Sou um indivíduo com muitas preocupações não-pessoais, como é bom de ver. Uma dessas preocupações prende-se com os EUA, e é uma preocupação holística - tem a ver com muitas coisas que se passam, ou não se passam lá. Se os EUA falham neste momento o futuro poderá ser excecionalmente problemático - tenho adquirido que vá sê-lo, problemático, em qualquer caso. Mesmo com o que se passa na Europa, a ter a importância que tem, isso não qualifica menos aquela outra preocupação - podem contagiar-se, aliás.
A crise económica mereceu, num primeiro momento, em todo o mundo, uma resposta keynesiana (renegada em seguida): aumentar a despesa pública como modo de suprir a quebra da procura privada em termos de consumo e de investimento. Essa resposta não foi a adequada em termos de intensidade em muitos países: - por não ser a suficiente ao que a situação exigia, como aconteceu no caso dos EUA e da Alemanha; por ser excessiva ao que a situação interna permitiria, como aconteceu no caso de Portugal - veja-se que no caso da Itália, por exemplo, devido ao estado das suas finanças públicas aquela resposta foi muito modesta e isso poderá explicar em parte, porque, apesar da má saúde dos seus indicadores, ter passado ao lado, pelo menos até agora, da má vontade dos "mercados".
Mas o caso dos EUA sobressai, e devido ao seu peso na economia mundial, esse efeito tem sido determinante na manutenção de um estado de recuperação económica titubeante. Um programa de estímulo económico mais ambicioso teria sido factível devido ao facto do Governo dos EUA poderem financiar-se de modo muito barato nos mercados - a situação monetária dos EUA conforma-se como sendo a da armadilha da liquidez - e pelo facto da imposição fiscal ter ainda uma margem muito grande de crescimento potencial seguro - os EUA tem níveis de imposto sobre o rendimento baixos em comparação com os europeus, e não tem o equivalente ao IVA. Isso tem sido verdade desde 2008, continua a sê-lo em 2011, mas ninguém sabe se continuará a sê-lo por muito mais tempo.
Que o programa de estímulo não foi o suficiente, prova-lo o sustentado nível de desemprego elevado, mesmo contando com o efeito dos programas de crescimento monetário promovidos pelo FED - economistas já apelidam a Grande Recessão de 2008-2009 de Pequena Depressão. Politicamente não há vontade de resolver o desemprego - ao desemprego é atribuído causas estruturais, e não cíclicas decorrentes de uma procura agregada insuficiente (se é estrutural não é resolúvel por um segundo pacote de estímulo orçamental). É recusada a possibilidade de recorrer ao aumento dos impostos, ou, tão simplesmente, fazer terminar os cortes de Bush, como modo de atenuar no médio prazo o peso e o perigo duma dívida pública excessiva. A saída apontada é a austeridade, a diminuição da despesa pública, que em retroação irá tornar mais fraca a recuperação - fala-se já da possibilidade séria do retorno da recessão.
Em síntese, os EUA poderiam fazer (ainda) aquilo que Portugal não pode: financiar um novo programa de estímulo à economia - aumento da despesa e investimento público - recorrendo ao aumento da dívida pública, financiada (ainda) a taxas de juro muito baixas, recorrendo ao aumento (moderado) dos impostos para sustentabilizar as contas públicas no médio prazo. Não é isso que sucede. Aliás, está a piorar: os republicanos recusam aumentar o nível autorizado de emissão da dívida, e ultrapassado o prazo para isso ser feito, o cenário poderá tornar-se muito grave - o rating da dívida pública norte-americana manter-se-á? Note-se que a emenda (um compromisso) poderá ser só um bocado melhor do que o soneto (a recusa de autorizar o nível de endividamento).
E tudo isso sucede por razões ideológicas e político-partidárias - a vontade de definhar o estado; a captura da máquina legislativa (e executiva?) por interesses privados e particulares; a vontade de impedir a reeleição de Obama (a Guerra Civil ainda continua a ser travada lá)..... Para tornar uma história longa numa curta - a nota vai comprida -, a razão está no facto, como dizia um comediante norte-americano, do Partido Democrata ter passado à direita, e o Partido Republicano ter entrado no manicómio.
