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Money Supply: A vicious circle?

Regulation and sovereign debt: a vicious circle?

by Claire Jones (FT)

Regulators’ fondness for sovereign debt is looking odder by the day.

The eurozone crisis and the Congressional impasse over the US debt ceiling have put paid to any notion of government bonds as risk free. What’s more, a Committee on the Global Financial System paper suggests that encouraging banks to up their holdings might in fact do more to endanger stability than promote it.

The paper, published Monday, identifies a “vicious circle between the conditions of public finances and those of banks”. As banks’ funding costs worsen, so does the creditworthiness of the sovereign, which in turn heightens funding costs. If such a vicious circle does indeed exist, then incentivising banks to hold more sovereign debt in order to fulfil regulatory requirements would only compound the problem.

And, as the charts below show, the case for its existence is compelling.

SEGUNDO MATEUS

Abel Mateus, anterior presidente da Autoridade da Concorrência, em entrevista da Renascença* acusou o "Governo de nada fazer para promover a concorrência no sector dos combustíveis". “Não vi nenhuma medida estrutural e concreta para resolver a questão da concorrência” no sector energético, e em particular dos combustíveis, disse. E disse ainda:  “Não percebo o que são combustíveis low cost, sei é que havia grande concorrência dos postos dos hipermercados e, se calhar, é apenas uma tentativa de entrar nesse mercado. Se é possível baixar os preços, então baixe-se para todos”.

E mais: Na actual situação de crise, os cortes nos salários deviam ser acompanhados por uma descida dos preços dos bens que são sujeitos a regulação, como a energia, por exemplo. “Estarmos a cortar salários e não reduzimos os preços dos chamados bens não transaccionáveis, como a energia, as telecomunicações, do meu ponto de vista, está errado, estamos a dar um tiro no pé. É preciso acompanhar isso de uma redução de preços dos bens que são sujeitos a regulação”. E ainda: "a energia está mais cara e  Portugal continua a importar o mesmo.

É difícil discordar de Abel Mateus. Aqui mesmo neste caderno anotei alguns apontamentos no mesmo sentido. Continuo, no entanto, com algumas dúvidas acerca do que pode o Governo fazer no sentido de travar os preços que são ditados por um oligopólio internacional. Mateus também não disse. A separação da refinação da distribuição não me parece a medida suficiente para fomentar a concorrência. Só há um modo, creio eu, de suscitar a concorrência e reduzir os preços dos combustíveis: reduzir os consumos. E, neste campo, nem este nem nenhum governo anterior adoptaram as medidas necessárias para atingir esse objectivo.

Percebe-se mal, por outro lado, por que é que Mateus não denunciou a omissão que agora denuncia quando a sua palavra tinha o peso da presidência do órgão incumbido da tarefa.

Agora, Mateus faz lembrar o Juiz Moreno do TC que só explicou por que é que, em seu entender,  a grande maiora das parcerias público-privadas são um desastre financeiro quando passou à reforma.
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Com supervisores ou reguladores destes mais valia que acabassem  as supervisões. Pelo menos poupava-se nos custos de funcionamento de órgãos com deficiências de fabrico. E obrigar-nos-ia a estarmos mais atentos.

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* resumida aqui

BASILEIA TRÊS

Financial regulation: the money moves on

It took two years to get there, but when international regulators late on Sunday announced the final details of their mammoth overhaul of bank capital and liquidity standards – the so-called Basel III package – there were hopes they were laying to rest the ghost of Lehman Brothers.

Just ahead of Wednesday’s second anniversary of the ignominious Lehman collapse, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision unveiled a finely-tuned package of reforms – more than tripling capital requirements – to the accompaniment of much back-slapping.

“The combination of a much stronger definition of capital, higher minimum requirements and the introduction of new capital buffers will ensure that banks are better able to withstand periods of economic and financial stress, therefore supporting economic growth,” declared Nout Wellink, the veteran Dutch central bank chief who chairs the committee. The changes “will create a much more resilient banking system in the future”, echoed Lord Turner, head of the UK’s Financial Services Authority. The deal was the key to “a more stable banking system that is less prone to excessive risk-taking”, chorused US regulators.

There have been critics. Initial regulatory proposals have been watered down after industry consultation. Parallel reform proposals from politicians have also been weakened on their way into law. The powerhouses of Wall Street and the City of London lobbied hard to retain their historical sources of high-risk profit in the face of those determined to “de-risk” the system.

But there is real change all the same. The Basel III regime, to be phased in by 2019, comes on top of legal reforms in various parts of the world, notably the US, where the so-called Volcker package implemented via the Dodd-Frank legislation aims to curtail big banks’ risks. Most fundamentally, the practice of pure proprietary trading – whereby banks bet their own money dealing in anything from gold to Greek bonds – is being outlawed in the US within two years

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MUITA PARRA

Com o voto de três senadores republicanos, Obama conseguiu fazer passar outra reforma importante.

Contudo, depois da reforma da saúde, também a reforma financeira ficou a meio caminho.

A política é a arte do possível e, apesar das circunstâncias que forçaram as reformas, os lobies continuam com força suficiente para dosear a mudança de modo que os seus interesses vitais não sejam atingidos. 

Obama afirmava, logo que o resultado da votação no Senado era conhecida, que nunca mais os banqueiros iriam poder jogar com o dinheiro dos depositantes. O que, obviamente, não está assegurado. Enquanto for consentido aos bancos de depósitos a possibilidade de realizarem operações de casino não há nenhuma legislação que possa bloquear a criatividade dos banqueiros para jogarem à roleta com o dinheiro dos outros. Sempre, evidentemente, protegidos pelo risco (i) moral do "too big to fail".

Quanto maior for o peso legislativo maiores são as possibilidades dos ratos abrirem nele os buracos por onde minarão o sistema.

Robert Reich colocou, ontem, no seu blog uma apreciação muito crítica da reforma financeira aprovada e que, inevitavelmente, influenciará decisivamente a legislação do sistema financeiro global.

Um dos  problemas mais complicados com que os EUA se defrontam* ( todo o sistema financeiro), segundo Ben Bernanke, na sua entrevista à Time no final do ano passado, - moral hazard -, continua, realmente, sem solução.

