Posts mit dem Label Euro/US-Dollar werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label Euro/US-Dollar werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Freitag, Juni 28, 2013
Staatsgeheimnis Bankenrettung - ARTE TV
Interessant! Sehenswert! Die Nicht-Offenlegung Gläubigerliste ist erschreckend!
Dienstag, September 06, 2011
«Vermögen werden sich in Luft auflösen»
«Vermögen werden sich in Luft auflösen»
Klaus Wellershoff
Der 47-Jährige ist Honorarprofessor für angewandte Volkswirtschaftslehre an der Universität St. Gallen und Partner einer auf Makroökonomie und Finanzmärkte spezialisierten Beratungsfirma in Zürich. Davor war er zwölf Jahre Chefökonom der UBS. Das Gespräch fand im Rahmen des 15. Zermatter Symposiums von Avenir Suisse statt. (rs)![[Alt-Text]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tTvylDolBe7jV7RW_xJ_bclJMlsYRC01s5M34invWz7It7NN40g-ZbC9HVEGl5UKWQpg26rNwQ4ASZYUCqYMMRtn0bwdaD1LtDmAv5R8jWhnAWyCygWEkH3SUGT1Y=s0-d){kind=small}
Es wird wahnsinnig viel verdrängt. Man glaubt, alles gehe so weiter wie bisher. Dabei stehen mit der EU, den USA und Japan die Nummern 1, 2 und 4 der Weltwirtschaft vor Problemen, die zu einem massiven Umbau ihrer Gesellschaft führen werden. Es geht längst nicht mehr darum, ob diese Länder ein halbes Prozent mehr oder weniger Wachstum haben.
Geben Sie uns einen Einblick in das Unbewusste.
Niemand weiss, wie die Sozialversicherungen und Krankensysteme in Zukunft finanziert werden können. Die USA und einige EU-Staaten sind faktisch zahlungsunfähig. Viele Vermögen werden sich in Luft auflösen. Reicht das fürs Erste?
Was sind die Folgen?
Wenn Staatsschulden nicht mehr bedient werden können, wird auf Gläubigerseite Vermögen vernichtet. Zudem stehen die grossen Banken vor Herausforderungen, die nochmals zu einem grossen Umbau führen werden. Die UBSetwa hat heute rund 24'000 Beschäftigte in der Schweiz. Durchaus möglich, dass sich diese Zahl drastisch weiter reduzieren wird. Ich bin überzeugt: Diese Krise wird zu einem grundsätzlichen Umdenken führen.
Inwiefern?
Man wird neu definieren, was wir für den Staat tun und was der Staat für uns tut: innere und äussere Sicherheit, Strassen, soziale Sicherung, Schulen. Es stellt sich die Frage, was der hoch verschuldete Staat künftig noch wird leisten können.
Der Staat soll bei höheren Kosten weniger tun – das wird wenig Begeisterung auslösen.
So kann man es sagen. Gleichzeitig wissen wir, dass viele, die sich heute für vermögend halten, das in wenigen Jahren nicht mehr sein werden. Das betrifft alle, die für ihre Pension gespart haben. Viele, die jetzt vorschlagen, dass Griechenland ein Teil der Schulden gestrichen werden, bedenken nicht, dass damit per Definition auch Vermögen gestrichen wird. Jeder Schuld steht schliesslich eine Forderung gegenüber. Den Staatsschulden stehen Vermögensansprüche der Pensionskassen und Lebensversicherungen gegenüber, zu einem weniger grossen Teil der Banken. Wenn die gestrichen werden, wird es viele Ältere hart treffen, weil die nichts mehr dazuverdienen können.
Erklärt das die Tendenz der älteren Generation, Bewegungen wie die Tea Party oder die SVP zu unterstützen? Und die hohe Zeit des sogenannten Wutbürgers?
Wieweit ein Zusammenhang besteht, wäre ein spannendes Forschungsprojekt.
Bleiben wir bei Ihren Themen. Sie stellen als Ökonom ein paar vermeintliche Gewissheiten infrage: etwa jene, dass die Stärke oder Schwäche einer Währung von der Staatsverschuldung abhängt.
Allein schon ein Blick auf Japan widerlegt das: Dieser Staat ist immens verschuldet und hat trotzdem eine starke Währung. Es gibt so gesehen auch keine Eurokrise. Viele Eurostaaten sind zwar hoch verschuldet, aber der Euro hat seit seiner Einführung 1999 gegenüber den Währungen der Handelspartner nicht an Wert verloren. Das meinen wir nur in der Schweiz. Was wir erleben, ist.........
Samstag, August 06, 2011
Der rechte Abschied von der Politik
Der rechte Abschied von der Politik
Von Constantin Seibt
Moore schreibt: «Ich habe mehr als 30 Jahre gebraucht, um mir diese Frage zu stellen. Aber heute muss ich es tun: Hat die Linke doch Recht?» Und fährt fort: «Die Reichen werden reicher, aber die Löhne sinken. Die Freiheit, die dadurch entsteht, ist allein ihre Freiheit. Fast alle arbeiten heute härter, leben unsicherer, damit wenige im Reichtum schwimmen. Die Demokratie, die den Leuten dienen sollte, füllt die Taschen von Bankern, Zeitungsbaronen und anderen Milliardären.»
Dann blendet Moore zurück zu seinen Anfängen als Journalist. Damals, in den 80er-Jahren, entfesselte Thatcher die Finanzmärkte und zerschlug die Gewerkschaften. Moore unterstützte beides. Nun schreibt er: «Die Kreditkrise hat gezeigt, wie diese Freiheit gekidnappt wird. Die Banken sind ein Spielfeld für Abenteurer, die reich werden, auch wenn sie Milliarden verfeuern. Die Rolle aller anderen ist, ihre Rechnung zu zahlen.»
Und zum damaligen Verbündeten von Thatcher, dem Verleger Rupert Murdoch, schreibt er: «Murdoch argumentierte immer mit dem Recht der Leser. Aber seine Zeitungen informieren erbärmlich. Sie verschafften ihm persönlich Macht, nicht seinen Lesern.»
Moore beschreibt die «schrille» Kompromisslosigkeit der Republikaner in den USA. Und bemerkt: «Die westliche Demokratie fängt an, wie ein aussterbender Luxus auszusehen. Klar können wir Fähnchen mit dem Aufdruck ‹Freiheit› schwingen. Aber auf ihnen steht, kleingedruckt, ‹Made in China›.»
Und er endet: «Das alles ist eine schreckliche Enttäuschung für uns, die wir an freie Märkte glaubten, weil sie freie Menschen hervorbringen würden...»
Reinheit statt Politik
Gleichzeitig verzweifelte auf der anderen Seite des Atlantiks ein anderer konservativer Kolumnist. David Brooks, überzeugter Republikaner, schrieb in der «New York Times», über seine eigene Partei: «Die Mitglieder dieser Bewegung akzeptieren die Logik des Kompromisses nicht, egal wie gut die Offerten sind. Sie akzeptieren nicht die Legitimität von Wissenschaftlern. Tausend Experten können ihnen sagen, dass ein Staatsbankrott furchtbare Effekte nach sich zieht, die schlimmer als eine kleine Steuererhöhung sind. Aber sie hören sie nicht.»
Was Brooks entsetzte, war, dass die Republikaner einen gigantischen Sieg aus der Hand gaben. Sie lehnten einen fast selbstmörderischen Vorschlag Präsident Obamas ab, das Defizit durch brutale Einsparungen zu reduzieren. Und zwar, weil dabei auch Steuerlöcher gestopft werden sollten. Es war ein Vorschlag, der ihnen alles schenkte: einen Sieg ihrer Sparpolitik plus eine Spaltung der gegnerischen Partei. Stattdessen riskierten sie den Bankrott des eigenen Landes.
Warum? Weil, so Brooks, Politik nicht mehr ihr Ziel ist. «Ihr Geschäft sind Radio-Shows, nicht Gesetze», schrieb er. Und um das Publikum nicht zu irritieren, bewegten...
Sonntag, Dezember 19, 2010
Montag, Mai 24, 2010
Schwacher Euro als Segen
18. Mai 2010, 11:07, NZZ Online
Schwacher Euro als Segen
Europäische Exportwirtschaft profitiert
Der Griechenland-Strudel und der schwächere Euro freut die europäische Exportindustrie.
Alle verfolgen derzeit den fallenden Euro-Dollarkurs und glauben dabei, der Eskalation der Krise der Euro-Zone zuschauen zu können. Doch der Wechselkurs taugt wenig als Mass für die Krise. Der schwache Euro dürfte sich als Segen entpuppen.
Von Marco Metzler
Der Alltag der Devisenhändler interessiert die Öffentlichkeit normalerweise kaum. Wenn aber allenthalben das Ende des Euro und der Euro-Zone ausgerufen wird, dann erscheint plötzlich die tägliche Veränderung der vierten Stelle hinter dem Komma des Euro-Dollarkurses die ganze Welt zu bewegen und für Schlagzeilen zu sorgen. Ist die tägliche Veränderung einer Kommastelle relevant? Dass der Euro in den letzten Monaten schwächer geworden ist, ist eine Tatsache. Aber ist dies tatsächlich so schlecht?
Langfristige Betrachtung
Macht man einen Schritt zurück und öffnet den Fokus vom hektischen Tagesgeschäft der Devisenhändler auf den langfristigen Verlauf des Euro-Dollarkurses, dann relativiert sich die Euro-Schwäche. Denn der Euro ist im langfristigen Vergleich weiterhin stark. Nach der Einführung des Euro als Buchgeld am 1. Januar 1999 kannte die Einheitswährung zuerst gegenüber der US-Währung nur eine Richtung: nach unten.
Am 25. Oktober 2000 erreichte der Kurs bei 0,872 den tiefsten Stand. Nachdem der Euro am 1. Januar 2002 auch als Bargeld eingeführt worden war, begann dann der Höhenflug der europäischen Währung. Sie durchbrach....
Schwacher Euro als Segen
Europäische Exportwirtschaft profitiert
Der Griechenland-Strudel und der schwächere Euro freut die europäische Exportindustrie.
Alle verfolgen derzeit den fallenden Euro-Dollarkurs und glauben dabei, der Eskalation der Krise der Euro-Zone zuschauen zu können. Doch der Wechselkurs taugt wenig als Mass für die Krise. Der schwache Euro dürfte sich als Segen entpuppen.
Von Marco Metzler
Der Alltag der Devisenhändler interessiert die Öffentlichkeit normalerweise kaum. Wenn aber allenthalben das Ende des Euro und der Euro-Zone ausgerufen wird, dann erscheint plötzlich die tägliche Veränderung der vierten Stelle hinter dem Komma des Euro-Dollarkurses die ganze Welt zu bewegen und für Schlagzeilen zu sorgen. Ist die tägliche Veränderung einer Kommastelle relevant? Dass der Euro in den letzten Monaten schwächer geworden ist, ist eine Tatsache. Aber ist dies tatsächlich so schlecht?
Langfristige Betrachtung
Macht man einen Schritt zurück und öffnet den Fokus vom hektischen Tagesgeschäft der Devisenhändler auf den langfristigen Verlauf des Euro-Dollarkurses, dann relativiert sich die Euro-Schwäche. Denn der Euro ist im langfristigen Vergleich weiterhin stark. Nach der Einführung des Euro als Buchgeld am 1. Januar 1999 kannte die Einheitswährung zuerst gegenüber der US-Währung nur eine Richtung: nach unten.
Am 25. Oktober 2000 erreichte der Kurs bei 0,872 den tiefsten Stand. Nachdem der Euro am 1. Januar 2002 auch als Bargeld eingeführt worden war, begann dann der Höhenflug der europäischen Währung. Sie durchbrach....
Samstag, Mai 16, 2009
NYT: China’s Heart of Gold
The New York Times
Op-Ed Contributor
China’s Heart of Gold
By VICTOR ZHIKAI GAO
Beijing
IN China, many people refer to the dollar as mei jin, or “American gold.” Government officials, businessmen and people on the street all use the term. So if a Chinese person tells you that he owes you 100 American gold, don’t expect a big fortune, because he’s planning to pay you $100.
Chinese impressions of the American dollar as the gold standard......
May 14, 2009
The New York Times
Op-Ed Contributor
China’s Heart of Gold
By VICTOR ZHIKAI GAO
Beijing
IN China, many people refer to the dollar as mei jin, or “American gold.” Government officials, businessmen and people on the street all use the term. So if a Chinese person tells you that he owes you 100 American gold, don’t expect a big fortune, because he’s planning to pay you $100.
Chinese impressions of the American dollar as the gold standard were so deeply entrenched that they survived President Richard Nixon’s 1971 delinking of gold and the greenback. Around 30 years ago, China’s foreign exchange reserves were as little as $167 million. At one important meeting in the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping, the leader of China, prophesied to an audience of top government officials: “Comrades, just imagine! One day we may have a foreign reserve as big as $10 billion!” Silence fell on the audience, because that figure seemed so improbable. After a long pause, Deng went on to tell the unconvinced crowd: “Comrades, just imagine! With 10 billion American gold, how much China can do!”
Deng’s view of the dollar reflected his admiration for many positive elements of American capitalism. In November 1986, I served as Deng’s interpreter when he met with John Phelan, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, who was visiting Beijing. During the meeting, Deng told him: “You are the rich capitalists with great wealth, and China is still very poor with little wealth. You know finance and capital markets very well. You need to teach China a lot about finance and capital markets. One day in the future, China will also have its own stock exchange.”
That was the prelude to China’s rapid economic growth. China’s foreign reserves are now close to $2 trillion, and around $1.5 trillion of it is invested in dollar assets. With the global financial crisis, the attention of the world often focuses on this huge pile of American dollars in Chinese hands.
What many don’t remember is that for years, there was either a shortage or a feared shortage of American dollars. In the 1980s, for example, the government required everyone to convert dollars into the Chinese currency, the renminbi, which literally means “people’s money.” As a result, American gold became a status symbol. Despite the mandatory conversion into renminbi, many people held onto their dollars, or bought them at inflated exchange rates, if they could find a seller at all.
No one knows for sure when the tide started to turn, or the exact moment when American gold started its slow but seemingly irreversible loss of luster. But now, many shops in China no longer accept dollar-based credit cards issued by foreign banks (the customer pays in dollars, but the shopkeeper is paid in renminbi) and foreigners cannot convert American dollars into renminbi beyond a given quota.
In the past, people held dollars for no immediate purpose. Today, they are more likely to keep them only if they need them to send their children abroad for school, travel or to do business in another country. Over all, the government is becoming more worried about the safety of its investments in the United States, which are largely in Treasury bonds and quasi-sovereign securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Beijing recently called for a greater role in international trade for the special drawing rights currency of the International Monetary Fund. But China is also fully aware that the United States can veto an I.M.F. decision. China’s call was more meant to sound an alarm to the United States.
Many Chinese people increasingly fear the rapid erosion of the American dollar. The United States may want to consider offering inflation-protection measures for China’s existing investments in America, and offer additional security or collateral for its continued investments. America should also provide its largest creditor with greater transparency and information.
We still call the dollar American gold. But the United States should not assume that this will never change.
Victor Zhikai Gao is an executive director of the Beijing Private Equity Association and a director of the China National Association of International Studies.
Op-Ed Contributor
China’s Heart of Gold
By VICTOR ZHIKAI GAO
Beijing
IN China, many people refer to the dollar as mei jin, or “American gold.” Government officials, businessmen and people on the street all use the term. So if a Chinese person tells you that he owes you 100 American gold, don’t expect a big fortune, because he’s planning to pay you $100.
Chinese impressions of the American dollar as the gold standard......
May 14, 2009
The New York Times
Op-Ed Contributor
China’s Heart of Gold
By VICTOR ZHIKAI GAO
Beijing
IN China, many people refer to the dollar as mei jin, or “American gold.” Government officials, businessmen and people on the street all use the term. So if a Chinese person tells you that he owes you 100 American gold, don’t expect a big fortune, because he’s planning to pay you $100.
Chinese impressions of the American dollar as the gold standard were so deeply entrenched that they survived President Richard Nixon’s 1971 delinking of gold and the greenback. Around 30 years ago, China’s foreign exchange reserves were as little as $167 million. At one important meeting in the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping, the leader of China, prophesied to an audience of top government officials: “Comrades, just imagine! One day we may have a foreign reserve as big as $10 billion!” Silence fell on the audience, because that figure seemed so improbable. After a long pause, Deng went on to tell the unconvinced crowd: “Comrades, just imagine! With 10 billion American gold, how much China can do!”
Deng’s view of the dollar reflected his admiration for many positive elements of American capitalism. In November 1986, I served as Deng’s interpreter when he met with John Phelan, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, who was visiting Beijing. During the meeting, Deng told him: “You are the rich capitalists with great wealth, and China is still very poor with little wealth. You know finance and capital markets very well. You need to teach China a lot about finance and capital markets. One day in the future, China will also have its own stock exchange.”
That was the prelude to China’s rapid economic growth. China’s foreign reserves are now close to $2 trillion, and around $1.5 trillion of it is invested in dollar assets. With the global financial crisis, the attention of the world often focuses on this huge pile of American dollars in Chinese hands.
What many don’t remember is that for years, there was either a shortage or a feared shortage of American dollars. In the 1980s, for example, the government required everyone to convert dollars into the Chinese currency, the renminbi, which literally means “people’s money.” As a result, American gold became a status symbol. Despite the mandatory conversion into renminbi, many people held onto their dollars, or bought them at inflated exchange rates, if they could find a seller at all.
No one knows for sure when the tide started to turn, or the exact moment when American gold started its slow but seemingly irreversible loss of luster. But now, many shops in China no longer accept dollar-based credit cards issued by foreign banks (the customer pays in dollars, but the shopkeeper is paid in renminbi) and foreigners cannot convert American dollars into renminbi beyond a given quota.
In the past, people held dollars for no immediate purpose. Today, they are more likely to keep them only if they need them to send their children abroad for school, travel or to do business in another country. Over all, the government is becoming more worried about the safety of its investments in the United States, which are largely in Treasury bonds and quasi-sovereign securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Beijing recently called for a greater role in international trade for the special drawing rights currency of the International Monetary Fund. But China is also fully aware that the United States can veto an I.M.F. decision. China’s call was more meant to sound an alarm to the United States.
Many Chinese people increasingly fear the rapid erosion of the American dollar. The United States may want to consider offering inflation-protection measures for China’s existing investments in America, and offer additional security or collateral for its continued investments. America should also provide its largest creditor with greater transparency and information.
We still call the dollar American gold. But the United States should not assume that this will never change.
Victor Zhikai Gao is an executive director of the Beijing Private Equity Association and a director of the China National Association of International Studies.
Freitag, März 27, 2009
SZ: Joschka Fischer über EU - Keine Führung, nirgends
Süddeutsche Zeitung
URL: /politik/325/462937/text/
Datum und Zeit: 27.03.2009 - 00:01
26.03.2009 08:25 Uhr
Joschka Fischer
Keine Führung, nirgends
Auf dem Trittbrett durch die Krise: Nächste Woche treffen die Europäer beim G-20-Gipfel in London erstmals Barack Obama und zeigen ein Verhalten, das ebenso legitim wie fatal ist. Mehr als ein "Formelkompromiss" zur Bewältigung der Finanzkrise ist nicht zu erwarten.
Eine Außenansicht von Joschka Fischer
Süddeutsche Zeitung
URL: /politik/325/462937/text/
Datum und Zeit: 27.03.2009 - 00:01
26.03.2009 08:25 Uhr
Joschka Fischer
Keine Führung, nirgends
Auf dem Trittbrett durch die Krise: Nächste Woche treffen die Europäer beim G-20-Gipfel in London erstmals Barack Obama und zeigen ein Verhalten, das ebenso legitim wie fatal ist. Mehr als ein "Formelkompromiss" zur Bewältigung der Finanzkrise ist nicht zu erwarten.
Eine Außenansicht von Joschka Fischer
Am Rhein und in Prag werden Nato und EU dem neuen amerikanischen Präsidenten huldigen, schöne Bilder, hehre Reden über die Zukunft des Transatlantismus - alles wie gehabt. Doch vor Straßburg und Prag findet, am 2. April, auf dem G-20-Treffen in London der transatlantische Ernstfall statt. Mit der Wahl Barack Obamas zum amerikanischen Präsidenten sollte alles besser werden - eigentlich. Die transatlantische Kontinentaldrift, die Europa und Amerika in den acht Jahren unter George W. Bush immer weiter auseinander gebracht hat, sollte gestoppt und sogar umgekehrt werden. Diese Hoffnung geht dahin.
Denn die Weltfinanz- und Weltwirtschaftskrise lässt die Differenzen zwischen Amerika und Europa voll ausbrechen. Europa weigert sich, sehr viel stärker als bisher finanziell bei der Bewältigung der beiden Krisen zu helfen. Gewiss, am Ende des Londoner Treffens werden sich die Staats- und Regierungschefs auf eine gemeinsame Erklärung einigen; ein Scheitern kann sich niemand erlauben. Aber die Unterschiede werden bestehen bleiben. Die einen wollen die Krise wegfinanzieren, die anderen wollen sie wegregulieren, und am Ende wird beides in der Erklärung stehen. So etwas nennt man dann "Formelkompromiss."
Die nationalen Medien der beteiligten Staaten werden anschließend ihre jeweiligen Regierungen für ihre "Tapferkeit" und "Durchsetzungskraft" preisen, werden von "Punktsiegen" schwadronieren, aber eine kraftvolle globale Antwort auf die schwerste Krise seit 1929 wird es trotzdem nicht gegeben haben. Keine Führung, nirgends.
Die Ursache der neuen transatlantischen Drift liegt vor allem darin, dass beide Seiten in unterschiedlichen Krisenwelten leben. Amerika fürchtet die Deflation, Europa hingegen, getrieben von seiner größten Volkswirtschaft Deutschland, Staatsverschuldung und Inflation.