Esta conversa toda para contextualizar um pouco o que se segue:
What Obama Wants - NYTimes.com| Paul Krugman - (texto integral)
On Thursday, President Obama met with Republicans to discuss a debt deal. We don’t know exactly what was proposed, but news reports before the meeting suggested that Mr. Obama is offering huge spending cuts, possibly including cuts to Social Security and an end to Medicare’s status as a program available in full to all Americans, regardless of income.Obviously, the details matter a lot, but progressives, and Democrats in general, are understandably very worried. Should they be? In a word, yes.Now, this might just be theater: Mr. Obama may be pulling an anti-Corleone, making Republicans an offer they can’t accept. The reports say that the Obama plan also involves significant new revenues, a notion that remains anathema to the Republican base. So the goal may be to paint the G.O.P. into a corner, making Republicans look like intransigent extremists — which they are.
But let’s be frank. It’s getting harder and harder to trust Mr. Obama’s motives in the budget fight, given the way his economic rhetoric has veered to the right. In fact, if all you did was listen to his speeches, you might conclude that he basically shares the G.O.P.’s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it. And maybe that’s not a false impression; maybe it’s the simple truth.
One striking example of this rightward shift came in last weekend’s presidential address, in which Mr. Obama had this to say about the economics of the budget: “Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can’t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.”
That’s three of the right’s favorite economic fallacies in just two sentences. No, the government shouldn’t budget the way families do; on the contrary, trying to balance the budget in times of economic distress is a recipe for deepening the slump. Spending cuts right now wouldn’t “put the economy on sounder footing.” They would reduce growth and raise unemployment. And last but not least, businesses aren’t holding back because they lack confidence in government policies; they’re holding back because they don’t have enough customers — a problem that would be made worse, not better, by short-term spending cuts.
In his brief remarks after Thursday’s meeting, by the way, Mr. Obama seemed to reiterate the Herbert Hooveresque view that deficit reduction is what we need to “grow the economy.” People have asked me why the president’s economic advisers aren’t telling him not to believe in the confidence fairy — that is, not to believe the assertion, popular on the right but overwhelmingly refuted by the evidence, that slashing spending in the face of a depressed economy will magically create jobs. My answer is, what economic advisers? Almost all the high-profile economists who joined the Obama administration early on have either left or are leaving.Nor have they been replaced. As The Wall Street Journal recently noted, there are a “stunning” number of vacancies in important economic posts. So who’s defining the administration’s economic views?
Some of what we’re hearing is presumably coming from the political team, whose members seem to believe that a move toward Republican positions, reminiscent of former President Bill Clinton ’s “triangulation” in the 1990s, is the key to Mr. Obama’s re-election. And Mr. Clinton did, indeed, rebound from a big defeat in the 1994 midterms to win big two years later. But some of us think that the rebound had less to do with his rhetorical move to the center than with the five million jobs the economy added over those two years — an achievement not likely to be repeated this time, especially not in the face of harsh spending cuts.
Anyway, I don’t believe that it’s all political calculation. Watching Mr. Obama and listening to his recent statements, it’s hard not to get the impression that he is now turning for advice to people who really believe that the deficit, not unemployment, is the top issue facing America right now, and who also believe that the great bulk of deficit reduction should come from spending cuts. It’s worth noting that even Republicans weren’t suggesting cuts to Social Security; this is something Mr. Obama and those he listens to apparently want for its own sake. Which raises the big question: If a debt deal does emerge, and it overwhelmingly reflects conservative priorities and ideology, should Democrats in Congress vote for it?
Mr. Obama’s people will no doubt argue that their fellow party members should trust him, that whatever deal emerges was the best he could get. But it’s hard to see why a president who has gone out of his way to echo Republican rhetoric and endorse false conservative views deserves that kind of trust.
Marshall Auerback: Time to Panic (II) « naked capitalism - (aceder à origem para ler a nota integral)
We expressed concern that the prevailing deficit hysteria and corresponding cutbacks in government spending (based on a wholly misconceived notion of “national solvency” or “fiscal sustainability” – whatever that means), would engender precisely the kinds of economic conditions that we’re seeing today. Unfortunately, the President, his ineffectual Treasury Secretary and Congress all remain in thrall of Wall Street Pollyannas and mainstream economists, who have continued to predict significantly above trend economic growth quarter after quarter after quarter.[....]And with a deal on the debt ceiling likely to include yet more cuts in government spending, and a major squeeze on real consumer incomes from commodity prices buoyed by speculation to the point of manipulation, the Administration inexplicably continues to forecast, yet again, a resumption of significant growth, because its fundraising buddies on Wall Street continue to reassure them that this will be the case. Not if we keep proceeding along the path we’re going down. [....]The collective embrace of fiscal austerity has gone beyond perverse.
The Ideological Crisis of Western Capitalism - Joseph E. Stiglitz - Project Syndicate - (ler na totalidade)
[....]
