Kaip gelbėjo eurą

Financial Times artėjančių rinkimų į Europarlamentą proga publikavo jaudinančią esė kaip Europos nomenklatūra "gelbėjo" zoną nuo suirimo.

Gelbėjo susitarę, kad krizės metu visokie statutiniai ir demokratiniai apribojimai neturi būti kliūtimi didžiam tikslui, todėl galima atlikti vieną kitą perversmą. Vokietija leido Europos centriniam bankui (ECB) vykdyti ekonomikos stabilizavimo veiksmus mainais už paramos gavėjų "struktūrinių reformų" kontrolę.

Sodrios detalės, neviešinti faktai, "žmogiškas veidas".

“Das ist nicht fair.” That is not fair, the German chancellor said angrily, tears welling in her eyes. “Ich bringe mich nicht selbst um.” I am not going to commit suicide.

For those who witnessed the breakdown in a small conference room in the French seaside resort of Cannes, it was shocking enough to watch Europe’s most powerful and emotionally controlled leader brought to tears.

But the scene was even more remarkable, those present said, for the two objects of her ire: the man sitting next to her, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and the other across the table, US President Barack Obama.

It would be the low point in a brutal, recrimination-filled night, one many participants would recall as the nadir of the three-year eurozone crisis.

Nelengvas tai buvo procesas... Malonaus skaitymo.

Antroji bankų sąjungos šuns koja

Senokai berašiau apie bankų sąjungą. Priminsiu kontekstą:

„Vienas didžiausių ES iššūkių – užtrukęs finansų sistemos susiskaidymas, neigiamai veikiantis ūkio raidą. Tik pašalinę jo priežastis, galėsime atkurti normalų finansų rinkos funkcionavimą ir taip paskatinti ekonomikos atsigavimą. Mūsų įsitikinimu, tai vienas iš svarbiausių Lietuvos pirmininkavimo tikslų, todėl šiandien ir rytoj vykstančiame susitikime išskirtinį dėmesį skirsime bankų sąjungos bei mažųjų ir vidutinių įmonių finansavimo klausimams“

... ponas Vasiliauskas gi nemeluos - negalėjo be bankų sąjungos būti normalaus finansų rinkos funkcionavimo. Labiau sofistikuotuose sluoksniuose buvo mėgstama pabrėžti, kad bankų sąjunga turėjo "to break the sovereign-bank feedback loop" - atskirti valstybių ir bankų krizes vieną nuo kitos.

Bankų sąjunga turėjo turėti tris kojas:

1. ECB vykdomą centralizuotos bankų priežiūros mechanizmą,
2. taisykles, ką veikti su "blogais" bankais,
3. bendraeuropinį indėlių draudimo mechanizmą.

Ne paslaptis, kad vienas pagrindinių Lietuvos pirmininkavimo ES tikslų buvo rūpinimasis antrosios kojos sukūrimu.

Štai, sukūrė:

Trumpas angliškas aprašymas:

The decision making process will be thus: as supervisor the ECB recommends a bank be resolved, the board of national resolution authorities devises a plan and votes on it (any release of funds will require approval  two-thirds of voting countries contributing at least 50% of the common fund). This will then have to be approved by the Commission. If there is a dispute at any stage of this process the Council of EU finance ministers will decide on simple majority (if not then it will approve through a ‘silent procedure’).

... Visas pasaulis juokiasi.

Amerikoje FDIC banką penktadienį be įspėjimo uždaro, pirmadienį jis jau veikia kaip kito banko filialas. Balansus suvedinėja vėliau. FDIC turi neribotą FED kredito užnugarį.

Rusijoje "Nabiullina punches a red button and the bank drops through a hole in the floor" bankas sustabdomas "vienu CB vadovės mygtuko paspaudimu".

Lietuvoje sušaukiamas pasitarimas prokuratūroje, informacija nuteka, tai kitą dieną jau būna nutekėjęs banko likvidumas. Mes dar naujokai...

O Europoje bus vokiškoji biurokratinė romantika. Daugiapakopis demokratiškas pasitarimų ir derinimų kaip dalintis būsimus nuostolius darbas, apsimetant, kad tų nuostolių dydis žinomas iki perimant banką, informacija nenutekėjo ir nenutekės, o kai gražioji procedūra bus baigta, situacija banke bus tokia, kokia buvo viso to proceso pradžioje.

Visi supranta, kad absurdas, žino kaip reikia, bet daro kaip vokiečiai liepė - kad kol kas būtų gražu. Iki pirmo pritaikymo...

P.S. Dėl "mažųjų ir vidutinių įmonių finansavimo klausimų" kažkaip nieko perdaug nebesigirdėjo. Turbūt irgi išsprendė.

Vokietijos atsakomybė

LEVY instituto post-keynesistai savaitgalį organizuoja konferenciją Atėnuose. Žiūrint į dalyvių sąrašą ir pranešimų temas, renginys bus turiningas. Temų ratas - nuo Vokietijos "nuopelnų" euro krizei aptarimo, iki pasidalinimo islandiškomis "kaip mes juos pasiuntėm ir nieko neatsitiko" patirtimis.

(Konferencijoje dalyvaus ir Már Guðmundsson, Islandijos centrinio banko vadovas. Skaitys pranešimą “Iceland’s Crisis and Recovery: Are There Lessons for the Eurozone and Its Member Countries?”)

Iš LEVY blogo kopijuoju Jörg Bibow interviu - pranešimo apie Vokietijos politikos klaidas anonsą.

You have been critical of German policy. How does it really affect the rest of Europe? In what ways does it cause harm to the peripheral economies?

Yes, indeed, German policy bears foremost responsibility for the euro crises and German policy is key to Europe’s future. Germany is Europe’s largest economy. For that reason alone whatever happens in Germany inevitably significantly impacts the eurozone economy. For instance, when Germany prescribed itself an extra dose of wage repression and fiscal austerity in the early 2000s, this had rather fateful consequences for the currency union. For one thing, stagnant domestic demand in Germany constrained its euro partners’ exports to Germany. For another, stagnation in Germany provoked some degree of monetary easing from the ECB, monetary easing which was both too little for Germany but too much for the euro periphery where wages and domestic demand were thereby propelled further. In other words, Germany undermined the ECB’s “one-size-fits-all” monetary policy stance. This happened alongside cumulative divergences in intra-area competitiveness positions, current account imbalances and the corresponding buildup in foreign asset and debt positions. Together this meant that the currency union was going to face trouble as soon as those imbalances would start to unravel. I started warning of these developments in 2005, but the euro authorities were sleeping at the wheel for many years to come.

This is the background to the still unresolved euro crisis, which is primarily a balance-of-payments and banking crisis that only became a sovereign debt crisis as a consequence. Adding insult to injury, the crisis has left Germany in the driver’s seat in eurozone policymaking. Germany punches above its weight in current policy debates. Unfortunately, in misdiagnosing the true nature of the crisis, Germany’s policy prescriptions have focused on nothing but fiscal austerity and structural reform. The consequences are proving a disaster for Europe. In particular, since Germany refuses to adjust its massive external imbalance and continues to have very low inflation, the ongoing rebalancing process inside the currency union is proving deflationary for everyone else. Essentially, as average eurozone wage and price inflation has fallen to extremely low levels, euro crisis countries are forced into debt deflation. Predictably, the wreckage is truly enormous. Policies and consequences are akin to what U.S. President Hoover and German Chancellor Brüning attempted in the 1930s. As we know, this sad experiment in macro policy folly gave the U.S. FDR, the New Deal, and Social Security, while outcomes in Germany were far less benign. It is as yet unclear which path Europe will take this time; the constructive or the destructive one.

What drives then Germany’s current policy? Doesn’t its leadership recognize the danger it poses for the future of the eurozone?

Confusion, a load full of ideological baggage, and short-sighted vested interests, I suppose. Apparently the German authorities do not understand the futility of their favored policies. My reading is that they have never quite understood that Germany could only succeed with its peculiar economic model in the past because and as long as its key trading partners behaved differently. Today Germany is forcing Europe to become like Germany. The trouble is of course that not everyone can be super-competitive and run perpetual current account surpluses at the same time. Somehow the German authorities are stuck in a deep ideological hole on this issue – and they keep on digging.

If Germany continues practicing its current policies, what would be the most likely outcome? Will we head towards the dissolution of the eurozone or with the permanent two- or even three-tier Europe and with the periphery in a quasi colonial situation?

Without a fundamental U-turn in Germany policy I expect the euro experiment, which has clearly failed at this point, to end in full-blown disaster: dissolution. Germany can only run perpetual current account surpluses vis-à-vis its euro partners with fiscal transfers as their counterpart. But such a “transfer union” is precisely what Germany dreads most. Somehow the German authorities, supposedly under pressure from Germany’s powerful export lobby, have trouble seeing the inevitable link between the two. Or perhaps they have convinced themselves that, as Germany’s euro partners become just like Germany, the eurozone as a whole can from now on run up a large external imbalance. If this is the new master plan, they are kidding themselves. The U.S. Treasury has just fired a broadside at Germany for this foolish endeavor, making it very clear that repeating at the global level the very strategy which has wrecked Europe was unacceptable [plačiau apie tai - čia]. Let me add that the Germany finance ministry’s response that Germany’s seven-percent-of-GDP current account surplus was neither a problem to Europe nor the world is truly scary, once again highlighting that the German authorities are bathing themselves in delusion and denial.

Išeitis iš politinio akligatvio, autoriaus nuomone, būtų bendro iždo, aprūpinamo finansiniais resursais per obligacijų emisijas, įgalioto vykdyti stambias investicijas visoje eurozonoje, sukūrimas.

I do believe however that my Euro Treasury plan features a minimalistic but functional fiscal union that would finally put the euro on a viable track.

By the way, Germany’s role in all this is not to embark on a national fiscal expansion. Germany’s own fiscal space is actually too limited for that and, while the markets may chose to ignore this fact at their peril, Germany is actually in an extremely vulnerable position itself. What we need from Germany is to emerge from its current state of delusion and denial, and to allow and facilitate the regime reforms needed to put the euro on a viable track. Without the Euro Treasury, the “strengthened” so-called Stability and Growth Pact and the “Fiscal Compact” are nothing but the euro’s deathtrap. By contrast, the Euro Treasury to-be turns the flawed project into a viable one. Needless to say, this would be in Germany’s own national interest, while, ultimately, its current policies are not. Germany has much to gain from a viable euro regime – just as breakup of the euro would prove extremely costly to Germany.

