Münchau sobre Draghi

Münchau, uno de los más grandes expertos en la UE, tiene un artículo muy completo sobre Dragi. Dice que lo que le ha sobre sido positivamente es que la decisión ha sido por mayoría, no unanimidad: eso quiere decir Draghi se ha impuesto a una oposición, lo que le perfila como decidido a seguir adelante y llegar a un verdadero QE. Lamentablemente, podría ser demasiado tarde.

En cuanto a la compra de ABS, lo considera un QE de escala limitada:

The ABS programme is the more significant decision of the two. It is best to think of it as quantitative easing on a small scale. The assets including covered bonds – bonds issued by banks with a collateral guarantee – and asset-backed securities. The latter are securities issued by banks against loans they have given, for example, to individuals and companies. A purchase guarantee for those bonds should make it easier for banks to lend because they can pass on the risk to the ECB – and ultimately the eurozone taxpayers if the borrowers default on their loans. The ECB will only buy so-called vanilla-ABS, simple securities with no funny structures. But the market is unfortunately quite small. The ballpark for this programme is going a few hundred billion euro max – not much in view of the eurozone’s annual economic output of almost €10tn.To lift such a large economy out of its coma requires a different order of magnitude.

But the ECB has at least made a start. Mr Draghi has initiated his policy U-turn in his speech in Jackson Hole where he acknowledged that inflation expectations might become unhinged, and that the eurozone suffers from a shortage of aggregate demand. Commentators like myself say these things three times a day, but it is not often than one hears those words from a conservative European central banker.

The big question is whether and over which period this new policy can work, and whether the eurozone’s political leaders can deliver an accompanying fiscal expansion through a tax cut or an investment stimulus. For this to work, both fiscal and monetary policies need to expand. The ECB and Mr Draghi deserve credit for making a start. But we should also be aware that are still a long way from the halfway mark.

Hay que mover muchas voluntades para llegar a lo que necesitamos, que es una operación de gran volumen y acompañado de una política fiscal que lleve el dinero a los mercados.