"Narrative Summit" Releases 2025 Recommendations to Cement Egypt's Position as a Global Tourism Destination    Egypt, S.Arabia step up trade ties through coordination council talks    Egypt reviews progress on $200m World Bank-funded waste management hub    Egypt urges Israel to accept Gaza deal amid intensifying fighting    Egypt, ADIB explore strategic partnership in digital healthcare, investment    SCZONE, Tokyo Metropolitan Government sign MoU on green hydrogen cooperation    Egypt welcomes international efforts for peace in Ukraine    Al-Sisi, Macron reaffirm strategic partnership, coordinate on Gaza crisis    Contact Reports Strong 1H-2025 on Financing, Insurance Gains    Egypt, India's BDR Group in talks to establish biologics, cancer drug facility    AUC graduates first cohort of film industry business certificate    Egyptian pound down vs. US dollar at Monday's close – CBE    Egypt's FM, Palestinian PM visit Rafah crossing to review Gaza aid    Egypt prepares unified stance ahead of COP30 in Brazil    Egypt recovers collection of ancient artefacts from Netherlands    Egypt harvests 315,000 cubic metres of rainwater in Sinai as part of flash flood protection measures    Egypt, Namibia explore closer pharmaceutical cooperation    Fitch Ratings: ASEAN Islamic finance set to surpass $1t by 2026-end    Renowned Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim dies at 88    Egyptian, Ugandan Presidents open business forum to boost trade    Al-Sisi says any party thinking Egypt will neglect water rights is 'completely mistaken'    Egypt's Sisi warns against unilateral Nile measures, reaffirms Egypt's water security stance    Egypt's Sisi, Uganda's Museveni discuss boosting ties    Egypt, Huawei explore healthcare digital transformation cooperation    Egypt's Sisi, Sudan's Idris discuss strategic ties, stability    Egypt to inaugurate Grand Egyptian Museum on 1 November    Greco-Roman rock-cut tombs unearthed in Egypt's Aswan    Egypt reveals heritage e-training portal    Sisi launches new support initiative for families of war, terrorism victims    Egypt expands e-ticketing to 110 heritage sites, adds self-service kiosks at Saqqara    Palm Hills Squash Open debuts with 48 international stars, $250,000 prize pool    On Sport to broadcast Pan Arab Golf Championship for Juniors and Ladies in Egypt    Golf Festival in Cairo to mark Arab Golf Federation's 50th anniversary    Germany among EU's priciest labour markets – official data    Paris Olympic gold '24 medals hit record value    A minute of silence for Egyptian sports    Russia says it's in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban    It's a bit frustrating to draw at home: Real Madrid keeper after Villarreal game    Shoukry reviews with Guterres Egypt's efforts to achieve SDGs, promote human rights    Sudan says countries must cooperate on vaccines    Johnson & Johnson: Second shot boosts antibodies and protection against COVID-19    Egypt to tax bloggers, YouTubers    Egypt's FM asserts importance of stability in Libya, holding elections as scheduled    We mustn't lose touch: Muller after Bayern win in Bundesliga    Egypt records 36 new deaths from Covid-19, highest since mid June    Egypt sells $3 bln US-dollar dominated eurobonds    Gamal Hanafy's ceramic exhibition at Gezira Arts Centre is a must go    Italian Institute Director Davide Scalmani presents activities of the Cairo Institute for ITALIANA.IT platform    







Thank you for reporting!
This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.



A contagion of bad ideas
Published in Daily News Egypt on 24 - 08 - 2011

NEW YORK: The Great Recession of 2008 has morphed into the North Atlantic Recession: it is mainly Europe and the United States, not the major emerging markets, that have become mired in slow growth and high unemployment. And it is Europe and America that are marching, alone and together, to the denouement of a grand debacle. A busted bubble led to a massive Keynesian stimulus that averted a much deeper recession, but that also fueled substantial budget deficits. The response — massive spending cuts — ensures that unacceptably high levels of unemployment (a vast waste of resources and an oversupply of suffering) will continue, possibly for years.
The European Union has finally committed itself to helping its financially distressed members. It had no choice: with financial turmoil threatening to spread from small countries like Greece and Ireland to large ones like Italy and Spain, the euro's very survival was in growing jeopardy. Europe's leaders recognized that distressed countries' debts would become unmanageable unless their economies could grow, and that growth could not be achieved without assistance.
But, even as Europe's leaders promised that help was on the way, they doubled down on the belief that non-crisis countries must cut spending. The resulting austerity will hinder Europe's growth, and thus that of its most distressed economies: after all, nothing would help Greece more than robust growth in its trading partners. And low growth will hurt tax revenues, undermining the proclaimed goal of fiscal consolidation.
The discussions before the crisis illustrated how little had been done to repair economic fundamentals. The European Central Bank's vehement opposition to what is essential to all capitalist economies — the restructuring of failed or insolvent entities' debt — is evidence of the continuing fragility of the Western banking system.
The ECB argued that taxpayers should pick up the entire tab for Greece's bad sovereign debt, for fear that any private-sector involvement (PSI) would trigger a “credit event,” which would force large payouts on credit-default swaps (CDSs), possibly fueling further financial turmoil. But, if that is a real fear for the ECB — if it is not merely acting on behalf of private lenders — surely it should have demanded that the banks have more capital.
Likewise, the ECB should have barred banks from the risky CDS market, where they are held hostage to ratings agencies' decisions about what constitutes a “credit event.” Indeed, one positive achievement by European leaders at the recent Brussels summit was to begin the process of reining in both the ECB and the power of the American ratings agencies.
Indeed, the most curious aspect of the ECB's position was its threat not to accept restructured government bonds as collateral if the ratings agencies decided that the restructuring should be classified as a credit event. The whole point of restructuring was to discharge debt and make the remainder more manageable. If the bonds were acceptable as collateral before the restructuring, surely they were safer after the restructuring, and thus equally acceptable.
This episode serves as a reminder that central banks are political institutions, with a political agenda, and that independent central banks tend to be captured (at least “cognitively”) by the banks that they are supposed to regulate.
And matters are little better on the other side of the Atlantic. There, the extreme right threatened to shut down the US government, confirming what game theory suggests: when those who are irrationally committed to destruction if they don't get their way confront rational individuals, the former prevail.
As a result, President Barack Obama acquiesced in an unbalanced debt-reduction strategy, with no tax increases – not even for the millionaires who have done so well during the past two decades, and not even by eliminating tax giveaways to oil companies, which undermine economic efficiency and contribute to environmental degradation.
Optimists argue that the short run macroeconomic impact of the deal to raise America's debt ceiling and prevent sovereign default will be limited — roughly $25 billion in expenditure cuts in the coming year. But the payroll-tax cut (which put more than $100 billion into the pockets of ordinary Americans) was not renewed, and surely business, anticipating the contractionary effects down the line, will be even more reluctant to lend.
The end of the stimulus itself is contractionary. And, with housing prices continuing to fall, GDP growth faltering, and unemployment remaining stubbornly high (one of six Americans who would like a full-time job still cannot get one), more stimulus, not austerity, is needed – for the sake of balancing the budget as well. The single most important driver of deficit growth is weak tax revenues, owing to poor economic performance; the single best remedy would be to put America back to work. The recent debt deal is a move in the wrong direction.
There has been much concern about financial contagion between Europe and America. After all, America's financial mismanagement played an important role in triggering Europe's problems, and financial turmoil in Europe would not be good for the US — especially given the fragility of the US banking system and the continuing role it plays in non-transparent CDSs.
But the real problem stems from another form of contagion: bad ideas move easily across borders, and misguided economic notions on both sides of the Atlantic have been reinforcing each other. The same will be true of the stagnation that those policies bring.
Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University, a Nobel laureate in economics, and the author of Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).


Clic here to read the story from its source.