Zögern und die Folgen
Die USA haben unter der Wucht der Krise bereits eine ideologische und praktische Kehrtwende um 180 Grad vorgenommen und setzen voll auf Keynes und eine massive, schuldenfinanzierte öffentliche Nachfrage, um den weiteren Absturz der Wirtschaft aufzufangen. Die Europäer haben zwar auch nationale Konjunkturprogramme aufgelegt, aber sie sind nach wie vor nicht bereit, ein ähnliches Verschuldensrisiko einzugehen, wie die USA. Das europäische Sozialstaatsmodell dämpft zudem, anders als in den USA, zumindest für eine gewisse Zeit den ökonomischen Absturz.
Es spielt aber auch die politische Taktik eine zentrale Rolle. Präsident Obama ist gerade für vier Jahre ins Amt gewählt worden, und sein politisches Schicksal wird davon abhängen, ob er den Absturz der US-Wirtschaft zuerst abbremsen und dann umdrehen kann oder nicht. Jegliches Zögern kann für ihn nicht wieder gutzumachende Folgen haben. In Europa stehen Merkel, Brown und Sarkozy aber vor ganz anderen Alternativen.
Gordon Brown ist in einer hoffnungslosen Lage. Der Absturz der Wirtschaft in Großbritannien war mindestens so hart wie in den USA, und deshalb musste die britische Regierung massiv auf Deficit Spending setzen, um den Totalkollaps des Finanzsystems zu verhindern. Gordon Brown sind kaum noch Optionen geblieben, ohne dass Großbritannien bereits die Talsohle der Krise erreicht hätte. Bei Neuwahlen kann ihn nur noch ein Wunder retten.
Das Schicksal Browns hat aber eine nachhaltige Wirkung in Berlin und Paris, denn es wird dort als Menetekel angesehen. Merkel und Sarkozy wollen auf keinen Fall ebenfalls ihre politische Zukunft verspielen. Für die europäische Positionierung spielt dabei die Bundeskanzlerin die zentrale Rolle, und zwar nicht nur, weil sie die größte Volkswirtschaft der EU führt, sondern auch, weil sie am 28. September wieder gewählt werden will. Der Ausgang dieser Wahl ist heute unsicherer denn je, und Angela Merkel ist in eine äußerst ungemütliche Lage geraten, die sich hin zu einer Zwickmühle entwickeln kann.
Arbeitslosigkeit oder Staatsverschuldung
Denn entscheidet die Kanzlerin sich jetzt für ein massives Deficit Spending, verliert sie in der Wählergruppe, die ihr bereits heute in Scharen von der Fahne geht - wegen Staatsverschuldung, Verstaatlichung, Konjunkturprogrammen etc. Sollte die Arbeitslosigkeit in Deutschland allerdings von Frühsommer an explodieren und einige namhafte Großunternehmen im Konkurs enden, dann könnte sie zu lange auf das falsche Pferd gesetzt haben - und die Sozialdemokraten die Wahlen für sich entscheiden.
Auf jeden Fall sieht es so aus, als ob die deutschen Wahlen an der Frage Arbeitslosigkeit oder Staatsverschuldung - Monetaristen gegen Keynesianer - entschieden werden. Das Rennen wird zunehmend ungewisser und damit offener. Deswegen wird die Kanzlerin alles tun, um eine vorzeitige Festlegung für sich zu vermeiden, und London kommt auf jeden Fall viel zu früh.
Pazifischer und weniger transatlantisch
Allerdings hat ein solch legitimes, gleichwohl bizarr kleinkariertes nationales Denken angesichts einer Krise von bisher nicht gekanntem globalem Ausmaß sehr ernste Konsequenzen: Erstens blockiert der Streit zwischen Europa und Amerika ein gemeinsames, also wirksames Handeln der wichtigsten westlichen Volkswirtschaften und schwächt so den Westen insgesamt; zweitens treibt dies die USA weg von Europa und weiter Richtung China; und drittens wird dies die transatlantischen Beziehungen weiter schwächen, die chinesische Rolle bei der globalen Bewältigung der Krise und darüber hinaus weiter aufwerten und China aller Voraussicht nach zum großen Gewinner dieser Weltwirtschaftskrise machen.
Die Welt wird danach eine andere sein, und die Europäer werden sich darüber nicht beschweren dürfen. Sie wird pazifischer und weniger transatlantisch sein, und die neue Achse der Weltpolitik wird von dem sino-amerikanischen Tandem gebildet werden. Insgeheim setzt man in Berlin, Paris und anderen europäischen Hauptstädten wohl darauf, dass es Präsident Obama schon richten wird.
Hat er Erfolg als Super-Keynes, dann ist man mit dabei, ohne unkalkulierbare Risiken für die eigene politische Zukunft eingegangen zu sein. Scheitert er, dann war man Gott sei Dank nicht dabei. Beides aber ist im Interesse Europas gleichermaßen falsch. Denn wenn Europa seine Rolle in dieser schweren Krise, die sich durchaus zu einer Depression entwickeln kann, auf dem Trittbrett des Krisenmanagements sieht, dann wird es zukünftig auch so behandelt werden.
Joschka Fischer, 60, (Bündnis 90/Grüne) war Bundesaußenminister und Vizekanzler von 1998 bis 2005. Er schreibt exklusiv für Project Syndicate und die Süddeutsche Zeitung.
(SZ vom 26.03.2009/ihe)
URL: /politik/325/462937/text/
Datum und Zeit: 27.03.2009 - 00:01
26.03.2009 08:25 Uhr
Joschka Fischer
Keine Führung, nirgends
Auf dem Trittbrett durch die Krise: Nächste Woche treffen die Europäer beim G-20-Gipfel in London erstmals Barack Obama und zeigen ein Verhalten, das ebenso legitim wie fatal ist. Mehr als ein "Formelkompromiss" zur Bewältigung der Finanzkrise ist nicht zu erwarten.
Eine Außenansicht von Joschka Fischer
Süddeutsche Zeitung
URL: /politik/325/462937/text/
Datum und Zeit: 27.03.2009 - 00:01
26.03.2009 08:25 Uhr
Joschka Fischer
Keine Führung, nirgends
Auf dem Trittbrett durch die Krise: Nächste Woche treffen die Europäer beim G-20-Gipfel in London erstmals Barack Obama und zeigen ein Verhalten, das ebenso legitim wie fatal ist. Mehr als ein "Formelkompromiss" zur Bewältigung der Finanzkrise ist nicht zu erwarten.
Eine Außenansicht von Joschka Fischer
Am Rhein und in Prag werden Nato und EU dem neuen amerikanischen Präsidenten huldigen, schöne Bilder, hehre Reden über die Zukunft des Transatlantismus - alles wie gehabt. Doch vor Straßburg und Prag findet, am 2. April, auf dem G-20-Treffen in London der transatlantische Ernstfall statt. Mit der Wahl Barack Obamas zum amerikanischen Präsidenten sollte alles besser werden - eigentlich. Die transatlantische Kontinentaldrift, die Europa und Amerika in den acht Jahren unter George W. Bush immer weiter auseinander gebracht hat, sollte gestoppt und sogar umgekehrt werden. Diese Hoffnung geht dahin.
Denn die Weltfinanz- und Weltwirtschaftskrise lässt die Differenzen zwischen Amerika und Europa voll ausbrechen. Europa weigert sich, sehr viel stärker als bisher finanziell bei der Bewältigung der beiden Krisen zu helfen. Gewiss, am Ende des Londoner Treffens werden sich die Staats- und Regierungschefs auf eine gemeinsame Erklärung einigen; ein Scheitern kann sich niemand erlauben. Aber die Unterschiede werden bestehen bleiben. Die einen wollen die Krise wegfinanzieren, die anderen wollen sie wegregulieren, und am Ende wird beides in der Erklärung stehen. So etwas nennt man dann "Formelkompromiss."
Die nationalen Medien der beteiligten Staaten werden anschließend ihre jeweiligen Regierungen für ihre "Tapferkeit" und "Durchsetzungskraft" preisen, werden von "Punktsiegen" schwadronieren, aber eine kraftvolle globale Antwort auf die schwerste Krise seit 1929 wird es trotzdem nicht gegeben haben. Keine Führung, nirgends.
Die Ursache der neuen transatlantischen Drift liegt vor allem darin, dass beide Seiten in unterschiedlichen Krisenwelten leben. Amerika fürchtet die Deflation, Europa hingegen, getrieben von seiner größten Volkswirtschaft Deutschland, Staatsverschuldung und Inflation.
Zögern und die Folgen
Die USA haben unter der Wucht der Krise bereits eine ideologische und praktische Kehrtwende um 180 Grad vorgenommen und setzen voll auf Keynes und eine massive, schuldenfinanzierte öffentliche Nachfrage, um den weiteren Absturz der Wirtschaft aufzufangen. Die Europäer haben zwar auch nationale Konjunkturprogramme aufgelegt, aber sie sind nach wie vor nicht bereit, ein ähnliches Verschuldensrisiko einzugehen, wie die USA. Das europäische Sozialstaatsmodell dämpft zudem, anders als in den USA, zumindest für eine gewisse Zeit den ökonomischen Absturz.
Es spielt aber auch die politische Taktik eine zentrale Rolle. Präsident Obama ist gerade für vier Jahre ins Amt gewählt worden, und sein politisches Schicksal wird davon abhängen, ob er den Absturz der US-Wirtschaft zuerst abbremsen und dann umdrehen kann oder nicht. Jegliches Zögern kann für ihn nicht wieder gutzumachende Folgen haben. In Europa stehen Merkel, Brown und Sarkozy aber vor ganz anderen Alternativen.
Gordon Brown ist in einer hoffnungslosen Lage. Der Absturz der Wirtschaft in Großbritannien war mindestens so hart wie in den USA, und deshalb musste die britische Regierung massiv auf Deficit Spending setzen, um den Totalkollaps des Finanzsystems zu verhindern. Gordon Brown sind kaum noch Optionen geblieben, ohne dass Großbritannien bereits die Talsohle der Krise erreicht hätte. Bei Neuwahlen kann ihn nur noch ein Wunder retten.
Das Schicksal Browns hat aber eine nachhaltige Wirkung in Berlin und Paris, denn es wird dort als Menetekel angesehen. Merkel und Sarkozy wollen auf keinen Fall ebenfalls ihre politische Zukunft verspielen. Für die europäische Positionierung spielt dabei die Bundeskanzlerin die zentrale Rolle, und zwar nicht nur, weil sie die größte Volkswirtschaft der EU führt, sondern auch, weil sie am 28. September wieder gewählt werden will. Der Ausgang dieser Wahl ist heute unsicherer denn je, und Angela Merkel ist in eine äußerst ungemütliche Lage geraten, die sich hin zu einer Zwickmühle entwickeln kann.
Arbeitslosigkeit oder Staatsverschuldung
Denn entscheidet die Kanzlerin sich jetzt für ein massives Deficit Spending, verliert sie in der Wählergruppe, die ihr bereits heute in Scharen von der Fahne geht - wegen Staatsverschuldung, Verstaatlichung, Konjunkturprogrammen etc. Sollte die Arbeitslosigkeit in Deutschland allerdings von Frühsommer an explodieren und einige namhafte Großunternehmen im Konkurs enden, dann könnte sie zu lange auf das falsche Pferd gesetzt haben - und die Sozialdemokraten die Wahlen für sich entscheiden.
Auf jeden Fall sieht es so aus, als ob die deutschen Wahlen an der Frage Arbeitslosigkeit oder Staatsverschuldung - Monetaristen gegen Keynesianer - entschieden werden. Das Rennen wird zunehmend ungewisser und damit offener. Deswegen wird die Kanzlerin alles tun, um eine vorzeitige Festlegung für sich zu vermeiden, und London kommt auf jeden Fall viel zu früh.
Pazifischer und weniger transatlantisch
Allerdings hat ein solch legitimes, gleichwohl bizarr kleinkariertes nationales Denken angesichts einer Krise von bisher nicht gekanntem globalem Ausmaß sehr ernste Konsequenzen: Erstens blockiert der Streit zwischen Europa und Amerika ein gemeinsames, also wirksames Handeln der wichtigsten westlichen Volkswirtschaften und schwächt so den Westen insgesamt; zweitens treibt dies die USA weg von Europa und weiter Richtung China; und drittens wird dies die transatlantischen Beziehungen weiter schwächen, die chinesische Rolle bei der globalen Bewältigung der Krise und darüber hinaus weiter aufwerten und China aller Voraussicht nach zum großen Gewinner dieser Weltwirtschaftskrise machen.
Die Welt wird danach eine andere sein, und die Europäer werden sich darüber nicht beschweren dürfen. Sie wird pazifischer und weniger transatlantisch sein, und die neue Achse der Weltpolitik wird von dem sino-amerikanischen Tandem gebildet werden. Insgeheim setzt man in Berlin, Paris und anderen europäischen Hauptstädten wohl darauf, dass es Präsident Obama schon richten wird.
Hat er Erfolg als Super-Keynes, dann ist man mit dabei, ohne unkalkulierbare Risiken für die eigene politische Zukunft eingegangen zu sein. Scheitert er, dann war man Gott sei Dank nicht dabei. Beides aber ist im Interesse Europas gleichermaßen falsch. Denn wenn Europa seine Rolle in dieser schweren Krise, die sich durchaus zu einer Depression entwickeln kann, auf dem Trittbrett des Krisenmanagements sieht, dann wird es zukünftig auch so behandelt werden.
Joschka Fischer, 60, (Bündnis 90/Grüne) war Bundesaußenminister und Vizekanzler von 1998 bis 2005. Er schreibt exklusiv für Project Syndicate und die Süddeutsche Zeitung.
(SZ vom 26.03.2009/ihe)
Donnerstag, März 26, 2009
Economist / NZZ 12/2004 : Ist der Dollar bald nur noch Geschichte?
NZZ am Sonntag
12. Dezember 2004
Ist der Dollar bald nur noch Geschichte?
Mögliche Anzeichen für ein Ende der Dominanz des Dollars
Der Denar der alten Römer, der niederländische Gulden, das britische Pfund Sterling - sie alle dienten einst als internationale Leitwährung, bevor sie an Bedeutung einbüssten. Gehört der Dollar bald auch dazu? Es gibt starke Anzeichen dafür, dass die US-Währung ihre Funktion für die Weltwirtschaft verlieren könnte, schrieb das Wirtschaftsmagazin «Economist» Ende 2004.
Wechselkursprognosen sind unzuverlässig. «Die Erfolgsquote solcher Prognosen», bemerkte einst der amerikanische Notenbankchef Alan Greenspan, «ist nicht viel besser als jene von Voraussagen eines Münzwurfes.»
NZZ am Sonntag
12. Dezember 2004
Ist der Dollar bald nur noch Geschichte?
Mögliche Anzeichen für ein Ende der Dominanz des Dollars
Der Denar der alten Römer, der niederländische Gulden, das britische Pfund Sterling - sie alle dienten einst als internationale Leitwährung, bevor sie an Bedeutung einbüssten. Gehört der Dollar bald auch dazu? Es gibt starke Anzeichen dafür, dass die US-Währung ihre Funktion für die Weltwirtschaft verlieren könnte, schrieb das Wirtschaftsmagazin «Economist» Ende 2004.
Wechselkursprognosen sind unzuverlässig. «Die Erfolgsquote solcher Prognosen», bemerkte einst der amerikanische Notenbankchef Alan Greenspan, «ist nicht viel besser als jene von Voraussagen eines Münzwurfes.»
Die letzten Jahre haben das gezeigt: Die meisten Währungs-Auguren hätten besser Münzen geworfen, dann hätten ihre Prognosen zumindest bei einer Trefferquote von fünfzig Prozent gelegen. Doch für die nächsten paar Jahre scheint es eine ziemlich sichere Sache zu sein, auf einen deutlichen Kursverfall des Dollars zu setzen.
Seit Mitte Oktober ist der Dollar gegenüber anderen führenden Währungen um etwa 7 Prozent gefallen, er hat gegenüber dem Euro ein Rekordtief, und gegenüber dem japanischen Yen ein Fünfjahrestief erreicht. Seit Anfang 2002 hat der Dollar gegenüber dem Euro 35 Prozent verloren, gegenüber einem breit angelegten Währungskorb, der auch den an den Dollar gebundenen chinesischen Yuan enthielt, hat er bescheidenere 17 Prozent verloren. Der Dollar schwächelte dieser Tage enorm, nachdem Alan Greenspan erklärt hatte, dass das amerikanische Leistungsbilanzdefizit nicht mehr zu finanzieren sei, weil ausländische Anleger irgendwann kein Interesse mehr hätten, in Amerika zu investieren.
Alarmierende Zeichen
Alan Greenspan dürfte nicht der einzige Notenbankchef mit einer pessimistischen Sicht auf den Dollar sein. Der Gedanke, ausländische Zentralbanken könnten ihre Dollarbestände reduzieren, sorgt allenthalben für Unruhe. Jüngst erklärten Sprecher der Staatsbanken von Russland und Indonesien, ihre Banken dächten über eine Reduzierung ihrer Dollarreserven nach. Noch alarmierender waren Meldungen, die chinesische Zentralbank, die nach Japan über den zweitgrössten Bestand an Devisenreserven verfügt, habe möglicherweise den Erwerb von US-Anleihen reduziert.
In dieser Situation denken einige Ökonomen das bisher Undenkbare: Wird der Dollar seinen Status als Reservewährung verlieren? In den letzten zweitausend Jahren gab es immer wieder eine andere internationale Leitwährung - vom römischen Denar über den byzantinischen Solidus zum niederländischen Gulden und dem Pfund Sterling. Der Dollar ist seit mehr als sechzig Jahren Leitwährung. Davon hat Amerika profitiert, es kann Importe und Kredite in der eigenen Währung und zu niedrigen Zinsen bezahlen.
Der Anteil des Dollars an den weltweiten Währungsreserven ist von 80 Prozent in der Mitte der siebziger Jahre bereits auf rund 65 Prozent gefallen. Läuft der Dollar aber wirklich Gefahr, seinen Status als internationale Leitwährung einzubüssen? Dieselbe Frage wurde schon Anfang der neunziger Jahre gestellt, nach dem deutlichen Kursverfall des Dollars, doch an seiner Position änderte das nichts. Allerdings gab es damals keine Alternative, während sich heutzutage der Euro tatsächlich als Rivale erweisen könnte.
Eine Reservewährung setzt eine grosse Volkswirtschaft, offene Finanzmärkte, eine niedrige Inflation und Vertrauen in die Währung voraus. Die Wirtschaft des Euroraums ist, nach dem gegenwärtigen Wechselkurs, nicht viel kleiner als die US-Wirtschaft. Der Euroraum ist der weltweit grösste Exporteur, und seit der Einführung des Euro sind die europäischen Märkte stärker und liquider geworden. Das reale Bruttoinlandprodukt (BIP) des Euroraums wächst langsamer als das amerikanische, aber in Dollar gerechnet, hat das wirtschaftliche Gewicht des Euroraums in den letzten fünf Jahren im Vergleich zu Amerika sogar zugenommen.
Die Schwäche des Dollars ist das mangelnde Vertrauen. Seit 1960 hat der Dollar gegenüber dem Euro (bis 1999 gegenüber der D-Mark) und dem japanischen Yen um etwa zwei Drittel verloren. Der Euroraum ist, anders als Amerika, Nettogläubiger. Noch nie zuvor war der Staat mit der Leitwährung der Welt zugleich deren grösster Nettoschuldner. Und Schuldner versuchen normalerweise gern, ihr Aussenhandelsdefizit mittels Abwertung zu verringern - keine sehr attraktive Option für eine Reservewährung.
Diejenigen, die dem Dollar skeptisch gegenüberstehen, fragen sich, warum Investoren am Dollar festhalten sollten, wenn die USA ihren Status als Hüterin der Leitwährung durch ihre eigene Politik gefährden. Und sie weisen darauf hin, dass der Dollar ohne massive Ankäufe von ausländischen Zentralbanken längst viel schlechter dastehen würde. Wenn diese Zentralbanken einen Teil ihrer Bestände von insgesamt 2300 Milliarden Dollar auf den Markt werfen, könnte es zu einem Zusammenbruch der US-Währung kommen. Wie man es betrachtet - Amerika wird zunehmend Mühe haben, sein Leistungsbilanzdefizit zu finanzieren.
Dieses Defizit ist der Kern des Problems. Experten haben mindestens vier Gründe dafür angeführt, warum das Leistungsbilanzdefizit irrelevant und der Status des Dollars als Reservewährung ungefährdet sei. Erstens sei das Defizit kein Zeichen von Schwäche, sondern von wirtschaftlicher Stärke. Zweitens liege das Defizit vor allem an der schwachen Auslandnachfrage, und die sei schliesslich umkehrbar. Drittens seien für das Defizit hauptsächlich die ausländischen Tochterunternehmen von amerikanischen Multis verantwortlich. Und viertens schaffe die Dollarnachfrage der Zentralbanken sogar ein stabiles wirtschaftliches System. Jedes dieser Argumente lässt sich leicht entkräften.
Wieso das Defizit zählt
Beginnen wir mit dem ersten Argument, das vom amerikanischen Finanzministerium bevorzugt wird. Ausländer, heisst es, investierten gern in Amerika, weil dort höhere Renditen möglich seien als in Europa oder Japan. Und ein Nettozufluss von Kapital führe naturgemäss zu einem Leistungsbilanzdefizit. Für die ausgehenden neunziger Jahre, als Amerika einen grossen Nettozufluss an direkten und indirekten Investitionen erlebte, mag das zugetroffen haben, doch in diesem Jahr hat es einen Nettoabfluss von langfristigen Investitionen gegeben. Und in den letzten Jahren erzielten ausländische Direktinvestitionen geringere Renditen als in Europa oder Japan.
Finanziert wird das amerikanische Leistungsbilanzdefizit durch ausländische Zentralbanken und kurzfristige Anleihen. Bis Mitte 2004 finanzierten ausländische Zentralbanken bis zu drei Fünftel des Defizits. Der kürzliche Dollarankauf von Zentralbanken ist beispiellos. Die globalen Währungsreserven (65 Prozent davon, man erinnere sich, in Dollar) sind innerhalb von anderthalb Jahren um 1000 Milliarden Dollar gestiegen. Zuvor hatte es zehn Jahre gedauert, bis der offizielle Reservebestand sich um 1000 Milliarden Dollar erhöht hatte. Diese Ankäufe haben nichts mit US-Renditen zu tun, sie sollen einzig die Währung der betreffenden Länder schwach halten.
