Paul Krugman om elitens girighet och behovet av gemensamma tag i den globala ekonomin

En bra krönika om svindleriekonomi (Bernie Madoff etc) och behovet av att alla nu gör sitt för att undvika att den ekonomiska krisen blir ännu djupare..
/Robert Björkenwall;robert.bjorken@telia.com; http://rbjorkenwall.blogspot.com

PS. Den oftast så pålitliga Martin Wolf i Financial Times (1 april) skriver att han för sin del tyvärr (sannolikt med rätta) tror att G20-ledarna i London första veckan i april kommer att misslyckas med den stora utmaningen - att bekämpa det globala efterfrågefallet i ekonomin. Det finns tyvärr inte tillräckligt mycket samförstånd (consensus) ens kring de underliggande orsakerna till den världsvida ekonomiska krisen för att åstadkomma de gemensamma tag som krävs för att visa på en rimligt god väg ur krisen (depressionen) vi nu är mitt uppe i.

PS. Läs gärna Paul Krugmans "Krisen - orsaker, verkan, åtgärder" (Leopard förlag), en lättläst 190-sidig volym om krisen och alla ekonomiska sibyllor som sjöng den fria marknadens lov och vad som nu krävs av ledarskap för att inte ytterligare förvärra den depressionsdjupa krisen.
/Robert Björkenwall; robert.bjorken@telia.com;http://rbjorkenwall.blogspot.com

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America the Tarnished
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 29, 2009, New York Times

Ten years ago the cover of Time magazine featured Robert Rubin, then Treasury secretary, Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Lawrence Summers, then deputy Treasury secretary. Time dubbed the three “the committee to save the world,” crediting them with leading the global financial system through a crisis that seemed terrifying at the time, although it was a small blip compared with what we’re going through now.

All the men on that cover were Americans, but nobody considered that odd. After all, in 1999 the United States was the unquestioned leader of the global crisis response. That leadership role was only partly based on American wealth; it also, to an important degree, reflected America’s stature as a role model. The United States, everyone thought, was the country that knew how to do finance right.

How times have changed.

Never mind the fact that two members of the committee have since succumbed to the magazine cover curse, the plunge in reputation that so often follows lionization in the media. (Mr. Summers, now the head of the National Economic Council, is still going strong.) Far more important is the extent to which our claims of financial soundness — claims often invoked as we lectured other countries on the need to change their ways — have proved hollow.

Indeed, these days America is looking like the Bernie Madoff of economies: for many years it was held in respect, even awe, but it turns out to have been a fraud all along.

It’s painful now to read a lecture that Mr. Summers gave in early 2000, as the economic crisis of the 1990s was winding down. Discussing the causes of that crisis, Mr. Summers pointed to things that the crisis countries lacked — and that, by implication, the United States had. These things included “well-capitalized and supervised banks” and reliable, transparent corporate accounting. Oh well.

One of the analysts Mr. Summers cited in that lecture, by the way, was the economist Simon Johnson. In an article in the current issue of The Atlantic, Mr. Johnson, who served as the chief economist at the I.M.F. and is now a professor at M.I.T., declares that America’s current difficulties are “shockingly reminiscent” of crises in places like Russia and Argentina — including the key role played by crony capitalists.

In America as in the third world, he writes, “elite business interests — financiers, in the case of the U.S. — played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive.”

It’s no wonder, then, that an article in yesterday’s Times about the response President Obama will receive in Europe was titled “English-Speaking Capitalism on Trial.”

Now, in fairness we have to say that the United States was far from being the only nation in which banks ran wild. Many European leaders are still in denial about the continent’s economic and financial troubles, which arguably run as deep as our own — although their nations’ much stronger social safety nets mean that we’re likely to experience far more human suffering. Still, it’s a fact that the crisis has cost America much of its credibility, and with it much of its ability to lead.

And that’s a very bad thing.

Like many other economists, I’ve been revisiting the Great Depression, looking for lessons that might help us avoid a repeat performance. And one thing that stands out from the history of the early 1930s is the extent to which the world’s response to crisis was crippled by the inability of the world’s major economies to cooperate.

The details of our current crisis are very different, but the need for cooperation is no less. President Obama got it exactly right last week when he declared: “All of us are going to have to take steps in order to lift the economy. We don’t want a situation in which some countries are making extraordinary efforts and other countries aren’t.”

Yet that is exactly the situation we’re in. I don’t believe that even America’s economic efforts are adequate, but they’re far more than most other wealthy countries have been willing to undertake. And by rights this week’s G-20 summit ought to be an occasion for Mr. Obama to chide and chivy European leaders, in particular, into pulling their weight.

But these days foreign leaders are in no mood to be lectured by American officials, even when — as in this case — the Americans are right.

The financial crisis has had many costs. And one of those costs is the damage to America’s reputation, an asset we’ve lost just when we, and the world, need it most.

