Dívidas soberanas já não pagam juros

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A falência do neo-keynesianismo soma e segue

Government bond yields remain in negative territory. As of December 14, over 50% of European government bonds maturing in less than five years had a negative yield, roughly the same as in the run-up to the launch of ECB QE in March. Two-year government bond yields were generally lower on the year, despite some rebound after aggressively pricing further ECB easing ahead of the December meeting. (The German two-year yield, for example, bottomed out at -0.44% on December 2.) Looking beyond Europe, roughly half of two-year government bonds in the developed world trades at a negative yield. 

Sovereigns have issued debt at record-low—or altogether negative—yields. In April, Switzerland became the first country to issue 10-year government bonds at a negative yield; other governments did the same at shorter maturities. 

“What Does The Future Hold For Negative Rates In Europe? Goldman Answers”
ZeroHedge. Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/02/2016 20:00 -0500

Os depósitos são um custo para os bancos, o qual, se não fosse contrabalançado com empréstimos a clientes e outras operações de crédito, acabaria por levá-los à falência.

O sobre-endividamento das pessoas, das empresas e dos governos que continuaram a investir (e sobretudo a especular) e a consumir, sem ao mesmo tempo produzirem o contra-valor equivalente ao gasto e às responsabilidades contraídas, acabou por explodir numa crise económico-financeira generalizada, a qual curto-circuitou os binómios procura-oferta (a procura caiu e continua a cair), investimento-lucro (ambos foram sucessivamente caindo) e produção-consumo (a queda de ambos gerou deflação).

Daqui à situação paradoxal em que os bancos centrais e de retalho hoje se encontram —ambos cobram taxas de juro crescentes pelos depósitos à vista, e de curto prazo— foi um passo.

Um passo que, por sua vez, atinge criticamente a poupança, ferindo de modo cada vez mais preocupante os fundos de pensões públicos e privados, em especial se, imprudentemente, estes tentaram iludir a destruição das rendas e dos juros jogando no casino dos derivados especulativos e outros produtos financeiros de risco elevado.

75% da reserva do Fundo de Pensões português já foi aplicado em dívida pública portuguesa.

Uma vez que a rentabilidade (yield) da dívida soberana portuguesa tem vindo a cair, quem nela investiu para obter algum rendimento (nomeadamente fundos de pensões e bancos) será sucessivamente penalizado. No caso dos fundos de pensões e de alguns bancos portugueses esta exposição ao endividamento compulsivo de um estado social que deixou de gerar riqueza e poupança suficientes, e portanto à insolvência potencial de governos e municípios, transformou-se numa serpente que morde a própria cauda. A poupança é engolida pela dívida pública em nome da sustentação de um estado social que devora essa mesma poupança e, pior ainda, que extingue a própria capacidade de a gerar. O fascismo fiscal em curso é a foice que, se não for afastada, acabará por ceifar rente o estado social que as esquerdas diariamente e aos gritos afirmam defender.

A rentabilidade das dívidas soberanas já é negativa no caso de obrigações públicas de curto prazo em países como a Alemanha (-0.44% nas obrigações a dois anos emitidas a 2 dezembro de 2015).

Resumindo: os estímulos neo-keynesianos são cada vez menos eficazes. Nem a deflação passa, nem o crescimento saudável regressa. E assim sendo, a bolha monetária, ou seja, a destruição do dinheiro, prosseguirá em direção ao mais completo desastre se não formos capazes de achar alternativas construtivas. O buraco negro existe, e já começámos a ser sugados para o seu infinito âmago.

EUA: 22 estados falidos

Estados americanos com défices fiscais perigosos e ameaças pendentes de suspensão de pagamentos

Os PIIGS não passam de uma manobra de distração

Portugal, tal como os outros países visados pelo odioso acrónimo, chegaram à pré-bancarrota em grande medida por causa da fantasia de um crescimento virtual assente em dívidas públicas, empresariais e familiares exponenciais, políticas públicas neoneoneokeynesianas, e consumo conspícuo. Mas as grandes bolhas estão noutros lugares: Japão, Estados Unidos, Inglaterra. Não se vêm com a mesma acuidade porque os respetivos governos e bancos centrais mentem permanentemente sobre o que se passa. Olhando, porém, para a pobreza e instabilidade social crescentes nesses país compreendemos perfeitamente que o buraco negro criado —nomeadamente o Grande Buraco Negro dos Derivados Especulativos (OTC Derivatives)— poderá, a qualquer momento, empurrar o planeta para um colapso financeiro e económico bem pior do que o de 2008.

Quase metade dos estados dos EUA está oficialmente falida. E no entanto as agências de notação de crédito mantêm o país em AA+ (excellent) !!!

