Dagens Trippel

OK, disse er ikke veldig nye, men likevel veldig aktuelle:

Første, et interview med Gerald Celente i libertarianer-talerøret Daily Bell, hvor Celente vel må sies å snakke lett fra levra. Eller kanskje heller galleblæra... Om politikere:

You know what politicians are? When are people going to grow up? Politicians are the same jerks you hated in high school and college that wanted to be class president and head of the student council. The brown-nosers, suck-ups, overly-ambitious, insincere – and now they are telling you what to do and you are paying attention to them and you are bowing down?

I have a line: "Conservatives believe and liberals lie."

Arch rightwing conservatives, they actually believe their line of baloney. They say things like, "The only way we are going to make this country safe is to kill all them Muslims around the world." They actually believe that.

The liberals, on the other hand, you point out one transgression of freedom after another that Obama has committed and they will come up with a line of excuses a mile long. They're intellectually intelligent enough to know that they are lying but they don't have the courage or the self-respect to admit it.

For example, when Obama gets elected he says, the first day, 'I'm going to close Guantanamo in a year.' Guantanamo's still going on.

Om "teknokrater", fascister og Jesus:

Daily Bell: Okay. Here are some more trends questions ... some subjects, in no particular order. Give us some trends feedback, please. In other words, put them into economic and sociopolitical context for our readers. First one, the West – where are we headed?

Gerald Celente: The West is headed to dictatorship. It's already happening. The merger of state and corporate power is by definition called fascism. I just mentioned the Defense Authorization Act. Before you had that you had the abrogation of the Constitution under Bush, with the Patriot Act, which Obama reinstated and made even tougher by signing this bill. When I say the merger of state and corporate powers, look at the $16.1 trillion that the Federal Reserve has funneled into businesses around the world. Whatever happened to that thing called capitalism? This is not capitalism; it's fascism! The more societies break down and the bigger the screw-ups at the top, the harder they clamp down on the bottom. You see it going on around the world; they call it austerity measures. How about calling it enslavement?

Daily Bell: European Union and the euro ...

Gerald Celente: Same thing... It's fascism. They came up with a great little word – they call it Technocrats. How about bankers? Bankers have taken over Italy. Bankers have taken over Greece. You may have heard me say this but I'll say it again and I'll continue to say it again.

Here we have just gotten over this holiday season, the celebration of Jesus Christ, It's more about going to Walmart or crashing down doors on Black Friday to get a loss-leader item or buying a bunch of crap that you don't need to put under an artificial Christmas tree. When you think about the Prince of Peace, when's the only time he became violent? It was when he picked up a whip and drove the moneychangers out of the temple? The moneychangers have taken over the temples – the temples of Athens, the temples of Rome, the temples of Berlin and the City of London. They've taken over Washington. They've taken over every capital of every major city in the world. So where's it going? It's very simple to see where it's going. It's called class warfare.

[...]

Daily Bell: How about the CFTC? Are they doing their job of protection and prosecution?

Gerald Celente: Well who's the head of the CFTC, Gary Gensler? He was one of the lieutenants for Jon 'the Don' Corzine when Corzine was head of the Goldman Sachs gang, before he became senator of New Jersey. You get it?

Who's Obama's Chief of Staff? Bill Daley, from that wonderful Daley machine in Chicago. Where did he come from? Oh, vice chairman of Morgan Chase. Who was Bush's treasury secretary? Oh, Henry 'Frankenstein' Paulson. Where was he from? He began as the CEO of Goldman Sachs after Jon 'the Don' Corzine left. This is the guy who created TAARP and came up with the BS line of 'too big to fail.' Him? Yeah, that's right.

And who's the guy under Clinton that was treasury aecretary who put into process the deregulation of the financial industry and the ultimate killing of the Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented commercial banks becoming investment banks? Investment banks! What a bunch of baloney that is. Casinos that gamble, and we have to pay them now when they make bad bets. That couldn't be Robert Rubin, could it, the former co-chair of Goldman Sachs? And who's the guy now that they just put on the head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi? Where was he from? Didn't he run the European division of Goldman Sachs? And wait a minute now ... what's this guy in Italy now, Mario 'Three-card Monte'? Wasn't he an international advisor for Goldman Sachs?

The moneychangers are taking over the temple; you don't have to go very far to look. It's right there in front of everybody's eyes and no one will call a spade a spade. The Rothschilds would be jealous to see what the Goldman Sachs gang, the JP Morgan Chase criminal operation, the Citigroup crooks, the Deutsche Bank bandits and the rest have pulled off.

Andre: Stort sett samme budskap, men mer politisk korrekt språkføring fra Michael Hudson:

Europe’s Transition From Social Democracy to Oligarchy

The easiest way to understand Europe’s financial crisis is to look at the solutions being proposed to resolve it. They are a banker’s dream, a grab bag of giveaways that few voters would be likely to approve in a democratic referendum. Bank strategists learned not to risk submitting their plans to democratic vote after Icelanders twice refused in 2010-11 to approve their government’s capitulation to pay Britain and the Netherlands for losses run up by badly regulated Icelandic banks operating abroad. Lacking such a referendum, mass demonstrations were the only way for Greek voters to register their opposition to the €50 billion in privatization sell-offs demanded by the European Central Bank (ECB) in autumn 2011.

The problem is that Greece lacks the ready money to redeem its debts and pay the interest charges. The ECB is demanding that it sell off public assets – land, water and sewer systems, ports and other assets in the public domain, and also cut back pensions and other payments to its population. The “bottom 99%” understandably are angry to be informed that the wealthiest layer of the population is largely responsible for the budget shortfall by stashing away a reported €45 billion of funds stashed away in Swiss banks alone. The idea of normal wage-earners being obliged to forfeit their pensions to pay for tax evaders – and for the general un-taxing of wealth since the regime of the colonels – makes most people understandably angry. For the ECB, EU and IMF “troika” to say that whatever the wealthy take, steal or evade paying must be made up by the population at large is not a politically neutral position. It comes down hard on the side of wealth that has been unfairly taken.

A democratic tax policy would reinstate progressive taxation on income and property, and would enforce its collection – with penalties for evasion. Ever since the 19th century, democratic reformers have sought to free economies from waste, corruption and “unearned income.” But the ECB “troika” is imposing a regressive tax – one that can be imposed only by turning government policy-making over to a set of unelected “technocrats.”

To call the administrators of so anti-democratic a policy “technocrats” seems to be a cynical scientific-sounding euphemism for financial lobbyists or bureaucrats deemed suitably tunnel-visioned to act as useful idiots on behalf of their sponsors. Their ideology is the same austerity philosophy that the IMF imposed on Third World debtors from the 1960s through the 1980s. Claiming to stabilize the balance of payments while introducing free markets, these officials sold off export sectors and basic infrastructure to creditor-nation buyers. The effect was to drive austerity-ridden economies even deeper into debt – to foreign bankers and their own domestic oligarchies.

Tredje og siste, en advarsel fra George Soros:

[Soros recently] offered [Newsweek] a word of warning: a period of “evil” is coming to the western world.

“I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career,” Soros tells Newsweek. “We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.”

Soros goes on to compare the current state of the western world with what the Soviet Union was facing as communism crumbled. Although he would think that history would have taught the globe a thing or two about noticing trends, Soros says that, despite past events providing a perfect example of what is to come, the end of an empire seems imminent.

“The collapse of the Soviet system was a pretty extraordinary event, and we are currently experiencing something similar in the developed world, without fully realizing what’s happening,” adds Soros.

Soros goes on to say that as the crisis in the Eurozone only worsens, the American financial system will continue to be hit hard. On the way to a full-blown collapse, he cautions, Americans should expect society to alter accordingly. Riots will hit the streets, says Soros, and as a result, “It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”

The recent adoption of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 and the proposed Enemy Expatriation Act, if approved, have already very well paved the way for such a society. Under the NDAA, the US government is allowed to indefinitely detain and torture American citizens suspected of terror crimes without ever bringing them to trial.

Bonus: Noen tanker om droner, fra John Robb:

The Future of Warfare:

[...] an autonomous aircraft/drone that has a full weapons bay (4,500 lbs). Say that word again: autonomous. That's the breakthrough feature. This also means:

It can make its own "kill decision."

[...]

However, I'm much more worried about their ability to automate repression, particularly if combined with software bots that sift/sort/monitor all of your data 24x7x365 (already going on).

Drone Diplomacy: Comply or Die

Call up the target on his/her personal cell (it could even be automated as a robo-call to get real scalability -- wouldn't that suck, to get killed completely through bot based automation).

Ask the person on the other end to do something or to stop doing something.

If they don't do what you ask, they die soon therafter due to drone strike (unless they go into deep hiding and disconnect from the global system).

