la Grecia dovrà creare una moneta parallela tramite crediti fiscali ? - Moderatore
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By: Moderatore on Mercoledì 18 Febbraio 2015 12:40
Wolfgang Munchau sul ^Financial Times scrive#http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/175f6634-b2d3-11e4-a058-00144feab7de.html#axzz3RwlV9fBE^ che la Grecia sarà quasi certamente costretta ad adottare una moneta complementare all’euro, un idea analoga a quella proposta nel libro con Cattaneo (tramite l'emissione di crediti fiscali) e cita l'articolo che avevo appena citato qui sopra a supporto
Munchau si è ispirato ^al pezzo di John Cochrane del 6 febbraio#http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.it/2015/02/beware-of-greeks-bearing-bonds.html#more^ apparso sul suo blog dove sono intervenuto anche io e anche Scacciavillani e come avevo spiegato una settimana fa Cochrane diceva che la Grecia non aveva bisogno di tornare alla dracma per stampare moneta, basta emettere bond zero coupon scadenza un anno che accetti per pagare le tasse
(vedi: ^"Il Top Economista Monetario di Chicago: Creare una Moneta Parallela"#http://www.monetazione.it/blog/defaultEconomia.php?topicGroupID=1&idr=123579459#123579459^ 01:24 08/02/15 )
John Cochrane è grande amico di Zingales a Chicago (e anche di Boldrin e degli altri di NoisefromAmerika), è quello che ha scritto il libro di finanza che tutti insegnano per cui se lo dice pure lui (neo-liberista, pro-euro e pro-austerità) che la Grecia lo potrebbe fare bisogna pensare che non è solo un idea di blogger abruzzesi seguaci di Auriti o di seguaci di Barnard.
La proposta di creare una moneta parallela all'euro tramite emissione di crediti fiscali è stata rilanciata in un ^manifesto apparso su Micromega di Luciano Gallino, Biagio Bossone, Marco Cattaneo, Enrico Grazzini, Guido Ortona, Stefano Sylos Labini#http://monetafiscale.it/^. Io non l'ho firmato perchè non sono riuscito a convincerli che non è vero che questa moneta parallela tratterà alla pari con l'Euro, che non si svaluterà insomma (anche se nell'ultima versione cominciano ad ammetterlo...)
Questo è infatti impossibile e fare sembrare che tratterebbe alla pari con l'Euro ti toglie credibilità anche perchè questo è poi il punto cruciale di tutta la faccenda. Se fosse possibile insomma per l'Italia o addirittura la Grecia emettere una moneta parallela all'euro e questo fosse convertibile in euro alla pari, senza svalutarsi, sarebbe il miracolo della moltiplicazione dei pani e dei pesci. Per definizione, creare più moneta fa sì che questa in qualche modo un poco si svaluti, quanto si può discutere, ma è ovvio. Se poi questa moneta addizionale è creata da un singolo stato che non ha una storia in termini di inflazione e svalutazione brillante come l'Italia o addirittura un poco disastrosa come la Grecia, non si può veramente scrivere che questa moneta parallela tratterà alla pari con gli Euro dietro i quali c'è la Germania e il nord-europa.
Ad esempio, Munchau è stato subito attaccato e ^deriso da Hugo Dixon sul Financial Times#http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4403c8be-b2cf-11e4-a058-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3S0eHKBGe^ il giorno dopo..il quale ha chiamato questa moneta parallela in Grecia "Mickey Mouse money" come dire che non varrebbe niente
Munchau però come si è detto citava John Cochrane che non è un blogger abruzzese, ma il top esperto di finanza a Chicago e anche poi il lavoro di uno della MMT, Rob
Parenteau che ha dato questa ^presentazione ad Atene l'anno scorso#https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teecd8mqXLU&list=PLGGYihhM4K22falJRKxXW2TSmexiiN4kS&index=8^ con gente di Tsipras che lavora con il governo greco sembra
Qui su uno dei siti americani di economia più diffusi ^il pezzo di ieri di Rob
Parenteau#http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/robert-parenteau-get-tan-yanis-timely-alternative-financing-instrument-greece.html^, dove ho discusso con Parenteau chiedendogli perchè propone invece dei bond perpetui e non invece a 1 o 2 anni e perchè assume che non si svalutino, come invece scrive il John Cochrane, come mi ha risposto Nick Rowe quando glielo ho chiesto e anche Warren Mosler quando ne ho discusso per email l'altro mese.
