Les constats connus de tous:
* La richesse mondiale continue de croitre régulièrement, mais avec un creusement des inégalités riches pauvres: Le coefficient de Gini qui mesure l'écart de répartition des richesses entre les riches et les pauvres augmente partout dans le monde, même en Chine!
Pour mémoire, le développement économique d'un pays passe par l'émergence et l'enrichissement d'une classe moyenne qui fait diminuer ce coefficient; c'était le cas pendant les '30 Glorieuses' ou lors de avènement économique du Japon de l'après guerre ou des dragons asiatiques dans années 80. Or, même en Chine, on observe pas ce phénomène: en effet, après avoir créé 200 millions de citadins 'nouveaux riches', l'empire du milieu peine à enrichir sa population rurale, qui reste pauvre, et massivement impactée par l'inflation des matières premières et des prix des ressources de première necéssité.
L'augmentation nominal de la richesse et du PIB mondial cache donc une 'tiermondisation' et une paupérisation du globe, dans toutes les régions.
*Les taux d'intérêts maintenus à des niveaux proche de zéro par les principales banques centrales de la planète contribuent à entretenir un endettement galopant de la part des institutions financières et des banques ayant accès à ce crédit gratuit: cette dette toujours plus grosse est ensuite orientée dans des investissements non productifs dans des objectifs de gains 'court termistes' de type spéculatif, qui vont faire grimper les prix artificiellement des matières premières et de l'immobilier.
Le diagnostic est clair, appauvrissement de la population et Inflation; c'est la STAGFLATION.
La solution des dirigeants en terme de politique économique peut paraître surprenante; ils maintiennent les taux nuls et mettent en place des politiques de rigueur budgétaire!! C'est aggraver la situation, c'est jeter de l'huile sur le feu!
Il faudrait faire exactement le contraire: Augmenter les taux d'intérêt et relancer la croissance avec de la politique de relance budgétaire qui permettrait de réorienter les investissements spéculatifs court terme vers des investissements productifs long terme.
J'entends d'ici les critiques: Comment! augmenter encore la dette publique, creuser les déficits budgétaires? mais ca n'est pas sérieux, vous n'y pensez pas?
Laissez moi répondre brièvement en rappelant des vérités de chiffres clairs.
Sur le plan mondial, il n'est pas clair que la dette publique soit supérieure à la dette privée, elles sont probablement assez proches (autour de 50 trilliards de dollars); en effet le PIB mondial étant de 57 trilliards, il est peu probable que la dette publique mondiale soit supérieure à ce chiffre. La Chine par exemple n'est pas du tout endettée et les pays très endettés (USA, France, Italie le sont a hauteur d'environ 100 % de leur PIB).
De plus, rappelons que beaucoup de dettes privés bancaires ont été nationalisées depuis 2008.
L'explosion et l'absence de contrôle de la dette privé est beaucoup plus inquiétante que pour la dette publique.
Restons dans l'actualité :
Coté public, l'Italie vient de voter un plan d'austérité censé économiser 45 milliards d'euros.
Coté privé, la Société Générale seule a dans ses actifs près de 30 milliards de 'mauvais actifs', qu'elle ne peut pas comptabiliser en valeur de marché sous peine de faillite immédiate (cf mes articles précédents sur les méthodes comptables).
Aujourd'hui, la même Société Générale a un bilan qui pèse 1000 milliards d'euros!! pour seulement 20 milliards de capitaux propres, soit un levier de 50!! Si sur les 1000 milliards d'engagement pris, une perte de 2 % doit être prise, la banque sera en faillite. Maintenir des taux à 0 % pousse les banques à prendre des risques et a augmenter ces ratios de fou!
Quelle est l'urgence?? réduire les déficits publics alors que le chômage est partout ou réduire ces bulles financières en augmentant les taux d'intérêt (ce qui du même coup redonnera du pouvoir d'achat aux consommateurs en faisant baisser le prix de certains actifs' bullesques').