Två sanningar som närmar sig varann (Tomas Tranströmer)

Tänkvärt:

Tomas Tranströmer (borde få nobelpriset i litteratur) skriver i en ofta citerad dikt:

"Två sanningar närmar sig varann.
En kommer inifrån,
en kommer utifrån
och där de möts har man en
chans att få se sig själv."

Värt att tänka på inte minst för ledare på olika nivåer inom politiken, i facket och i näringslivet som tyvärr
i rätt många vissa fall har en tendens att mer eller mindre permanent segla i en egen kometbana.
-------

Här en annan utmärkt "tranströmare", lika tänkvärd:

"De som inte kan vistas någon annanstans än på

sin framsida

de som aldrig är tankspridda

de som aldrig öppnar fel dörr och får se en skymt

av Den Oidentifierade -

gå förbi dem!"

(ur den utmärkta dikten Guldstekel av Tomas Tranströmer)

/Robert Björkenwall; robert.bjorken@telia.com; http://rbjorkenwall.blogspot.com

Paul Krugman kritisk mot Europas ledare som gör för lite

Nobelpristagaren i ekonomi, professor Paul Krugman, är i sin 16 marskrönika skarpt kritisk mot Europas ledare vad gäller krisbekämpningen...I stället för att göra "sitt" i krisbekämpningen och stimulanspolitiken väljer tyvärr EU-ledarna, bl a Sveriges Reinfeldt, att överbetona budgetdisciplinen. Därmed så riskerar man att förvärra och fördjupa krisen och göra den lite längre än den annars skulle kunna bli.
/Robert Björkenwall; robert.bjorken@telia.com; http:rbjorkenwall.blogspot.com

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A Continent Adrift

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 16, 2009, New York Times
I’m concerned about Europe. Actually, I’m concerned about the whole world — there are no safe havens from the global economic storm. But the situation in Europe worries me even more than the situation in America.

Just to be clear, I’m not about to rehash the standard American complaint that Europe’s taxes are too high and its benefits too generous. Big welfare states aren’t the cause of Europe’s current crisis. In fact, as I’ll explain shortly, they’re actually a mitigating factor.

The clear and present danger to Europe right now comes from a different direction — the continent’s failure to respond effectively to the financial crisis.

Europe has fallen short in terms of both fiscal and monetary policy: it’s facing at least as severe a slump as the United States, yet it’s doing far less to combat the downturn.

On the fiscal side, the comparison with the United States is striking. Many economists, myself included, have argued that the Obama administration’s stimulus plan is too small, given the depth of the crisis. But America’s actions dwarf anything the Europeans are doing.

The difference in monetary policy is equally striking. The European Central Bank has been far less proactive than the Federal Reserve; it has been slow to cut interest rates (it actually raised rates last July), and it has shied away from any strong measures to unfreeze credit markets.

The only thing working in Europe’s favor is the very thing for which it takes the most criticism — the size and generosity of its welfare states, which are cushioning the impact of the economic slump.

This is no small matter. Guaranteed health insurance and generous unemployment benefits ensure that, at least so far, there isn’t as much sheer human suffering in Europe as there is in America. And these programs will also help sustain spending in the slump.

But such “automatic stabilizers” are no substitute for positive action.

Why is Europe falling short? Poor leadership is part of the story. European banking officials, who completely missed the depth of the crisis, still seem weirdly complacent. And to hear anything in America comparable to the know-nothing diatribes of Germany’s finance minister you have to listen to, well, Republicans.

But there’s a deeper problem: Europe’s economic and monetary integration has run too far ahead of its political institutions. The economies of Europe’s many nations are almost as tightly linked as the economies of America’s many states — and most of Europe shares a common currency. But unlike America, Europe doesn’t have the kind of continentwide institutions needed to deal with a continentwide crisis.

This is a major reason for the lack of fiscal action: there’s no government in a position to take responsibility for the European economy as a whole. What Europe has, instead, are national governments, each of which is reluctant to run up large debts to finance a stimulus that will convey many if not most of its benefits to voters in other countries.

You might expect monetary policy to be more forceful. After all, while there isn’t a European government, there is a European Central Bank. But the E.C.B. isn’t like the Fed, which can afford to be adventurous because it’s backed by a unitary national government — a government that has already moved to share the risks of the Fed’s boldness, and will surely cover the Fed’s losses if its efforts to unfreeze financial markets go bad. The E.C.B., which must answer to 16 often-quarreling governments, can’t count on the same level of support.

Europe, in other words, is turning out to be structurally weak in a time of crisis.

The biggest question is what will happen to those European economies that boomed in the easy-money environment of a few years ago, Spain in particular.

For much of the past decade Spain was Europe’s Florida, its economy buoyed by a huge speculative housing boom. As in Florida, boom has now turned to bust. Now Spain needs to find new sources of income and employment to replace the lost jobs in construction.

