Euro-Warner sieht Zen­tral­banken als Anführer in den Sozialismus

• „Is the world economy heading for the rocks of recession, mass default and financial col­lapse? Global bond markets might seem to suggest quite unpre­ce­dented downward pressure, worse than in the Great Depression of the 1930s, on eco­nomies.“ – Stelter: Auch auf die Gefahr hin, dass ich in meinen Sorgen immer extremer werde, denke ich, dass wir uns in der Tat vor Pro­blemen befinden, die noch größer sind als in den 1930er-Jahren. Wir haben auch mehr Erfahrung und Instru­mente. Aber es ist brandgefährlich.
• „Bond yields are sharply negative in several countries. (…) the long-term trend is clear, and it is not related just to low inflation. In the US, the real 10-year yield peaked at about 4.5pc early in 2000. In the suc­ceeding US cycle the real bond yield peaked, in 2007, at about 2.75pc. In the present cycle it peaked, in the autumn of last year, at a little over 1pc; today, it is effec­tively zero.“ – Stelter: Ja, das nennen wir Eiszeit und können es seit meh­reren Jahren immer deut­licher beobachten.
• „Business investment has been hesitant in the US and other major eco­nomies and manu­fac­turing is clearly suf­fering worldwide. In part that is because of worries about trade wars (…) Mean­while the use of pro­tec­tionism as a poli­tical bul­lying weapon is nowhere more evident than in the beha­viour of the EU, which will impose tariffs on Britain for having the temerity to seek to restore inde­pen­dence, legi­timacy and accoun­ta­bility.“ – Stelter: Ich denke, es geht hierbei weniger um Wirt­schaft als um den Wunsch, ein Exempel zu sta­tu­ieren. Gerade die Fran­zosen wollen das nutzen, um die EU nach ihrem Willen zu formen.
• „A more deep-rooted problem, though, is that the enormous build-up of debt in the world means that future defaults – and cata­strophic strain on the financial system – can be avoided only if future spending by past and present bor­rowers is less than their future incomes, meaning, all other things equal, a future recession. That pro­spect inhibits today’s business investment and thereby threatens to bring the recession forward to the near term.“ – Stelter: Und genau deshalb ver­sucht die Politik, die Ein­sparung, die not­wendig ist!, auf­zu­schieben oder – besser noch – los­zu­werden: negative Zinsen, Inflation (die dum­mer­weise nicht richtig kommt), Ver­mö­gens­ab­gaben, Ent­eig­nungen, EZB-Mone­ta­ri­sierung etc.
• „(…) when debt (and cor­re­sponding debt claims) are as enormous as they have in fact become, the required shift in future con­sumption – essen­tially from poorer to richer people – is likely to prove socially and poli­ti­cally unac­cep­table: Marxist pre­dic­tions that eventual col­lapse is inherent in the capi­talist system might appear – albeit wrongly – to be vin­di­cated.“ – Stelter: Ja, so ist es. Wobei die Schuldner nicht die Armen sind, sondern die Staaten und jene, die die Schulden zur Spe­ku­lation genutzt haben. Die Armen treffen Ein­spa­rungen und Rezession.
• „(…) lenders will begin to doubt that bor­rowers can in fact reduce their future spending far enough below their incomes to allow them to honour their debts. That, of course, is what hap­pened in the sub-prime crisis in the US: such doubts exploded in 2007, leading to panic, (…)  about the via­bility of banks that had bor­rowed in order to lend to sub-prime house­buyers and of financial insti­tu­tions that had insured that bor­rowing. The con­se­quence, of course, was the near-col­lapse of the global financial system in 2008.“ – Stelter: Und heute ist es deutlich schlimmer als vor zehn Jahren. Die Fallhöhe ist deutlich größer.
• Zur Rolle der Zen­tral­banken: „(…) interest rates can defer but cannot cure. They cannot increase the total amount of current and future con­sumption – that can be done only by struc­tural policies to increase pro­ductive potential. Changes in interest rates just change the allo­cation of con­sumption over time. So lower interest rates mean higher con­sumption today but lower con­sumption tomorrow.“ – Stelter: zuge­ge­be­ner­maßen ein banales Argument. Wird nur zu gern vergessen!
• „To prevent tomorrow’s con­sumption being lower than today’s, tomorrow’s interest rates must be even lower than today’s rates, and the day after tomorrow must be even lower than tomorrow’s, and so on. As financial markets come to anti­cipate this, expected future short rates go lower and lower: long rates, largely deter­mined by the expected sequence of future short rates, thus fall below short rates.“ – Stelter: genau das, was die BIZ (und meine Wenigkeit) seit Jahren schreiben …
• „It implies a further build-up of debt levels. The risk of default will rise with it, as markets come to fear there are limits to the process. What are those limits? As long as govern­ments do not ban cash, ordinary people cannot be forced to accept negative interest rates on their cash savings.“ – Stelter: Und deshalb kommen Bar­geld­verbot, Gold­verbot und Kapi­tal­ver­kehrs­kon­trollen. Doch selbst dann: Kann es ewig wei­ter­gehen? Natürlich nicht.

Dr. Daniel Stelter – www.think-beyondtheobvious.com