Via AP/ Zero Hedge:

An Associated Press analysis of statehouse finances around the country shows that at least 22 states project shortfalls for the coming fiscal year. The deficits recall recession-era anxiety about plunging tax revenue and deep cuts to education, social services and other government-funded programs.

The sheer number of states facing budget gaps prompted Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service to call the trend a sort of “early warning.”

“After all, if a state is grappling with a budget deficit now, with the economic expansion approaching its sixth anniversary, what will be its condition when the next slowdown strikes?” credit analyst Gabriel Petek wrote in a recent report.


[...]

The forces at work today are somewhat different than when the recession took hold in 2008. In some states, revenue growth has been stagnant, missing projections and making it difficult to keep pace with expanding populations and rising costs for health care and education. Other states have been hurt by a steep decline in oil prices or seen their efforts to promote growth through tax cuts fail to work as anticipated...

A majority of states have failed to climb back to their pre-recession status, in terms of tax revenue, financial reserves and employment rates, said Barb Rosewicz, who tracks the fiscal health of states for The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Alabama, for example, faces a $290 million shortfall after a voter-approved bailout expires at the end of the current fiscal year. If nothing is done, the courts will not have the staff to send jury notices, monitor juvenile delinquents, process protection orders and collect and distribute child support payments, he said.

“This is an insane proposition,” Hobson said. “The public would suffer.”

Nationally, total tax revenue coming to the states has been rising, but the pace has been slow as employment continues to lag pre-recession levels in more than half the states, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. Pew also found that 30 states are collecting less revenue than at their peak.

The Census Bureau recently reported that total state government tax collections in fiscal year 2014, which in most states ended last June, increased 2.2 percent over the previous fiscal year. That represented the fourth consecutive overall increase, but 17 states reported declines in tax revenue from the previous fiscal year, according to the report. Alaska saw the biggest drop, of $1.7 billion.

In Illinois, lawmakers are trying to figure out how to close a $6 billion projected shortfall for the next fiscal year, due largely to the expiration of a temporary tax increase [and] in Kansas, the Republican governor and GOP-dominated Legislature now confront budget deficits after aggressive tax cutting that prompted them to reduce school funding this spring.

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Grécia poderá repudiar legitimamente a sua dívida...

O regresso do Dracma?

 

Euro Is One of the Worst Designed Currencies: Kerr - Bloomberg Business

Nas palavras de Gordon Kerr, segundo o Citibank, se a Grécia não puder contar com uma extensão da Assistência de Liquidez de Emergência (ELA), então estará no seu pleno direito de repudiar 300 mil milhões de euros de dívida. E assim, se isto vier a acontecer, a Grécia ficará aliviada em 300 mil milhões de euros.

Um bom ponto de partida para recomeçar, com uma nova moeda, digo eu!

Gordon Kerr:

“Citibank is saying that if the ELA's are not extended Greece would be perfectly in its rights to repudiate up to €300 billion of debt. So the day after this happens, Greece would be €300 billion better off than it is right now.

[...] Bulgaria’s currency collapsed in 1996; within a weekend it was restructured.”

Bloomberg. Feb. 20 -- Cobden Partners Co-Founder Gordon Kerr discusses Greece’s debt negotiations and why he says Greece should leave the euro with Bloomberg’s Mark Barton and Manus Cranny on “Countdown.”

Euro Is One of the Worst Designed Currencies: Kerr - Bloomberg Business

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Pico da Dívida

É assim nos Estados Unidos. E em Portugal é pior ainda...

The Born Again Jobs Scam, Part 2: The Fed’s Labor Market Delusion
by David Stockman • April 10, 2014 - David Stockman's Contra Corner.

“As a practical matter, however, the Fed cannot stimulate additional “spending” unless it can also cause the economy’s leverage ratio to rise, thereby supplementing “spending” derived from current income with purchases financed by freshly minted (incremental) credit. Yet the flood of demand by which the Fed endeavors to “pull” idle and underemployed workers back into production cannot be activated if the US economy has reached a condition of peak debt, as I strongly believe to be the case. Indeed, when the credit expansion channel is broken and done, all the Fed’s liquidity “accommodation” flows into the Wall Street finance channel where it pulls up the price of existing financial assets, not the employment rate of idle labor.“

Quando as dívidas públicas e privadas atingem picos de sustentabilidade, potenciar o crescimento pela via do crédito às pessoas e às empresas não financeiras, supondo que este induzirá o aumento da procura agregada, é um erro, ou pura demagogia e, portanto, não funciona, pois os devedores não podem endividar-se mais. Pelo contrário, mais empresas fecham, a criação líquida de empregos (na sua maioria, empregos faz-de-conta e temporários) é nula, e os consumidores passam a comprar menos. Segundo a ERSE, em 2013, Portugal consumiu a mesma eletricidade que em 2006!