Schlimmer noch: Der Kapitalzufluss der letzten Jahre finanzierte in den USA keine produktiven Investitionen, sondern den privaten Konsum und ein wachsendes Haushaltdefizit. Ein Leistungsbilanzdefizit, das mangelnde Sparbereitschaft spiegelt, dürfte kaum ein Zeichen von Stärke sein.
Schleppende Nachfrage
Wie steht es mit dem zweiten Argument, wonach eine schleppende Auslandnachfrage für das US-Defizit verantwortlich sei? Wenn Europa und Asien weniger sparten, so wird argumentiert, und stattdessen mehr ausgäben und mehr amerikanische Waren einführten, so würde das Defizit einfach verschwinden. Martin Barnes, Mitarbeiter der kanadischen Agentur «Bank Credit Analyst», hält dies für enorm übertrieben.* Als vor drei Jahren die Binnennachfrage in Europa und Japan tatsächlich etwas schneller stieg als in Amerika, änderte das am US-Defizit nur wenig.
Das Problem ist, dass die USA 50 Prozent mehr ein- als ausführen. Wenn Export und Import also in gleicher Weise wachsen, erhöht sich automatisch das Handelsbilanzdefizit. Bei einer Importsteigerung von etwa 10 Prozent müssten die Exporte um 15 Prozent zunehmen, nur damit das Defizit nicht weiter anwächst. Eine stärkere ausländische Nachfrage wäre also gewiss hilfreich, aber durch mehr Exporte allein kann Amerika sein Defizit nicht entscheidend reduzieren. Der Vizegouverneur der chinesischen Staatsbank, Li Ruogu, sagte dieser Tage, dass Amerika das eigene Haus in Ordnung bringen - das heisst: mehr sparen - und nicht andere für seine Probleme verantwortlich machen sollte. Er hatte Recht.
Multis und ihre Töchter
Das dritte Argument besagt, dass die Kritik am Leistungsbilanzdefizit irrelevant sei, da dieses Defizit grösstenteils Transaktionen zwischen amerikanischen Multis und deren ausländischen Tochterunternehmen spiegle. Es sei, so die Behauptung, eben nicht das Gleiche, einen IBM-Computer aus China oder einen japanischen Toshiba zu importieren. Wenn amerikanische Firmen im Ausland produzierten, erhöhe das ihren Gewinn. Martin Barnes weist jedoch darauf hin, dass der gesamte Handel zwischen amerikanischen Multis und ihren ausländischen Tochterfirmen selbst unter Berücksichtigung von Gewinnen und Dividenden defizitär bleibt, und diese Lücke müsse weiterhin durch ausländische Kredite geschlossen werden.
Stabiles System
Die vierte, letzte und im vergangenen Sommer gern verwendete Erklärung, warum das US-Defizit keine Rolle spiele, besagt, dass die Welt heute das Äquivalent des Bretton-Wood-Systems (des nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg eingeführten Systems fester Wechselkurse) geniesst. Asiatische Regierungen kauften amerikanische Staatsanleihen, die das US-Defizit finanzieren, um ihre eigenen Währungen billig zu halten und das exportgestützte Wachstum zu fördern. Dadurch könnten die Zinsen in Amerika niedrig bleiben, was dem privaten Konsum und den Importen zugute käme. Dieser Zyklus, heisst es, könne noch zehn Jahre anhalten.
Allerdings wies Amerika seinerzeit unter dem ursprünglichen Bretton- Woods-System einen Leistungsbilanzüberschuss auf, und das System beruhte auf der offiziellen Goldparität des US-Dollars. Kein Wunder vielleicht, dass das heutige System schon heftig wankt, wenn einige asiatische Zentralbanken über den Wert ihrer Dollarreserven nachdenken. Zur Aufrechterhaltung der jetzigen Ordnung werden sie immer mehr Dollar kaufen müssen, während das US-Defizit immer weiter anwächst. Die asiatischen Zentralbanken müssen schon jetzt mit enormen Verlusten rechnen, falls es zu einer Abwertung gegenüber dem Dollar kommt. Eigentlich sollten sie ihre Reserven diversifizieren, doch das wiederum könnte zu einem Kursverfall des Dollars führen. Larry Summers, US-Finanzminister unter Präsident Clinton, bezeichnet dies als «Gleichgewicht der finanziellen Abschreckung». Die USA vertrauen darauf, dass die asiatischen Zentralbanken aus Eigeninteresse das amerikanische Defizit weiter finanzieren.
Seit fast zwei Jahrzehnten gibt das amerikanische Leistungsbilanzdefizit Anlass zu Sorgen, und Fachleute haben einen Absturz des Dollars und eine Rezession vorhergesagt. Tatsächlich fiel der Dollar in den ausgehenden achtziger Jahren, ohne dass die Wirtschaft gross darunter gelitten hätte. Warum sollte man heute also besorgter sein? Ein guter Grund: Das Leistungsbilanzdefizit, das gegenwärtig knapp 6 Prozent des Bruttoinlandprodukts (BIP) beträgt, hat sich gegenüber den achtziger Jahren fast verdoppelt und wird, bei unveränderten Rahmenbedingungen, so weiterwachsen. Zweitens war Amerika damals ein Nettogläubiger. Heute ist das Land Nettoschuldner. Die Auslandschulden werden am Ende dieses Jahres schätzungsweise 3300 Milliarden Dollar beziehungsweise 28 Prozent des BIP erreichen.
Länder wie Australien und Neuseeland haben sich vergleichsweise stärker verschuldet, ohne dass dies mit offenkundigen Nachteilen für die heimische Wirtschaft verbunden wäre, aber als relativ kleine Länder absorbiert ihr Leistungsbilanzdefizit nur einen Bruchteil des globalen Sparvolumens. Die neuen Auslandkredite Amerikas werden allein in diesem Jahr immerhin 75 Prozent der weltweiten Überschussreserven beanspruchen.
Bisher hat der gigantische Schuldenberg die amerikanische Wirtschaft nicht belastet, und zwar vor allem wegen eines ungewöhnlichen Tricks. Amerika ist zwar Nettoschuldner, braucht aber keine Zinsen und Dividenden ins Ausland zu überweisen. Es geniesst stattdessen einen Nettozufluss an ausländischen Investitionen, weil es eine höhere Durchschnittsrendite bietet, als für die eigenen Schulden bezahlt werden muss. Ausserdem profitierte Amerika in den letzten Jahren von einem aussergewöhnlich niedrigen Zinsniveau. Anders als in früheren Phasen eines schwachen Dollars bewegen sich die Anleiherenditen auf niedrigem Niveau - vor allem wegen der massiven Ankäufe ausländischer Zentralbanken. Steigen aber in Zukunft Zinsen und Nettoauslandschulden, werden die amerikanischen Nettoinvestitionserträge in den Minusbereich abrutschen, wahrscheinlich schon im nächsten Jahr. Dann wird nicht nur das Leistungsbilanzdefizit steigen, auch die Wirtschaft wird zunehmend unter Druck geraten.
Amerika hat überdies den grossen Vorteil, dass es Kredite in seiner eigenen Währung aufnehmen kann. Ein normales Schuldnerland wie etwa Argentinien muss sich Geld in ausländischer Währung leihen, das verringert zwar bei einer Abwertung das Handelsbilanzdefizit, erhöht aber gleichzeitig die Schulden in lokaler Währung. Dagegen wird das Währungsrisiko bei den US-Auslandschulden in der Höhe von 11 000 Milliarden Dollar von ausländischen Geldgebern getragen. Trotz Dollarschwäche verbessert sich sogar die amerikanische Position, weil der Dollarwert ausländischer Guthaben steigt. Eine Dollarabwertung ist aus amerikanischer Sicht attraktiv. Als führende internationale Reservewährung kann der Dollar also Kapital zu ausserordentlich günstigen Bedingungen anlocken. Die Schattenseite davon ist, dass Amerika sich gigantische Summen leiht, deren Sanierung letztlich sehr kostspielig sein wird. Es geht nicht darum, ob Amerika es sich leisten kann, sich noch weiter zu verschulden, sondern ob Investoren angesichts des wachsenden Schuldenbergs, der gegenwärtigen Wechselkurse und Zinssätze auch weiterhin bereit sind, das Defizit zu finanzieren.
Nach Einschätzung der Ökonomen Nouriel Roubini (New York) und Brad Setser (Oxford) ** wird das amerikanische Leistungsbilanzdefizit, falls der reale Aussenwert des Dollars beim Durchschnitt der Jahre 1990 bis 2003 bleibt (etwas über dem gegenwärtigen Niveau) und sich an den innenpolitischen Rahmenbedingungen nichts ändert, bis zum Jahr 2008 auf 8 Prozent des BIP steigen. Die Nettoverschuldung wird sich auf über 50 Prozent des BIP belaufen. In der Praxis ist damit wohl nicht zu rechnen, da Privatinvestoren nicht bereit sind, einen solchen Schuldenberg ohne deutlich höhere Zinsen und/oder eine Dollarabwertung (beides würde das Leistungsbilanzdefizit verringern) zu finanzieren.
Trotz den jüngsten Kursverlusten ist der Dollar aber keineswegs billig. Inflationsbereinigt liegt der reale Aussenwert des Dollars ungefähr bei seinem durchschnittlichen Wert der letzten dreissig Jahre. Gegenüber den meisten Währungen von Schwellenländern ist der Dollar zwar kaum gesunken, aber gegenüber dem Euro liegt er bereits unter seinem geschätzten, angemessenen Wert. Doch das wird niemanden überraschen. Typischerweise muss eine Währung ihren angemessenen Wert weit unterschreiten, wenn ein grosses Aussenhandelsdefizit abgebaut werden soll. Der reale Aussenwert des Dollars ist seit Anfang 2002 nur um 15 Prozent gefallen, verglichen mit einem Verlust von 34 Prozent gegenüber dem Höchststand von 1985. Das amerikanische Leistungsbilanzdefizit ist heute aber viel grösser als in den achtziger Jahren, der Dollar wird also noch deutlicher fallen - nach Ansicht von Fachleuten müsste er um mindestens 30 Prozent sinken. 1 Euro würde dann $ 1,80 (heute: $ 1,33) kosten.
Historische Lektion
Je weniger der Dollar gegenüber den Währungen der Schwellenländer (etwa dem chinesischen Yuan) sinkt, desto eher wird er gegenüber dem Euro sinken. Auf China entfällt ein Viertel des amerikanischen Handelsbilanzdefizits. In den letzten Wochen wurde vermehrt über eine baldige Aufwertung des Yuan gegenüber dem Dollar spekuliert. Doch Peking hat zu verstehen gegeben, dass man sich nicht zu einer Wechselkursänderung hinreissen lassen werde, schon gar nicht unter amerikanischem Druck.
Jedenfalls kann das US-Leistungsbilanzdefizit nicht ausschliesslich durch einen schwächeren Dollar korrigiert werden. Es muss wieder mehr gespart werden. Am besten wäre natürlich, wenn die Regierung das Haushaltdefizit abbauen würde. Amerika müsste dann nicht mehr im Ausland borgen, und der Fall des Dollars und der (von den Investoren andernfalls geforderte) Anstieg der Anleiherenditen würde abgeschwächt. In der Kombination mit einem stärkeren Wachstum im Ausland könnte das Leistungsbilanzdefizit allmählich verringert werden. Das Wirtschaftswachstum würde durch Steuererhöhungen oder Ausgabenkürzungen verlangsamt, aber es müsste nicht zu einer Rezession kommen. Sollte aber die Regierung das Haushaltdefizit nicht reduzieren, wird der Dollar noch deutlicher sinken, und die Anleiherenditen werden steigen. Der Baukonjunktur könnte die Luft ausgehen, und der private Konsum dürfte sich deutlich verlangsamen. Diese beiden Faktoren könnten das Aussenhandelsdefizit reduzieren, allerdings nur auf Kosten einer tiefen Rezession.
1913, auf dem Höhepunkt seiner imperialen Macht, war Grossbritannien der weltweit grösste Gläubiger. Vierzig Jahre später, nach zwei kostspieligen Weltkriegen und wirtschaftlichen Irrwegen, war das Land Nettoschuldner, und der Dollar übernahm die Rolle des Pfunds Sterling. Eine Leitwährung zu verdrängen, kann Jahre dauern. Das Pfund Sterling spielte noch mindestens fünfzig Jahre lang eine wichtige internationale Rolle, auch nachdem Amerika gegen Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts Britannien wirtschaftlich schon überholt hatte. Am Ende verlor es aber seinen Status.
Wenn Amerika seinen gegenwärtigen Kurs fortsetzt, wird der Dollar ein ähnliches Schicksal erleiden. Doch in Zukunft wird keine einzelne Währung (etwa der Euro) die Rolle des Dollars übernehmen. Die Welt wird vielmehr auf ein System mehrerer Reservewährungen zusteuern, das aus dem Dollar, dem Euro und dem japanischen Yen (und irgendwann auch dem chinesischen Yuan) besteht. Damit wird eine deutliche Verringerung der Dollarguthaben von Zentralbanken und privaten Investoren einhergehen. Ein allmählicher Ausstieg aus dem Dollar wäre wohl zu handhaben. Sollte Amerika seine eigene Währung aber weiterhin dermassen vernachlässigen, wird das zu einem rapiden Fall des Dollars und zu steigenden US-Zinsen führen. Entscheidend für die amerikanische und die Welt-Wirtschaft wird sein, wie weit und wie schnell der Dollar sinkt. Und das kann nicht einmal Alan Greenspan voraussagen.
© The Economist Newspaper Limited. London,Dezember 2004. Übersetzung: Matthias Fienbork.
* Martin Barnes: «Re-Assessing the Dollar Outlook». The Bank Credit Analyst, Dezember 2004.
** http://www.stern.nyu.edu/globalmacro/Roubini-Setser-US-External-Imbalances.pdf
12. Dezember 2004
Ist der Dollar bald nur noch Geschichte?
Mögliche Anzeichen für ein Ende der Dominanz des Dollars
Der Denar der alten Römer, der niederländische Gulden, das britische Pfund Sterling - sie alle dienten einst als internationale Leitwährung, bevor sie an Bedeutung einbüssten. Gehört der Dollar bald auch dazu? Es gibt starke Anzeichen dafür, dass die US-Währung ihre Funktion für die Weltwirtschaft verlieren könnte, schrieb das Wirtschaftsmagazin «Economist» Ende 2004.
Wechselkursprognosen sind unzuverlässig. «Die Erfolgsquote solcher Prognosen», bemerkte einst der amerikanische Notenbankchef Alan Greenspan, «ist nicht viel besser als jene von Voraussagen eines Münzwurfes.»
NZZ am Sonntag
12. Dezember 2004
Ist der Dollar bald nur noch Geschichte?
Mögliche Anzeichen für ein Ende der Dominanz des Dollars
Der Denar der alten Römer, der niederländische Gulden, das britische Pfund Sterling - sie alle dienten einst als internationale Leitwährung, bevor sie an Bedeutung einbüssten. Gehört der Dollar bald auch dazu? Es gibt starke Anzeichen dafür, dass die US-Währung ihre Funktion für die Weltwirtschaft verlieren könnte, schrieb das Wirtschaftsmagazin «Economist» Ende 2004.
Wechselkursprognosen sind unzuverlässig. «Die Erfolgsquote solcher Prognosen», bemerkte einst der amerikanische Notenbankchef Alan Greenspan, «ist nicht viel besser als jene von Voraussagen eines Münzwurfes.»
Die letzten Jahre haben das gezeigt: Die meisten Währungs-Auguren hätten besser Münzen geworfen, dann hätten ihre Prognosen zumindest bei einer Trefferquote von fünfzig Prozent gelegen. Doch für die nächsten paar Jahre scheint es eine ziemlich sichere Sache zu sein, auf einen deutlichen Kursverfall des Dollars zu setzen.
Seit Mitte Oktober ist der Dollar gegenüber anderen führenden Währungen um etwa 7 Prozent gefallen, er hat gegenüber dem Euro ein Rekordtief, und gegenüber dem japanischen Yen ein Fünfjahrestief erreicht. Seit Anfang 2002 hat der Dollar gegenüber dem Euro 35 Prozent verloren, gegenüber einem breit angelegten Währungskorb, der auch den an den Dollar gebundenen chinesischen Yuan enthielt, hat er bescheidenere 17 Prozent verloren. Der Dollar schwächelte dieser Tage enorm, nachdem Alan Greenspan erklärt hatte, dass das amerikanische Leistungsbilanzdefizit nicht mehr zu finanzieren sei, weil ausländische Anleger irgendwann kein Interesse mehr hätten, in Amerika zu investieren.
Alarmierende Zeichen
Alan Greenspan dürfte nicht der einzige Notenbankchef mit einer pessimistischen Sicht auf den Dollar sein. Der Gedanke, ausländische Zentralbanken könnten ihre Dollarbestände reduzieren, sorgt allenthalben für Unruhe. Jüngst erklärten Sprecher der Staatsbanken von Russland und Indonesien, ihre Banken dächten über eine Reduzierung ihrer Dollarreserven nach. Noch alarmierender waren Meldungen, die chinesische Zentralbank, die nach Japan über den zweitgrössten Bestand an Devisenreserven verfügt, habe möglicherweise den Erwerb von US-Anleihen reduziert.
In dieser Situation denken einige Ökonomen das bisher Undenkbare: Wird der Dollar seinen Status als Reservewährung verlieren? In den letzten zweitausend Jahren gab es immer wieder eine andere internationale Leitwährung - vom römischen Denar über den byzantinischen Solidus zum niederländischen Gulden und dem Pfund Sterling. Der Dollar ist seit mehr als sechzig Jahren Leitwährung. Davon hat Amerika profitiert, es kann Importe und Kredite in der eigenen Währung und zu niedrigen Zinsen bezahlen.
Der Anteil des Dollars an den weltweiten Währungsreserven ist von 80 Prozent in der Mitte der siebziger Jahre bereits auf rund 65 Prozent gefallen. Läuft der Dollar aber wirklich Gefahr, seinen Status als internationale Leitwährung einzubüssen? Dieselbe Frage wurde schon Anfang der neunziger Jahre gestellt, nach dem deutlichen Kursverfall des Dollars, doch an seiner Position änderte das nichts. Allerdings gab es damals keine Alternative, während sich heutzutage der Euro tatsächlich als Rivale erweisen könnte.
Eine Reservewährung setzt eine grosse Volkswirtschaft, offene Finanzmärkte, eine niedrige Inflation und Vertrauen in die Währung voraus. Die Wirtschaft des Euroraums ist, nach dem gegenwärtigen Wechselkurs, nicht viel kleiner als die US-Wirtschaft. Der Euroraum ist der weltweit grösste Exporteur, und seit der Einführung des Euro sind die europäischen Märkte stärker und liquider geworden. Das reale Bruttoinlandprodukt (BIP) des Euroraums wächst langsamer als das amerikanische, aber in Dollar gerechnet, hat das wirtschaftliche Gewicht des Euroraums in den letzten fünf Jahren im Vergleich zu Amerika sogar zugenommen.
Die Schwäche des Dollars ist das mangelnde Vertrauen. Seit 1960 hat der Dollar gegenüber dem Euro (bis 1999 gegenüber der D-Mark) und dem japanischen Yen um etwa zwei Drittel verloren. Der Euroraum ist, anders als Amerika, Nettogläubiger. Noch nie zuvor war der Staat mit der Leitwährung der Welt zugleich deren grösster Nettoschuldner. Und Schuldner versuchen normalerweise gern, ihr Aussenhandelsdefizit mittels Abwertung zu verringern - keine sehr attraktive Option für eine Reservewährung.
Diejenigen, die dem Dollar skeptisch gegenüberstehen, fragen sich, warum Investoren am Dollar festhalten sollten, wenn die USA ihren Status als Hüterin der Leitwährung durch ihre eigene Politik gefährden. Und sie weisen darauf hin, dass der Dollar ohne massive Ankäufe von ausländischen Zentralbanken längst viel schlechter dastehen würde. Wenn diese Zentralbanken einen Teil ihrer Bestände von insgesamt 2300 Milliarden Dollar auf den Markt werfen, könnte es zu einem Zusammenbruch der US-Währung kommen. Wie man es betrachtet - Amerika wird zunehmend Mühe haben, sein Leistungsbilanzdefizit zu finanzieren.
Dieses Defizit ist der Kern des Problems. Experten haben mindestens vier Gründe dafür angeführt, warum das Leistungsbilanzdefizit irrelevant und der Status des Dollars als Reservewährung ungefährdet sei. Erstens sei das Defizit kein Zeichen von Schwäche, sondern von wirtschaftlicher Stärke. Zweitens liege das Defizit vor allem an der schwachen Auslandnachfrage, und die sei schliesslich umkehrbar. Drittens seien für das Defizit hauptsächlich die ausländischen Tochterunternehmen von amerikanischen Multis verantwortlich. Und viertens schaffe die Dollarnachfrage der Zentralbanken sogar ein stabiles wirtschaftliches System. Jedes dieser Argumente lässt sich leicht entkräften.
Wieso das Defizit zählt
Beginnen wir mit dem ersten Argument, das vom amerikanischen Finanzministerium bevorzugt wird. Ausländer, heisst es, investierten gern in Amerika, weil dort höhere Renditen möglich seien als in Europa oder Japan. Und ein Nettozufluss von Kapital führe naturgemäss zu einem Leistungsbilanzdefizit. Für die ausgehenden neunziger Jahre, als Amerika einen grossen Nettozufluss an direkten und indirekten Investitionen erlebte, mag das zugetroffen haben, doch in diesem Jahr hat es einen Nettoabfluss von langfristigen Investitionen gegeben. Und in den letzten Jahren erzielten ausländische Direktinvestitionen geringere Renditen als in Europa oder Japan.