Da una parte hai quelli come Hugo Dixon che deridono dicendo che è "Mickey Mouse money" o Sergio Cesaratto che li chiama "patacones" cioè tu crei crediti fiscali in parallelo all'euro e si svalutano come le dracme o le lire, dall'altra hai Rob Parenteau e anche Marco Cattaneo che dicono che invece mantengono la parità con l'Euro perchè lo stato li valuta alla pari con gli Euro per pagare le tasse.
A mio avviso, realisticamente, sarà una via di mezzo e c'è molta incertezza, ma non c'è il minimo dubbio che ci sarà un "tasso di cambio fluttuante" tra crediti fiscali o zero coupon bond fiscali ed Euro.
Dei crediti fiscali differiti di uno o due anni, strutturati quindi in pratica come bond zero coupon accettati per pagare le tasse, non si svaluteranno come le dracme e lire perchè appunto il governo li accetta alla pari, ma non puoi scrivere che emetti una moneta in grecia basata solo sulle tasse che incassa il governo greco e che la gente la scambierà alla pari con l'Euro. Ci sarà uno sconto significativo in ogni caso e se poi l'emissione di questa moneta parallela in Grecia (o Italia) creerà, come è certo, uno scontro al livello della UE tale che la BCE ti escluderà dall'ELA si crea anche un aspettativa che si possa tornare alla valuta nazionale. E quindi lo sconto può aumentare e avvicinarsi a quello delle Lire o Dracme. Perchè hai un mano qualcosa che una scadenza di uno o due anni e in quel lasso di tempo cominci a temere che possa saltare l'Euro.
Va aggiunto che non sarebbe in realtà vero che se un paese come l'Italia emette una moneta sotto forma appunto di bonds zero coupon "fiscali" e viene esclusa dall'ELA come ritorsione, poi deve tornare alla Lira. Perchè spetta solo alla Banca Centrale in Italia o in Grecia operare l'ELA cioè fornire liquidità "di emergenza" alle proprie banche e queste possono anche ignorare una direttiva della BCE. Da un punto di vista contabile e legale Bankitalia e la Banca di Grecia possono fornire a tazzo quasi zero quanti miliardi vogliono alle proprie banche insomma. La BCE può scrivere loro che non va bene e non è d'accordo, ma non può materialmente impedirlo
Solo se la BCE le esclude da Target2 può mettere veramente i bastoni tra le ruote. Cioè solo se la BCE non fornisce più riserve alle Banche Centrali nazionali, in caso di flussi di pagamenti in uscita maggiori di quelli in entrata nei loro paesi, rendendo impossibile dei pagamenti diretti tra banche greche e tedesche ad esempio.
Questa sarebbe però una mossa così estrema e provocatoria da parte della BCE che si prenderebbero la responsabilità loro di far saltare tutta l'impalcatura dell'Euro, equivarebbe a interrompere l'uso dell'Euro di fatto in uno stato membro.
