«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
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Australia: l'ha fatto ancora...

Cosenza (Italy), 2 Novembre 2010

[Ringrazio il blog "Rischio Calcolato" per la pubblicazione di questo post sul sito web http://rischio-calcolato.blogspot.com/2010/11/australia-lha-fatto-ancora.html]

In maniera del tutto inaspettata, la Reserve Bank of Australia ha aumentato il tasso di interesse domestico al 4,75%. Dico "in maniera inaspettata" perchè - pur avendo avvertito nei miei precedenti post che il continuo afflusso di capitali europei in Australia avrebbe spinto le autorità australiane a stoppare l'inflazione importata, ammonivo anche che ogni eventuale scelta di aumentare i tassi di interesse avrebbe messo a repentaglio la stabilità del cambio Euro/Dollaro USA e, quindi, aggiunto un'ulteriore minaccia alla stabilità dei mercati finanziari.

Purtroppo, ancora una volta si dimostra come un paese preferisca agire da solo in maniera "unilaterale" e non-coordinata, pur di salvare la propria ecoomia: la qual cosa assume una rilevanza ancor più importante se si considera che nel documento preparatorio dell'imminente G20 di Seoul di Novembre (documento elaborato lo scorso mese di Ottobre), le principali Nazioni del mondo si sono accordate di stoppare le manipolazioni dei cambi.

All'apertura delle contrattazioni, il Dollaro Australiano ha segnato un deciso deprezzamento rispetto a tutte le principali valute internazionali. Occorrerà tuttavia vedere quanto a lungo dureranno i benefici effetti di questa mossa.

Nel frattempo, anche la Reserve Bank of India ha aumentato per gli stessi motivi dell'Australia i propri tassi di interesse, a dimostrazione di come esista un problema "pressione dei prezzi" nella fascia periferica dell'economia mondiale.

Ecco la reazione dei media internazionali:

• Marketwatch 1 Novembre "Australia hikes cash rate by quarter point": "SYDNEY (MarketWatch) -- Australia's central bank raised its key cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.75% on Tuesday. "The risk of inflation rising again over the medium term remains. At today's meeting, the board concluded that the balance of risks had shifted to the point where an early, modest tightening of monetary policy was prudent," said the Reserve Bank of Australia. The Australian dollar jumped 1.2% to 99.67 U.S. cents after the move".
• Marketwatch 2 Novembre "India ups lending, borrowing rates by 0.25 points": "HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- The Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday raised its lending and borrowing rates by a quarter point each, as expected, to tackle inflationary pressures. The central bank raised its repurchase or repo rate -- at which it lends money -- to 6.25%, while increasing the reverse repurchase or reverse repo rate to 5.25%. It left the cash reserve ratio -- the amount of deposits that commercial banks are required to keep with the RBI -- unchanged at 6%. The U.S. dollar weakened a little bit to 44.39 rupees after the rate increase, from 44.42 rupees the previous day".
• Bloomberg 2 Novembre "India Central Bank Raises Rates Sixth Time This Year (Update2)": "India’s central bank raised interest rates for a sixth time this year in Asia’s fastest round of increases and said the chance of further policy tightening in the “immediate future is relatively low.”. [...] The central bank’s rate increase is aimed at slowing the fastest inflation after Argentina in the Group of 20 nations and at protecting the purchasing power of 75 percent of Indians who live on less than $2 a day. Consumer prices rose 11.1 percent in Argentina in September, while CPI for industrial workers gained 9.9 percent in India. "Inflation and inflationary expectations remain high,” Subbarao said at a press conference in Mumbai and cited surging asset prices for today’s move. He said India’s equity market is close to a record and residential prices in cities have risen “beyond the pre-crisis peak level. [...] Higher yields spurred an unprecedented $10 billion inflow into rupee debt this year. Overseas funds also poured a record $25 billion into Indian stocks on prospects of faster growth in the South Asian nation, strengthening the currency and driving the Sensitive Index, or Sensex, to near a record. Since Jan. 1, the rupee has risen 4.5 percent against the dollar while the Sensex has jumped 16.5 percent. [...]. The Reserve Bank said on Oct. 29 it would inject funds into the banking system by conducting special repurchase auctions to ease the cash crunch after overnight lending rates touched 12.25 percent the same day, the highest level since Nov. 1, 2008".

