The British left needs to discuss more than the UK’s membership of the EU.

As the EU debate swings into life in the UK we’ve so far heard the most from the business sector who have been most pro in their advocacy of the UK’s continued membership. It is perhaps quite natural that big business would like the EU to remain as it is. Those on the traditional left would say that’s because they want to have a large pool of unemployed workers to keep wages down and maintain worker discipline!

Are they correct in saying that? As things are at the moment it is hard to say they aren’t. It is hard for big business to argue that they only want the EU for its expanded, but much depressed, market.

The modern supposedly progressive left has been seduced by the powers-that-be in the EU into thinking the EU to be a socially progressive organisation too. Recent events in Greece, for example, are shaking that view. That needs  to be shaken  some more. A first step would be to get them to actually discuss the problem. We might well think the election of Syriza in Greece, with its band of ex-Maoists, ex- Trotskyites, ex-Communists would be a topic of interest for them. Not so. They are shell-shocked into silence at the moment. The main Labour websites have nothing at all to say on that.

Anyone believing in a united Europe, as many of our EU advocates clearly do, should feel as passionately about unemployed young people in Spain or poverty in Greece as they do about it in the UK. The progressive left  say they like everything about the current level of EU integration, and like the EU as it is. If they ever remember to make a critical comment, it is not because they wish to change anything or intend to vote against any of its measures.

If the UK today had ultra high levels of youth unemployment as the south of the EU currently suffers,  the progressives would never let anyone hear the end of it. Rightly so. There would be marches  from the most depressed areas to London to demand some action.

If the UK had Greek levels of unemployment, and a Greek cost of living crisis which has depressed average real incomes by almost a quarter since 2007, again we would not hear the end of it, as the ‘progressives’ would rightly think it completely unacceptable. If the unemployment in Greece or Spain had been brought about by a right wing military coup, again there would be uproar. So why is it that these people who believe in pan European solidarity have nothing to say about the scandal of poverty and joblessness in large areas of Euroland? Why are they not insisting on new policies for the EU?

Now’s a good time to be saying something about that in connection with the EU referendum. The British left needs to discuss more than the UK’s membership of the EU. It needs to discuss the EU itself too.

Never mind the deficit just vote for the recovery!

It’s difficult to know who to back in next month’s UK elections. Europe is a major issue which the most normally sensible parties, or at least the parties who the public normally consider to be the more sensible,  have largely chosen to ignore  in the run up. The events in the eurozone are highly significant, in particular the Greek crisis,  yet those in the most pro-EU parties don’t want to talk about them at all.

There’s next to nothing about it on Labour’s main website, Labourlist, for example.

Funny that!  Those who believe in a united Europe, as many of our more ardent EU advocates clearly do, should feel as strongly about unemployed young people in Spain or poverty in Greece as about hardship in the UK.  Yet, if they ever remember to make a critical comment, it is not because they wish to change anything. The just expired Parliament has seen a complete absence of Labour opposition to any new laws or powers for the EU.

If the UK today had 50% youth unemployment as the south of Euroland currently suffers, Labour would never let us all hear the end of it – and rightly so. If the UK had Greek levels of unemployment, and a Greek cost of living crisis which has depressed average real incomes by almost a quarter since 2007, again we would not hear the end of it, as Labour would rightly think it completely unacceptable. So why is it that these people who believe in pan European solidarity have nothing to say about the scandal of poverty and joblessness in large chunks of Euroland? Why are they not insisting on new policies for the EU?

The situation is far from ideal but it’s probably best to vote for the party who you feel will produce the best recovery. The recovery, when it happens, will fix all deficit problems. Firstly a healthy economy will mean increased taxation revenue. Secondly, if the economy is healthy no-one is going to worry about debts and deficit anyway. The US$ is surging at present as investors buy up $ securities. Are they worried about a $17 trillion (or is it $18 trillion by now?) debt?

I don’t think so. There are those in the USA who can’t make head nor tail of it all and are pushing for a balanced budget. I can’t see them getting anywhere but heaven help us all if they do!

Eurozone electors have been sold a lemon!

Being sold a lemon means you have been tricked into buying something which is seriously defective. When you say that something is a lemon it implies that it is useless because it fails to work properly.

That’s a pretty good description of the the German dictated piece of financial engineering known as the Euro. It must rate as one of their worst ever engineering efforts. Even the much maligned East German Trabi is an engineering marvel by comparison.