Drone Swarms are Here: 1 Minute to Midnight?

God helg. Sov godt.

Commodities vs US aksjer, oppdatering

Her er en festlig graf fra CRB (linken har interaktiv versjon som oppdateres daglig (sen kveld norsk tid), min versjon her er et screenshot fra 8de juni, altså á jour 7de juni etter stengetid; klikk for større versjon):

Grafen viser altså prosentvis forandring i CRBs Continuous Commodity Index (med en vertikal strek for hver dag, hvor overkanten viser dagens høyeste punkt og underkanten dagens laveste pkt, og en horisontal tapp på venstre side som viser åpningsnivået og en på høyre som viser sluttnivået), pluss Nasdaq i gusjegrønt, S&P 500 i rødt og Dow Jones i blått (kun sluttnivåer for akjeindeksene). Første dag er 11te oktober 2010 (som altså er lik 0% forandring for alle fire).

Inntrykket jeg får av å studere denne grafen er at noe forandret seg i midten av april i år. Fram til det går CCI-indeksen stort sett i takt med aksjeindeksene (hvorfor? Noen teorier/faktorer: forandringer i valutakurser, flokkmentalitet blant markedsaktører, politiske stimuli som påvirker alle markeder i samme retning samtidig); så går CCI sidelengs et par uker mens aksjeindeksene skyter i været; så, fra slutten av april, går aksjekursene litt ned mens CCI stuper, og på et tidspunkt, nærmere bestemt 12te mai, er under samtlige aksjeindekser. Så beveget de seg mer eller mindre i takt igjen fram til begynnelsen av juni; men den siste uken har CCI beveget seg sidelengs mens aksjer har falt bratt.

Vel... det var en tilsvarende divergens fra aksjenes topp medio februar til CCIs topp tidlig mars; CCI tok deretter et stup og kom slik tilbake i "takt". Etter mottoet "Det er IKKE anderledes denne gangen" må vi anta at det samme kommer til å skje nå: etter noen uker divergens, så hopper de tilbake i takt, enten vet at CCI stuper etter, eller ved at aksjeindeksene reverserer tapene.

Men, som tidligere sagt, jeg satser ikke penger på dette... jeg følger med fordi jeg tror det kan være hint å plukke opp her mht hvor verdensøkonomien er på vei hen.

Konsekvent sterkere prisvekst for commodities enn for aksjer antar jeg er et klart signal om at vi bumper inn i vekstens grenser. Eller, kanskje heller, at det er gått opp for finanselitens kollektive bevissthet at vi bumper mot samme.

En litt lengre tidshorisont er kanskje nødvendig -- her er en månedlig versjon av historien, samme kilde som ovenfor:

(Yo, dig the .com bubble, y'all!)

Jevnt og trutt...

Ingen utvei?

via kommentator "pri-de" på TOD (som virkelig burde skaffe seg et annet nick, jeg ser ham for meg som en stolt-av-det homofil tysker (ikke det at jeg har noe imot verken homser eller tyskere, men jeg tror ikke det er effekten nickets innehaver ønsker å oppnå ;-)):

No way out? The double-bind in seeking global prosperity along with mitigated climate change (T. J. Garrett / EGU.eu)

Om prosjektet:

Modern IAMs [Integrated Assesment Models] are based on neo-classical economic models that, unlike EaSMs [Earth System Models], do
not explicitly represent physical flows. Here, a different approach is taken, which is to
make a comprehensive appeal to thermodynamic laws in order to make deterministic
forecasts of the coupled evolution of the global economy and greenhouse warming.
Civilization is as much a part of the universe as is the atmosphere. Therefore, the
25 intent of this article is not to focus on evaluation of the merits of any potential policy
actions. Rather, the aim is provide a range of physically constrained trajectories for
how we might expect the atmospheric composition and the global economy to evolve
over the coming century.

Det er ikke nødvendig å gjøre det komplisert:

This combination of theoretical and observational support is the key result that
serves as a basis for assuming that civilization is financially well-mixed and that wealth
is derived most fundamentally from a capacity to enable a flow of potential energy. If
it is generally correct, it enables an enormous simplification of what is required to accurately
model the global economy and its waste products. At least at a global scale,
a sophisticated IAM approach that explicitly considers people and their lifestyles is not
necessary in order to forecast future rates of energy consumption. People do not need
to be thermodynamically resolved in order to calculate global scale flows.

Viktig resultat:

Thus, what we normally term “economic growth” [...] is a consequence of an
acceleration in the growth rate of the rate of energy consumption[.]

Oooog....

It is counter-intuitive, but comparing two scenarios with very low resilience to climate
change, energy consumption rates rise about twice as fast with rapid decarbonization
as with no decarbonization. The reason is that decarbonization aids society health,
and this means greater energy consumption, which then leads to a partial offset of any
environmental gains from decarbonizing in the first place.

Garret har også en hjemmeside hvor han har skrevet litt om disse tingene: Thermodynamics of civilization growth

Tar med denne når vi først er i gang:

Energy Limits Global Economic Growth, Study Finds (ScienceDaily)

The research leads the study's authors to infer that energy use limits economic activity directly. They conclude that an "enormous" increase in energy supply will be required to meet the demands of projected world population growth and lift the developing world out of poverty without jeopardizing standards of living in most developed countries.

The study, which used a macroecological approach, was based on data from the International Energy Agency and the World Resources Institute. It was conducted by a team of ecologists led by James H. Brown of the University of New Mexico. The team found the same sort of relationship between energy consumption per person and gross domestic product per person as is found between metabolism and body weight in animals. Brown's group suggests the similarity is real: cities and countries, like animals, have metabolisms that must burn fuel to sustain themselves and grow. This analogy, together with the data and theory, persuades the BioScience authors that the linkage between energy use and economic activity is causal, although other factors must also be in play to explain the variability in the data.

Kanskje også verd å ta en titt på boken Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics and Life av Eric Schneider og Dorion Sagan. (Kurt Cobbs omtale av boken)

"Recovery" i USA

Denne var "Ukens graf" på RWER-bloggen; verd en titt, interessante kommentarer, spesielt fra Merijn Knibbe.

Videre fra Consumer Metrics Institute, som etter eget utsagn måler "consumer interest in major discretionary purchases" (men holder eksakt metode hemmelig, dessverre):

Nu går alt så meget bedre!

Michael Hudson kritiserer Oljefondet

Forsåvidt omtalt av Aftenposten, men mye bedre av Klassekampen:

Ødslar bort oljefondet (2011-2-21)

[Klassekampen] - Oljefondet plasserer oljeformuen i aksjar og andre finansielle verdipapir, og får kvart år skryt av IMF for å vere ei lur pengeplassering. Kva er eigentleg gale med det?

[Hudson] - Det er ikkje noko gale med oljefondet. Det gjer det politikarane dykkar har sett som mål: Å tene pengar i dei internasjonale finansmarknadene. Problemet er at det spelet er over. Oljefondet er i dag verdt 512 milliardar dollar. USAs sentralbank trykte nett opp like mange dollar med eit tastetrykk. Når dei store statane trykkjer opp så mykje pengar for å berge økonomiane sine, endar fondet dykkar opp med å vedde mot uendeleg kreditt.

- Og med uendeleg kreditt vert pengane våre, som er kreditt, meiningslause?

- Akkurat, seier Hudson engasjert.

og «Satsar på ein daud hest» - et interview med Spetalen(!):

[Spetalen] er samd med den amerikanske økonomiprofessoren Michael Hudson, som har gjesta Noreg for å fortelje oss at finansmarknaden er på veg mot kollaps, og at vi må sjå etter nye stader å putte pensjonspengane våre - til dømes i utdanning og strategisk viktig teknologi. Hudson har vore økonom i JP Morgan Chase, ein av dei fjerde største bankane i USA, og rådgjeve amerikanske, kanadiske og latviske styresmakter.

- Hudson har jobba med investeringsbankar i 30 år. Han har skjønt at dei er baserte på rein svindel. Det er heilt utruleg at Ap er med på dette, seier Spetalen og syner til at Ap-politikar Einar Førde på 80-talet sa at å pumpe statlege pengar inn i børsen er som «å bære havre til en død hest».

I Klassekampen på måndag sa Hudson at selskapa Noreg investerer i, freistar selje gjelda si til oss, og at fondet dimed «subsidierer den internasjonale finanseliten».

Går inn på topp

Spetalen meiner oljefondet følgjer heilt feil strategi når det investerer i utalandske aksjar og obligasjonar. Han argumenterer matematisk: Oljefondet veks raskt når oljeprisen er høg, som før finanskrisa, då oljeprisen steig over 140 dollar fatet. Oljeprisen veks i sin tur raskt når aksjekursane stig, for då er det stor aktivitet i økonomien.

