La nuova proposta: controlli sui movimenti di capitale...

Cosenza (Italy), 10 Novembre 2010

Mentre tutto il mondo sta bocciando la proposta prima velata, e poi esplicita, di introdurre quote sul commercio internazionale e controlli sui movimenti di capitale, la diplomazia statunitense prosegue inesorabile nella sua opera di convincimento generale. La soluzione proposta? Restringere i mercati. L'idea che si nasconde dietro questa soluzione? Immaginare che l'economia mondiale possa ruotare esclusivamente intorno al Dollaro USA, che svolgerebbe il ruolo di "moneta-àncora" dell'economia mondiale come avveniva fino al collasso del sistema Gold-Exchange Standard nel 1973.

Di seguito riporto alcuni degli articoli più recenti in tema:

• Reuters 9 Novembre "World Bank Chief Says Supports US Plan on Current Account": il Presidente della Banca Mondiale Robert Zoellick ha sostenuto che prendere in considerazione limiti agli squilibri di conto corrente è una buona idea (Perchè poi la Banca Mondiale? A parlare non dovrebbe essere in caso il Fondo Monetario Internazionale? Ah ecco, guarda caso chi parla è statunitense, ndr);
• Bloomerg 9 Novembre "World Bank Says Asia May Need Some Capital Controls (Update1)": Il Direttore Esecutivo della Banca Mondiale Sri Mulyani Indrawati sostiene che le economie asiatiche potrebbero avere necessità di introdurre controlli sui movimenti di capitale per eliminare gli effetti negativi del QE statunitense, che causa afflussi di capitale nelle economie emergenti (vedi nota 1)...Ma perchè invece di introdurre i controlli sui movimenti di capitale non si elimina il QE? 

Al momento l'unica voce autorevole che si è apertamente schierata contro simili proposte è quella del Prof. Nouriel Roubini, per come riporta il seguente articolo CNBC del 9 Novembre "Roubini: Here's Why a Gold Standard Won't Work". Il Prof. Roubini spiega come controlli sui movimenti di capitale e limitazioni al commercio estero acuiscano i cicli economici, che da anti-ciclici diverrebbero prociciclici. Non solo, la politica monetaria diventerebbe dipendente dal ciclo economico e dunque incapace di risolvere problemi di surriscaldamento o di depressione del ciclo economico (vedi nota 2). Il Prof. Roubini illustra le stesse argomentazioni da me riportate su questo blog!

AGGIORNAMENTI

10 Novembre 2010: Sull'onda di proteste internazionali, il Presidente della Banca Mondiale scende di nuovo in camop per chiarire il suo pensiero. Ora sostiene che non aveva intenzione di approvare la proposta di ritorno al gold-standard, ma di sottolineare la necessità di maggiore cooperazione internazionale.

Per una panoramica della vicenda, rinvio all'articolo CNBC di oggi "Zoellick Sees 'Elephant,' Not Endorsing Gold Standard": "[...] Instead, Zoellick called for a more international currency system that could involve the dollar, euro, yen, pound and yuan. He said in the FT that gold could be used as an "international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values". The dollar's dominance on world markets is changing and now multiple currencies are playing a greater role in the trade of assets, Zoellick told CNBC. Because of this, there is the need to create a framework of greater cooperation, he added".

NOTA

1) "Asian economies may need to turn to capital controls as quantitative easing by the U.S. threatens to spur asset bubbles in the region’s stock, currency and property markets, the World Bank said. Any curbs should be “targeted,” temporary and tailored to address specific problems, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, a World Bank managing director, said in an interview. This could include countries tying up funds for as long as a year to help limit hot-money, she said. The U.S. Federal Reserve last week announced plans to buy $600 billion of long-term government bonds in its second effort at so-called quantitative easing, or QE2, aiming to stoke U.S. economic growth. Policy makers from Asia to South America have responded by warning it could have the side-effect of depressing the dollar and sparking capital flight to emerging markets. “Certain assets will become, potentially, bubbles,” Sri Mulyani said in Kuala Lumpur late yesterday. “The quantitative easing will create a lot of liquidity flooding to the East Asia Pacific region, because it is the most dynamic and attractive with a higher return on investment.” Real-estate prices are a concern in China, Australia and parts of Southeast Asia, she said. Japan, Thailand and Malaysia have seen their currencies surge more than 10 percent against the dollar this year, while some of the region’s stock markets have jumped more than 50 percent, Sri Mulyani said. Sri Lanka’s benchmark stock index is up more than 90 percent this year, while the measures for Thailand and Indonesia have exceeded 40 percent, according to Bloomberg data".