A circunstância de apenas os governos continuarem a endividar-se redunda num beco sem saída para a economia e para as sociedades em geral. Desde logo, porque o imparável endividamento público, nomeadamente para atender aos mais aflitos, mas sobretudo pressionado pelo serviço da dívida, redunda numa quase inevitável pressão fiscal sobre as pessoas e as empresas (1), pondo em causa a dignidade das primeiras e a sobrevivência das segundas.

Mesmo se houvesse um Jubileu da Dívida Mundial (por exemplo, anulando os contratos com derivados financeiros especulativos -- 'swaps' de moedas e de taxas de juro, etc. — cujo valor nocional equivale a mais de 10x o PIB mundial!), ainda assim a procura agregada global continuaria estagnada ou a decrescer, porque a escassez relativa de recursos energéticos e matérias primas torna-os mais caros e por isso inacessíveis a um número crescente de potenciais compradores e consumidores.

Outro problema que aponta para a inevitabilidade de uma reestruturação das dívidas à escala global (não confundir com as discussões partidárias populistas locais sobre reestruturação da dívida e saídas limpas ou sujas do Memorando) é o abandono do dólar como moeda de reserva hegemónica. Já todos percebemos que os Estados Unidos não têm feito outra coisa nas últimas duas décadas que não seja exportar a sua dívida pública para os países detentores de recursos naturais, energia (petróleo e gás natural) e trabalho barato. Acontece que a China e a Rússia acabam de dar um pontapé de saída na descolagem progressivas desta indigência do império que declina.

Portugal, por exemplo, não pode exportar a sua dívida se os credores não deixarem. E não vão deixar. Quase todos os países da zona euro se deparam com problemas semelhantes ao nosso, e sabem que a mutualização das dívidas soberanas europeias comportaria perigos enormes.
Daí que, tal como a Irlanda, só tenhamos um cenário pós-Troika: sair do Programa sem nenhuma rede cautelar.

NOTAS

1. 
   Portugal foi o país que mais aumentou impostos sobre os salários
   Portugal teve no ano passado um aumento de 3,5 pontos percentuais, quando o crescimento médio dos 34 países da OCDE se situou nos 0,2 pontos
   TVI/ Redacção / LF    |   2014-04-11 11:08
   
   COMENTÁRIO: em vez de reformar o Estado central regional e local, tornando-o mais eficiente e eliminando o devorismo partidário e a baba burocrática, preferiu-se esganar toda a economia e destruir a classe média, salvaguardando apenas o bem-estar dos rendeiros, da corja devorista e da partidocracia. A isto chama-se FASCISMO FISCAL.
   
   E depois do Programa, como vai ser? Irão aumentar ainda mais os impostos e ver polícias e militares a entrarem pelo parlamento dentro? Irão finalmente cortar as rendas excessivas dos rendeiros do regime? Esperemos bem que sim. Irão, em suma, deixar de usar o aparelho de estado como uma alcova partidária? Voluntariamente, não, mas algo acabará por ser feito neste domínio. O desfecho previsível do Programa da Troika será a chamada saída 'limpa' — por uma razão simples: os credores não estão dispostos, nem podem continuar a alimentar porcos a pérolas.

Atualizado: 11/04/2014 13:04 WET

From Portugal with Love — 1

Raphael Bordallo Pinheiro. "II-A Finança: O Grande Cão" (1900)

Dear Troika,

I feel that I should write to you a weekly post beginning in such friendly way a useful convesation about the country you are trying to help to stabilize its unfortunate economic, financial and political recent evolution. You must know by now that accurate information is not an easy pearl to get! Noise is everywhere. Even for a local dandy like me to know what’s happening is not an easy task. Nevertheless I presume to know by now what are the few decisive barriers we have to cross if we really want to put Portugal in the right path to sustainability and human progress. I assume optimistically that your difficult job may profit from new, independent and above all unexpected insights.

Every Saturday at brunch time I will post a brief memo to you. This first one is about the need of theory before practice. I am actually reading for the second time a marvellous book by Hyman Minsky on the very same and urgent issues that worry most of the macro-economists today, at least in USA and Europe. Big Government he said! Too big right now, many suggest. Can we have “IT” (The Great Depression) again — notwithstanding the huge preponderance of governance in almost all contemporary corners of life?