- Dimed endar oljefondet alltid opp med å kjøpe verdipapir når dei ligg høgast i pris. Og den dagen det går verkeleg dårleg og vi faktisk treng pengane til å trygge velferdsstaten og berge industrien, kjem oljepengane til å vere borte, for då har aksjekursane rast. Når 50 prosent av fondet kunne forsvinne i løpet av fire månader under krisa, ser du kor trygt dei står i dag, resonnerer Spetalen.

Kudos til Klassekampen!

Mer CRB

Peter Boockvar noterte på The Big Picture fredag at CRB raw industrials index breaks out to highest since May ’08.

Denne grafen viser CRB Raw Industrials månedsvis:

(fra Commodity Research Bureau. Continuous Commodity - indeksen som omtales i forrige post finnes også der, og viser et lignende mønster, men med mer dempete utslag).

Utviklingen i seg selv trenger ikke egentlig å si så mye, men la oss sammenligne med Dow Jones - indeksen:

(fra Spiegel Online manager magazin)

Interessant nok spiller det liten rolle hvilken (vestlig) børsindeks vi velger. Oslo Børs ser skremmende lik ut.

Indeksene går ganske i takt, men ikke helt.

Begge har en topp i '07 og en i '08, men den absolutte Dow-toppen er i '07, for CRB i '08. Lett å se for seg her at høye råvarepriser sugde penger ut av børsene...

Råvarer har en bunn i '09 men den er ikke så tydelig som for børsene, og den absolutte bunnen er sent i '08 versus våren '09 for børsene.

Men det som virkelig fanger øyet mitt her er utviklingen i år: At råvareindeksen og børsindeksen topper samtidig i april før de faller litt tilbake. Men mens børsene fremdeles er under april-toppen er råvarer nå godt over.

Jeg har lenge tenkt at neste fase i det internasjonale finansuværet begynner når oljeprisen slutter å gå i takt med børskursene. Men det gjør den, enn så lenge; se her f.eks.

Men det hadde jo vært litt for enkelt... alle følger med på oljeprisen.

Til pass om råvarer i bred forstand stikker av!

(For ordens skyld: Jeg spiller ikke på børs e.l. Min interesse er kun akademisk og amatørmessig).

P.S. 21/9:

Hum, hum. CRB-siden kan jo også lage dobbeltgrafer med f.eks. Dow, som viser prosentvis utvikling fra starttidspunktet. Her er en ukentlig en:

Mønsteret er nesten helt makent, men råvarene stiger jevnt og trutt mens dow går sidelengs og gapet blir større og større.

Arbeidstimer pr. råvareindeks

Fantastisk graf, via Barry Ritholz:

CRB er et mål på prisen av commodities, et begrep jeg ikke kjenner noe godt ord for på norsk. "Råvare" er nære men ikke helt blink; fra Wikipedia:

A commodity is a good for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. It is fungible, i.e. equivalent no matter who produces it. Examples are petroleum, notebook paper, milk or copper.[1] The price of copper is universal, and fluctuates daily based on global supply and demand. Stereo systems, on the other hand, have many aspects of product differentiation, such as the brand, the user interface, the perceived quality etc. And, the more valuable a stereo is perceived to be, the more it will cost.

In contrast, one of the characteristics of a commodity good is that its price is determined as a function of its market as a whole. Well-established physical commodities have actively traded spot and derivative markets. Generally, these are basic resources and agricultural products such as iron ore, crude oil, coal, ethanol, salt, sugar, coffee beans, soybeans, aluminium, copper, rice, wheat, gold, silver, palladium, and platinum. Soft commodities are goods that are grown, while hard commodities are the ones that are extracted through mining.

There is another important class of energy commodities which includes electricity, gas, coal and oil. Electricity has the particular characteristic that it is either impossible or uneconomical to store, hence, electricity must be consumed as soon as it is produced.

Commoditization occurs as a goods or services market loses differentiation across its supply base, often by the diffusion of the intellectual capital necessary to acquire or produce it efficiently. As such, goods that formerly carried premium margins for market participants have become commodities, such as generic pharmaceuticals and silicon chips.

Uansett, jeg tror "råvare" er den vanlige oversettelsen så jeg bruker det.

Det absolutte bunnpunktet er ved årsskiftet 2001/2002. iom at dette er minimum antall timer den jevne USAianer måtte jobbe pr. andel råvareindeks, altså maks utbytte pr. arbeidsinnsats, må vel det kunne sies å være "Peak USA". Det hadde vært veldig veldig interessant å se tilsvarende grafer for EU, OECD, Kina og verden under ett... jeg mistenker at historien er svært lik for vesten/OECD, men muligens ikke for Kina o.l. Uansett, legg også merke til bunnen før Bunnen, som er ved årsskiftet 1998/1999. Den bunnen sammenfaller med den tidligere omtalte bunnen i oljeprisen. Så stiger råvareprisene sammen med børsene inn i 2000, og faller igjen med børsene etter krakket. Sammenlign Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 på nittitallet (Wikipedia):

I mesteparten av perioden stiger børskursene mens avkastingen i realressurser øker - det må kalles ekte vekst, i produktivitet såvel som (materiell) velstand. 1999-2000 ser ut som en spekulativ boble (eller budkrig); børskursene stiger langt fortere enn trend, men ikke mot et bakteppe av lavere, men tvertimot høyere arbeidskost pr. råvare.

Endringen i trend er helt soleklar å se - litt for klar, den hadde nok ikke vært så tydelig dersom grafen hadde gått et tiår eller to lenger tilbake i tid. Den sinnsyke volatiliteten og det høye nivået på søttitallet er i stor grad politisk betinget (oljekrisene, OPEC og alt det derre). Men det er ikke sikkert dataseriene går så langt tilbake. I så fall hadde grafen blitt ærligere om den hadde startet i 1985, eller 1982 da gjøres det iaf ingen overdrivelse. Uansett er trenden(e) soleklar(e) - synkende fram tom 2001. Stigende etterpå. Utviklingen 2007-08 ser ut som en boble - stiger raskere enn trend, og faller så ned et godt stykke under. Men legg merke til at vi nå er roughly tilbake på trend igjen.

Dette kan tas til inntekt for teorien om at verden nådde Vekstens Grenser i 2001. Men selv om USA er verdens økonomiske lokomotiv aldri så mye, de er ikke hele verden, og dette kan like godt være et tegn på at USAs maktposisjon har vært synkende siden '01. Derav ønsket om å se lignende kurver for andre land/regioner. Eller det kan skyldes økende sosial (økonomisk, politisk) ulikhet internt i USA. Dataserien som er brukt er "Earnings Of Production Workers"; en tilsvarende for finansfolk kan se ganske annerledes ut. Hadde vært gøy å sjekke ut - men det får bli en annen dag. Jeg tok en rask titt på sidene til BLS... de har mye data, jeg ble helt svimmel.

Uansett, om jeg i forrige uke mente at finanskronikken er et rent finansfenomen, så føler jeg i dag at det hovedsaklig skyldes ressursbegrensninger.

RED.: For bedre flyt
RED. igjen: For klarhet

Tilbake til saken

Long time no blog.

Flere grunner til det, Dragon Age kanskje den viktigste av dem... jeg er svak for sånt.

En annen grunn er at jeg har passert et knekkpunkt på læringskurven min når det gjelder de temaene som har vært fremherskende på denne bloggen så langt; ting har ikke lenger nyhetenes interesse, jeg snubler sjelden over nye spennende tanker lenger, og å videreutvikle mine egne tanker krever mere jobb.

Men det er på tide med en ny oppsummering av hvor min vurdering av situasjonen står hen pr. nå.

Først økonomisk: Jeg er nå helt overbevist om at MMTerne har den beste forståelsen av hvordan penger virker; MMT er alle andre rammeverk for forståelse av penger LANGT overlegent. Grunnprinsippene er veldig enkle; konklusjonene subtile og konterintuitive. Det lukter av sannhet. Og, som Steve Keen fremholdt rundt juletider, MMTerne er de eneste som både forutså finanskrisen og verdensøkonomiens respons på de mange redningspakkene.

Så jeg leser Bill Mitchells blog med interesse. Ikke alt og ikke daglig - stilen hans er litt slitsom, han skriver alt for mye, og temaet er for vanskelig til det - men jevnlig.

