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05/31/2010 10:45 AM

ECB Buying Up Greek Bonds

German Central Bankers Suspect French Intrigue

By Wolfgang Reuter

The European Central Bank has been buying up Greek bonds by the bucketload, even though Athens is already getting money from an EU rescue fund. German central bankers suspect a French plot behind the massive buy-up -- after all, it gives French banks the perfect opportunity to get rid of their Greek assets.

The senior members of the German central bank, the Bundesbank, regarded Axel Weber with a look of anticipation. What would Weber, the Bundesbank president, say about the serious crisis that had them all so worried, they wondered? And what did he intend to do about it?

Weber said nothing and, as some who attended the meeting report, even his facial expression was inscrutable. The Bundesbank president remained stone-faced as he acknowledged the latest figures, which indicated that by the end of last week the European Central Bank (ECB) had already spent close to €40 billion ($50 billion) on buying up government bonds from Spain, Portugal, Ireland and, in particular, Greece.

The ECB already has about €25 billion of Greece's mountain of debt on its books, and it is adding another €2 billion a day, on average. The Bundesbank, which has a 27 percent stake in the ECB, is responsible for €7 billion of the ECB's Greek government bonds.

Many Bundesbank members are wondering why the ECB is buying Greek bonds in the first place, particularly on this scale, now that the euro-zone countries' €110 billion bailout package for Greece has been approved, and the first tranche of the funds has already been disbursed.

The general €750 billion rescue fund for the remaining highly indebted countries has been approved but not yet set up. For this reason, it certainly makes sense to stabilize the prices of Spanish, Portuguese and Irish bonds. Nevertheless, some of the central bankers have a sneaking suspicion that there is a French conspiracy at work.

Bailing Out French Banks

By buying up Greek debt, the ECB keeps the prices of the bonds artificially high. French banks, in particular, benefit from this policy because it enables them to sell their Greek bonds to the ECB, as an inexpensive way of cleaning up their balance sheets. France's banks and insurance companies have a total of about €80 billion in Greek government bonds on their books.

German banks, on the other hand, are not potential sellers, because they have made a voluntary commitment to Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble to hold their Greek bonds until May 2013.

Thus, in a roundabout way, the Bundesbank, by spending €7 billion to purchase the Greek securities, has already made a substantial contribution to bailing out banks in neighboring France.

It was ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet, a Frenchman, who, in an alarming and provocative speech, initiated the extensive euro rescue package that was approved on the weekend of May 8-9. And it was Trichet who yielded to massive pressure from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and, soon afterwards, violated a long-standing ECB taboo, namely that the central bank should never buy its member states' debt. This, however, was precisely what Sarkozy had demanded of his fellow European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Clear Signal

Weber, the Bundesbank president, voted against this measure in the ECB council and criticized it the next day in an interview with the German financial newspaper Börsen-Zeitung. For a central banker, this is a very clear signal of dissatisfaction. But the Bundesbank president faces a dilemma, because he hopes to take over as ECB president when Trichet's term expires next year. The general consensus in the German government is that if he continues to fight against the purchase of the bonds, his prospects for securing the top ECB post will dwindle.

But many German central bankers expect Weber to remain steadfast and not give in. For them, the purchase of government bonds is a betrayal of the principles of the once-proud institution. By deciding to do so, they say, the ECB has lost its status as an independent central bank -- and, along with it, so has the Bundesbank. And then there is the fear of the consequences of such a purchase, which many central bankers believe could jeopardize the very existence of the ECB.

However, European central bankers do not know how long the ECB will continue to buy government bonds. That depends on how bond prices fluctuate in the euro-zone countries in question.

Managing the Crisis

Every morning, the so-called Market Operations Committee (MOC) of the ECB analyzes the situation. The committee, whose members the ECB does not identify, supports the central bank in its monetary policy affairs, foreign currency transactions and the management of currency reserves. But the MOC has also become the bridge from which the central bankers are managing the euro crisis.

The Bundesbank's representative on the MOC is Joachim Nagel, head of the central bank's markets department. In closed-door sessions, he and his fellow committee members determine when and for what amounts the ECB and the euro-zone central banks, in concerted actions, buy up the government bonds of highly indebted euro countries to support their prices and thus maintain yields at a tolerable level.

The central bankers have informally agreed on what constitutes this tolerable level. The MOC's goal is to manipulate the markets in such a way that bond prices level off at the values that were in place on April 9, before investors, fearing that the governments could default on their bonds, launched into a massive sell-off of the securities.