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* "Too big to fail is one of the biggest problems we face in this country", Bernanke.
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The New Finance Bill: A mountain of legislative paper, a molehill of reform

Thursday the President pronounced that “because of this [financial reform] bill the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes.”

As if to prove him wrong, Goldman Sachs simultaneously announced it had struck a deal with federal prosecutors to pay $550 million to settle federal claims it misled investor — a sum representing a mere 15 days profit for the firm based on its 2009 earnings. Goldman’s share price immediately jumped 4.3 percent, and the Street proclaimed its chair and CEO, Lloyd (“Goldman is doing God’s work”) Blankfein, a winner. Financial analysts rushed to affirm a glowing outlook for Goldman stock.

Blankfein, you may recall, was at the meeting in late 2008 when Tim Geithner and Hank Paulson decided to bail out AIG, and thereby deliver through AIG a $13 billion no-strings-attached taxpayer windfall to Goldman. In a world where money is the measure of everything, Blankfein’s power and influence have grown. Presumably, Goldman can expect more windfalls in future years.

Although the financial reform bill may have clipped some of Goldman’s wings — its lucrative derivative business may require Goldman to jettison its status as a bank holding company, and the access to the Fed discount window that comes with it — the main point is that the Goldman settlement reveals everything that’s weakest about the financial reform bill.

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ALGO TERÁ DE MUDAR - 2

As negociações entre Congressistas e Senadores para aprovação da lei que pretende disciplinar os mercados financeiros nos EUA terminaram de madrugada (vd notícia registada aqui). É considerada a segunda grande vitória política da administração Obama (a primeira foi a segurança social) mas, como a primeira, ficou a meio caminho, segundo uns, excedeu-se, segundo outros.

É ainda considerada a maior alteração legislativa do sistema financeiro depois da Grande Depressão de 1929. Essencialmente reformula a actividade dos reguladores, reforçando-lhe as competências, mas,  e esta é a mais contundente crítica de que desde já  é alvo, atribui aos próprios reguladores a regulamentação de grande parte das condições de operacionalidade das suas atribuições. O que, dito de outro modo, coloca os reguladores na eventual pendência da sua captura pelos operadores financeiros.  

E esse foi, e continua a ser, o maior problema da regulação e da supervisão. Quando se dá por eles, cairam nas mãos daqueles que deveriam supervisionar. Para cada regra, já o tenho anotado neste caderno, há sempre alguém que concebe uma contra-regra. A inovação financeira consiste em grande parte na invenção de soluções que ultrapassem os constrangimentos dos regulamentos.

Lamentavelmente, os grandes colossos financeiros acabaram por, cedendo aparentemente alguma coisa  manterem, realmente, o que para eles era essencial: a continuidade da promiscuidade entre as actividades bancária e a de casino.

Sem uma separação absoluta entre uma coisa e outra nunca os contribuintes se livrarão de pagar os abusos dos banqueiros, too big to fail.

ALGO TERÁ DE MUDAR

para ficar (quase) tudo na mesma.

Lawmakers guide Wall Street reform into homestretch

Nearly two years after tremors on Wall Street set off a historic economic downturn, congressional leaders greenlighted a bill early Friday that would leave the financial industry largely intact but facing a more powerful network of regulators who could impose limits on risky activities.

The final bill took shape after a 20-hour marathon negotiation between House and Senate leaders seeking to reconcile their separate versions. The legislation puts a lot of faith in the watchful eye of regulators to prevent another financial crisis. New agencies would police consumer lending, the invention of financial products and the trading of exotic securities known as derivatives. Bank supervisors would have the power to seize large, troubled financial firms whose collapse could threaten the entire system. The bill calls for banks to hold more money in reserve to weather economic storms but leaves the details to regulators.

But with a few exceptions, the measure avoids dictating to Wall Street what it can and cannot do. The bill does not break up big banks or ban the trading of derivatives. Nor does it significantly streamline the confusing array of financial regulators in Washington.

The House and Senate are set to vote on the legislation next week, and administration officials said President Obama could sign it into law before July 4.

The action capped a surprisingly good week for Wall Street. On Thursday, Democrats failed to pass a separate bill that would have raised taxes on some of the country's wealthiest financiers. On Friday, stocks of financial firms jumped when trading opened in New York. Many analysts said the markets breathed a collective sigh of relief that the regulatory reform talks were over and that the results could have been much worse for the financial industry.

One firm that is likely to face more oversight is Goldman Sachs, which has become emblematic of the excesses of Wall Street. Regulators would more carefully track the firm's riskiest activities. In the coming year, a regulatory council could force the bank to shed its sizable hedge funds and private-equity activities. It also could be banned from making financial trades for its own profit instead of for clients, shaving roughly 10 percent from the firm's revenue. But after those changes, Goldman Sachs and a few other financial titans will still dominate the financial system, the analysts said.

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ENCOSTAI-VOS UNS AOS OUTROS

A União Europeia aceita revelar a situação financeira dos seus bancos.

O mais espantoso desta decisão é ela ser notícia porque, implicitamente, revela que a situação financeira dos bancos é desconhecida, uma conclusão simultâneamente óbvia e insólita . 

Óbvia, porque é do conhecimento público que a desconfiança voltou a instalar-se nas relações interbancárias, que são bastante inconsistentes muitos activos detidos pelos bancos, que as contas não revelam esse grau de inconsistência apesar das auditorias, dos reguladores, dos "rating". 

Insólita, porque usufruindo o sistema financeiro da condição irrecusável de "crédito moral", a transparência máxima deveria ser a contrapartida daquela condição de excepção às leis do mercado. E não é. E não é em parte nenhuma do mundo, uma realidade angustiante semelhante à de um buraco aberto no fundo do mar de onde jorra imparavelmente um rio imenso de crude. Todos sabemos agora que quem abriu o buraco não tinha a mínima ideia acerca da forma de o tapar se as circunstâncias obrigassem a isso.

Assim funciona o sistema financeiro: um buraco que ninguém sabe tapar e de que, só agora, prometem dar-nos uma ideia da sua dimensão. E depois?

Depois, encostai-vos uns aos outros, que será a melhor forma de não cairmos todos.

