Adam Tooze, ekonomski zgodovinar in avtor knjige “Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World“, je včeraj v Financial Timesu imel podobno poanto, kot jaz. In sicer, da v današnjih razmerah ne moremo pričakovati izbruha inflacije, ker pač denar iz centralnih bank ostaja v obliki depozitov poslovnih bank na centralnih bankah (tisti iz odkupovanja državnih obveznic pa je v balonih na kapitalskih trgih), s čimer pa ostajajo perpektive glede spodbujene gospodarske rasti dokaj mizerne.

Vendar Toozeja skrbi nekaj drugega, in sicer kako bomo odplačali te povečane dolgove držav, če jih – tako kot po drugi svetovni vojni – ne bo delno pojedla višja inflacija, delno pa višja gospodarska rast? Skrbi ga, da ne bi v neki točki sredi naslednjega leta po nareku Evropske komisije vlade spet začele s fiskalnimi konsolidacijami (s politikami varčevanja), ki so se v preteklem desetletju izkazale kot katastrofalne za okrevanje in stabilno rast.

Jaz situacije ne vidim tako črno, saj tokrat države novo izdan dolg (po letu 2015) dolgujejo večinoma same sebi (vlade dolgujejo centralnim bankam). In centralne banke lahko določijo, kako hitro – če sploh kdaj – se bo ta dolg poplačal. Drugi moment pa je, da so pred nami tako pereči problemi, kot so klimatske spremembe in staranje prebivalstva. Oba problema sta v bistvu priložnost za višjo in stabilno rast. Klimatske spremembe zahtevajo nove investicije v zelene (nizko ogljično intenzivne) proizvodne tehnologije, energetske vire in proizvode. To pa ob visokih investicijah prinaša povsem nove tehnološke rešitve in proizvode. Prav tako staranje prebivalstva prinaša povsem nove poslovne priložnosti (varovana stanovanja, dolgotrajna oskrba, bolj kompleksne zdravstvene storitve, industrija zabave za starejše itd.) in nove poslovne modele za ponudnike. Oboje prinaša gospodarsko rast, le da se težišče prenaša drugam.

Dejstvo pa je, da se je na te izzive potrebno načrtno in sistematično odzvati na ravni vlad z novimi strategijami. Evropski Green new deal in Načrt za okrevanje in odpornost sta po mojem mnenju pravi odgovor na te izzive, saj ob pravilnih strateških usmeritvah le-te podpirata tudi z 1,824 milijard evrov težkim proračunom za naslednjih 7 let. Tokrat ne gre le za besede, pač pa besede spremlja tudi denar.

We cannot count on rapid growth to help us pay that debt. Nor will inflation come to our rescue to eat away at its real value. Europe, like Japan before it, lives under the shadow of deflation. But what we do have going for us, in the absence of serious inflationary risk, is a newfound freedom in setting monetary and financial policy.

For all the influence of John Maynard Keynes and the introduction of welfare states, those who dealt with the financial aftermath of the second world war were conventional in their attachment to a modified version of the gold standard — currencies were pegged to the dollar, which was convertible to gold. This stemmed the risk of inflation but the results were repeated crises, as foreign exchange reserves ran perilously low. To contain those risks, fiscal discipline was tight in the decades after 1945.

We, by contrast, are heirs to the collapse of Bretton Woods in the 1970s. The money in which today’s governments owe their debts is fiat money: in other words, they make it themselves.

Interest rates are at rock bottom. There is no rush to repay the bonds. Central banks have warehoused vast quantities of them, which means that we effectively owe the debt to ourselves. The cash they conjured into existence to buy debt, sits idly on their balance sheets in the form of bank reserves, which show no sign of spilling over into real spending that might trigger inflationary pressure.

How we choose to handle this fragile equilibrium poses the most important decision facing global economies as we look for paths to recovery. The answer will be a test of our politics as telling, in its own way, as the response to the pandemic itself.

There will be those who are uncomfortable with this fact. They will claim, as the UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher did in the 1980s that “there is no alternative” to returning to a path of financial sustainability by way of urgent austerity measures. But the slogan masked a choice then, just as it did in 2010, when the UK’s coalition government, along with the rest of the G20, engaged in a disastrous round of belt-tightening. The result was to stunt the recovery.

We should learn from that mistake this time around and forgo austerity measures in favour of generous crisis relief for those most in need, and long-term investment in the transition to green energy.

Scientists may have provided much of the world with a miraculous fix for its botched handling of the pandemic, but there is no magic bullet for the problem of recovery. The next financial move is up to us to decide. Let us avoid embracing false necessities for a second time.

Vir: Adam Tooze, Financial Times