The Euro Zone's Bad Bank

Bonds worth about €3 billion are now being purchased on every trading day, with €2 billion of the bonds coming from Athens. At the moment, there is no improvement of the situation in sight. "The ECB and the national central banks operating on its behalf are currently the only buyers to speak of," says one market insider.

This policy effectively makes the ECB a so-called "bad bank" (a bank that buys up toxic assets as a means of helping out other institutions), all protestations of its president to the contrary. The pile of junk bonds on the ECB's balance sheet continues to grow. The fact that the ECB is keeping prices artificially high is downright encouraging banks to unload their risky assets onto the central bank.

Thorstein Polleit, the chief economist of Barclays Capital Deutschland, puts it this way: "The ECB is creating excess supply by buying at overinflated prices." In other words, many creditors are more inclined to sell their risky assets to the central bank under these terms. "It's a free lunch," says a top Frankfurt banker. "Anyone who doesn't take advantage of this opportunity to get rid of his securities now only has himself to blame."

But in pursuing the policy, the ECB has backed itself into a corner. What will happen if it stops supporting the market? Will the prices of the bonds of highly indebted countries then hit rock bottom?

Time for a Haircut?

To make matters worse, very few financial experts believe that the governments in question, particularly in the case of Greece, will get a handle on the debt crisis. Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann recently voiced such doubts, saying that such a failure would result in a so-called "haircut" -- that is, a debt waiver on the part of creditors. If that happened, Ackermann said, the ECB itself could be in jeopardy. The central bank's capital, currently about €70 billion, most of which is invested in the national central banks, would be severely affected or even completely exhausted, depending on how much longer the central bank continues to buy Greek bonds.

The member states would also have to inject new capital into the ECB, a particularly difficult undertaking for highly indebted countries.

Another option for the ECB would be to issue its own bonds to recapitalize itself. But this too creates a problem: At what interest rate would investors lend money to the central bank under these circumstances?

The only remaining solution would be one that has always led to inflation in the past, namely firing up the printing presses.

Good Money for Bad Debt

Although that scenario is unlikely to materialize, those who have always believed that a few days of robust ECB market intervention would be enough to reassure market players and bring yields back to a normal level were mistaken.

At first glance, the ECB's efforts to support the bonds of highly indebted countries would seem to have a neutral effect on its balance sheet, because it reflects a value for the bonds corresponding to their price. But the truth is that good money is being paid for bad debt.

The German finance minister, in particular, will feel the effects of this policy. The Bundesbank normally transfers its profits to the federal government at the end of each year -- in euros, not Greek bonds.

But paying for the bonds ties up available funds, thereby reducing profits, presumably for years to come. This too has a seriously adverse effect on the self-confidence of the central bankers.

Things could get worse. If creditors were in fact forced to forego a portion of their claims, this flow of payments could even be reversed. Under that scenario, the federal government would have to transfer money to the Bundesbank to offset its losses.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Solutions for a crisis in its sovereign stage

By Nouriel Roubini and Arnab Das

Published: Last updated: May 31 2010 20:41

The largest financial crisis in history is spreading from private to sovereign entities. At best, Europe’s recovery will suffer as the collapsing euro subtracts from growth in its key trading partners. At worst, a disintegration of the single currency or a wave of disorderly defaults could unhinge the financial system and precipitate a double-dip recession.

How did it come to this? Starting in the 1970s, financial liberalisation and innovation eased credit constraints on the public and private sectors. Households in advanced economies – where real income growth was anaemic – could use debt to spend beyond their means. The process was fed by ever laxer regulation, increasingly frequent and expensive government and International Monetary Fund bail-outs in response to increasingly frequent and expensive crises, and easy monetary policy from the 1990s. Political support for this democratisation of credit and home-ownership compounded the trend after 2000.

Paradigm shifts were invoked to justify debt-fuelled global growth: the transition from cold war to Washington Consensus; the re-integration of emerging markets into the global economy; the “Goldilocks” combination of high growth and low inflation; a much-ballyhooed convergence ahead of monetary union across Europe; and rapid financial innovation.

The result was a consumption binge in deficit countries and an export surge in surplus countries, with vendor financing courtesy of the latter. Global output and growth, corporate profits, household income and wealth, and public revenue and spending temporarily shot well above equilibrium. Wishful thinking allowed asset prices to reach absurd heights and pushed risk premiums to incredible lows. When the asset and credit bubbles burst, it became clear that the world faced a lower speed limit on growth than we had banked on.

