Preocupante advertencia de Allister Heath en City A.M.: las autoridades monetarias están propiciando otra burbuja. Como dice Heath, se está repitiendo la historia del colapso de las punto.com: se está creando una burbuja para salir de la anterior. Heath es siempre prudente en sus valoraciones, por lo que me preocupa especialmente este análisis.
Copio el artículo casi entero por su relevancia (énfasis mío):
IT is time to worry about the next bubble – not just in the UK, but in markets all over the world. Earlier this year, I wrote a column in this space arguing that the housing market in the UK was no longer over-valued, based on historic price to earnings ratios and a range of other evidence, including the fact that yields on rented flats were higher than mortgage payments again. I spoke too soon. Since then, house prices have jumped by about five per cent, taking the trough-to-peak rise this year to around seven per cent, which is ridiculous and cannot be justified by the fundamentals. Unfortunately, this means that house prices are now clearly over-valued again, with home owners and investors convincing themselves that property is once more a one-way bet (a deeply dangerous conceit).
Not all asset classes are suffering from bubbles. British and US equities are still by and large fine. But the monetary policies that have been introduced to try and get us out of the credit crunch, property crash and economic implosion of the past two years are starting to work too well. This is true even though the recovery remains fragile and the money supply isn’t going up very fast and in some countries is actually falling.
It would be better for us to suffer very low growth or stagnation over the next couple of years rather than unsustainable growth followed by another collapse in 2012 or 2013. The global economy simply could not cope with that; some countries would go bust and others, such as the UK, would have to hyper-inflate themselves out of a sovereign debt default. Another bubble and bust would be a total catastrophe, which needs to be avoided at almost any cost.There are several related forces fuelling the problem. Loose monetary policy in most developed countries, including of course Britain and America, is having both a direct and an indirect effect. Yields on UK gilts are much lower than they should be, with a knock-on effect on commercial bonds and equities (which are valued by discounted cash flow models for which interest rates are key). As institutions sell gilts and convert the cash into other assets, these are in turn being propped up. Then there is the indirect effect via the carry trade: investors are borrowing in dollars and buying assets in countries with higher interest rates such as Australia. (...)
Red lights should now be flashing. We are re-entering the danger zone: just as the authorities created a property bubble to escape the dot.com bubble, we are now inflating a series of other bubbles to get out of the last one.
Aprovecho para enlazar un debate en el que estoy participando en la Bitácora Almendron a propósito de las causas de la crisis (que ha derivado al sistema de pensiones). Miguel afirmaba: El neoliberalismo nos condujo directos al pozo; la “política de izquierdas” de Zapatero solo nos ha dado un pico y una pala para ahondar más el agujero.
Yo entonces he preguntado:
El toma y daca ha continuado, pero la pregunta (¿qué políticas (neo)liberales han causado la crisis?) sigue sin respuesta.Miguel, ¿podrías explicarnos a qué “políticas neoliberales” te refieres concretamente? (y por neoliberales entiendo “liberales” o “afines al libre mercado”). ¿Consideras que el Banco Central y su fijación de precios (el tipo de interés) es una institución propia de un libre mercado o una insitutición defendida por liberales? ¿Consideras que la expansión crediticia que promueve el Banco Central, las leyes de curso forzoso, garantías de depósito etc. que fomentan el riesgo moral y el descalce de plazos en la banca privada (deudas a corto plazo, préstamos a largo) son medidas liberales?
El problema es que algunos pensáis que una institución como el Banco Central, por el hecho de llamarse “banco” y manejar “dinero” ya es una institución capitalista y neoliberal y no el órgano de planificación central que es. Este error en el diagnóstico es el que conduce a prescripciones equivocadas.
