Portugal 160

Por um governo de coligação!

Cavaco Silva e Teixeira dos Santos mentem sobre a nossa capacidade de pagar as dívidas. Estamos, como a Grécia, a um passo da bancarrota.

"Fear the Boom and Bust" a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem (thanks to Elaine Meinel Supkis)

Para lá da criminosa desorçamentação que falsifica a verdadeira dimensão do nosso endividamento colectivo, a capacidade de financiamento interno do nosso défice orçamental é a mais negativa de todos os países da Zona Euro.

1) poupança nacional bruta em % do PIB

• Grécia: 7,2 
• Portugal: 10,2
• Irlanda: 17 
• Espanha: 19 
• Zona Euro (média): 20

2) poupança nacional líquida em % do PIB

• Grécia: -5,1 
• Portugal: ? (mais negativa que a Grécia!) 
• Zona Euro: +6

Greek burdens ensure some Pigs won't fly. By Daniel Gros*

In determining the sustainability of public debt one should not look only, perhaps not even mainly, at today’s fiscal accounts, but at the resource balance for the entire country. On this account clear differences emerge. The Pigs consist of two quite different groups, with Greece and Portugal in the weakest position because of their lack of domestic savings.

The gross national savings rates of these two countries – private and state combined – are at record lows: Greece a mere 7.2% of gross domestic product, Portugal 10.2%. By contrast, the average for the euro area is about 20%. Ireland and Spain, at 17 and 19%, are much closer to the euro area average than to Greece and Portugal.

This implies that Spain and Ireland will be able to finance government deficits from their national savings now that housing investment has crashed and no longer absorbs such a large chunk of savings. Greece and Portugal are unique in their reliance on foreign capital to such a large extent. Gross savings show the domestic resources (cash flows) available to finance domestic investment and consumption (wear and tear) of capital. With such low gross savings it is not surprising to find that neither Greece nor Portugal have been able to finance even a minimum level of net investment from domestic sources. Greece is unique in the eurozone in that its net national savings have been negative for almost a decade, reaching minus 5.1% of GDP in 2008 (only Portugal did worse). By contrast, the euro area average is (plus) 6% of GDP. Even the Baltic states, which relied on foreign capital to finance a construction binge, are in a better position with net savings safely in positive territory. Such low levels of domestic savings have two implications: A fiscal adjustment alone does not solve the problem, and a bail-out would be costly.

(...) It is one thing to provide financing to a country or a company that is generating strong internal cash flows and got into trouble only because of excessive investment (the case of Ireland and Spain). It is quite a different proposition to prop up one whose equity is being eroded because internal cash flow is not even sufficient to maintain the capital stock (the case of Greece and Portugal).  [texto completo]

* — Daniel Gros is Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels. This Commentary previously appeared in the Financial Times, 29 January 2010.

É por este motivo que os detentores e potenciais compradores da dívida pública portuguesa vão continuar a exigir juros mais elevados e prémios mais altos sobre os seguros de risco da nossa dívida soberana. Como não há alternativa interna (i.e. poupança) que compense a subida em flecha dos empréstimos necessários ao pagamento das dívidas pública e privada e respectivos juros, o espectro da bancarrota é mesmo sério e aproxima-se a uma velocidade vertiginosa!

É pois necessário demitir imediatamente o actual governo de piratas, mentirosos compulsivos, e conspiradores anti-constitucionais, colocando no seu lugar um governo de emergência democrática, formado com base numa coligação de três partidos (PS, PSD e CDS), chefiado por Paulo Portas, com Manuela Ferreira Leite e Luís Amado nos lugares de vice-primeiros ministros. Apesar da necessária plataforma estratégica que suportaria uma tal coligação, não há nenhuma obrigação, nem especial conveniência, de alinhamento relativamente às próximas eleições presidenciais. O Partido Socialista poderá e deverá apoiar Manuel Alegre, e Cavaco Silva, ou outro candidato de centro-direita deverá buscar os seus apoios naturais.

Esta solução, ou qualquer outra que vá no mesmo sentido, deve partir da iniciativa presidencial, antes da aprovação na especialidade do actual OE-2010. Por muitíssimo menos, o anterior presidente da república demitiu o primeiro ministro de uma coligação com maioria absoluta, justificando assim o cargo para que fora eleito. Ninguém perdoará a Cavaco Silva a menor hesitação no desbloqueio da gravíssima crise de legitimidade e operacionalidade governativas resultante da captura do Partido Socialista por uma tríade de violadores constitucionais, numa conjuntura especialmente crítica que ameaça levar o país em poucas semanas para um beco sem saída.

The mispricing of long-term inflation risk. By Dylan Grice

One event which might some day cause such a vol spike is a repricing of inflation risk in the bond market. I've written in detail about the historical relationship between fiscal strain and inflation. Although inflation is widely considered a monetary phenomenon, past episodes of runaway inflation - from ancient Rome to modern day Zimbabwe - have generally had as their root cause a government unable to pay its bills. They have been fiscally generated.

That's not to say there's anything inevitable about inflation as an outcome. Retirement ages and taxes will certainly rise, entitlements will be cut and this will lower the burden. Gokhale suggests that in the absence of any policy changes an increase in government saving of 8% of GDP into perpetuity would restore balance.  — in Dylan Grice, "Popular Delusions Knowing what you don't know: random thoughts on value, volatility and inflation", Societe Generale, Cross Asset Research, 12 Nov. 2009.

POST SCRIPTUM — Como há muito aqui alertámos, empresas como a EDP e a Caixa Geral de Depósitos (além do BCP, BPN e BPP) estão na linha da frente dos colapsos que em breve atingirão a maioria das empresas-bolhas como a citada e hiper-endividada EDP (+ de 14 mil milhões de euros!), a Teixeira Duarte, a Mota-Engil, e outras. O Wall Street Journal acaba de olhar para os números!

Beware Financial Contagion. By Richard Barley.

Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2010

The Greek debt crisis is spreading not just to sovereign issuers such as Spain and Portugal but is starting to hit the corporate sector as well. Buried in Vodafone's otherwise positive third-quarter numbers was a big decline in Greeks' mobile-phone spending. And in the debt markets, Portuguese, Spanish, Greek and Italian corporate credits are underperforming. Sovereign risk is coming home to roost.

... The markets are waking up to the risks: The surge in the cost of insuring government debt against default is starting to affect domestic companies. Take utility Energias de Portugal, whose credit default swaps have suddenly surged higher after having been unaffected by the rising cost of Portuguese sovereign CDS during the last two months of 2009. The cost of insuring EdP’s debt has risen much faster than that of similar companies based in countries with stronger fiscal positions. Similarly, Spanish telecoms group Telefónica, Portuguese bank Banco Espirito Santo and Greek telecom OTE led the widening in CDS spreads in Europe on Thursday.

OAM 682 — 06 Fev 2010 03:03 última actualização: 23:14