AGGIORNAMENTI

3 Novembre 2010: Nell'articolo di oggi dell'Irish Times "India and Australia raise interest rates" si parla esplicitamente delle stesse motivazioni da me esposte in passato a proposito di "impossible trinity". In particolare, ad un maggior "quantitative easing" delle economie avanzate corrisponde un maggior "quantitative tightening" delle economie emergenti, ovvero la necessità di un maggiore aumento dei tassi di interesse. La pressione sui prezzi conseguente al maggior afflusso di capitali in questi ultimi, è causa di una crescente impossibilità di garantire nello stesso momento la libera circolazione di capitali, tassi di cambio flessibili e il controllo della politica monetaria sui tassi di interesse.

Ecco l'articolo completo (in grassetto la conferma delle mie argomentazioni): "INDIA AND Australia raised interest rates yesterday amid rising inflation fears as the US Federal Reserve prepared to take aggressive monetary policy action to stimulate the US economy.

Although both countries’ central banks cited domestic pressures on inflation as the main reason for the rises, the Reserve Bank of India also drew attention to fears that a new round of quantitative easing in the US and elsewhere could flood emerging markets with fresh capital, putting pressure on rising asset prices. “While the ultra-loose monetary policy of advanced economies may benefit the global economy in the medium-term, in the short-term it will trigger further capital inflows into emerging market economies and put upward pressure on global commodity prices,” said Duvvuri Subbarao, the central bank governor.

The Fed is today expected to announce a more gradual approach to quantitative easing, unlike the “shock and awe” used during the financial crisis, with initial purchases of $500 billion.

In a research note yesterday, HSBC warned that emerging markets were struggling with what it called an “impossible trinity” – an inability to allow free flows of capital while simultaneously maintaining a grip over interest rates and exchange rates. That meant that “the more the west pursues quantitative easing, the more the emerging world, via capital controls, will pursue quantitative tightening”. Economists said a less aggressive approach from the Fed should moderate US dollar weakness. However, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s surprise decision to lift its official interest rate by 25 basis points to 4.75 per cent lifted the Australian dollar by as much as 1.2 per cent to a record $1.003.

– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010)"

3 Novembre 2010: Benissimo, a quanto pare la vicenda dell'aumento dei tassi di interesse in Australia ha fatto emergere con chiarezza l'interezza del problema. Ora anche sul Financial Times di ieri si ripropone nell'articolo "Emerging markets braced for flood of new money" la tesi da me abbondantemente anticipata su questo blog da mesi: gli squilibri nei tassi di interesse mondiali renderanno necessaria l'introduzione di controlli sui movimenti di capitale e tassi di cambio fissi...in pratica, la fine della politica monetaria indipendente e dell'autonomia delle banche centrali.

Ammonivo di qesta possibilità già nel mio articolo del 2005 "The Bug in the European Monetary Architecture: Can a Collapse Still Be Avoided?". Ora, puntualmente, pare ci troviamo di fronte ad una profezia che si auto-avvera.

Di seguito riporto l'articolo completo del Financial Times (in grassetto le parti che confermano le mie argomentazioni):

"After QE2, QT2? Quantitative tightening – or measures by emerging market countries to counter the sometimes pernicious effects of capital inflows – began even before it became clear that the Federal Reserve was preparing another massive bout of quantitative easing.

Now with the prospect of yet more money sloshing around the global financial system in search of higher returns, a string of governments in Asia and Latin America are expected to consider introducing capital controls to stem the side-effects of inflows.

