ATENAS – El Fondo Monetario Internacional admitió tardíamente haber subestimado de manera significativa el daño que la austeridad tendría sobre las tasas de crecimiento de la Unión Europea. Esto resalta el carácter contraproducente de las recetas «ortodoxas» sobre las causas de la crisis de la deuda posterior al derrumbe financiero de 2008-2009.
La teoría convencional sugiere que si un solo país (o un grupo de países) consolida sus finanzas, puede esperar una reducción en las tasas de interés, el debilitamiento de su moneda y una mejora en su situación comercial. Pero, como esto no es posible en todas las grandes economías simultáneamente –la austeridad de un país (o de un grupo de países) implica una menor demanda para los productos de los demás– esas políticas eventualmente conducen a situaciones que buscan empobrecer a los vecinos. De hecho, por esta dinámica –contra la cual luchó John Maynard Keynes– la Gran Depresión de la década de 1930 fue tan nefasta.
Los problemas actuales se exacerban por la insuficiente demanda privada en las economías avanzadas –especialmente de consumo de los hogares– para compensar la reducción de la demanda causada por la austeridad. Durante las últimas dos décadas, el consumo impulsó el crecimiento de esos países y alcanzó participaciones históricamente altas en el PBI.
Yannos Papantoniou was Greece's Economy and Finance Minister from 1994 to 2001. He is currently President of the Center for Progressive Policy Research, an independent think-tank.
First, the decline in living standards cannot be avoided. It's already underway, leading to the ludicrous situation of attempting to stimulate the economies through investment in unneeded capacity. Businessmen are smart: They will not invest in capacity when demand is declining. This is why attempting to stimulate investment is a fool's game.
This paragraph presents an interesting dilemma: The economy is declining because of a lack of sufficient demand, demand is falling because real wages among the vast majority of consumers is falling, and wages are falling because of a poor economy. In aviation we refer to this kind of maneuver as a death spiral. And it's a wonderful argument against austerity, as long as the absolute knowledge of ideology is not invoked.
EU growth rates and GDPs are clearly going through an adjustment period having to do with contractions in certain sectors in certain countries like Greece and Spain, the resulting structural repercussions and the austerity policies that were necessitated by rising government bond yields, among other factors. One can't ascribe the problems in the eurozone or EU economies to fiscal austerity policies in some European countries alone, since the sectoral contractions ( like real estate and finance ) were the trigger for the policies. Since the bond market charges high interest rates on Greek government bonds, the choice for Greece became one between less of austerity or more of austerity. Mr. Papantoniou may want to do away with austerity. But how does he plan to raise the necessary amount of money ? The bond market will become even more unwilling to lend easily to the Greek government if all austerity measures are abandoned. Mr. Papantoniou'a article lacks sufficient detail. The Greek leaders who negotiated the bailout programmes have obviously had to take way many more details into consideration than Mr. Papantoniou's article does. They clearly could not ignore the ominous signs in the bond market where they borrow money to cover the fiscal deficit. Once severe sectoral contractions have occured, the country's government has less choices in the field of public finance because it finds itself in the middle of a severe recession. Mr. Papantoniou's article does not seriously address why the recession happened in the first place and what should have been done to prevent such severe sectoral contractions. Also, Mr. Papantoniou's article does not seriously take into account the fact that the public finance challenges emerged out of this severe economic crisis. The economy consists of the private sector and the government sector and there are linkages between the two. However, the contraction in the overall economy is what triggered the government sector crisis. Yet, Mr. Papantoniou's article tries to blame most of the recent woes on the government's austerity policies alone, quite ignoring the fact that the overall economic crisis that caused the public finance crisis has its private sector component that has its structural aspects.
Shifting resources from investment to consumption is definitely not a way of achieving long-term growth. The short-term benefits of doing too much of this are also questionable since the total production in the economy consists of consumption and investment.
"For domestic demand to act as an engine of growth, policies should shift resources from investment to consumption": if consumption could lead to future growth, no country in the world would stay poor.
When an economy has a large output gap, a boost to consumption can lift the growth in the short run, but in the long run, adaquate savings and investment are the necessary conditions for supporting a robust growth.
Consumption is the goal of economic growth, but consumption is not the driver for long run growth.
4. The solution for the present human system crisis is full, mutual integration, a creation of a true, working supra-national governing system, based on an economic model the reflects the closed, finite nature of of the system we exist in, thus adapting to natural necessity and resource based lifestyle.
5. Such a fundamental change, almost complete reversal of our present attitude and lifestyle is only possible by a global education program, first of all explaining to leaders and the public alike why the changes, the adaptation is necessary, and how by the changes the whole of humanity would be better off, enjoying a quality of life that was previously impossible. Without a positive motivation, voluntary acceptance the changes would not be sustainable.