DRUGI DOM

Europe’s Irrelevant Austerity Debate

Običajno je opozarjati na članke, ki ji je vredno opaziti zaradi dodane vrednosti. Tokrat bo drugače, saj je Daniel Gros (Center for European Policy Studies, eks-ekonomski svetovalec Evropske komisije) postavil nov poden pri tem, kaj je mogoče pri Very Serious People (tm Krugman) prodati kot resno polit-ekonomsko flancarijo. Voilà, zapis, ki mi je danes vzel sapo:

Europe’s Irrelevant Austerity Debate

Zakaj si to sranje sploh zasluži omembo? Ker je včasih dobro opomniti, da neumnosti nismo patentirali v Sloveniji. Da pristna zabitost pravkar šofira usodo 500 milijonov Evropejcev.

Ker sem len, kopiram komentarje, ki pribijejo žebljico na glavico:

This is a deeply flawed analysis that doesnt belong on the otherwise excellent project-syndicate website.

Austerity can be self-defeating if it inflicts medium/long-run damage to the countrys economy and productive capacity. Austerity has meant for the likes of Spain and Greece, a talent drain out of the country, the dismantling of public institutions and the breakdown of communities that will have long lasting effects. Although, as you correctly say a collapse in imports will mean a short-term improvement in the external debt position it comes at a great cost that will have long-term repercussions.

Furthermore, the predominant factor that led to lower yields on periphery countries debt was the LTRO operation not the current accounts of those countries.

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OTOH the reduction in current account deficits wasn’t achieved through higher competitiveness, or through higher consumption from core European countries: it was achieved by “starving” (without quotes in some cases) in periphery countries. I wouldn’t call that progress exactly.
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The massive suffering imposed by the policymakers on the population of the PIIGS with mass-unemployment, falling GDP, negative debt-dynamics, bankruptcies, etc. is really a crime against humanity. Of course the current account will turn positive when aggregate demand is deficient enough. This it not something to be happy about, but to deplore.

Fighting Privatization in Chile

O privatiziranem šolstvu v Čilu:

Chileans were no longer content to be consumers, the only role a neoliberal, depoliticized social vision had allowed them. They wanted to be citizens, they wanted to be political, and they wanted a public square.

Več na: “No to Profit”

German Europe

Kratko (120 strani), razumljivo & odlično. Ulrich Beck: German Europe. Na BookDepository za pičlih 14 ojrov (poštnina vključena).

The invention and implementation of the euro was the price demanded by France in order to pin Germany down to a European Monetary Union in the context of German unification. It was a quid pro quo for binding a united Germany into a more integrated Europe in which France would continue to play the leading role. But the precise opposite has happened. Economically the euro turned out to be very good for Germany, and with the euro crisis Chancellor Angela Merkel became the informal Queen of Europe.The new grammar of power reflects the difference between creditor and debtor countries; it is not a military but an economic logic. Its ideological foundation is ‘German euro nationalism’ – that is, an extended European version of the Deutschmark nationalism that underpinned German identity after the Second World War. In this way the German model of stability is being surreptitiously elevated into the guiding idea for Europe. The Europe we have now will not be able to survive in the risk-laden storms of the globalized world. The EU has to be more than a grim marriage sustained by the fear of the chaos that would be caused by its breakdown. It has to be built on something more positive: a vision of rebuilding Europe bottom-up, creating a Europe of the citizen.

Evropa

Ko sem že obupal nad Evropo, pride v Evropski parlament irski predsednik. In spomni na izjemnost evropske vizije, dediščine, tradicije, humanističnega potenciala in… upanja.

There is nothing more corrosive to society and more crushing to an individual than endemic unemployment, particularly among the young. Today there are 26 million people across the Union without work, and 115 million in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion. We cannot allow this to continue.
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In the absence of considering other possible models or approaches, we are in danger of drifting into, and sustaining, a kind of moral and intellectual impotence. Yet we have available to us a rich legacy of intellectual, radical work upon which we could draw.

There is, in our shared intellectual heritage for example, in the energetic pursuit of new thought that characterised the European Enlightenment, itself formed from the thought of other ancient Enlightenments, some powerful examples of dissident and radical thought. Let us never forget the singular example given by those dissident thinkers, Diderot, Kant and Herder. They in their times saw the flaw in the Enlightenment thinking that supported empire, with its insatiable drive, and courageously challenged it through their books, pamphlets and public expressions.