Techniškai įmanomas planas, politiškai dar ne.

Papildymas. Žiū, visai linksma "vokiečių atsakomybės" polemika. Brussels Blog:
2013.11.11 Rehn siding with Washington in its battle with Berlin?

Over the last few weeks, the normally über-dismal science of German economic policymaking has unexpectedly become stuff of international diplomatic brinkmanship, after the US Treasury department accused Berlin of hindering eurozone and global growth by suppressing domestic demand at a time its economy is growing on the backs of foreigners buying German products overseas.

The accusation not only produced the expected counterattack in Berlin, but has become the major debating point among the economic commentariat. Our own Martin Wolf, among others, has taken the side of Washington and our friend and rival Simon Nixon over at the Wall Street Journal today has backed the Germans.

Now comes the one voice that actually can do something about it: Olli Rehn, the European Commission’s economic tsar who just made his views known in a blog post on his website. Why should Rehn’s views take precedence? Thanks to new powers given to Brussels in the wake of the eurozone crisis, he can force countries to revise their economic policies – including an oversized current account surplus – through something soporifically known as the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure.

2013.11.13 Rehn, Germany and US Treasury Dept: Round Two (Ko tie amerikonai kabinėjasi?)

OpenEurope, 2013.11.13 Reviewing Germany's surplus

Signs on this front so far show the potential for conflict. German reactions have already been quite hostile with CSU General Secretary Alexander Dobrindt warning that, “You don't strengthen Europe by weakening Germany” and CDU General Secretary Hermann Gröhe adding, “Our export strength is the corner stone of our prosperity”. Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann added that expanding Germany fiscal policy is also not the answer, saying, “The positive knock-on effects would be limited”.

Nausėdai: euras - kaip trijų metrų gylio duobė

SEB banko prezidento patarėjas Gitanas Nausėda „Žinių radijo“ laidoje „Atviras pokalbis“ teigė, kad šalies politikų neapsisprendimas dėl euro įvedimo gali brangiai kainuoti.

„Mes įsivaizduojame, kad euro įvedimas yra, jeigu kalbant krepšinio terminais, kažkoks trijų metrų skersmens krepšinio lankas, į kurį kamuolį gali įmesti bet kada. Šiandien nenoriu, įmesiu rytoj... Bet juk taip nėra. Mes šiuo metu turime tikrai labai neblogas sąlygas patekti į euro zoną tiek dėl infliacijos, tiek dėl valstybės skolos, tiek dėl net biudžeto deficito, o rytoj nėra jokių garantijų, kad pasaulyje infliacija neišaugs, Europoje infliacija neišaugs, Lietuvoje infliacija neišaugs... Ji gali išaugti ir mums gali būti labai sunku į tą korsetą įsisprausti 2015 ar 2016 m.“, – perspėjo G.Nausėda.

Perfrazuodamas Gitaną Nausėdą vairavimo terminais, verčiau siūlau eurą įsivaizduoti kaip trijų metrų gylio duobę, kurią kelyje reikia atsargiai apvažiuoti. Nebent trokštume ateities, kurioje vietoje demokratijos būtume "krizės svertais" vairuojami puse lūpų kalbančių ECB statytinių.

Kalbėdamas apie eurozonos bėdas, britų laikraščio Daily Telegraph apžvalgininkas Ambrose Evans-Pritchard paminėjo šiemet italų kalba išleistą knygą "Morire di Austerita". Knygos autorius Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi iki 2011-ųjų lapkričio buvo aukščiausio lygio ECB funkcionieriumi - priklausė ECB vykdomosios tarybos šešetui.

Citata nuo knygos viršelio: "La crisi è soprattutto politica. Riflette l’incapacità delle democrazie occidentali di risolvere problemi accumulati da oltre un ventennio. Chi è eletto democraticamente fa fatica a prendere decisioni impopolari che possono comprometterne la rielezione. L’emergenza diventa così il motore dell’azione politica e il modo per giustificare le manovre correttive di fronte agli elettori, con la conseguenza che la cura - tardiva e varata sotto la pressione dei mercati - diventa ancor più dolorosa e impopolare."

Vertimas (ačiū už pagalbą +Agne Ma): Krizė yra visų pirma politinė. Ji demonstruoja vakarietiškų demokratijų nesugebėjimą spręsti daugiau nei dvidešimt metų besikaupiančias problemas. Demokratiškai išrinktos vyriausybės nesugeba daryti nepopuliarių sprendimų, kurie galėtų neigiamai įtakoti perrinkimą. Todėl krizė tampa politiniu stimulu ir būdu pasiteisinti prieš rinkėjus dėl korekcinių manevrų, duodančių reikiamą rezultatą. Bet pavėluotai, rinkų spaudimo fone vykdomos priemonės būna dar skausmingesnės ir nepopuliarios.

Knyga pateikia problemų, kurių tos "neefektyvios" demokratijos nesugeba "išspręsti", paaiškinimą: Target2 (centrinių bankų tarpusavio garantijų sistemos) disbalansai. Kitaip - pati eurosistemos esmė. Pasirodo, buvusio ECB vykdomosios tarybos nario nuomone, tai "demokratijos problema" ir ją leidžiama spręsti, "spaudžiant krizės svertus".