De viktigste gjengangspunktene er (terminologien er stunt-oversatt av meg og vil for alt jeg vet få det til å gå kaldt nedover ryggen på fagfolk):

1. Valuta-kontrollerende stater er ikke finansielt begrenset. De kan ikke gå tom for penger, og de trenger heller ikke låne penger av/på "finansmarkedene".
2. Det er ikke sånn at statlig pengebruk "fortrenger" privat og setter i gang en unødvendig budkrig. Den kan gjøre det, men det er bare dersom summen av offentlig og privat etterspørsel overstiger summen av varer og tjenester som tilbys.
3. I en finanskrise som den vi er inne i, er et av problemene at etterspørselen plutselig faller bort. At stater går inn og erstatter privat etterspørsel vil ikke føre til budkrig.
4. At stater "trykker penger" for å finansiere dette vil heller ikke gi inflasjon. Glem de skremmende grafene over pengemengde - de har ikke egentlig noe med saken å gjøre. Inflasjon er først og fremst et resultat av den budkrigen som oppstår når etterspørselen (forsøker å) overstige(r) tilbudet.
5. EMU er dysfunksjonell og kan ikke overleve i sin nåværende form. Jo før den reformeres eller avskaffes, jo bedre, spesielt for... alle andre enn Tyskland.

Det store spørsmålet som melder seg er: Dersom stater ikke trenger å låne penger for å kjøre underskuddsbudsjetter... hvorfor gjør de det da?

Det er flere svar på det; de to jeg finner mest opplysende (de utfyller hverandre) er:

• De har ikke tatt konsekvensene av fiat-valuta inn over seg; sitter så å si fast i en gullstandard-mentalitet.
• Statlige lån = pengeutdeling til finansindustrien. Finansindustrien er veldig interessert i at stater skal fortsette å "låne" penger av dem, og den har makt. Lobbyvirksomhet, ideologisk favorisering, propaganda...

En god Mitcell fra forrige uke er Doublethink, hvor han kommenterer et essay av Noam Chomsky (som han i det store og hele er enig med). Mitchell skriver

I wrote several papers some years back (2002) about the pressure the big financial market institutions (particularly the Sydney Futures Exchange) were placing on the then federal government to continue issuing public debt despite the government running increasing surpluses. Nowhere did we read the contradiction of this position.

Which is: according to all the logic that the government and these institutions continually pumped out that the government was financially constrained and had to issue debt to “finance” itself – so if they are running surpluses, they should not be issuing debt! Of-course, the beginning logic is nonsense in the first place but they don’t know that or at least, admit to it publicly.

So the bottom line in this debate (which led to a Treasury Inquiry) was that the demand for continued public debt-issuance even though the federal government was running increasing surpluses appeared to be special pleading by an industry sector for public assistance in the form of risk-free public securities for investors as well as opportunities for trading profits, commissions, management fees, and consulting service and research fees.

In a Submission to Debt Review, that I wrote with my friend and sometime co-author Warren Mosler, we observed that:

Furthermore, and ironically, their arguments are inconsistent with rhetoric forthcoming from the same financial sector interests in general about the urgency for less government intervention, more privatisation (for example, Telstra), more welfare cutbacks, and the deregulation of markets in general, including various utilities and labour markets.

In other words, that is, in blog language, they were just self-serving greedy hypocrites.

Men det som virkelig skremmer meg er at Mitchell stadig gjentar at velferdsstater - hele pakka med sosial liket og mulighet - avhenger av økonomisk vekst.

Og som vi husker fra før, i et større perspektiv så er vekst problemet.

Welling intervjuer Koo

via Zero Hedge (pdf direkte), langt og veldig bra intervju med den garva (sentral)bankieren Richard Koo.

Koo har, som det går fram i intervjuet, førstehåndskjennskap både til Feds håndtering av den latinamerikanske bankkrisen på åttitallet og til japanernes håndtering av sin krise. Som han sier, han prøvde å forklare hva som faktisk skjedde i Japan med de konvensjonelle verktøyene, uten større hell...

...Koos syn på saken føles som en syntese av teoriene til Steve Keen og Bill Mitchell, men Keen og Mitchell er teoretikere, Koo er empiriker. Koos budskap er heller ikke ulikt James Galbraiths, men med (minst) en viktig forskjell: Koo er bankmann, og tro mot sin stand bagatelliserer han bankenes rolle i å legge til rette for krisene, og sukker oppgitt over dem som vil legge skyld på dem... Galbraith er en "politisk økonom" og en sterk kritiker av bankene spesielt og finanssystemet generelt.

Utdrag fra intervjuet (Welling i fet, Koo i normal skrift):

Maybe. But with its massive store of savings, Japan didn’t have to worry about depending on the kindness of creditors in China and the Mideast as its bond rates scraped along at zero. The U.S. does.

The truth is that Japan was actually in that same precarious position, a decade ago. With Japanese government debt skyrocketing because of massive fiscal deficits, all of the ratings agencies, the IMF, the OECD — they all issued horrendous warnings against Japan. Japanese bond investors remember very well that JGBs were downgraded repeatedly, to the point where Japan’s debt was rated lower than that of Botswana, because the ratings agencies were so sure that at some point the whole thing would come crashing down and that interest rates would soar. But it never happened. And the reason is easy to understand, once you grasp the concept of a balance sheet recession. The amount of money that the government has to
borrow and spend to sustain GDP is exactly equal to the amount of excess savings generated within the private sector of the economy. So that money is actually available within the private sector, even in the U.S., even in the U.K.
And the U.S. is no longer a low savings rate country; the last statistic was over 6%, higher than Japan. What’s more, with companies also increasing their savings, there’s no “crowding out” and banks are only too happy to lend to the government, as the last borrower standing — and also because they don’t have to keep as much capital against loans to the government as they would against private sector loans, allowing the banks to rebuild their profits and balance sheets.

It sounds almost too good to be true —

It’s not. I believe that as more and more people in the U.S. realize that this is the mechanism at work, the fear of interest rates rising will be increasingly reduced, and I won’t be surprised to see long bond rates in the U.S. falling from
where they are now. In any event, whether you start with a high savings rate or a low savings rate, once a country enters a balance sheet recession because the private sector is paying down debts, you end up having excess savings in the private sector and it is those excess savings that the government has to borrow and spend. It doesn’t have to borrow externally. So the U.S. doesn’t have to borrow from China or anywhere else. But because that’s contrary to the mind set
for the last 10 or 20 years, it’s very hard for people to come around to that realization.

You spend quite a few pages of your book discussing why so many economists
haven’t seen what you see —

Well, I think it is because so-called neo-classical economics starts from the very premise that the private sector is maximizing profits and everything
is built off that premise. Besides, it was also a question of what data they have been looking at. For most of the post-war period, people were maximizing profits in the West, so no one had to look for other possibilities. But
during the Depression, and in the 1990s in Japan, the private sector was actually minimizing debt, not maximizing profits. As I wrote, people minimizing debt are never anxious to advertise that they’re effectively bankrupt. As a result, the true nature of a balance sheet recession was invisible, inaudible. Companies working
to minimize debt are the least likely to share that fact with the outside world.

Det er en ganske stor kontrast mellom dette og den hyperventileringen som får så mye spalteplass... Her er Niall Ferguson, f.eks.:

What we in the western world are about to learn is that there is no such thing as a Keynesian free lunch. Deficits did not “save” us half so much as monetary policy – zero interest rates plus quantitative easing – did. First, the impact of government spending (the hallowed “multiplier”) has been much less than the proponents of stimulus hoped. [Koo derimot sier: So we have a situation where fiscal policy is actually controlling the effectiveness of monetary policy. It’s a complete reversal of what almost everyone alive today learned in school — that monetary policy is the way to go.]Second, there is a good deal of “leakage” from open economies in a globalised world. Last, crucially, explosions of public debt incur bills that fall due much sooner than we expect

For the world’s biggest economy, the US, the day of reckoning still seems reassuringly remote. The worse things get in the eurozone, the more the US dollar rallies as nervous investors park their cash in the “safe haven” of American government debt. This effect may persist for some months, just as the dollar and Treasuries rallied in the depths of the banking panic in late 2008.

Yet even a casual look at the fiscal position of the federal government (not to mention the states) makes a nonsense of the phrase “safe haven”. US government debt is a safe haven the way Pearl Harbor was a safe haven in 1941.

(A Greek crisis is coming to America, Niall Ferguson/Financial Times, min utheving)

...stort mer 180° fra Koos synspkt er det vel ikke mulig å komme...

To ting her: En, jeg er overbevist om at Koos versjon av hvordan systemet virker er riktig... vel, riktigST i det minste... To, Ferguson er en god talsmann for den "konvensjonelle visdom"... og på kort sikt er det den saueflokken, eh, "investorene" styrer etter... og det er den vestlige politikere må gi inntrykk av å styre etter, dersom de ønsker å bli gjenvalgt...

