Deutschlands Obsession mit der schwarzen Null

Apr 19, 2016 Hans-Helmut Kotz

FRANKFURT – Die Europäische Zentralbank ist in Deutschland erheblicher Kritik ausgesetzt, ausgerechnet dem Land, dass die Unabhängigkeit der Notenbank seit Generationen besonders hochgehalten hat. Tatsächlich wurde in erster Linie auf Deutschlands Drängen hin dieser Grundsatz in den Vertrag von Maastricht aufgenommen und damit zur Bedingung für die Mitgliedschaft in der europäischen Währungsunion (EWU).

Für viele Anwärter auf die EWU stellte die Gewährung der Unabhängigkeit ihrer Notenbanken, als unabdingbare Voraussetzung, dagegen einen politischen Systemwechsel dar. In Frankreich etwa war 1992, bei der Volksbefragung anlässlich der Ratifizierung des Maastrichter Vertrags, die damit verbundene Autonomie der Banque de France eines der stärksten Argumente der Kampagne gegen die Einführung des Euro.

Inzwischen ist es jedoch auch in Deutschland gang und gäbe, Druck auf die Notenbank auszuüben. Seit einigen Monaten kommentiert selbst Bundesfinanzminister Wolfgang Schäuble regelmäßig die Geldpolitik der EZB.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 22 in all 22 Comments on this article

hanno achenbach Apr 25, 2016

The idea that criticizing the ECB amounts to an attack on its independence is worthy of Erdogan.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Dean Raz Apr 24, 2016

The 2008 crisis empowered ECB and not performance-derived power like Bundesbank. It is only fair that when the facts change then earlier insistence on central bank independence has to change. Kudos to Germany for calling out incompetency.
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bruce birkett Apr 24, 2016

Let's just recognize that with high VAT rates (23% in Portugal) not only do goods get less attractive to purchase (i.e. less consumption) but also, any new business has a higher hurtle rate (economic-utility function) to reach to get buyers.

Maybe not directly a Laffer Curve relationship, but clearly close.

We are looking at starting a business and, before any other costs of goods sold, we are looking at handing over 23% to the government.
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otto ruthenberg Apr 24, 2016

Schäuble tries to contain rising nationalism in Germany. There are just too many who lose in the current cheap money game in richer countries. Solidarity has badly eroded within Germany as well as within Europe. Who wants to share with a neighbor free riding the Commons in diverse ways. Clientelistic elites are buying time - call it saving Europe - but cannot administer the tough love reforms required for convincing EU convergence lest they be voted out by electorates who are used to live beyond their means. all this is classic decadence. forget all long term aspects and party with helicopter money until it must end. masses never follow spoilers so sont try that role. but make sure you can plant potatoes in your garden when all money promises become worthless...
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joey jay Apr 24, 2016

OH boy...most everyone commenting have drunk the kool aid...
Let's get rid of Central Banks and let every country run their own monetary policy.
Canada has a legal proceeding going in order to get rid of the Canadian Central Bank, as it is, and to reinstate its original mandate:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-case-to-reinstate-the-bank-of-canada/5430132
We need a world movement to get rid of BIS connected Central Banks.
Then cooperation, instead of competition, will be able to let the earth heals from the disease called "growth".
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joey jay Apr 24, 2016

Central Banks are all in the strong grip of the Bank of International Settlement, which is *mostly) run by Goldman Sachs ex-boys. It is rotating door (Goldman-BIS-Central Bank(country).
Nothing gets done without the nod of Goldman Sachs boys in BIS,
There is a big hoopla about SDRs and all the maneuvering happening is to make the transition to SDRs smoothly in order to push the dollar out of being the primary currency of trade...
This is all distraction, smoke and mirrors...
Democracy (as Trump has stated ) is rigged to the highest bidder...
Hillary, warmonger, Clinton is going to be as good as Obama and the only thinng, we slaves, have left is the certainty that we live in a global feudal system with a veneer of "electing" rights.
Pathetic, but true. If you still believe we are in a democratic western country, you need to give your head a shake.
Economics is just a voodoo field, where poverty and debt is peddled to the masses in order for the BIS owners continue to make money.
Strawberry fields for ever down the destitution hole....
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Mark Weber Apr 24, 2016

So now central bank independence is an argument for financing fiscal deficits with the printing press... verkehrte Welt!
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Per Kurowski Apr 24, 2016

That said, I do not think that ECB or Mario Draghi has earned, in the slightest, the right of being free from strong criticism

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2016/04/must-we-respect-central-banks.html
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Bernhard Kopp Apr 22, 2016

It is not a fetish. It is meant to be the lever with which structural reforms could be politically achieved to restore competitiveness. Take Italy or France, as the largest and most stubborn sinners against economic flexibility and growth. Germany may have been able to invest more in infrastructure, physical and digital, and might have achieved a better growth rate than the actual one, but it would not have made any difference for Italy and France. The Euro cannot possibly survive without Italy and France being able to finance their present and future entitlement obligations out of its own revenues and with borrowings on their own account only. Italians are perfectly entitled to pay their ushers in their parliament annual salaries of up to € 130,000, and state pensions of 70% thereof for life. But it better be Italians who sweat and pay for it. Same for the French. Otherwise, the EU falls apart and the Euro as well.
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Otmar S Apr 22, 2016

@HHKotz
.... This is not preparing for the future; it is undermining productivity and well-being. ....admittedly not as bad in the US..."

Well. Even as I am in part with you - "feeling".
Where is the evidence in reality then? When many countries (for about 20 Years) invest more - wich one would you show in reality are "better prepared" for the future and with "better well-being" actually?

I think we will not find a country as an example. Then the point here is not really like "Germany invests not enough" but "Germany could invest more".
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Jose araujo Apr 20, 2016

Mr Schaubel unfortunately only restrains his interventionism regarding the US, China and Russia..

This, and other German politicians, are a case where the "porque no te callas" is most appropriate...
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Paul Daley Apr 20, 2016

Good article, but one should not lose sight of the fact central bank independence was the product of desperate times, when prices threatened to run out of control. It's hardly good policy in more normal times; as Kotz notes, it just allows overuse of inadequate tools. Governments have to take responsibility for central bank policy, but also have to ensure that central banks are equipped to manage economies well under all conditions. That is where the problem lies now. Central banks are thrashing about with inadequate tools, inflating asset prices and distorting capital markets, while governments stand aside and criticize.
- Mark Weber Apr 24, 2016
  
  Paul Daley: whe should remember that central bank independence was a reaction to the fact that the same policies that are now employed in much bigger scale have failed in the past!
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Steve Hurst Apr 20, 2016

H-H K
The word Fetish has sexual associations so is inappropriate in the title unless of course you consider Germany is a domimatrix
- hanno achenbach Apr 25, 2016
  
  Steve,
  
  You have a dirty mind. Read Marx about fetishism - nothing to do with sex, but just as nonsensical as Kotz.
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M M Apr 19, 2016

Although there are few controversial issues in this article, there are numerous and valid reasons to relocate the ECB from Germany.
- Steve Hurst Apr 21, 2016
  
  @ M M
  
  German policy influence is a direct result of Germany having cash to hand and others having only debt to hand. Until that debt declines the policy influence will not decline. There is no sign of the euro machine letting debt decline sufficiently at the moment. It desnt matter who is holding the cash as such, it is just the Germans happen to. I dont see anything changing in a hurry. The PIGS continue to wear concrete shoes and have to run that much harder to stand still. Debt is dictating policy for both those holding cash and those holding debt and you can't make a silk purse out of a PIGS ear. The idea Germany will spend to uplift Southern debtors which is H-H K's proposition is highly unlikely and ignores the major problems present with French and Italian economies to name just two majors
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- M M Apr 20, 2016
  
  Peter, some of my best friends are Germans and I am a strong supporter of Germany leading the EU however, not on the current basis and not in the way events have been unfolding. Since 2000, every leader in the EU, past and present, is responsible for the mess that the EU is currently in. Regrettably, and we both agree on this, the German leadership was ill advised and took the wrong course of action every time it was faced with a crisis. It made sense for the ECB to be in Germany initially, but not anymore. There is too much interference and meddling. The ECB was meant to be independent and not a political establishment. I do not think any German would want to turn the clock back nor anybody else for this matter. There is room for compromises in the EU but for this to happen one needs a new breed of politicians that have got the will, the guts and the EU project at heart. At the moment this solution seems very distant.
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- Peter Schneider Apr 20, 2016
  
  The ECB should be relocated and the Bundesbank should be reinstalled as the new and old German central bank. We can agree on that.
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Val Samonis Apr 19, 2016

Schwartze Null model also badly ruined other EZ countries like Lithuania who was aping the German model.
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Paul Friesen Apr 19, 2016

Good article.

The EU desperately need some fiscal stimulus. Instead, governments seem to be following the notion that, if everyone else is cutting back spending, government should cut back too.

Why is it so hard for people to understand that this will cause unemployment? If everybody in the private sector is cutting back, government needs to spend more to balance that.
- Jason H Apr 24, 2016
  
  Exactly. How can Germany and others not understahd money doesn't come from magic. It's simply a means of exchange and ideal resources should be employed. Fiscal spending is direct and much more efficient if targeted. I don't get how it's taking nearly a lost decade for this to be discussed? Are the Germans that isolated in there own language to not hear any other ideas? Or are they too busy making things to sell to the rest of the world for our advantage in exchange for fiat currency that they simply don't have time to stop and think?
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