Más sobre el Chartalism y el euro

El otro día, en "Dinero y Estado", hacia una introducción a los "chartalists" que son los seguidores de la corriente o teoría el dinero como una consecuencia del Estado. Como vimos allí, los chartalists no son incompatibles con las demás teorías del dinero; simplemente reconocen el hecho histórico que uno día el estado se formó, y lo más natural es que para defender su poder monopolístico quisiera tener el monopolio de emisión. Eso ha sido asi durante siglos, salvo irrelevantes casos de de libertad de emisión, de los que los libertarios (o liberticidas) pretenden sacar modelos de futuro.

Allí citaba un papel de Marc Lavoie, excelente síntesis sobre el chartalism. Tiene el interés añadido de su epígrafe espcial dedicado al euro, y, para mérito de esta corriente, haber sido euro escépticos y haber predicho con mucha antelación que es no podía funcionar. Destaco algunos epígrafes de interés:

Various rules, found in the guidelines and procedures of the European Central Bank (ECB2011), and which go as far back as the 1992 Maastrich Treaty, encumber the behaviour of theECB and of the national central banks.
1) They cannot make advances to national governments andthey cannot purchase government securities on primary markets.
2) The main refinancing(liquidity creating) operations of the ECB and the national central banks occur in the form ofreverse transactions (repos), or more simply as collateralised loans.
3) Outright transactions onsecondary markets (which would be called open market operations by anglo-saxon economists)are deemed to be irregular and exceptional.27 It was further understood that the ECB and thenational central banks would not conduct open market operations, and hence would notpurchase government securities on secondary markets, to assist eurozone countries that wouldhave difficulties in servicing their debts or financing their deficits.
4) Finally, although the Europeanmonetary authorities are allowed to take government securities as collateral when providingliquidity to banks, it can only be done if that debt is highly rated. With these self-imposedrestrictions and customs, the ECB and the Eurosystem is a pure overdraft system -- a systemwhere the central bank only provides advances to the commercial banks, holding nogovernment securities whatsoever. Indeed, for the first ten years following the creation of theeurozone, outright holdings of government debt by the central banks of the Eurosystem wereequal to nought.

Según las reglas, que se remiten al Tratado de Maastritch, el BCE no puede adelantar dinero a los estados, ni comprar deuda publica, tan sólo puede admitirla como colateral en sus operaciones con la banca diarias, y eso sólo si está dicha deuda suficientemente cualificada (se ha visto obligado a bajar varias veces la calificación). Las pocas veces que el BCE ha comprado deuda griega o de otro pais en apuros, ha sido con nerviosismo, con el temor ridículo de que cargaba demasiado su activo en relación a su capital reducido. En otras palabras, unos criterios de gestión de banco subordinado (¿A quién?) no de banco central independiente.
Los chartalists advirtieron antes del advenimiento el euro de lo que esas limitaciones suponían. Suponían, simple y llanamente, una probabilidad mucho mayor de default de un país miembro.

To their credit, it must be said that various neo-chartalists and their allies have from thestart announced that the eurozone, as set up and described above, was a very dubiousinstitutional experiment (Wray 1998, p. 92). This is because sovereign debt from the eurozonecountries was no longer default risk-free, transforming national countries into the equivalent oflocal governments. Godley (1992) lamented early on about the absence of a powerful fiscalfederal authority, but also argued that the inability of countries to take advances from theircentral bank within the one-currency European Union was tantamount to reverting to the statusof a local government, with no national independence.28 Bell (2003) explained this in greatdetail, adding that the monetary arrangements of the eurozone were totally inconsistent withfunctional finance and that they would put member countries at the mercy of financial markets,forcing them to adopt austerity measures whenever their fiscal position did not fit the desires offinancial operators, a point also made previously by Parguez (1999). More recently, Kelton andWray (2009) argued that the rising cost of credit default swaps on the sovereign debt ofeurozone countries was justified, as these countries had no monetary means to avoid defaultingif self-reinforcing fears led to rising bond yields, since the ECB would not intervene and purchasegovernment securities. The title of their paper – can Euroland survive? – was quite on the dot, at

a time when markets were somewhat worried but still calm, as the paper was written before theexplosion in Greek and Irish bond yields that occurred at the beginning of 2010.

