Dober komentar Petra Doyla, nekdanjega uslužbenca IMF, v Financial Timesu o tem, zakaj so zahteve IMF (ter EU in ECB) glede znižanja pokojnin, dviga DDV in strukturnih reform na trgu dela povsem neosnovane. Ne bodo vodile k temu, kar pričakuje trojka (rast potencialnega BDP), pač pa bodo še zaostrile situacijo na trgu dela in povečale revščino. V Grčiji vzrok za nizko participacijo na trgu dela in visoko brezposelnost ni pomanjkanje dela zmožnih in voljnih, pač pa dramatični izpad povpraševanja. Ukrepi za dvig zaposlenosti bi morali ciljati na povečanje agregatnega povpraševanja, ne pa še na dodatno zategovanje pasu prek zahtevanega visokega primarnega presežka v proračunu.

Drugače rečeno, če želijo upnice dobiti poplačan grški dolg, morajo spodbuditi rast v Grčiji, namesto, da jo kratkoročno in srednjeročno zavirajo z dodatnim zategovanjem pasu.

Troika-Greek negotiations are reportedly down to the wire over early-retirement pensions, VAT, and labor reforms: the IMF says all are non-negotiable; Tsipras, perhaps inadvertently echoing Mrs. Thatcher, has, so far, responded “No! No! No!”

These three issues converge on those at the upper end of their working lives, the 50-74 year old cohort, and are reflected in its participation and unemployment behavior. So it is worth considering data on those and the associated implications for the negotiations. Doing so suggests that these creditor red lines lack foundation.

…

This makes clear that any notion that the evident disfunction in the labor market in Greece—and hence the country’s long-term growth performance—is amenable even to enormous short-term parametric fixes on early-pensions, VAT, and wages in the current negotiations can be set aside. Disfunction is very deeply entrenched indeed.

The implication is that further draconian policy requirements on these matters in the current negotiations will primarily impact household income and fiscal out-turns, rather than raising potential-growth prospects over any policy-relevant horizon.

This conclusion contradicts the IMF insistence on redlining these proposals as essential to raise potential growth. Not only has the IMF failed to identify what the specific entrenched structural roots of non-participation are, but it has also failed to explain why those low rates have not been dislodged in the past five years despite the barrage of ferocious IMF-designed actions aimed to do just that. The case for red-lining reforms in these areas as “essential to Greek growth” is, thus, entirely blind in regard to the key cohort of the labor force to which the argument pertains.

Put another way, as a source of structural growth, the effects of the now red-lined pension, VAT, and labor reforms are, at best, unknown. But what is known is that further such reforms in these areas, now, as those in the recent past, will immiserate.

…

Here the reason for the immiseration rather than growth-enhancing effects of pension, VAT, and wage reforms is apparent: the “discouraged-worker” effect. Despite, on conventional assessments, labor now competitive as indicated by relative unit labor costs and wage costs well down, this cohort’s unemployment rates soared, driving participation rates below trend. Any effect of parametric reforms in raising this cohort’s labor supply has been undone by lack of demand and joblessness.

Thus, the immediate impediment to potential growth is not lack of labor supply; it is lack of demand. Further parametric adjustments to increase the supply of workers will only aggravate this problem, as, via standard multiplier effects, will creditor requirements to further increase the primary surplus towards 3 1/2 percent of GDP.

…

But if these pension, VAT, and labor reforms are, as evident, not potential-growth enhancing but immiserating, they are not “tough for Greece to swallow” but rather they are technically incoherent and so will not work. They “blindly” concern the supply-side when demand is the issue, and they aggravate demand problems. And if the corresponding debt reduction commitment is insufficiently clear or deep to radically dislodge the primary surplus targets, this “high political” deal will certainly be no means to avert disaster. It will only stoke the latent explosiveness of Greece.

So, instead, rather than compound the dire consequences arising from 2010 onwards occasioned by serially faulty IMF numbers on Greece, it is time to insist that IMF numbers do, finally, add up. And in that context, creditor proposals should be rendered technically coherent by withdrawal of these three unsubstantiated reform red lines and by immediate deep public debt write-offs to avert need for any further increases in primary surpluses.

Too much of a political “victory” for Syriza? Perhaps, but the creditors have only themselves to blame that after a long series of appalling decisions on their part, they have allowed this to become the only way left to avert the worst for Greece and for the Euro, and therefore for Europe and the World.

Vir: Peter Doyle, Financial Times