Unlike the euro system, the Trabi has a starter motor to re-start the engine  after it has stalled!

The Euro, and the GSP rules that go with it, is clearly not fit for purpose. The Greek electorate is more than justified in demanding it be fixed under warranty. However, the makers have just declined, and are even insisting that the problems are all of the customer’s own making. No-one else has reported any problems! Except the Spanish, the Irish…….

There has to come a time when the buyer has to consider a  “lemon” is much more trouble than it is worth. The buyer  needs to stop making any further payments,  ask for a refund, ask for damages too,  and ultimately get rid of it.

Germans don’t understand how currency unions need to function.

The economic clash between Greece and Germany is invariably portrayed as a clash of cultures. The majority of Germans resent what they see, and are assured by those who should know better, as a bailing out, at their expense, of those in the southern peripheral European countries who appear to be unable to manage their economic affairs as well as they can.

      

That seems a perfectly commonsensical point of view but raw ‘common sense’, as always, in economics cannot be relied upon to be the best guide. Our common sense is invariably derived from our own micro-economic experience. The principle that it is better to be in surplus than deficit, for example, works fine for us as individuals in the micro world, but taking a wider view, that commonsensical notion is inconsistent with the basic accounting principle that for every asset there has to be a debt. For every surplus there has to be a deficit. Not everyone can be in surplus and not everyone can be in deficit.

So we need to correct our ‘commonsense’. Physicists, like Angela Merkel who therefore can have no excuse,  are used to doing exactly that. They know that their commonsense viewpoints of the world will only take them so far. It fails completely after that. Anyone who has studied Maxwell’s equations, Quantum Mechanics or Einstein’s Relativity knows that these subjects can make your brain hurt! After a while, we have to come to the conclusion that it is better to try to understand via the mathematics of it all rather than understand completely.

It is nowhere near as bad in economics,  but still just a little lateral thought is required. The easiest way to understand what needs to happen in the single currency eurozone, is to make a comparison with what already does happen in a successful currency union.

Let’s take a look at how it all works in the USA. The United States has, as we all know,  a common currency but also  a Federal Government to conduct macroeconomic policy, and transfer surpluses from the wealthy parts of the US to the poorer parts. It transfers surpluses. It does not arrange loans, except perhaps for special projects. If it did, the wealthier parts of the USA would end up as massive creditors. The poorer parts would end up as massive debtors. There would be clashes between New Jersey, the wealthiest state, and Mississippi the poorest.  I had to look this up , by the way. I suspected that Mississippi might be the poorest but I had no idea which was the wealthiest. I had thought maybe California. That’s as it should be. It should not be like it is in the Eurozone where the wealthy states never tire of letting everyone else know who is paying the bills.

So, imagine New Jersey  providing big loans to an impoverished Mississippi, dictating that it implement  privatisation of public assets at knock down prices and drastic cuts to state spending, pensions, its education service etc to be able to repay those loans.  The Mississipians and the New Jerseyites would be saying exactly the same things about each other as the Germans and Greeks are saying now!

So, just as any transfer of funds between New Jersey and Mississippi has to be just that, ie a transfer and not a loan,  so too it needs to be between Germany and Greece in the Eurozone.

The German taxpayers may well not like that idea. It certainly would not have been properly explained to them just what they were letting themselves in for when the Euro was created. No politician in any of the Eurozone countries would have dared make that explanation! It would have been career suicide. There were economists around who did their best to explain it all but they weren’t listened too.

It is too late for that now, but the reality of what has been created, in their name now needs to be recognised and understood by all. Some rethinking is in order. That has to start with the Germans,  then the Dutch and then everyone else too. The sooner the better.

Greece hasn’t got a debt problem. It has a lack of growth problem!

At something like 175% of annual GDP it is easy to think that Greek public debt is out of control. But, let’s look at it another way. If Greek GDP had stayed the same as 2008 levels instead of falling by 30%, and also assuming current levels of debt, the ratio of debt to GDP would now be 175 x 0.7 = 122.5% Which might still be a little on the high side, for a non sovereign currency issuing country, but it would be looking a lot more manageable.

If Greece had instead grown its economy by the same amount, the ratio would be 122.5/1.3 or 94%. OK still a little high, maybe, but not the catastrophe the Eurozone has on its hands at the moment.

