¿Quien está peor...

... EEUU o Europa? se pregunta Simmon Johnson. Me llama la atención el resultado: Europa. Europa está en una trampa de difícil salida. EEUU tiene un problema de largo plazo: recortar los futuros gastos en sanidad. La catástrofe vendría en 2021... si antes el Tea Party no se empeña en hacer la Tormenta Perfecta.

 The single most interesting point about today’s “debt ceiling” debate is that over the 10-year forecast horizon that frames for the entire discussion, there is simply no fiscal problem by any conventional definition.  In 2021, the US will likely have a small primary surplus at the federal level – meaning that the budget, before interest payments, will no longer be in deficit. 

Lo cual reafirma aun más la irresponsabilidad del partido republicano. Que el cielo caiga sobre sus cabezas, por Tutatis.
He aquí las malas sensaciones para nosotros:

At the heart of this system was a great deal of “moral hazard,” meaning that investors stopped doing meaningful credit analysis – consequently Greek or Spanish or Italian governments could borrow at just a few basis points above the rate for the German government (where one basis point is a hundredth of a percentage point, 0.01 percent).

The shock to investors’ thinking over the past three years has been the combined realizations that Greece and some other “peripheral” countries have so much debt they may not be able to make all the contracted payments by themselves, while Germany and other northern countries have become convinced that foolish investors should suffer some losses.  Imposing losses on banks that made bad decisions is a sensible principle – but getting from here to there is not easy, particularly when the “periphery” includes Italy, which has gross debt of nearly 2 trillion euros (about 120 percent of its GDP).

Either Europe really ends moral hazard, in which case there will be widespread restructuring of sovereign debts or it keeps the bailouts coming, particularly involving the European Central Bank, which will ultimately be inflationary.  The package announced last week is a classic case of “muddling through,” meaning that it doesn’t really solve anything.  

Ni siquiera yo (es broma) lo podría decir mejor. El sistema euro se basa en el supuesto de que nos salvarán, los buenos a los malos, siempre. Un día Alemania dirá Nein. Ya lo viene gruñendo, pero un día lo dirá por el altavoz. La conclusión me sorprende porque Simmon no es nada furibundo patriotero.