The logistical strand of economics which today, as a hegemonic model of economic theory, holds sway is, of course, useful for limited and defined tasks. It is insufficient however for our problems and our future. We need a new substantive, political economy and an emancipatory discourse to deliver it, and I suggest that this is possible.
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A European Union – if it is to be respected as the great project it is and can be – must draw on the intellectual heritage and the intellectual imaginings, and the existing talents and capacity of the peoples of Europe. It is a fully authentic Union if it is characterised by solidarity.

Prepis govora.

Surviving Progress

Invisible run on banks

Boston.com

The problem behind the financial crisis was not what we think, says Gary Gorton.
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In “Misunderstanding Financial Crises: Why We Don’t See Them Coming,” published last month by Oxford University Press, Gorton argues that the true culprit was actually a kind of bank run—but not a visible Depression-era bank run, with citizens banging on doors trying to get their money out. Rather it was a run on the “shadow banking system,” a huge, largely unregulated system in which an immense amount of money changes hands daily, all behind the scenes.
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That’s simply not big enough to explain what happened, and in fact the losses on all triple A subprime mortgages are minuscule….That might be thought of as a triggering event, but that by itself does not explain what happened…
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And because no new rules have emerged to address the new kind of run that triggered the recent crisis, he says, we could be in for a repeat every few years.

Lažeš, kradeš, ekonomijo študiraš

The Atlantic:

Ever hear the joke about the lying economist?

No? Well, neither have I. But we might need to come up with one.

Such is the takeaway from a working paper released in January, which I stumbled on while browsing Professor Andres Marroquin’s top papers of 2012. Written by a pair of researchers from universities in Montreal and Madrid, it examined whether the study of economics made students more apt to lie for financial gain. The answer: a resounding yes.
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The researchers ultimately ran their test on 258 students from various majors, including business, economics, the humanities, sciences, law, among others. And there was a clear gap: even though a large portion of students lied from every field, economics and business students lied a much more often than everybody else. As shown in the table below, just 22.8 percent of them honestly reported the colors of the flashing circles, even when it cost them that extra euro. More than half of humanities students, on the other hand, were honest. Same went for law students, who appeared to play against type.

Save Your Kisses for Me

Adam Curtis:

It is the great shift of our time – the collapse of the dream that politicians could change the world for the better. A dream that was replaced by a conviction that politicians were untrustworthy and always become corrupted by power.

The collapse of that optimistic vision of what politics could achieve then left the way open for powerful, reactionary forces to take power who don’t want to change the world. Instead they want to manage the world and hold it stable – backed up by the threat of violence. A threat to which they have become increasingly addicted.

Davki & denar

Zanimiv & precej poljuden intervju s Stephanie Kelton (@deficitowl na Twitterju):

STEPHANIE KELTON: Well, taxes play an important and historically very interesting role. You know, if you look at the history, one of the examples that we often use is we talk a little bit about the colonization of Africa by the British. You say, “You know, the British sail over and they have a look around and they say, ‘You all have some really terrific res–’” I’m paraphrasing.

HARRY SHEARER: Yeah! (laughs) You’re putting it mildly, too.

STEPHANIE KELTON: “You all have some really –” (laughs) “You all have some really great resources here. How’s about we make a deal and you sell us some of this great stuff and we’d be happy to pay you for it, and here are some British pounds.” And the Africans, you know, look at the currency and they say, “Well, it’s lovely, but no thanks, cheerio, and safe trip home.” And the British said, “Well, no, actually, we really, really want the resources, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll start imposing taxes – it could be a head tax, it could be a village tax – but we’re going to impose a tax liability on you, the tax liability is payable only in the British currency, and the penalty for not paying the tax is –” And then, you know, use your imagination. The penalty was pretty stiff. So all of a sudden these African people who had no interest in working to get the British currency suddenly became very willing to work and provide resources in order to get the currency. And the reason is that the currency had no value to them until the tax was imposed and the liability was imposed on them. In other words, until they were forced into debt. And the only way –

HARRY SHEARER: You’re saying that taxes create the demand for the currency?

STEPHANIE KELTON: Historically you can find this. You can find this in the literature. Historians are very good on this, anthropologists are very good, numismatists are very good, and economists are really terrible at this –

HARRY SHEARER: (laughs)

STEPHANIE KELTON: – because they’re lazy scholars by and large. And so, yes, the literature, the work is out there, and historically you can find this.

Sindikati & skupno dobro

Via Businessinsider