Now, governments everywhere are releveraging to socialise private losses. But public debt is ultimately a private burden: governments subsist by taxing private income and wealth, or through the ultimate capital levy of inflation or outright default. Eventually governments must deleverage too, or else public debt will explode, precipitating further, deeper public and private-sector crises. This is already happening in the front-line of the crisis, eurozone sovereign debt. Greece is first over the edge; Ireland, Portugal and Spain trail close behind. Italy, while not yet illiquid, faces solvency risks. Even France and Germany have rising deficits. UK budget cuts are starting. Eventually the US will have to cut too.

In the early part of the crisis, governments acted in unison to restore confidence and economic activity. The Group of 20 coalesced after the crash of 2008-09; we all were in the same boat together, sinking fast.

But in 2010, national imperatives reasserted themselves. Co-ordination is now lacking: Germany is banning naked short selling unilaterally and the US is pursuing its own financial sector reform. Surplus countries are unwilling to stimulate consumption, while deficit countries are building unsustainable public debt.

The eurozone offers an object lesson in how not to respond to a systemic crisis. Member states started going it alone when they carved up pan-European banks along national lines in 2008. After much dithering and denial over Greece, leaders orchestrated an overwhelming show of force; a €750bn bail-out bolstered confidence for one day. But the rules went out of the window. Sovereign rescues are legitimised by an escape clause from the “no bail-out” rule intended for acts of God, not man-made debt. The European Central Bank began buying government bonds days after insisting it would not. Tensions in the Franco-German axis are palpable.

Instead of Balkanised local responses, we need a comprehensive solution to this global problem.

First, the eurozone must get its act together. It must deregulate, liberalise, reform the south and stoke demand in the north to restore dynamism and growth; ease monetary policy to prevent deflation and boost competitiveness; implement sovereign debt restructuring mechanisms to limit moral hazard from bail-outs; and put expansion of the eurozone on ice.

Second, creditors need to take a hit, and debtors adjust. This is a solvency problem, demanding a grand work-out. Greece is the tip of the iceberg; banks in Spain and elsewhere in Europe stand knee-deep in bad debt, while problems persist in US residential and global commercial property.

Third, it is time for radical reform of finance. The majority of proposals on the table are inadequate or irrelevant. Large financial institutions must be unbundled; they are too big, interconnected and complex to manage. Investors and customers can find all the traditional banking, investment banking, hedge fund, mutual fund and insurance services they need in specialised firms. We need to go back to Glass-Steagal on steroids.

Last, the global economy must be rebalanced. Deficit countries need to boost savings and investment; surplus countries to stimulate consumption. The quid pro quo for fiscal and financial reform in deficit countries must be deregulation of product, service and labour markets to boost incomes in surplus countries.

Nouriel Roubini is founder and chairman of Roubini Global Economics. Arnab Das is RGE’s managing director for market research and strategy

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.

China property risk is worse than in US

By Geoff Dyer in Beijing

Published: Last updated: May 31 2010 20:08

The problems in China’s housing market are more severe than those in the US before the financial crisis because they combine a potential bubble with the risk of social discontent, according to an adviser to the Chinese.

Li Daokui, a professor at Tsinghua University and a member of the Chinese central bank’s monetary policy committee, said recent government measures to cool the property market needed to be part of a long-term push to bring high housing prices under control.

He added that there were still signs that the economy was overheating and recommended modest increases in interest rates and the level of the currency.

“The housing market problem in China is actually much, much more fundamental, much bigger than the housing market problem in the US and UK before your financial crisis,” he said in an interview. “It is more than [just] a bubble problem.”

He was speaking ahead of Monday’s announcement by the State Council that it had approved a plan to reform real estate taxes, the clearest indication yet that the government will for the first time impose an annual tax on some residential housing in order to rein in rising prices. The news sent shares in China down 2.4 per cent.

The unusually forthright comments from Mr Li contrast with the growing view among economists that the crisis in Europe will lead China to avoid further measures to tighten policy, including currency appreciation.

Wen Jiabao, Chinese premier, reinforced that impression on Monday when he said it was too early for big economies to withdraw stimulus measures.

“The debt crisis in some European countries may impede Europe’s economic recovery,” he said in Tokyo. “China will make sure it maintains a sense of crisis.”