Finanziert wird das amerikanische Leistungsbilanzdefizit durch ausländische Zentralbanken und kurzfristige Anleihen. Bis Mitte 2004 finanzierten ausländische Zentralbanken bis zu drei Fünftel des Defizits. Der kürzliche Dollarankauf von Zentralbanken ist beispiellos. Die globalen Währungsreserven (65 Prozent davon, man erinnere sich, in Dollar) sind innerhalb von anderthalb Jahren um 1000 Milliarden Dollar gestiegen. Zuvor hatte es zehn Jahre gedauert, bis der offizielle Reservebestand sich um 1000 Milliarden Dollar erhöht hatte. Diese Ankäufe haben nichts mit US-Renditen zu tun, sie sollen einzig die Währung der betreffenden Länder schwach halten.
Schlimmer noch: Der Kapitalzufluss der letzten Jahre finanzierte in den USA keine produktiven Investitionen, sondern den privaten Konsum und ein wachsendes Haushaltdefizit. Ein Leistungsbilanzdefizit, das mangelnde Sparbereitschaft spiegelt, dürfte kaum ein Zeichen von Stärke sein.
Schleppende Nachfrage
Wie steht es mit dem zweiten Argument, wonach eine schleppende Auslandnachfrage für das US-Defizit verantwortlich sei? Wenn Europa und Asien weniger sparten, so wird argumentiert, und stattdessen mehr ausgäben und mehr amerikanische Waren einführten, so würde das Defizit einfach verschwinden. Martin Barnes, Mitarbeiter der kanadischen Agentur «Bank Credit Analyst», hält dies für enorm übertrieben.* Als vor drei Jahren die Binnennachfrage in Europa und Japan tatsächlich etwas schneller stieg als in Amerika, änderte das am US-Defizit nur wenig.
Das Problem ist, dass die USA 50 Prozent mehr ein- als ausführen. Wenn Export und Import also in gleicher Weise wachsen, erhöht sich automatisch das Handelsbilanzdefizit. Bei einer Importsteigerung von etwa 10 Prozent müssten die Exporte um 15 Prozent zunehmen, nur damit das Defizit nicht weiter anwächst. Eine stärkere ausländische Nachfrage wäre also gewiss hilfreich, aber durch mehr Exporte allein kann Amerika sein Defizit nicht entscheidend reduzieren. Der Vizegouverneur der chinesischen Staatsbank, Li Ruogu, sagte dieser Tage, dass Amerika das eigene Haus in Ordnung bringen - das heisst: mehr sparen - und nicht andere für seine Probleme verantwortlich machen sollte. Er hatte Recht.
Multis und ihre Töchter
Das dritte Argument besagt, dass die Kritik am Leistungsbilanzdefizit irrelevant sei, da dieses Defizit grösstenteils Transaktionen zwischen amerikanischen Multis und deren ausländischen Tochterunternehmen spiegle. Es sei, so die Behauptung, eben nicht das Gleiche, einen IBM-Computer aus China oder einen japanischen Toshiba zu importieren. Wenn amerikanische Firmen im Ausland produzierten, erhöhe das ihren Gewinn. Martin Barnes weist jedoch darauf hin, dass der gesamte Handel zwischen amerikanischen Multis und ihren ausländischen Tochterfirmen selbst unter Berücksichtigung von Gewinnen und Dividenden defizitär bleibt, und diese Lücke müsse weiterhin durch ausländische Kredite geschlossen werden.
Stabiles System
Die vierte, letzte und im vergangenen Sommer gern verwendete Erklärung, warum das US-Defizit keine Rolle spiele, besagt, dass die Welt heute das Äquivalent des Bretton-Wood-Systems (des nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg eingeführten Systems fester Wechselkurse) geniesst. Asiatische Regierungen kauften amerikanische Staatsanleihen, die das US-Defizit finanzieren, um ihre eigenen Währungen billig zu halten und das exportgestützte Wachstum zu fördern. Dadurch könnten die Zinsen in Amerika niedrig bleiben, was dem privaten Konsum und den Importen zugute käme. Dieser Zyklus, heisst es, könne noch zehn Jahre anhalten.
Allerdings wies Amerika seinerzeit unter dem ursprünglichen Bretton- Woods-System einen Leistungsbilanzüberschuss auf, und das System beruhte auf der offiziellen Goldparität des US-Dollars. Kein Wunder vielleicht, dass das heutige System schon heftig wankt, wenn einige asiatische Zentralbanken über den Wert ihrer Dollarreserven nachdenken. Zur Aufrechterhaltung der jetzigen Ordnung werden sie immer mehr Dollar kaufen müssen, während das US-Defizit immer weiter anwächst. Die asiatischen Zentralbanken müssen schon jetzt mit enormen Verlusten rechnen, falls es zu einer Abwertung gegenüber dem Dollar kommt. Eigentlich sollten sie ihre Reserven diversifizieren, doch das wiederum könnte zu einem Kursverfall des Dollars führen. Larry Summers, US-Finanzminister unter Präsident Clinton, bezeichnet dies als «Gleichgewicht der finanziellen Abschreckung». Die USA vertrauen darauf, dass die asiatischen Zentralbanken aus Eigeninteresse das amerikanische Defizit weiter finanzieren.
Seit fast zwei Jahrzehnten gibt das amerikanische Leistungsbilanzdefizit Anlass zu Sorgen, und Fachleute haben einen Absturz des Dollars und eine Rezession vorhergesagt. Tatsächlich fiel der Dollar in den ausgehenden achtziger Jahren, ohne dass die Wirtschaft gross darunter gelitten hätte. Warum sollte man heute also besorgter sein? Ein guter Grund: Das Leistungsbilanzdefizit, das gegenwärtig knapp 6 Prozent des Bruttoinlandprodukts (BIP) beträgt, hat sich gegenüber den achtziger Jahren fast verdoppelt und wird, bei unveränderten Rahmenbedingungen, so weiterwachsen. Zweitens war Amerika damals ein Nettogläubiger. Heute ist das Land Nettoschuldner. Die Auslandschulden werden am Ende dieses Jahres schätzungsweise 3300 Milliarden Dollar beziehungsweise 28 Prozent des BIP erreichen.
Länder wie Australien und Neuseeland haben sich vergleichsweise stärker verschuldet, ohne dass dies mit offenkundigen Nachteilen für die heimische Wirtschaft verbunden wäre, aber als relativ kleine Länder absorbiert ihr Leistungsbilanzdefizit nur einen Bruchteil des globalen Sparvolumens. Die neuen Auslandkredite Amerikas werden allein in diesem Jahr immerhin 75 Prozent der weltweiten Überschussreserven beanspruchen.
Bisher hat der gigantische Schuldenberg die amerikanische Wirtschaft nicht belastet, und zwar vor allem wegen eines ungewöhnlichen Tricks. Amerika ist zwar Nettoschuldner, braucht aber keine Zinsen und Dividenden ins Ausland zu überweisen. Es geniesst stattdessen einen Nettozufluss an ausländischen Investitionen, weil es eine höhere Durchschnittsrendite bietet, als für die eigenen Schulden bezahlt werden muss. Ausserdem profitierte Amerika in den letzten Jahren von einem aussergewöhnlich niedrigen Zinsniveau. Anders als in früheren Phasen eines schwachen Dollars bewegen sich die Anleiherenditen auf niedrigem Niveau - vor allem wegen der massiven Ankäufe ausländischer Zentralbanken. Steigen aber in Zukunft Zinsen und Nettoauslandschulden, werden die amerikanischen Nettoinvestitionserträge in den Minusbereich abrutschen, wahrscheinlich schon im nächsten Jahr. Dann wird nicht nur das Leistungsbilanzdefizit steigen, auch die Wirtschaft wird zunehmend unter Druck geraten.
Amerika hat überdies den grossen Vorteil, dass es Kredite in seiner eigenen Währung aufnehmen kann. Ein normales Schuldnerland wie etwa Argentinien muss sich Geld in ausländischer Währung leihen, das verringert zwar bei einer Abwertung das Handelsbilanzdefizit, erhöht aber gleichzeitig die Schulden in lokaler Währung. Dagegen wird das Währungsrisiko bei den US-Auslandschulden in der Höhe von 11 000 Milliarden Dollar von ausländischen Geldgebern getragen. Trotz Dollarschwäche verbessert sich sogar die amerikanische Position, weil der Dollarwert ausländischer Guthaben steigt. Eine Dollarabwertung ist aus amerikanischer Sicht attraktiv. Als führende internationale Reservewährung kann der Dollar also Kapital zu ausserordentlich günstigen Bedingungen anlocken. Die Schattenseite davon ist, dass Amerika sich gigantische Summen leiht, deren Sanierung letztlich sehr kostspielig sein wird. Es geht nicht darum, ob Amerika es sich leisten kann, sich noch weiter zu verschulden, sondern ob Investoren angesichts des wachsenden Schuldenbergs, der gegenwärtigen Wechselkurse und Zinssätze auch weiterhin bereit sind, das Defizit zu finanzieren.
Nach Einschätzung der Ökonomen Nouriel Roubini (New York) und Brad Setser (Oxford) ** wird das amerikanische Leistungsbilanzdefizit, falls der reale Aussenwert des Dollars beim Durchschnitt der Jahre 1990 bis 2003 bleibt (etwas über dem gegenwärtigen Niveau) und sich an den innenpolitischen Rahmenbedingungen nichts ändert, bis zum Jahr 2008 auf 8 Prozent des BIP steigen. Die Nettoverschuldung wird sich auf über 50 Prozent des BIP belaufen. In der Praxis ist damit wohl nicht zu rechnen, da Privatinvestoren nicht bereit sind, einen solchen Schuldenberg ohne deutlich höhere Zinsen und/oder eine Dollarabwertung (beides würde das Leistungsbilanzdefizit verringern) zu finanzieren.
Trotz den jüngsten Kursverlusten ist der Dollar aber keineswegs billig. Inflationsbereinigt liegt der reale Aussenwert des Dollars ungefähr bei seinem durchschnittlichen Wert der letzten dreissig Jahre. Gegenüber den meisten Währungen von Schwellenländern ist der Dollar zwar kaum gesunken, aber gegenüber dem Euro liegt er bereits unter seinem geschätzten, angemessenen Wert. Doch das wird niemanden überraschen. Typischerweise muss eine Währung ihren angemessenen Wert weit unterschreiten, wenn ein grosses Aussenhandelsdefizit abgebaut werden soll. Der reale Aussenwert des Dollars ist seit Anfang 2002 nur um 15 Prozent gefallen, verglichen mit einem Verlust von 34 Prozent gegenüber dem Höchststand von 1985. Das amerikanische Leistungsbilanzdefizit ist heute aber viel grösser als in den achtziger Jahren, der Dollar wird also noch deutlicher fallen - nach Ansicht von Fachleuten müsste er um mindestens 30 Prozent sinken. 1 Euro würde dann $ 1,80 (heute: $ 1,33) kosten.
Historische Lektion
Je weniger der Dollar gegenüber den Währungen der Schwellenländer (etwa dem chinesischen Yuan) sinkt, desto eher wird er gegenüber dem Euro sinken. Auf China entfällt ein Viertel des amerikanischen Handelsbilanzdefizits. In den letzten Wochen wurde vermehrt über eine baldige Aufwertung des Yuan gegenüber dem Dollar spekuliert. Doch Peking hat zu verstehen gegeben, dass man sich nicht zu einer Wechselkursänderung hinreissen lassen werde, schon gar nicht unter amerikanischem Druck.
Jedenfalls kann das US-Leistungsbilanzdefizit nicht ausschliesslich durch einen schwächeren Dollar korrigiert werden. Es muss wieder mehr gespart werden. Am besten wäre natürlich, wenn die Regierung das Haushaltdefizit abbauen würde. Amerika müsste dann nicht mehr im Ausland borgen, und der Fall des Dollars und der (von den Investoren andernfalls geforderte) Anstieg der Anleiherenditen würde abgeschwächt. In der Kombination mit einem stärkeren Wachstum im Ausland könnte das Leistungsbilanzdefizit allmählich verringert werden. Das Wirtschaftswachstum würde durch Steuererhöhungen oder Ausgabenkürzungen verlangsamt, aber es müsste nicht zu einer Rezession kommen. Sollte aber die Regierung das Haushaltdefizit nicht reduzieren, wird der Dollar noch deutlicher sinken, und die Anleiherenditen werden steigen. Der Baukonjunktur könnte die Luft ausgehen, und der private Konsum dürfte sich deutlich verlangsamen. Diese beiden Faktoren könnten das Aussenhandelsdefizit reduzieren, allerdings nur auf Kosten einer tiefen Rezession.
1913, auf dem Höhepunkt seiner imperialen Macht, war Grossbritannien der weltweit grösste Gläubiger. Vierzig Jahre später, nach zwei kostspieligen Weltkriegen und wirtschaftlichen Irrwegen, war das Land Nettoschuldner, und der Dollar übernahm die Rolle des Pfunds Sterling. Eine Leitwährung zu verdrängen, kann Jahre dauern. Das Pfund Sterling spielte noch mindestens fünfzig Jahre lang eine wichtige internationale Rolle, auch nachdem Amerika gegen Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts Britannien wirtschaftlich schon überholt hatte. Am Ende verlor es aber seinen Status.
Wenn Amerika seinen gegenwärtigen Kurs fortsetzt, wird der Dollar ein ähnliches Schicksal erleiden. Doch in Zukunft wird keine einzelne Währung (etwa der Euro) die Rolle des Dollars übernehmen. Die Welt wird vielmehr auf ein System mehrerer Reservewährungen zusteuern, das aus dem Dollar, dem Euro und dem japanischen Yen (und irgendwann auch dem chinesischen Yuan) besteht. Damit wird eine deutliche Verringerung der Dollarguthaben von Zentralbanken und privaten Investoren einhergehen. Ein allmählicher Ausstieg aus dem Dollar wäre wohl zu handhaben. Sollte Amerika seine eigene Währung aber weiterhin dermassen vernachlässigen, wird das zu einem rapiden Fall des Dollars und zu steigenden US-Zinsen führen. Entscheidend für die amerikanische und die Welt-Wirtschaft wird sein, wie weit und wie schnell der Dollar sinkt. Und das kann nicht einmal Alan Greenspan voraussagen.
© The Economist Newspaper Limited. London,Dezember 2004. Übersetzung: Matthias Fienbork.
* Martin Barnes: «Re-Assessing the Dollar Outlook». The Bank Credit Analyst, Dezember 2004.
** http://www.stern.nyu.edu/globalmacro/Roubini-Setser-US-External-Imbalances.pdf
Montag, Januar 26, 2009
Economist: Iceland hunts the euro
Economist
Iceland hunts the euro
Jan 22nd 2009
Why a crisis-hit Iceland may apply to join the European Union as soon as March
FOR a small country, Iceland has room for lots of contradictions. Some can be seen in the harbour of Reykjavik, the trim capital. On one side of the Aegisgardur pier lie whale-watching boats that take foreign tourists to commune with whales, dolphins and puffins. But just across the pier are four large ships, with mysterious gantries and winches above their decks: whalers, their harpoon guns in storage as the government ponders allowing a commercial hunt. Iceland’s stance on whaling is...
Economist
Iceland hunts the euro
Jan 22nd 2009
Why a crisis-hit Iceland may apply to join the European Union as soon as March
FOR a small country, Iceland has room for lots of contradictions. Some can be seen in the harbour of Reykjavik, the trim capital. On one side of the Aegisgardur pier lie whale-watching boats that take foreign tourists to commune with whales, dolphins and puffins. But just across the pier are four large ships, with mysterious gantries and winches above their decks: whalers, their harpoon guns in storage as the government ponders allowing a commercial hunt. Iceland’s stance on whaling is ambiguous: it opted out of an international moratorium, but the most recent big hunt was in 2006. Some fishing bosses support catching whales: there are plenty of them, they say, and they eat fish. Activists say whales are intelligent, scoffs Kristjan Loftsson, boss of the whaling fleet. His family has been hunting fin whales in the same spot since 1948, “and they still come there to eat”. If whales went farther offshore, they would not be caught, he adds, as their large carcasses might rot on the journey back.
Ambivalence about whales mirrors larger tensions. Iceland—three times as big as Belgium, but with only 300,000 inhabitants—has full access to the European Union’s single market through the European Economic Area (EEA). Its citizens can live and work across the EU, and it is assiduous about implementing directives from Brussels. But most of its leaders have always been hostile to full EU membership: they prize their sovereignty (Iceland became independent from Denmark only in 1944) and fear foreign control of their fish.
EEA membership has been good for Iceland, which pays relatively little into EU funds, and runs its own farm and fish policies (it also escapes EU laws banning whaling). Yet the EU debate has been revived by the collapse of Iceland’s economy after its debt-fuelled boom. Above all, the Icelandic krona is barely traded now: banks cannot borrow abroad, and capital controls block investment flows. A large majority of Icelandic voters want a new currency. Given trading patterns, the euro makes most sense.
What happens next revolves around a congress next week of the ruling Independence Party, a broad centre-right coalition hostile to EU membership. The prime minister, Geir Haarde, remains a Eurosceptic. But he also knows that the Icelandic krona is “finished”, says an observer. Hardliners have called for unilateral adoption of the euro (or maybe the dollar, Swiss franc or Norwegian krone). But Mr Haarde has been told by EU bosses that unilateral action without the boring necessity of joining the EU first would wreck relations with Brussels. And an open letter, signed by 32 Icelandic economists, gave warning that it would not even provide Iceland with what it needs: international credibility as a normal developed state. Mr Haarde agrees, say officials.
Which leaves him pondering EU membership after all—and trying to preserve party unity. Mr Haarde is “not a decisive man”, and will try to keep his options open at the congress. Talk of a referendum on opening EU talks briefly tempted him. He may now prefer a committee to review options (with strong caveats over fish) and discussions with his coalition partners, the pro-EU Social Democrats. The Social Democrats say they will quit the coalition if an EU membership application is not lodged by March. But they have as much to fear from a snap election as Mr Haarde (a tide of protests suggest the big winner might be the Left-Green Movement, which denounces the EU as too capitalist). In short, the government may end up stalling for time.
Unfortunately, Iceland does not have time. The European commissioner for enlargement, Olli Rehn, is a strong ally. A Finn, Mr Rehn says that Iceland “would complement the EU, both philosophically and economically”. Its strict fish-management policies have been praised by the fisheries commissioner, Joe Borg (who is from Malta, a small island that has no selfish interests in cod). But there will be a new European Commission in the autumn. To catch both Mr Borg and Mr Rehn in their current jobs, an application must go in by April at the latest. The commission could rush through a formal positive opinion in six months (Iceland already applies two-thirds of EU laws). Iceland could then become a formal candidate in late 2009, when Sweden (another ally) holds the rotating EU presidency, and a full EU member by 2011. Membership of the single currency would take a bit longer, but pro-EU politicians say the simple act of applying and working towards euro convergence would reassure the markets.
Dangerous shoals ahead
As time passes, Iceland’s chances may shrink. Sweden will be followed in the presidency by Spain, a country with a prodigious appetite for others’ fish. Then comes federalist Belgium, which may feel Europe has enough sceptical Atlantic islands already.
Icelanders fear the EU wants to grab some of their fish through the common fisheries policy. Such fears are “exaggerated, but not wholly unjustified”, admits one Eurocrat. If Iceland wants the euro, it may have to “move a bit” on fish. (Greenland and the Faroes, nearby Danish dependencies, control their own fish, but neither is an EU member.) Exemption from the fisheries policy is a non-starter, not least because future applicants might seek the same. But Iceland may win transitional arrangements, perhaps along the lines of national subsidies permitted for far-northern Finnish and Swedish farms.
Will such a fudge do it? Icelanders are fond of national myths of splendid isolation, says Arni Pall, a Social Democratic member of parliament. But they are also deeply pragmatic. Just consider whale hunting, he suggests. Icelanders grew up thinking of whaling as normal, but whaling offends public opinion abroad and harms lucrative fish exports, so it is now stalled.
Iceland will be bullied, in subtle and unpleasant ways, if it applies to join the EU from its present position of weakness. Yet it may never have a better chance of a good deal. That sounds like a contradiction, but Iceland is good at managing those.
Iceland hunts the euro
Jan 22nd 2009
Why a crisis-hit Iceland may apply to join the European Union as soon as March
FOR a small country, Iceland has room for lots of contradictions. Some can be seen in the harbour of Reykjavik, the trim capital. On one side of the Aegisgardur pier lie whale-watching boats that take foreign tourists to commune with whales, dolphins and puffins. But just across the pier are four large ships, with mysterious gantries and winches above their decks: whalers, their harpoon guns in storage as the government ponders allowing a commercial hunt. Iceland’s stance on whaling is...
Economist
Iceland hunts the euro
Jan 22nd 2009
Why a crisis-hit Iceland may apply to join the European Union as soon as March
FOR a small country, Iceland has room for lots of contradictions. Some can be seen in the harbour of Reykjavik, the trim capital. On one side of the Aegisgardur pier lie whale-watching boats that take foreign tourists to commune with whales, dolphins and puffins. But just across the pier are four large ships, with mysterious gantries and winches above their decks: whalers, their harpoon guns in storage as the government ponders allowing a commercial hunt. Iceland’s stance on whaling is ambiguous: it opted out of an international moratorium, but the most recent big hunt was in 2006. Some fishing bosses support catching whales: there are plenty of them, they say, and they eat fish. Activists say whales are intelligent, scoffs Kristjan Loftsson, boss of the whaling fleet. His family has been hunting fin whales in the same spot since 1948, “and they still come there to eat”. If whales went farther offshore, they would not be caught, he adds, as their large carcasses might rot on the journey back.
Ambivalence about whales mirrors larger tensions. Iceland—three times as big as Belgium, but with only 300,000 inhabitants—has full access to the European Union’s single market through the European Economic Area (EEA). Its citizens can live and work across the EU, and it is assiduous about implementing directives from Brussels. But most of its leaders have always been hostile to full EU membership: they prize their sovereignty (Iceland became independent from Denmark only in 1944) and fear foreign control of their fish.
