Toma nota.../Take note...

La revista Foreign Affairs acaba de publicar una devastadora reseña del libro titulado "After the Music Stopped: the Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead". Pero no porque considere que la obra escrita por Alan S. Blinder esté mal escrita o adolezca de graves defectos en su análisis económico, sino porque el autor de la reseña, J. Bradford DeLong, estima que sus planteamientos son excesivamente "optimistas". 

Tal es así que la reseña de este libro en Foreign Affairs aparece titulada como "The Second Great Depression" y subrayada con el inquietante cuestionamiento de "Why the Economic Crisis is Worse than you thing". Es notable que alguien se atreva a plantear la afirmación de que, efectivamente, enfrentamos una "segunda Gran Depresión" y que nos está tomando desprevenidos porque la "crisis económica" que la está causando "es peor de lo que todos creemos".

Sobre este tema tan candente, ha quedado esbozada la inminente realidad de un derrumbe económico que sacuda desde sus cimientos al mundo capitalista en varios análisis anteriores publicados en estas páginas, como "This new bubble will eventually burst", donde afirmaba que la economía subyacente a la nueva burbuja que ahora está creciento no es sostenible dentro de los parámetros de la política económica actual, o como "EEUU al borde del abismo: un sólo paso en falso será definitivo", que destacaba el derroche presupuestario, el crecimiento incontrolado de la deuda y otros lamentables factores de una mala política económica que desembocarán en una situación donde "en el momento menos pensado, por circunstancias difíciles de prever, como suele ocurrir en estos casos, puede producirse el derrumbe, abrirse el abismo de una profunda y prolongada depresión económica y bastará una chispa que cause el pánico".

“Sequestration” or “the Sequester” is a process taking place in the United States of automatic, largely across-the-board spending reductions under which budgetary resources are permanently canceled to enforce certain budget policy goals. It was first authorized by the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (BBEDCA, Title II of P.L. 99-177, commonly known as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act).

Sequestration is of current interest because it was included as an enforcement tool in the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA, P.L. 112-25). Sequestration can also occur under the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 (Statutory PAYGO, Title I of P.L. 111-139). In either case, certain programs are exempt from sequestration, and special rules govern the effects of sequestration on others. Most of these provisions are found in Sections 255 and 256 of BBEDCA, as amended.

Nowadays, this “Sequestration" refers to mandatory cuts to social programs and defense that were scheduled to begin on January 2, 2013 as a result of the failure of the Congressional "Supercommittee" to agree on a plan for $3.8 trillion in deficit reduction, but were delayed until March 1st, 2013, to give Congress additional time to negotiate an agreement.

The 2011 Budget Control Act (S 365), which established the Supercommittee included the sequester provisions to provide a mandatory incentive for the Supercommittee to come to agreement, and to provide certainty that even without action by the Supercommittee, the deficit would be reduced to slow down the inordinate increase in the public debt without any close precedent in US history since 2009. The mandatory cuts are thus divided evenly among defense and non-defense spending, at roughly $500 billion each over ten years in both categories, with exceptions including Social Security; Veteran's Administration programs; refundable tax credits; low income programs including TANF, Pell grants and SSI; with special rules for Medicare, student loans, and unemployment payments.  No money will be drawn from spending on wars and military personnel. Funding allocated for Medicaid and some other low-income programs will not be affected, either.

Es una realidad sencilla de explicar que el alto riesgo que implica invertir en empresas innovadoras lo corren quienes tienen capital suficiente para arriesgarlo en una iniciativa empresarial. Cuanto mayor es el capital disponible, mayor es el riego que el capitalista está dispuesto a correr. El resultado evidente es un progreso sostenido por avances científicos y tecnológicos.

Para correr grandes riesgos son indispensables los grandes capitales. La sociedad que no cuenta con empresarios capaces y dispuestos a correr grandes riesgos, se estanca. Se sumerge en la mediocridad.

Correr riesgos es una función resultante del grado de confianza que el consumidor, el empresario y el inversionista depositan en la sociedad en que viven y en los gobernantes que la dirigen. Por tanto, la economía se contrae y cae en recesión a medida que se evapora la confianza y disminuye en consecuencia la voluntad de correr riesgos.

El argumento de Keynes al respecto precisa que: "Fue precisamente la desigualdad de la distribución de la riqueza la que hizo posible esas grandes acumulaciones de riqueza invertida y de mejoras de capital que distinguen esa edad de todas los demás [refiriéndose a la Revolución Industrial]. La inmensa acumulación de capital invertido que, a beneficio de la humanidad, siguió un curso ascendente durante el medio siglo antes de la guerra [la I Guerra Mundial], nunca podrían haberse producido en una sociedad donde la riqueza hubiera sido dividida equitativamente" (The Economic Consequences of the Peace. New York, 1920).

¿Cuál es el motor que acelera el crecimiento de la riqueza en la sociedad si no es el éxito de los empresarios e inversionistas dispuestos a correr riesgos en la investigación y el desarrollo de empresas innovadoras?

Among the many problems resulting from the US falling into the 2013 Fiscal Cliff, there is a high probability of a serious stock market collapse.  But that is only a symptom of a life-threatening ailment.

The Fiscal Cliff's disaster is compounded by the huge public debt and budgetary deficits, and the US faces a gargantuan problem pocking through the debt ceiling that must be raised again this January to avoid default.

"Fiscal cliff" means huge tax increases and non discretionary spending cuts, a one-two punch that would certainly knock the US economy out (followed by the rest of the World) for several years to come. The US is sliding to the edge of the cliff because the President and US Congress have failed to reach a bipartisan debt-reduction plan up to the last few minutes of 2012. Democrats protect spending programs at any cost and higher income-tax increases, while Republicans tend to seek debt and spending reduction and lower tax rates for all. And the US and the rest of the World will fall into depression because the 2011's Budget Control Act will apply if the President and Congress fail to agree on a reasonable and consensual adjustment of spending and taxes by January 1st, 2013.

This 2011 Act will initiate 10 years of massive accross the board spending cuts and tax increases as the only way of stopping the runaway public debt that otherwise would rise to over 18 trillion dollars by December 2013. The problem is that the 2011 Act is too much, too fast and interferes in sound economic decisions in some of the wrong places.

This kind of "solution" will suddenly take $500 billion in government spending our of the economy next year alone just at a time of high unemployment, fragile housing market and higher inflation hidden under a less visible but quite real loss of purchasing power by the US Dollar.