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Economics

Como evitar a iminente crise da dívida soberana

Jul 31, 2020 Joseph E. Stiglitz and Hamid Rashid

NOVA IORQUE – Enquanto a pandemia de COVID-19 segue enfurecida, mais de 100 países de baixo e médio rendimento ainda terão de pagar um total de 130 mil milhões de dólares do serviço da dívida este ano – cerca de metade destina-se a credores privados. Com muita atividade económica suspensa e receitas fiscais em queda livre, muitos países serão forçados a cair em incumprimento. Outros reunirão recursos escassos para pagar aos credores, cortando nas despesas sociais e de saúde tão necessárias. Outros ainda recorrerão a empréstimos adicionais, de forma a evitar ou adiar o problema, que agora parece ser aparentemente mais fácil por causa da inundação de liquidez por parte dos bancos centrais de todo o mundo.

Desde a década perdida da América Latina na década de 1980 até à crise grega mais recente, há muitos recordações dolorosas sobre o que acontece quando os países não conseguem pagar as suas dívidas. Uma crise global da dívida nos nossos dias levará milhões de pessoas para o desemprego e alimentará a instabilidade e a violência em todo o mundo. Muitos tentarão encontrar emprego no estrangeiro, sobrecarregando potencialmente os sistemas de controlo de fronteiras e imigração na Europa e na América do Norte. Outra crise migratória dispendiosa desviará a atenção da necessidade urgente de fazer face às alterações climáticas. Essas emergências humanitárias estão a tornar-se a nova norma.

Este cenário de pesadelo é evitável se agirmos agora. As origens da iminente crise da dívida são fáceis de entender. Devido à flexibilização quantitativa, a dívida pública (principalmente títulos soberanos) dos países de baixo e médio rendimento mais do que triplicou desde a crise financeira global de 2008. Os títulos soberanos são mais arriscados do que a dívida “oficial” com instituições multilaterais e agências de ajuda de países desenvolvidos porque os credores podem descartá-los por capricho, provocando uma forte depreciação cambial e outras perturbações económicas de longo alcance.

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Joseph E. Stiglitz

Writing for PS since 2001
326 Commentaries

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at Columbia University, is a former chief economist of the World Bank (1997-2000), chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and co-chair of the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices. He is Co-Chair of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation and was lead author of the 1995 IPCC Climate Assessment.

Hamid Rashid

Writing for PS since 2006
6 Commentaries

Hamid Rashid, a former director-general for multilateral economic affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bangladesh, is Chief of Global Economic Monitoring at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

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Frans Verhagen Aug 11, 2020

We do not have the tools to do comprehensive debt relief because our economic system has a debt-based financial system rather than a money-based financial system of public or sovereign money. Also neoclassical economists are unwilling to seriously look alternative interpretations such those proposed by the diverse strands of the MMT and authors such Kate Raworth, Ellen Brown etc.

The coronavirus-19 pandemic offers the world a golden opportunity to transform our debt-based financial system into a money-based financial system of public funding and sovereign money and to transform the unjust, unsustainable, and therefore, unstable international monetary system into a just, sustainable, and, therefore, stable international monetary system by basing it on a decarbonization standard such a specific tonnage of CO2e per person as proposed in Verhagen 2012"The Tierra Solution: Resolving the Climate Crisis through Monetary Transformation". These two pillars of New Social Contract can contribute to the advancement of a just and sustainable global governance system which is being developed in the book’s sequel entitled “PRIME TIME for the Planet: a road map for a just and sustainable global governance system for the 21st century and beyond.”
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Henk Crop Aug 11, 2020

I have doubts about all these centrally managed monetairy solutions.
They suggest that one institute/person is able to comprehend this complex world which is also changing everyday.
They also suggest that it is possible to arrive at fair solutions, accepted by the people involved.
I think politicians, elected by the people, should draw their plans.
That monetairy measures should be designed to serve the plans, not the otherway around.
Example: In the EU the EURO is being used to manage the politicians, by the ECB and France. It has resulted in increasing conflict and loss of confidence among the member states and the EU as institute. The EURO has been the most destructive tool in the development of the EU.
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Alexandros Aslanidis Aug 10, 2020

Stiglitz is supposed to be leftist, and yet notice how he mentions Latin America and Greece, and talks of "countries that cannot service their debts", adding to the propaganda that government debt is evil.

He should have made it clear that Latin America took debt in foreign currency, and that Greece is part of a monetary union, which makes its money equivalent to foreign currency.

The lesson is: don't borrow in FX beyond a certain level.

However, if you're the government you can borrow as much as you want in your local currency.

True, this means that you have to keep your current-account orderly. However all the talk about government debt being somehow bad is nonsense. In fact, government debt in the currency which you "print" can be effectively infinite.
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michael schmitt Aug 3, 2020

this strikes me as misguided and stealth re-distributionism. why not allow a restructuring (de facto bankruptcy) of the debt, settle for x cents on the dollar, and move on?
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Alexandros Aslanidis Aug 2, 2020

Here's an idea. Implement controlled trade everywhere. Then governments won't worry about import leakage, i.e. they'll be able to stimulate purely domestic activity. Then remove central-bank independence and make them buy government bonds in sufficient quantities to stimulate said activity. There, problem solved. But apparently that's too much for superstar economists to ponder.
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Wim Roffel Aug 2, 2020

I have some doubts about this buy back scheme. The reason why such schemes work is that there is an expectation that the loans will not or only partially be paid back. But if buy back schemes are employ to prevent that then this fear will disappear too.

So in my opinion it is essential to have a good system for defaults.
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Robert REYNOLDS Aug 2, 2020

Ahhh, the vicissitudes of capitalism!
Something tells me that all this is not going to end well.
The human race is like the metaphorical grasshopper in summer singing "Oh, the world owes me a living", while continuing to accumulate what has become an Olympus Mons level of debt.

The days of this economic and associated social Sodom and Gomorrah are heading towards an unpleasant and violent end I feel.

My crystal ball is very fuzzy but I am sure that I can make out some thing like Paris in 1789 or Petrograd in 1917, only on a global scale in the future; only nowadays, unlike back then, we have nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons and a host of ways of waging electronic warfare. It is all very frightening and depressing.
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