Men kanskje den viktigste tingen å ta med seg fra Koo er at å fikse det underliggende problemet -- for mye gjeld i privat sektor-- vil og må ta tid.

.

Jamie Galbraith snakker ut

i et intervju med Lars Schall på det tyske nettstedet MMNews:

There is no return to self-sustaining growth

(Takk til Gail the Actuary på TOD for fangsten -- finnes også på new deal 2.0)

Galbraiths kunnskaper utmerker seg både med sin bredde og sin dybde, samtidig som han ikke er redd for å si "vet ikke" når han ikke vet.

Artikkelen oppgir også masse referanser, se feks lister over Galbraith-materiale ved University of Texas Unequality Project og Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs

Mind the Gap

... sier Pimco-sjefen El-Erian, som føyer seg inn i rekken av observatører som påpeker at dette, iaf for USA sin del, er like mye en politisk sykdom som en økonomisk en:

I am not a political expert but I respect and listen to the insights of many who are. Their messages are eerily consistent, and quite concerning.

The political atmosphere in Washington is tense and increasingly polarized. Bipartisan backing for measures is harder. With the political center shrinking, the ability to “manage to the middle” is growing more elusive while the more partisan wings don’t command sufficient broad-based support.

The situation isn’t helped by the diminished trust in key institutions, both public and private

[...]

These are consequential political and economic questions. They speak to a more protracted post-crisis resetting of the U.S. economy -- what Pimco labeled last year as a bumpy multiyear journey to a new normal.

All this is consistent with the academic literature on post-crisis periods. Such research reminds us of the extent to which massive disruptions -- such as the one experienced in 2007-09 -- expose structural cracks that, at best, can only be masked temporarily by a massive cyclical policy response.

Resetting the U.S.

To make things even more complex, the resetting of the U.S. is occurring in the context of secular shifts in global growth and wealth dynamics -- principally on account of some systemically important emerging economies (such as Brazil, China and India) having reached development breakout stages.

The evidence is overwhelming: Economic and political indicators are urging us to adopt a forward-looking structural mindset. Yet too many markets -- and, I would also argue, too many private and public institutions -- seem hostage to cyclical forces.

Bull Market Can’t Last If You Mind the Gap: Mohamed A. El-Erian (El-Erian / Bloomberg News; gjengitt på ZH; mine uthevinger)

Mat vs. drivstoff, nok en gang

Global threats in 2010 revealed by report (BBC News)

Underinvestment in energy and agriculture are among the biggest economic threats facing the world in 2010, according to [the World Economic Forum's Global Risks study].

Commodity-Cost Jump Threatens to Stifle Rebound (Wall Street Journal)

From corn to crude, prices for a wide range of commodities are on the rise across the globe, a trend that underscores -- but could also hinder -- a gathering economic recovery.

In recent months, global food prices have been growing at a rate that rivals some of the wildest months of 2008, when food riots erupted across the developing world. Higher prices could be a positive sign that companies are gearing up for a rebound in consumer spending, or the harbinger of a return to the upward spiral that plagued consumers before the recession took hold.

Food Shortages Coming? Famed Investor Jim Rogers Thinks So (Daily Finance)

A severe food shortage is on its way, according to well-regarded investor Jim Rogers. Food inventories are the lowest in decades and "[m]any farmers cannot get loans to buy fertilizer now, even though we have big shortages developing," Rogers said on CNBC.

Forfatteren av den siste artikkelen, Bruce Watson, tror Rogers tar feil. Watson siterer en Rafael Goldberg:

"If farmers were no longer incentivized to feed cows corn, and if we could derail our cannibalistic policy choices that couple food and fuel, we could get a clue as to the actual relationship between food supply and demand," he said, referring to the inflation in corn and soybean prices over the last few years.

Ja, det er helt klart to faktorer som er med på å drive matvareprisene opp. Men jeg er ikke med på at problemet forsvinner dersom de to fjernes. Problemet er fundamentalt; det mest lønnsomme og produktive jordbruket er det vestlige industrijordbruket, som bruker store mengder kunstgjødsel og ugrasmidler -- som er energikrevende å lage -- og maskiner som gjerne går på diesel. Ca 85% av primærenergien kommer pr. nå fra fossile kilder; dvs at det er en nær sammenheng mellom prisen på fossile brensler og prisen på mat. Olje er kongen av de fossile brenslene:

(graf fra Agriculture as provider of both food and fuel (GES, pdf!))

Jeg mener Watson ikke ser skogen for bare trær: det som er viktig å fokusere på her, er det store bildet, ikke detaljene... det store bildet er at det er en lang rekke (ball? blåknute?) sammenfiltrede feedback-løkker (fri assosiasjon og generalisering over lav tøffel her, mao "jeg tenkte det men det er ikke sikkert jeg mener det" 8-): Folk trenger mat. For å kjøpe mat må de ha en jobb. Dersom de skal ha en jobb, må økonomien generelt gå sånn noenlunde. Dersom økonomien generelt skal gå sånn noenlunde, må det være god tilgang på drivstoff. Oops, veksten i verdens oljeproduksjon begynner å avta sent nittitall og går inn i en platåfase ca 2004. Massive investeringer i oljeleting/utvinning (ikke helt uten virkning, men alt i alt ekstremt underveldende), massive økonomiske støttetiltak fra diverse sentralbanker, satsning på biodrivstoff. Støttetiltakene driver etterspørsel/forbruk i været, som driver energiprisene videre opp, som får biodrivstoff til å se bra ut, etc. Men så viser det seg at alt ikke vokser inn i himmelen likevel, mange av prosjektene som ble finasiert med billig gjeld vil aldri bli lønnsomme, men gjelda består. Den gode (langsiktige) løsningen ville vært å la de dårlige "investeringene" gå konk, skrive av gjelda... men isteden blir de holdt oppe - sånn ca - med enda mer økonomisk støtte. Dette binder opp kapital som kunne vært investert i lønnsomme prosjekter, og gjør systemet langt mindre omstillingsdyktig. Imens fortsetter de aller fleste som før, så olje, gass og kull brukes opp med nesten samme fart som før... men investeringer i erstatningskapasitet får seg en alvorlig knekk. En friskmeldt økonomi vil helt klart føre til høyere energipriser og høyere matpriser... og høyere etterspørsel etter biodrivstoff... men verdensøkonomien tåler ikke høyere energipriser. Aller minst USA sin, verdens "økonomiske lokomotiv", utsteder av verdens reservevaluta, og verdens største oljekonsument. Men dersom det trekker ut med "tilfriskning" i økonomien, er det likevel sannsynlig at oljeprisene vil gå drastisk opp, på grunn av de høye - og stigende - fallratene.

I begge tilfelle -- høye energipriser, høye matpriser, mer sult blandt verdens fattige, nytt økonomisk crash for den rike verden.

Alternativet er at økonomien crasher helt av seg selv.

Jeg ser ingen vei utenom.

Tilbud og etterspørsel må balanseres, og det skjer enten ved at tilbudet øker... det har vi prøvd, uten større suksess... da gjenstår å redusere etterspørsel. Det er tre måter å gjøre det på: bedre energieffektivitet; lavere levestandard; færre folk.

Min spådom er at vi de neste tiårene kommer til å se alle tre.

Samma gamle leksa (nesten)

Serving Two Masters(Forbes)

Call it the Sophie's Choice of globalization: make middle-class consumers out of the global poor and they create new business, but they deplete resources and damage the environment. Move to conserve resources and protect the planet, and you condemn hundreds of millions of people to life as second-class citizens.

But it doesn't have to be that way, says C.K. Prahalad, a professor of corporate strategy at the University of Michigan's business school. He's the creator of something like a Grand Unification Theory of Globalization: that environmentalism, development and profitmaking are not only compatible but also interdependent.

Som en kan forvente av et finansmagasin, artikkelen handler om hvordan man kan tjene penger på å følge miljøforskrifter og produsere for de mange som ønsker å ta steget inn i den globale middelklassen... argumenter vi har hørt før, fra økonomer som Galbraith d.y. og Reinert. Overbevisende nok, så langt de går; men det er økonomer vi snakker om her, og jeg er ikke overbevist om at de har klart å fri seg fra myten om infinite substitutability, at Den Hellige Hånd med teknomagi skal trylle fram alternativer til olje og gass (og mere vann, og ...) når vi trenger dem, i de kvanta vi trenger dem.

Getting governments on board with regulation is important, says Prahalad, but not nearly as much as convincing businesses to stop fretting over the cost of environmental laws. "The industrial system as we have it today cannot deal with another 4 billion people," he says. "What you see is the fairly early stages of the next industrial revolution, and the emerging markets are becoming the laboratory for that."

