Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Krugman: "The Third Depression"

Let's hear some thoughts on this...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/opinion/28krugman.html?_r=1&ref=paulkrugman
The Third Depression
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times, June 27, 2010
Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there 
were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as 
"depressions" at the time: the years of deflation and instability that 
followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed 
the financial crisis of 1929-31.
Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of 
the 20th was an era of nonstop decline - on the contrary, both included 
periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never 
enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by 
relapses.
We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will 
probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great 
Depression. But the cost - to the world economy and, above all, to the 
millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs - will nonetheless be 
immense.
And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the 
world - most recently at last weekend's deeply discouraging G-20 meeting - 
governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, 
preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate 
spending.
In 2008 and 2009, it seemed as if we might have learned from history. Unlike 
their predecessors, who raised interest rates in the face of financial 
crisis, the current leaders of the Federal Reserve and the European Central 
Bank slashed rates and moved to support credit markets. Unlike governments 
of the past, which tried to balance budgets in the face of a plunging 
economy, today's governments allowed deficits to rise. And better policies 
helped the world avoid complete collapse: the recession brought on by the 
financial crisis arguably ended last summer.
But future historians will tell us that this wasn't the end of the third 
depression, just as the business upturn that began in 1933 wasn't the end of 
the Great Depression. After all, unemployment - especially long-term 
unemployment - remains at levels that would have been considered 
catastrophic not long ago, and shows no sign of coming down rapidly. And 
both the United States and Europe are well on their way toward Japan-style 
deflationary traps.
In the face of this grim picture, you might have expected policy makers to 
realize that they haven't yet done enough to promote recovery. But no: over 
the last few months there has been a stunning resurgence of hard-money and 
balanced-budget orthodoxy.
As far as rhetoric is concerned, the revival of the old-time religion is 
most evident in Europe, where officials seem to be getting their talking 
points from the collected speeches of Herbert Hoover, up to and including 
the claim that raising taxes and cutting spending will actually expand the 
economy, by improving business confidence. As a practical matter, however, 
America isn't doing much better. The Fed seems aware of the deflationary 
risks - but what it proposes to do about these risks is, well, nothing. The 
Obama administration understands the dangers of premature fiscal austerity - 
but because Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress won't 
authorize additional aid to state governments, that austerity is coming 
anyway, in the form of budget cuts at the state and local levels.
Why the wrong turn in policy? The hard-liners often invoke the troubles 
facing Greece and other nations around the edges of Europe to justify their 
actions. And it's true that bond investors have turned on governments with 
intractable deficits. But there is no evidence that short-run fiscal 
austerity in the face of a depressed economy reassures investors. On the 
contrary: Greece has agreed to harsh austerity, only to find its risk 
spreads growing ever wider; Ireland has imposed savage cuts in public 
spending, only to be treated by the markets as a worse risk than Spain, 
which has been far more reluctant to take the hard-liners' medicine.
It's almost as if the financial markets understand what policy makers 
seemingly don't: that while long-term fiscal responsibility is important, 
slashing spending in the midst of a depression, which deepens that 
depression and paves the way for deflation, is actually self-defeating.
So I don't think this is really about Greece, or indeed about any realistic 
appreciation of the tradeoffs between deficits and jobs. It is, instead, the 
victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose 
main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show 
leadership in tough times.
And who will pay the price for this triumph of orthodoxy? The answer is, 
tens of millions of unemployed workers, many of whom will go jobless for 
years, and some of whom will never work again. 

 We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. 
Probabilmente la previsione di Krugman è corretta, probabilmente le 
ragioni che egli analizza concorrono a determinare una lunga 
depressione, tuttavia come quasi tutti, se non tutti, gli economisti 
l'orizzonte delle sue analisi rimane fortemente limitato alle dinamiche 
economiche e ignora ogni altra dinamica.
E' come se l'economia fosse considerato un sistema le cui dinamiche 
interne hanno cause riferite al sistema stesso ed effetti che si 
riversano prima al suo interno e solo dopo all'esterno di esso.
Credo sia un approccio sbagliato, credo che un economista dovrebbe 
riferire le dinamiche interne al sistema economico all'esterno di esso.
Se vi sarà una lunga depressione, e credo che vi sarà, essa sarà dovuta 
ai disequilibri mondiali derivanti dalla carenza di governance dei 
processi globali in corso. I quali certo saranno introiettati dal 
sistema economico come fattori ad esso interni, ma che sicuramente non 
nasceranno dal suo interno.

 Kazo dichi?
Ma è chiarissimo!   Beh...
Dico che il sistema economico (scegli tu la scala che preferisci) non è 
[solo] determinante ma è [anche] determinato.
Ad esempio: se in USA si diffondono e invadono il mercato mutui subprime 
e derivati questo non è dovuto [solo] a cause interne al sistema 
economico bensì al cambiamento dei rapporti di forza su scala planetaria 
tra entità economiche e politiche.
Un economista invece tende ad ignorare queste cause "esterne" e a 
riferire ogni fenomeno a cause "interne" al sistema economico nel quale 
esso avviene.

Ti presento Persio, una specie di genio incompreso che si occupa di
tante cose ma ha una santa paura del citofono. C'e' un sostanziale
consenso quanto alla valutazione del suo lavoro e una autorevole
ipotesi sulle ragioni per cui scrive quel che scrive. Leggendo questo
gruppo imparerai ad apprezzarlo.


 ipotesi sulle ragioni per cui scrive quel che scrive.
Praticamente, ci ha accerchiati.
-- 
*Sunspot*
No, I don't have a solution but I certainly admire the problem.

 New York Times, June 27, 2010
Ieri sera alla CNN, bellissima intervista, diceva cose simili