Kapitalas (bankų įsipareigojimai eurais) eurozonoje, žinote, turi "mobilumo teisę". O patys bankai gali įsipareigoti, kaip tik jiems šauna į galvą. Pavyzdžiui banką valdantys asmenys per statytinius gali įsipareigoti patys sau. Jei nori, gali tą įsipareigojimą perkelti į bet kurį kitą eurozonos banką (pervesti pinigus). Pervedimui įvykus, valstybės balansas Target2 sistemoje pablogėja visa to pervedimo suma. O valstybės, į kurią pinigai "nuėjo", "pagerėja".

(Jeigu toks bankas nusprogtų, ir paaiškėtų, kad pusė jo aktyvų fiktyvūs, anuliuoti tokios operacijos, nepasibylinėjus kelių valstybių teismuose, nebūtų įmanoma.)

Centrinio banko funkcionieriaus politikos supratimas toks: įsiskolinimai, atsirandantys per Target2 tvarkant neaišku kokius reikalus bankams su neaišku kokiais balansais [dar vienas "balansų skylės" paaiškinimas čia], turi būti "aptarnaujami" realaus ekonominio produkto, realios vertės srautais. Politikai privalo tai iš savo ekonomikų išspausti.

Ir apie tai neturi būti viešai kalbama kitaip, kaip apie fiskalinę drausmę. Rekomenduojama reklamuoti būsimą "bankų sąjungą", būsimą bankų priežiūros mechanizmą, būsimą garantinį fondą į kurį per dešimt metų gal bus surinkta 50 milijardų eurų.

Kam nepatinka - pats kaltas. Knygoje atskleidžiami ECB Italijoje inicijuoto politinio perversmo, įvykdyto Berlusconi 2011-aisiais pradėjus konsultacijas dėl Italijos išstojimo iš eurozonos, faktai.

Visų eurozonos šalių Target2 įsipareigojimai Vokietijai - virš pusės trilijono eurų, bankų sistemos balansų skylė - dar ne mažiau trilijono. Knygoje aprašomas epizodas, kaip 2012-aisiais Vokietijos kanclerė Merkel jau buvo susiruošusi išmesti Graikiją iš eurozonos, bet išgirdus paaiškinimą, kokios bus grandininės bankrotų reakcijos, ir kas galiausiai turės mokėti, persigalvojo. Rizika ir įtampos susidarė tokios, kad Target2 prižiūrėtojai Vokietijoje "naktimis nebemiega".

Kadangi tie įsipareigojimai kolektyviniai [dar vienas paaiškinimas čia], Vokietijai palanku, kai juos prisiima daugiau šalių. Kaip ne keista, tai palanku ir naujai prisijungiančiųjų narių elitams.

Propagandos mašinos įjungtos. Bankininkai juodais kostiumais Lietuvoje:
V. Vasiliauskas: neturime teisės dar kartą paleisti vėjais galimybės įsivesti eurą;
G. Nausėda: euro [neįvedimo] klausimas Lietuvai gali brangiai kainuoti;

bet... Vasiliauskas: krizė atskleidė finansų sistemos spragas

Gal manote, kad ponas Vasiliauskas kalba apie sistemines spragas? Besąlygines garantijas, tik po dešimties metų sugalvojant, kad tų garantijų galutiniai naudotojai - bankai - turėtų būti išties, o ne formaliai kontroliuojami?

Žinoma, ne. Spręskite patys:

Pono Vasiliausko teigimu, Europai būtinas toks finansų priežiūros ir reguliavimo priemonių rinkinys, kuris ne tik sustiprintų finansų sistemą, bet ir paskatintų ekonomikos, ypač smulkiojo ir vidutinio verslo, finansavimą.

„Vienas didžiausių ES iššūkių – užtrukęs finansų sistemos susiskaidymas, neigiamai veikiantis ūkio raidą. Tik pašalinę jo priežastis, galėsime atkurti normalų finansų rinkos funkcionavimą ir taip paskatinti ekonomikos atsigavimą. Mūsų įsitikinimu, tai vienas iš svarbiausių Lietuvos pirmininkavimo tikslų, todėl šiandien ir rytoj vykstančiame susitikime išskirtinį dėmesį skirsime bankų sąjungos bei mažųjų ir vidutinių įmonių finansavimo klausimams“, – pranešime cituojamas Lietuvos banko valdybos pirmininkas.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard žodžiais:

He [Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi - ed.] confirms that Germany is indeed on the hook for €574bn of credits from the Bundesbank to the central banks of Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Cyprus, and Slovenia.

We have always been assured that the so-called Target2 credits within the ECB's internal payments system is a technical adjustment, without significant risk.

Mr Bini-Smaghi states that any EMU state leaving the euro would face likely default on external obligations. "The national central bank would not be able to repay liabilities accumulated in relation to other members of the euro system, which are registered in the internal payments system of the Union (known as Target2). The insolvency would provoke substantial losses for counter-parties in other eurozone countries, including central banks and states." [...]

This means that if the euro blows up, the Bundesbank still owes this money to the same private banks, which could be Deutsche Bank, but could also be Nomura, Citigroup, or Barclays. This is not fictitious. The Bundesbank cannot default on these securities.