Luego hay un espacio dedicado al TARGET2, donde se acumulan deudas "invisibles" que en rodo caso son indicios de mal funcionamiento del sistema de pagos.

Suppose that some Italian company imports goods from Germany and makes itspayment through its Italian bank, say the Banca Nazionale de Lavoro (BNL). The payment goesthrough TARGET2, and ends up as a credit on the account of the German exporting firm at itsGerman bank, say the Deutsche Bank (DB). At this stage, the Italian bank has a debit position atthe Bank of Italy, while the German bank has a credit position at the Bundesbank. Furthermorethe Bundesbank debits the account of the Bank of Italy. All this occurs smoothly as nationalcentral banks of the eurozone provide unlimited and uncollaterized lines of credit to each other. However, by theend of the day, national central banks must also settle with each other. All the debits and creditsare netted on the books of the ECB, where each national central bank then acquires a netposition vis-à-vis the rest of the European System of central banks (ESCB). Furthermore, most likely, the Deutsche Bank will use its positive clearingbalances (or reserves) to reduce its overdraft position vis-à-vis the Bundesbank.34

It should be noted that there is no limit to the debit position that a national central bankcan incur on the books of the ECB, that is, its liabilities with respect to the rest of theEurosystem are not limited. “These liabilities can be carried indefinitely as there is no timeprescribed for the settlement of imbalances” (Garber 2010, p. 2). Furthermore, national central

banks in debit are charged the main official rate, which is also the rate gained by those withclaims on the Eurosystem. Thus these imbalances can go on forever, as, if we come back to ourexample, the BNL would be taking advances from the Bank of Italy at 1.5% (if this is the mainrefinancing rate), while the Bank of Italy would be accumulating liabilities within the eurosystemat the same pace, also being charged a 1.5% interest rate. Thus, if there is some lack ofconfidence in the system, we should observe an increase in the size of the balance sheets of thecentral banks of the countries under suspicion, as well as an increase in the size of the balancesheet of the ECB.

Indeed, and here we can see one way of regaining some currency sovereignty withoutdisrupting the ECB unwillingness to purchase sovereign debt, a government that is underpressure from international financial markets, having trouble in getting foreign financialinstitutions to rollover their securities, could direct its domestic publicly-owned commercialbanks to acquire new bond issues at the price of its choice (or if none are left, it couldnationalize some private banks and impose the same instructions). The proceeds of these sales,initially held as deposits at the domestic bank, could be used to redeem the securities thatforeign banks decline to roll over. At the end of this process, assuming that Italy is the countryunder financial pressure, as it was during the summer of 2011, the T-accounts would look verymuch like those of the last line of Table 5. The Bank of Italy would provide an advance to theBNL with the government debt as collateral; and the Bank of Italy would increase its liabilitiestowards the Eurosystem. As long as the yield on securities is higher than the main official rate,this is a profitable operation for domestic banks (unless the government defaults). But of course,as the neo-chartalists would argue, it would be much simpler if the ECB and the national centralbanks could purchase sovereign debt on a regular basis or at least whenever their yields wentout of line.35

En realidad, el mensaje central de los chartalists es que el Banco Emisor no puede desengancharse del poder sin graves consecuencias, problemas financieros, y perdida de capacidad de gobierno, riesgo de quiebra. Un gobierno que cede su monopolio de emisión comete un grave acto de lesa patria, y si esto suene muy ditirambico, pues pongan que se dispara un tiro en el pie. A él y a su sucesor, aunque se haya hecho con todos los honores de los burócratas de Europa. Las ideas que más han inducido (o han hecho de coartada) en esta locura colectiva han sido, como vimos, las Rational Expectations, que Malo de Molina citaba en su versión "curva de Phillips vertical", desde una torre de marfil ignorante que no tenía en cuenta las consecuencias de destruir instituciones. Seleccionar las variables para que el modelo funcione elegantemente no garantiza la veracidad.