Emerging markets are affected in several ways by the so-called carry trade, in which money moves from low- to high-interest environments. Such inflows put upward pressure on exchange rates, making exports less competitive, and threaten the possibility of a 1997-style balance-of-payments crisis if flows suddenly reverse. Inflows also exacerbate inflation, particularly if central banks are leery of raising interest rates for fear of attracting yet more “hot money”.

According to a research note published by HSBC on Tuesday, one of the unintended consequences of loose monetary policy in the US and Europe is the likely proliferation of capital controls across the developing world. Emerging markets are struggling with what it calls the “impossible trinity”, an inability to allow free flows of capital while simultaneously maintaining a grip over interest rates and exchange rates. “The more the west pursues quantitative easing, the more the emerging world, via capital controls, will pursue quantitative tightening,” it said.

In Asia, following Brazil’s reintroduction of taxes on capital inflows, Thailand was the first out of the blocks. Last month, it imposed a 15 per cent withholding tax on capital gains and interest payments for government and state-owned company bonds as a way of discouraging inflows. On the other side of the ledger, it has removed limits on overseas investment and eased restrictions on lending to foreign borrowers in an effort to encourage outflows by domestic investors.

Indonesia and South Korea are both considering measures. Budi Mulya, deputy governor of Indonesia’s central bank, told the Financial Times that the bank was considering extending controls to reduce the potentially harmful effect of sudden movements in hot money. Last week, Kim Choong-soo, governor of South Korea’s central bank, raised the prospect of introducing measures, including the reintroduction of a withholding tax on bonds, to reduce surges in capital, saying: “Regulation of capital flows can be an effective policy tool.”

Richard Yetsenga, currency strategist at HSBC and one of the authors of the report, said QE2 could exacerbate a problem that had its origins in a reassessment of risk after the collapse of Lehman. “Quantitative easing is the whipping boy, but it is not clear how much it is to blame for the reallocation of savings,” he said.

Indonesia, for example, had seen very strong capital inflows long before quantitative easing was dreamt of outside Japan. In 2005, foreign holdings of local currency-denominated government bonds were below 5 per cent, he said. By the time Lehman collapsed, this had already risen to 20 per cent, only to jump again, to nearly 30 per cent, in the subsequent two years.

Whatever the causes of upward pressure on exchange rates and inflation in emerging markets, Mr Yetsenga said, capital controls had “definitely become less taboo” as a countermeasure. Even the International Monetary Fund had dropped its strong objections, he said.

In an interview with the Financial Times last week, Lee Myung-bak, president of South Korea, said policies aimed at stemming excessive capital flows should be considered within the framework of international co-operation. Each country had to “take into account their own domestic needs”, he said, rejecting the suggestion that unilateral action could be regarded as undermining collective action to rebalance the global economy and avoid a currency war.

The Korean government likes to draw a distinction between capital controls, aimed directly at mitigating pressure on the exchange rate, and what it calls macro-prudential policies whose purpose is to prevent volatile capital movements. But Korean policy experts conceded that the huge flows generated by quantitative easing made it harder and harder to differentiate between the two.

.Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web".

Matteo Olivieri

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G20 Seoul: verso un nuovo "Washington Consensus"?!

Cosenza (Italy), 23 Ottobre 2010

Obbligare i paesi con forti surplus nella bilancia commerciale (cioè, con forti esportazioni. In primis Germania e Cina), a ridurre il loro vantaggio, attraverso l'imposizione di "target numerici" (leggi: "quote") sulle bilance dei pagamenti: questa è la prospettiva che emerge dalla lettera inviata dal Segretario del tesoro USA Geithner ai suoi colleghi Ministri delle Finanze del G20 riuniti a Seoul.

E' l'agenzia Reuters a darne notizia nel suo articolo di venerdi 22 Ottobre "G20 Shouldn't Use Currencies for Trade Gains: Geithner". Sembra una proposta incredibile, tanto è anacronistica, eppure è talmente vero che non posso che riportare i passaggi essenziali: "The United States struggled on Friday to win backing for its proposal of setting numerical targets for external imbalances as a way of pressing surplus countries such as China to let their exchange rates rise. In a letter to fellow finance ministers of the Group of 20 leading economies, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said countries should implement policies to reduce their current account imbalances below a specified share of national output. Diplomats said the Treasury chief was proposing to limit surpluses and deficits on the current account — the broadest measure of trade in goods and services — to 4 percent of gross domestic product".