EEA membership has been good for Iceland, which pays relatively little into EU funds, and runs its own farm and fish policies (it also escapes EU laws banning whaling). Yet the EU debate has been revived by the collapse of Iceland’s economy after its debt-fuelled boom. Above all, the Icelandic krona is barely traded now: banks cannot borrow abroad, and capital controls block investment flows. A large majority of Icelandic voters want a new currency. Given trading patterns, the euro makes most sense.
What happens next revolves around a congress next week of the ruling Independence Party, a broad centre-right coalition hostile to EU membership. The prime minister, Geir Haarde, remains a Eurosceptic. But he also knows that the Icelandic krona is “finished”, says an observer. Hardliners have called for unilateral adoption of the euro (or maybe the dollar, Swiss franc or Norwegian krone). But Mr Haarde has been told by EU bosses that unilateral action without the boring necessity of joining the EU first would wreck relations with Brussels. And an open letter, signed by 32 Icelandic economists, gave warning that it would not even provide Iceland with what it needs: international credibility as a normal developed state. Mr Haarde agrees, say officials.
Which leaves him pondering EU membership after all—and trying to preserve party unity. Mr Haarde is “not a decisive man”, and will try to keep his options open at the congress. Talk of a referendum on opening EU talks briefly tempted him. He may now prefer a committee to review options (with strong caveats over fish) and discussions with his coalition partners, the pro-EU Social Democrats. The Social Democrats say they will quit the coalition if an EU membership application is not lodged by March. But they have as much to fear from a snap election as Mr Haarde (a tide of protests suggest the big winner might be the Left-Green Movement, which denounces the EU as too capitalist). In short, the government may end up stalling for time.
Unfortunately, Iceland does not have time. The European commissioner for enlargement, Olli Rehn, is a strong ally. A Finn, Mr Rehn says that Iceland “would complement the EU, both philosophically and economically”. Its strict fish-management policies have been praised by the fisheries commissioner, Joe Borg (who is from Malta, a small island that has no selfish interests in cod). But there will be a new European Commission in the autumn. To catch both Mr Borg and Mr Rehn in their current jobs, an application must go in by April at the latest. The commission could rush through a formal positive opinion in six months (Iceland already applies two-thirds of EU laws). Iceland could then become a formal candidate in late 2009, when Sweden (another ally) holds the rotating EU presidency, and a full EU member by 2011. Membership of the single currency would take a bit longer, but pro-EU politicians say the simple act of applying and working towards euro convergence would reassure the markets.
Dangerous shoals ahead
As time passes, Iceland’s chances may shrink. Sweden will be followed in the presidency by Spain, a country with a prodigious appetite for others’ fish. Then comes federalist Belgium, which may feel Europe has enough sceptical Atlantic islands already.
Icelanders fear the EU wants to grab some of their fish through the common fisheries policy. Such fears are “exaggerated, but not wholly unjustified”, admits one Eurocrat. If Iceland wants the euro, it may have to “move a bit” on fish. (Greenland and the Faroes, nearby Danish dependencies, control their own fish, but neither is an EU member.) Exemption from the fisheries policy is a non-starter, not least because future applicants might seek the same. But Iceland may win transitional arrangements, perhaps along the lines of national subsidies permitted for far-northern Finnish and Swedish farms.
Will such a fudge do it? Icelanders are fond of national myths of splendid isolation, says Arni Pall, a Social Democratic member of parliament. But they are also deeply pragmatic. Just consider whale hunting, he suggests. Icelanders grew up thinking of whaling as normal, but whaling offends public opinion abroad and harms lucrative fish exports, so it is now stalled.
Iceland will be bullied, in subtle and unpleasant ways, if it applies to join the EU from its present position of weakness. Yet it may never have a better chance of a good deal. That sounds like a contradiction, but Iceland is good at managing those.
Montag, Dezember 01, 2008
UK 'closer' to adopting the euro
2008/12/01
BBC NEWS
UK 'closer' to adopting the euro
No 10 denies shift in euro policy
The government has denied a shift in policy on the euro after the European Commission's president said the UK was "closer than ever before" to joining.
Jose Manuel Barroso told French radio that British politicians were considering the move because of the effects of the global credit crunch.
Lord Mandelson said at the weekend that "our aim" should be to join the euro.
2008/12/01
BBC NEWS
UK 'closer' to adopting the euro
No 10 denies shift in euro policy
The government has denied a shift in policy on the euro after the European Commission's president said the UK was "closer than ever before" to joining.
Jose Manuel Barroso told French radio that British politicians were considering the move because of the effects of the global credit crunch.
Lord Mandelson said at the weekend that "our aim" should be to join the euro.
But Downing Street said its position on the single currency remained the same and that it had "no plans" to join.
"Our position hasn't changed... we have no plans to join the euro," No 10 said.
Five tests
In 1997 Gordon Brown, seen as less keen on the euro than Tony Blair, set five economic tests which had to be met before ministers would recommend UK euro entry and holding a referendum.
The key test is whether the UK economy is coming together with those of countries in the eurozone and whether this can be sustained in the long-term. The second test, linked to this, is whether there is sufficient flexibility to cope with economic change.
The remaining three tests assess the impact of joining the euro on jobs, foreign investment and the financial services industry.
Opinion polls have suggested that any vote on scrapping the pound and adopting the euro would be lost, and in the UK the currency has not been a significant political issue for years.
In his interview Mr Barroso acknowledged "the majority" of British people continued to oppose joining the eurozone.
But he said the recent economic uncertainty had made the currency a far more attractive option.
'Better off'
In the RTL radio/LCI television broadcast, the former prime minister of Portugal said: "We are now closer than ever before.
"I'm not going to break the confidentiality of certain conversations, but some British politicians have already told me, 'If we had the euro, we would have been better off'."
He said the current poor economic situation had emphasised the importance of the euro to the UK, but added he believed a move would not take place in the immediate future.
"I know that the majority in Britain are still opposed, but there is a period of consideration under way and the people who matter in Britain are currently thinking about it," he said.
The value of sterling compared with other currencies has fallen during the credit crunch, and the UK government has had to spend massively in recent months to try to support the economy.
During the interview, Mr Barroso highlighted the situation in Denmark - an EU state which voted against joining the eurozone in 2000, but is now considering holding a new referendum on the single currency.
In the daily Brussels briefing later an EC spokesman said "member states would benefit from a country like Britain being in the euro".
He said the euro could be "an anchor of stability in troubled times... the advantages are very clear".
He added that Mr Barroso's comments were "reflections" and added: "The British are very pragmatic. When they feel it is right to join the euro, they will join the euro."
A Downing Street spokesman said: "We have no comment on this. Our position on the euro is the same. We have no plans to join the euro."
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, a former European Commissioner, told Labour's Progress conference on Saturday: "I hold to the view that our aim, our goal, should be to enter the single currency."
He added that the government was "obviously not going to take on that challenge" in the current economic climate.
'Hunt them down'
The UK's opposition Conservative Party opposes adopting the euro.
Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said: "It is extraordinary that certain politicians are whispering to the EU Commission about joining the euro behind the British people's backs.
"Keeping the pound is vital for Britain's economic future. We need interest rates that are right for Britain, not the rest of Europe. There are no circumstances in which the next Conservative government will propose joining the euro.
"If Labour ministers still want to get Britain into the euro they should come out and say so. We will be putting questions to the government to find out what conversations have been going on."
The leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, said "the people who matter in Britain are the people, not the professional political class that Barroso is himself a member of".
"That ruling elite would love to bounce us into the euro and will grasp at any straw to do so, for it's a step on the way to their dream and our nightmare, a federal superstate.
"We're told that some British politicians have said 'If we had the euro, we would have been better off'. Whoever these people are we need to hunt them down and explain some simple economics to them."
He added that if Mr Barroso wanted to test the mood in Britain "then he can call for a referendum on both the euro and the Lisbon Treaty so that the people of Britain can tell him where to go".
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7757830.stm
Published: 2008/12/01 14:42:37 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
BBC NEWS
UK 'closer' to adopting the euro
No 10 denies shift in euro policy
The government has denied a shift in policy on the euro after the European Commission's president said the UK was "closer than ever before" to joining.
Jose Manuel Barroso told French radio that British politicians were considering the move because of the effects of the global credit crunch.
Lord Mandelson said at the weekend that "our aim" should be to join the euro.
2008/12/01
BBC NEWS
UK 'closer' to adopting the euro
No 10 denies shift in euro policy
The government has denied a shift in policy on the euro after the European Commission's president said the UK was "closer than ever before" to joining.
Jose Manuel Barroso told French radio that British politicians were considering the move because of the effects of the global credit crunch.
Lord Mandelson said at the weekend that "our aim" should be to join the euro.
But Downing Street said its position on the single currency remained the same and that it had "no plans" to join.
"Our position hasn't changed... we have no plans to join the euro," No 10 said.
Five tests
In 1997 Gordon Brown, seen as less keen on the euro than Tony Blair, set five economic tests which had to be met before ministers would recommend UK euro entry and holding a referendum.
The key test is whether the UK economy is coming together with those of countries in the eurozone and whether this can be sustained in the long-term. The second test, linked to this, is whether there is sufficient flexibility to cope with economic change.
The remaining three tests assess the impact of joining the euro on jobs, foreign investment and the financial services industry.
Opinion polls have suggested that any vote on scrapping the pound and adopting the euro would be lost, and in the UK the currency has not been a significant political issue for years.
In his interview Mr Barroso acknowledged "the majority" of British people continued to oppose joining the eurozone.
But he said the recent economic uncertainty had made the currency a far more attractive option.
'Better off'
In the RTL radio/LCI television broadcast, the former prime minister of Portugal said: "We are now closer than ever before.
"I'm not going to break the confidentiality of certain conversations, but some British politicians have already told me, 'If we had the euro, we would have been better off'."
He said the current poor economic situation had emphasised the importance of the euro to the UK, but added he believed a move would not take place in the immediate future.
"I know that the majority in Britain are still opposed, but there is a period of consideration under way and the people who matter in Britain are currently thinking about it," he said.
The value of sterling compared with other currencies has fallen during the credit crunch, and the UK government has had to spend massively in recent months to try to support the economy.
During the interview, Mr Barroso highlighted the situation in Denmark - an EU state which voted against joining the eurozone in 2000, but is now considering holding a new referendum on the single currency.
In the daily Brussels briefing later an EC spokesman said "member states would benefit from a country like Britain being in the euro".
He said the euro could be "an anchor of stability in troubled times... the advantages are very clear".
He added that Mr Barroso's comments were "reflections" and added: "The British are very pragmatic. When they feel it is right to join the euro, they will join the euro."
A Downing Street spokesman said: "We have no comment on this. Our position on the euro is the same. We have no plans to join the euro."
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, a former European Commissioner, told Labour's Progress conference on Saturday: "I hold to the view that our aim, our goal, should be to enter the single currency."
He added that the government was "obviously not going to take on that challenge" in the current economic climate.
'Hunt them down'
The UK's opposition Conservative Party opposes adopting the euro.
Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said: "It is extraordinary that certain politicians are whispering to the EU Commission about joining the euro behind the British people's backs.
"Keeping the pound is vital for Britain's economic future. We need interest rates that are right for Britain, not the rest of Europe. There are no circumstances in which the next Conservative government will propose joining the euro.
"If Labour ministers still want to get Britain into the euro they should come out and say so. We will be putting questions to the government to find out what conversations have been going on."
The leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, said "the people who matter in Britain are the people, not the professional political class that Barroso is himself a member of".
"That ruling elite would love to bounce us into the euro and will grasp at any straw to do so, for it's a step on the way to their dream and our nightmare, a federal superstate.
"We're told that some British politicians have said 'If we had the euro, we would have been better off'. Whoever these people are we need to hunt them down and explain some simple economics to them."
He added that if Mr Barroso wanted to test the mood in Britain "then he can call for a referendum on both the euro and the Lisbon Treaty so that the people of Britain can tell him where to go".
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7757830.stm
Published: 2008/12/01 14:42:37 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
Montag, Oktober 06, 2008
Paul Krugmann in the NYT on health care
The New York Times
October 6, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Health Care Destruction
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Sarah Palin ended her debate performance last Thursday with a slightly garbled quote from Ronald Reagan about how, if we aren’t vigilant, we’ll end up “telling our children and our children’s children” about the days when America was free. It was a revealing choice.
The New York Times
October 6, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Health Care Destruction
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Sarah Palin ended her debate performance last Thursday with a slightly garbled quote from Ronald Reagan about how, if we aren’t vigilant, we’ll end up “telling our children and our children’s children” about the days when America was free. It was a revealing choice.
You see, when Reagan said this he wasn’t warning about Soviet aggression. He was warning against legislation that would guarantee health care for older Americans — the program now known as Medicare.
Conservative Republicans still hate Medicare, and would kill it if they could — in fact, they tried to gut it during the Clinton years (that’s what the 1995 shutdown of the government was all about). But so far they haven’t been able to pull that off.
So John McCain wants to destroy the health insurance of nonelderly Americans instead.
Most Americans under 65 currently get health insurance through their employers. That’s largely because the tax code favors such insurance: your employer’s contribution to insurance premiums isn’t considered taxable income, as long as the employer’s health plan follows certain rules. In particular, the same plan has to be available to all employees, regardless of the size of their paycheck or the state of their health.
This system does a fairly effective job of protecting those it reaches, but it leaves many Americans out in the cold. Workers whose employers don’t offer coverage are forced to seek individual health insurance, often in vain. For one thing, insurance companies offering “nongroup” coverage generally refuse to cover anyone with a pre-existing medical condition. And individual insurance is very expensive, because insurers spend large sums weeding out “high-risk” applicants — that is, anyone who seems likely to actually need the insurance.
So what should be done? Barack Obama offers incremental reform: regulation of insurers to prevent discrimination against the less healthy, subsidies to help lower-income families buy insurance, and public insurance plans that compete with the private sector. His plan falls short of universal coverage, but it would sharply reduce the number of uninsured.
Mr. McCain, on the other hand, wants to blow up the current system, by eliminating the tax break for employer-provided insurance. And he doesn’t offer a workable alternative.
Without the tax break, many employers would drop their current health plans. Several recent nonpartisan studies estimate that under the McCain plan around 20 million Americans currently covered by their employers would lose their health insurance.
As compensation, the McCain plan would give people a tax credit — $2,500 for an individual, $5,000 for a family — that could be used to buy health insurance in the individual market. At the same time, Mr. McCain would deregulate insurance, leaving insurance companies free to deny coverage to those with health problems — and his proposal for a “high-risk pool” for hard cases would provide little help.
So what would happen?
The good news, such as it is, is that more people would buy individual insurance. Indeed, the total number of uninsured Americans might decline marginally under the McCain plan — although many more Americans would be without insurance than under the Obama plan.
But the people gaining insurance would be those who need it least: relatively healthy Americans with high incomes. Why? Because insurance companies want to cover only healthy people, and even among the healthy only those able to pay a lot in addition to their tax credit would be able to afford coverage (remember, it’s a $5,000 credit, but the average family policy actually costs more than $12,000).
Meanwhile, the people losing insurance would be those who need it most: lower-income workers who wouldn’t be able to afford individual insurance even with the tax credit, and Americans with health problems whom insurance companies won’t cover.
And in the process of comforting the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted, the McCain plan would also lead to a huge, expensive increase in bureaucracy: insurers selling individual health plans spend 29 percent of the premiums they receive on administration, largely because they employ so many people to screen applicants. This compares with costs of 12 percent for group plans and just 3 percent for Medicare.
In short, the McCain plan makes no sense at all, unless you have faith that the magic of the marketplace can solve all problems. And Mr. McCain does: a much-quoted article published under his name declares that “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”
I agree: the McCain plan would do for health care what deregulation has done for banking. And I’m terrified.
October 6, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Health Care Destruction
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Sarah Palin ended her debate performance last Thursday with a slightly garbled quote from Ronald Reagan about how, if we aren’t vigilant, we’ll end up “telling our children and our children’s children” about the days when America was free. It was a revealing choice.
The New York Times
October 6, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Health Care Destruction
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Sarah Palin ended her debate performance last Thursday with a slightly garbled quote from Ronald Reagan about how, if we aren’t vigilant, we’ll end up “telling our children and our children’s children” about the days when America was free. It was a revealing choice.
You see, when Reagan said this he wasn’t warning about Soviet aggression. He was warning against legislation that would guarantee health care for older Americans — the program now known as Medicare.
Conservative Republicans still hate Medicare, and would kill it if they could — in fact, they tried to gut it during the Clinton years (that’s what the 1995 shutdown of the government was all about). But so far they haven’t been able to pull that off.
So John McCain wants to destroy the health insurance of nonelderly Americans instead.
Most Americans under 65 currently get health insurance through their employers. That’s largely because the tax code favors such insurance: your employer’s contribution to insurance premiums isn’t considered taxable income, as long as the employer’s health plan follows certain rules. In particular, the same plan has to be available to all employees, regardless of the size of their paycheck or the state of their health.
This system does a fairly effective job of protecting those it reaches, but it leaves many Americans out in the cold. Workers whose employers don’t offer coverage are forced to seek individual health insurance, often in vain. For one thing, insurance companies offering “nongroup” coverage generally refuse to cover anyone with a pre-existing medical condition. And individual insurance is very expensive, because insurers spend large sums weeding out “high-risk” applicants — that is, anyone who seems likely to actually need the insurance.
So what should be done? Barack Obama offers incremental reform: regulation of insurers to prevent discrimination against the less healthy, subsidies to help lower-income families buy insurance, and public insurance plans that compete with the private sector. His plan falls short of universal coverage, but it would sharply reduce the number of uninsured.
Mr. McCain, on the other hand, wants to blow up the current system, by eliminating the tax break for employer-provided insurance. And he doesn’t offer a workable alternative.
Without the tax break, many employers would drop their current health plans. Several recent nonpartisan studies estimate that under the McCain plan around 20 million Americans currently covered by their employers would lose their health insurance.
As compensation, the McCain plan would give people a tax credit — $2,500 for an individual, $5,000 for a family — that could be used to buy health insurance in the individual market. At the same time, Mr. McCain would deregulate insurance, leaving insurance companies free to deny coverage to those with health problems — and his proposal for a “high-risk pool” for hard cases would provide little help.
So what would happen?
The good news, such as it is, is that more people would buy individual insurance. Indeed, the total number of uninsured Americans might decline marginally under the McCain plan — although many more Americans would be without insurance than under the Obama plan.
But the people gaining insurance would be those who need it least: relatively healthy Americans with high incomes. Why? Because insurance companies want to cover only healthy people, and even among the healthy only those able to pay a lot in addition to their tax credit would be able to afford coverage (remember, it’s a $5,000 credit, but the average family policy actually costs more than $12,000).
Meanwhile, the people losing insurance would be those who need it most: lower-income workers who wouldn’t be able to afford individual insurance even with the tax credit, and Americans with health problems whom insurance companies won’t cover.
And in the process of comforting the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted, the McCain plan would also lead to a huge, expensive increase in bureaucracy: insurers selling individual health plans spend 29 percent of the premiums they receive on administration, largely because they employ so many people to screen applicants. This compares with costs of 12 percent for group plans and just 3 percent for Medicare.
In short, the McCain plan makes no sense at all, unless you have faith that the magic of the marketplace can solve all problems. And Mr. McCain does: a much-quoted article published under his name declares that “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”
I agree: the McCain plan would do for health care what deregulation has done for banking. And I’m terrified.
Montag, September 22, 2008
Financial Crisis: Paul Krugmann (NYT) : Cash for Trash
The New York Times
September 22, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Cash for Trash
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Some skeptics are calling Henry Paulson’s $700 billion rescue plan for the U.S. financial system “cash for trash.” Others are calling the proposed legislation the Authorization for Use of Financial Force, after the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the infamous bill that gave the Bush administration the green light to invade Iraq.
The New York Times
September 22, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Cash for Trash
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Some skeptics are calling Henry Paulson’s $700 billion rescue plan for the U.S. financial system “cash for trash.” Others are calling the proposed legislation the Authorization for Use of Financial Force, after the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the infamous bill that gave the Bush administration the green light to invade Iraq.
There’s justice in the gibes. Everyone agrees that something major must be done. But Mr. Paulson is demanding extraordinary power for himself — and for his successor — to deploy taxpayers’ money on behalf of a plan that, as far as I can see, doesn’t make sense.
Some are saying that we should simply trust Mr. Paulson, because he’s a smart guy who knows what he’s doing. But that’s only half true: he is a smart guy, but what, exactly, in the experience of the past year and a half — a period during which Mr. Paulson repeatedly declared the financial crisis “contained,” and then offered a series of unsuccessful fixes — justifies the belief that he knows what he’s doing? He’s making it up as he goes along, just like the rest of us.
So let’s try to think this through for ourselves. I have a four-step view of the financial crisis:
1. The bursting of the housing bubble has led to a surge in defaults and foreclosures, which in turn has led to a plunge in the prices of mortgage-backed securities — assets whose value ultimately comes from mortgage payments.
2. These financial losses have left many financial institutions with too little capital — too few assets compared with their debt. This problem is especially severe because everyone took on so much debt during the bubble years.
3. Because financial institutions have too little capital relative to their debt, they haven’t been able or willing to provide the credit the economy needs.
4. Financial institutions have been trying to pay down their debt by selling assets, including those mortgage-backed securities, but this drives asset prices down and makes their financial position even worse. This vicious circle is what some call the “paradox of deleveraging.”
The Paulson plan calls for the federal government to buy up $700 billion worth of troubled assets, mainly mortgage-backed securities. How does this resolve the crisis?
Well, it might — might — break the vicious circle of deleveraging, step 4 in my capsule description. Even that isn’t clear: the prices of many assets, not just those the Treasury proposes to buy, are under pressure. And even if the vicious circle is limited, the financial system will still be crippled by inadequate capital.
Or rather, it will be crippled by inadequate capital unless the federal government hugely overpays for the assets it buys, giving financial firms — and their stockholders and executives — a giant windfall at taxpayer expense. Did I mention that I’m not happy with this plan?