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Giovanni Zibordi February 16, 2015 at 2:12 pm
we have been proposing this kind of mechanism in Italy, with help and inspiration from Warren Mosler, there are two books written in 2014 and 2013 (in Italian though)
see in English on Roubini’s site: http://www.economonitor.com/blog/2014/07/which-options-for-mr-renzi-to-revive-italy-and-save-the-euro/
see Bill Mitchell talking about it http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=29092&cpage=1#comment-35853
http://www.lavoce.info/archives/30225/ricetta-per-eurozona-piu-pil-senza-nuovo-debito/
I run it by Nick Rowe getting an positive nod http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2014/07/when-is-helicopter-money-optimal.html
and by the way even John Cocrhane wrote last week about it
— Now,
1) I would think though that it would be a bond or tax credit being exchanged at a floating exchange rate to the Euro, less so than the Lira or Dracma but it has got to devalue somehow
2) it works better, in Italy at least, to cut taxes in a massive way, to workers and firms and also taxes on energy this way it duplicates a devalutation and does not send the current account in the red too much
3) it should be coupled with a provision to issue BTP or Greek bonds in the same way, “tax backed” as in previous works by Mosler and Pilkington
4) the Italian governement should nationalize a bank at least to make sure it can buy them if needed (this in Greece is tougher though now )
The fact that is in practice a parallel currency and at a floating exchange rate means though that it would be the first step toward the dissolution of the Euro. But this is OK, provided is gradual
By the way Alternative fur Deutschland is also in this direction http://www.alternativefuer.de/programm-hintergrund/fragen-und-antworten/questions-answers-qa/
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Rob Parenteau February 16, 2015 at 2:55 pm
Giovanni: Yes I am familiar with the Bossone et al proposal. There are many others who have proposed similar ideas (Veblen institute, Trond Andresen, Thomas Mayer). I tried to craft mine in such a way that increases the odds a country can recover a greater degree of fiscal discretion without immediately getting called offsides, legally or otherwise. The TAN approach is complementary with Mosler Bonds, except 1) Mosler bonds still need to find a buyer, TANs do not, and TANs pierce the illusion that bonds “finance” fiscal deficits, which would be a good thing to do once and for all, and 2) Mosler bonds still require future interest payments (as well as principal repayments, though public debt usually gets rolled over/refinanced) which could increase fiscal expenditures in the future, especially if interest rates spike, and hence lead to relatively nonproductive fiscal deficits in the future (since bond owning households often tend to be net savers). On your proposal, I am very opposed to the floating exchange rate idea, as you immediately and blatantly violate Article 128 of the Lisbon Treaty, and you make it very hard to get citizens to adopt your instrument, since its exchange value is uncertain. I do hear you on tax cuts as a way to improve competitiveness without an explicit currency depreciation (which as we know is impossible for nations in the eurozone) but I suspect this is a big non-starter for Greece, where tax fairness and compliance is already a major issue, and I would rather be sure that tax cuts not end up being saved by the private sector, and instead use fiscal expenditures to create income flows (through ELR) or improve competitiveness through R&D, infrastructure, and other government capital expenditures. Best, Rob
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Giovanni Zibordi
February 16, 2015 at 6:07 pm
Rob, we read your work here in Italy me and my colleague Marco Cattaneo, who got the idea also from Hjialmar Schacht’s Mefo bonds experience and by the way we found months ago that a former socialist economist and top official, Giorgio Ruffolo also had just written a book about solving the crisi using a scheme inspired by Schacht’s Mefo scheme. (Hjalmar Schacht’s biografy is called “The Magic of Money”, 1967, where did you find your sources about him ? there is actually so little about it…). Anyway, unfortunately we operate in a language other than English (mostly), but we have written a lot of stuff here with Biagio Bossone, Stefano Sylos Labini, Enrico Grazzini and as I say we are in touch with Mosler and the MMT guys in Italy.
Let us leave aside for now the Mosler-Pilkington tax backed bonds, that are a way to prevent a speculative attack to Italian or Greek bonds such as the one in 2011 and let us concentrate on tax credits, structured as perpetual bonds as you suggest or as two year zero coupon bonds as we did.
When we wrote our book last year we thought like you do that there would have been almost no discount betwenn these “fiscal bonds” and Euros, since people can use to settle tax liabilities all around the year.
Then I got into Nick Rowe blog and got “….If people do use them as a medium of exchange, then it is as if the individual EU countries can print their own money, at a floating exchange rate. Then they might work…”. I tought about it, discussed also with Warren and I think there is no way to avoid that they would end up as something with a floating exchange rate. Just think if, say, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy and Greece all issue them on their own because the scheme is successful and the Germans cannot stop it. Will the greek “fiscal bonds” trade at par with the belgium ones ?