Vakre ord, men jeg har store problemer med å se at jordbruket som vi har det i dag kan håndtere fire milliarder til -- vi tapper allerede ned vannreservoarer fortere enn de fylles opp; og energiskvis sender gjødselprisene opp, som effektivt setter tak for jordbruksproduksjonen.

Dersom de fire milliardene skal kjøre Tata Nano... la oss si fire i hver, for en rund milliard Nano'er... så vil det ha en innvirkning på energiprisene.

Stigende energipriser vil tvinge fram flere kraftverk (det er Den Hellige Hånd god på); og siden kull vinner roughly 3:1 EROEI-messig over vind, som er den beste fornybare kilden med stort vekstpotensiale (kull vinner ikke like overlegent kostnadsmessig, men det har vel mere med det å gjøre at prisen settes etter den marginale produsenten, her har nok kull en hel del å gå på), så er utfallet nærmest gitt. Les f.eks. Gregor: Coal? Sold! to the Developing World, eller eller ta en titt på denne:

Hvor bærekraftig er denne utviklingen? Sånn rent bortsett i fra effekten på klimaet. Hvor langt unna er Peak Coal? Hirsch-rapporten trekker fram Coal-to-Liquids (CTL) som et effektivt tiltak mot Peak Oil; mine helter Höök & Aleklett er skeptiske:

Conversion ratios for CTL are generally estimated to be between 1-2 barrels/ton coal. This puts a strict limitation on future CTL capacity imposed by future coal production volumes, regardless of other factors such as economics, emissions or environmental concern. Assuming that 10% of world coal production can be diverted to CTL, the contribution to liquid fuel supply will be limited to only a few Mb/d. This prevents CTL from becoming a viable mitigation plan for liquid fuel shortage on a global scale. However, it is still possible for individual nations to derive significant shares of their fuel supply from CTL, but those nations must also have access to equally significant coal production capacities. It is unrealistic to claim that CTL provides a feasible solution to liquid fuels shortages created by peak oil. For the most part, it can only be a minor contributor and must be combined with other strategies.

(A review on coal to liquid fuels and its coal consumption, min utheving)

Peak gass er nærmere enn P. kull -- igjen, Hirsch-rapporten foreslår Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) som en (del)løsning, men det er utopisk på grensen til farlig.

Å tro at biodrivstoff kan fylle gapet (en synd jeg selv har vært skyldig i) er enda mer utopisk -- fra et rent fysisk perspektiv (god kommentar av "carnot" på TOD) er det tvilsomt om det er kan spille en stor rolle; fra et økonomisk perspektiv (Washington Post -- søk på "The unintended ripples from the biomass subsidy program" i google news dersom du stopper i en paywall) driver det opp prisen på trevirke til dels dramatisk, bra for deg hvis du er skogeier eller Norske Skog (hum, hum, Senterpartiet hype'r biodrivstoff og NS planlegger BTL på Follum...) men en smule fordyrende for alle andre; og fra et miljø/bærekraft/biologisk mangfold - perspektiv er det en katastrofe. Legg merke til at Biomass-to-Liquids (BTL) er den prosessen som ser ut til å være best fra et teknisk/kommersielt synspunkt; men det er essensielt den samme prosessen som CTL, men med langt mindre konsentrerte råvarer... Den mest bærekraftige prosessen ser ut til å være "biogass":

The greatest potential for biofuel production within the present agricultural system lies in using inedible fractions such as residues and organic waste, e.g. mould attacked matter and crops of inferior quality. Biogas production has a greater potential than ethanol production since a higher proportion of the residues can be used for energy production. The calculated global potential of biogas production is in theory sufficient to cover up to one fourth of the present consumption of fossil fuels within the global transport sector. However, there are infrastructural challenges with biogas production and distribution, and it is expensive to upgrade to motor fuel quality. Hence biogas could possibly be of better use in other applications than as motor fuel. Its use within agriculture would reduce agriculture’s dependency on fossil energy, improving food security.

(Johansson, Liljequist, Ohlander, Aleklett: Agriculture as provider of both food and fuel (PDF!), min utheving)

"[I]nfrastructural challenges" tolker jeg dithen at det er dyrt -- kapitalkrevende, både i realkapital og finanskapital. Og i dagens økonomiske klima betyr det at det ikke kommer til å skje så veldig mye i den retningen.

Så der jeg før mente at vi kommer til å dure rundt i farkoster med forbrenningsmotor også etter P. olje, men med syntetisert drivstoff, anser jeg nå det for å være en smule naivt.

Fremtiden går på strøm -- i den grad den går i det hele tatt.

Men også i strømproduksjonen er vi i ferd med å låse oss inne i en blindgate; vi gjør oss mer og mer avhengige av kull, som riktignok for øyeblikket har bra EROEI, men den vil falle, til dels dramatisk, og det er grunnlag for å mistenke at en P. kull ikke er fryktelig langt unna.

Vi trenger desperat en energikilde - av stor skala - med stabilt høy EROEI og lite fotavtrykk. Så vidt jeg kan se knytter det seg størst håp til "fjerdegenerasjons" kjernekraft (Höök, PDF!), det er bare en liten hake:

Fjärde generationens kärnkraftverk kommer att stå klara att användas kommersiellt kring år 2030 om allt går som planerat.

For å unngå trøbbel burde gen-iv kjernekraft ha den posisjonen kull har i dagens energimiks i 2030. Seriøs utbygging burde begynt FOR tjue år siden, ikke OM tjue år. (Men i det minste ser opinionen ut til å være i ferd med å snu -- Greenpeace endrer mening)

Det er for sent å lade muskedunderen med sølvkuler når varulven allerede har satt tenna i strupen på deg.

Nevermind at varulven ikke er alene, og du trenger et maskingevær, ikke en muskedunder...

Har jeg nevnt at jeg er utrolig glad jeg bor i Norge, som har rikelig med vannkraft og ferskvann, og som i globalt perspektiv har en svært moderat befolkning?

Nu går alt så meget bedre

... jaffal i Mexico, der børsen har nådd nye høyder:

(via Zero Hedge)

Så da er alt hunky dory i Mexico, no?

Øøøh. Se for eksempel I voldens grep (Morgenbladet, 2010.1.8):

Mexico synker stadig lenger ned i konflikten mellom staten og narkokartellene. 2010 kan bli et blodig år i Mexico.

og/eller

Mexico: A Collapse Update (Jeff Vail, TOD, 2009.3.8)

I’ve been predicting the collapse of the Mexican Nation-State since 2006. It turns out that was a bit premature. But with violence flaring, the potential for collapse in Mexico is once again in the headlines. Oil production continues to fall, border violence is up, and the government is preparing for a showdown with the drug cartels. I’ll argue below that the government will keep the wheels on through 2009, but that the Mexican state will collapse shortly thereafter, ushering in the beginning of the end of the Nation-State.

Bildene som dukker opp i hodet mitt her er fra en eller annen eldre amerikansk film som jeg ikke husker navnet på, eller hva plot'et gikk ut på eller engang hvem som spilte hovedrollen for den saks skyld (men jeg er sikker på at han er veldig kjent), vel uansett, settingen var et Havana midt oppi den Castro'ske revolusjon, og hovedpersonen satt på et casino og drakk whisky og spilte poker, og jo heftigere skytingen utenfor ble, jo større ble potten...

Penger, gjeld og enda flere ubetydeligheter

gaius marius tar tankegangen fra Penger, gjeld og andre ubetydeligheter ett steg (minst) videre i what does negative net national savings mean?

[høy giring i finanssektoren] would further explain the lack of any "net savings" improvement since the start of the crisis -- as the financial sector was suddenly and rapidly thrown into delevering, assets were being destroyed and money disappearing from the system. the resultant loss of savings in spite of the government's best efforts could explain how the current account deficit suddenly improved while "net savings" actually declined.

Innsikstfullt, spekulativt og med bra linker. meg like

Action på gjeldsfronten!

Dagens store nyhet nr. 1 er at den islandske presidenten har lagt ned veto mot loven (som ble vedtatt i Alltinget) om nye betingelser for "tilbakebetaling" av gjelden etter bankkonkursene i forfjor (OMG som tia går!); se f.eks.

ISLAND: Nekter å underskrive gjeldsavtale (e24)

Aftenposten og e24 mener dette er "risikofylt", "uansvarlig" og at "regjeringen kan trekke seg".