CULPA SEM CASTIGO

Continua a denúncia das actividades ilegais, imorais e muitas vezes criminosas praticadas por grandes bancos que estiveram na origem das várias fontes que alimentaram a crise financeira global.

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Até agora, porém, nada foi substancialment alterado na regulamentação que consentiu, explicita ou implicitamente, os logros vendidos em todo o mundo. Nem foram responsabilizados pessoalmente os principais culpados.

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A reclamação de regulamentação mais exigente de transparência dos processos por si só não basta: primeiro, porque pode retirar carga à responsabilidade que impende sobre os fautores dos logros, que invocarão terem realizado as suas actividades ao abrigo dos preceitos legais em vigor ainda que essas actividades objectivamente tenham causado danos generalizados e de enorme dimensão a terceiros; segundo, a multiplicação de regulamentos suscita a multiplicação dos meios hábeis para os contornar;

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Se, objectivamente, há culpados, a eles deve ser exigido o ressarcimento das perdas sofridas por terceiros.

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Fed probes Goldman role in Greek crisis
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The US central bank is looking into Goldman Sachs’s role in arranging contentious derivatives trades for Greece, which helped the country to massage its public finances, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, revealed on Thursday.
“We are looking into a number of questions relating to Goldman Sachs and other companies and their derivatives arrangements with Greece,” Mr Bernanke said, noting that the US Securities and Exchange Commission was also interested in the issue. However, Mr Bernanke did not give any more details about the investigations.
Testifying before Congress, the Fed chairman also criticised the use of financial instruments, such as credit default swaps (CDS), that destabilised a country or created runs against governments as “counterproductive”. Mr Bernanke’s comments came as an official in German chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union party said the G20 nations were discussing whether a ban on the speculative use of CDS was workable.
The renewed uncertainty about Greece prompted a further sell-off of the country’s bonds and the euro amid rising fears that Athens faced a credit ratings downgrade that would complicate its goal of refinancing its debt in capital markets.
Greek bonds saw one of their biggest one-day falls of the year with yields on two-year bonds climbing to 6.4 per cent. The euro fell to a one-year low against the yen and near a nine-month low against the US dollar. This was in spite of signals from Athens that it would introduce new austerity measures early next week.
Goldman has come under fire from European regulators for structuring transactions that helped Greece trim its debt figures after it joined the European monetary union in 2001. As Greece’s public debt grew to exceed its annual gross domestic product, the bank helped it organise a currency trade to delay its repayments while meeting European deficit limits.
Goldman has said that the currency swaps played a minimal role in Greece’s current financial crisis and that the transactions were in line with European regulations. However, a senior Goldman banker told a UK parliamentary committee last week that the bank should have been more transparent.
Separately, Phil Angelides, chairman of the US Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, told the Financial Times that he was concerned about the financial market practice of creating securities and “fully betting against them” – and about Goldman’s role in particular. Goldman declined to comment.

NÃO SE RIAM

Thursday, February 18, 2010


NÃO SE RIAM - 2

O artigo que hoje transcrevo aqui de Will Hutton, na íntegra por receio de poder deixar de estar acessível dentro de algum tempo, merece uma leitura muito atenta. Sem dizer nada de surpreendentemente novo, Will Hutton consegue num texto relativamente curto caracterizar no fundamental as linhas por onde circula o sistema monetário europeu e, por tabela, a União Europeia, o vasto alcance das consequências negativas de descarrilamentos localizados e as medidas que se impõem para prevenir ou, pelo menos minorar, os riscos de ocorrência desses acidentes. Porque ninguém está livre do impacto das consequências de um desastre financeiro localizado quando a interligação é global. Aqueles que no Reino Unido, a começar pelo seu Primeiro-Ministro, supõem estar ao abrigo dos estilhaços da bancarrota grega, Will Hutton avisa:

Não se riam. A nossa interdependência é uma crescente realidade política e económica. Os britânicos compraram um quinto das obrigações gregas. Se a Grécia entrar em incumprimento os incobráveis terão um severo impacto tanto no sistema bancário britânico como em qualquer outro europeu.

É também muito elucidativa a resenha que Will Hutton faz das causas subjacentes à debilidade das estruturas financeiras gregas. Portugal, em grande parte, pode ver-se ao espelho ali naquele retrato.

Há dias, Krugman, num artigo que transcrevi também na íntegra aqui, afirmava que "o que está realmente por detrás da euroconfusão não é o esbanjamento dos seus políticos mas a arrogância das suas elites, especificamente das elites políticas que levaram a Europa a adoptar uma moeda única muito antes de estarem reunidas as condições necessárias a essa acção." Quase a concluir esse artigo, Krugman, afirma que "o único caminho a seguir é o caminho em frente: para que o euro possa funcionar a Europa tem de avançar para uma união política, de modo que as nações europeias passem a funcionar de forma idêntica à dos Estados Unidos da América. " Para terminar dizendo que não acredita, no entanto, que esse seja o caminho que os europeus vão adoptar.

Discordo de Krugman.

Primeiro, porque, se ele pensa, e eu concordo nesse ponto com ele, que dificilmente a Europa vai evoluir dentro de pouco tempo para uma federação de estados idêntica aos EUA, quando as circunstâncias parecem empurrar fortemente nesse sentido, como é que poderiam reunir-se as condições que ele considera necessárias na ausência de qualquer compromisso inicial? Se o casal não casa e a mulher está grávida como é que casaria se nem namorassem?
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Por outro lado, a comparação com os EUA não me parece a mais adequada. Diz Krugman que, no caso de uma crise económica provocada pelo rebentamento de uma bolha especulativa como aconteceu em Espanha, a solução para uma ocorrência idêntica na Flórida teria o respaldo dos fundos federais norte-americanos. Teria até certo ponto. A Califórnia debate-se com sérios problemas já há alguns anos e a ajuda federal não tem fluído como pretenderia o Governador Schwarzenegger.

A entreajuda tem os seus limites e os custos da irresponsabilidade de uns não podem ser impostos a outros. Mesmo uma Federação, mesmo uma Nação até, não sobrevive sem disciplina que obrigue a comportamentos sociais que sustentem a coesão. Alberto João Jardim tem obtido o que quer porque usa sistematicamente a chantagem mas mesmo esta não é sustentável ad eternum. Um dia a papa acaba.
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Também sou partidário deuma solução federalista mas não penso que essa seja a panaceia para a solução dos problemas europeus, do euro, e muito particularmente para os nossos.