La taille des engagements au bilan des seules Société Générale et BNP Paribas en France représentent 3000 Milliards d'euros, soit 2 fois le PIB du pays. Pour mémoire, les recettes fiscales de la France sont de 250 milliards d'euros..On marche sur la tête.
Selon moi, il faut nationaliser les activités de dépôt des banques ( qui ne peuvent pas faire faillite), ces parties ne représente qu'une minorité des engagements de la banque, et une infime partie de leurs risques.
Il faut laisser les autres partie de la banque (banques d'investissements) assumer leur risque, et faire faillite le cas échéant, et cesser de les inciter a 'véroler' le système en leur offrant de l'argent gratuit.
Dommage, Bernanke vient d'en remettre une couche en promettant des taux zéro jusqu'à mi 2013 au moins..
Qui veut parler de ça pendant les campagnes présidentielles américaines ou françaises de 2012?
lundi 15 août 2011
Bernanke devrait lire les rapports de la BIS (Bank of International Settlements)
La BIS ou BRI en francais (Banque des Règlements Internationaux) a publié fin Juin son rapport annuel.
Les conclusions dudit rapport de cet organisme supranational, souvent considéré comme la banque centrale des banques centrales sont selon moi essentielles car elles vont à l'encontre de la pensée unique des dirigeants des banques centrales et des gouvernements actuels.
En effet, alors que nos dirigeants continuent a subventionner un secteur financier, le gonflement des bilans des banques, les bulles spéculatives immobilières, et pire des matières premières, à travers une politique de taux nuls, la BRI reconnait une inflation galopante et inquiétante, notamment dans les pays émergents, et plus particulièrement en Chine, et mets en garde contre les conséquences de taux d'intérêts maintenus trop bas pendant trop longtemps. Malheureusement, et c'est très inquiétant, Bernanke et sa clique ont réagi à la baisse des marchés financiers du dernier mois en promettant des taux nuls jusqu'à au moins mi 2013!! C'est ce qui s'appelle céder à la panique, mais surtout, c'est jeter de l'huile sur le feu..
Ci dessous des extraits choisis du rapport annuel de la BRI; ils sont en Anglais, comme le rapport..
Environment
'Growth in emerging market economies is robust and recovery looks to be on a self sustaining path in the countries that were at the centre of the 2007-2009 crisis. Yet the remaining challenges are enormous -towering debt, global imbalances, extremely low interest rates, unfinished regulatory reform, and financial statistics still too weak to illuminate emerging national and international stresses'
'Many of the challenges facing us today are a direct consequence of a third consecutive year of extremely accomodative financial conditions. Near zero interest rates in the core advanced economies increasingly risk a reprise of the distorsions they were originally designed to combat. Surging growth made emerging market economies the initial focus of concern as inflation began rising nearly two years ago. But now, with the arrival of sharper price increases for food, energy and other commodities, inflation has become a global concern.The logical conclusion is that, at the global level, current monetary policy settings are inconsistent with price stability'
Global Imbalances
'Emerging market economies managed to escape the worst of the crisis, but many now run the risk of building up imbalances very similar to those seen in advanced economies in the lead-up to the crisis.For example, property prices in a number of emerging market economies are advancing at staggeringly rapid rates, and private esctor indebtness is rising fast. Emerging market policymakers should recognise that the lessons from the financial crisis do not apply only to advanced economies.'
'current account surpluses and deficits are generating large net flows of capital. But a country with large net inflows risks financial instability if its financial sector cannot allocate the new capital efficiently; and it is vulnerable to a sharp and damaging depreciation of its currency if the inflow reverses.....What we need are policies in deficit countries to encourage saving and policies in surplus countries to encourage consumption'
'The domestic financial sector might also struggle to efficiently absorb the financial inflows that are the counterpart to the current account deficit. A failure to allocate these inflows to producive uses is especially likely if financial institutions are not well regulated. The resulting capital misallocation - to real estate lending, for example- might lead to boom-bust cycles and eventually to financial instability.'
