« Tant que je vivrai » : Merkel rit-elle ?

Lisez et, si vous êtes d’accord, signez le Manifesto for Economic Sense de Paul Krugman, prix Nobel d’économie, et Richard Layard, professeur à la London School of Economics (également publié par le Financial Times).

A Manifesto for Economic Sense

More than four years after the financial crisis began, the world’s major advanced economies remain deeply depressed, in a scene all too reminiscent of the 1930s. And the reason is simple : we are relying on the same ideas that governed policy in the 1930s. These ideas, long since disproved, involve profound errors both about the causes of the crisis, its nature, and the appropriate response.

These errors have taken deep root in public consciousness and provide the public support for the excessive austerity of current fiscal policies in many countries. So the time is ripe for a Manifesto in which mainstream economists offer the public a more evidence-based analysis of our problems.

The causes. Many policy makers insist that the crisis was caused by irresponsible public borrowing. With very few exceptions - other than Greece - this is false. Instead, the conditions for crisis were created by excessive private sector borrowing and lending, including by over-leveraged banks. The collapse of this bubble led to massive falls in output and thus in tax revenue. So the large government deficits we see today are a consequence of the crisis, not its cause.
The nature of the crisis. When real estate bubbles on both sides of the Atlantic burst, many parts of the private sector slashed spending in an attempt to pay down past debts. This was a rational response on the part of individuals, but - just like the similar response of debtors in the 1930s - it has proved collectively self-defeating, because one person’s spending is another person’s income. The result of the spending collapse has been an economic depression that has worsened the public debt.
The appropriate response. At a time when the private sector is engaged in a collective effort to spend less, public policy should act as a stabilizing force, attempting to sustain spending. At the very least we should not be making things worse by big cuts in government spending or big increases in tax rates on ordinary people. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what many governments are now doing.
The big mistake. After responding well in the first, acute phase of the economic crisis, conventional policy wisdom took a wrong turn - focusing on government deficits, which are mainly the result of a crisis-induced plunge in revenue, and arguing that the public sector should attempt to reduce its debts in tandem with the private sector. As a result, instead of playing a stabilizing role, fiscal policy has ended up reinforcing the dampening effects of private-sector spending cuts.

In the face of a less severe shock, monetary policy could take up the slack. But with interest rates close to zero, monetary policy - while it should do all it can - cannot do the whole job. There must of course be a medium-term plan for reducing the government deficit. But if this is too front-loaded it can easily be self-defeating by aborting the recovery. A key priority now is to reduce unemployment, before it becomes endemic, making recovery and future deficit reduction even more difficult.

How do those who support present policies answer the argument we have just made ? They use two quite different arguments in support of their case.

The confidence argument. Their first argument is that government deficits will raise interest rates and thus prevent recovery. By contrast, they argue, austerity will increase confidence and thus encourage recovery.

But there is no evidence at all in favour of this argument. First, despite exceptionally high deficits, interest rates today are unprecedentedly low in all major countries where there is a normally functioning central bank. This is true even in Japan where the government debt now exceeds 200% of annual GDP ; and past downgrades by the rating agencies here have had no effect on Japanese interest rates. Interest rates are only high in some Euro countries, because the ECB is not allowed to act as lender of last resort to the government. Elsewhere the central bank can always, if needed, fund the deficit, leaving the bond market unaffected.

Moreover past experience includes no relevant case where budget cuts have actually generated increased economic activity. The IMF has studied 173 cases of budget cuts in individual countries and found that the consistent result is economic contraction. In the handful of cases in which fiscal consolidation was followed by growth, the main channels were a currency depreciation against a strong world market, not a current possibility. The lesson of the IMF’s study is clear - budget cuts retard recovery. And that is what is happening now - the countries with the biggest budget cuts have experienced the biggest falls in output.

For the truth is, as we can now see, that budget cuts do not inspire business confidence. Companies will only invest when they can foresee enough customers with enough income to spend. Austerity discourages investment.

So there is massive evidence against the confidence argument ; all the alleged evidence in favor of the doctrine has evaporated on closer examination.

The structural argument. A second argument against expanding demand is that output is in fact constrained on the supply side - by structural imbalances. If this theory were right, however, at least some parts of our economies ought to be at full stretch, and so should some occupations. But in most countries that is just not the case. Every major sector of our economies is struggling, and every occupation has higher unemployment than usual. So the problem must be a general lack of spending and demand.

In the 1930s the same structural argument was used against proactive spending policies in the U.S. But as spending rose between 1940 and 1942, output rose by 20%. So the problem in the 1930s, as now, was a shortage of demand not of supply.

