Deregulacija? Kje?

JPD je zapisal:

In državni intervencionizem na finančnem področju v ZDA zna danes biti učinkovit odgovor na pomanjkljivo regulacijo finančnega trga v zadnjem desetletju. Že jutri pa bo potreben spet nov odgovor ekonomske politike na škodo, ki jo bo – danes koristen – državni intervencionizem povzročil v finančnih subjektih v ZDA in spet bomo priča deregulacije itd. Vir

Preprosto, kajne? Danes malo dereguliramo, jutri malo reguliramo in tako ad infinitum. Kljub temu, da nam pogled na borze dviguje pritisk, je v bistvu vse v mejah normale. Sistem deluje, čeprav znajo biti ti cikli malo preveč “dinamični” za kakšen bolj občutljiv želodec. 

Tako pišmeuhovstvo je nevarno, ker zakriva akterje iz mesa in krvi in resnične ukrepe, še huje, sistematično sprego med velikim denarjem in političnim sistemom, ki so krivi za današnji kaos. Če je vse ok, če je vse “normalno”, če “trg”, tak kot pač je, spet ni nič kriv, potem se pač ni potrebno ukvarjati s takimi malenkostmi, kot je sistematičen projekt deregulacije bančnega sistema skozi celotna 90. leta prejšnjega stoletja :

Even more damaging, in light of today’s economic crisis, was the sweeping deregulation of the banking and financial services industries that took place in the 1990s.

Opozarjam na ta odsek (kot trajni spomenik, da se eni ničesar ne naučijo, če se jim to izplača)

What makes this enterprise particularly confounding is not only the fact that it took place under a Democratic president with support from a majority of Democrats in Congress, but that it followed so closely on the heels of the savings and loan crisis, which ought to have served as a cautionary tale on the dangers of deregulation in the banking sector. The Depository Institutions Act of 1982, another Reagan initiative, was supposed to “revitalize” the housing industry by freeing up the S&Ls to make more loans. Instead, the regulation rollback led to what economist John Kenneth Galbraith called “the largest and costliest venture in public misfeasance, malfeasance and larceny of all time” as they engaged in a fury of high-risk lending. The collapse that followed cost taxpayers an estimated $150 billion in government bailouts, and contributed to the recession of the early 1990s.

OK, deregulaciji malce spodrsne (tam nekje severno od 150 milijard USD), toda za revolucijo ni predaha…

Yet Bill Clinton, elected in large part because of that recession (a la James Carville’s “It’s the economy, stupid”), was talking about deregulation before he was even inaugurated. The National Review reported that “Bill Clinton embraced at least one Reaganesque idea at the Little Rock economic summit” he held in December 1992: “banking deregulation.”

The banking industry objected to regulations put in place in 1989 after the S&L debacle, as well as others dating back to FDR. The heads of the six major U.S. banking associations, according to the National Review, had written “a long letter to the President-elect in December advocating nine substantive reforms.”

The Glass-Steagall Act was, in fact, a primary target of the Clinton-era deregulation effort. An early piece of New Deal-era legislation, the act was passed in response to speculation and manipulation of the markets by huge banking firms, which most liberal economists believed had brought on the crash of 1929. Glass-Steagall imposed firewalls between commercial banking and investment banking, and between the banking, brokerage, and insurance industries. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks lobbying and campaign contributions, “Eager to create financial supermarkets that peddle everything from checking accounts to auto insurance, the three industries for years have lobbied Congress to streamline regulatory hurdles that bar such operations.” VEČ

 
Glasniki finančnih mešetarjev so truimfirali:

Passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 was celebrated in a Wall Street Journal editorial as an end to “unfair” restrictions imposed on banks during the Great Depression, under the headline “Finally, 1929 Begins to Fade.”

No, bili so tudi tisti drugi, manj navdušeni:

But Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, writing in Mother Jones, warned that the legislation, which amounted to the “finance industry’s deregulatory wish list,” would “pave the way for a new round of record-shattering financial industry mergers, dangerously concentrating political and economic power.” Mokhiber and Weissman also predicted that such mergers would eventually “create too-big-to-fail institutions that are someday likely to drain the public treasury as taxpayers bail out imperiled financial giants to protect the stability of the nation’s banking system.

To big too fail, ha? Kolikokrat ste to slišali letos?

Naporno delo novih revolucionarjev seveda ni bilo poceni:

But by the time [it] was repealed in 1999, the $300 million lobbying effort that drove deregulation was more about facilitating mergers than creating an efficient regulatory framework. Vir

In kdo danes “pomaga” pri računanju, koliko $$$ davkoplačevalskega denarja bo potrebnega?