Don´t laugh at Europe´s woes. The travails facing Greece are also ours
Will Hutton The Observer

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British schadenfreude has reached new heights of delicious self-indulgence. There is feverish market speculation that Greece will default on its debt, leave the euro and create a eurozone crisis as other members are pushed by the markets into following. It just proves that the euro is and was a disaster, the thinking goes. Thank God Britain did not join, runs the chorus from right to left, proving once again how wise the sceptics were and how foolish were those (like Will Hutton) who urged entry. Gordon Brown was careful as he answered questions before the European Summit last week to say Greece was an issue only for members of the euro. Britain would stay on the sidelines – gloriously uninvolved and independent from any possible expensive bail out. He was a financial Neville Chamberlain. I half expected him to come back in a twin-engine de Havilland proudly waving a paper – no bailouts and no euro membership in our time.
However, Greece and Germany are not far-away countries of which we know little. Our interdependence is a growing economic and political reality. Britain owns a fifth of Greek bonds; if Greece defaults, the write-offs will impact on our banking system as severely as any other in Europe. We also have no interest in Greece triggering a wave of exits from the euro and the 1930s-style competitive devaluations that will follow. Those dreaming of the free-market utopia of floating exchange rates should be careful for what they wish. By now you might hope there might be just a grain of suspicion about the manias and panics of free financial markets. Hope in vain.
It is worth engaging in a thought experiment. Any monetary regime in Europe has to deal with the reality of living alongside the world's most successful and, until China pipped it in 2009, largest exporter – ­Germany. Either there is the hard deutschmark, a world reserve currency second only to the dollar, against which the rest of Europe consistently devalues, or the euro. Up against the deutschmark, Greece would certainly be devaluing now – but so would Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Holland and probably France. When the financial crisis struck most of them would have been in a similar, if less acute position to Iceland. There would have been a flight from their money markets to Frankfurt and New York. Who thinks Greece, Belgium, Ireland and Austria would not have had an unstoppable bank run? Or could have survived it? There would have been no co-ordination within a world reserve currency zone to bail out stricken banking systems. There would have been no enjoying 1% euro interest rates. No capacity to increase government borrowing to weather the crisis. Europe would have had a bank-run induced slump – and the contagion would have hit Britain hard. It would, simply, have been a variant of 1931.
Or there is what we have. The euro has been a brilliant shock absorber. Icelandic politicians were as eurosceptic as our know-nothing political class – until disaster struck. Faced with the Hobson's choice of permanent economic stagnation, or adjustment within the euro zone and some light at the end of the tunnel, they have plumped for the latter. It is one of the reasons Greece will fight so hard to stay inside the euro; life is even more intolerable outside. If Greece leaves, its new independent currency will collapse; its interest rates will soar; its public debts will become unfinanceable; it really will default on its debt as it has so frequently in the past. It will slide back into being a failed state – with a military coup one all too possible response to the crisis.
It faces no choice but to reform. Greece has been so plundered by its super-rich elite of bankers and ship owners, so fully bought into the conservative doctrine that taxation is a form of coercion akin to slavery, that in key respects it is not a functioning state. The shadow, non tax-paying part of its economy is 30% of the total. Most middle-class professionals – lawyers, accountants and surgeons – insist on being paid in cash to avoid tax. Uncollected tax runs at 13.6% of national output per year – more than the deficit. The civil service is over-manned and corrupt. Everyone mercilessly tries to profit at someone else's expense. Of course Greece falsified its finances for qualification for entry to the euro zone. In this culture you tell the truth only to family. Revealingly, Mr Papandreou is the third member of his family to become prime minister.
There is no national consensus over what constitutes a just distribution of reward and obligation. As a result, its institutions don't function – as the European Commission team assembled at the behest of EU heads of states, backed by officials from the IMF, will soon discover. They will forensically examine how tax is not collected, how pensions are used as patronage and how statistics are rigged – and find a mess. Yet they and the Greek government will have to be careful. There is a mood in Greece ready to reform; witness the proposals to lift the pension age to 63. But if the elite is allowed to go free while the rest of society suffers, there will be revolt from below. Offend norms of fairness and societies risk disintegration and violence – something British politicians might ponder as they compete with visions of public sector wage freezes while ­allowing private sector salaries at the top to grow explosively.
This adjustment is an imperative – but so are two more. Germany's reluctance to offer an unconditional bailout to Greece is more than understandable, and the European deal – some support but only after reform has been shown to be implemented – is within its terms fair enough. Greece's problem is as much political as economic. But if Greece cannot devalue, and if there are social limits to how much it can lower wages, it needs some leeway somewhere . It needs more buoyant markets for Greek goods in the rest of the EU, and in Germany in particular. Chancellor Merkel wants it every which way. She wants no bailouts, a strong euro and Germany to carry on being an export machine. All three are not possible. ­Germany must boost its demand at home and loosen its purse strings if Greece– and the other weak states – are ever going to get out of trouble.
And there is a last reform. The financial markets invented toxic credit default swaps (CDS) – allegedly insurance against bond default which the markets could buy and sell – in the deregulatory mania of the last decade. But England banned trading insurance policies in which nobody took responsibility for paying insurance as the worst form of financial depravity in the 18th century. Now the practice is back as "innovation", except we know after Lehmans that the contracts are as worthless as they were under George I. However, hedge funds love them because they are such a juicy tool with which to speculate. It has been the CDS market that has prompted such a rapid confidence collapse in Greece. As they currently work, they should be banned.
The struggle to reform Greece and find a system of economic governance to make the euro work is all of Europe's battle, notwithstanding Gordon Brown at his evasive worst. If it is lost, we all go down. Western societies were served an awesome warning of the risks contemporary civilisation is running by allowing the rich to make the rules and ignore their obligations. If fairness is put at the heart of the reform programme – both within Greece and between Germany and the rest of Europe – there is a sporting chance of success. If not, the next decade could be very unpleasant indeed.