Perhaps I am a bear of very little brain, but I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation as to how this can be conjured away painlessly, as we are told by a long list of illustrious economists that it can be. I have never seen them answer this issue. They publish long papers, blinding everybody with science as economists are prone to do (usually bluffing), but never get to the core point.

The fact is that Target2 is the flipside of intra-EMU capital flight. Private investors have pulled out of Club Med, dumping their claims onto the taxpayers of Germany and the northern creditor states. Dress this up any way you want, but that is the reality.

Yes, the Bundesbank could print money with gay abandon in such a crisis – and would have to do so to avoid a deflationary shock, and on a much larger scale than anything suggested so far within the EMU construct. Germany would no doubt muddle through, but its monetary doctrines would be shredded.

The Bundesbank's official position is that the Target2 controversy is a storm in a teacup. In fact, they don't believe it themselves. A Bundesbanker with direct responsibility for Target2 said in my presence that he "worries about it every night". The bank's own president Jens Weidmann testified last year that the imbalances are an "unacceptable risk".

I suspect that somebody is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the German people, and it is not the splendidly outspoken Jens Weidmann.

---
Brad DeLong:
No mystery, guys; you messed up.

Kaip Schäubl'ienė demokratiją atstatė

Formavosi nuomonė, kad vardan šventos ramybės Vokietijoje iki rinkimų bus vengiama rimtų diskusijų apie Graikiją. Rinkėjams tereikėjo žinoti , kad "krizė pasibaigė", kadangi "Merkel suvaldė situaciją".

Jei ne bendražygio žmona...

Schäuble, on the other hand, is clearly pleased with his image as an honest champion of the truth. Last Thursday, he spoke to supporters at the Maria Laach monastery in the western Eifel region. His listeners wanted to know what had prompted him to make the statement about Greece.

He is always a little cranky in the morning, the minister replied. And he was in one of those moods at breakfast recently, he added, when his wife asked him what was going on with Greece and whether there would be any nasty surprises after the election. "After the election? Well, everything we already know and that's already been decided," the minister replied. "If my wife is asking," he said, to the amusement of his audience, "I have to set things straight."

Toks vat konfūzas gavosi. (Schäuble - dabartinis Vokietijos finansų ministras). Dabar Merkel tenka teisintis dabatuose. Ir per reitingą kaukštelėjo.

Electionista: Germany - Infratest dimap poll - preferred Chancellor: Angela Merkel (CDU) 48%(-6 from pre-debate), Peer Steinbrück (SPD) 45%(+17)

Užtat demokratija.

Electionista puikus informacijos šaltinis, ir Wikipedijos puslapis skirtas Vokietijos rinkimams, ir viešosios nuomonės duomenų puslapis.

Vokiškas bėdavojimas: norėtųsi daugiau demokratijos - niekas nepaduoda

Jürgen Habermas SPIEGEL'yje sako, kad Eurozona ir Vokietija indoktrinuotos iliuzijomis, kurių palaikymas nelabai dera su demokratija. Esą derėtų diskutuoti nepopuliarius dalykus rinkimų kampanijos metu, o ne tada, kai jau šaukštai bus po pietų.

Merkel's European Failure: Germany Dozes on a Volcano

In the name of market imperatives to which there is allegedly no alternative, an increasingly isolated German government is enforcing harsh austerity policies in France and those euro-zone countries gripped by crisis. Contrary to reality, it assumes that all members of the European monetary union can make their own decisions regarding budgetary and economic policy. They are expected to "modernize" their administration and economy, and to enhance their competitiveness on their own -- if necessary with aid loans from the rescue fund.

This fiction of sovereignty is convenient for Germany, because it saves the stronger partner from having to take into account the negative effects that some policies can have on weaker partners. It is a situation that European Central Bank President Mario Draghi warned about a year ago, saying that "it is neither sustainable nor legitimate for countries to pursue national policies that can cause economic harm for others" (Die Zeit, Aug. 30, 2012).

It's worth repeating again and again: The suboptimal conditions under which the European Monetary Union operates today are the result of a design flaw, namely that the political union was never completed. That's why pushing the problems onto the shoulders of the crisis-ridden countries with credit financing isn't the answer. The imposition of austerity policies cannot correct the existing economic imbalances in the euro zone. An assimilation of the different levels in productivity in the mid-term could only be expected from a joint, or at least closely coordinated, fiscal, economic and social policy. And if we then, in the course of countervailing policies, don't wish to completely turn into a technocracy, we must ask the public what they think about a democratic core Europe. Wolfgang Schäuble knows this. He says as much in SPIEGEL interviews, which, however, have no consequences for his political behavior.

European policy is in a trap that the political sociologist Claus Offe has sharply illuminated: If we do not want to give up the monetary union, an institutional reform, which takes time, is both necessary and unpopular. This is why politicians who hope to be re-elected are kicking the can down the road [...]

On the other hand, what exactly does "unpopular" mean? If a political solution is sensible, it should be reasonable to ask a democratic electorate to accept it. And when should one do so, if not before a parliamentary election? Anything else is patronizing deception. It is always a mistake to underestimate and ask too little of voters. I consider it a historical failure of the political elites in Germany if they continue to shut their eyes and behave as if it were business as usual -- that is, if they persist in their shortsighted wrangling over the fine print behind closed doors, which is the current approach.