As a result of their mistaken ideas, many Western policy-makers are inflicting massive suffering on their peoples. But the ideas they espouse about how to handle recessions were rejected by nearly all economists after the disasters of the 1930s, and for the following forty years or so the West enjoyed an unparalleled period of economic stability and low unemployment. It is tragic that in recent years the old ideas have again taken root. But we can no longer accept a situation where mistaken fears of higher interest rates weigh more highly with policy-makers than the horrors of mass unemployment.

Better policies will differ between countries and need detailed debate. But they must be based on a correct analysis of the problem. We therefore urge all economists and others who agree with the broad thrust of this Manifesto to register their agreement at Lien, and to publically argue the case for a sounder approach. The whole world suffers when men and women are silent about what they know is wrong.

Signed by :

Paul Krugman, Princeton University
Richard Layard, LSE Centre for Economic Performance

Nous sommes à la croisée des chemins, les médias comme les politiques continuent de nous balader avec des histoires de petites phrases, de personnalités, de nationalités ou de caractères, alors qu’absolument personne n’ose lever le petit doigt pour changer un système mortifère et à bout de souffle, ce qui revient à ne rien faire et le laisser nous dévorer tous crus, à court terme.
Comme d’habitude, chacun croit dans son petit coin que la crise ne le touchera pas, qu’elle purgera les pauvres ou les mauvais, ce qui est certainement vrai pour ces deux cas, mais pour d’autres aussi dont notre pays et une majorité d’entre nous.
La doctrine de l’économie libérale est tellement dans leurs têtes -et toute ou partie dans la nôtre- qu’ils ne peuvent penser à aller dans un autre sens que celui qu’ils ont toujours connu, socialistes ou conservateurs, crise ou pas crise. Sidérés ou impuissants, mais individualistes toujours.
On peut regarder les hommes et femmes politiques tomber ou gagner, ca ne change rien à la donne, va falloir que chacun se sauve individuellement ou agisse à son niveau pour que les choses changent. J’ai bien peur que la première option ne soit pas suffisante

Merkel est pieds et poings liés aux intérêts financiers cela se comprend parfaitement qu’elle parle de cette façon ce qui est dommage c’est que les médias sont incapables, comme vous dites, de prendre le moindre recul sur ce faux problème (c’est bon on est plusieurs à avoir mit suffisamment de liens le prouvant...) qu’est cette dette et incapables de voir ce vrai problème qu’est la pression de l’oligarchie financière sur les pouvoirs politiques alors qu’ils n’ont été élus par personne, et ça que même france culture passe totalement à côté de l’analyse me trou le cul...

Car c’est à l’age de dix ans que je me suis mit à France Culture, pour ses histoires que j’écoutais en cachette la nuit, avec le son de l’époque tellement prenant tellement naturel mais quand on connaît la maison radio france on sait pourquoi il était bon ce qu’on ne comprend pas par contre c’est pourquoi ils se sont mit à la mode pourrie de nrj mais bon... Du coup France Culture fait parti de ce qui m’a construit de ce qui m’a permis de me forger une opinion de comprendre une partie de la vie, je ne la remercierais jamais assez pour cela.

Aussi quand j’entends Kravetz et ses matinales ben j’ai juste envie de pleurer (bon faut avouer que c’était attali l’invité ya de quoi déprimer après avoir entendu kravetz pendant une minute encenser son interlocuteur afin de bien montrer qu’il est incontournable !) l’impression que tout est cassé au sein de MA radio, qu’il n’y a plus que des baragouineurs comme lui, comme le catastrophique hubert huertas qui nous a encore affublé d’un édito pitoyable ce matin (en résumé : et bla bla bla et bla bla bla... Mais qu’ils fassent revenir urgemment Benasayag !), comme ce pathétique slama, ce fou furieux de finkelkraut et-c... Bref je lui en veux à mort et je lui dit très souvent mais elle s’en fout, elle veut continuer sa médiocrité dont elle semble particulièrement fière.

D’ailleurs je me souviens du jeune qui était là juste avant kravetz il était bien plus vivant mais forcément ils nous ont mit le mec qui s’affirmait le plus centriste quand il n’était que participant aux débats et qu’il ne disait déjà pas grand chose d’intéressant à part le fait de revendiquer son extrémisme centrisme, alors que les élections de 2012 viennent de nous prouver que le centrisme est de droite, non, france culture cultive le centrisme centré, le truc qui n’existe pas. Ok je continue à pleurer...

Angela Thatcher a dit « I dont want my money go », ce que Margaret Merkel n’a pas démenti.