O SEXO DA ECONOMIA

Ainda a propósito do que escrevi nos dois últimos apontamentos, (aqui e aqui) quanto mais penso na posicionamento de muitos economistas relativamente às responsabilidades que assacam às Universidades onde ensinam na gestação da crise financeira global, mais se me arreiga a ideia de que essa auto incriminação (de que eles, ainda que críticos não podem, honestamente, desvincular-se) é, sobretudo, uma atitude partidária. Não é por acaso, julgo eu, que Castro Caldas refere no comentário que transcrevi aqui a falta de pluralismo no ensino da economia.

O ensino universitário, a investigação científica, ou são plurais no espectro possível de análise, ou não são nem uma coisa nem outra. Presumo, contudo, que aqueles que hoje tão acirradamente contestam as instituições onde são profissionais, e alegam falta de pluralismo, pretendem que a Universidade seja palco de discussão ideológica sem qualquer constrangimento que o método científico requer para que o seja.

Pego na citação feita por CCaldas de uma afirmação de Samuelson em 1955:

“In recent years, 90 per cent of American economists have stopped being Keynesian economists" or Anti-Keynesian economists." Instead, they have worked toward a synthesis of whatever is valuable in older economics and in modern theories of income determination. The result might be called neo-classical economics and is accepted, in its broad outlines, by all but about 5 per cent of extreme left-wing and right-wing writers.”

e pergunto-me: Poderia ser diferente?

Não é a economia, como qualquer outra área do conhecimento, um edifício em construção, resultante dos contributos que vão sendo carreados ao longo dos tempos? Em 55 anos alguma coisa consistente foi acrescentada ao edifício, espera-se.

Se as ideologias neo-liberais prevaleceram nas últimas décadas, e sobretudo depois do desmoronamento da experiência do socialismo real, se essas ideologias promoveram a desregulação e a desregulação permitiu o saque, o que é que fomentou o descalabro: a ideologia ou a ciência?

Ninguém, se não for comandado por convicções ideológicas inabaláveis, pode continuar a acreditar no princípio do equilíbrio natural dos mercados. Em 1 de Agosto de 2007 transcrevi aqui uma pergunta de Nouriel Roubini, que citava Minsky, o economista que melhor e de forma mais isenta estudou a obra de Keynes. Nouriel Roubini, nessa altura, e tanto quanto julgo saber, ainda era praticamente ignorado em Portugal:

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Specifically, the crucial macro question that we should ask ourselves today is whether we are at the peak of a Minsky Credit Cycle. Or as the UBS economist George Magnus – an expert of financial instability - put it: “Have we reached a Minsky moment?”

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Há muito tempo que Minsky demonstrou a natural tendência para o desequilíbrio dos mercados financeiros. Quem é que ignorava isso? A Universidade não podia ignorar. Ignoraram aqueles a quem convinha fazer crer que também esses mercados (quais os outros?) tendem para o equilíbrio.

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Evidentemente que os mercados necessitam de regulação. E, sobretudo, precisam de regulação os mercados financeiros onde a lógica de intervenção dos apostadores é, geralmente, a dos jogadores de casino. A começar pela clarificação obrigatória bastante do conteúdo dos produtos transaccionados. E pela não admissão às mesas de jogo daqueles que não têm capacidade nem financeira nem conhecimento suficiente daquilo que se propõem comprar.

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Etc.

IMORALIDADE BANQUEIRA: DUAS PERSPECTIVAS

Smarter ways to punish a banker
Clive Crook

Whenever you wonder if rage at Wall Street is getting a little out of hand, some titan of the industry speaks up and makes you think, “Let’s go down there and smash some windows.”
Top banking executives appeared last week before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, set up by Congress to look into the debacle. Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase were far from contrite. Both said how well their companies were doing despite the crisis, which had been a nuisance, to be sure, but more an act of nature than something their industry brought about. “There are a number of things we could have done better,” Mr Dimon conceded graciously.
When you measure that complacency against the harm the slump has inflicted on millions of innocent bystanders, rage seems the only apt response. Revenge is called for. How about a fine, to punish the bandits and show them who’s boss?
Last week the White House said the country’s biggest banks should pay a “financial crisis responsibility fee”. Levied at 0.15 per cent of liabilities (excluding deposits and regulatory capital), it would raise about $90bn (€62bn, £55bn) over 10 years if enacted. The administration wants the fee to remain until fiscal losses under the troubled asset relief programme, estimated at about $120bn (but likely to be less) are recovered. “We want our money back, and we’re going to get it,” said Barack Obama. Tough talk, and good politics. The Democrats need both.

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A Wall Street pay puzzle

Robert J. Samuelson

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Why does Wall Street make the big bucks? A nation with 10 percent unemployment is understandably puzzled and outraged when the very people at the center of the financial crisis seem to be the first to recover and are pulling down fabulous pay packages. At Goldman Sachs, the average pay for 2009 has been estimated at nearly $600,000; at J.P. Morgan Chase's investment bank, it's been reckoned at slightly below $400,000. These averages conceal multimillion-dollar bonuses for top traders and investment bankers; underlings get smaller sums. Are Wall Street's leaders that much smarter and more industrious than everyone else?