Instead, politicians should come clean with the increasingly restless citizenry, which has never been confronted with substantial European issues. They should take the lead in an inevitably polarizing dispute over alternatives, none of which is available for free. And they should no longer remain silent about the negative redistribution effects, which the "donor countries," in their own long-term interest, must accept in the short and medium term as the only constructive solution to the crisis.

Tekste trūksta problemų masto, atstovaujamų interesų įvardinimo. Tarsi būtų kalbama apie nedidelius reglamento pažeidimus, rutinines politios problemėles.

Kokia žurnalistika, tokia ir politika.
---
[Papildau] Germans Believe Politicians Are Lying About Crisis, Says Study (blogs.wsj), The Missing Truth in the German Campaign (editors.bloomberg)

Propagandos pergalės. Degradavimas gerėja.

2013 m. birželio 3 d Europos centrinio banko vadovas: atsigavimas – jau čia pat

Europos centriniam bankui (ECB) sušvelninus savo monetarinę politiką ir išaugus paklausai eksporto rinkose, euro zonos ekonomika antrąjį šių metų pusmetį ims atsigauti, apie tai pirmadienį kalbėdamas tarptautinėje finansų konferencijoje Šanchajuje sakė ECB vadovas Mario Draghi.

"Ekonominė situacija euro zonoje tebėra sudėtinga, bet atsirado galimos stabilizacijos požymių, ir nuo antrojo šių metų pusmečio prognozuojamas laipsniškas atsigavimas", - sakė jis.

ECB vadovas taip pat paragino problemines ES šalis dėti daugiau pastangų sumažinti savo šalies biudžeto deficitą.

[...] "Šalys gali vykdyti reformas be OMT ir išsaugoti savo ekonominį suverenumą, arba jos gali pertvarkyti savo ekonomiką su OMT pagalba ir atsisakyti dalies savo ekonominio suverenumo, - M. Draghi žodžius, pasakytus tarptautinėje finansų konferencijoje Šanchajuje, cituoja "Associated Press".

Austerity Blitz: Eurozone Notes From Beyond the Grave
Tuesday, 02 July 2013, by CJ Polychroniou, Truthout

The capacity of the political elite to manipulate public opinion should never be underestimated. A glaring example is the case of Greece, where the government's propaganda in portraying an economic catastrophe and the conversion of a sovereign nation into a banana republic as a "success story" seems to be paying off dividends, as the latest polls show the gap between the conservative party and the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, widening. French President Francois Hollande, who managed to become the most unpopular French president after only a few months in power, seemed to be following the same route when he declared on a recent trip to Japan that the euro zone crisis is over

[...] leading actors in the EU /.../ opted from the start to seek to exorcise the demons of financial instability and turmoil not through the use of expansionary fiscal policy tools, but by reliance on tough austerity measures and mindless fiscal consolidation. They do this without any consideration at all for the damage these policies inflict on human lives and the social fabric of societies in general. As one major study pointedly reveals, austerity indeed kills.(1)

[...] Lacking a federal structure and a democratic form of governance, the Euroland has evolved into a peculiar type of an empire whereby the core seeks to maintain its privileged position by pursuing policies detrimental to the periphery. Hence the great imbalances in the euro zone and the widening divide between North and South; hence also the conversion of the euro into a currency with a double function: providing a competitive advantage for the advanced nations of the North and serving as an albatross around the neck of the less developed nations of the South.

In the course of the crisis, the core has also attempted to convert the peripherals into colonies as a means of controlling the spread of the crisis throughout the euro zone.

[...] policies pursued by Brussels and Berlin are depriving the indebted euro zone member states of their sovereign status and are making a mockery of democratic processes and institutions.

As things stand, the euro zone is doomed to collapse. It lacks a banking or fiscal union and its hegemon is playing the role of a debt collector - all while national economies are collapsing and human lives are being destroyed.

Išgirtasis vokiškasis modelis

Bill Mitchell apie neoliberalizmo "laimėjimus" Vokietijoje:
(kopijuoju begėdiškai didelį teksto fragmentą, nenaudodamas 'blockquote')
---
First, that 63-letter word. The Age reports (June 4, 2013) – Sixty-three-character word is now verboten that:

Germany’s longest word – Rindfleischetikettierungsuberwachungsaufgabenubertragungsgesetz, the 63-letter title of a law about beef – has ceased to exist.

That is a long word. Apparently, it was not in the dictionary but was in official usage.
What about this German word?
Austeritydoesnotgenerategrowthdespitewhattheneoliberalssaybutrathercausespovertyanddepression
That seems to be around 93 characters.
But other things are getting smaller in Germany as well.
The Wall Street Journal article (May 29, 2013) – ‘Minijobs’ Lift Employment But Mask German Weakness – tells us that the upbeat talk about Germany as a success surrounded by failure is somewhat mistaken.
It does have a relatively low unemployment rate (6.9 per cent in May 2013). But:

… nearly one in five working Germans, or about 7.4 million people, hold a so-called “minijob,” a form of marginal employment that allows someone to earn up to €450($580) a month free of tax.