Mr Li said the high cost of housing could hamper future growth by slowing urbanisation. Rising prices were also a potential political flashpoint, especially among younger people who felt locked out of the property market.

“When prices go up, many people, especially young people, become very anxious,” he said. “It is a social problem.”

In spite of the sharp slowdown in property sales and the troubles in Europe, he said economic activity was still too strong. “China is running the risk or is on the verge of overheating,” he said. Although he added: “I would say the situation is not out of control.”

As well as calling for modest increases in deposit rates, which are negative in real terms, he said a gradual appreciation in the currency would help companies prepare for when the renminbi was considerably stronger.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.

HEARD ON THE STREET

JUNE 1, 2010.

China's Thirst for Oil Could Come Up Short .

By LIAM DENNING

Oil bulls place enormous faith in the Chinese dragon. But don't forget the inkfish.

"Inkfish" are smoke-spewing, single-cylinder engine contraptions driven by many poorer Chinese. They symbolize why China's vehicle market—now the world's largest—mightn't necessarily be a source of rapidly growing oil consumption ad infinitum. What's more, China may also be an unexpectedly bearish force for commodities on the supply side, an issue discussed in a separate column Tuesday.

This year, China is expected to consume 11% of global oil production, says the International Energy Agency. However, it has accounted for 45% of the growth in global oil demand over the past decade.

As China's vast population grows richer, so the thinking goes, so will its appetite for more of everything. Yet, as Deutsche Bank's Paul Sankey points out, Chinese passenger-vehicle sales surged 77% year-on-year in the first quarter. Yet apparent gasoline demand rose by just 3%. Indeed, consultancy JBC Energy reckons Chinese demand for gasoline has been flat since last July.

Why the disconnect? Jack Perkowski, founder of Chinese auto-parts maker Asimco Technologies and now head of advisory firm JFP Holdings, points to underlying shifts in the Chinese vehicle market.

About 50 million engines are manufactured in China every year, says Mr. Perkowski. So while 13.6 million cars, trucks and buses were sold in China last year, another 36 million or so other, low-technology vehicles were sold, including those inkfish. A big reason for the apparent surge in sales, therefore, is the switch from nonconventional vehicles to conventional vehicles, says Mr. Perkowski.

This helps explain the disconnect between Chinese vehicle and oil markets, especially as new cars are more fuel-efficient than inkfish. Still, with per capita car ownership one-twentieth that of the U.S., surely the sheer weight of numbers portends dizzying growth in oil demand?

That view assumes, however, that Chinese drivers emulate Americans and load up on big SUVs and trucks. There is good reason to think they won't. Even with rising incomes, price is the big factor in Chinese car-buying decisions. Smaller cars, perfectly suited for the urban environment of the richer coastal cities, are cheaper than big ones.

In addition, never forget the role of the government. Beijing has little strategic interest in emulating America's addiction to foreign oil. Accordingly, it has pushed consumers toward smaller engines via tax breaks. This is easier to do in an embryonic market where, unlike America, drivers don't feel like they are trading down to less powerful models.

In June, the government is expected to unveil subsidies for alternative-fuel cars like plug-in hybrids, worth perhaps a third of the sticker price. Besides energy security and environmental concerns, Beijing knows its domestic car makers have a better chance of leap-frogging Western rivals in the development of new electric-car technology than in long-established combustion engines.

The upshot is that China's thirst for oil mightn't grow as rapidly as many expect. Mr. Sankey sees oil demand there starting to flatten out at between 13 million and 14 million barrels of oil per day by 2025. That is more than this year's 9.1 million bpd, but implies an annual growth rate over the next 15 years of just 2.6%, about a third that of the "super-cycle" decade just gone.

A less thirsty Dragon would coincide with nascent, but determined, efforts to suppress oil consumption in the industrialized world.

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

La Gran Depresión del Siglo XXI y las falacias de su estudio.

Por Víctor Manuel Barceló R.


A finales de este mes de mayo será publicado en Montreal, Canadá, por Global Research, un libro con puntos de vista analíticos y críticos de diversos autores, encabezados por Michel Chossudovsky y Andrew Gavin Marshall denominado “The Global Economic Crisis. The great Depresion of the XXI Century”. Allí, de acuerdo a lo conocido, se expresan investigaciones relacionadas a la compleja red de engaño y distorsión mediática, que sirve para ocultar el funcionamiento del Sistema Económico Global y su impacto brutal en la vida de pueblos y personas.

