the distributional arguments relating to tax burden shifts are moot.

The only economic constraint facing governments in this situation are real resource availability. The rest are political (read: ideological).

20 Ingelesez: “While it is sensible for governments to increase spending and substitute increased non-government debt with increased cover meant debt, it is even more sensible for governments to refrain from any further debt issuance and draw on the central bank’s unlimited capacity to credit relevant bank accounts in the currency of issue to match its spending program.”

21 Ingelesez: “Once you understand that it is only real resource availability the constrains government, then all the rest of the discussions about the impacts of computerisation and the room for government to move become clearer.

There is no denying that technological change (for example, robots and computers) are extremely painful processes for individual workers who lose their employment prospects to endure.

But at the macrolevel, there is no reason for total employment to decline as technology changes composition of employment in favour of higher skilled, less routinised jobs.

22 Ingelesez: “The responsibility of government is to use its unlimited financial capacity to ensure that there are transitional processes in place to allow workers to maintain income security while employment shifts are ongoing.

These processes should include direct job creation, enhanced education and training, regional industry strategies, investment in best practice technology and deployment, and a safety net Job Guarantee program.

Utzi erantzuna

Zure e-posta helbidea ez da argitaratuko. Beharrezko eremuak * markatuta daude