Ok, if it is only a very small issue, like 1% of GDP maybe. Nut for instance here Italy we write about at least 100 billions per year to make a difference and I think also in Greece you have to talk something like at least 5% of GDP numbers, like 10 billions upward. In that case there is no way that Italy or Greece reflate the economy trough “money printing/helicopter money” (call it as you like) and that additional money does no create expectations of a possibile Euro break up. And then those “zero coupon fiscal bonds” will trade below par, maybe also 20 or 30% below par to the euro reflecting the overall expectations of markets and people about how the EU, BCE, Troika and world markets will react. I am a currency and bond trader by the way, not an economist even though I spent 5 years in a graduate school some time ago and I cannot see how the market and the public itself in Greece and Italy will not think about the uncertainty that such a move will create. You know, Greece that prints billions of its money, Italy that prints tens of billions of its own money. Sure, it will additional and in “parallel” to the Euro, but it will be additonal money created in contrast with the ECB and the EU and in the case of Greece staying in the Euro will create a current account deficit and some inflation. How can those bonds trade at par with the Euro ?
If I understand correctly you chose a perpetual bond and not a 1-2 year bond (have you seen the John Cochrane post about it ? http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.it/2015/02/beware-of-greeks-bearing-bonds.html) because you want to design something that works in the Euro, that does not create expectations of a break up. But how will it work with perpetual bonds it their issue in size by Greece will destabilize somehow the Greek financial system which is already weakend by the loss of 1/4 of its deposits ?
I would think is more realistic to use 1-2 year zero coupon bonds (tax credits….) and have more flexibility in case the situation evolves quickly toward an Euro exit. And also is more realistic to think that depending on expectations and the like they can trade at a significant discount to the Euro. This Plan has to work also if these tax credits trade at a discount to the Euro, and also if things go toward the Euro dissolution…
Rob Parenteau
February 16, 2015 at 6:41 pm
Giovanni: I have spent some time trying to understand Schacht and track down good descriptions of what he was up to, and honestly, I have yet to find anything adequate, though Bill Mitchell’s concise depiction of Mefo bills comes closest. I am going to respectfully disagree with your assessment with Warren that there would be a variable exchange rate between say Greek TANs and Spanish TANs. If there is a “market maker”, here the government, which has nearly unlimited buying power, here the ability to tax, and the ability to determine what can be received as taxes, then from my perspective, there is no reason why each government issuing TANs cannot maintain it 1TAN = 1 euro “fixed exchange rate”, and so 1 Greek TAN = 1 Spain TAN. But I do not see much basis for any such trades anyway: Spanish citizens will not be likely to have Greek tax liabilities, right? So why would Spaniards even think about placing a bid for Greek TANs? Now you may be right, that capital and deposit flight would ensue with the issuance of TANs…but as you point out that is already happening, and it does not change the fact there is still a “market maker” with nearly unlimited buying power (the power to tax) to ensure the 1TAN = 1 euro “exchange rate”. In addition, I would invite you to study the example of “bonos de cancelacion de deuda” which circulated from 1984-2003 in the provinces of Argentina. Or check out the history of the worgl in Austria in the Great Depression. When people are desperate to earn money, when businesses are struggling to survive, they can be open to all kinds of innovations. There is plenty of uncertainty in Greece. Arguably, after today’s negotiation break down, and Friday ultimatum by the Troika, there is even uncertainty about the ECB pulling the ELA plug on Greek banks, and the possible necessity of a Greek exit from the euro. My hunch is a Syriza committed to a plausible full employment fiscal stance, with a financing instrument to execute that stance, will profoundly reduce uncertainty in Greece. But I could be wrong about this. I chose to fashion this as a perpetual bond because a) perpetual bonds are not treated as debt, so they do not add to the government debt to GDP ratio as I understand it, b) the principal of perpetual bonds never needs to be repaid, reducing the future financing obligations of the government, c) perpetual bonds are treated as Tier 1 capital by banks, and if there is need to recapitalize the banking system, TANs might conceivably come in handy. In any case, if the eurozone is going to dissolve, it will make little difference if the bonds are 1-2 year or perpetual, right? All that will matter is whether they were issued under Greek law or not, so they can be redenominated and serviced in the new Greek currency post euro break up. Grateful for your comments Giovanni, especially your perspective as a bond and currency trader in the region. I know Warren has seen my proposals, and had proposed Mosler Bonds, which are complementary to TANs, but as I understand it, he now dismisses these intermediate steps like your proposal and mine, and argues that Greece should just exit. I believe Ed Harrison had a very good interview with Warren today on RT, and I unfortunately do not know how to find it, but I suspect Warren said something similar today during the interview, and I know Ed was going to ask him directly about the TAN proposal. Best, Rob