Trascienden de su análisis, como conclusiones en que todos concuerdan, la clarificación, por un lado y asentimiento, por el otro, de trabajos de investigación, personales o colectivos, que se realizan en diversos claustros universitarios y otros agrupamientos de análisis, de manera primordial en la UNAM. Me referiré, de aquí en adelante, a resultados de la investigación, de esos 16 expertos que proponen tesis, cuyas conclusiones finales podrían ser: “la humanidad se encuentra en la encrucijada de la crisis económica y social más grave de la historia moderna” y que los estudios universitarios y de otros centros de investigación, no van al fondo de la problemática.

En la práctica, no hay región del Planeta, en que la recesión económica no esté profundamente arraigada. Sus efectos son devastadores al llevar a países y regiones a: paro generalizado, colapso de programas de bienestar social y empobrecimiento secuenciado de millones de personas.

A escala general, es un proceso de militarización, “guerra sin fronteras” dirigida por Estados Unidos de América y la OTAN. El comportamiento de la “larga guerra” del Pentágono, está íntimamente relacionado con estrategias de reestructuración de la economía global. Se trata de una crisis en que la arquitectura financiera global, sustenta objetivos estratégicos y de seguridad nacional. La agenda militar del imperio y la OTAN sirve a una poderosa elite de negocios que mina y eclipsa implacablemente funciones del gobierno civil. De allí las contradicciones aparentes –diríamos- entre el Presidente Obama y el Pentágono. Ambos rinden cuentas al stablishment.

El libro se cuela por pasillos de la Reserva Federal, del Consejo de Relaciones Exteriores; detrás de puertas cerradas del Banco de Pagos Internacionales; dentro de las salas de juntas de las corporaciones de Wall Street. Allí donde, con un clic del ratón del ordenador se realizan, rutinariamente, transacciones financieras de enorme alcance, en los principales mercados de valores. Allí se mueve una compleja red de engaño y distorsión mediática, que oculta el funcionamiento del sistema económico global y su impacto devastador en las personas. El análisis se centra en “el papel de poderosos actores económicos y políticos en un entorno labrado por la corrupción, la manipulación financiera y el fraude”. El colapso de los mercados financieros en 2008-2009 -se afirma- fue resultado del fraude institucionalizado y la manipulación financiera. Los “rescates de bancos” fueron instrucciones de Wall Street. Esto llevó a la mayor transferencia de riqueza en dinero, de la historia documentada.

A la vez, se creaba un insuperable déficit público.

Recordemos que para esta situación tan especial, se conformó la comisión del Senado de Estados Unidos que investiga a Wall Street y la crisis financiera, presidida por el demócrata Carl Levin y el republicano Tom Coburn. Dicha comisión reconoce cómo los grandes bancos de inversión -en primer lugar Goldman Sachs- llegaron a ser "especializados en los mecanismos de invención de instrumentos financieros sintéticos." Los activos trasnacionales anclados en valores reales de un mercado normal, existen en cantidades finitas; “hay determinado número de inmuebles, de acciones o de barriles de petróleo en los que se puede invertir”. Sin embargo, los "productos financieros sintéticos" no se refieren a activos reales, por ello su cantidad es potencialmente ilimitada. Se tornan en apuestas que hacen operadores sin interés en los activos reales de referencia, "se transforman en fichas de un gigantesco casino."

En el libro se afirma que el deterioro mundial del nivel de vida -caída en picada del gasto de consumidores- pone a la estructura del comercio internacional de artículos, en peligro. El sistema de pagos y transacciones de dinero vive una situación caótica. Tras colapso del empleo, se distorsiona el pago de salarios, desencadenando dramática caída de gastos en artículos de consumo y servicios.

El descenso del poder adquisitivo repercute negativamente en el sistema productivo, provocando: despidos masivos, cierres de fábricas y bancarrotas. La demanda de los consumidores se agrava por el crédito congelado, desmovilizando recursos.

La decadencia económica es acumulativa. Se afectan todas las categorías de la fuerza de trabajo. Ya no se implementan pagos de salarios, se trastoca el crédito y las inversiones de capital se paralizan. Paralelamente, en los países occidentales la “red de seguridad social” del Estado de Bienestar, que protege a parados, también está en peligro. Esto apunta a una “Gran Depresión” como la de la década de 1930. Que se intenta eclipsar por un férreo consenso: “La economía está en vías de recuperación”. En paralelo, Wall Street pasa por alto, intencionadamente, el hecho de que el colapso financiero no es una burbuja inmobiliaria de viviendas.