The key to managing Greek debts is help enable Greece to service  them. There’s no real need  to pay them off with interest rates as low as they are.  That can be best achieved by growing the Greek economy. So what’s the problem? Why isn’t the Troika (the IMF, ECB and EU commission) encouraging the kind of economic policies in the Eurozone peripheral countries which would encourage growth rather than economic austerity which, in both theory and practice, can only produce economic contraction?

The Troika shouldn’t be in any sort of conflict with the Greek  government. Both should be wanting exactly the same thing. Unless Greece comes out of the crisis ahead, no-one gets paid and so no-one else comes out ahead either!

PS If you agree with this post, please re-blog it, tweet the link, wp.me/p42SCg-Q7  ,  post up on your Facebook page, or whatever else you can think of to spread the message. No attribution is needed. We need to show solidarity with Greece right now. It may well be us next!

 

Germany vs Greece: The battle commences!

Well done Syriza and well done Alexis Tsipras! The only way is up from here. Surely the economic crisis can’t get any worse for Greece! We’ll see.

The German population will have been fed a steady stream of disinformation on reckless, untrustworthy, lazy Greeks who agreed to borrow money they had no intention of ever repaying and which they have now squandered etc etc.  It’s all nonsense of course!

So where to now? If Greece’s creditors wish to see any of their money back, there has to be a recognition  that something has to change, and notwithstanding any useful improvements that might be made to the Greek taxation system, primarily that change has to come from the Germans and the EU governing class. The Germans, and others, have to realise that if they want to run a trade surplus, which they seem to like doing,  (it was about 7% of GDP the last time I looked), then they should be actively encouraging other countries, including Greece,  to run deficits. The larger their deficits the higher the German surplus.

Naturally, those trade deficits translate into government budget deficits too. That way the Greek government spends Euros into its economy so that ordinary Greeks will be able to afford more German imports and so further increase German trade surpluses.

If there sounds to be an element of  Alice-Through-The-Looking-Glass about all this, and that  everything is working backwards, that’s because there is. As Alice put it:

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”

Well, no not quite. And, neither do we quite see the point of Germany insisting that Greece and everyone else in  Euroland runs a surplus too.  How can Germany ever be repaid when it always wants to run its own, even bigger, surplus?  Why does it even care  about being repaid in money it can never spend? Germany, and German creditors,  can only ever be repaid when it decides to change its ways and run a deficit in trade and a deficit in its Government budget.

In the world of international trade, debts can only be repaid in things.  ie real goods and services. If Country A exchanges more things, for fewer things, with Country B, so putting Country B into debt, that debt can only be repaid, at some time in the future if Country B gives Country A more things than it gets back.

So, the battle isn’t just between Greece and Germany. It’s between German neoliberal economic stupidity, otherwise known as  ordo-liberalism,  and the idea of scientific rationalism.

As Alice, herself said:

“It would be so nice if something would make sense for a change! “

 

 

Revaluing the Swiss Franc

There seems to have been rather a lot of surprise over the recent revaluation of the Swiss franc. (CHF).  It jumped about 30% at one point against the Euro but has now settled back slightly. To quote the Guardian :

” What is really baffling is that absolutely no one predicted the SNB’s sudden change of strategy.”

There shouldn’t have been any surprise. It had to happen. The economics are very straightforward.

The Swiss were running a 16% of GDP trade surplus. What is the point of that? What’s the point of swapping more goods and services for fewer goods and services, year in year out?  Unless the Swiss Population, individuals and companies, are saving huge amounts even a moderate budget surplus is likely to represent quite loose fiscal policy. So there was some inflationary risk. Swiss unemployment is reportedly at about 3% which would tend to support that view.

The Swiss were in the position of shipping out useful goods and services in exchange for foreign reserves denominated in pounds, dollars and Euros which they can never spend until they decide to become net importers. In addition they had to keep their exporters happy by creating extra Swiss francs to pay them.

We will have to wait and see if the Swiss will let their currency float that freely. They will probably still manipulate it downwards to maintain an export surplus, albeit a smaller one. But, even so, they could have started to realise that imports are a net benefit and exports are a net cost to any economy. Theirs included. Maybe the Gnomes of Zurich have been reading Bill Mitchell and Warren Mosler!

The Euro Cannot Survive Without Greece!