Financial institutions
'Shadow banks-entities that perform maturity or liquidity transformation outside the currently regulatory system. They have the potential to generate substantial systemic risk because they can be highly leveraged and engage in significant amounts of maturity transformation while being closely linked to commercial banks'
'Banks ,often Systematically Important Financial Institutions (SIFI), typically generate large profits by sponsoring shadow banking activities to which they have significant direct and indirect exposures, including backup lines of credit and various sorts of credit enhancements. It is exactly that linking of the banking system to the shadows banks, including explicit or implicit guarantees to the holders of shadow bank liabilities, that gives rise to some of the most pernicious financial stability risks. By comparison, mutual funds and hedge funds, although huge in terms of the money involved, pose less off a systemic risk because they are generally less leveraged and have fewer and looser ties to banks.'
'Banks need to have sufficient capital to be able to take losses and write off doubtful assets. The example of Japan in the mid-1990s shows that unrecognised losses lead to a misallocation of resources, create uncertainty, and thus hinder economic growth. When banks are not forced to write down loans, they are actually provided with incentives to roll over non-performing loans to firms that should have been bankrupt. In Japan, this contributed to stagnation by preventing restructuring and thus curtailing profit opportunities for healthy firms. It was only after a rigorious examination on banks non performing loan portfolios in 1998 and a secound round of capital infusions that banks in Japan began to lend again.'
Housing and Finance
'Growth during the pre-crisis years was heavily weighted towards finance and construction. In a number of countries, these sectors grew disproportionately to the rest of the economy and now have to shrink. Like most adjsutements, it will be painful in the short run. Not only will this reallocation impose suffering on the people who worked and invested in those sectors, it will weigh on aggregate growth and public revenues as well.'
'The problems plaguing the advanced economies today have their roots in the pre-crisis boom. House prices went up in many countries[ ..]Sharp increases in credit extension to households and corporations fuelled the appreciation in property[...]The housing and credit booms changed the sectorial composition of output. The relative weight of the construction sector rose in all economies where house prices increased[..]Strong expansion of real estate finance as property prices went up was one factor behind rapid growth of the financial sector during the pre-crisis period.[...] The financial crisis and the Great Depression that followed led to a sharp reversal trends. The construction sector shrank ..but finance did not. The ratio of financial sector assets to GDP continued to go up almost everywhere, in part due to unprecedented public support.'
'Growth in the years before the financial crisis was heavily weighted towards the increasingly bloated construction and financial sectors, and the effect of their prolonged rapid expansion was probably to reduce growth in the rest of the economy. [..] a massively expanding financial industry would probably make it more difficult for other knowledge-intensive industries to attract highkly skilled labour [..] The cross country evidence indicates that, indeed, the boom in construction and financial intermediation coincided with lower productivity growth in the rest of the economy.'
'Other sectors will have to take over from construction and financial intermediation as the engines of growth.[..]the likely stagnation of construction and finance could liberate ressources for use in other sectors- so long as authorities do not prevent such as reallocation through subsidies or other measures that preserve the satus quo'
Monetary policy challenges ahead
'Central banks face considerable challenges after a prolonged period of accommodative monetary policies. Global inflation are rising rapidly as commodity prices soar and as the global recovery runs into capacity constraints.'
Inflation Risk..
'The buoyancy of food and commodity prices is closely linked to the strenght of the global economic recovery, particulary in emerging market economies.
More generally, as long as the demand for food and commodities is supported by robust global growth, their prices may stay elevated or even rise further.'
'Soaring commodity prices have in addition raise concerns about a significant increase in underlying inflation via second round effects. There are clear signs of mounting wage pressures in some major emerging market economies.Moreover, given the globalised nature of many supply chains, undelrying inflation pressures in the advanced economies are affected indirectly by a pickup in unit labour costs in the emerging market economies. As a consequence, advanced economies may see core inflation pick up through the back door of global supply chains despite moderate wage pressures in their domestic labour markets.'