In the past, Spain would have sought improved competitiveness by devaluing its currency. But now it’s on the euro — and the only way forward seems to be a grinding process of wage cuts. This process would have been difficult in the best of times; it will be almost inconceivably painful if, as seems all too likely, the European economy as a whole is depressed and tending toward deflation for years to come.

Does all this mean that Europe was wrong to let itself become so tightly integrated? Does it mean, in particular, that the creation of the euro was a mistake? Maybe.

But Europe can still prove the skeptics wrong, if its politicians start showing more leadership. Will they?

Paul Krugman

Väntat sammanbrott

Ledarkrönika i NSD den 17 mars 2009

Väntat sammanbrott
Sammanbrottet i förhandlingarna om ett nytt huvudavtal mellan Svenskt Näringsliv, LO och PTK var mera väntat än överraskande. Varför?

Jo, de senaste åren har tuppkammarna vuxit sig alldeles för höga på arbetsgivarnas huvuden efter Laval-domen, centerpartiets krav på avskaffade trygghetslagar på arbetsmarknaden och moderatregeringens ointresse för att i praktiken värna kollektivavtalen, trots all till intet förpliktande retorik om hur moderaterna "älskar kollektivavtal".

Således ansåg Svenskt näringsliv att klimatet var det rätta för att man kunde ställa de allra tuffaste av krav, nämligen att i ett arbetsgivarevänligt nytt huvudavtal avtala bort stora delar av lagen om anställningsskydd samt begränsa fackliga rättigheter (konfliktåtgärder m m).

Vetskapen om att de har regeringen Reinfeldt i ryggen, att facket tappar medlemmar och krisen blir allt djupare gjorde att arbetsgivarna vågade ta ut svängarna mer än annars. Det är självfallet utmärkt och helt rätt att fackföreningsrörelsen då inte viker ner sig utan står på sig.

Värre är att arbetsgivarna i sin iver att åstadkomma ett systemskifte spräckte alla förutsättningar för samförstånd och stabilitet på arbetsmarknaden. Det kan visa sig vara ett stort misstag på lite sikt - också utifrån det långsiktiga arbetsgivareintresset av goda partsrelationer och stabila spelregler på svensk arbetsmarknad.

Men så klokt agerar inte dagens hökaktigt kaxiga representanter i Svenskt näringsliv vid förhandlingsbordet. Därför var sammanbrottet nu i förhandlingarna om nytt hvuudavtal tämligen väntat.

Samtidigt en annan fundering: Visst var det väl i huvudavtalet som man, enligt Wanja Lundby-Wedin och Erland Olauson i LO, skulle lösa Lavalfrågan? Hur blir det nu med den målsättningen? Nu när förhandlingarna har spruckit och Lissabonavtalet är antaget av Sverige riksdag utan att det där finns någon klausul om att svenska kollektivavtal ska gälla i vårt land oavsett ursprung på arbetskraften?

Dörren till löne- och villkorsdumpning förblir tämligen vidöppen. Tyvärr.

Robert Björkenwall, frilansjournalist f d mångårig presschef i Seko, tidigare sakkunnig i regeringskansliet

Det finns goda lösningar på jobbkrisen

I Dagbladet 9 mars 2009 m fl
Det finns förslag på lösningar på dagens jobbkris

Socialdemokraterna har bildat en nationell jobbkommission som leds av Mona Sahlin, Wanja Lundby Wedin och Thomas Östros.

I morgon, tisdag, har de bjudit in till en hearing om välfärden och välfärdsjobben. En idé att diskutera bör vara att återinföra plus-jobben i kommun­erna, men samtidigt behålla nystartsjobben. Båda verktyg­en kommer att behövas, som även konstaterades i en diskussion i radion härom dagen.

Forskare, fackliga central­organisationer som TCO och LO, arbetsgivare och andra har i olika sammanhang diskuterat vad som krävs för att trygga industrins och kommunsektorns framtid: kompetensutveckling, infrastruktursatsningar, höjda statsbidrag till kommunerna, upprustad omställningsförsäkring (a-kassa), renovering av miljonprogrammets bostäder, långsiktighet, samverkan och en fungerande finansmarknad.

Det mesta av detta var uppe på agendan på TCO:s fullmat­ade, stora jobbdag i Stockholm i förra veckan.

Mona Sahlin och hennes jobbkommission står med andra ord inte utan alternativ och möjliga lösningar på jobb- och efterfrågekrisen när de möts till hearing i morgon.

Följ ”Obama-linjen” och visa att regeringen Reinfeldts skry­t­igt magra ”Bush-linje” inte räcker på långa vägar för att få igång jobbskapandet igen.

Robert Björkenwall, frilansjournalist, före detta mångårig presschef i Seko