Varčevanje in norost, primer Nizozemske

2 decembra, 2013 By in gospodarstvo 1 komentar

Simon Wren-Lewis o norosti, ki uspe zdravo ekonomijo, kot je Nizozemska, z butasto politiko spraviti v resne težave.

Here we go again

  1. Government embarks on austerity, to try and maintain the confidence of the bond markets. We must preserve the AAA rating for our government’s debt, says the finance minister.
  2. Austerity reduces demand, helping create flat or negative growth.
  3. As a result, deficit targets keep being missed. Additional austerity is imposed, and growth declines again.
  4. Country loses its AAA rating, and the credit rating agency gives concerns about poor growth as an important factor for the downgrade.
  5. This confirms our fears, says the finance minister. We must redouble our efforts to reduce our debt.

This will sound familiar to UK ears, but it is also what has just happened in the Netherlands.

…

So why am I writing this post? Because it seems important to record the progress of another country beside my own that is going down a depressingly predictable path. When I last wrote about the Netherlands, some positive growth was expected for 2014, but the OECD’s latest forecast shows GDP flat next year. These forecasts also have consumer price inflation below 2% in 2014 and below 1% in 2015. The output gap is currently over (negative) 4%, and is expected to reach -5.5% in 2015. Unemployment, which was only 4.3% in 2011, is expected to rise to 8.1% in 2015.
 
Like the UK, the Netherlands is a country with no problem selling its debt. It has no macroeconomic need to achieve an expected (by the OECD) underlying general government surplus by 2015. As Jacob’s notes, there is no question of an unsustainable long run fiscal position. The only major lever the government has to do something about lack of growth and rising unemployment is fiscal policy, yet it is using this lever in completely the wrong (pro-cyclical) direction, making everything worse.
 

A crazy policy. Yet it is followed by both centre-left and centre-right parties, even though this means these parties are haemorrhaging support to those further left and right. It is a policy supported by the central bank, which was one of those voting against the recent cut in ECB interest rates. The CPB, the country’s fiscal council that used to be a voice of sanity on fiscal matters, appears silent on the issue. Everyone can blame the Eurozone’s Fiscal Compact of course, but among the political centre they do not.

Vir: Simon Wren-Lewis

En odgovor

  1. Najprej ne vem, če lahko za Slovenijo rečemo, da nima problema z zadolževanjem.

    Kot drugo pa se mi zdi, da mi pod pojem varčevanja tiščimo različne stvari — pametne in neumne.

    Če gradbeništvo propada, stroji stojijo, delavci so na borzi, obenem pa ceste cvetijo, se mi zdi neumno “varčevati” pri investicijah.

    Če pa se lahko, recimo, zdravstvo reorganizira, če bi lahko splošne preglede opravljali koncesionarji doma za manjši denar, se mi pa spet zdi neumno, da tega ne storimo.

    Varčevanje, pač v smislu, da je potrebno vsaj prbližno izravnati, kar porabimo in zaslužimo, bo verjetno vedno potrebno. Kriza gor ali dol. Vedno je želja več kot pa možnosti. Neko balansiranje je nujno. Zelo pomembno pa je, za kaj se odločimo.

    Zato se mi zdi sploh uporabljati pojem varčevanje prej škodljivo kot koristno. Morda zaradi dreves ne vidim gozda, sem pa prepričan, da se za gozd skrbi tako, da se gre od drevesa do drevesa. Katero je za posekat, kje je morebiti zasaditi novega, kje urediti cesto, kje mejno znamenje.

    Nasplošno pa se mi zdi, da se ekonomija s poglabljanjem krize vedno bolj zateka k (celo panevropskim!) matematičnim modelom, zalo malo pa je konkretnih predlogov in izračunov. In ne: “oživitev gospodarske aktivnosti”, “odprava kreditnega krča”, itd., niso konkretni predlogi.

    Všeč mi je