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REGULAR A GLOBALIZAÇÃO

Brown, Sarkozy on Global Regulation

By GORDON BROWN and NICOLAS SARKOZY

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Europe led the way last year in facing down the global financial crisis, restructuring our banking system and strengthening the global financial system. The European Union was also at the forefront in calling for a new forum for economic cooperation of G-20 leaders. And from the outset of the crisis, it was Europe that promoted the fiscal stimulus—and sought to coordinate it globally—that has been a major factor in preventing recession becoming a world-wide depression.
Now we need to once again lead the way in forging a new global consensus.
Stable, open and competitive European financial markets are essential to global growth. We recognize the importance to Europe of ensuring that we have globally competitive financial services, and the importance of developing world-class financial centers such as London and Paris.
But the way global financial institutions have operated raises fundamental questions that we must—and can only—address globally.
We have found that a huge and opaque global trading network involving complex products, short-termism and too-often excessive rewards created risks that few people understood. We have also learned that when crises happen, taxpayers have to cover the costs. It is simply not acceptable for them to foot the bill for losses in a deep downturn, while institutions' shareholders and employees enjoy all the gains as the economy recovers.
Better regulation and supervision are the means by which the risk to the taxpayer can be reduced for the longer term.
In regard to regulation, the EU has adopted a comprehensive set of new rules for the financial sector to avoid the repetition of the crisis: control over credit rating agencies, stronger capital requirements on complex products such as securitization, and strengthened deposit guarantee schemes. We have set up strict rules to make sure that compensation systems avoid excessive risk taking. We will also implement stricter capital rules for banks.
We also have agreed on a more efficient system for supervision of the financial sector within Europe to better monitor systemic risks, to ensure that EU regulation is applied consistently, to settle disagreement between national supervisors, and to deal with crisis situations. Banks must now hold sufficient capital, ensure liquidity, and reward only genuine value creation and not short-term risk-taking.
This crisis has made us recognize that we are now in an economy which is no longer national but global, so financial standards must also be global. We must ensure that through proper regulation, the financial sector operates on a level playing field globally.
There is an urgent need for a new compact between global banks and the society they serve:
A compact that recognizes the risks to the taxpayer if banks fail and recognizes the imbalance between risks and rewards in the banking system.
A compact that ensures the benefits of good economic times flow not just to bankers but to the people they serve; that makes sure that the financial sector fosters economic growth.
A compact that ensures financial institutions cannot use offshore tax havens to negate the contribution they justly owe to the citizens of the country in which they operate—and so builds on the progress already made in ending tax and regulatory havens.
Therefore, we propose a long-term global compact that will encapsulate both the responsibilities of the banking system and the risk they pose to the economy as a whole. Various proposals have been put forward and deserve examination. They include resolution funds, insurance premiums, financial transaction levies and a tax on bonuses.
Among these proposals, we agree that a one-off tax in relation to bonuses should be considered a priority, due to the fact that bonuses for 2009 have arisen partly because of government support for the banking system.
However, it is clear the action that must be taken must be at a global level. No one territory can be expected to or be able to act on its own. And if we can find a solution, implemented consistently across the major economies, then we may find a way to ensure that taxpayers do not pay in a systemic crisis for the risks taken on by the banking sector. We might also be able to help the funding of our Millennium Development Goals and address climate change.
To achieve global coordination, we now propose a new process of deliberating and setting macroeconomic strategy, starting with the IMF report on global contributions and leading to a major discussion at the G-20 meetings chaired by South Korea next year. Through this process, we need to correct and prevent the build up of global imbalances. We need to enhance coordination at the global level so that foreign exchange volatility does not create a risk to the recovery. Each country should take its fair share of reducing global imbalances.
Stability and confidence requires us to bring financial markets into closer alignment with the values held by families and business owners: Rewarding hard work, responsibility, integrity and fairness.
People rightly want a post-crisis banking system which puts their needs first. To achieve that, nothing less than a global change is required.
Mr. Brown is prime minister of Great Britain. Mr. Sarkozy is the president of France.

THE BIG GET BIGGER

Bank Growth Alarms Regulators

Banks 'Too Big to Fail' Have Grown Even Bigger
Behemoths Born of the Bailout Reduce Consumer Choice, Tempt Corporate Moral Hazard
By David Cho

When the credit crisis struck last year, federal regulators pumped tens of billions of dollars into the nation's leading financial institutions because the banks were so big that officials feared their failure would ruin the entire financial system.
Today, the biggest of those banks are even bigger.
The crisis may be turning out very well for many of the behemoths that dominate U.S. finance. A series of federally arranged mergers safely landed troubled banks on the decks of more stable firms. And it allowed the survivors to emerge from the turmoil with strengthened market positions, giving them even greater control over consumer lending and more potential to profit.
J.P. Morgan Chase, an amalgam of some of Wall Street's most storied institutions, now holds more than $1 of every $10 on deposit in this country. So does Bank of America, scarred by its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and partly government-owned as a result of the crisis, as does Wells Fargo, the biggest West Coast bank. Those three banks, plus government-rescued and -owned Citigroup, now issue one of every two mortgages and about two of every three credit cards, federal data show.
A year after the near-collapse of the financial system last September, the federal response has redefined how Americans get mortgages, student loans and other kinds of credit and has made a national spectacle of executive pay. But no consequence of the crisis alarms top regulators more than having banks that were already too big to fail grow even larger and more interconnected.
"It is at the top of the list of things that need to be fixed," said Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. "It fed the crisis, and it has gotten worse because of the crisis."
Regulators' concerns are twofold: that consumers will wind up with fewer choices for services and that big banks will assume they always have the government's backing if things go wrong. That presumed guarantee means large companies could return to the risky behavior that led to the crisis if they figure federal officials will clean up their mess.
This problem, known as "moral hazard," is partly why government officials are keeping a tight rein on bailed-out banks -- monitoring executive pay, reviewing sales of major divisions -- and it is driving the Obama administration's efforts to create a new regulatory system to prevent another crisis. That plan would impose higher capital standards on large institutions and empower the government to take over a wide range of troubled financial firms to wind down their businesses in an orderly way.
"The dominant public policy imperative motivating reform is to address the moral hazard risk created by what we did, what we had to do in the crisis to save the economy," Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said in an interview.

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The Big Get Bigger

MORAL HAZARD

Why we need to regulate the banks sooner, not later
There are problems with the view that the costs of greater bank regulation outweigh the benefits, and that the issue for the financial sector was a botched Lehman bail-out. The problem of moral hazard – created by the bank bail-outs – remains,

argues Kenneth Rogoff - professor of economics at Harvard University.

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O QUE DIZ MARTIN WOLF

Reform of regulation has to start by altering incentives
Bubbles and crises cannot be eliminated from capitalism. Yet it is hard to believe the risks run by institutions had nothing to do with incentives. The unpleasant truth is that incentives for risky behaviour are, if anything, even bigger than before the crisis, says Martin Wolf

O QUE DIZ SOROS

The three steps to financial reform
George Soros

The Obama administration is expected on Wednesday to propose a reorganisation of the way we regulate financial markets. I am not an advocate of too much regulation. Having gone too far in deregulating – which contributed to the current crisis – we must resist the temptation to go too far in the opposite direction. While markets are imperfect, regulators are even more so. Not only are they human, they are also bureaucratic and subject to political influences, therefore regulations should be kept to a minimum.
Three principles should guide reform. First, since markets are bubble-prone, regulators must accept responsibility for preventing bubbles from growing too big. Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, and others have expressly refused that responsibility. If markets cannot recognise bubbles, they argued, neither can regulators. They were right and yet the authorities must accept the assignment, even knowing that they are bound to be wrong. They will, however, have the benefit of feedback from the markets so they can and must continually recalibrate to correct their mistakes.
Second, to control asset bubbles it is not enough to control the money supply; we must also control the availability of credit. This cannot be done with monetary tools alone – we must also use credit controls such as margin requirements and minimum capital requirements. Currently these tend to be fixed irrespective of the market’s mood. Part of the authorities’ job is to counteract these moods. Margin and minimum capital requirements should be adjusted to suit market conditions. Regulators should vary the loan-to-value ratio on commercial and residential mortgages for risk-weighting purposes to forestall real estate bubbles.
Third, we must reconceptualise the meaning of market risk. The efficient market hypothesis postulates that markets tend towards equilibrium and deviations occur in a random fashion; moreover, markets are supposed to function without any discontinuity in the sequence of prices. Under these conditions market risks can be equated with the risks affecting individual market participants. As long as they manage their risks properly, regulators ought to be happy.
But the efficient market hypothesis is unrealistic. Markets are subject to imbalances that individual participants may ignore if they think they can liquidate their positions. Regulators cannot ignore these imbalances. If too many participants are on the same side, positions cannot be liquidated without causing a discontinuity or, worse, a collapse. In that case the authorities may have to come to the rescue. That means that there is systemic risk in the market in addition to the risks most market participants perceived prior to the crisis.
The securitisation of mortgages added a new dimension of systemic risk. Financial engineers claimed they were reducing risks through geographic diversification: in fact they were increasing them by creating an agency problem. The agents were more interested in maximising fee income than in protecting the interests of bondholders. That is the verity that was ignored by regulators and market participants alike.
To avert a repetition, the agents must have “skin in the game” but the 5 per cent proposed by the administration is more symbolic than substantive. I would consider 10 per cent as the minimum requirement. To allow for possible discontinuities in markets securities held by banks should carry a higher risk rating than they do under the Basel Accords. Banks should pay for the implicit guarantee they enjoy by using less leverage and accepting restrictions on how they invest depositors’ money; they should not be allowed to speculate for their own account with other people’s money.
It is probably impractical to separate investment banking from commercial banking as the US did with the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. But there has to be an internal firewall that separates proprietary trading from commercial banking. Proprietary trading ought to be financed out of a bank’s own capital. If a bank is too big to fail, regulators must go even further to protect its capital from undue risk. They must regulate the compensation packages of proprietary traders so that risks and rewards are properly aligned. This may push proprietary trading out of banks into hedge funds. That is where it properly belongs. Hedge funds and other large investors must also be closely monitored to ensure that they do not build up dangerous imbalances.
Finally, I have strong views on the regulation of derivatives. The prevailing opinion is that they ought to be traded on regulated exchanges. That is not enough. The issuance and trading of derivatives ought to be as strictly regulated as stocks. Regulators ought to insist that derivatives be homogenous, standardised and transparent.
Custom-made derivatives only serve to improve the profit margin of the financial engineers designing them. In fact, some derivatives ought not to be traded at all. I have in mind credit default swaps. Consider the recent bankruptcy of AbitibiBowater and that of General Motors. In both cases, some bondholders owned CDS and stood to gain more by bankruptcy than by reorganisation. It is like buying life insurance on someone else’s life and owning a licence to kill him. CDS are instruments of destruction that ought to be outlawed.

BANCOS ECOLÓGICOS

Não sei se alguém já utilizou o termo no sentido que lhe vou dar. Mas procurei no Google e parece-me que não. Mas também não o vou registar, prescindindo dos direitos de autor...

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Não sei se já leu "The Origin of Financial Crises" de George Cooper, saído em Novembro último.Aborda precisamente o tema do "Financial Instability Hypothesis", a revisita a Minsky e a auto ignição do sistema.

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Penso que vale a leitura.

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Mas também continuo a pensar que a causa interior da crise, decorrente em muitos casos de crimes de abuso de confiança, não pode ter apenas uma resposta preventiva para novas crises de natureza meramente reguladora. Mais tarde ou mais cedo, os reguladores acabarão por ser capturados se não existirem sanções francamente desmotivadoras e processos expeditos para as aplicar.

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Por outro lado, e vou repetir-me, nenhum sistema será alguma vez suficientemente regulado se continuarem a existir off-shores. Como não é nada provável que estes acabem, só vejo uma solução: Criarem-se bancos "ecológicos", entendendo por "banco ecológico" aquele que assuma perante terceiros o compromisso de não operar com off-shores.

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Se há espaços para fumadores e não fumadores porque não passarem a existir bancos contaminados e descontaminados?

CRISE DE CONFIANÇA POR CRIME DE ABUSO DELA - 2

As notícias de escândalos gordos continuam, imparavelmente.

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As últimas chegam da Índia, onde as cotações caem desalmadamente em consequência da revelação de mais um caso de falsificação de contas em larga escala.

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Continua, no entanto, muito generalizada a ideia de que é urgente reformular a macroeconomia, quando o que me continua a parecer é a necessidade de rever de alto a baixo os sistemas de auditoria das empresas e de avaliação da consistência das suas contas e o quadro sancionatório dos prevaricadores e daqueles que, por omissão, negligência ou incompetência, tendo aceite a nomeação ou a eleição para cargos de responsabilidade de fiscalização, consintam a

ocorrência de fraudes ou não cumprimento das leis e das regras.

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Se a confiança é imprescindível às relações comerciais e, portanto ao funcionamento dos mercados, quaisquer que eles sejam, é elementar que se garanta a afinação permanente dos meios que sustentam os elos de confiança entre as instituições, as empresas, os indivíduos.

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Provadamente, nos últimos tempos tem-se observado que o laxismo generalizado ocasionou a fraude monumental que abalou (e continua a abalar) a economia.