The consensus of opinion of the ‘great and good’ of European politics and economics is that the Euro can now survive perfectly well without Greece. The Germans aren’t going to succumb to blackmail this time as they did in 2012. They have since worked out what needs to be done.  If the Greeks want to go then ‘good riddance’ seems to be the underlying message.

http://www.dw.de/germany-prepared-to-let-greece-leave-eurozone-if-voters-reject-austerity/a-18169442

Have they really thought this through? Maybe they have and aren’t saying quite what they think. That’s probably why they are being so hard on Greece and are doing  their utmost to try to ensure Greek voters change their minds and vote for one of the ‘sensible’ and ‘responsible’ parties like New Democracy of course!

It will all change after the election result if Syriza win. The Greeks will get all they want and more besides. Sure, technically the Eurozone would probably be better off without Greece, but what if the Greek economy starts to improve once they have left the Euro? It can hardly do any worse. Economic output is some 25% below its 2007 peak. Unemployment is running at close to 30%.  Wages are down even for those lucky enough to have a job. There’s no possibility of any significant growth any time soon under the present economic system.

Anyone who understands MMT knows that the Greek economy is almost bound to improve after the initial shock of leaving. A new Greek currency will make the Greek islands ultra competitive. German, and other, tourists will flock there. The Greeks will need to take some lessons on board. They know they need to improve their taxation system. They know they can’t expect a free ride and they’ll have to do whatever it takes to make their new economy work. It should become a matter of national pride for Greece that it does work. That would wipe the smile off the faces of those smug and self righteous individuals  who have pointed the finger at Greece with accusations of laziness and other racially based slurs.  As the economy improves their currency will rise again, just like it did in Iceland after the shock of the 2008 events.

The powers-that-be in the EU will know this too, deep down. Their worry will be that Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and even France and Italy will see that being outside the Eurozone is working for Greece and will want to be outside too.

That would certainly bring about the end of the Euro. They can’t allow that. Or can they? We can only hope!

The Euro could work so why doesn’t it?

Arguably, it did work reasonably well for the first few years of its public existence from 2002 onwards, but now, unarguably, it does not. Recession and high levels of unemployment is the norm, not just in the peripheral countries of Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Poland, etc but increasingly in the original group of six too. Italy and France are both experiencing double digit levels of unemployment; and the problem is now spreading to Germany itself, as its export markets in the Eurozone start to dry up. The high levels of unemployment in the peripheral regions of the Eurozone naturally leads to increased levels of migration to other areas of the EU which are performing better. Whatever we feel should be the case, our observations tell us that this is causing social and political problems too, especially in the UK, which we would be foolish to ignore.

There are many theories offered to explain the origins of the problem. The stated opinion of German right wing politicians and their ordo-liberal economic supporters is that there is nothing wrong with the Euro. If they can manage perfectly well with the Euro then so should everyone else. If they, like Germany would only just get close to balancing their budgets then all would be well.

See for example:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/aug/20/angela-merkel-scolds-italy-france-eurozone-faltering-growth

Furthermore, there tends to be a lot of finger pointing in the German circles directed particularly, but not exclusively, towards Greece. The criticisms generally include a past reliance on an oversized pubic sector, an inefficient system of tax collection, a past over-reliance on ‘money printing’ to fund government spending leading to higher than desirable levels of inflation and even systemic corruption. They probably do have a something of a point, no countries are ‘perfect’ not even Germany; but are the German right missing the point completely? From an understanding of just basic economics we can clearly see they are.

The fundamental problem is none of the above. There is also a widely accepted, but not necessarily correct, argument that countries need their own currency, which should be allowed to vary to allow countries to devalue or revalue their way out of economic trouble. That certainly would help but neither is it the core problem. Rather it is a problem of financial transfers, albeit an easily solved one, that is to be expected whenever two or more countries decide to share a common currency; one or more of which are large net exporters and one or more of which are large net importers. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a net exporter, if that is what countries want to do. Of course, for every net exporter there has to be a net importer willing to buy those exports. So, we firstly have to disabuse ourselves of the idea that the net exporters, like Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland (even though the Swiss are not in the EU) are somehow more virtuous than the USA and the UK (in the EU but not the EZ) who are net importers.

It makes sense, all round, to allow countries to choose whether to be net exporters or net importers. The alternative would mean clashes over trade, the imposition of high tariff barriers, and currency wars. It is no exaggeration to say that these clashes can lead, and have led in previous eras, to real wars too. No-one wants to see any re-occurrence of that.