Among the armies of well-heeled lobbyists pressuring Congress on the size and structure of the financial bailout this week are a number of familiar faces. CBS News found 21 former staffers from the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and House Financial Services Committees are now lobbyists for financial firms. Their job? To lobby those in Congress who will shape the financial bailout. The former staffers now represent hedge funds, private equity firms, investment banks and the failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Vir

Krasen svet, ni kaj? Najprej si zlobiraš eno fajn deregulacijo, pokasiraš dobičke, ko pa gre vse k vragu, pa še malo pomagaš davkoplačevalcem pri računanju tistih milijard.

JPD ob zaključku:

Vedno znova je treba iskati učinkovite, eklektične rešitve za nova vprašanja. In v tem je tudi čar našega bivanja in delovanja. Sicer ne bi imeli nobenih izzivov in bi nam bilo zelo dolgčas.

Jah, tudi tako lahko rečemo kleptokraciji, tej poroki “velike vlade” in “trga” (da, tudi to gre, dragi moji), predatorski oziroma korporativni republiki, o katerih je pisal James K. Galbraith.

The general theses can be simply stated. First, while conservatives toyed with laissez-faire, they quickly abandoned it in all important areas of policy-making. For them, it now serves as nothing more than an enabling myth, used to hide the true nature of our world. Ironically, only the progressive still takes the call for “market solutions” seriously, and this is the major barrier to formulating sensible policy. Second, the “industrial state” has been replaced by a predator state, a coalition of relentless opponents of the very idea of a “public interest”, whose purpose is to master the state structure in order to empower a high plutocracy with nothing more than vile and rapacious goals. Finally, the “corporate republic” created by the likes of Dick Cheney is highly unstable, a formula for national failure. Progressives must wrest control from the reactionaries before it is too late for restoration of America as the world’s financial anchor, technological leader, and promoter of collective security. Vir

Kaj ob zaključku? Uživajte v razgledu – itak ste ga vi plačali.

P.S.

Igorja Vidmarja za precednika:

Neverjetno: JPD-spet bo treba dodati “Morgan” – se spravi na “dilemo”, KI JE NI PREDLAGAL NIHČE! Kaj je to , če ne bushevsko “pre-emptivni” napad večnega vernika “svobodnega trga” na hude dvome v to dogmo? Katastrofa finančnega free-market kapitalizma seveda ni posledica ZGOLJ svobodnega trga- ki ga v “čisti” obliki sploh ni- ampak je kot vselej posledica španovije free-market fundamentalistov in njihovega političnega vpliva na “državo”- pa ne le republikansko. Torej je šlo za VGRAJEN MORALNI HAZARD- “če veš, da te bo rešila tvoja oblast, boš seveda tvegal in kopičil dobičke, dokler bo šlo”, je zapisal nek gospod,ki ga bom še omenil, danes v NYT. To je preprosto bistvo liberalnega kapitalizma- MAKSIMIRANJE DOBIČKOV – tokrat FINANČNE INDUSTRIJE S POMOČJO (demontiranja) “DRŽAVE”.

Da ne boste preveč iskali gospoda, ki ga omenja Vidmar: What’s Free About Free Enterprise?

Ta se sprašuje:

The second problem is more philosophical, involving what the bailout plan reveals about the functioning of the free enterprise system.

In res, kakšen free market je to, ki je sistematično odvisen od denarja davkoplačevalcev in državnega intervencionizma najhujše sorte?

Še prognoza: sedaj bo svet nekaj časa “metal denar iz helikopterjev” in molil, da ne gre vse v maloro… čez čas, ko se bodo stvari spet normalizirale, pa se bo dobro naoljena mašinerija lobistov, vernikov v svbodobni trg in korporacijskih sponzorjev spet zagnala… in poslušali bomo iste flance o čudežnem svobodnem trgu, nujni deregulaciji, neznosnem “socializmu”, ki zavira potenciale kreativnih, o tem, kako za čudoviti novi svet globalne ekonomije ne velja nobena stara modrost…

Ko vedno, bi bilo tudi takrat zadostnih par klasičnih polit-ekonomskih vprašanj (Komu predlagani ukrepi koristijo? Kdo bo požel največ prednosti? Kdo bo poraženec? Kdo bo nosil tveganja?), ki pa si jih seveda ne bo upal nihče postaviti, saj bo hitro izgnan iz panteona “pravih, resnih” ekonomistov. Če kdo, imajo naši mladoekonomisti s tem izvrstne izkušnje.