Minijobs pay low wages and do not provide the standard statutory benefits (holiday pay etc).
The neo-liberal apologists claim the minijobs satisfy the preferences of workers for flexible casual work. But the reality is different.
They become just another rationing device when aggregate demand is too low and lead to rising inequality and diminished investment in human capital.
The official data shows that:

While Germany’s top earners among full-time workers who contribute to the social security system saw pay rise 25% between 1999 and 2010, salaries in the lowest quintile increased roughly 7.5% … After inflation of about 18% during that period, Germany’s lowest wages dropped significantly.

The minijobs were part of the Hartz reforms, which I briefly discuss below.
The neo-liberals also claimed they formed part of the “stepping stone” upgrading where a young person could first take a casual job and then progress up to more regular, high paid positions.
The evidence in Germany (and everywhere for that matter) disputes this claim.
The point is that part of the Euro crisis that is least reported is the way that Germany responded to the loss of its exchange rate. Previously, the Bundesbank had manipulated the Deutsch mark parity to ensure the German export sector remained very competitive. That is one of the reasons they became an export powerhouse. It is the same strategy that the Chinese are now following and being criticised for by the Europeans and others.
Once the Germans lost control of the exchange rate by signing up to the EMU they had to manipulate other “cost” variables to remain competitive.
So the Germans were aggressive in implementing their so-called “Hartz package of welfare reforms”. A few years ago we did a detailed study of the so-called Hartz reforms in the German labour market. One publicly available Working Paper is available describing some of that research.
The Hartz reforms were the exemplar of the neo-liberal approach to labour market deregulation. They were an integral part of the German government’s “Agenda 2010″. They are a set of recommendations into the German labour market resulting from a 2002 commission, presided by and named after Peter Hartz, a key executive from German car manufacturer Volkswagen.
The recommendations were fully endorsed by the Schroeder government and introduced in four trenches: Hartz I to IV. The reforms of Hartz I to Hartz III, took place in January 2003-2004, while Hartz IV began in January 2005. The reforms represent extremely far reaching in terms of the labour market policy that had been stable for several decades.
The Hartz process was broadly inline with reforms that have been pursued in other industrialised countries, following the OECD’s job study in 1994; a focus on supply side measures and privatisation of public employment agencies to reduce unemployment. The underlying claim was that unemployment was a supply-side problem rather than a systemic failure of the economy to produce enough jobs.
The reforms accelerated the casualisation of the labour market (so-called mini/midi jobs) and there was a sharp fall in regular employment after the introduction of the Hartz reforms.
The rapid increase in the minijobs is a reflection of these deep-seated changes and have created a situation where an increasing (and sizeable) proportion of German workers are now excluded from enjoying the benefits of national income growth in that nation.
The German approach overall had overtones of the old canard of a federal system – “smokestack chasing”. One of the problems that federal systems can encounter is disparate regional development (in states or sub-state regions). A typical issue that arose as countries engaged in the strong growth period after World War 2 was the tax and other concession that states in various countries offered business firms in return for location.
There is a large literature which shows how this practice not only undermines the welfare of other regions in the federal system but also compromise the position of the state doing the “chasing”.
But in the context of the EMU, the way in which the Germans pursued the Hartz reforms not only meant that they were undermining the welfare of the other EMU nations but also droving the living standards of German workers down.
And then the crisis emerged amidst all this.

Dvipusių susitarimų spaudyklė

FT.com :: Franco-German challenge to eurozone bank rescue plan

The two also agreed to back a more German vision of the eurozone’s fiscal future. Paris, with the backing of Brussels, had sought a substantial eurozone budget that could be used to provide counter-cyclical payments to struggling countries, such as a eurozone-wide unemployment insurance scheme.

Instead, the two sides agreed to explore a less-ambitious “specific fund” that could only be tapped to provide incentives for countries to agree tough economic reform measures.

Such reform measures would be part of new “contractual arrangements” between national governments and Brussels that would be akin to the detailed reform agenda’s currently agreed only with bailout countries.

The contractual arrangements and a limited incentive fund have long been part of Berlin’s agenda for eurozone reform.

Jeigu eurozona išties būtų į politinį solidarumą nukreiptas projektas, centralizuotos socialinės programos, finansuojamos per bendrą europinį deficitinį biudžetą būtų pats tas sprendimas. Prancūziška vizija - pusė žingsnio teisinga linkme.

O jeigu eurozoną suvokti kaip neokolonijinį projektą, vokiškoji strategija - way to go. Rinkti iš periferijos kanukų neįgyvendinamus politinius įsipareigojimus ir dusinti. (3% fiskaliniai deficitai eurozonos mastu yra neįmanomas, nepasiekiamas taikinys).>

Yanis Varoufakis parinko metaforą:

Suppose that I were to demand of you that, by the end of August, you should be able to run the 100m sprint in less than 10’’. Suppose further that, to give you a firm incentive to lift your ‘game’, I whip you continually. Alas, August is approaching and your performance in fact declines, as the whipping has drained your body and spirit; in addition to the soul destroying common secret that you never really stood a chance of running 100m in less than 10’’. So, faced with this grim reality-check, I announce a new timeframe: While I am not reducing the frequency or severity of my whipping, I give you more time to achieve the impossible task. You now have until the end of… December to reach your ‘target’!

ir paprastai paaiškino, kaip diržų veržimasis Europoje veikia:

Austerity is not about low deficits. Low deficits are an end; an objective. Austerity is a policy; a means-to-an-end, where the end is low deficits. Austerity is thus defined as the attempt to reduce the deficit by cutting spending and boosting taxes.