How does it work when a net importer and a net exporter trade together using their own and, therefore, different currencies? Assuming that the two countries have the same trade pattern with each other as they do globally, there is an inevitable imbalance when it comes to the net importer being able to pay in its own currency. There is always going to be a ‘glut’ of that currency on the market, which if left alone would cause the currency to depreciate. That country would then be able to afford fewer imports, its exports would look more competitive, and so its trade would naturally move into balance. Neither country wants that, so the importer issues bonds which are obligingly bought by the exporter using the excess of the importer’s currency. The importer then re-issues the money obtained from the sale of those bonds into its economy by government deficit spending. In other words, the supplier lends money to its customer to be able to continue to be a good customer. The central bank of the exporter then stores the purchased bonds and just creates, or ‘prints’, extra amounts of its own currency to satisfy the need of its internal exporting companies to be paid in that currency.

So, despite  all German assertions to the contrary, the policy of the Bundesbank has never been solely the minimisation of inflation. The Bundesbank was quite willing to ‘print’ as many DMs as was considered necessary to hold down its value to maintain the sales of German exports. An artificially lower exchange rate also translates into higher prices in German shops and so contributes to a higher level of inflation than may be the case otherwise.
This kind of arrangement can continue indefinitely. Of course, as the currencies are separate, they can vary over time in value in relation to each other, but, providing that inflation rates in the two countries are approximately the same, they do not need to. In principle they could be fixed, providing the exporter and importer co-operate to equalise their monetary transfers by the necessary issuance and purchase of government securities.

Therefore, if this arrangement can work with fixed exchange rates, it must be able to work with the same currency too. The process is simply same one, as before, of the exporting country lending back its surplus to the importing country so that it can continue to be a good customer. As the currencies are the same there does not have to be any bonds involved, it just needs money to be lent back, but there can be a transfer via bonds if that is mutually preferred. Money and bonds are just different forms of government IOUs in any case.

In the case of the Eurozone these would be the so-called Eurobonds which are widely being discussed, but adamantly opposed by German ordo-liberals. I fail to understand why. These are essentially the same people who were happy to lend their customers money when their currencies were different, so why do they have a problem now they are the same?

Ordo-liberals compound their mistake of not wanting to lend back the surpluses of the exporting countries in the EZ to the importing countries, by insisting that the importers should not borrow from anywhere else either. It may make sense for an exporter to have a balanced budget, but not an importer. The importer needs to sell securities and   deficit spend the money received back into its economy. That deficit could be 3% of GDP, the Euro limit, but equally it could be higher. It makes no sense to even try to impose arbitrary limits on government deficits, which are also affected by the desire of populations to save financially. The deficits can, and should be, varied, as need be, to ensure the consistency of levels of inflation in different EZ economies. So a possible strategy for the ECB would be to set an inflation target of something like 3% for every EZ economy and issue Euros either via the process of quantitative easing if the exporting countries were unwilling to recycle their surpluses, or the encouragement of bond issuance or even straight lending of euros if they were, or a mixture of both.

3% inflation may be too high, even if only for a limited time, for many in the more prosperous regions of the EZ to contemplate, and they have said so in no uncertain terms. See for example:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/11211973/Mario-Draghis-efforts-to-save-EMU-have-hit-the-Berlin-Wall.html
However, the alternative is to leave things as they are. It will only be a matter of time before France is ruled by their National Front. Greece ruled by Syriza, Spain by Podemos,   Ireland by Sinn Fein, the UK by UKIP. There will be an upsurge in support for new Eurosceptic movements emanating from both the extremes of left and right as the EZ economies, including the now prosperous ones,  go from bad to worse to disaster. It is hard to see how that could be any preferable than paying a small price by way of an acceptance of slightly higher inflation, and the issuance of as many Euros and Eurobonds as are required to fix the problem right now.

PS Another similar view
http://www.3spoken.co.uk/2014/02/its-exporters-stupid.html

What is the National Debt? A Ultra Short and Simple Explanation.

• Money ($, £, or €  etc) is the same thing as a Government IOU. These IOUs can be held by anyone other than the issuing government. They  can be cash, balances at the reserve bank, or as balances in the form of Treasury securities (bonds).
• Added together they form the National Debt. (An International Debt in the case of the Euro ?)
• Any IOUs that are removed in taxation can be torn up to reduce, or partially pay off,  National Debts.
• If the National Debts were completely paid off there would be no  $, £, or € etc  in circulation either in bank accounts or cash.