Sobre la Trampa de liquidez, el Banco Central y el Gobier

Em Money Game, Perfectamente explicado por Paul McCulley, por qué en situación de TL, el ahorro de todos juntos lleva a la contracción del gasto, lo que acentúa en problema de la deuda. Es imposible que los activos no caigan de precio: todos están intentando vender. Eso esquilma el patrimonio de los endeudados. Las expectativas no pueden más que empeorar.

La política monetaria sola no funciona, es necesario una estrecha colaboración Banco Central-Gobierno (al revés que cuando hay inflación). El banco Central debe financiar al gobierno a tipos de interés que hagan más fácil la refinanciación/desendeudamiento de la empresas y las familias. El déficit público debe aumentar, no es el momento de ahorrar y recortar al mismo tiempo que lo hacen los demás. Tampoco es el momento de preocuparse por la inflación, que no es el riesgo inminente.

Si no hubiera problemas de deuda/ desendeudamiento, la Política Monetaria sería suficiente para un rápido retorno al crecimiento. Pero la acumulación de deudas ha llevado al tipo de interés compatible con el crecimiento muy por debajo de del de mercado. Por eso se llama Trampa de la Liquidez. Porque no puede bajar más, y sin embargo a ese tipo nadie está interesado en prestar y invertir. El Banco Central debe ser el backstop de la deuda nacional, y el gobierno debe colaborar con el Banco Central en su política de emisión. Si la banca está descapitalizada, el gobierno debe aprovechar el bajo tipo de interés para rescatarla agresivamente, cerrando o nacionalizando establecimientos no viables. A la vez debe garantizar con firmeza los depósitos. Si el rescate requiere tiempo, debe abrir una entidad pública que transitoriamente asuma el riesgo que no quiere asumir la banca privada en proceso de liquidar activos y recapitalizarse.

Pretender que todo eso se haga por iniciativa de los particulares es utópico. Cuanto más se tarde en dedicarlo, más larga será la depresión económica.

La trampa de la liquidez rompe el hechizo que en tiempos normales igual el tipo de interés "natural" a la inversión de pleno empleo. Los tiempos normales están ahora muy lejanos. 

OmiaREUTERS/Lori Shepler

Paul McCulley, former managing director at PIMCO, poses for a Reuters in his home in Newport Beach, California, November 4, 2011.

Paul McCulley and Zoltan Pozsar: Does Central Bank Independence Frustrate the Optimal Fiscal-Monetary Policy Mix in a Liquidity Trap?:

"[T]he role of an independent central bank is different in inflationary and deflationary environments. In the face of inflation, which is often associated with excessive [government borrowing and] monetization of government debt, the virtue of an independence central bank is its ability to say “no” to the government. [In a liquidity trap], however, excessive [government borrowing] and money creation is unlikely to be the problem, and a more cooperative stance on the part of the central bank may be called for. Under the current circumstances [of a liquidity trap], greater cooperation for a time between the [monetary] and the fiscal authorities is in no way inconsistent with the independence of [...] central bank[s], any more than cooperation between two independent nations in pursuit of a common objective [or, for that matter, cooperation between central banks and fiscal authorities to facilitate war finance] is consistent with the principle of national sovereignty.” Governor Ben S. Bernanke

The United States and much of the developed world are in a liquidity trap…. A liquidity trap is a circumstance in which the private sector is deleveraging in the wake of enduring negative animal spirits caused by the bursting of joint asset price and credit bubbles that leave private sector balance sheets severely damaged. In a liquidity trap the animal spirits of the private sector cannot be revived by a reduction in short-term interest rates because there is no demand for credit. This effectively means that conventional monetary policy does not work in a liquidity trap…. Deleveraging can be rational for an individual household. It can be rational for an individual corporation. It can be rational for an individual country. However, in the aggregate it begets the paradox of thrift: what is rational at the microeconomic level is irrational at the community, or macroeconomic, level. This is not to say that the private sector should not deleverage. It has to. It is a part of the economy’s healing process and a necessary first step toward a self-sustaining economic recovery. However, deleveraging is a beast of a burden that capitalism cannot bear alone. At the macro level, deleveraging must be a managed process: for the private sector to deleverage without causing a depression, the public sector has to move in the opposite direction and re-lever by effectively viewing the balance sheets of the monetary and fiscal authorities as a consolidated whole.

Fiscal austerity does not work in a liquidity trap and makes as much sense as putting an anorexic on a diet. Yet, “diets” are the very prescriptions that fiscal austerians have imposed (or plan to impose) in the U.S., U.K. and Eurozone. Austerians fail to realize, however, that everyone cannot save at the same time and that in liquidity traps, the paradox of thrift and depression are fellow travelers that are functionally intertwined.

Read more: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/08/paul-mcculley-and-zoltan-pozsar-does-central-bank-independence-frustrate-the-optimal-fiscal-monetary-policy-mix-in-a-liquidi.html#ixzz2b1AEiHkt