Repaso algunas de las advertencias que se han hecho a la Administración Obama por el déficit y deuda pública desbocadas, por parte de Roubini, Warren Buffett, Nassim Taleb, Krugman… A pesar de que también existen quienes defienden mayores niveles de deuda para sacar a la economía del agujero al que ha sido sometida por los “animal spirits” de especuladores e inversores, y el miedo e incertidumbre de consumidores. Las virtudes privadas se han convertido ahora en vicios públicos, decía Krugman. Y no queda otra: el gobierno debe actuar como ‘spender of last resort’. Véase la crítica argumentada al keynesianismo à la Krugman si no le convence mucho esta tesis.
Una cosa curiosa y muy gráfica es el contraste entre el gráfico del déficit americano de hace unos meses, y el de ahora, actualizado al último valor.
Vaya, se nota que Geithner y compañía están compremetidísimos con arreglar el déficit y devolver la situación fiscal al orden.
Actualización: Acabo de leer el report diario de The Daily Reckoning (la suscripción a los boletines diarios es recomendable), donde hablan de la deuda norteamericana, y añaden datos muy interesantes: click aquí para leer.
“The government will have to cough up $1.6 trillion just by the end of March. Ten years from now, the mere cost of servicing the debt is expected to reach $700 billion annually, more than three times the current burden.”
it seems like forever that the US has enjoyed what Charles de Gaulle’s economic advisor, Jacques Rueff, called the “exorbitant privilege” of printing the dollars with which it satisfies its debts
foreign central banks, as a group, have been rolling off their long-dated holdings and parking their dollars in T-bills, despite the fact that T-bills yield almost nothing. Hmmm, why would they do that, we wonder? Are the buyers worried that inflation will kick up in the US? Probably. Are the buyers also worried about committing their capital to the US for a long time? Probably.
Whatever the exact motives that inspire these Treasury buyers to buy fewer long-dated Treasurys, we wonder how motivated they will be to refinance $1.6 trillion of maturing T-bills during the next three months, and $2.5 trillion during the next 12 months (in addition to fresh borrowing!).
“The faith-based, dollar-dependent monetary system is like a loaded pistol in front of a depressed man,” Bill Bonner remarked one year ago. “It is too easy for the US to end its financial troubles, Rueff pointed out, just by printing more dollars. Eventually, he predicted, this ‘exorbitant privilege’ will be ‘suicidal’ for Western economies.”