The logic of the crisis seems to call for an intervention, not at step 4, but at step 2: the financial system needs more capital. And if the government is going to provide capital to financial firms, it should get what people who provide capital are entitled to — a share in ownership, so that all the gains if the rescue plan works don’t go to the people who made the mess in the first place.
That’s what happened in the savings and loan crisis: the feds took over ownership of the bad banks, not just their bad assets. It’s also what happened with Fannie and Freddie. (And by the way, that rescue has done what it was supposed to. Mortgage interest rates have come down sharply since the federal takeover.)
But Mr. Paulson insists that he wants a “clean” plan. “Clean,” in this context, means a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings attached — no quid pro quo on the part of those being bailed out. Why is that a good thing? Add to this the fact that Mr. Paulson is also demanding dictatorial authority, plus immunity from review “by any court of law or any administrative agency,” and this adds up to an unacceptable proposal.
I’m aware that Congress is under enormous pressure to agree to the Paulson plan in the next few days, with at most a few modifications that make it slightly less bad. Basically, after having spent a year and a half telling everyone that things were under control, the Bush administration says that the sky is falling, and that to save the world we have to do exactly what it says now now now.
But I’d urge Congress to pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and try to seriously rework the structure of the plan, making it a plan that addresses the real problem. Don’t let yourself be railroaded — if this plan goes through in anything like its current form, we’ll all be very sorry in the not-too-distant future.
September 22, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Cash for Trash
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Some skeptics are calling Henry Paulson’s $700 billion rescue plan for the U.S. financial system “cash for trash.” Others are calling the proposed legislation the Authorization for Use of Financial Force, after the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the infamous bill that gave the Bush administration the green light to invade Iraq.
The New York Times
September 22, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Cash for Trash
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Some skeptics are calling Henry Paulson’s $700 billion rescue plan for the U.S. financial system “cash for trash.” Others are calling the proposed legislation the Authorization for Use of Financial Force, after the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the infamous bill that gave the Bush administration the green light to invade Iraq.
There’s justice in the gibes. Everyone agrees that something major must be done. But Mr. Paulson is demanding extraordinary power for himself — and for his successor — to deploy taxpayers’ money on behalf of a plan that, as far as I can see, doesn’t make sense.
Some are saying that we should simply trust Mr. Paulson, because he’s a smart guy who knows what he’s doing. But that’s only half true: he is a smart guy, but what, exactly, in the experience of the past year and a half — a period during which Mr. Paulson repeatedly declared the financial crisis “contained,” and then offered a series of unsuccessful fixes — justifies the belief that he knows what he’s doing? He’s making it up as he goes along, just like the rest of us.
So let’s try to think this through for ourselves. I have a four-step view of the financial crisis:
1. The bursting of the housing bubble has led to a surge in defaults and foreclosures, which in turn has led to a plunge in the prices of mortgage-backed securities — assets whose value ultimately comes from mortgage payments.
2. These financial losses have left many financial institutions with too little capital — too few assets compared with their debt. This problem is especially severe because everyone took on so much debt during the bubble years.
3. Because financial institutions have too little capital relative to their debt, they haven’t been able or willing to provide the credit the economy needs.
4. Financial institutions have been trying to pay down their debt by selling assets, including those mortgage-backed securities, but this drives asset prices down and makes their financial position even worse. This vicious circle is what some call the “paradox of deleveraging.”
The Paulson plan calls for the federal government to buy up $700 billion worth of troubled assets, mainly mortgage-backed securities. How does this resolve the crisis?
Well, it might — might — break the vicious circle of deleveraging, step 4 in my capsule description. Even that isn’t clear: the prices of many assets, not just those the Treasury proposes to buy, are under pressure. And even if the vicious circle is limited, the financial system will still be crippled by inadequate capital.
Or rather, it will be crippled by inadequate capital unless the federal government hugely overpays for the assets it buys, giving financial firms — and their stockholders and executives — a giant windfall at taxpayer expense. Did I mention that I’m not happy with this plan?
The logic of the crisis seems to call for an intervention, not at step 4, but at step 2: the financial system needs more capital. And if the government is going to provide capital to financial firms, it should get what people who provide capital are entitled to — a share in ownership, so that all the gains if the rescue plan works don’t go to the people who made the mess in the first place.
That’s what happened in the savings and loan crisis: the feds took over ownership of the bad banks, not just their bad assets. It’s also what happened with Fannie and Freddie. (And by the way, that rescue has done what it was supposed to. Mortgage interest rates have come down sharply since the federal takeover.)
But Mr. Paulson insists that he wants a “clean” plan. “Clean,” in this context, means a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings attached — no quid pro quo on the part of those being bailed out. Why is that a good thing? Add to this the fact that Mr. Paulson is also demanding dictatorial authority, plus immunity from review “by any court of law or any administrative agency,” and this adds up to an unacceptable proposal.
I’m aware that Congress is under enormous pressure to agree to the Paulson plan in the next few days, with at most a few modifications that make it slightly less bad. Basically, after having spent a year and a half telling everyone that things were under control, the Bush administration says that the sky is falling, and that to save the world we have to do exactly what it says now now now.
But I’d urge Congress to pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and try to seriously rework the structure of the plan, making it a plan that addresses the real problem. Don’t let yourself be railroaded — if this plan goes through in anything like its current form, we’ll all be very sorry in the not-too-distant future.
Mittwoch, Februar 27, 2008
Sonntag, Mai 27, 2007
The History of Oil - always interesting and fun to watch
Direkt link to video.google
Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years - but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at school, he places oil centre stage as the cause of all commotion. This innovative history programme is based around Robert Newman's stand-up act and supported by resourceful archive sequences and stills with satirical impersonations of historical figures from Mayan priests to Archduke Ferdinand. Quirky details such as a bicycle powered street lamp on the stage brings home the pertinent question of just how we are going to survive when the world's oil supplies are finally exhausted. «
Type rest of the post here
Donnerstag, Januar 04, 2007
Euro / US Dollar: Slow move out of the US Dollar?
Beruhigende Worte dies, mit dem gemeinsamen Interesse an einer langsamen Diversifikation der Reserve-Währungen. Das Risiko ist aber politischer Natur. China hat ein Drohpotential mit seinen 700 Milliarden US-Dollars. Sobald die Ressourcen-Verknappung existentiellere Züge annimmt, sind die Exporte in die USA vielleicht gar nicht mehr die erste Priorität.
January 3, 2007
New York Times
Dollar’s Skid Puts a Glow on the Euro
By JEREMY W. PETERS
The dollar slumped yesterday and the euro climbed to a three-week high against the currency.
A steady slide in the value of the dollar since late 2005, primarily against the euro and the British pound, has steepened over the last month amid indications that interest rates will rise in Europe, while the Federal Reserve is expected to cut rates this year.
At the same time, countries with large dollar holdings are showing a new willingness to dump the dollar in favor of the rising euro, though the current activity is seen as posing little long-term risk to the dollar.
Late last month, the United Arab Emirates became the latest country to shift more of its currency reserves away from the dollar, joining Russia, Switzerland, Venezuela and others.
Those moves coincide with ambiguous signals from China about possibly pulling back from the dollar, and recent word from Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, that it would prefer euros as payment for oil, which is typically priced in dollars.
But currency experts say that this turn away from the dollar is not likely to do any long-term damage to the currency’s value for a number of reasons. First, the motives of central banks that are adding other currencies to their reserves do not appear to be driven by the belief that the euro will eventually supplant the dollar as the world’s key currency. Rather, these central banks are doing what investors do to cut risk: diversifying their portfolios.
Moreover, the amount of currency moved so far has been relatively small in a global market that trades trillions of dollars a day — only about $2 billion in the case of the United Arab Emirates, for example.
“There is some indication that central banks are moving to diversify reserves, but it’s at a very slow pace,” said David Powell, a currency analyst with IDEAglobal. “Is it the start of a massive shift out of the dollar? I would say no.”
Yesterday, the euro traded at $1.3272, up from $1.3198 late Friday in New York. The British pound was at $1.9721, up from $1.9586. The United States dollar index, a measure of the dollar’s strength against a basket of currencies, fell to 83.23 from 83.65 on Friday. In February 2002, the index was at 120.
But trading was thinner than usual yesterday as financial markets were closed in the United States, as were markets in Tokyo and Singapore.
In 2006, the euro appreciated more than 11 percent against the dollar, while the British pound rose nearly 14 percent against the dollar.
But the dollar is not likely to start flowing with great speed out of central banks because foreign countries risk devaluing their investments if they do so. Even the slightest suggestion that a country is thinking about swapping dollars for euros risks sending the value of the dollar falling, and in turn hurts all foreign investors in American securities.
The case of China, which holds more Treasury securities than any other foreign nation except Japan, offers an example of why countries would be reluctant to dump their dollar reserves. In October, the most recent month for which figures are available from the Treasury Department, China held $345 billion in Treasury securities. That was up from $301 billion a year earlier. Its currency holdings total $1 trillion. About $700 billion of that, economists estimate, is in dollars.
So in many ways, it is in China’s best interest not to let the dollar’s value slip. Heavy sales of the dollar could make it harder for the People’s Bank of China to manage its gradual appreciation of the yuan against the dollar. Anything more abrupt, Beijing fears, would make Chinese goods less competitive in the United States and pose problems domestically for some of the loans from its state banks. And if the dollar drops too much, the value of China’s holdings would decrease, limiting the lending ability of its banks.
Nonetheless, the rising euro is not something the United States or foreign investors can afford to ignore.
“You have to start to thinking that the euro can be of some risk to the dollar,” said Shaun Osbourne, chief currency strategist at TD Securities in Toronto. “Over the course of the next 5 or 10 years, I don’t think there’s any danger that the dollar’s pre-eminence is threatened. But in the long run, there is certainly the risk that does happen.”
One issue driving investors from the dollar is the possibility that interest rates in the United States and Europe may move farther apart.
Financial markets are currently expecting at least one interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve sometime next year. That contrasts with predictions of further rate increases by the European Central Bank.
“A lot of foreign investors think the Fed is going to cut rates in 2007, and that’s a rather dollar-bearish thing,” said Julia Coronado, senior economist with Barclays Capital.
Some economists predict the dollar will fall further in 2007. The euro finished 2006 at $1.31, and some economists see it climbing near $1.40 — a high in its seven-year history.
“We believe that the dollar’s decline versus the euro has further to run, with $1.38 a possible destination for the pair over the next six months,” said Tom Levinson, a foreign exchange strategist with ING Wholesale Banking in London.
Still, many economists are unwilling to predict that the dollar faces an inevitable demise. “The dollar is still the world’s No. 1 currency, and it’s going to stay that way,” said Nigel Gault, chief United States economist for Global Insight. “The euro is gradually going to become more important, but I don’t see it becoming more important than the dollar.”
Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
January 3, 2007
New York Times
Dollar’s Skid Puts a Glow on the Euro
By JEREMY W. PETERS
The dollar slumped yesterday and the euro climbed to a three-week high against the currency.
A steady slide in the value of the dollar since late 2005, primarily against the euro and the British pound, has steepened over the last month amid indications that interest rates will rise in Europe, while the Federal Reserve is expected to cut rates this year.
At the same time, countries with large dollar holdings are showing a new willingness to dump the dollar in favor of the rising euro, though the current activity is seen as posing little long-term risk to the dollar.
Late last month, the United Arab Emirates became the latest country to shift more of its currency reserves away from the dollar, joining Russia, Switzerland, Venezuela and others.
Those moves coincide with ambiguous signals from China about possibly pulling back from the dollar, and recent word from Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, that it would prefer euros as payment for oil, which is typically priced in dollars.
But currency experts say that this turn away from the dollar is not likely to do any long-term damage to the currency’s value for a number of reasons. First, the motives of central banks that are adding other currencies to their reserves do not appear to be driven by the belief that the euro will eventually supplant the dollar as the world’s key currency. Rather, these central banks are doing what investors do to cut risk: diversifying their portfolios.
Moreover, the amount of currency moved so far has been relatively small in a global market that trades trillions of dollars a day — only about $2 billion in the case of the United Arab Emirates, for example.
“There is some indication that central banks are moving to diversify reserves, but it’s at a very slow pace,” said David Powell, a currency analyst with IDEAglobal. “Is it the start of a massive shift out of the dollar? I would say no.”
Yesterday, the euro traded at $1.3272, up from $1.3198 late Friday in New York. The British pound was at $1.9721, up from $1.9586. The United States dollar index, a measure of the dollar’s strength against a basket of currencies, fell to 83.23 from 83.65 on Friday. In February 2002, the index was at 120.
But trading was thinner than usual yesterday as financial markets were closed in the United States, as were markets in Tokyo and Singapore.
In 2006, the euro appreciated more than 11 percent against the dollar, while the British pound rose nearly 14 percent against the dollar.
But the dollar is not likely to start flowing with great speed out of central banks because foreign countries risk devaluing their investments if they do so. Even the slightest suggestion that a country is thinking about swapping dollars for euros risks sending the value of the dollar falling, and in turn hurts all foreign investors in American securities.
The case of China, which holds more Treasury securities than any other foreign nation except Japan, offers an example of why countries would be reluctant to dump their dollar reserves. In October, the most recent month for which figures are available from the Treasury Department, China held $345 billion in Treasury securities. That was up from $301 billion a year earlier. Its currency holdings total $1 trillion. About $700 billion of that, economists estimate, is in dollars.
So in many ways, it is in China’s best interest not to let the dollar’s value slip. Heavy sales of the dollar could make it harder for the People’s Bank of China to manage its gradual appreciation of the yuan against the dollar. Anything more abrupt, Beijing fears, would make Chinese goods less competitive in the United States and pose problems domestically for some of the loans from its state banks. And if the dollar drops too much, the value of China’s holdings would decrease, limiting the lending ability of its banks.
Nonetheless, the rising euro is not something the United States or foreign investors can afford to ignore.
“You have to start to thinking that the euro can be of some risk to the dollar,” said Shaun Osbourne, chief currency strategist at TD Securities in Toronto. “Over the course of the next 5 or 10 years, I don’t think there’s any danger that the dollar’s pre-eminence is threatened. But in the long run, there is certainly the risk that does happen.”
One issue driving investors from the dollar is the possibility that interest rates in the United States and Europe may move farther apart.
Financial markets are currently expecting at least one interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve sometime next year. That contrasts with predictions of further rate increases by the European Central Bank.
“A lot of foreign investors think the Fed is going to cut rates in 2007, and that’s a rather dollar-bearish thing,” said Julia Coronado, senior economist with Barclays Capital.
Some economists predict the dollar will fall further in 2007. The euro finished 2006 at $1.31, and some economists see it climbing near $1.40 — a high in its seven-year history.
“We believe that the dollar’s decline versus the euro has further to run, with $1.38 a possible destination for the pair over the next six months,” said Tom Levinson, a foreign exchange strategist with ING Wholesale Banking in London.
Still, many economists are unwilling to predict that the dollar faces an inevitable demise. “The dollar is still the world’s No. 1 currency, and it’s going to stay that way,” said Nigel Gault, chief United States economist for Global Insight. “The euro is gradually going to become more important, but I don’t see it becoming more important than the dollar.”
Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
Mittwoch, Januar 03, 2007
Dollar dethroned by red ink; Paul Craig Roberts
During 2006 while the US government focused on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the US dollar declined sharply against many currencies. By December China’s central bank was expressing its concern that the massive US trade deficit could lead to a run on the dollar and to an international financial crisis.
Paul Craig Roberts is an economist and a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. He is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and he holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He was a post-graduate at the University of California, Berkeley, and Oxford University where he was a member of Merton College. He is considered to be a Reagan conservative.
01/02/07"Information Clearing House" - Paul Craig Roberts
During 2006 while the US government focused on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the US dollar declined sharply against many currencies. By December China’s central bank was expressing its concern that the massive US trade deficit could lead to a run on the dollar and to an international financial crisis.
Since WW II the US dollar has been the world’s reserve currency, the currency in which oil is billed and international trade accounts are settled.
The low US saving rate means that Washington’s budget deficits must be financed by foreign lenders, who are awash in US Treasury bonds. The massive US trade deficit means that foreigners acquire US assets as payment for US consumption of goods made abroad.
Foreigners are worried about their large dollar holdings, because there is no indication that the US can reduce either deficit. The war against Iraq has run up the US budget deficit, and the practice of US corporations of producing offshore for their US markets has increased the US trade deficit. Every time a US company moves its production abroad, domestic output is turned into imports.
China has indicated that it will continue to accumulate dollars, but at a slower rate by trading some of the dollars for other currencies.
On December 18 Iran announced that it will cease to use the US dollar as reserve currency.
On December 28 United Arab Emirates, a close US ally, announced that the weakening US dollar has caused its central bank to move some of its foreign exchange reserves from dollars to Euros.
The decisions of foreign central banks to reduce the rate at which they acquire dollars implies higher US interest rates at a time when the US economy is slowing, making it difficult for the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy and more expensive for the US to borrow.
If foreigners take the next step and begin dumping their dollar holdings, there is nothing the US government can do to avert the catastrophe. Washington must take steps before it is too late.
The only timely solution is to reduce the US budget deficit. This requires Congress to cut spending or raise taxes or both. Raising taxes on a weakening economy is not a good idea. As entitlements
(Social Security and Medicare) comprise most of nondefense spending, the easiest step for Congress to take is to stop funding Bush’s pointless war. With less red ink to be financed, there would be less pressure on the dollar.
It is possible that Washington has waited too long to address the dollar problem. If 2007 brings recession to the US, the rise in the budget deficit from the loss of tax revenues could offset deficit reduction achieved by ending the war.
Many economists offer false solutions. We hear, for example, that a weaker dollar will lead to more exports and a reduction in the US trade deficit. This “solution” overlooks the impact of offshoring. With so many US brand name manufactures now produced offshore, there is less for the US to export. Some economists still believe that the gap can be filled by the export of services, but offshoring has also taken its toll on professional services. The US cannot simultaneously offshore the production of goods and services and reduce its trade deficit.
Other economists still think that the Federal Reserve can rescue the dollar by raising interest rates, thus making US Treasuries more attractive to foreigners. However, the US economy shows many signs of weakening. By stifling growth or provoking recession, higher interest rates can simply generate more red ink that must be financed by foreign borrowing, thus increasing the pressure on the dollar.
The US cannot afford the Iraq war, and it cannot afford the distraction from the serious economic problems that a war-obsessed government has permitted to accumulate. Offshoring is destroying the ladders of upward mobility that made America an opportunity society.
Economists, in their commitment to offshoring, offer “solutions” that conceal offshoring’s real impact on Americans. For example, we are told that education is the solution to “America’s competitiveness problem.”
People who advance the education solution are obviously unfamiliar with the character of US job growth in the 21st century and with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ predictions of the areas of job growth over the next decade.
The problem America faces is not a lack of educated people, but a lack of jobs for educated people. In the 21st century, the US economy has been able to create net new jobs only in domestic services, such as waitresses, bartenders and health and social services. The vast majority of these jobs do not require a college education, and they do not produce tradable goods and services that could be exported or substituted for imports. Income inequality is worsening as CEO pay soars while median income stagnates.
This new year will be the fifth year that the American people will have let President Bush commit their country to an illegitimate war that cannot be won. Will the US extract itself from Bush’s misadventure and address its real problems, or will the dollar’s decline bring new economic hardships?
Paul Craig Roberts is an economist and a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. He is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and he holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He was a post-graduate at the University of California, Berkeley, and Oxford University where he was a member of Merton College. He is considered to be a Reagan conservative.
01/02/07"Information Clearing House" - Paul Craig Roberts
During 2006 while the US government focused on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the US dollar declined sharply against many currencies. By December China’s central bank was expressing its concern that the massive US trade deficit could lead to a run on the dollar and to an international financial crisis.
Since WW II the US dollar has been the world’s reserve currency, the currency in which oil is billed and international trade accounts are settled.
The low US saving rate means that Washington’s budget deficits must be financed by foreign lenders, who are awash in US Treasury bonds. The massive US trade deficit means that foreigners acquire US assets as payment for US consumption of goods made abroad.
Foreigners are worried about their large dollar holdings, because there is no indication that the US can reduce either deficit. The war against Iraq has run up the US budget deficit, and the practice of US corporations of producing offshore for their US markets has increased the US trade deficit. Every time a US company moves its production abroad, domestic output is turned into imports.
China has indicated that it will continue to accumulate dollars, but at a slower rate by trading some of the dollars for other currencies.
On December 18 Iran announced that it will cease to use the US dollar as reserve currency.
On December 28 United Arab Emirates, a close US ally, announced that the weakening US dollar has caused its central bank to move some of its foreign exchange reserves from dollars to Euros.
The decisions of foreign central banks to reduce the rate at which they acquire dollars implies higher US interest rates at a time when the US economy is slowing, making it difficult for the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy and more expensive for the US to borrow.
If foreigners take the next step and begin dumping their dollar holdings, there is nothing the US government can do to avert the catastrophe. Washington must take steps before it is too late.
The only timely solution is to reduce the US budget deficit. This requires Congress to cut spending or raise taxes or both. Raising taxes on a weakening economy is not a good idea. As entitlements
(Social Security and Medicare) comprise most of nondefense spending, the easiest step for Congress to take is to stop funding Bush’s pointless war. With less red ink to be financed, there would be less pressure on the dollar.
It is possible that Washington has waited too long to address the dollar problem. If 2007 brings recession to the US, the rise in the budget deficit from the loss of tax revenues could offset deficit reduction achieved by ending the war.
Many economists offer false solutions. We hear, for example, that a weaker dollar will lead to more exports and a reduction in the US trade deficit. This “solution” overlooks the impact of offshoring. With so many US brand name manufactures now produced offshore, there is less for the US to export. Some economists still believe that the gap can be filled by the export of services, but offshoring has also taken its toll on professional services. The US cannot simultaneously offshore the production of goods and services and reduce its trade deficit.
Other economists still think that the Federal Reserve can rescue the dollar by raising interest rates, thus making US Treasuries more attractive to foreigners. However, the US economy shows many signs of weakening. By stifling growth or provoking recession, higher interest rates can simply generate more red ink that must be financed by foreign borrowing, thus increasing the pressure on the dollar.