' the recent increase in commodity prices may also be related to a search for yield caused by the extraordinarily loose global monetary policy. These considerations call for central banks to take better account of the global side effects of their own monetary policies'
..and Debate over Potential Recovery..
'Projections of structural estimates suggest that the output gap will shrink only slowly and, as a consequence, hold down price pressures for some time. Other measures of the output gap suggest , however, that there may be much less unnused economic capacity in many economies, and, on average, globally.[ ...] It also reflects the possibility that potential output in advanced economies was more adversely affected by the international financial crisis than is commonly thought. In particular, potential output trends may be suffering from high private and public debt, which can have negative effects on consumption and investment prospects. Moreover, large investments that took place prior to the crisis, in the construction sector, may prove to be much less productive than was originally expected[....]Thus while statistical measures may overestimate the speed of the closure of the output gap, structural models may underestimate it.'
'Inflationary pressures from soaring commodity prices and the possibility of overestimatyed economic slack evoke memories of the 1970s. Then food price which are set in global auction markets and therefore respond quickly to global demand pressures , were the first to move up, well before the surge in oil prices. What followed was a reinforce spiral of increases in headline inflation and unit labour costs. At the same time, employment rates were reaching new highs, and the apparent opening-up for a large negative output gap during the decade, as then measured by the OECD, indicated considerable slack in the economy. Today, with hindsight, it is clear that conventional measures of economic slack at that time were grossly overestimated. The rise in the unemployment rate was due in large part to structural changes in labour markets. The slowdown in economic activity was mistakenly attributed to insufficient demand rather than to a substantial slowing of potential output growth.'
...point to the risk of being too low for too long
'These increased upside risks to inflation call for higher policy rates, but in some advanced economies this still needs to be balanced agains the vulnerabilities associated with continuing private and public sector balance sheet adjustments and lingering financial sector fragility.However, the prolonged period of very low interest rates entails the risk of creating serious finacial distorsions, misallocations of ressources and delay in the necessary deleveraging in those advanced countries most affected by the crisis. Moreover , some emerging market economies show signs of a renewed build up of financial imbalances.'
Tighter global monetary policy is needed in order to contain inflation pressures and ward off financial stability risks. It is also crucial if central banks are to preserve their hard-won inflation fighting credibility, which is particularly important now, when high public and private esctor debt may be perceived as constraining the ability of central banks to maintain price stability. Central banks may have to be prepared to raise policy rates at a faster pace than in prevoious tightening episodes'
Les conclusions dudit rapport de cet organisme supranational, souvent considéré comme la banque centrale des banques centrales sont selon moi essentielles car elles vont à l'encontre de la pensée unique des dirigeants des banques centrales et des gouvernements actuels.
En effet, alors que nos dirigeants continuent a subventionner un secteur financier, le gonflement des bilans des banques, les bulles spéculatives immobilières, et pire des matières premières, à travers une politique de taux nuls, la BRI reconnait une inflation galopante et inquiétante, notamment dans les pays émergents, et plus particulièrement en Chine, et mets en garde contre les conséquences de taux d'intérêts maintenus trop bas pendant trop longtemps. Malheureusement, et c'est très inquiétant, Bernanke et sa clique ont réagi à la baisse des marchés financiers du dernier mois en promettant des taux nuls jusqu'à au moins mi 2013!! C'est ce qui s'appelle céder à la panique, mais surtout, c'est jeter de l'huile sur le feu..
Ci dessous des extraits choisis du rapport annuel de la BRI; ils sont en Anglais, comme le rapport..