Jeg er så uenig som det vel er mulig å bli -- det vil være økonomisk selvmord for Island å forsøke å betale, som igjen langt på vei kunne gjort ende på Island som selvstendig stat (EU-medlemskap eller ei), og jeg kan ikke se at verken det islandske folket eller staten er moralsk ansvarlig. De islandske bankene fulgte tvilsom forretningspraksis og tok enorm risiko, men det gjorde faen meg britiske banker også. Britene har til nå klart å holde bankene sine sånn ca. på fote, men det har kostet dem dyrt:

Pimco move to sell gilts raises spectre of a UK sovereign debt crisis (Telegraph)

Fears that Britain may be heading for its first sovereign debt crisis since the 1970s hit a new intensity after Pimco, the world's biggest bond house, declared that it is starting to sell off its holdings of gilts.

The American investment group said it will be a net seller of UK Government bonds this year, at the very point when the Bank of England brings its £200bn programme of purchases to and end and the Treasury attempts to raise unprecedented sums through the capital markets.

[...]

Paul McCulley, a managing director at Pimco, said: "We are currently cutting back in the US and UK because... supply and demand dynamics are likely to be negatively affected as borrowing rises and central bank buying declines."

"Supply and demand dynamics are likely to be negatively affected"! Han får sagt det!

Denninger kommer med adskillig klarere tale:

Folks, PIMCO has a record of being not only right but privvy to "analysis" that you and I simply never, ever have or will get access to. How that happens is the matter of some conjecture - there are many, myself included, who believe that they're privvy to information sources that "ordinary peons" never will be given access to and in the debt markets insider trading is (for the most part) legal.

As a result when an announcement like this is made you're a rank idiot to ignore it or believe "it doesn't matter." It most certainly does matter and the odds are that they're right - and if you go against them you will be proved in the fullness of time to not only be wrong but poor on top of it.

(A Warning To Western Governments And Investors)

So much for Britain.

Hva med høirepressens spådommer om at Sagaøya vil synke i havet om de ikke betaler? Jeg lar Bill Mitchell svare på det:

The recent history of Argentina is worth reflecting on in this regard. Argentina successfully defaulted on significant international debt obligations in 2002. Initially, FDI dried up completely when the default was announced. However, the Argentine government could not service the debt as its foreign currency reserves were gone and realised, to their credit, that borrowing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would have required an austerity package that would have precipipated revolution. As it was riots broke out as citizens struggled to feed their children.

Despite stringent criticism from the World’s financial power brokers (including the International Monetary Fund), the Argentine government refused to back down and in 2005 completed a deal whereby around 75 per cent of the defaulted bonds were swapped for others of much lower value with longer maturities.

[...]

The data is instructive. The resumption of growth has been strong and persistent (8.8 per cent in 2003, 9.0 per cent in 2004, 9.2 per cent in 2005, 8.5 per cent in 2006 and 8.7 per cent in 2007). Real wages have also risen modestly over the same period.

Official data shows that poverty rates (measured either as extreme poverty defined as not being able to eat properly and a more general poverty line defined by the minimum income needed for basic needs) have fallen dramatically since the abandonment of the neo-liberal fixed exchange rate system. Argentina demonstrated something that the World’s financial masters didn’t want anyone to know about. That a country with huge foreign debt obligations can default successfully and enjoy renewed fortune based on domestic employment growth strategies and more inclusive welfare policies without an IMF austerity program being needed. And then as growth resumes, renewed FDI floods in.

One commentator wrote a few years ago that that the Argentinian Government appears to have perpetuated the perfect crime. The Government offered the world financial markets a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ settlment which was favourable to the local economy. At the time, the rhetoric claimed that countries that treat foreign creditors so badly would surely stagnate and suffer a FDI boycott. This is the standard neo-liberal line that is used to coerce debtor nations into compliance with the needs of ‘first-world’ capital largely defined through the aegis of the IMF. But the Argentinian case shows this paradigm to be toothless because the Government defied the major players including the IMF and the Argentine economy went on to boom despite it.

(fra Why pander to the financial markets?)

Denninger er selvsagt helt med:

A Cautionary Tale og Hint To Other Nations: Here's The Bill (forsiktig, jeg tror ikke noen har godt av å lese mer enn ett Denninger-stykke for dagen)

Uansett: Stå på Island! Ikke gi etter for trusler!

Penger, gjeld og andre ubetydeligheter

Deadlock! Total Borrowing Has Stabilized at a Mild Contraction Rate as Private Debt Reduction Stops Increasing and Government Borrowing Stays Steady (Thought Offerings)

the big news is that it has become clearer that the private sector's negative rate of borrowing has stopped increasing and has stabilized at a level roughly opposite to the government's positive rate of borrowing.

Dette rimer for meg; mer "bias confirmation" enn "big news".

Bakgrunn: Steve Keen i It’s Hard Being a Bear (Part Six)?Good Alternative Theory?:

So there is no coherent neoclassical theory that can take solace from the success of the government stimulus packages, should they avert a deep recession and cause a sustained recovery without a rise in the private debt to GDP ratio.[2] If there is to be a winner in this debate, it has to be a non-neoclassical school of thought.

There is such a school of thought which has developed in Post Keynesian literature recently. Known as Chartalism, it argues that the government can and should maintain deficits to ensure full employment.

Chartalism rejects neoclassical economics, as I do. However it takes a very different approach to analyzing the monetary system, putting the emphasis upon government money creation whereas I focus upon private credit creation. It is therefore in one sense a rival approach to the “Circuitist” School which I see myself as part of. But it could also be that both groups are right, as in the parable of the blind men and the elephant: we’ve got hold of the same animal, but since one of us has a leg and the other a trunk, we think we’re holding on to vastly different creatures.

Keen lar chartalisten prof. Bill Mitchell (som forøvrig fører en veldig bra blog) presentere synspunktet. Relevante utdrag (alle uthevinger med fet skrift i det gjenstående er mine):

Under a fiat currency system, the monetary unit defined by the government has no intrinsic worth. It cannot be legally converted by government, for example, into gold as it was under the gold standard. The viability of the fiat currency is ensured by the fact that it is the only unit which is acceptable for payment of taxes and other financial demands of the government.

The analogy that mainstream macroeconomics draws between private household budgets and the national government budget is thus false. Households, the users of the currency, must finance their spending prior to the fact. However, government, as the issuer of the currency, must spend first (credit private bank accounts) before it can subsequently tax (debit private accounts). Government spending is therefore the source of the funds the private sector requires to pay its taxes and to net save, and it is not inherently revenue constrained.

So statements such as “the federal government is spending taxpayers’ funds” are totally inapplicable to operational reality of our monetary system. Taxation acts to withdraw spending power from the private sector but does not provide any extra financial capacity for public spending.

As a matter of national accounting, the federal government deficit (surplus) equals the non-government surplus (deficit). In aggregate, there can be no net savings of financial assets of the non-government sector without cumulative government deficit spending. The federal government via net spending (deficits) is the only entity that can provide the non-government sector with net financial assets (net savings) and thereby simultaneously accommodate any net desire to save and hence eliminate unemployment. Additionally, and contrary to mainstream economic rhetoric, the systematic pursuit of government budget surpluses is necessarily manifested as systematic declines in private sector savings.

Altså: den overbelånte amerikanske private sektoren må betale ned gjeld; det må balanseres med offentlige underskudd. Mitchell mener dette ikke er det samme som at det offentlige må ta opp gjeld; han ser på offentlig gjeldsopptak som et virkemiddel for å få opp renta:

Government spending and purchases of government bonds by the central bank add liquidity, while taxation and sales of government securities drain private liquidity. These transactions influence the cash position of the system on a daily basis and on any one day they can result in a system surplus (deficit) due to the outflow of funds from the official sector being above (below) the funds inflow to the official sector. The system cash position has crucial implications for the central bank, which targets the level of short-term interest rates as its monetary policy position. Budget deficits result in system-wide surpluses (excess bank reserves).

Competition between the commercial banks to create better earning opportunities on the surplus reserves then puts downward pressure on the cash rate (as they try to off-load the excess reserves in the overnight interbank market). So budget deficits actually put downward pressure on short-term interest rates which is contrary to all the claims made by mainstream economics.

If the central bank desires to maintain the current positive target cash rate then it must drain this surplus liquidity by selling government debt. In other words, government debt functions as interest rate support via the maintenance of desired reserve levels in the commercial banking system and not as a source of funds to finance government spending.

Fra et dobbelt bokføringsperspektiv er dette nærmest trivielt; for enhver post finnes det alltid en like stor, men motsatt, motpost (eller sum av poster). Så i et fiat-regime må det, for hvert $penn (utt.: "schpenn"), alltid finnes et anti-$penn. Det betyr enten en gjeld eller et (akkumulert offentlig) underskudd.