The US cannot afford the Iraq war, and it cannot afford the distraction from the serious economic problems that a war-obsessed government has permitted to accumulate. Offshoring is destroying the ladders of upward mobility that made America an opportunity society.
Economists, in their commitment to offshoring, offer “solutions” that conceal offshoring’s real impact on Americans. For example, we are told that education is the solution to “America’s competitiveness problem.”
People who advance the education solution are obviously unfamiliar with the character of US job growth in the 21st century and with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ predictions of the areas of job growth over the next decade.
The problem America faces is not a lack of educated people, but a lack of jobs for educated people. In the 21st century, the US economy has been able to create net new jobs only in domestic services, such as waitresses, bartenders and health and social services. The vast majority of these jobs do not require a college education, and they do not produce tradable goods and services that could be exported or substituted for imports. Income inequality is worsening as CEO pay soars while median income stagnates.
This new year will be the fifth year that the American people will have let President Bush commit their country to an illegitimate war that cannot be won. Will the US extract itself from Bush’s misadventure and address its real problems, or will the dollar’s decline bring new economic hardships?
Donnerstag, Dezember 21, 2006
The expensive war
The $2 Trillion Dollar War
A leading economist says the true cost of Iraq is far higher than President Bush claims -- and America will pay the price for decades to come.
By Charles M. Young
12/20/06 "Rolling Stone" --- - When America invaded Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration predicted that the war would turn a profit, paying for itself with increased oil revenues. So far, though, Congress has spent more than $350 billion on the conflict, including the $50 billion appropriated for 2007.
But according to one of the world's leading economists, that is just a fraction of what Iraq will actually wind up costing American taxpayers. Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize for economics, estimates the true cost of the war at$2.267 trillion. That includes the government's past and future spending for the war itself ($725 billion), health care and disability benefits for veterans ($127 billion), and hidden increases in defense spending ($160 billion). It also includes losses the economy will suffer from injured vets ($355 billion) and higher oil prices ($450 billion).
Stiglitz, a professor of economics at Columbia University, is just the guy to size up the war's financial consequences. He served as chief economist at the World Bank and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Clinton, and his book Globalization and Its Discontents has sold more than a million copies. Stiglitz sat down with Rolling Stone in New York to discuss the costs of Bush's misadventure in Iraq.
What's wrong with dropping a lot of money on the Iraq War? Didn't World War II pull America out of the Great Depression?
War is a lousy form of economic stimulus. The bang you get for the buck is very low. If we hadn't had to fight during the Depression, we would have become a much richer country by investing the money we spent on the war. Think of the Nepalese contractors doing work in Iraq. They spend their money in Iraq or Nepal -- not in America.
Because the war drove up oil prices, we are also giving more money to Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela. It follows that we are not investing that money. And instead of spending the money we have left on things that will make us wealthier, we are spending it in ways that have just the opposite effect. I don't want to reduce this to cold, hard economics, but when you educate young people for twelve to eighteen years, you're investing a lot of money in them. If you then have them killed, maimed and debilitated, you destroy capital.
How did you arrive at the $2 trillion figure?
There were three parts to the calculations that I made with Linda Bilmes, a professor of public finance at Harvard. The first part is based on actual expenditures -- the impact on the federal budget. But the budget doesn't include a lot of expenditures we will be making in the future as a result of the war today, like paying for the health care and disability benefits of all the people who have been injured. These are lifetime expenditures, but they aren't included in the $600 million a year the Defense Department expects to spend on Iraq. They're just talking about the hardware of war.
The second part of our calculations estimates future expenditures to replace what we lose in the war. The budget includes spending for new ammunition, but not the wear and tear on weapons systems. Eventually the weapons must be replaced, but the administration doesn't count that as part of the projected cost of the war.
A third important category is a little more hidden. The defense budget has gone way up, beyond the money earmarked for Iraq. You have to ask why. It's not like the Cold War has broken out again. We infer that they are hiding a lot of the Iraq expenditures in the defense budget. We only attribute a small fraction of the increase to Iraq, but it would be hard to explain them any other way than the war.
You also examine the cost beyond the impact on the federal budget.
Yes. We look at where the budget underestimates the social cost of the war. Take disability pay. If you're wounded, the government pays you only twenty percent of what you would have earned if you could work. The disability payment is a budget cost, but the economy misses the salary you would have been making now that you're not able to do anything.
At least they saved taxpayers money on body armor.
Not really. Rumsfeld made the defense budget a little lower in the short term by not providing the troops with adequate body armor. But the government now has to pay for the care of vets with disabling brain and spine injuries -- and society loses what their contribution would have been had they been gainfully employed. It's a good illustration of how looking at the short-run number leads you to think the war isn't costing all that much. It's costing the government more, our society more and our veterans enormously more.
Another example of Rumsfeld's budgeting is the huge bonuses we're paying to get soldiers to re-enlist. He wanted to lessen the impact of the war on the military, so he used private contractors, who are more expensive. What he didn't realize was that he was setting up a competition that has driven up the price of a soldier. If someone who has served his enlistment has a choice of working as a contractor for $100,000 or in the military for $25,000, what's he going to do? Wages and bonuses had to go up. Maybe that's a good thing -- the regular military was being cheated, in a way. But it's another cost of the war that isn't figured into the budget.
So Bush's budget for the war is as out of touch with reality as his justifications for invading Iraq in the first place.
The administration is trying to sell the notion that they have repealed the laws of economics. They want us to believe that we don't have to choose between guns and butter -- that we can have them both. The reality is, the money spent on the war could have been spent on other things.
Such as?
One quarter of the war budget would have fixed Social Security for the next seventy-five years. George Bush says that Social Security is a major economic problem. If you believe him -- although there are many reasons not to believe him -- the war is four times worse as an economic problem.
With $2 trillion, we could have funded the entire world's commitment to foreign aid to poor countries for the next twenty years. Or just think what we could have done to stop global warming if we had spent that two trillion developing cheaper photovoltaic cells to convert solar energy into electricity. With our technological advantages, we could have had some real breakthroughs. We have the resources -- we just need to redirect them from destroying another country.
Will average Americans notice any economic fallout from the war?
We'll have a lower living standard than we otherwise would have achieved. The median American income is going down. Most of us are worse off than we were five or six years ago. Why are we getting poorer? This big pot of money we spent on the war obviously has something to do with it. Americans have a hard time seeing it when the numbers come out in dribs and drabs. But when it's $2 trillion? Did we really want to spend it like this? It's hard to think how we could have spent it worse.
Has Bush responded to your calculations?
To my knowledge, nobody in the administration has challenged our numbers. All they've said is that we didn't include the benefits of the war, which is true. There is no way to assess the benefits. There are some little savings we subtracted out, such as the no-fly zone over Iraq: We don't have to pay to patrol it any more, because there is nothing to enforce with Saddam out of power. But the administration can't exactly claim that they have brought peace, stability and democracy to the Middle East.
They also argue that they didn't go to war on the basis of green-eyeshade calculations. That's true, but they did do a calculation of the cost. They were just off. Like every other aspect of their analysis of this war, they were either deliberately misleading or incompetent.
Paul Wolfowitz actually claimed that the war would pay for itself with oil revenue.
You have to wonder: What reward should he receive for such acumen? Bush made him president of the World Bank.
A leading economist says the true cost of Iraq is far higher than President Bush claims -- and America will pay the price for decades to come.
By Charles M. Young
12/20/06 "Rolling Stone" --- - When America invaded Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration predicted that the war would turn a profit, paying for itself with increased oil revenues. So far, though, Congress has spent more than $350 billion on the conflict, including the $50 billion appropriated for 2007.
But according to one of the world's leading economists, that is just a fraction of what Iraq will actually wind up costing American taxpayers. Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize for economics, estimates the true cost of the war at$2.267 trillion. That includes the government's past and future spending for the war itself ($725 billion), health care and disability benefits for veterans ($127 billion), and hidden increases in defense spending ($160 billion). It also includes losses the economy will suffer from injured vets ($355 billion) and higher oil prices ($450 billion).
Stiglitz, a professor of economics at Columbia University, is just the guy to size up the war's financial consequences. He served as chief economist at the World Bank and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Clinton, and his book Globalization and Its Discontents has sold more than a million copies. Stiglitz sat down with Rolling Stone in New York to discuss the costs of Bush's misadventure in Iraq.
What's wrong with dropping a lot of money on the Iraq War? Didn't World War II pull America out of the Great Depression?
War is a lousy form of economic stimulus. The bang you get for the buck is very low. If we hadn't had to fight during the Depression, we would have become a much richer country by investing the money we spent on the war. Think of the Nepalese contractors doing work in Iraq. They spend their money in Iraq or Nepal -- not in America.
Because the war drove up oil prices, we are also giving more money to Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela. It follows that we are not investing that money. And instead of spending the money we have left on things that will make us wealthier, we are spending it in ways that have just the opposite effect. I don't want to reduce this to cold, hard economics, but when you educate young people for twelve to eighteen years, you're investing a lot of money in them. If you then have them killed, maimed and debilitated, you destroy capital.
How did you arrive at the $2 trillion figure?
There were three parts to the calculations that I made with Linda Bilmes, a professor of public finance at Harvard. The first part is based on actual expenditures -- the impact on the federal budget. But the budget doesn't include a lot of expenditures we will be making in the future as a result of the war today, like paying for the health care and disability benefits of all the people who have been injured. These are lifetime expenditures, but they aren't included in the $600 million a year the Defense Department expects to spend on Iraq. They're just talking about the hardware of war.
The second part of our calculations estimates future expenditures to replace what we lose in the war. The budget includes spending for new ammunition, but not the wear and tear on weapons systems. Eventually the weapons must be replaced, but the administration doesn't count that as part of the projected cost of the war.
A third important category is a little more hidden. The defense budget has gone way up, beyond the money earmarked for Iraq. You have to ask why. It's not like the Cold War has broken out again. We infer that they are hiding a lot of the Iraq expenditures in the defense budget. We only attribute a small fraction of the increase to Iraq, but it would be hard to explain them any other way than the war.
You also examine the cost beyond the impact on the federal budget.
Yes. We look at where the budget underestimates the social cost of the war. Take disability pay. If you're wounded, the government pays you only twenty percent of what you would have earned if you could work. The disability payment is a budget cost, but the economy misses the salary you would have been making now that you're not able to do anything.
At least they saved taxpayers money on body armor.
Not really. Rumsfeld made the defense budget a little lower in the short term by not providing the troops with adequate body armor. But the government now has to pay for the care of vets with disabling brain and spine injuries -- and society loses what their contribution would have been had they been gainfully employed. It's a good illustration of how looking at the short-run number leads you to think the war isn't costing all that much. It's costing the government more, our society more and our veterans enormously more.
Another example of Rumsfeld's budgeting is the huge bonuses we're paying to get soldiers to re-enlist. He wanted to lessen the impact of the war on the military, so he used private contractors, who are more expensive. What he didn't realize was that he was setting up a competition that has driven up the price of a soldier. If someone who has served his enlistment has a choice of working as a contractor for $100,000 or in the military for $25,000, what's he going to do? Wages and bonuses had to go up. Maybe that's a good thing -- the regular military was being cheated, in a way. But it's another cost of the war that isn't figured into the budget.
So Bush's budget for the war is as out of touch with reality as his justifications for invading Iraq in the first place.
The administration is trying to sell the notion that they have repealed the laws of economics. They want us to believe that we don't have to choose between guns and butter -- that we can have them both. The reality is, the money spent on the war could have been spent on other things.
Such as?
One quarter of the war budget would have fixed Social Security for the next seventy-five years. George Bush says that Social Security is a major economic problem. If you believe him -- although there are many reasons not to believe him -- the war is four times worse as an economic problem.
With $2 trillion, we could have funded the entire world's commitment to foreign aid to poor countries for the next twenty years. Or just think what we could have done to stop global warming if we had spent that two trillion developing cheaper photovoltaic cells to convert solar energy into electricity. With our technological advantages, we could have had some real breakthroughs. We have the resources -- we just need to redirect them from destroying another country.
Will average Americans notice any economic fallout from the war?
We'll have a lower living standard than we otherwise would have achieved. The median American income is going down. Most of us are worse off than we were five or six years ago. Why are we getting poorer? This big pot of money we spent on the war obviously has something to do with it. Americans have a hard time seeing it when the numbers come out in dribs and drabs. But when it's $2 trillion? Did we really want to spend it like this? It's hard to think how we could have spent it worse.
Has Bush responded to your calculations?
To my knowledge, nobody in the administration has challenged our numbers. All they've said is that we didn't include the benefits of the war, which is true. There is no way to assess the benefits. There are some little savings we subtracted out, such as the no-fly zone over Iraq: We don't have to pay to patrol it any more, because there is nothing to enforce with Saddam out of power. But the administration can't exactly claim that they have brought peace, stability and democracy to the Middle East.
They also argue that they didn't go to war on the basis of green-eyeshade calculations. That's true, but they did do a calculation of the cost. They were just off. Like every other aspect of their analysis of this war, they were either deliberately misleading or incompetent.
Paul Wolfowitz actually claimed that the war would pay for itself with oil revenue.
You have to wonder: What reward should he receive for such acumen? Bush made him president of the World Bank.
Donnerstag, Dezember 07, 2006
Euro / US-Dollar and then gold?
Oil like many other commodities is traded in US-Dollars, this made sense when the US was the biggest exporter of Oil, but after the US went through its peak in production around 1970/71 it was overtaken by other exporting countries. Nowadays most of these oil exporting countries trade more with Europe then the US. So for buyers and sellers of oil and trade goods it would make sense to at least partially switch to some other currency - namely the Euro. Interestingly since March 2006 the US Federal Reserve Bank does not publish the M3 figures anymore. And what about the Iranian oil bourse supposed to have started in March of 2006?
We continue our series about the Euro / US-Dollar competition with an article published in January 2006 written by somebody who considers gold a worthy investment.
The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse
by Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D.
Austrian Macro Economist/Investment Strategist
Commissioned by: J. Douglas Bowey and Associates
January 20, 2006
Abstract
The American Empire depends on the U.S. dollar. The proposed Iranian Oil Bourse will accelerate the fall of the U.S. dollar and hence the fall of the American Empire.
I. Economics of Empires
A nation-state taxes its own citizens, while an empire taxes other nation-states. The history of empires, from Greek and Roman, to Ottoman and British, teaches that the economic foundation of every single empire is the taxation of other nations or of their subjects. The imperial ability to tax has always rested on a better and stronger economy, and as a consequence, a better and stronger military that peacefully or militarily enforced the tax. One part of those taxes went to improve the living standards of the empire and the other part went to reinforce the military dominance necessary to enforce those taxes.
Historically, taxing the subject state has been in various forms, usually gold and silver, where those were considered money, but also slaves, soldiers, crops, cattle, or other agricultural and natural resources, whatever economic goods the empire demanded and the subject-state could deliver. Historically, the taxation has always been direct: the subject state handed over the money (gold/silver) or the economic goods directly to the empire.
For the first time in history, in the twentieth century, America was able to tax the world indirectly—not by enforcing the direct payment of taxes like all of its predecessor empires did, but by distributing its own currency, the U.S. Dollar, to other nations in exchange for goods with the intended consequence of devaluing over time those dollars and paying back later each dollar with less economic goods. The difference between the value of the dollar during the initial purchase and the devalued dollar during the repayment was the U.S. imperial tax. Here is how this happened.
Early in the 20th century, the U.S. economy began to dominate the world economy. At the time the U.S. dollar was tied to gold, so that the dollar neither increased, nor decreased its value, but was always convertible into the same amount of gold. The Great Depression with its the preceding inflation from 1921 to 1929 substantially increased the amount of paper money in circulation without the correspondent increase in gold. This rendered the effective backing of the U.S. dollar by gold impossible. As a consequence, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decoupled the dollar from gold in 1932. Up to this point, the U.S. may have well dominated the world economy, but from an economic point of view, it was not technically an empire. The fixed value of the dollar for gold did not allow the Americans to extract economic benefits from other countries by supplying them with gold-backed dollars.
Economically, the American Empire was born with the establishment of the Bretton Woods system in 1945. The dollar was made only partially convertible to gold—convertibility to gold was available to foreign governments only, but not to private institutions. At this time the US dollar was established as the international reserve currency. This was possible, because during WWII, the United States had supplied its allies with food and military provisions, accepting gold as payment, thus accumulating significant portion of the world’s gold.
An economic Empire would not have been possible if the dollar remained fully backed by gold, i.e., if the dollar supply was kept limited and within the availability of gold, so as to exchange back dollars for gold at the pre-agreed exchange ratio. However, the dollar supply was actually increased far beyond its gold backing and handed over to foreigners in exchange for economic goods. There was no prospect of buying back those dollars at the same value—the amount of gold was not sufficient to redeem those dollars, while the quantity of dollars continually increased, so that those dollars constantly depreciated. The constant depreciation of the increasing dollar holdings of foreigners via persistent U.S. trade deficits was tantamount to a tax—an inflation tax.
When in 1971 foreigners demanded payment for their dollars in gold, The U.S. Government defaulted on its payments on August 15. The popular spin of this default was that “the link between the dollar and gold was severed”. The proper interpretation is that the U.S. Government went bankrupt, just like any commercial bank is declared bankrupt.
However, by doing so, the U.S. declared itself an Empire. It had extracted an enormous amount of economic goods from the rest of the world, with no intention or ability to return those goods. The world was effectively taxed and it could not do anything about it: it could not force the U.S. in bankruptcy proceedings and take possession of its gold and other assets for payment, nor could it take forcefully what it was owed by declaring war and winning it. Essentially, the U.S. imposed on the world an inflation tax and collected an imperial seigniorage!
From that point on, to sustain the American Empire and to continue to tax the rest of the world via inflation, the United States had to force the world to continue to accept ever depreciating dollars in exchange for economic goods and to have the world hold more and more of those dollars, while those dollars depreciated. It had to give the world an economic reason to hold dollars, and that reason was oil.
In 1971, as it became clear that the U.S. Government would not be able to buy back its dollars for gold, it prepared an alternative arrangement to hold the world hostage to its fiat dollar: during 1972-1973 it struck an iron-clad arrangement with Saudi Arabia—to support the rule of the House of Saud in exchange for accepting only dollars as a payment for Saudi oil. By imposing the dollar on the OPEC’s leader, the dollar was effectively imposed on all OPEC members. Because the world had to buy oil from the Arab oil countries, it had the reason to hold dollars as payment for oil. Because the world needed ever increasing quantities of oil at an ever increasing oil prices, the world’s demand for dollars could only increase. Even though dollars were no longer exchangeable for gold, they were now exchangeable for oil.
The economic essence of this arrangement was that the dollar was now backed by oil. As long as that was the case, the world had to accumulate increasing amounts of dollars, because those dollars were needed to buy oil. As long as the dollar was the only payment for oil, its dominance in the world was assured, and the American Empire could continue to tax the rest of the world. If, for any reason, the dollar lost its oil backing, the American Empire would cease to exist, because it would no longer be able to tax the world by making them accumulate ever more dollars. Thus, Imperial survival dictated that oil be sold only for dollars. It also implied that oil reserves were spread around various sovereign states that none was strong enough, economically or militarily, to demand payment for oil in something other than dollars. If someone demanded a different payment, he had to be convinced, either by political or by military means, to change his mind.
The man that actually did demand Euro for his oil was Saddam Hussein in late 2000. At first, his demand was met with ridicule, later with neglect, but as it became clearer that he meant his demand and even converted his $10 billion reserve fund at the U.N. into Euro, political pressure was exerted to change his mind. Other countries, like Iran, also wanted payment in other currencies, most notably Euro and Yen. The danger to the dollar was clear and present, so a punitive action was in order. Bush’s war in Iraq was not about existing weapons of mass destruction, about defending human rights, about spreading democracy, or even about seizing oil fields. It was about defending the dollar, ergo the American Empire; it was about setting an example that anyone who demanded payment in currencies other than U.S. Dollars would be likewise punished.
Many have criticized Bush for staging the war in Iraq in order to seize Iraqi oil fields. However, those critics can’t explain why Bush would need to seize those fields—he could simply print dollars for nothing and use them to get all the oil in the world that he needs. He must have had some other reason to invade Iraq.
History teaches that an empire goes to war for one of two reasons: (1) to defend itself or (2) benefit from war. Economically speaking, in order for an empire to initiate and conduct a war, its benefits must outweigh its military and social costs. Benefits from Iraqi oil fields are hardly worth the long-term, multi-year military cost. Bush went into Iraq to defend the American Empire. Indeed, this is the case: two months after the United States invaded Iraq, the Oil for Food Program was ended, the country’s accounts were switched back to dollars, and oil began to be sold once again only for U.S. dollars. No longer could the world buy oil from Iraq with Euro. Global dollar supremacy was once again restored. Bush descended from a fighter jet and declared himself the victor: the mission was indeed accomplished—Bush successfully defended the U.S. dollar, and thus the American Empire.
II. Iranian Oil Bourse
The Iranian government has recently proposed to open in March 2006 an Iranian Oil Bourse that will be based on an euro-based oil-trading mechanism that naturally implies payment for oil in Euro. In economic terms, this represents a much greater threat to the hegemony of the dollar than Saddam’s, because it will allow anyone willing either to buy or to sell oil for Euro to transact on the exchange, thus circumventing the U.S. dollar altogether. If so, then it is likely that much of the world will eagerly adopt this euro-denominated oil system:
* The Europeans will not have to buy and hold dollars in order to secure their payment for oil, but would instead use with their own currency.
* The Chinese and the Japanese will be especially eager to adopt the new exchange. It will allow them to drastically lower their enormous dollar reserves and diversify them with Euros. One portion of their dollars they will still want to hold onto; another portion of their dollar holdings they may decide to dump outright; a third portion of their hoards they will decide to use up for future payments without replenishing their dollar holdings, but building up instead their euro reserves.
