Schon in früheren Postings habe ich mich gegen die in USA verbreitete Interpretation ausgesprochen, dass der Credit Crunch die "Ursache" der Krise sei. Mit dieser fadenscheinigen Begründung würde es reichen, die Märkte mit noch mehr Geld zu fluten (was ja auch geplant ist), und schon wäre die "Krise bewältigt".
Meine Gegenthese: Der Credit Crunch ist nicht Ursache, sondern Folge bzw. Symptom der extremen Schieflagen. Die Banken reagieren damit auf die zunehmende Pleitegefahr bei anderen Banken (kein Interbanken-Markt) sowie bei ihren Kunden.
Dann aber wären die neuerlichen Geldflutungs-Versuch (Blase 3.0) von Paulson und Bernanke zum Scheitern verurteilt. Die Amis folgten dann lediglich dem Prinzip: Lass keine Blase aus, die aufpumpbar scheint - denn es könnte die letzte sein.
Devisen-Experte Mark Chandler hat in dem Artikel unten die Kausalitäten zurechtgerückt. Seine Schlußfolgerung, vor allem die Konsumentenseite mit staatlichen Maßnahmen zu stärken, ist freilich auch nicht der Weisheit letzter Schluss.
Warum nicht einfach mal eingestehen, dass USA zu lange über seine Verhältnisse gelebt hat und nun zum Beheben früherer Exzesse der Gürtel eine Zeitlang enger geschnallt werden muss?
Economy
What if the Credit Crunch Is Merely a Symptom?
By Marc Chandler
Street.com Contributor
12/12/2008 2:29 PM EST
Rare is a
consensus among the practitioners of the dismal science, but economists seems to be in universal agreement about the nature of the current crisis and the parallels with the Great Depression:
the paralysis of the capital markets and the inability and/or unwillingness of banks to lend derailed the real economy.By word and by deed, officials and investors seem to concur,
but what if they are wrong? What if the credit crunch itself is not so much a cause but a symptom of a larger, structural problem?Since Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's "Monetary History of the United States," it's been widely accepted that tightening credit conditions triggered the Great Depression. In an editorial in The Wall Street Journal on October 18, 2008, Schwartz identified tightening credit conditions as the critical similarity between the Depression and the present crisis. The op-ed pages of leading newspapers and magazines are replete with similar arguments.
The policy prescription is clear, and classical, neoclassical and supply-side economic theories agree:
Resolve the credit crisis. Provide ample liquidity through financial triage and the lender of last resort. This will renew incentives to financial disintermediaries to lend money to businesses, which in turn will invest, boosting plant and equipment spending, and in doing so create jobs, increase incomes and boost consumption. Reopening the capital markets will return the economy to its growth path.While this seems like a compelling narrative, it shares the vulnerability of other great theories: the historical record.
An
alternative explanation begins with the recognition that the
Great Depression and current crisis are linked by macroeconomic similarities beyond the dramatic deterioration of credit conditions.
The economic expansions that preceded both the 1929 crash and the more recent one were both driven by consumption, especially of durable consumer goods, rather than investment. And in both cases, the increase in effective demand was fueled not by higher real wages and salaries but by increased consumer credit.Net private investment (net of depreciation) declined even as manufacturing capacity, labor productivity and industrial output increased. While investment in plants and equipment is labor-saving, most do not appreciate that it is capital-saving as well, meaning depreciation allowances for capital equipment can fund replacement of existing stock, which carries the bulk of technological advances. Of course this has not always been true in the U.S. -- starting in the 1920s, the atrophy of new net investment became evident, and World War II and its aftermath reversed it temporarily.
Forces and policy actions produced a significant shift in national income shares away from wages and salaries and toward profits and dividends.
Modern-day puritans harp on the fact that consumption in the U.S. has outstripped income (wages and salaries), but few are willing to consider that, for most Americans, the problem is not high consumption but low income.Until the early 1970s, there was a social pact that linked wages and salaries to productivity gains. However, various forces, including the decline of organized labor, have dissolved the pact.
Since then, real wages have largely stagnated while productivity has risen dramatically. To soften the blow, transfer payments -- taking the form of "entitlement" and other social spending schemes -- have been developed.
A shift in income shares also preceded the Great Depression.
American historian James Livingston found that 90% of American taxpayers had less disposable income in 1929 then they did in 1922, while corporate profits were up by nearly two-thirds and dividends had doubled. The top 1% of taxpayers experienced a more than 60% increase in disposable income.
Combined with a decline in net new investment, this gave capital few outlets, including conspicuous consumption. It produced a
speculative bubble of historic proportions. In the 1920s, it was equities; currently, it is mainly real estate and derivatives, but also commodities, emerging markets and other asset classes. These forces have choked off household access to credit and, therefore, effective demand for consumer durable goods.
New net private investment did not lead the recovery in the 1930s and it most likely won't lead this recovery either. The capital stock per worker was actually lower in 1939 than 1929, though national output and income had regained pre-Great Depression peaks by 1937.
The historical record is clear: the recovery from 1933-1937 was fueled by the rising demand for consumer goods. Rising consumer demand was a result of a shift in income shares from profits toward wages.
This was paid for by government spending, and reinforced by a reinvigorated labor movement.Economic upswings since have been fueled by the demand for consumer goods, not investment goods. The famous Reagan tax cuts in 1981 aimed at fueling investment did not -- the top 50 corporate beneficiaries actually reduced capital expenditures in 1982 and 1983, and net new investment trended lower throughout the 1980s. Nor has President Bush's tax cuts stimulated new net investment, something many astute observers have recognized.
Consumption accounts for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy and government spending accounts for the vast majority of the remainder. Contrary to inherited wisdom, there appears to be no correlation between lower corporate taxes, increased net investment and economic growth. Indeed, growth has consistently been recorded even as net investment has fallen.
Whereas the conventional view claims the underlying problem is one of a shortage of liquidity and credit, this alternative suggests the problem is one of surplus capital [klingt auch logischer, das Geld ist halt "alle" - A.L.]. Like the proverbial dead atheist who is all dressed up with no place to go, business and investors were awash with capital but real investment opportunities were limited.
Capital is a victim of its own success.Businesses have been very successful in accumulating wealth (with the help of favorable tax and regulatory policies), but at the same time,
the extensive deployment of capital-saving technology prevented the emergence of new profitable investment opportunities. In such circumstances, capital turns its attention to what Hyman Minski called "balance sheet engineering": speculation and ultimately destruction in historic proportions.
If the credit crunch is indeed a symptom of deeper structural forces, then the solution now, like the 1930s, is to promote consumption through fiscal policy (tax incentives to purchases of consumer durables, a cut in payroll taxes),
higher and longer unemployment compensation and massive public investment. Relinking wages and salaries to productivity growth is not simply a function of fairness, but an issue of economic necessity.The imbalance policymakers should address is the shares of national income. In a rising tide, by all means, help the people with the boats -- but it is the consumers who have the boats.
Marc Chandler has been covering the global capital markets in one fashion or another for nearly 20 years, working at economic consulting firms and global investment banks. Currently, he is the chief foreign exchange strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman.