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Economics

Zeit für eine Überarbeitung des globalen Finanzsystems

Dec 3, 2021 Jeffrey D. Sachs

NEW YORK– Auf dem Weltklimagipfel im letzten Monat sagten hunderte von Finanzinstituten zu, Billionen von Dollar zur Finanzierung von Lösungen zur Bekämpfung des Klimawandels zur Verfügung zu stellen. Doch gibt es dabei ein wichtiges Hindernis: Das Weltfinanzsystem behindert den Geldfluss in die Entwicklungsländer und wird so für viele zur tödlichen Finanzfalle.

Wirtschaftliche Entwicklung ist von Investitionen in drei wichtige Arten von Kapital abhängig: Humankapital (Gesundheit und Bildung), Infrastruktur (Strom, Digitalwesen, Verkehr und Stadtentwicklung) und Unternehmen. In den ärmeren Ländern ist das Niveau pro Person für jede dieser Kapitalarten niedriger, und sie können, wenn sie in ausgewogener Weise in alle investieren, daher potenziell auch schneller wachsen. Dieses Wachstum kann und sollte heutzutage grün und digital sein und die starken Umweltbelastungen vergangener Tage vermeiden.

Die weltweiten Anleihemärkte und Bankensysteme sollten ausreichend Geld für eine wachstumsstarke Aufholphase nachhaltiger Entwicklung zur Verfügung stellen. Aber das geschieht nicht. Der Geldfluss von den weltweiten Anleihemärkten und Banken in die Entwicklungsländer bleibt niedrig, für die Kreditnehmer kostspielig und instabil. Kreditnehmer in Entwicklungsländern zahlen häufig Zinsen, die um 5-10% p. a. über denen der reichen Länder liegen.

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Jeffrey D. Sachs

Writing for PS since 1995
354 Commentaries

Jeffrey D. Sachs, University Professor at Columbia University, is Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has served as adviser to three UN Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General António Guterres. His books include The End of Poverty, Common Wealth, The Age of Sustainable Development, Building the New American Economy, A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism, and, most recently, The Ages of Globalization.

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Frans Verhagen Dec 5, 2021

We have to dig deeper than improving the two-tiered financial system that is well described in this article. We have to decarbonize the unjust, unsustainable, and therefore, unstable international monetary system with its financial and fiscal systems. The metrics of that decarbonization can be done in several ways, one of which is based on a specific tonnage of CO2e per person. Such decarbonization-based international monetary system would include a Federated Global Sovereign Monetary Authority(Global Fed) with its own Tierra digitalized currency as was first proposed in Verhagen 2012"The Tierra Solution: Resolving the Climate Crisis through Monetary Transformation" which is being updated in its 2022 sequel "Ample Money, Globally: What, why, how and whither?". This monetary system would also include the dual balance of payments of both financial and ecological (climate) debts and credits. It is similar to Professor Omarova’ transformational monetary proposal that it directed towards the US monetary system.

Rather than being dependent on the unjust two-tiered financial system, low- and middle-income countries should support a money-based financial system rather than the present debt-based one which would make available to sovereign nations ample financing for climate and health problems. As a first step all nations should support a UN Commission of Monetary Reform and Transformation that would review traditional and transformational monetary, financial, and fiscal theories and practices in terms of justice, sustainability, and stability. This Commission is part of the Open Letter to COP26 about the need for monetary justice and its accompanying petition that is being organized by the International Institute for Monetary Transformation and the Unitarian Universalist UN Office.
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Joe Ryan Dec 5, 2021

Just as commercial banks in Greece were able to borrow more (and to over-borrow) following the adoption of the EUR and the elimination of (most) currency risk from Greek industry and finance (EUR-USD-GBP risk remained), so also emerging-market regions around the world would have the increased financial market access that Prof. Sachs wants to see if those regions were integrated into a currency area with the USD or maybe with the EUR or JPY.

As Prof. Sachs explains, the norm is that such integration would involve central bank services (in addition to just using the currency unilaterally the way El Salvador uses the USD and Kosovo uses the EUR without those central banks' services). But that's normal: any region in the U.S. or the Eurozone that didn't have central bank services would have vulnerabilities too.
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Peter Schaeffer Dec 5, 2021

Since 2004, 9 countries have defaulted on their debts, but investors should just ignore this history and do what is PC/’woke’. Sachs tells us what to do, and we obey. The list of sovereign defaults is long and sad (Lebanon 2020, Argentina 2020, 2016, 2014, 2005, Barbados 2018, Greece 2015, 2012, Côte d'Ivoire 2011, Ecuador 2008, Dominican Republic 2005, Cameroon 2004, Nigeria 2004). I guess investors should just ignore these defaults and give these countries excellent credit ratings.

The truth is that a ‘two-tiered’ credit system exists only in the imagination on Sachs and the rest of the ‘woke’. In the real world, countries that default, have bad credit ratings (Argentina is rated CCC). Countries that don’t default, have good credit ratings (China is rated A+).
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Claudio Migliore Dec 5, 2021

In the land of Mr. Sachs, surrounded by Goofy and the Little Mermaid, fearlessly roam the honest developing countries government officials, the evil rating agencies and the idiotic investors who believe them.
Fortunately, from above come down the benevolent supranational bureaucrats helped by the sharp-thinking academics who save all by establishing a better rating system. This way the more nicely rated pieces of toilet paper will be gobbled up by said idiotic investors and the honest g-men from poor countries will be able to develop digital gaming startups, cement-less sewers, hospitals and vegan food factories, so the masses in Africa can drive Teslas to fusion sushi bars.
It is a mystery to me why everyone does not issue bonds in their own currency and then print money to pay for them. Actually, Mr. Sachs has a way. All you need is a printing press or some nice international agency to do it for you. The magic of this latter arrangement is that it spreads the cost over 7 billion unsuspecting victims, so pennies from everyone get turned into millions for the corrupt ruling classes, minus the small fees for those who make it possible.
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