I was among those who hoped that, somehow, the financial crisis would teach Americans (and others) a lesson about the need for greater equality, stronger regulation, and a better balance between the market and government. Alas, that has not been the case. On the contrary, a resurgence of right-wing economics, driven, as always, by ideology and special interests, once again threatens the global economy – or at least the economies of Europe and America, where these ideas continue to flourish.
In the US, this right-wing resurgence, whose adherents evidently seek to repeal the basic laws of math and economics, is threatening to force a default on the national debt. If Congress mandates expenditures that exceed revenues, there will be a deficit, and that deficit has to be financed. Rather than carefully balancing the benefits of each government expenditure program with the costs of raising taxes to finance those benefits, the right seeks to use a sledgehammer – not allowing the national debt to increase forces expenditures to be limited to taxes.
This leaves open the question of which expenditures get priority – and if expenditures to pay interest on the national debt do not, a default is inevitable. Moreover, to cut back expenditures now, in the midst of an ongoing crisis brought on by free-market ideology, would inevitably simply prolong the downturn.
[....]
The remedies to the US deficit follow immediately from this diagnosis: put America back to work by stimulating the economy; end the mindless wars; rein in military and drug costs; and raise taxes, at least on the very rich. But the right will have none of this, and instead is pushing for even more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, together with expenditure cuts in investments and social protection that put the future of the US economy in peril and that shred what remains of the social contract. Meanwhile, the US financial sector has been lobbying hard to free itself of regulations, so that it can return to its previous, disastrously carefree, ways.
[....]
Regrettably, the financial markets and right-wing economists have gotten the problem exactly backwards: they believe that austerity produces confidence, and that confidence will produce growth. But austerity undermines growth, worsening the government’s fiscal position, or at least yielding less improvement than austerity’s advocates promise. On both counts, confidence is undermined, and a downward spiral is set in motion.
Do we really need another costly experiment with ideas that have failed repeatedly? We shouldn’t, but increasingly it appears that we will have to endure another one nonetheless. A failure of either Europe or the US to return to robust growth would be bad for the global economy. A failure in both would be disastrous – even if the major emerging-market countries have attained self-sustaining growth. Unfortunately, unless wiser heads prevail, that is the way the world is heading.
Com muito interesse. Ler para perceber as disfuncionalidades da democracia norte-americana.
Republicans Set to Repeal Light Bulb Efficiency Standard That Would Save Consumers $12 Billion a Year | ThinkProgress
Adicionei isto para substantivar a tese da entrada no manicómio.
The Obama-Keynes Mystery - NYTimes.com: I’m not alone in marveling at the extent to which Obama has thrown his rhetorical weight behind anti-Keynesian economics; Ryan Avent is equally amazed, as are many others. And now he’s endorsing the structural unemployment story too.
[....] Maybe at some point we have to accept that he believes what he’s saying. The question then is why.... [T]he facts overwhelmingly refute the anti-Keynes talking points. Neither the invisible bond vigilantes nor the confidence fairy have made an appearance. So why is Obama talking up those talking points?...Maybe the president just doesn’t like the kind of people who tell him counterintuitive things, who say that the government is not like a family, that it’s not right for the government to tighten its belt when Americans are tightening theirs, that unemployment is not caused by lack of the right skills. Certainly just about all the people who might have tried to make that argument have left the administration or are leaving soon.
And what’s left, I’m afraid, are the Very Serious People. It looks as if those are the people the president feels comfortable with. And that, of course, is a tragedy.
America's debt ceiling: No normal party | The Economist
E para substantivar a tese da entrada no manicómio nada melhor do que a opinião de um Republicano conceituado, cronista no NYT:
E para substantivar a tese da entrada no manicómio nada melhor do que a opinião de um Republicano conceituado, cronista no NYT:
David Brooks is in high dudgeon today:A normal Republican Party would seize the opportunity to put a long-term limit on the growth of government. It would seize the opportunity to put the country on a sound fiscal footing. It would seize the opportunity to do these things without putting any real crimp in economic growth...
But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.
The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no.
The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it.
The members of this movement have no sense of moral decency. A nation makes a sacred pledge to pay the money back when it borrows money. But the members of this movement talk blandly of default and are willing to stain their nation’s honor.
It goes on like that, if you can believe it. And yes, that's David Brooks, not Paul Krugman. [continuar a ler ....]
PS: Aliás, faltava esta nota onde tudo se explica: Obama revealed: A moderate Republican - The Washington Post
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