(En digresjon ift denne posten men relevant mtp forrige er Mitchells syn på sammenhengen mellom offentlig pengebruk og arbeidsledighet:

As a matter of accounting, for aggregate output to be sold, total spending must equal total income (whether actual income generated in production is fully spent or not each period). Involuntary unemployment is idle labour unable to find a buyer at the current money wage. In the absence of government spending, unemployment arises when the private sector, in aggregate, desires to spend less of the monetary unit of account than it earns. Nominal (or real) wage cuts per se do not clear the labour market, unless they somehow eliminate the private sector desire to net save and increase spending. Thus, unemployment occurs when net government spending is too low to accommodate the need to pay taxes and the desire to net save.

)

Her kommer vår gamle kjenning James Kenneth Galbraith inn; for med Mitchells ord i bakhodet er det mulig å følge resonnementet Galbraith presenterer i The Predator State, og det Galbraith sier utfyller Mitchell.

The Predator State, s. 54 f:

What few understood was that the budget deficit and the trade deficit were closely linked, and each was closely related to the evolving character of the global financial system. They were so closely related, in fact, that they usually amounted to two aspects of the same thing. And as the new global monetary system developed, the growing need for dollars -- for monetary reserves -- held outside the United States would come to guarantee that the United States would necessarily experience both trade deficits and budget deficits almost all of the time. The deficits were not so much a symptom of a declining position as the tribute paid to the United States for its position atop the world financial order. The falling dollar in the 1970s stemmed from the threat to that position, following the Nixon shocks, the triumph of international monetarism, and the destruction of Bretton Woods. [KODE innskyter: ...og at oljeproduksjonen deres toppet i 1970, muligens kanskje?]

There is a basic relationship in macroeconomy, as fundamental as it is poorly understood, that links the internal and international financial positions of any country. A country's internal deficit, that is, its "public" deficit and its "private" deficit -- the annual borrowing by companies and households -- will together equal its international deficit. In the early postwar United States, the typical pattern of the private sector, which consists of companies and households, was to run a small net surplus each year, of around 2 percent of GDP. Thus, the private sector accumulated financial assets, while the publilc sector built up a corresponding stock of debts. Overall, the country enjoyed a situation in which approximate external balance could be (and was) maintained, so long as the public sector deficit did not exceed 2 percent of GDP. If households and companies were depositing money in the banks every year, government could borrow that money without having to look for it abroad. To put it another way, government did not borrow abroad, and so the government's deficit, which is the amount by which public spending put into the economy exceeds taxes taken out, created an exactly offsetting private surplus.

Vi hopper fram til Reagan (s. 58):

Why did it prove possible for Reagan to do what Carter could not, namely run large deficits, without a fall itn the dollar and consequent inflation? Because the Federal Reserve's policy of super-high interest rates and a super-strong dollar helped Reagan out. By attracting a flood of investment capital back into the United States, the strong dollar policy reconciled fiscal stimulus, recovering employment, and a rapid end to inflation. The dollar now became the unchallenged world reserve currency, which meant the United States not only could, but had to, run trade deficits to the extent of the demand for reserves. So long as the domestic private sector remained of a mind to accumulate financial assets, which it did through the Reagan term, the trade deficits had to be translated, as a matter of accounting, into federal budget deficits of a similar size. The doctrine of "twin deficits" did gain official notice -- Paul Volcker spoke and wrote about it in the mid-1980s -- but the interpretation then given held that budget deficits were to blame for the trade deficit. The role of the world financial system in making the deficit inevitable was overlooked.

Vi hopper til sent i '93 (s. 60 f):

For the next three years, the recovery gathered force. Unemployment fell, the budget deficit began to diminish, and inflation did not rise. The 1997 Asian crisis brought a flood of capital back into the safe haven of U.S. Treasury bonds, strengthening the dollar. The trade deficit rose.

But now the budget deficit did not. Indeed it fell -- all the way to zero and into actual surplus, for the first time since 1969. How could this happen? How could our foreign deficits go up while our budget deficit went down? If the money sent abroad did not come from the government, where did it come from? This fact caused many who had been exposed to the "twin deficits" view of budgets and trade to deny that the view was accurate. But they were forgetting the third element in that equation. There is one possible way (and only one) for budget deficits to go down while the trade deficit goes up: for the private sector of the American economy to "take over" the budget deficits previously run by the state. And that is what happened. Private businesses and households in the late 1990s chose, for the first time in postwar history, to move massively into deficit. Credit cards, mortgages, and home equity loans suddenly became the drivers of American economic growth. For a time, the American household took over the job of running deficits from the American government. This was the Keynesian devolution.

Se også The US government has run short of money (Bill Mitchell)

Amerikansk arbeidsledighet, igjen

Ukens gla'nyhet fra USA forrige uke var at økningen i arbeidslediheten har stoppet opp, med bare 11k fler arbeidsledige; og siden masse folk også forlot arbeidsstyrken, så falt andelen arbeidsledige. Så sier Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Ja?

Nei.

En av mine favoritter, den surrealistiske realisten Anonymous Monetarist, har skrevet et par bra innlegg om saken:

The Great Depression? No, the Great Deception. The Great Moderation? No, the Great Modification. -- en oppsummering av grunnene til å ikke tro på tallet fra BLS, som f.eks. at det betales mindre inntektsskatt;

og

Kids say the damnedest things, are we stuck in a moment? Lies have consequences. -- hvor han sammenligner situasjonen i dag med tredvetallet, og konkluderer "of course it is a Great Depression". (Han siterer The Labor Market during the Great Depression and the Current Recession (Levine/Congressional Research Service)(PDF!) og De-facto Unemployment Rate (Center for Working Class-Studies, Youngstown State University), men uten linker)

Zero Hedge er også flinke til å grave møkk, se for eksempel

Emergency Jobless Insurance Claims Surge By Most Ever In Prior Week


eller

Collapse In Tax Withholdings Refutes Improvements In Either Unemployment Or Corporate Profitability:

Drilling down into actual monthly figures does not indicate any trend change.

USA er i en Depresjon, og det blir ikke bedre.

Økonomiens mål

er ikke profitt. Det er ...trommehvirvel... å dissipere (norsk?) energi så fort som mulig:

Second Law of Thermodynamics May Explain Economic Evolution (PhysOrg)

[W]hen formulated as an equation of motion, the second law [of thermodynamics] can be used to describe many [...] processes in energetic terms, such as natural selection for the fittest species, organization of cellular metabolism, or an ecosystem’s food web. In these systems, free energy is consumed; that is, energy is dispersed in a way to promote the maximal increase of entropy, which is the essence of the second law.

While economic activities are traditionally viewed as being motivated by profit, Annila and Salthe argue that the ultimate motivation of economic activities is not to maximize profit or productivity, but rather to disperse energy.

Mææget interessant om koblingen mellom økononomi og energi (og livet, universet & alt det andre). Hele PhysOrg-artikkelen er egentlig sitatmat, men jeg må vel prøve å gjøre i det minste en symbolsk innsats for å holde meg på den riktige siden av kopilovene så jeg motstår fristelsen... nnnggh...

Den opprinnelige artikkelen er fra Entropy, skrevet av Arto Annila og Stanley Salthe, er tilgjengelig på nett som pdf, og heter Economies Evolve by Energy Dispersal.

Jeg har bare skummet igjennom (det er forøvrig en leseteknikk jeg bruker en del; først skumme igjennom, så la stoffet gjære i underbevisstheten et døgn eller to, og så lese grundigere), men en umiddelbar kommentar:

Kommentarene på PhysOrg går i retning av tilbedelse av Den Hellige (usynlige) Hånd... men i EEbED sier forfatterne at

Natural selection for the most effective mechanisms of energy dispersal is often pictured to be driven only by mutual competition, sometimes referred to as an arms race, whereas less attention has been given to the gains that are obtained by evolution to hierarchical organizations, sometimes viewed as co-evolution, co-operation or even altruism.
[...]
We note that the natural bias for the maximal energy dispersal down along the steepest gradients was anticipated in the economical context as being directed by ‗an invisible hand‘. However, we emphasize that, according to the 2nd law, the primary motive of economic activities is the most effective dispersal of energy, whereas it is of secondary importance whether the processes are defined as conscious or unconscious. Therefore, legislation and its enforcement that also consume free energy in redirecting flows and in altering mechanisms, are regarded as natural forces. Also in biological systems natural selection is at work both when particular traits are intentionally sought by breeding and when they appear in response to unintentional forces [1]. The selection between mechanisms by the rate of entropy increase is a particularly stringent criterion when free energy is becoming depleted.

"The selection between mechanisms by the rate of entropy increase is a particularly stringent criterion when free energy is becoming depleted"...

Hm, hm, hmmm

Enda en...

Takk til Leanan på TOD for enda en fantastisk link:

The Economy is a Lie, Too (Paul Craig Roberts / Counterpunch)

Spesielt interessant fordi "Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration."