El blog de Albert Esplugas

Reportajes en LD: Sarkozy contra la City, inmigración, subida de impuestos en el Reino Unido

Aparte de los artículos de opinión bi-semanales he empezado a escribir artículos de noticias económicas para Libertad Digital, más asépticos que de costumbre. Estos son los tres publicados hasta ahora:

• Sarkozy amenaza a la City de Londres

• La llegada de inmigrantes enriquece a los trabajadores nativos

• Brown no convence: Reino Unido sube los impuestos a banqueros y clase media

The Economist regaña (otra vez) a Zapatero

Taxing Times (vía Barcepundit):

FIRST it was spend, spend, spend. Now it is tax, tax, tax. (...) Respite will not come soon. Spain’s recession, made worse by a burst housing bubble, is different from those of other European countries. Some economies are already starting to look up, but Spain’s will not recover for another year. The construction industry is in tatters and, with hundreds of thousands of unsold new houses, is not about to recover.

An €8 billion public-works stimulus combined with a dramatic fall in revenues has blown an enormous hole in the public accounts (see chart). This year’s budget deficit is expected to be around 10% of GDP. Yet Mr Zapatero has promised extra money to everyone, from regional governments to the long-term unemployed. Next year will see an extra €5 billion given to town halls. (...)

Mr Zapatero shows little appetite for long-term spending cuts of the kind that countries such as Britain are starting to think about. He looks as if he is storing up problems for the future.

A finales de julio el semanario económico británico defendía una reforma laboral en España, cuya rigidez es uno de los principales obstáculos a la recuperación:

That means reforming not just the dysfunctional education system but also the disastrous labour market. Mr Zapatero refuses “to cheapen the firing” of the two-thirds of the workforce on permanent contracts, who must be paid 45 days for each year of service if they are laid off. His refusal blunts the incentive to hire. Collective-bargaining rules mean that wages for the country’s labour aristocracy are rising even as prices are falling. Since Spain, a euro member, can no longer devalue, its businesses are becoming even less competitive.

Economistas en defensa de la Fed

250 economistas han firmado una carta en defensa de la "independencia de la Reserva Federal" que en realidad no es más que una apología de la Fed y su labor ahora que está en el punto de mira de tanta gente y que la Propuesta de Ley para auditar la Fed impulsada por Ron Paul está ganando tantos adeptos.

Robert Higgs critica el contenido de la carta:

First, “central bank independence has been shown to be essential for controlling inflation.” A little difficulty for this claim, however, resides in the undeniable fact that for more than a century before the Fed’s establishment, the purchasing power of the dollar fluctuated around an approximately horizontal trend line—that is, despite inflations and deflations usually associated with the wartime issuance of fiat money and the postwar return to specie-backed currency, the dollar more or less retained its exchange value against goods and services over the long run, whereas since the Fed’s establishment the dollar has lost more than 95 percent of its purchasing power. If this post-1913 experience is what these economists consider “controlling inflation,” I would not want to see what happens to a currency’s purchasing power when inflation is not controlled! It seems that the petitioning economists have placed the performance bar absurdly low in their judgment of the Fed’s containment of inflation. Evidently, barring a Weimar-Germany-style hyperinflation, they suppose that everything is hunky-dory on the monetary front.

Second, say our esteemed economists, “lender of last resort decisions should not be politicized.” This statement only goes to prove that, as everybody knew already, economists make terrible comedians: the statement is obviously a joke, but it’s just not funny. “Not be politicized,” they say? What is one to call the Fed’s decisions during the past year to dole out trillions in loans, credit lines, guarantees, asset exchanges, and so forth to the big boys on Wall Street? Are we supposed to believe that all those big investment banks that were permitted to transform themselves instantaneously into depository institutions, thereby gaining access to various forms of Treasury and Fed support, were selected and accommodated on purely disinterested grounds? Or may we be permitted to imagine that institutions such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley just might—might, I said—enjoy a tad more political coziness with the government in general and the Fed in particular than, say, you and I and another three hundred million Americans do?

UBS contra la Hacienda americana

UBS está batallando contra la Hacienda americana (IRS) para salvaguardar los nombres de 52.000 clientes estadounidenses con cuentas extranjeras. El Departamento de Justicia ha exigido al banco suizo que revele esa información y el caso está en el tribunal federal de Miami, pero UBS se niega a proporcionar estos datos a las autoridades americanas alegando que ello vulneraría las leyes suizas, que protegen la confidencialidad de la información bancaria localizada exclusivamente en Suiza.

Alemania y el Reino Unido también han presionado a Suiza para que ponga fin al secretismo bancario, pero no está claro que eso vaya a producirse. Como apunta Jonathan Pearce, el electorado suizo tendrá que aprobar este cambio legislativo, y teniendo en cuenta la contribución del sector bancario a la riqueza nacional (un 13% del PIB) no es probable que la iniciativa reciba el apoyo suficiente.

I can hardly see the Swiss voters, unless they are very stupid, throwing away one of their economic ace cards.

And I have defended tax havens several times before, for those who want to see why I take my position in the way I do. In summary: I consider what some countries are doing to be nothing less than an attempt to create a global tax cartel, with jurisdictions such as Switzerland, Singapore or Monaco in the position of non-cartelised competitors. But as we have seen in the case of OPEC in the 1990s, when the oil price was low, cartels crumble eventually. I cannot see countries such as India, China, Russia or Brazil shunning the opportunity to provide low-tax attractions to investors who become fed up at the larceny of their home governments. Even though some taxes - such as sales taxes and land taxes - are quite hard to dodge, I think it is a mark of an open, free world that people can migrate to jurisdictions where the taxes are to their liking, rather than have all their options cut off at source, which the cartelisers would do. Unfortunately, the drive against tax havens is too good an opportunity for the current transnational progressive class to miss.

Espero que UBS (que ya fue multada por contribuir a la evasión fiscal) se salga con la suya y las anquilosadas potencias fracasen en su intento de someter a la pequeña Suiza.

Psicoanalizando a Krugman

Este ensayo de Dan Klein y Harika Barlett en Econ Journal Watch evalúa las sensibilidades ideológicas de Krugman a partir de sus opiniones (y omisiones) vertidas en el New York Times en la última década. De imprescindible lectura para conocer las debilidades del Nóbel, especialmente recomendada para sus adoradores.

Harika Barlett and I have made a complete review of Krugman’s New York Times columns 1997 through 2006—in all, 654 columns. Here I interpret his ideological sensibilities. I think they are quite wrongheaded, but that claim is not something I attempt to defend. I do not dispute isolated statements. My critique assesses the 654 NYT columns as a whole. I argue that the pattern of policy positions and arguments do not square with his purported concern for general prosperity and the interests of the poor. There are contradictions between what Krugman makes himself out to be and certain patterns of his policy statements. Some of the evidence lies in statements made. But the more important evidence lies in patterns of statements not made. Because Krugman assumes the role of addressing the most important things, because Barlett and I have made a complete survey of his NYT columns 1997 through 2006, and because the omissions are flagrant, I may treat omissions as evidence of Krugman’s ideological character and sensibilities.

Krugman, keynesiano puro

Las guerras son buenas para la economía porque aumentan el gasto, y gastar en vez de ahorrar es obviamente lo que necesita uno cuando está en crisis. Quizás Zapatero tendría que declarar alguna guerra para sacarnos de esta crisis.

The fact is that war is, in general, expansionary for the economy, at least in the short run. World War II, remember, ended the Great Depression. The $10 billion or so we’re spending each month in Iraq mainly goes to US-produced goods and services, which means that the war is actually supporting demand. Yes, there would be infinitely better ways to spend the money. But at a time when a shortfall of demand is the problem, the Iraq war nonetheless acts as a sort of WPA, supporting employment directly and indirectly.

Lo mejor de Krugman

Cinco cosas, según Bryan Caplan:

1. Atribuye el desempleo europeo a las regulaciones laborales que mantienen los salarios por encima del nivel de mercado.
2. Promueve el libre comercio.
3. Considera a los activistas anti-globalización enemigos de los pobres del mundo.
4. Titula un ensayo "In Praise of Cheap Labor: Bad Jobs at Bad Wages Are Better than No Jobs at All" ("A favor de la mano de obra barata: malos trabajos con malos salarios es mejor que no tener trabajo").
5. Señala que si uno se opone a un Estado grande debe estar a favor de recortar la Seguridad Social, Medicare y otros programas populares. Su intención es asustar al personal, pero al menos no pretende comerse el pastel y tenerlo.

Viniendo de uno de los economistas izquierdistas más famosos del mundo, dice Caplan, no está mal.

Premio Nobel para Krugman: reacciones

Tyler Cowen en Marginal Revolution:

I have to say I did not expect him to win until Bush left office, as I thought the Swedes wanted the resulting discussion to focus on Paul's academic work rather than on issues of politics.  So I am surprised by the timing but not by the choice.

Arnold Kling en Econlog:

Krugman suggested that there are increasing returns in an industry. That theory explains why movies are done in Hollywood, fashion is done in New York, autos are done in Detroit, and so forth. International trade patterns may owe more to historical accidents and path dependence than to factor endowments. It is a classic contribution.

Sallie James en Cato & Liberty:

I have my concerns with Prof. Krugman’s later work and his tendency to allow his political views to trump economic good sense. As the Economist [$] wrote in 2003 “A glance through his past columns reveals a growing tendency to attribute all the world’s ills to George Bush…Even his economics is sometimes stretched…” He is generally considered to be a big-government liberal. But the prize was not awarded for his NYT columns or his opinions on economic or foreign policy.

Bill Anderson en LewRockwell.com Blog:

Given the horrible state of the economy and the idiocy coming from mainstream economists, I would have thought that nobody would win the Nobel Prize in Economics this year. Instead, the Swedish Central Bank and its minions have awarded this prize to none other than Paul Krugman. That's right, a man who gave up economics long ago in order to become a political operative now wears the title of "Nobel" winner.

Unfortunately, he now will be in an even greater position of influence, a man who has declared publicly that we need another "New Deal," and a man who believes that FDR lifted the economy out of the Great Depression. A man who believes war is good for the economy. A man who rarely says an intelligent thing in his column.

Russ Roberts en Cafe Hayek:

Today, now that he has won the Nobel Prize, I'd like to remember the quote that made it clear to me that the economic way of thinking was no longer of concern to him, when he wrote in the New York Times Sunday Magazine: Although America has higher per capita income than other advanced countries, it turns out that that's mainly because our rich are much richer. And here's a radical thought: if the rich get more, that leaves less for everyone else. That statement -- which is simply a matter of arithmetic -- is guaranteed to bring accusations of ''class warfare.''

Efectos no deseados del rescate

Robert Murphy sobre las consecuencias contra-producentes del bailout... antes de que se aprobara:

[A]t first glance, it seems odd that the location of these risky mortgage-backed securities remains so mysterious. After all, if a firm realizes that it made some horrendous decisions and now must announce losses, why not just get it over with and move on? Even if such an announcement would spell instant insolvency, it is not obvious how the shareholders gain by postponing the inevitable and allowing the company to fritter away more wealth by sputtering along.

However, this dynamic completely changes if there is a chance that the federal government will swoop in and buy up the bad assets well above the (current) market price. Investors are complaining about the lack of transparency regarding institutions' exposure to mortgage-backed securities, but this opaqueness of their balance sheets is itself exacerbated by the ever more generous assistance provided by the Fed and Treasury since the troubles began in August 2007. Rather than 'fessing up and taking their lumps, the most troubled firms decided to wait it out. And those firms that managed to hold on have just been rewarded with their cut of a $700 billion pot.

Controlemos la narrativa (esta vez sí)

Los liberales no tenemos voto, ni siquiera en el contexto de una crisis que los austriacos llevan tiempo augurando, pero tenemos voz y es importante que se nos oiga. Steve Horwitz escribe un atinado artículo acerca de la necesidad de controlar la narrativa sobre la crisis y evitar que los enemigos del libre mercado se apropien indebidamente de ella, como sucedió con la Gran Depresión.

We are not going to change what government is doing, nor have much influence in stemming any problems that arise from it.  We can, however, speak to history by doing our part to ensure that the political causes of this crisis are well understood and that free markets don't take yet another undeserved hit in the histories of the future.

It is imperative that we continue to point out that this crisis was caused by a whole host of government interventions, from the Fed to the GSEs to the CRA to land-use regulations and so on.  We need to constantly argue that this was not the result of "free markets" or "deregulation." It's also worth noting that the one bit of deregulation that did take place in recent years (the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall) has been key to avoiding a worse disaster by allowing commercial banks to buy up investment banks and allowing the struggling investment banks to go commercial to keep themselves afloat.  If this bailout becomes the disaster that many of us believe it will be, we need to make sure we pin the blame where it belongs.

Huerta de Soto sobre la crisis

En un artículo para el Mises Institute Jesús Huerta de Soto explica el origen de la crisis y las propuestas "continuistas" de los gobiernos y sus economistas afines: bajar tipos de interés, garantizar depósitos, rescates y nacionalizaciones... Es francamente lamentable presenciar este espectáculo: los que nos han metio en este desaguisado defendiendo más de lo mismo.

Therefore, the dilemma facing Ben Bernanke and his Federal Reserve Board, as well as the other central banks (beginning with the European Central Bank), is not at all comfortable. For years they have shirked their fiduciary responsibility, and now they find themselves in a blind alley. They can either allow the recessionary process to begin now, and with it the healthy and painful readjustment, or they can procrastinate with a "hair of the dog" cure. With the latter, the chances of even more severe stagflation in the not-too-distant future increase exponentially. (This was precisely the error committed following the stock market crash of 1987, an error that led to the inflation at the end of the 1980s and concluded with the sharp recession of 1990-1992.)

Furthermore, the reintroduction of a cheap-credit policy at this stage could only hinder the necessary liquidation of unprofitable investments and company reconversion. It could even wind up prolonging the recession indefinitely, as occurred in the Japanese economy, which, after all possible interventions were tried, ceased to respond to any stimulus involving credit expansion or Keynesian methods.

Jeff Miron sobre las quiebras, los rescates públicos y los rescates privados

Excelente artículo de Jeff Miron en CNN sobre el plan de rescate público recién repudiado y su alternativa privada: la quiebra y recompra de bancos por otras empresas.

The obvious alternative to a bailout is letting troubled financial institutions declare bankruptcy. Bankruptcy means that shareholders typically get wiped out and the creditors own the company.

Bankruptcy does not mean the company disappears; it is just owned by someone new (as has occurred with several airlines). Bankruptcy punishes those who took excessive risks while preserving those aspects of a businesses that remain profitable.

In contrast, a bailout transfers enormous wealth from taxpayers to those who knowingly engaged in risky subprime lending. Thus, the bailout encourages companies to take large, imprudent risks and count on getting bailed out by government. This "moral hazard" generates enormous distortions in an economy's allocation of its financial resources. (...)

The administration's claim is that many mortgage assets are merely illiquid, not truly worthless, implying taxpayers will recoup much of their $700 billion.

If these assets are worth something, however, private parties should want to buy them, and they would do so if the owners would accept fair market value. Far more likely is that current owners have brushed under the rug how little their assets are worth.

Los bancos deben ser recapitalizados por el sector privado

Larry White contra el rescate público, a favor de los rescates privados:

[The Government] should let private market participants recapitalize banks (as Mitsubishi Bank just did for Morgan Stanley) and buy distressed assets, at prices set in actual genuine market transactions, to the extent that those risking their own money think warranted. As we discovered in the savings and loan fiasco of the 1980s, and as Japan discovered in the 1990s, propping up insolvent financial firms so they keep operating only makes survival more difficult for healthy firms.

Carta abierta a los izquierdistas sobre la crisis

Steven Horwitz, bloguero en Austrian Economists, ha escrito una didáctica explicación de la causa de la crisis y sus posibles soluciones. La carta pone énfasis en cómo los intereses privados influyen en la legislación y se benefican de las políticas del banco central.

Empieza así:

In the last week or two, I have heard frequently from you that the current financial mess has been caused by the failures of free markets and deregulation. I have heard from you that the lust after profits, any profits, that is central to free markets is at the core of our problems. And I have heard from you that only significant government intervention into financial markets can cure these problems, perhaps once and for all. I ask of you for the next few minutes to, in the words of Oliver Cromwell, consider that you may be mistaken. Consider that both the diagnosis and the cure might be equally mistaken.

Vale la pena leerlo entero, sobre todo si eres de izquierdas. Pasádselo a gente de izquierdas que esté culpando al "capitalismo salvaje" de la crisis y que sea razonable.

El rescate es rechazado en la Cámara de Representantes

Victoria, por ahora. 205 a 228.

U.S. lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Monday voted against the biggest proposed government intervention in the U.S. economy since the Great Depression of 1929.

(vía LRC)

Referencias austríacas sobre la crisis

Cortesía del Mises Institute: The Bailout Reader.

Carta al Congreso del banco BB&T contra el rescate

John Allison, Director General de Branch Banking & Trust, ha escrito una carta al Congreso en contra del plan de rescate (bailout) del gobierno.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are the primary cause of the mortgafe crisis. These government supported enterprises distorted normal market risk mechanisms. While individual private financial institutions have made serious mistakes, the problems in the financial system have been caused by government policies including, affordable housing (now sub-prime), combined with the market disruptions caused by the Federal Reserve holding interest rates too low and then raising interest rates too high. (...)

Corrections are not all bad. The market correction process eliminates irrational competitors. There were a number of poorly managed institutions and poorly made financial decisions during the real state boom. It is important that any rules post "rescue" punish the poorly run institutions and no punish the well run companies. (...)

The primary beneficiaries of the proposed rescue are Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The Treasury has a number of smart individuals, including Hank Paulson. However, Treasury is totally dominated by Wall Street investment bankers. They do not have knowledge of the commercial banking industry. Therefore, they can not be relied on to objectively assess all the implications of government policy on all financial intermediaries. The decision to protect the money funds is a clear example of a material lack of insight into the risk to the total financial system

(Vía Division of Labour).

Las 30 economías más libres del mundo

Éstas son las 30 economías más libres del mundo según el informe anual "Economic Freedom of the World 2008" del Fraser Institute canadiense.

Hong Kong y Singapur encabezan la lista. Los países europeos en el Top 10 son Suiza (#4), el Reino Unido (#5) e Irlanda (#10). Estados Unidos está en el #8, Alemania en el #17 y Japón en el #27. La mayoría de países del Top 30 son occidentales. Hay varios países latinoamericanos: Chile (#6), Costa Rica, El Salvador y Panamá. También hay dos países árabes: Kuwait (#19) y los Emiratos Árabes Unidos (#26). España está en el #32.

Podéis consultar el ranking completo aquí (en PDF), página 32.

Ron Paul sobre la crisis, en FOX

Ron Paul es entrevistado en Fox Business sobre los fundamentos de la crisis y cómo salir de ella:

(vía LRC)

El sector financiero no necesita más regulación

Imprescindible artículo de Rallo en Libertad Digital sobre uno de los mitos que están prosperando al albur de la crisis, a saber, que su causa es la escasez de regulaciones en el sector financiero y la solución es empezar a regularlo todo. Como bien señala Rallo, el liberalismo no se basa en "la ausencia de normas", sino en el respeto de una norma fundamental muy clara: la inviolabilidad de la propiedad privada. Las normas superfluas son aquéllas que se apartan de este principio, las normas necesarias son las que lo desarrollan.

El problema del sector financiero en este sentido no es la cantidad de regulaciones (el sector está regulado a mansalva y varias de esas regulaciones han contribuido a la generación de esta crisis), sino la calidad de esas regulaciones.

Hay que dejar quebrar a los bancos

Ésa es la opinión del 65% de votantes americanos, contra un 7% que opina que el Estado debe mantener a flote a los bancos insolventes con el dinero de los contribuyentes. (Vía LRC)

Juan Ramón Rallo explicaba ayer en El Mundo por qué el Estado debe mantenerse al margen si lo que queremos es superar la crisis en lugar de prolongarla:

Si el Estado rescata indiscriminadamente a los bancos para proteger al conjunto de los depositantes, las malas inversiones no se liquidarán y la crisis se perpetuará, tal y como sucedió durante la Gran Depresión estadounidense o más recientemente en Japón. Por no hablar de la enorme corrupción pública que podría producirse a la hora de decidir qué activos se adquieren y, sobre todo, a qué precio.

El 60% de todo el crédito de los bancos y cajas españoles ha ido destinado a adquirir activos relacionados con un sector de la construcción que ha padecido la mayor burbuja de precios del mundo -una sobrevaloración cercana al 40%-. El rescate público de estas entidades implicaría que todos los españoles tendrían que asumir las brutales pérdidas derivadas del inexorable ajuste de precios. En otras palabras, durante unos lustros de estancamiento económico estaríamos trabajando únicamente para recapitalizar a los bancos.

La culpa de la crisis la tiene el capitalismo salvaje

Como de costumbre, culpando al libre mercado por los errores del intervencionismo. Ahora resultará que el monopolio estatal de emisión de moneda, pilar del sistema financiero, era todo un ejemplo de autorregulación producto del "fundamentalismo de mercado". Alfredo Abián, vicedirector de La Vanguardia:

El Nobel Joseph Stiglitz lleva años alertando contra el mantra del fundamentalismo del mercado. Su diagnóstico es simple. Ese dogma de fe llamado autorregulación ha fallado estrepitosamente porque los mercados financieros han incumplido su máxima responsabilidad: asignar capital y administrar el riesgo. La volatilidad, la liquidez extrema muestran ahora la debilidad de ese capitalismo desbordado y mal entendido que migró de los sectores productivos a la especulación financiera.

Una crisis como la que nos asola debería servir para purgar las ideas que nos han llevado a ella, no para consolidarlas cargándole el muerto a otros.

Obama diagnosticando la crisis

Obama explica las supuestas razones de la crisis:

Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Difícilmente alguien que no diagnostica la crisis correctamente puede dar con la solución.

Dos artículos muy recomendables para entender la crisis económica nos los trae Juan Ramón Rallo:

• Los orígenes de la crisis
• El déficit y las malas recetas keynesianas

Consejero Delegado de BP: la escasez de petróleo no es un problema geológico sino político

Tony Hayward, Consejero Delegado de British Petroleum, lo ha dicho muy bien: la escasez de petróleo no es tanto el resultado de limitaciones geológicas como de restricciones políticas. Como señala este artículo del Mises Institute a propósito de las declaraciones de Hayward:

"The problems are not so much below ground as above it," i.e., "not geological, but political." The problem is that governments forbid access to resources that they themselves fail to manage properly,[4] and they impose barriers on private companies' investments in surplus oil production capacity — i.e., to the satisfaction of consumers' energy needs.

Sadly, far less than 10% of the world's oil reserves are in countries that allow private companies to operate freely. This means that the latter and, through them, consumers, are denied access to far more than 90% of the world's oil reserves. State-owned companies control more than 65% of the world's oil reserves — e.g., in Saudi Arabia. As for the 25% left, they are mainly situated in countries such as Iran, Russia, Venezuela, etc., where, because of above-ground political factors, private Western companies have the greatest difficulties working efficiently — as demonstrated by BP's recent problems in Russia.

Podéis leer el artículo de Hayward en el Financial Times: "Let the markets solve the energy crisis".

Taiwán y China estrechan sus relaciones comerciales

Una noticia positiva, después de años de tensiones con el Partido Democrático Progresista taiwanés pujando peligrosamente por una independencia oficial innecesaria, porque de facto ya existe. El Partido del Kuomintang, ahora en el poder, prefiere estrechar lazos comerciales con Pequín en vez de buscar la confrontación. Me parece un acercamiento más pragmático y fructífero. Tanto para Taiwán como para China.

June 16: Taiwan securities regulator announces plans to allow the island's brokerages to invest up to 30 percent of their net assets in China, up from 10 percent previously.

(...)

July 3: Taiwan says it will relax restrictions on mutual-fund investment in China-related stocks, allowing them to increase from 0.4 percent to 10 percent.

July 4: First 'weekend' flights touch down in Taipei. They are the first regular flights, aside from a few charters on select holidays, since 1949, when defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan after the Chinese civil war.

(vía Antiwar.com)

El menú de Gordon Brown

Barcepundit resaltó la hipocresía de los políticos en el G-8, dándose un festín mientras hablaban de solventar la crisis alimentaria. Yo quiero destacar la hipocresía de Gordon Brown en particular, que culpó a los consumidores de contribuir a la subida de precios al comprar comida innecesaria (sin, por supuesto, mencionar el papel que han jugado en este alza las políticas de los bancos centrales).

Éste es el muy necesario menú que Brown y sus colegas se zamparon en Japón:

(HT: Guido)

¿Quién es el culpable de los elevados precios del petróleo?

El Estado, no los especuladores. Según el economista sueco Stefan Karlson:

The boom is primarily driven by structural long- or medium-term factors. Demand is growing rapidly because of the rise of China and fast growth in other emerging economies. Meanwhile, while global oil production is actually growing, growth is inhibited in the short term both because of various political factors that stop drilling and because of the fact that even where such political obstacles does not exist, it takes several years to actually extract the oil. Brazil has recently found vast new oil reserves, and no political obstacles exist there to prevent drilling, yet it will be several more years before that oil reaches the world market.

These political factors differ somewhat in their form, but none of them seems likely to go away anytime soon. In Nigeria, as was previously stated, constant attacks against oil facilities are holding down production there, and these attacks looks unlikely to cease. In countries like Venezuela, Mexico and Russia, hostility against foreign investments combined with governments and bureaucrats starving government run oil companies of competence and cash, means that potential oil production is held back. And in the United States, opposition to drilling for environmentalist reasons, mainly by Democrats, prevents increases in oil production.

Another factor that in the short term has contributed to the sharp increase in the price of oil is the Fed’s inflationary monetary policies. Because the price of oil is much more flexible than most other prices and it is immediately affected by, for example, exchange rate effects, the short-term effect of an inflationary monetary policy is much greater than the short-term effect on the more sticky prices of regular goods in the supermarkets. That the oil price increased so much after the Fed started its aggressive interest rate cuts was not really a coincidence.

¿Qué puede hacerse para que bajen los precios?

The long-term solution is to reduce or abolish taxation on oil production and to abolish all regulatory restrictions (whether motivated for environmentalist reasons as in the U.S. or nationalist reasons as in Mexico) on oil drilling. Opponents of drilling often reply to this that it won’t provide any short-term relief. But while that is true, but there won’t be any short-term relief without drilling either and the point of drilling is to provide long-term relief. Moreover, their preferred solution of having the government invest in research to invent more so-called renewable sources of energy is likely to take even longer to provide relief (if it ever provides relief).

To provide short-term relief, different solutions are needed. This means, for example, that the U.S. government should start releasing the oil held in the so-called Strategic Petroleum Reserve, while the Fed should stop its inflationary policies.

En cualquier caso Karlson no confía en que estas reformas políticas vayan a aplicarse.

Sobre este tema también podéis leer este artículo de Jerry Taylor en el New York Post, o ver la entrevista a Robert Murphy en Fox News, disponible aquí (el segundo vídeo).

Juan Ramón Rallo acusaba a la Reserva Federal de ser en buena medida el responsable de los altos precios del petróleo, al precipitar una burbuja con su política de bajos tipos de interés:

La depreciación progresiva del dólar que ha instado la Reserva Federal (y que ha acelerado durante el último año) ha provocado que los inversores institucionales (que tradicionalmente se concentraban en bonos de inversión y acciones de blue chips) liquiden sus posiciones en estos sectores (debido a que no son capaces de protegerles de la inflación) y se coloquen en el de las materias primas como depósito de valor (de ahí que consuman liquidez y no les importe el precio al que entran).

Fank Shostak ahonda en esta tesis.

The Economist carga contra Zapatero

El rotativo británico The Economist no deja a Zapatero en buen lugar en un artículo titulado ¿Crisis? ¿What crisis? :

It does not help that the government keeps denying that it faces a crisis. The finance minister, Pedro Solbes, refuses to utter the word “crisis” at all. Mr Zapatero told the daily El País that its use was “a matter of opinion”. They are supported by Banco Santander’s president, Emilio Botín, who compares the fraught state of the economy with a child’s fever: dramatic, but short-lived. Yet crisis may be too bland a word: many economists think “recession” will soon be more appropriate. Mr Solbes admits that second-quarter growth will be below the first quarter’s paltry 0.3%. His prediction of 2008 growth is now somewhere “below” 2%. On July 2nd a defiant Mr Zapatero told parliament he did not believe recession was coming.

En la viñeta, el toro de la recesión arrastra a Zapatero mientras éste se recrea en la victoria de la selección.

(vía LD)

La liberalización de horarios comerciales y el progreso

Jordi de la Torre destaca la contradicción en la que caen tantos detractores de la liberalización de los horarios comerciales. Por un lado, temen que la liberalización pueda causar la ruina del pequeño comercio, que a diferencia de las grandes superficies no podrá permitirse abrir tantas horas/días. Por otro lado, afirman que abrir tanto tiempo o abrir en festivo no interesa a los consumidores y no es negocio, por lo que este modelo no tiene razón de ser.

Jordi cita en este sentido las declaraciones de Javier Cottet, presidente de la Associació Catalana de l'Empresa Familiar de Comerç:

No vemos ninguna coherencia en el modelo de Madrid. Es más, me consta que tampoco la ven los grandes agentes comerciales como El Corte Inglés. Abrir 24 horas es muy caro. Para que la cuenta de explotación no se resintiera, las ventas deberían ser muy elevadas y tenemos muy claro que este escenario es imposible. Lo demuestran los domingos que podemos abrir. Fuera de los de diciembre, los otros nos salen muy caros.

Juan Ramón Rallo se hacía eco hace unas semanas de una opinión similar de Madrid Progresista:

El Partido Popular dice que con esta ley da respuesta a la demanda de los consumidores, una falsedad sin lugar a dudas si tenemos en cuenta que según una encuesta reciente del Ministerio de Agricultura, el 86,2% de los consumidores están satisfechos con los horarios comerciales actualmente establecidos.

Jordi recomienda sustituir la asignatura de Educación para la Ciudadanía por una lecciones de lógica elemental. Si abrir tantas horas o días no es rentable/es rechazado por los consumidores, entonces el pequeño comercio no tiene nada que temer, pues ninguna gran superficie va a ejercer la libertad de abrir más hora o más días si va a perder dinero con ello. Si, por el contrario, abrir más horas o días es rentable y va en detrimento del pequeño comercio, significa que hay una demanda para ese servicio, que los consumidores en efecto valoran que los comercios estén abiertos más tiempo.

En realidad lo que les hace falta a quienes hacen este tipo de declaraciones contradictorias no es tanto lógica elemental como honestidad intelectual. En el fondo saben que solo una de las proposiciones es cierta, a saber, que muchos consumidores valoran que los comercios estén abiertos más tiempo y abrir más horas o días es rentable. Lo que sucede es que no quieren admitir que su oposición a la liberalización de los horarios comerciales es puramente interesada y quieren disfrazarlo de defensa bienintencionada del consumidor. Es quizás lo que más molesta de quienes se benefician de privilegios legales, que encima quieren hacernos creer que es por nuestro bien.

La Comunidad de Madrid se suma al tren del progreso con esta medida. La sociedad actual demanda más flexibilidad en los horarios de atención al público. Mucha gente lleva una vida demasiado ajetreada como para que además constriñan sus opciones. Si pedimos a las empresas que adapten sus productos a las necesidades de los consumidores, ¿por qué no íbamos a pedir a los comercios que adapten sus horarios a nuestras necesidades? Quien no quiera abrir los domingos que no lo haga. Quien no quiera ir a comprar los domingos que no lo haga.

Este tipo de compañas anti-progreso del pequeño comercio, y la mentalidad proteccionista que las anima, me transmiten la sensación de que en España y en Cataluña en particular aún estamos en el siglo XX. Madrid parece que está intentando saltar al siguiente. En Londres la libertad de horarios comerciales es una realidad indisputada. No hay protestas de "botiguers" (y no porque no los haya) ni creo que ningún partido de importancia siquiera se plantee dar vuelta atrás.

Éste es el horario, por ejemplo, de los dos supermercados Sainsbury's que tengo más cerca de casa:

La semana pasada hicimos la compra semanal en domingo. El local, gigantesco, estaba por lo menos tan lleno como en un día laboral cualquiera.

Y en Nueva York vi varios de estos:

Sanciones económicas para Zimbabwe no funcionarán

Daniel Griswold, del Cato Institute, no cree que las sanciones económicas sean la solución para Zimbabwe.

I share the dismay with Mugabe’s thuggery and mismanagement of the economy, but count me skeptical that trade sanctions, oil embargoes and other economic reprisals would achieve anything positive.

If 165,000 percent inflation, widespread hunger, and mass shortages and unemployment have not undermined Mugabe’s government, Western sanctions are probably not going to make a crucial difference. Zimbabwe’s president and his sycophants will continue to enjoy their palatial homes, catered meals and chauffeured limos. Sanctions would only deepen the suffering of their unfortunate subjects. As our research at Cato has shown, economic sanctions almost never work.

Comparto el escepticismo con respecto a las sanciones económicas. En un artículo reciente para el Instituto Juan de Mariana escribí en contra del embargo cubano.

Más información sobre los efectos de las sanciones económicas en la página del Cato:

As well as inflicting economic damage, sanctions have been a foreign policy flop. A comprehensive study by the Institute for International Economics found that sanctions achieve their objectives in fewer than 20 percent of cases. For example, the Nuclear Proliferation Act of 1994 failed to deter India and Pakistan from testing nuclear weapons in May of 1998. Sanctions have utterly failed to change the nature or basic behavior of governments in Cuba, Burma, Iran, Nigeria, Yugoslavia, and a number of other target countries.