Now, the trouble with austerity is that, when implemented in a time of private sector deleveraging (i.e. when firms and households are struggling to cut down on expenditure and reduce their indebtedness) austerity is self-defeating as it reduces tax revenues faster than (or as fast as) it shrinks expenditures. So, the result of austerity can often result in high deficits and invariably fails to reduce overall debt levels! Precisely what happened in Spain, in the UK, everywhere it has been practised since the Crash of 2008.

To sum up, austerians point to sustained deficits and debt levels as evidence that austerity has not been practised. The reality is precisely the opposite: The stubbornness of deficits and debts is the result of austerity that was implemented energetically and failed spectacularly – as predicted.

Vokiška prievartinių reformų politika problemos nesprendžia. Reikalingi didesni deficitai ir fiskalinis perskirstymas.

Merkel su Schäuble susirūpino įvaizdžiu

Spiegel Online. Austerity About-Face: German Government to Gamble on Stimulus

But a new way of thinking has recently taken hold in the German capital. In light of record new unemployment figures among young people, even the intransigent Germans now realize that action is needed. "If we don't act now, we risk losing an entire generation in Southern Europe," say people close to Schäuble.

Berlin is making an about-face, even though it aims to stick to its current austerity policy. The German government has stressed budget consolidation and structural reform since 2010, when Greece was on the verge of bankruptcy. Berlin has been arguing that this is the only way to instill confidence among investors in the battered debt-ridden countries and help their ailing economies recover.

[...] The government's change of heart isn't just a sign of selflessness and compassion. More than ever, the chancellor and the finance minister are worried that Berlin's tightfisted, heartless, austerity-obsessed image could solidify throughout Europe and do irreparable political damage. An exporting nation that sells two-thirds of its exports to other European countries cannot be unconcerned about its image abroad, they reason, especially when its government fears that constant criticism from the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green Party, claiming that it is acting as the gravedigger of the euro and dividing the EU, could hurt it in the upcoming election campaign.

[...] Last Tuesday, Schäuble sent a letter to Economics Minister Philipp Rösler in which he proposed that the coalition partners act together. "I believe that we should also offer bilateral German aid," he wrote, noting that he hoped that this approach would result in "significant faster-acting support with visible and psychologically effective results within a foreseeable time period."

Situaciją eurozonoje gelbėtų ekonomikos stimuliavimas fiskalinės ekspansijos priemonėmis. Politiškai tai nepriimtina, tai kad neatrodytų, jog visai nieko nedaroma, Vokietija paskolins pigiau pinigų nedideliems investiciniams projektams.

Depresuotoms pietų ekonomikosms toks stimuliavimas padės kaip viagra nabašninkui. Bet niekas negalės nuneigti, kad "Vokietija rūpinasi".

Dezintegracija

Eurosistemos trūkumai akivaizdūs vis didesniam skaičiui žmonių. Matias Vernengo: Lafontaine, Flassbeck and Lapavitsas say the euro is over.

Earlier this month Oskar Lafontaine, German Finance Minister in 1998-99 and leader of the Social Democrats before Schröder, asked for the break up of the euro. Now in a more substantive paper Heiner Flassbeck, Lafontaine's second in command in the Finance Ministry, and ex-head of the macro division at UNCTAD, together with Costas Lapavitsas, also suggests that the euro should be undone.

46 puslapių apsaugotas nuo kopijavimo pdf'as: Heiner Flassbeck, Costas Lapavitsas. The Systemic Crisis of the EURO - True Causes and Effective Therapies.

Neokolonializmas. Trumpai ir aiškiai apie Vokietijos euro politiką

Levy ekonomikos instituto bloge pristatomas C. J. Polychroniou straipsnis The New Rome. The EU and the Pillage of the Indebted Countries.

[...] with the eurozone mired in recession (the latest numbers from Eurostat are here) and a deep depression in Greece, it might look like a failed experiment.  But it only looks this way, Polychroniou suggests, if you think of economic growth and the wellbeing of the average worker as among the primary goals of the project.  The setup of the EMU is not the result of some set of technical errors or oversights.  It is consistent with a long-developing attempt, culminating in the Maastricht Treaty, at transforming a social market economy into a laissez-faire market economy:  “it stemmed,” Polychroniou writes, “from the very premises of the fundamentally neoliberal economic thinking that had begun to take hold of the mindset of European policymakers in the 1980s.”  If anything, he argues, the struggles in the eurozone, particularly on the periphery, are being seized on as an opportunity to accelerate this transformation, with Germany playing the role of “neocolonialist” in the process:

Germany has adopted toward the indebted eurozone member-states the same policy it carried out with regard to East Germany after unification: the destruction of its industrial base and the conversion of the former communist nation into a satellite of Berlin. The bank rescues masquerade as the rescue of nations, and are followed by the enforcement of unbearable austerity measures to ensure repayment of the “rescue” loans. Then comes the implementation of strategic economic policies aimed at reducing the standard of living for the working population and the shrinking of the welfare state, complete labor flexibility, and the sale of public assets, including state-controlled energy companies and ports. This constitutes the German strategy for pillaging the debt-laden economies of the Mediterranean region.