De hecho, la crisis tiene muchas burbujas que dejan pequeña la inmobiliaria de viviendas, que estalló en 2008.

Entre autores del libro existe debate acerca de cuándo ocurrirá la recuperación. A principios de 2010 se predijo y confirmó la “recuperación” de la economía imperial por medio de un “cuidadosamente trabajado aluvión de desinformación mediática”. En tanto, la difícil situación del paro en el imperio se camufla.

Consideran la bancarrota como fenómeno microeconómico. Informes sobre bancarrotas revelan realidades locales, no un panorama global de lo que ocurre nacional e internacionalmente. Cuando se suman cierres simultáneos en ciudades y poblaciones del imperio, emerge un panorama grave: están cerrando sectores enteros de la economía nacional.

Se sigue engañando a la opinión pública –dicen- respecto a causas y consecuencias de la crisis y las soluciones políticas. Se lleva a la gente a creer que la economía tiene su propia lógica, insistiendo –diríamos- en la libre interacción de las fuerzas del mercado junto a poderosos actores financieros, que “tiran de los hilos” en las salas de juntas de las corporaciones, mismos que no podrían haber influido en los acontecimientos económicos. La incesante y fraudulenta apropiación de riqueza -parte integral del “sueño americano”- continúa. Expresa Michael Hudson: se afianza el mito: “sin riqueza en lo más alto no habría nada que goteara hacia abajo”. Lógica viciada para ocultar orígenes estructurales e históricos de la crisis económica global.

La desinformación mediática sirve a intereses de un puñado de bancos globales y especuladores institucionales, quienes utilizan su dominio de los mercados financieros y de mercancías, para amasar enorme riqueza en dinero. Las altas esferas del Estado están controladas por la clase dirigente corporativa, incluyendo especuladores. Los “rescates de bancos”, presentados como requisito para la recuperación económica, facilitan y legalizan una mayor apropiación de riqueza. Precipitar el colapso del competidor y causar estragos en economías de países pobres, son consecuencias de la manipulación, parte integral de la arquitectura financiera, insertadas en el sistema.

Una reflexión interesante de los autores es su apreciación de que la profesión económica, particularmente en universidades, raramente aborda el “mundo real” de los mercados. Constructos teóricos -modelos matemáticos- representan un mundo abstracto, de ficción, en el que los individuos son iguales.

No hay distinción teórica entre trabajadores, consumidores o corporaciones; todos son “operadores individuales”.

Ningún individuo solo, tiene poder o capacidad para influenciar el mercado. Tampoco hay conflicto entre trabajadores y capitalistas. Se pasan por alto procesos de fraude del mercado, de manipulación. Los programas de economía de las universidades no examinan los siguientes temas: la concentración y centralización de la toma de decisiones, el papel de elites financieras, thinks tanks económicos, las salas de juntas de corporaciones. El constructo teórico es disfuncional; no se puede utilizar como herramienta para comprender la crisis económica.

La ciencia económica es un constructo ideológico que sirve para justificar el Nuevo Orden Mundial, mediante postulados dogmáticos para mantener el libre mercado. Niega la existencia de desigualdades sociales y a la naturaleza, movida por beneficios al sistema. El papel de poderosos actores económicos y cómo son capaces de influenciar el funcionamiento de mercados financieros y mercancías, no preocupa a los teóricos. Raro que consideren los poderes de manipulación del mercado que sirven para apropiarse de riqueza. Cuando se reconocen, se dice que pertenecen a la sociología o ciencia política, soslayando su interacción, de origen, con la economía.

Por ello, los egresados de esas universidades, raramente analizan el marco político e institucional que hay detrás del sistema económico global, formado en los últimos treinta años. Consecuencia de ello es que -con honrosas excepciones- la economía como disciplina no proporciona, aún, el análisis necesario para comprender la crisis económica. Sus postulados de libre mercado niegan la existencia de crisis –un simple catarrito dijeron-. El centro de atención de la economía neoliberal es el equilibrio, desequilibrio y “corrección de mercado” o “ajuste” por sus mecanismos: así pretenden hacer volver a la economía “a la senda del crecimiento auto sostenido”. Esta es la falacia que siguen recetándonos desde el poder, a pesar de las muy visibles adversidades. Deciden egresados de universidades, creadoras del neoliberalismo.

Correo electrónico: v_barcelo@hotmail.com

30 de mayo de 2010.