2) "A gold standard would just make business cycles more extreme, according to economist Nouriel Roubini. What's more, a gold standard would make central banks unable to fight inflation or deflation, much less do anything to combat persistent unemployment, Roubini said in an interview with NetNet yesterday. "A fixed exchange regime, even if it is not a gold standard… that world just doesn't work. Because in that world, monetary policy by definition instead of being countercyclical becomes procyclical," Roubini told NetNet. "Suppose you have a fixed exchange rate regime...it just exacerbates the business cycle." Roubini asks us to imagine two countries: One that's growing very quickly, and one that's growing very slowly. The economy that is growing quickly would tend to "overheat"—an economic phenomenon characterized by accelerated growth, inflation and the potential for asset bubbles. In the economy that is growing more slowly, there would be a tendency toward deflationary pressure and recession. So, instead of having a central bank with the capacity to successfully counter-balance these tendencies, an economy with a fixed exchange rate regime would continue to reinforce the existing negative trends in the business cycle, Roubini argues. Although he is best known as an economist who challenges conventional views, Roubini pretty well lines-up the consensus view of mainstream economics on the gold standard or fixed exchange rate regimes: "You have the opposite of what any optimal rule about monetary policy will tell you," Roubini said. The ranks of the gold standard advocates, which have long included many Austrian economists and others worried about central bank manipulation of the money supply, were seemingly joined this week by World Bank President Robert Zoellick. Hardcore gold standard folks, however, are skeptical of Zoellick. Nouriel Roubini agrees with the skeptics. "In fairness to him [Zoellick], he was speaking about a wide variety of issues in the global economy…so it was not a proposal centered around going back to some modified gold standard," Roubini said. Roubini seems to think a gold standard is a pretty awful idea. "There are many fundamental problems with any variant of a gold standard," he said. A general summary of Roubini's position on the issue would likely begin by saying that, generally speaking, a fixed exchange rate regime or gold standard limits the flexibility and range of actions that central banks can take to improve a nation's economy in fundamental ways. (For example, in a fixed exchange rate regime, central banks have less ability to maximize employment, stimulate growth and manage price stability.) And, as Roubini specifically pointed out to me, fixed rate regimes inhibit the ability of banks to provide lender of last resort support to an economy when necessary.

According to Roubini, there are other major feasibility issues with the proposals for a transition to a global gold standard. One of the principal problems with such proposals is the current level of central banks' gold reserves. Roubini raises the following question: If you are on a gold standard, or modified gold standard, what do you do in the event of a bank run—if you don't have enough gold to fully back the currency? Roubini explains that most central banks in today's economy have far greater financial liabilities than gold in reserve. In fact, according to Roubini, in the case of most central banks today that ratio is about 40 or 50 to 1.

Of course, many who support a gold standard would say that limiting the ability of central banks to increase their leverage would be a benefit of adopting the gold standard. Aside from the issue of central banks' insufficient current gold reserves, there are the issues that historically plagued gold standard economies. One of the most intractable of those issues was the impact that the gold standard had on traditional business cycles. Historically speaking, Roubini says, during the days of the gold standard economies were constantly imperiled by spasmodic cycles: "When you had a traditional gold standard, boom and bust with severe swings in economic activity were the norm—really big ones. It was only once we moved to fiat money that central banks were able to smooth the business cycle, and make it less volatile, as we did during the financial economic crisis," Roubini said. Of course, this directly contradicts Austrian business cycle theory, which argues that boom-bust cycles are caused by central banks departing from the gold standard. In short, Roubini's views challenge the Austrian economists where they live: at the intersection of monetary policy and the business cycle.

We eagerly await the response. Over to you Ron Paul and the Mises Institute!"

Matteo Olivieri
>> Le informazioni qui contenute non (!) costituiscono sollecitazioni ad investire.

«Non chiedete cosa possa fare la FED per i mercati: chiedete cosa possono fare i mercati per la FED»

Cosenza (Italy), 8 Novembre 2010

Le ultime dichiarazioni del Presidente della FED Ben Bernanke hanno rivelato di lui un carattere duro ed intransigente, certamente non in sintonia con il prestigio internazionale e la fama di cui gode come economista e come professore universitario.

Il "Pensiero Bernanke" è in fondo il seguente: io ho ricevuto il mandato di mantenere inflazione stabile e disoccupazione bassa, ed a questo mandato voglio attenermi ad ogni costo poichè la mia unica preoccupazione è l'economia USA e non quella del resto del mondo.

Non è un caso che a seguito del nuovo programma di quantitative easing della FED si stia osservando sui mercati:

1. Aumento del prezzo dei future e del prezzo delle materie prime (vedi Reuters 8/11 "Crude oil steady to higher on U.S. economic data": "The U.S. central bank said it would buy $75 billion in Treasury bonds per month through mid-2011, totaling around $600 billion, to boost the nation's economy. The stimulus news propelled crude oil to a two-year intra-day high of $87.43 a barrel on Friday, the highest intra-day price since hitting $89.82 on October 9, 2008, surpassing this year's previous peak of $87.15 on May 3");
2. Aumento del rendimento richiesto dagli investitori sui titoli del debito pubblico di paesi europei (vedi Bloomberg 8/11 "Irish Fight to End Bond ‘Buyers Strike’ as EU Examines Budget": "Ireland will try to win support this week from the European Union to avoid a Greek-style bailout as investors balk at buying the country’s bonds. [...]. While Ireland has the funds to avert the need for an immediate rescue, its cash may run out in the middle of next year unless it can raise money from the bond market in 2011. Ireland led a surge in the cost of insuring sovereign debt to a record on Nov. 5 as the government struggles to convince investors it won’t be the next Greece, whose economy was rescued by the EU and International Monetary Fund in May. [...]. The extra yield that investors demand to hold the country’s debt rather than German bunds has more than doubled in the last three months. The difference in yield, or spread, between Irish bonds and benchmark German bunds has gone up by 100 basis points to 521 basis points, according to Bloomberg generic data".
3. Aumento dei rischi di eccessivo afflusso di capitali esteri nelle economie emergenti (vedi Reuters 8/11 "China official frets over U.S. quantitative easing": "The latest U.S. moves to lift its economy by injecting an extra $600 billion into its banking system is a shock to global financial markets and may lead to excessive flows of capital into emerging markets, Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said on Monday. Zhu, speaking to reporters ahead of this week's G20 and APEC meetings, added that it plans "frank discussions" with the United States over its latest round of printing money. The United States must recognize its role and responsibility in the global economy, Zhu added";
4. Si parla apertamente di riaprire il dibattito su possibile un ritorno del "Gold Standard", cioè tassi di cambio fissi ancorati all'oro [per come da me segnalato già mesi addietro rifacendomi al cosiddetto modello "impossible trinity", ndr] (vedi Financial Times 8/11 "World Bank Chief Seeks Gold Standard Debate": "Leading economies should consider readopting a modified global gold standard to guide currency movements, argues the president of the World Bank. Writing in the Financial Times, Robert Zoellick, the bank’s president since 2007, says a successor is needed to what he calls the “Bretton Woods II” system of floating currencies that has held since the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime broke down in 1971. Mr Zoellick, a former US Treasury official, calls for a system that “is likely to need to involve the dollar, the euro, the yen, the pound and a renminbi that moves towards internationalization and then an open capital account”. He adds: “The system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values.” His views reflect disquiet with the international system, where persistent Chinese intervention to hold down the renminbi is blamed by the US and others for contributing to global current account imbalances and creating capital markets distortions. This week’s meeting of government heads in South Korea is likely to see yet more exchange rate conflict. A US plan for countries to sign up to current account targets has run into widespread opposition".