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Há alguma análise mecroeconómica que possa sustentar-se na viscosidade do logro? Há alguma política macroeconómica que possa orientar-se em terrenos de lodo?

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Acções já caíram mais de 86%
Escândalo Satyam deixa Índia em estado de choque e provoca queda da bolsa
Já é conhecida como a Enron indiana. Nos últimos dias o nome da quarta maior empresa de "software" indiana percorreu o mundo pelos piores motivos. O seu presidente é responsável pela maior fraude a que o país já assistiu. Ramalinga Raju passou anos a falsificar as contas da empresa. Raju já se demitiu mas as ondas de choque continuam.

ORÁCULO

O que diz Roubini?

- 2009 será um ano de estagflação e recessão para a maior parte da economia global;

- a persistência desta situação durante 2010 depende das políticas que vierem a ser adoptadas e dos resultados atingidos pelas mesmas: políticas fiscais e monetárias e de recapitalização do sistema financeiro;

- O Banco Central Europeu deverá reduzir ainda mais as taxas de juro, seguindo o exemplo da FED;

- Nos EUA é preciso um plano de redução do esforço das dívidas que pesam sobre as famílias;

De qualquer modo, as medidas necessárias terão de ser pagas pelos contribuintes.

A FED, os reguladores, a gula e arrogância de Wall Street, as agências de rating, são os grandes responsáveis pela alimentação da bolha que globalmente está a causar esta crise,

O sistema financeiro já mudou radicalmente; foram-se os tempos da auto-regulação. Colocar-se-á sempre a questão de quem regulará os reguladores. Uma parte significativa dos recursos fiscais terão de pagar uma regulação mais apropriada, o sistema necessita de mais reguladores e de mais auditores. Isto não significa o fim do capitalismo ou o fim das economias de mercado, mas tem de existir um papel adequado para o governo garantir que o sistema financeiro e a economia real estão a trabalhar no sentido correcto;

- É provável que o sistema financeiro venha a experimentar um stress ainda maior: "Cerca de um milhar, ou mais" de hedge funds podem vir a rebentar ao mesmo tempo. O que significa que a venda de activos desvalorizados continuará. Uma outra fonte de stress para o sistema são as economias emergentes: há cerca de uma dúzia delas á beira de uma potencial crise financeira: Letónia, Estónia, Lituânia, Hungria, Bulgária, Roménia, Turquia, Ucrânia, Paquistão, Indonésia, Coreia, Equador, Argentina e Venezuela. Outros esqueletos poderão cair da opacidade do sistema financeiro, idênticos ao escândalo de Bernard Madoff.

- A médio prazo, o dólar enfraquecerá ainda mais;

- As bolsas, tanto nos EUA como no resto do mundo deverão resvalar mais 15 a 20% nos próximos meses. Os preços das matérias primas cairão também cerca de 15 a 20%.

- Dinheiro em caixa e outras aplicações igualmente líquidas e seguras como as obrigações soberanas são a forma mais segura de aplicações nos próximos meses.

UM CASO TÍPICO

O caso do BPN está muito longe de ser um fenómeno de contornos nunca vistos. Antes, pelo contrário, ele exemplifica de forma muito flagrante a falta de transparência mínima que deveria ser exigida a todas as instituições e empresas, e, muito particularmente as empresas financeiras pelos incidentes que podem provocar em toda a economia. Mas acontece, precisamente o contrário: por lidarem, sobretudo, com activos desmaterializados, os bancos e outras entidades de intermediação financeira processam as suas operações por detrás de cortinas opacas ao público que nelas confia de um modo que não é consentido, pela especificidade das suas actividades, às empresas e instituições não financeiras. E quando algumas destas, na realização de operações financeiras decorrentes das suas actividades específicas, pretendem escapar aos limites da lei, fazem-no sempre com recurso aquelas.

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A idoneidade do sistema financeiro, que agora foi estrondosamente posto em causa, há muito que dava sinais de grandes abalos. O próprio BPN, um corpúsculo no meio do universo financeiro, há muito tempo que emitia rumores de falta de consistência na sua idoneidade. A Oliveira e Costa, que Nicolau Santos e a sua equipa no Expresso considera, com enorme exagero, ter governado o BPN ao estilo de Kim Il-Sung, o ex-ditador da Coreia do Norte, e que não tem perdão se, por uma vez houver justiça para estes casos, não podem ser assacadas todas as responsabilidades dos golpes cometidos. Não podem os administradores que entretanto sairam e os que transitaram dos tempos em que as golpadas aconteceram, dizer que nada sabiam, fingindo de ingénuos à maneira de Alípio Dias no BCP, por exemplo. Nem muitos accionistas que aproveitaram enquanto puderam, caso contrário nunca teriam aguentado tanto. Nem os órgãos de fiscalização do banco previstos nos estatutos.

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Nem os auditores externos que foram despedidos sem passarem palavra ao regulador.

Nem os revisores oficiais de contas que, salvo raras excepções, realizam as suas principescamente remuneradas funções limitando-se a assinar todos os anos a mesma declaração.

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Aliás, já aqui o dissemos, a irresponsabilidade institucionalizada dos revisores oficiais de contas decorre da imposição da lei para que existam sem que a mesma lei configure essa existência dentro de limites de seriedade. Com efeito, sendo as empresas obrigadas a contratar um revisor oficial de contas, não pode ninguém esperar que, regra geral, estes não assinem a declaração que lhes garante a remuneração e branqueia os resultados apresentados. Podem recusar, evidentemente que podem recusar, mas perdem o lugar. Que outro, pressurosamente, aceitará preencher. Acontece até com os auditores externos, grupos com muito maior dimensão e, supostamente, com muito maiores responsabilidades e riscos.

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Exemplos flagrantes desta abdicação não ocorreram apenas no BPN. Estão a ocorrer todos os dias. E não há modo de alterar esta submissão promíscua sem alteração radical dos vínculos que relacionem auditores e auditados. Enquanto tal não acontecer, não deixarão de ocorrer situações semelhantes e as funções de revisores oficiais de contas apenas se distinguirão do porteiro que carrega as malas pela enormíssima diferença das gorjetas.