From Minsky to Yiamouyiannis

How can an exhausted Lender Of Last Resort (Keynes) play the role of an Employer Of Last Resort (Minsky)? Answer: if without some global Debt Forgiveness policy (Yiamouyiannis) it is impossible. On the other hand, fiscal adjustment as the only way to socialize debt cannot solve real issues. It is actually a very dangerous step to try at present pandemic sovereign debt crisis, either in USA or Europe. Overall OTC derivatives notional value amount to more than ten times world GDP. This monster cannot be socialized!

Why to give away our public companies?

Total amount of expected revenues from forthcoming privatization of Portuguese public companies and utilities will not suffice to pay for TAP and CP debts alone. My country is then supposed not only to offer these public companies, but also to heavily pay for such nonsensical give away of potencially profitable business, public utilities and public services. Why not spin-off some of these companies into reliable (even profitable) entities before taking such a suicidal course of action?

Next week

Future roads (SCUTs) and dams (PNBEPH) will drawn this country down the drain of debt if you do not give it full attention, and if we the people fail to stop these huge scams!

And now some juicy food for thought!



By the way: FHFA Sues 17 Firms to Recover Losses to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Finally, my readings for this weekend:

Stabilizing An Unstable Economy (1986, 2008)
Hyman P. Minsky

Although stabilization policy operates upon profits, the humane objective of stabilization policy is to achieve a close approximation to full employment. The guarantee of particular jobs is not an aim of policy; just as with profits, the aggregate—not the participants—is the objective.

The current strategy seeks to achieve full employment by way of subsidizing demand. The instruments are financing conditions, fiscal inducements to invest, government contracts, transfer payments, and taxes. This policy strategy now leads to chronic inflation and periodic investment booms that culminate in financial crises and serious instability. The policy problem is to develop a strategy for full employment that does not lead to instability, inflation, and unemployment.

The main instrument of such a policy is the creation of an infinitely elastic demand for labor at a floor or minimum wage that does not depend upon long— and short-run profit expectations of business. Since only government can divorce the offering of employment from the profitability of hiring workers, the infinitely elastic demand for labor must be created by government.

A government employment policy strategy should be designed to yield outputs that adavnce well-being, even though the outputs may not be readily marketable. Because the employment programs are to be permanent, operating at a base level during good times and expanding during recession, the tasks to be performed will require continuous review and development.


“Endgame: When Debt is Fraud, Debt Forgiveness is the Last and Only Remedy”
by Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D., copyright 2011. (in Of Two Minds, September 1, 2011)

Finally serious economists are considering a position I have been maintaining and writing about since the 2008 financial meltdown. Whatever its name —erasure, repudiation, abolishment, cancellation, jubilee— debt forgiveness, will have to eventually emerge forefront in global efforts to solve an ongoing systemic financial crisis.

[...]

Debt grows exponentially indefinitely, growth (income and otherwise) cannot. This leads to a widening condition where the fruits of productive “growth” devoted to interest payments increase until those fruits are entirely consumed. [...] Once this happens, stores of wealth (hard assets) begin to be cannibalized to make up for the difference. You see this in Greece with its sale of public assets to private companies, and in middle-class America where people are liquidating retirement accounts to pay for their cost of living.

This problem is compounded by a private Federal Reserve that lends money into circulation at interest, and then allows the multiplication of this consumer debt-money liability through fractional reserve banking. The money in circulation today could pay only a small fraction of the total private and public debt. That fact alone is evidence of a kind of systemic fraud. “If you just work hard enough, save, and make sensible decisions, you can get out of debt” could only physically work for a bare fraction of the population, given the money-to-debt ratio. The rest would have to simply default to clear the boards.

This is why debt forgiveness makes not only moral but rational, mathematical sense. Finances require balancing to be coherent. There must be some way to redress systemic imbalance. One has to be able to “zero the scales” to get an accurate weight of value and to re-establish healthy value creation.

[...]

...subtle debt extortion creates a system of never-ending debt-slavery for a vast majority of the population. When this “manageable” slavery is aggravated by a desire to use hardship to extort ever greater assets from the overburdened at ever cheaper prices (what Naomi Klein calls “disaster capitalism”), by open and unapologetic widespread fraud, and by the unjust offloading of risk and liability to taxpayers who had nothing to do with poor decisions of private banks, then the systemic abuse is revealed in the daily lives of citizens.

Debt creates scarcity, which stimulates fear, which drives manic competition, which favors opportunism, collusion, and concentrations of power, which translates to abuse, which results in a collapse of legitimacy for the economic system. Overreach causes a breaking point, and we are getting close to it. Will the response be warfare, taxpayer revolt, political upheaval, mass default, debt forgiveness, something other, some combination? I have predicted pockets of violence would be mixed with some softer combination of taxpayer revolt, mass default, political upheaval, and debt forgiveness, along with a return to community exchange to meet basic needs.

Last update: 2011-09-04 10:56