* The Russians have economic interest in adopting the Euro – the bulk of their trade is with European countries, with oil-exporting countries, with China, and with Japan. Adoption of the Euro will immediately take care of the first two blocs, and will over time facilitate trade with China and Japan. Also, Russians seemingly detest holding depreciating dollars, for they have recently found a new religion with gold: their central bank is diversifying out of dollars and accumulating gold. Russians have also revived their nationalism; if embracing the Euro will stab the Americans, they will gladly do it and smugly watch the Americans bleed.
* The Arab oil-exporting countries will eagerly adopt the Euro as a means of diversification against rising mountains of depreciating dollars. Just like the Russians, their trade is mostly with European countries, and therefore will prefer the European currency both for its stability and for avoiding currency risk.
Only the British will find themselves between a rock and a hard place. They have had a strategic partnership with the U.S. forever, but have also had their natural pull from Europe. So far, they have had many reasons to stick with the winner. However, when they see their century-old partner falling, will they firmly stand behind him or will they deliver the coup de grace? Still, we should not forget that currently the two leading oil exchanges are the New York’s NYMEX and the London’s International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), even though both of them are effectively owned by Americans. It seems more likely that the British will have to go down with the sinking ship, for otherwise they will be shooting themselves in the foot by hurting their own London IPE interests. It is here noteworthy that for all the rhetoric about the reasons for the surviving British Pound, the British most likely did not adopt the Euro namely because the Americans must have pressured them not to: otherwise the London IPE would have had to switch to Euros, thus mortally wounding the dollar and their strategic partner.
At any rate, no matter what the British decide, should the Iranian Oil Bourse gain momentum and accelerate, the interests that matter—those of Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, and Arabs—will eagerly adopt the Euro, thus sealing the fate of the dollar. Americans cannot allow this to happen, and if necessary, will use a vast array of strategies to halt or hobble the exchange’s operations:
* Sabotaging the Exchange—this could be a computer virus, network, communications, or server attack, various server security breaches, or a 9-11-type attack on main and backup facilities.
* Coup d’état—this is by far the best long-term strategy available to the Americans.
* Negotiating Acceptable Terms & Limitations—this is another excellent solution to the Americans. Of course, a government coup is clearly the preferred strategy, for it will ensure that the exchange does not operate at all and does not threaten American interests. However, if an attempted sabotage or coup d’etat fail, then negotiation is clearly the second-best available option.
* Joint U.N. War Resolution—this will be, no doubt, hard to secure given the interests of all other members of the Security Council. Recent rhetoric about Iranians developing nuclear weapons undoubtedly serves to prepare this course of action.
* Unilateral Nuclear Strike—this is a terrible strategic choice for all the reasons associated with the next strategy, the Unilateral Total War. The American will likely use Israel to do their dirty nuclear job.
* Unilateral Total War—this is obviously the worst strategic choice. First, the U.S. military resources have been already depleted with two wars. Secondly, the Americans will alienate other powerful nations. Third, major reserve countries may decide to quietly retaliate by dumping their own mountains of dollars, thus preventing the U.S. from further financing its militant ambitions. Finally, Iran has strategic alliances with other powerful nations that may trigger their involvement in war; Iran reputedly has such alliance with China, India, and Russia, known as the Shanghai Cooperative Group, a.k.a. Shanghai Coop.
Whatever the strategic choice, from a purely economic point of view, should the Iranian Oil Bourse gain momentum, it will be eagerly embraced by major economic powers and will precipitate the demise of the dollar.
III. The Demise of the Dollar
The collapsing dollar will dramatically accelerate U.S. inflation and will pressure short-term and long-term interest rates much higher. At this point, the Fed will find itself between two equally disastrous options—deflation or hyperinflation. The first option, deflation, known in the international finance literature as the “classical medicine”, requires stopping the monetary expansion and raising interest rates, thus inducing a major economic depression, a collapse in real estate prices, and an implosion in bond, stock, and derivative markets, most likely precipitating a total financial collapse. The alternative option is to take the easy way out by inflating, whereby the Fed pegs the long-bond yield, raises the Helicopters and drowns the financial system in liquidity, bailing out numerous LTCMs and hyperinflating the economy.
The Austrian theory of money, credit, and the business cycle teaches us that ultimately there is no in-between the mythological Scylla and Charybdis scenario—between deflation and hyperinflation. Sooner or later, as pressure on the dollar rises and inflation rears its ugly head, the monetary system must swing one way or the other, forcing the Fed to make its choice. There is no doubt that the newly-appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, an renowned scholar of the Great Depression and an adept helicopter pilot, will choose the latter course of action—hyperinflation. Bernanke has learnt well the lessons of the Great Depression and the destructiveness of deflations. He has also learnt well from the Maestro the panacea of every financial problem—to inflate his way out, come hell or high water. He has even devised ingenious unconventional ways around the deflationary liquidity trap and teaches the Japanese how to apply them. To avoid deflation, he has publicly stated that he will accelerate the printing presses and “drop money from helicopters”. If necessary, he will monetize everything in sight. He will ultimately destroy the American currency in Hyperinflation.
Hyperinflations, however, do not happen in an instant. It usually takes years before the final collapse. The Weimar hyperinflation began around 1920 and ended in 1923 with the total destruction of the currency. Similar was the fate of some post-communist countries: it took Russia and Bulgaria 7-8 years to hyperinflate their currencies before they ultimately destroyed them.
However, because the dollar is the reserve currency of the world, hyperinflating the dollar will be fundamentally different in two ways from all hyperinflations in history. On the one hand, there are tens of trillions of dollar-denominated debt and hundreds of trillions of dollar-denominated derivatives. Given that the ratio of currency to debts and derivatives is tiny, the coming hyperinflation must be necessarily of epic proportions. On the other hand, central banks around the world will fight tooth and nail to support the dollar, so that world financial system does not collapse and that their reserves do not evaporate into the nothingness. Many central banks will choose willy-nilly to support the dollar by inflating their own currencies. Thus, these two powerful forces will drive the dollar in opposite directions. Its inevitable demise may be swift and sudden, or it may be protracted and painful.
Whatever the speed of hyperinflation, ordinary Americans will have few available options to protect themselves—during crises, peoples’ first instinct is to resort to more “stable” fiat currencies of neighboring countries, like the Canadian Dollar and the Mexican Peso, but their availability will prove limited and complicated as people will most likely have to cope with governmentally-imposed capital controls. Next, people instinctively convert hyperinflating currencies to hard assets like land and real estate, but sellers refuse to accept the hyperinflating currency and quickly disappear from the market. Having run out of meaningful options to protect themselves, ordinary people will have little choice, but to convert their dollars to hard currencies like gold and silver, thus driving their prices much higher. On the other hand, central banks have no other options but gold. First, in times of crises, central banks fear the risk inherent in all fiat currencies. Moreover, not even the largest fiat currencies will accommodate their need to convert their reserves. Also, it is not practical for central banks to hold real estate and land. Thus, central banks will have no alternative, but to scramble to convert their reserves to the only hard currency known to man—gold. Historically, in times of crises, gold has always been the ultimate safe haven. When people and central banks flee en masse to gold, its value has always skyrocketed. This time, it will be no different.
© 2006 Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D.
We continue our series about the Euro / US-Dollar competition with an article published in January 2006 written by somebody who considers gold a worthy investment.
The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse
by Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D.
Austrian Macro Economist/Investment Strategist
Commissioned by: J. Douglas Bowey and Associates
January 20, 2006
Abstract
The American Empire depends on the U.S. dollar. The proposed Iranian Oil Bourse will accelerate the fall of the U.S. dollar and hence the fall of the American Empire.
I. Economics of Empires
A nation-state taxes its own citizens, while an empire taxes other nation-states. The history of empires, from Greek and Roman, to Ottoman and British, teaches that the economic foundation of every single empire is the taxation of other nations or of their subjects. The imperial ability to tax has always rested on a better and stronger economy, and as a consequence, a better and stronger military that peacefully or militarily enforced the tax. One part of those taxes went to improve the living standards of the empire and the other part went to reinforce the military dominance necessary to enforce those taxes.
Historically, taxing the subject state has been in various forms, usually gold and silver, where those were considered money, but also slaves, soldiers, crops, cattle, or other agricultural and natural resources, whatever economic goods the empire demanded and the subject-state could deliver. Historically, the taxation has always been direct: the subject state handed over the money (gold/silver) or the economic goods directly to the empire.
For the first time in history, in the twentieth century, America was able to tax the world indirectly—not by enforcing the direct payment of taxes like all of its predecessor empires did, but by distributing its own currency, the U.S. Dollar, to other nations in exchange for goods with the intended consequence of devaluing over time those dollars and paying back later each dollar with less economic goods. The difference between the value of the dollar during the initial purchase and the devalued dollar during the repayment was the U.S. imperial tax. Here is how this happened.
Early in the 20th century, the U.S. economy began to dominate the world economy. At the time the U.S. dollar was tied to gold, so that the dollar neither increased, nor decreased its value, but was always convertible into the same amount of gold. The Great Depression with its the preceding inflation from 1921 to 1929 substantially increased the amount of paper money in circulation without the correspondent increase in gold. This rendered the effective backing of the U.S. dollar by gold impossible. As a consequence, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decoupled the dollar from gold in 1932. Up to this point, the U.S. may have well dominated the world economy, but from an economic point of view, it was not technically an empire. The fixed value of the dollar for gold did not allow the Americans to extract economic benefits from other countries by supplying them with gold-backed dollars.
Economically, the American Empire was born with the establishment of the Bretton Woods system in 1945. The dollar was made only partially convertible to gold—convertibility to gold was available to foreign governments only, but not to private institutions. At this time the US dollar was established as the international reserve currency. This was possible, because during WWII, the United States had supplied its allies with food and military provisions, accepting gold as payment, thus accumulating significant portion of the world’s gold.
An economic Empire would not have been possible if the dollar remained fully backed by gold, i.e., if the dollar supply was kept limited and within the availability of gold, so as to exchange back dollars for gold at the pre-agreed exchange ratio. However, the dollar supply was actually increased far beyond its gold backing and handed over to foreigners in exchange for economic goods. There was no prospect of buying back those dollars at the same value—the amount of gold was not sufficient to redeem those dollars, while the quantity of dollars continually increased, so that those dollars constantly depreciated. The constant depreciation of the increasing dollar holdings of foreigners via persistent U.S. trade deficits was tantamount to a tax—an inflation tax.
When in 1971 foreigners demanded payment for their dollars in gold, The U.S. Government defaulted on its payments on August 15. The popular spin of this default was that “the link between the dollar and gold was severed”. The proper interpretation is that the U.S. Government went bankrupt, just like any commercial bank is declared bankrupt.
However, by doing so, the U.S. declared itself an Empire. It had extracted an enormous amount of economic goods from the rest of the world, with no intention or ability to return those goods. The world was effectively taxed and it could not do anything about it: it could not force the U.S. in bankruptcy proceedings and take possession of its gold and other assets for payment, nor could it take forcefully what it was owed by declaring war and winning it. Essentially, the U.S. imposed on the world an inflation tax and collected an imperial seigniorage!
From that point on, to sustain the American Empire and to continue to tax the rest of the world via inflation, the United States had to force the world to continue to accept ever depreciating dollars in exchange for economic goods and to have the world hold more and more of those dollars, while those dollars depreciated. It had to give the world an economic reason to hold dollars, and that reason was oil.
In 1971, as it became clear that the U.S. Government would not be able to buy back its dollars for gold, it prepared an alternative arrangement to hold the world hostage to its fiat dollar: during 1972-1973 it struck an iron-clad arrangement with Saudi Arabia—to support the rule of the House of Saud in exchange for accepting only dollars as a payment for Saudi oil. By imposing the dollar on the OPEC’s leader, the dollar was effectively imposed on all OPEC members. Because the world had to buy oil from the Arab oil countries, it had the reason to hold dollars as payment for oil. Because the world needed ever increasing quantities of oil at an ever increasing oil prices, the world’s demand for dollars could only increase. Even though dollars were no longer exchangeable for gold, they were now exchangeable for oil.
The economic essence of this arrangement was that the dollar was now backed by oil. As long as that was the case, the world had to accumulate increasing amounts of dollars, because those dollars were needed to buy oil. As long as the dollar was the only payment for oil, its dominance in the world was assured, and the American Empire could continue to tax the rest of the world. If, for any reason, the dollar lost its oil backing, the American Empire would cease to exist, because it would no longer be able to tax the world by making them accumulate ever more dollars. Thus, Imperial survival dictated that oil be sold only for dollars. It also implied that oil reserves were spread around various sovereign states that none was strong enough, economically or militarily, to demand payment for oil in something other than dollars. If someone demanded a different payment, he had to be convinced, either by political or by military means, to change his mind.
The man that actually did demand Euro for his oil was Saddam Hussein in late 2000. At first, his demand was met with ridicule, later with neglect, but as it became clearer that he meant his demand and even converted his $10 billion reserve fund at the U.N. into Euro, political pressure was exerted to change his mind. Other countries, like Iran, also wanted payment in other currencies, most notably Euro and Yen. The danger to the dollar was clear and present, so a punitive action was in order. Bush’s war in Iraq was not about existing weapons of mass destruction, about defending human rights, about spreading democracy, or even about seizing oil fields. It was about defending the dollar, ergo the American Empire; it was about setting an example that anyone who demanded payment in currencies other than U.S. Dollars would be likewise punished.
Many have criticized Bush for staging the war in Iraq in order to seize Iraqi oil fields. However, those critics can’t explain why Bush would need to seize those fields—he could simply print dollars for nothing and use them to get all the oil in the world that he needs. He must have had some other reason to invade Iraq.
History teaches that an empire goes to war for one of two reasons: (1) to defend itself or (2) benefit from war. Economically speaking, in order for an empire to initiate and conduct a war, its benefits must outweigh its military and social costs. Benefits from Iraqi oil fields are hardly worth the long-term, multi-year military cost. Bush went into Iraq to defend the American Empire. Indeed, this is the case: two months after the United States invaded Iraq, the Oil for Food Program was ended, the country’s accounts were switched back to dollars, and oil began to be sold once again only for U.S. dollars. No longer could the world buy oil from Iraq with Euro. Global dollar supremacy was once again restored. Bush descended from a fighter jet and declared himself the victor: the mission was indeed accomplished—Bush successfully defended the U.S. dollar, and thus the American Empire.
II. Iranian Oil Bourse
The Iranian government has recently proposed to open in March 2006 an Iranian Oil Bourse that will be based on an euro-based oil-trading mechanism that naturally implies payment for oil in Euro. In economic terms, this represents a much greater threat to the hegemony of the dollar than Saddam’s, because it will allow anyone willing either to buy or to sell oil for Euro to transact on the exchange, thus circumventing the U.S. dollar altogether. If so, then it is likely that much of the world will eagerly adopt this euro-denominated oil system:
* The Europeans will not have to buy and hold dollars in order to secure their payment for oil, but would instead use with their own currency.
* The Chinese and the Japanese will be especially eager to adopt the new exchange. It will allow them to drastically lower their enormous dollar reserves and diversify them with Euros. One portion of their dollars they will still want to hold onto; another portion of their dollar holdings they may decide to dump outright; a third portion of their hoards they will decide to use up for future payments without replenishing their dollar holdings, but building up instead their euro reserves.
* The Russians have economic interest in adopting the Euro – the bulk of their trade is with European countries, with oil-exporting countries, with China, and with Japan. Adoption of the Euro will immediately take care of the first two blocs, and will over time facilitate trade with China and Japan. Also, Russians seemingly detest holding depreciating dollars, for they have recently found a new religion with gold: their central bank is diversifying out of dollars and accumulating gold. Russians have also revived their nationalism; if embracing the Euro will stab the Americans, they will gladly do it and smugly watch the Americans bleed.
* The Arab oil-exporting countries will eagerly adopt the Euro as a means of diversification against rising mountains of depreciating dollars. Just like the Russians, their trade is mostly with European countries, and therefore will prefer the European currency both for its stability and for avoiding currency risk.
Only the British will find themselves between a rock and a hard place. They have had a strategic partnership with the U.S. forever, but have also had their natural pull from Europe. So far, they have had many reasons to stick with the winner. However, when they see their century-old partner falling, will they firmly stand behind him or will they deliver the coup de grace? Still, we should not forget that currently the two leading oil exchanges are the New York’s NYMEX and the London’s International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), even though both of them are effectively owned by Americans. It seems more likely that the British will have to go down with the sinking ship, for otherwise they will be shooting themselves in the foot by hurting their own London IPE interests. It is here noteworthy that for all the rhetoric about the reasons for the surviving British Pound, the British most likely did not adopt the Euro namely because the Americans must have pressured them not to: otherwise the London IPE would have had to switch to Euros, thus mortally wounding the dollar and their strategic partner.
At any rate, no matter what the British decide, should the Iranian Oil Bourse gain momentum and accelerate, the interests that matter—those of Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, and Arabs—will eagerly adopt the Euro, thus sealing the fate of the dollar. Americans cannot allow this to happen, and if necessary, will use a vast array of strategies to halt or hobble the exchange’s operations:
* Sabotaging the Exchange—this could be a computer virus, network, communications, or server attack, various server security breaches, or a 9-11-type attack on main and backup facilities.
* Coup d’état—this is by far the best long-term strategy available to the Americans.
* Negotiating Acceptable Terms & Limitations—this is another excellent solution to the Americans. Of course, a government coup is clearly the preferred strategy, for it will ensure that the exchange does not operate at all and does not threaten American interests. However, if an attempted sabotage or coup d’etat fail, then negotiation is clearly the second-best available option.
* Joint U.N. War Resolution—this will be, no doubt, hard to secure given the interests of all other members of the Security Council. Recent rhetoric about Iranians developing nuclear weapons undoubtedly serves to prepare this course of action.
* Unilateral Nuclear Strike—this is a terrible strategic choice for all the reasons associated with the next strategy, the Unilateral Total War. The American will likely use Israel to do their dirty nuclear job.
* Unilateral Total War—this is obviously the worst strategic choice. First, the U.S. military resources have been already depleted with two wars. Secondly, the Americans will alienate other powerful nations. Third, major reserve countries may decide to quietly retaliate by dumping their own mountains of dollars, thus preventing the U.S. from further financing its militant ambitions. Finally, Iran has strategic alliances with other powerful nations that may trigger their involvement in war; Iran reputedly has such alliance with China, India, and Russia, known as the Shanghai Cooperative Group, a.k.a. Shanghai Coop.
Whatever the strategic choice, from a purely economic point of view, should the Iranian Oil Bourse gain momentum, it will be eagerly embraced by major economic powers and will precipitate the demise of the dollar.
III. The Demise of the Dollar
The collapsing dollar will dramatically accelerate U.S. inflation and will pressure short-term and long-term interest rates much higher. At this point, the Fed will find itself between two equally disastrous options—deflation or hyperinflation. The first option, deflation, known in the international finance literature as the “classical medicine”, requires stopping the monetary expansion and raising interest rates, thus inducing a major economic depression, a collapse in real estate prices, and an implosion in bond, stock, and derivative markets, most likely precipitating a total financial collapse. The alternative option is to take the easy way out by inflating, whereby the Fed pegs the long-bond yield, raises the Helicopters and drowns the financial system in liquidity, bailing out numerous LTCMs and hyperinflating the economy.
The Austrian theory of money, credit, and the business cycle teaches us that ultimately there is no in-between the mythological Scylla and Charybdis scenario—between deflation and hyperinflation. Sooner or later, as pressure on the dollar rises and inflation rears its ugly head, the monetary system must swing one way or the other, forcing the Fed to make its choice. There is no doubt that the newly-appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, an renowned scholar of the Great Depression and an adept helicopter pilot, will choose the latter course of action—hyperinflation. Bernanke has learnt well the lessons of the Great Depression and the destructiveness of deflations. He has also learnt well from the Maestro the panacea of every financial problem—to inflate his way out, come hell or high water. He has even devised ingenious unconventional ways around the deflationary liquidity trap and teaches the Japanese how to apply them. To avoid deflation, he has publicly stated that he will accelerate the printing presses and “drop money from helicopters”. If necessary, he will monetize everything in sight. He will ultimately destroy the American currency in Hyperinflation.
Hyperinflations, however, do not happen in an instant. It usually takes years before the final collapse. The Weimar hyperinflation began around 1920 and ended in 1923 with the total destruction of the currency. Similar was the fate of some post-communist countries: it took Russia and Bulgaria 7-8 years to hyperinflate their currencies before they ultimately destroyed them.
However, because the dollar is the reserve currency of the world, hyperinflating the dollar will be fundamentally different in two ways from all hyperinflations in history. On the one hand, there are tens of trillions of dollar-denominated debt and hundreds of trillions of dollar-denominated derivatives. Given that the ratio of currency to debts and derivatives is tiny, the coming hyperinflation must be necessarily of epic proportions. On the other hand, central banks around the world will fight tooth and nail to support the dollar, so that world financial system does not collapse and that their reserves do not evaporate into the nothingness. Many central banks will choose willy-nilly to support the dollar by inflating their own currencies. Thus, these two powerful forces will drive the dollar in opposite directions. Its inevitable demise may be swift and sudden, or it may be protracted and painful.
Whatever the speed of hyperinflation, ordinary Americans will have few available options to protect themselves—during crises, peoples’ first instinct is to resort to more “stable” fiat currencies of neighboring countries, like the Canadian Dollar and the Mexican Peso, but their availability will prove limited and complicated as people will most likely have to cope with governmentally-imposed capital controls. Next, people instinctively convert hyperinflating currencies to hard assets like land and real estate, but sellers refuse to accept the hyperinflating currency and quickly disappear from the market. Having run out of meaningful options to protect themselves, ordinary people will have little choice, but to convert their dollars to hard currencies like gold and silver, thus driving their prices much higher. On the other hand, central banks have no other options but gold. First, in times of crises, central banks fear the risk inherent in all fiat currencies. Moreover, not even the largest fiat currencies will accommodate their need to convert their reserves. Also, it is not practical for central banks to hold real estate and land. Thus, central banks will have no alternative, but to scramble to convert their reserves to the only hard currency known to man—gold. Historically, in times of crises, gold has always been the ultimate safe haven. When people and central banks flee en masse to gold, its value has always skyrocketed. This time, it will be no different.
© 2006 Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D.
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