Environment
'Growth in emerging market economies is robust and recovery looks to be on a self sustaining path in the countries that were at the centre of the 2007-2009 crisis. Yet the remaining challenges are enormous -towering debt, global imbalances, extremely low interest rates, unfinished regulatory reform, and financial statistics still too weak to illuminate emerging national and international stresses'
'Many of the challenges facing us today are a direct consequence of a third consecutive year of extremely accomodative financial conditions. Near zero interest rates in the core advanced economies increasingly risk a reprise of the distorsions they were originally designed to combat. Surging growth made emerging market economies the initial focus of concern as inflation began rising nearly two years ago. But now, with the arrival of sharper price increases for food, energy and other commodities, inflation has become a global concern.The logical conclusion is that, at the global level, current monetary policy settings are inconsistent with price stability'
Global Imbalances
'Emerging market economies managed to escape the worst of the crisis, but many now run the risk of building up imbalances very similar to those seen in advanced economies in the lead-up to the crisis.For example, property prices in a number of emerging market economies are advancing at staggeringly rapid rates, and private esctor indebtness is rising fast. Emerging market policymakers should recognise that the lessons from the financial crisis do not apply only to advanced economies.'
'current account surpluses and deficits are generating large net flows of capital. But a country with large net inflows risks financial instability if its financial sector cannot allocate the new capital efficiently; and it is vulnerable to a sharp and damaging depreciation of its currency if the inflow reverses.....What we need are policies in deficit countries to encourage saving and policies in surplus countries to encourage consumption'
'The domestic financial sector might also struggle to efficiently absorb the financial inflows that are the counterpart to the current account deficit. A failure to allocate these inflows to producive uses is especially likely if financial institutions are not well regulated. The resulting capital misallocation - to real estate lending, for example- might lead to boom-bust cycles and eventually to financial instability.'
Financial institutions
'Shadow banks-entities that perform maturity or liquidity transformation outside the currently regulatory system. They have the potential to generate substantial systemic risk because they can be highly leveraged and engage in significant amounts of maturity transformation while being closely linked to commercial banks'
'Banks ,often Systematically Important Financial Institutions (SIFI), typically generate large profits by sponsoring shadow banking activities to which they have significant direct and indirect exposures, including backup lines of credit and various sorts of credit enhancements. It is exactly that linking of the banking system to the shadows banks, including explicit or implicit guarantees to the holders of shadow bank liabilities, that gives rise to some of the most pernicious financial stability risks. By comparison, mutual funds and hedge funds, although huge in terms of the money involved, pose less off a systemic risk because they are generally less leveraged and have fewer and looser ties to banks.'
'Banks need to have sufficient capital to be able to take losses and write off doubtful assets. The example of Japan in the mid-1990s shows that unrecognised losses lead to a misallocation of resources, create uncertainty, and thus hinder economic growth. When banks are not forced to write down loans, they are actually provided with incentives to roll over non-performing loans to firms that should have been bankrupt. In Japan, this contributed to stagnation by preventing restructuring and thus curtailing profit opportunities for healthy firms. It was only after a rigorious examination on banks non performing loan portfolios in 1998 and a secound round of capital infusions that banks in Japan began to lend again.'
Housing and Finance
'Growth during the pre-crisis years was heavily weighted towards finance and construction. In a number of countries, these sectors grew disproportionately to the rest of the economy and now have to shrink. Like most adjsutements, it will be painful in the short run. Not only will this reallocation impose suffering on the people who worked and invested in those sectors, it will weigh on aggregate growth and public revenues as well.'
'The problems plaguing the advanced economies today have their roots in the pre-crisis boom. House prices went up in many countries[ ..]Sharp increases in credit extension to households and corporations fuelled the appreciation in property[...]The housing and credit booms changed the sectorial composition of output. The relative weight of the construction sector rose in all economies where house prices increased[..]Strong expansion of real estate finance as property prices went up was one factor behind rapid growth of the financial sector during the pre-crisis period.[...] The financial crisis and the Great Depression that followed led to a sharp reversal trends. The construction sector shrank ..but finance did not. The ratio of financial sector assets to GDP continued to go up almost everywhere, in part due to unprecedented public support.'
