Nobel de economía: "Los políticos socavan la economía mundial"
Publicado: 11 feb 2014 | 9:14 GMT Última actualización: 11 feb 2014 | 9:14 GMT
© AFP Stan Honda
Las predicciones más terribles sobre el estancamiento perpetuo de la economía mundial pueden hacerse realidad a causa de los errores y la cobardía de los políticos, advierte el premio nobel de economía Joseph Stiglitz.
El reconocido economista Joseph Stiglitz (que obtuvo el Premio Nobel de Economía en 2001) destaca en su columna en Project Syndicate que las autoridades imponen un programa de austeridad, se niegan a llevar a cabo reformas y reducen los gastos en educación y salud. Estas medidas no son peligrosas para los políticos, ya que los ingresos de la élite crecen a expensas de la bolsa de valores. Pero la gente común sufre, su nivel de vida baja y no hay perspectivas de mejora.
"La respuesta de los políticos a la crisis no logró abordar estas cuestiones; peor aún, agravó algunas de ellas y creó otras nuevas, y no solo en EE.UU. El resultado ha sido un aumento del endeudamiento en muchos países, ya que el colapso del PIB socavó los ingresos del Gobierno", dijo Stiglitz.
"Es probable que a ambos lados del Atlántico el PIB crezca mucho más rápido este año que en 2013. Pero, antes de que los líderes que adoptaron políticas de austeridad descorchen el champán y brinden por ellos mismos, deben examinar dónde estamos y considerar el daño casi irreparable que estas políticas han causado", agregó.
"Mucho más relevante es lo que está sucediendo con los ingresos familiares. La media de los ingresos reales en EE.UU. está por debajo de su nivel de 1989, hace un cuarto de siglo, y los ingresos medios de los hombres que trabajan a jornada completa son más bajos de lo que eran hace más de 40 años", explicó.
"Nuestras dificultades actuales son el resultado de políticas erróneas. Hay alternativas, pero no vamos a encontrarlas en la autocomplacencia de las élites, cuyos ingresos y carteras de acciones se han disparado de nuevo. Parece que solo algunos tengan que ajustarse a un estándar de vida más bajo de forma permanente y, por desgracia, esos pasan a ser la mayoría de la población", concluyó.
Texto completo en: http://actualidad.rt.com/
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Stagnation by Design
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphNEW YORK – Soon after the global financial crisis erupted in 2008, I warned that unless the right policies were adopted, Japanese-style malaise – slow growth and near-stagnant incomes for years to come – could set in. While leaders on both sides of the Atlantic claimed that they had learned the lessons of Japan, they promptly proceeded to repeat some of the same mistakes. Now, even a key former United States official, the economist Larry Summers, is warning of secular stagnation.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThe basic point that I raised a half-decade ago was that, in a fundamental sense, the US economy was sick even before the crisis: it was only an asset-price bubble, created through lax regulation and low interest rates, that had made the economy seem robust. Beneath the surface, numerous problems were festering: growing inequality; an unmet need for structural reform (moving from a manufacturing-based economy to services and adapting to changing global comparative advantages); persistent global imbalances; and a financial system more attuned to speculating than to making investments that would create jobs, increase productivity, and redeploy surpluses to maximize social returns.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphPolicymakers’ response to the crisis failed to address these issues; worse, it exacerbated some of them and created new ones – and not just in the US. The result has been increased indebtedness in many countries, as the collapse of GDP undermined government revenues. Moreover, underinvestment in both the public and private sector has created a generation of young people who have spent years idle and increasingly alienated at a point in their lives when they should have been honing their skills and increasing their productivity.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphOn both sides of the Atlantic, GDP is likely to grow considerably faster this year than in 2013. But, before leaders who embraced austerity policies open the champagne and toast themselves, they should examine where we are and consider the near-irreparable damage that these policies have caused.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphEvery downturn eventually comes to an end. The mark of a good policy is that it succeeds in making the downturn shallower and shorter than it otherwise would have been. The mark of the austerity policies that many governments embraced is that they made the downturn far deeper and longer than was necessary, with long-lasting consequences.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphReal (inflation-adjusted) GDP per capita is lower in most of the North Atlantic than it was in 2007; in Greece, the economy has shrunk by an estimated 23%. Germany, the top-performing European country, has recorded miserly 0.7% average annual growth over the last six years. The US economy is still roughly 15% smaller than it would have been had growth continued even on the moderate pre-crisis trajectory.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphBut even these numbers do not tell the full story of how bad things are, because GDP is not a good measure of success. Far more relevant is what is happening to household incomes. Median real income in the US is below its level in 1989, a quarter-century ago; median income for full-time male workers is lower now than it was more than 40 years ago.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphSome, like the economist Robert Gordon, have suggested that we should adjust to a new reality in which long-term productivity growth will be significantly below what it has been over the past century. Given economists’ miserable record – reflected in the run-up to the crisis – for even three-year predictions, no one should have much confidence in a crystal ball that forecasts decades into the future. But this much seems clear: unless government policies change, we are in for a long period of disappointment.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphMarkets are not self-correcting. The underlying fundamental problems that I outlined earlier could get worse – and many are. Inequality leads to weak demand; widening inequality weakens demand even more; and, in most countries, including the US, the crisis has only worsened inequality.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThe trade surpluses of northern Europe have increased, even as China’s have moderated. Most important, markets have never been very good at achieving structural transformations quickly on their own; the transition from agriculture to manufacturing, for example, was anything but smooth; on the contrary, it was accompanied by significant social dislocation and the Great Depression.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThis time is no different, but in some ways it could be worse: the sectors that should be growing, reflecting the needs and desires of citizens, are services like education and health, which traditionally have been publicly financed, and for good reason. But, rather than government facilitating the transition, austerity is inhibiting it.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphMalaise is better than a recession, and a recession is better than a depression. But the difficulties that we are facing now are not the result of the inexorable laws of economics, to which we simply must adjust, as we would to a natural disaster, like an earthquake or tsunami. They are not even a kind of penance that we have to pay for past sins – though, to be sure, the neoliberal policies that have prevailed for the past three decades have much to do with our current predicament.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphInstead, our current difficulties are the result of flawed policies. There are alternatives. But we will not find them in the self-satisfied complacency of the elites, whose incomes and stock portfolios are once again soaring. Only some people, it seems, must adjust to a permanently lower standard of living. Unfortunately, those people happen to be most people.
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