Avevo già avvertito in miei post precedenti di questo pericolo di innalzamento di controllo sui movimenti di capitali, derivazione logica del cosiddetto modello di analisi economica conosciuto come "impossible trinity", una generalizzazione del modello IS-LM che include la bilancia dei pagamenti. Tuttavia, mai avrei potuto immaginare che una evenienza simile potesse mai diventare oggetto di una proposta diplomatica.

Tra l'altro, l'introduzione di controlli sui movimenti di capitali rende di fatto non più indipendente la politica monetaria, per cui le Bance Centrali diventerebbero di fatto delle semplici agenzie dei vari Ministeri del Tesoro. Un bel passo indietro di decenni verso una nuova versione di "gold standard", dopo anni e anni di politica monetaria indipendente e tassi di cambio flessibili e determinati dai mercati.

Risulta ancor più profetico il mio articolo del 2005 "The Bug in the European Monetary Architecture: Can a Collapse Still Be Avoided?", in cui per la prima volta mettevo in guardia da questa possibilità...quello che solo 5 anni fa sembrava per molti una eventualità impossibile, a me appariva già un piccolo foro che avrebbe finito per affondare l'intera nave.

Si può costruire il famoso "Washington Consensus" sulla base di posizioni ideologiche ed anacronistiche, con il Dollaro ancora destinato a svolgere la funzione di moneta-ancora che determina i livelli di inflazione e crescita mondiale? Io auspico di no....

Fortunatamente la posizione USA non è stata accettata e la diplomazia internazionale si è invece espressa in direzione esattamente opposta, con minori manipolazioni dei cambi e più libero mercato (vedi Bloomberg 23/10/2010 "G-20 to Avoid Competitive Currency Devaluations (Update1)": "Group of 20 finance chiefs pledged to avoid weakening their currencies to boost exports and to let markets increasingly set foreign exchange values to defuse trade tensions before they hurt the world economy. The G-20 agreed to “move towards more market determined exchange rate systems that reflect underlying economic fundamentals and refrain from competitive devaluation of currencies,” its finance ministers and central bankers said after talks today in Gyeongju, South Korea. They called the global economic recovery “fragile and uneven.").

Nel frattempo la Germania accusa gli USA di manipolare indirettamente i cambi  attraverso la continua immissione di liquidità in cambio di acquisto di titoli obbligazionari (vedi Reuters 23/10/2010: "Germany Accuses US of Indirectly Manipulating Dollar": "German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle on Saturday took issue with what he called a U.S. policy of increasing liquidity, saying it indirectly manipulated exchange rates".

Che figura...per mesi la diplomazia economica internazionale ci voleva convincere che esistessero "speculatori" pronti come branchi di lupi famelici ad attentare contro le finanze degli Stati. Ora, finalmente, si scopre che il Re è nudo: sono le politiche degli Stati le cause e gli effetti di questa crisi economica!

Matteo Olivieri

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Tassi di interesse e "riscaldamento globale"

Cosenza (Italy), 27 Luglio 2010

In un bell'articolo del Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung di oggi 27 Luglio, intitolato "Rentenmärkte, Nicht nur Schwellenländer erhöhen ihre Leitzinsen"), vengono affrontati tutta una serie di temi in linea con gli argomenti da me trattati finora su questo blog. Li riassumo per brevità:

1. I tassi di interesse a livello mondiale divergono sempre più gli uni dagli altri;
2. Mentre nelle economia avanzate (USA, Europa, Giappone) i tassi di interesse sono prossimi allo zero, e - a detta di molti analisti - non dovrebbero aumentare fino alla fine del prossimo anno, nei paesi in via di sviluppo e in quelli ricchi di materie prima, i tassi di interesse hanno cominciato a risalire già da tempo;
3. Le motivazioni dell'aumento die tassi di interesse sono addebitabili alla maggiore crescita economica, e ai connessi maggiori rischi di inflazione;
4. Le differenze nei tassi di interesse sono un invito ai c.d. "carry trades", ovvero ci si indebita nei paesi a bassi tassi di interesse (p.e. Giappone) e si investe nei paesi con alti tassi di interesse;
5. I "carry trades" comportano un apprezzamento delle valute a maggior tasso di interesse;
6. Se l'apprezzamento della valuta è tale da pregiudicare le esportazioni di questi paesi, le autorità decidono di introdurre controlli sui movimenti di capitale (cosa già fatta finora!). 

Insomma, tanto più i tassi di interesse rimarranno bassi nelle economie avanzate, tanto più il resto del mondo sarà costretto ad aumentare i propri tassi di interesse per combattere l'inflazione e il surriscaldamento delle proprie economie.
I mezzi tipicamente usati sono l'aumento dei tassi di interesse interni e i controlli sui movimenti di capitali.

Cosa comporterà tutto ciò? Per avere una risposta, occorre dare uno sguardo allo schema che gli economisti chiamano "impossible trinity", riportato di seguito:

Il grafico dice che poste due condizioni, la terza è derivabile conseguentemente. Così per esempio (vedi nel grafico il triangolo in basso a destra), in caso di perfetta mobilità dei capitali ("capital mobility") e di politica monetaria indipendente ("autonomous monetary policy"), la logica consegueza sarebbe l'avere tassi di cambio flessibili ("flexible exchange rates").
In uno scenario che passa sempre più da perfetta mobilità dei capitali a controlli sui movimenti di capitale, e da politica monetaria indipendente a limitata autonomia delle banche centrali, la logica conclusione da attendersi è un progressivo passaggio da tassi di cambio flessibili a tassi di cambio fissi!

Delle due l'una: o questi divari si accentuano, e allora per salvare il sistema finanziario internazionale occorrerà passare da un tasso di cambio flessibile ad uno fisso (col Dollaro USA, come da me sostenuto ?!), oppure i paesi avanzati dovranno progressivamente aumentare i propri tassi di interesse, prima di quanto generalmente ritenuto....

In tutti e due i casi ci sarebbero degli "effetti collaterali":

1. In caso di tasso di cambio fisso, si terrebbe sotto controllo l'inflazione, ma a spese di un sistema finanziario globale più rigido e basato su un bene-àncora (Dollaro, oro, ?!), la cui domanda crescerebbe enormemente;
2. In caso di aumento dei tassi di interesse nelle economie avanzate, questo provocherebbe un aumento ancora maggiore nelle economie emergenti, per cui queste ultime si troverebbero a pagare in tassi di interesse una somma ben maggiore alle possibilità di crescita delle loro economie. In altre parole, le economie avanzate esporterebbero inflazione verso le economie emergenti, se le prime dovessero decidere di aumentare i tassi di interesse.

Quanto da me qui riportato potrebbe costituire inoltre il motivo che spiega perchè le quotazioni dell'oro sono schizzate alle stelle.

Quale che sia scenario più probabile, è chiaro che in questo momento ognuno vuole evitare inflazione e, soprattutto, inflazione importata da altri....tuttavia, qualcuno alla fine dovrà pur pagare i costi del debito. Come uscire dal guado? Si è finiti in questa situazione sostenendo per anni che l'ammontare di investimenti diretti esteri (c.d. FDI) e l'ammontare di riserve valutari determinassero la "forza" di un'economia...così facendo si è diviso il mondo in "creditori netti" e in "debitori netti" del resto del mondo, dimenticando che la forza di un'economia deriva dalla sua integrazione (cioè, dalla capacità di procedere tutti allo stesso passo!), non mettendo gli uni contro gli altri. E' chiaro che una soluzione a questa crisi finanziaria mondiale non può non (!) passare per una rivisitazione di questo paradigma!
 
Matteo Olivieri
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