'Growth in the years before the financial crisis was heavily weighted towards the increasingly bloated construction and financial sectors, and the effect of their prolonged rapid expansion was probably to reduce growth in the rest of the economy. [..] a massively expanding financial industry would probably make it more difficult for other knowledge-intensive industries to attract highkly skilled labour [..] The cross country evidence indicates that, indeed, the boom in construction and financial intermediation coincided with lower productivity growth in the rest of the economy.'
'Other sectors will have to take over from construction and financial intermediation as the engines of growth.[..]the likely stagnation of construction and finance could liberate ressources for use in other sectors- so long as authorities do not prevent such as reallocation through subsidies or other measures that preserve the satus quo'
Monetary policy challenges ahead
'Central banks face considerable challenges after a prolonged period of accommodative monetary policies. Global inflation are rising rapidly as commodity prices soar and as the global recovery runs into capacity constraints.'
Inflation Risk..
'The buoyancy of food and commodity prices is closely linked to the strenght of the global economic recovery, particulary in emerging market economies.
More generally, as long as the demand for food and commodities is supported by robust global growth, their prices may stay elevated or even rise further.'
'Soaring commodity prices have in addition raise concerns about a significant increase in underlying inflation via second round effects. There are clear signs of mounting wage pressures in some major emerging market economies.Moreover, given the globalised nature of many supply chains, undelrying inflation pressures in the advanced economies are affected indirectly by a pickup in unit labour costs in the emerging market economies. As a consequence, advanced economies may see core inflation pick up through the back door of global supply chains despite moderate wage pressures in their domestic labour markets.'
' the recent increase in commodity prices may also be related to a search for yield caused by the extraordinarily loose global monetary policy. These considerations call for central banks to take better account of the global side effects of their own monetary policies'
..and Debate over Potential Recovery..
'Projections of structural estimates suggest that the output gap will shrink only slowly and, as a consequence, hold down price pressures for some time. Other measures of the output gap suggest , however, that there may be much less unnused economic capacity in many economies, and, on average, globally.[ ...] It also reflects the possibility that potential output in advanced economies was more adversely affected by the international financial crisis than is commonly thought. In particular, potential output trends may be suffering from high private and public debt, which can have negative effects on consumption and investment prospects. Moreover, large investments that took place prior to the crisis, in the construction sector, may prove to be much less productive than was originally expected[....]Thus while statistical measures may overestimate the speed of the closure of the output gap, structural models may underestimate it.'
'Inflationary pressures from soaring commodity prices and the possibility of overestimatyed economic slack evoke memories of the 1970s. Then food price which are set in global auction markets and therefore respond quickly to global demand pressures , were the first to move up, well before the surge in oil prices. What followed was a reinforce spiral of increases in headline inflation and unit labour costs. At the same time, employment rates were reaching new highs, and the apparent opening-up for a large negative output gap during the decade, as then measured by the OECD, indicated considerable slack in the economy. Today, with hindsight, it is clear that conventional measures of economic slack at that time were grossly overestimated. The rise in the unemployment rate was due in large part to structural changes in labour markets. The slowdown in economic activity was mistakenly attributed to insufficient demand rather than to a substantial slowing of potential output growth.'
...point to the risk of being too low for too long
'These increased upside risks to inflation call for higher policy rates, but in some advanced economies this still needs to be balanced agains the vulnerabilities associated with continuing private and public sector balance sheet adjustments and lingering financial sector fragility.However, the prolonged period of very low interest rates entails the risk of creating serious finacial distorsions, misallocations of ressources and delay in the necessary deleveraging in those advanced countries most affected by the crisis. Moreover , some emerging market economies show signs of a renewed build up of financial imbalances.'
Tighter global monetary policy is needed in order to contain inflation pressures and ward off financial stability risks. It is also crucial if central banks are to preserve their hard-won inflation fighting credibility, which is particularly important now, when high public and private esctor debt may be perceived as constraining the ability of central banks to maintain price stability. Central banks may have to be prepared to raise policy rates at a faster pace than in prevoious tightening episodes'
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