Il "Pensiero Bernanke" sta creando molto imbarazzo (non solo nel mondo economico) tanto è vero che per ben tre volte Bernanke è dovuto intervenire per difendersi pubblicamente, come ricorda il recente articolo Bloomberg del 7 Novembre "Bernanke Invokes Friedman’s Legacy in Defense of New Stimulus": "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke invoked the inflation-fighting legacy of the late Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman and, for the third time in as many days, defended the Fed’s expansion of record stimulus. Bernanke, speaking yesterday at a conference in Jekyll Island, Georgia, responded to criticism in an opinion article this week by Allan Meltzer, a Fed historian. Meltzer said in the Wall Street Journal that Friedman, who died in 2006 and influenced the thinking of Fed officials such as Bernanke, wouldn’t have supported the central bank’s decision to buy more assets. “We are doing everything Milton Friedman would have us do,” Bernanke said. “What Milton Friedman would say is that the Federal Reserve is responsible for the stability of nominal aggregates including prices, and that means that particularly with respect to inflation, you don’t want inflation to be too high but you also don’t want it to be too low.” The Fed chief’s comments extend a defense of the Nov. 3 decision to buy $600 billion of Treasuries through June in a bid to lower unemployment and avert deflation. Officials in Germany, China and Brazil said his plan to pump cash into the banking system will jar other economies and fail to fuel U.S. growth, while U.S. critics including Meltzer say the central bank risks setting off uncontrollable inflation".

Tra i più recenti critici al "Pensiero Bernanke" vi è l'eminente storico dell'economia Allan Meltzer della Carnegie Mellon University, il quale in un'intervista a Bloomberg del 4 novembre ha affermato che tutto ciò che la FED sta compiendo unilaterlamente nel tentativo di ridurre l'inflazione è la stessa politica che negli anni 1970 e seguenti ha portato alla creazione di elevata inflazione e di peggior disoccupazione. Per questo motivo - aggiunge Meltzer - il Premio Nobel Milton Friedman (il cui pensiero è popolarissimo negli USA e ha ancora tantissima influenza nella FED) non avrebbe mai approvato questo comportamento, poichè nel risolvere un problema immediato di disoccupazione creando inflazione, si crea un problema di maggiore disoccupazione futura (vedi qui l'intervista completa in inglese).

Per maggiori dettagli sulle ragioni addotte dal Prof. Meltzer rinvio inoltre al seguente articolo del Wall Street Journal del 27 Gennaio 2010 "The Fed's Anti-Inflation Exit Strategy Will Fail": "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has explained his exit strategy to prevent future inflation. The Fed recently began to pay interest to banks on the reserves they hold in their vaults. Using this new tool, it claims the ability to get banks to keep the money instead of lending it out, thus containing the money supply and inflation. I don't believe this will work, and no one else should.

The exit strategy is incomplete. Proponents are guilty of practicing economics without prices. They never say what the interest rate on reserves must be to get banks to hold the approximately $1 trillion of reserves above the minimum they're legally required to hold. That's the critical question. The efforts to reduce inflation during the 1970s failed because they ended prematurely. And they ended prematurely when business, unions, Congress and the administration objected loudly to the rising unemployment accompanying higher interest rates. Today's high current and prospective unemployment rates pose a similar dilemma.

No economist doubts that the Fed can induce banks to hold some more reserves by paying interest. But how much?

Normally, banks' principal business is lending, and the interest rate they can get on their loans is more important than the interest they might get on their reserves. Once borrowing resumes, banks will increase loans and expand deposits. The current massive volume of excess reserves will melt into a greater money supply, and later higher inflation.

When will inflation start? The date is uncertain. But the triggering event will be either a sustained increase in bank lending or a large increase in Fed purchases of government debt. Perhaps both. Either one would trigger a sustained increase in money growth.

With the exception of the early years after Paul Volcker became Fed chairman in 1979, the Fed has paid no attention to money growth. There have always been some Fed bank presidents concerned about too much or too little money growth, but they have not affected decisions. That problem remains.

The Federal Reserve has a well-known dual mandate to prevent both inflation and unemployment. It chooses to act on only one part of its mandate at a time. That cannot be the best way to achieve both targets, and it has failed repeatedly to bring low inflation and low unemployment. For example, the policy implied by the famous Phillips Curve—which says you can trade off higher inflation for lower unemployment—failed in the 1970s. We got rising inflation and higher unemployment.

Mr. Volcker publicly and privately discarded the Phillips Curve in favor of bringing inflation down by high interest rates and better control of the money supply. The result: about 15 years of low inflation and low unemployment. But the Fed abandoned its success by keeping interest rates too low after 2003. And now the Phillips Curve is back in fashion, with strong support from the Fed Board of Governors.

Christina Romer, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, reminds us regularly about the Fed and the Treasury's tight-money mistakes in 1937 which aborted the recovery, and she warns against repeating these mistakes. The principle drivers behind the recovery in 1934-36 were the veterans' bonus in 1936 and a gold inflow following the 1934 devaluation of the dollar—accomplished by unilaterally raising the gold price. The bonus ended, and the Treasury began to sterilize gold inflows in 1937 by selling securities, while the Fed doubled reserve requirements. Monetary policy shifted from excessive ease to excessive restraint.

Nothing of the kind is called for today. Instead, the Fed should announce a policy for preventing inflation that reduces the enormous stock of excess reserves, such as by selling securities. And the Treasury or the Office of Management and Budget should announce a credible policy for reducing deficits. That would help to reduce the uncertainty about future taxes, spending and inflation.

Policies without prices hide the serious problem posed by excessive debt and reserves, and are not credible. Policy makers should develop and announce credible plans now.

Mr. Meltzer is a professor at the Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, and the author of "A History of the Federal Reserve" (Chicago, 2003 and 2010)".

AGGIORNAMENTI

 

8 Novembre 2010: I giornalisti di Reuters si dicono "sorpresi" dall'annuncio del Presidente della Banca Mondiale Robert Zoellick di cominciare a pensare ad un ritorno del "gold standard"...evidentemente non leggono ancora LEAF (vedi Reuters "World Bank chief surprises with gold standard idea": "Leading economies should consider adopting a modified global gold standard to guide currency rates, World Bank president Robert Zoellick said on Monday in a surprise proposal before a potentially acrimonious G20 summit. Writing in the Financial Times, Zoellick called for a "Bretton Woods II" system of floating currencies as a successor to the Bretton Woods fixed-exchange rate regime that broke down in the early 1970s. The former U.S. trade representative, who served in several Republican administrations, said such a move "is likely to need to involve the dollar, the euro, the yen, the pound and (a yuan) that moves toward internationalization and then an open capital account. "The system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values," he added. [...]. China and Germany, major exporting nations, have both decried the Fed's quantitative easing -- effectively printing money -- which is weakening the dollar. Investors are pumping dollars into emerging markets in search of higher yields, and the potentially destabilizing impact of this, along with big current account deficits and surpluses as well as China's reluctance to let the yuan appreciate faster, are set to dominate the G20 debate. France, which takes over the G20 chair after this week's summit, says it plans to work on a new international monetary system to bring greater currency stability. Beijing's central bank chief has suggested an alternative monetary system based on using the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights, a notional unit of value based on a basket of major currencies, instead of the dollar as the sole global reserve currency. [...]. Zoellick said a new monetary system would take time to develop and should be part of a package approach including possible changes in IMF rules to review capital as well as current account policies, and linking IMF monetary assessments to World Trade Organisation obligations. The dollar rose sharply on Monday as unwinding of dollar short positions that began with solid U.S. jobs data snowballed, pushing down the euro to its lowest level since the Fed embarked on fresh easing last week. (Reporting by Lewa Pardomuan, Nick Trevethan and Paul Taylor; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)").
Matteo Olivieri
>> Le informazioni qui contenute non (!) costituiscono sollecitazioni ad investire.